Classical Music Compositions from 1940 and later - Vinyl only

A few other American composers you could add to that list would be Roy Harris, Walter Piston, Carl Ruggles.  The quintessential American composer for me, however, is Charles Ives.  The Concord Sonata is 1939, if that is close enough.  If not, then how about his Fourth Symphony, which is a wonderful work?  

I would also heartily second Frogman's recommendation of Messaien.   The Quartet For The End Of Time is a good place to start with his music - there is a great deal of it, however.  You could probably find some solo piano things fairly easily on vinyl.  

oops - if we are talking American composers since 1940, Lou Harrison and Elliot Carter should not be left out - their works can be found on vinyl as well.  

Hi kmccarty and schubert - I cannot resist commenting that when a musician talks about a performance of a concerto, or finding the same, usually the conductor is not even mentioned.  Any concerto recording will be much easier to find with reference to the soloist, or soloist and orchestra, rather than the conductor.  Particularly if it is that soloist's only recording of the piece.   Saying "the Karajan performance" of a concerto really doesn't even make much sense - he probably conducted the Strauss Horn Concerto No. 1 with a dozen different horn players at least over the course of his career, and probably recorded them with at least two or three.  

Hi Rushton - many people do say that Copland is the most American of composers.  He is certainly the most popular, and his music is the most accessible, and he helped define how much American music sounded afterwards, especially in the realm of film music.  He did write a great deal of music that had American history as the theme, too.  

However, Ives actually used quite a bit more of American folk tunes than Copland did, and was very original, experimenting with bi-tonality pretty much before anyone else did, and with quarter-tones, etc.  He was very largely self-taught, after the instruction his father gave him, unlike Copland, who was heavily influenced by the European tradition, having studied with Boulanger and others over there.  At least as much of his music was American themed as Copland, as well.   So for those reasons I would argue that Ives is more quintessentially American as a composer than Copland.  It is an interesting debate, to be sure.  

OK Rushton - I'm a professional horn player, and I have NEVER heard of either Maw or the work  you mention, a sonata for strings and two horns??  Since it was recorded by Alan Civil, I see, it can't be a really recent work, either.   What do you know about the work?