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I believe Aaron Copland's "Music for the Theatre" was published around 1923 or 1925. Boosey & Hawkes renewed the copyright at some point, and USA rental is $500+ performance 1, and $400+ for subsequent performances. This being out of the price range for my non-professional ensemble means, I'm interested in learning about when the copyright expires.

According to Grove, 1925 is the correct date, so therefore, out of bounds in the US, as well as everywhere else. Sorry!

Can B&H just continue to renew copyright in perpetuity? 1925 was eighty-some years ago.

Falla_Fan wrote:1925 was eighty-some years ago.

Yes, but Copland died as recently as 1990. In most countries, the date of publication isn't the important thing, the date of death of the composer is, so Copland will be protected by copyright for a very long time.

In the US, publication date is important for many works, because (as I understand it), the law changed in 1923, and everything that was in the public domain prior to that stayed in the public domain.

For Copland, the combination of 1) not much published before 1923, and 2) died recently, means that the vast majority of his works are out of bounds for a very long time. In countries where publication date doesn't matter, then the "died recently" part will keep him in copyright anyway.

You may want to read:

http://imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP:Copyright_Made_Simple

and it's more thorough counterpart:

http://imslp.org/wiki/Public_domain

The law in effect when the work was first published (1925) was written in 1909. There was a major change in 1978, with an extension in 1998 resulting in a term of 95 years from the date of first publication for works published 1923 through 1977. The US copyright for this work will end at 11:59:59 PM on December 31, 2020. It will be released from jail on New Year's day of 2021. It will not be free in Canada and the 50 pma countries for an additional 20 years (2041), and yet anther 20 will pass before it's free in the EU and 70 pma countries (2061). As mentioned, it will be tied up for a long time.

Maybe it isn't the right place for a rant, but examples like this prove the idiocy of modern copyright laws. A 1925 piece that won't enter PD before 2061... madness.
If you're the son of a businessman, your profit from your dad's work ends the moment he stops working or dies. If you're the son of a composer, you and your children (and grandchildren?) will profit from the revenues for 70 (or 50) years after the guy's death. That's a ridiculous discrepancy. You get whole generations of people who never commited any creative act on their own leeching off the works of another person whom they were lucky enough to be related to.
The law needs to be changed so that all works enter PD the moment the creator dies. But we probably won't live to see that happen.