Like Stravinsky, Copland mastered the ability to create a coherent, integrated composition from what was essentially a mosaic of divergent folk-based and original elements. In that sense, Copland's Populist works such as "Billy the Kid", "Rodeo", "Appalachian Spring" are not far removed from Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring". Within that framework, however, Copland preserved the American atmosphere of these ballets through what musicologist Elliott Antokoletz calls "the conservative handling of open diatonic sonorities", which fosters "a pastoral quality" in the music. This is especially true in the opening of "Appalachian Spring", where the harmonizations remain "transparent and bare, suggested by the melodic disposition of the Shaker tune". Variations which contrast to this tune in rhythm, key, texture and dynamics, fit within Copland's compositional practice of juxtaposing structural blocks.