Chapter VI: Part 6

Leopold Godowsky was born in Soshly, near Vilna, Poland, on February 13, 1870. A prodigy pianist, he attended the Berlin High School for Music, after which he made his American debut in Boston in 1884. Additional study took place in Paris with Saint-Saëns. Godowsky then launched his career as a mature concert pianist with performances throughout the world of music. He achieved international renown not only as a virtuoso but also as a teacher of the piano, at the Chicago Conservatory and the Vienna Academy. His concert career ended in 1930 when he was stricken by a slight paralysis of the hand. As a composer, Godowsky was most famous for his suites for the piano, the most famous being _Triakontameron_, _Java_, and _Renaissance_. He also produced a library of remarkable transcriptions for the piano. He died in New York City on November 21, 1938.

Though Godowsky was a sophisticated composer of highly complex piano works, he did succeed in producing at least one number that became an international “hit.” It was the _Alt Wien_ (_Old Vienna_), a sentimental, nostalgic piece of music on whose title page appears the following quotation: “Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile through tears.” _Alt Wien_ is the eleventh number in _Triakontameron_ (1920), a suite in six volumes described by the composer as “thirty moods and scenes in triple measure.” The immense popularity of _Alt Wien_ is proved by its many and varied transcriptions: for salon orchestra; band; violin and piano (by Heifetz); three-part woman’s chorus; dance orchestra; marimba and piano; and even a popular song adapted by David Saperton to lyrics by Stella Ungar.

Edwin Franko Goldman

Edwin Franko Goldman was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 1, 1878. He came from a distinguished musical family. His uncles were Sam Franko and Nahan Franko, both prominent in New York as conductors, violinists, and pioneers in the presentation of free concerts. Goldman attended the National Conservatory in New York, specializing in the cornet. After completing his training with Jules Levey, he served for ten years as solo cornetist of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra. In 1911 he organized his first band. Seven years later he founded the famous Goldman Band which from then on gave free concerts in New York and Brooklyn public parks, and elsewhere on tour. Under his direction it became one of the outstanding musical organizations of its kind in the country, presenting a remarkable repertory of popular music, light classics, and band transcriptions of symphonic and operatic compositions. Goldman conducted his band until his death, which took place in New York on February 21, 1956. He was succeeded by his son, Richard Franko Goldman, who for many years had served as his father’s assistant.

For his concerts Goldman wrote over a hundred marches which have won him recognition as John Philip Sousa’s successor. The best of the Goldman marches won immediate success for their robust tunes and vigorous beat. These include: “Central Park,” “Children’s March,” “On the Campus,” “On the Farm,” and “On the Mall.”

The “Children’s March,” is actually an adaptation for band of several children’s tunes including “Three Blind Mice,” “Jingle Bells,” and “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” presented in march time.

Karl Goldmark

Karl Goldmark was born in Keszthely, Hungary, on May 18, 1830, the son of a cantor. Demonstrating unusual talent on the violin, he was sent to Vienna in 1844. There he studied with Leopold Jansa, then attended the Vienna Conservatory. His musical education was brought to an abrupt halt by the revolution of 1848. For many years after that, Goldmark earned his living by teaching music, playing in theater orchestras, and writing criticisms. He first came to the fore as a composer with a concert of his works in Vienna on March 20, 1857. Success followed eight years later with the première of his concert overture, _Sakuntala_. From then on, Goldmark occupied an esteemed position in Viennese music by virtue of many distinguished works that included the opera _The Queen of Sheba_, the _Rustic Wedding Symphony_, and various shorter works for orchestra, as well as numerous compositions for chorus, the piano, and chamber-music groups. He died in Vienna on January 2, 1915.

Throughout his life he remained true to the Germanic-Romantic tradition on which he was nurtured. His writing was always vital with emotion, at times to the point of being sensual; it overflowed with luxurious melody and harmony. Most of the works by which he is remembered, while of the serious concert-hall variety, are light classics because of their charm and grace and pleasing melodic content.

The _Bacchanale_ for orchestra is in Goldmark’s identifiable sensual style. This is an episode from his most famous opera, _The Queen of Sheba_ (_Die Koenigin von Saba_), libretto by Solomon Herman Mosenthal based on the Old Testament story of the love of the Queen of Sheba for Assad. The opera was successfully introduced in Vienna on March 10, 1875. The _Bacchanale_ takes place at the beginning of Act 3 in which a sumptuous reception honors the Queen of Sheba. This dynamic piece of music is especially interesting for its Oriental melodies and lush orchestral colors.

_In Spring_ (_Im Fruehling_), op. 36 (1889), is a concert overture for orchestra echoing the composer’s emotional reaction to the vernal season. The first main theme, in first violins accompanied by other strings, is given without any preliminaries. The second theme in violins is more bucolic, the woodwind suggesting bird calls in the background. Both themes are discussed and stormy episodes ensue. After the return of the two main themes the overture ends with a brilliant coda.

The _Rustic Wedding Symphony_ (_Laendliche Hochzeit_), op. 26 (1876) is a programmatic composition for orchestra in five movements. The first is a “Wedding March” in which the main melody (given in fragments in the lower strings) is subjected to thirteen variations. The second movement is a “Bridal Song,” a lovely tune mainly for oboe in which the first-movement march subject occasionally intrudes in the background in the basses. This is followed by the third-movement “Serenade,” its main subject being a spacious melody mainly for the violins. The fourth movement, “In the Garden,” depicts the walk of two lovers in a garden as they exchange tender sentiments. The symphony ends with a vital “Dance,” in which the main theme receives fugal treatment.

The concert overture for orchestra, _Sakuntala_, op. 13 (1865)—with which the composer achieved his first major success and which is still one of his most popular works—was based on the celebrated story of Kalidasa. Sakuntala is the daughter of a water nymph who is raised by a priest as his own daughter. The King falls in love with her and marries her, giving her a ring which will always identify her as his wife. A powerful priest, seeking revenge against Sakuntala, effects a loss of memory in the king, who now no longer recognizes her as his wife. To complicate matters further, Sakuntala has lost her ring while washing clothes in a sacred river. After being repudiated by the king as a fraud, Sakuntala returns to her water-nymph mother. The king’s memory is restored when the ring is found, and he is overwhelmed with grief at his loss of Sakuntala.

A somber introduction is highlighted by a rippling subject in lower strings and bassoons suggesting the water which was Sakuntala’s original abode and to which she finally returns. After a change of tempo, clarinets and cellos in unison offer a beautiful love melody. This is followed by a hunting theme in first violins and oboes while the second violins and violas present a fragment of the love song as a countersubject. After this material has been amplified into a loud and dramatic climax there comes still a third idea, in oboes and English horn against chords in harp and arpeggios in strings. In a free fantasia section some of this material is reviewed after which the coda offers the hunting theme, and after that the love melody. A climax is realized with the hunting theme bringing the overture to a dramatic ending.

Rubin Goldmark

Rubin Goldmark, nephew of Karl, was born in New York City on August 15, 1872. After studying music with private teachers in New York, he attended first the Vienna Conservatory in Austria, and after that the National Conservatory in New York where one of his teachers was Antonin Dvořák. His primary energy was directed to teaching. For six years he was the director of the Colorado College Conservatory, and from 1924 until his death head of the composition department at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. As a composer, Goldmark is most often remembered for the _Negro Rhapsody_ and the _Requiem_ for orchestra, the latter inspired by Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Goldmark died in New York City on March 6, 1936.

It is with the _Negro Rhapsody_ (1923) that Goldmark is most often represented on concert and semi-classical concerts. As its title suggests the work is made up of Negro melodies. After a slow introduction, the cellos and violas in unison offer the strains of “Nobody Knows De Trouble I’d Seen.” Before long, the basses are heard in “O Peter, Go Ring Dem Bells.” The main section of the rhapsody begins with a variation of “Nobody Knows De Trouble I’d Seen” and a repeat of “O Peter.” The violins then engage “Oh Religion, I See Fortune,” and the English horn is heard in “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” After the solo cello quotes two measures of “Oh, When I Come to Die,” the last Negro melody of the rhapsody appears. This melody comes from an untitled song found by Goldmark in a magazine, a tune sung by Tennessee Negroes while working on the river.

François Gossec

François Joseph Gossec was born in Vergniès, Belgium, on January 17, 1734. After receiving some music instruction in his native town, he came to Paris in 1751, and three years after that was attached to the musical forces employed by La Pouplinière. For these concerts, Gossec wrote many symphonies and chamber-music works. He later worked in a similar capacity for the Prince de Conti. In 1770 he founded the Concerts des Amateurs, in 1773 became director of the Concert Spirituel, and from 1780 to 1785 was conductor at the Paris Opéra. When the Paris Conservatory was established in 1795 Gossec became Inspector and professor of composition. In the same year he also became a member of the newly founded Institut de France. During the French Revolution he wrote many works celebrating events growing out of that political upheaval, allying himself with the new regime. He lived to a ripe old age, spending the last years of his life in retirement in Passy. He died in Paris on February 16, 1829.

Gossec was a significant pioneer of French orchestral and chamber music, though little of his music is remembered. What remains alive, however, is a graceful trifle: the Gavotte, one of the most popular pieces ever written in that form. This music comes from one of his operas, _Rosina_ (1786); a transcription for violin and piano by Willy Burmeister is famous.

Louis Gottschalk

Louis Moreau Gottschalk was born in New Orleans on May 8, 1829. His music study took place in Paris where he specialized in the piano. He gave many successful concerts as pianist in France, Switzerland and Spain before returning to the United States in 1853. He then began the first of many tours of the country, to become the first significant American-born piano virtuoso. At his concerts he featured many of his own works; his reputation as a composer was second only to that as virtuoso. He was on tour of South America when he was stricken by yellow fever. He died in Rio de Janeiro on December 18, 1869.

Gottschalk was the composer of numerous salon pieces for the piano, enormously popular in his day—a favorite of young pianists everywhere. One of these pieces is “The Banjo,” familiar on semi-classical programs in orchestral arrangements. In his music Gottschalk often employed either Spanish or native American idioms.

The contemporary American composer, Ulysses Kay, used several of Gottschalk’s piano pieces for a ballet score, _Cakewalk_. This ballet, with choreography by Ruthanna Boris based on the minstrel show, was introduced by the New York City Ballet in New York on June 12, 1951. The dancers here translate the routines of the old minstrel show into dance forms and idioms. An orchestral suite, derived from this ballet score, has five sections: “Grand Walkaround,” in which the performers strut around the stage led by the interlocutor; “Wallflower Waltz,” music to a slow, sad dance performed solo by a lonely girl; “Sleight of Feet,” a rhythmic specialty accompanying feats of magic performed by the Interlocutor; “Perpendicular Points,” a toe dance performed by the two end men, one very tall, the other very short; and “Freebee,” an exciting dance performed by the girl, as other performers accompany her dance with the rhythm of clapping hands.

Morton Gould

Morton Gould was born in New York City on December 10, 1913. He received a comprehensive musical education at the Institute of Musical Art in New York, at New York University, and privately (piano) with Abby Whiteside. After completing these studies, he played the piano in motion-picture theaters and vaudeville houses and served as the staff pianist for the Radio City Music Hall. He was only eighteen when the Philadelphia Orchestra under Stokowski introduced his _Chorale and Fugue in Jazz_, his first successful effort to combine classical forms and techniques with modern popular American idioms. In his twenty-first year he started conducting an orchestra for radio, and making brilliant transcriptions of popular and semi-classical favorites for these broadcasts. During the next two decades he was one of radio’s outstanding musical personalities, his programs enjoying important sponsorship. During this period he wrote many works for orchestra which have been performed by America’s foremost symphony orchestras. He also wrote the scores for several successful ballets (including _Interplay_ and _Fall River Legend_), as well as music for Broadway musical comedies and motion pictures.

Like Gershwin, Gould has been a major figure in helping make serious music popular by writing ambitious concert works which make a skilful blend of serious and popular musical elements. Gershwin came to the writing of serious concert works after apprenticeship in Tin Pan Alley; Gould, on the other hand, came to popular writing after an intensive career in serious music. Thus he brings to his more popular efforts an extraordinary technique in composition, advanced thinking in orchestration, harmony, counterpoint, and rhythm. Yet there is nothing pedantic about his writing. Many of his works are such consistent favorites with audiences because they are the creations of a consummate musician without losing popular appeal. Few have been more successful than Gould in achieving such a synthesis between concert and popular music.

_American Salute_ (1942) is a brilliant orchestral adaptation of the famous American popular song by Patrick Gilmore, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” Though written during the Civil War, this robust marching song became most popular during the Spanish American War with which it is today most often associated. Gould prepared this composition during World War II for an all-American music concert broadcast over the Mutual radio network on February 12, 1942. “I have attempted,” Gould explained, “a very simple and direct translation in orchestral idiom of this vital tune. There is nothing much that can be said about the structure or the treatment because I think it is what you might call ‘self-auditory.’”

The _American Symphonette No. 2_ is one of several works for orchestra in the sinfonietta form in which Gould made a conscious effort to fuse classical structure with elements of popular music. The composer’s purpose, as he explained, was “entertainment, in the better sense of the term.” The most famous movement is the middle one, a “Pavane,” often played independently of the other movements. It is particularly favored by school orchestras, and has also been adapted for jazz band. The old and stately classical dance of the Pavane is here married to a spicy jazz tune jauntily presented by the trumpet; there are here overtones of a gentle sadness. The first and last movements of this Symphonette abound with jazz rhythms and melodies, respectively marked “Moderately Fast, With Vigor” and “Racy.”

The _Cowboy Rhapsody_ (1944) started out as a composition for brass band, but was later adapted by the composer for orchestra. This is a rhapsodic treatment of several familiar and less familiar cowboy tunes including “Old Paint,” “Home on the Range,” “Trail to Mexico” and “Little Old Sod Shanty.” The composer here attempted “a program work that would effectively utilize the marvelous vigor and sentiment of these unusual songs.”

_Family Album_ (1951) is one of two suites in which Gould evokes nostalgic pictures of the American scene and holidays through atmospheric melodies. (The other suite is _Holiday Music_, written in 1947.) The composer explains that the music of both these suites is so simple and direct in its pictorial appeal that it requires no program other than the titles of the respective movements to be understood and appreciated; nor is any analysis of the music itself called for. _Family Album_, for brass band, is made up of five brief movements: “Outing in the Park,” “Porch Swing on a Summer Evening,” “Nickelodeon,” “Old Romance” and “Horseless Carriage Gallop.” _Holiday Music_, for orchestra, also has five movements: “Home for Christmas,” “Fourth of July,” “Easter Morning,” “The First Thanksgiving,” and “Halloween.”

_Interplay_ is a ballet with choreography by Jerome Robbins introduced in New York in 1945. The score is an adaptation of the composer’s _American Concertette_, for piano and orchestra, written for the piano virtuoso, José Iturbi. The text of the ballet contrasts classic and present-day dances; Gould’s music is a delightful contrast between old forms and styles, and modern or popular ones. _Interplay_, as the concert work is now called, has four movements, each of popular appeal. The first, “With Drive and Vigor,” was described by the composer as “brash.” It has two sprightly main themes and a brief development. This is followed by a “Gavotte” in which the composer directs “a sly glance to the classical mode.” The third movement is a “Blues,” “a very simple and, in spots, ‘dirty’ type of slow, nostalgic mood.” The finale, “Very Fast” brings the composition to a breathless conclusion through unrelenting motor energy.

_Latin-American Symphonette_, for orchestra (1941) is the fourth of Gould’s sinfoniettas using popular idioms. The three earlier ones exploit jazz, while the fourth consists of ideas and idioms indigenous to Latin America. Each of the four movements consists of a stylized Latin-American dance form: “Rumba,” “Tango,” “Guaracha,” and “Conga.”

In _Minstrel Show_ (1946) Gould tried to bring to orchestral music some of the flavor of old time minstrel-show tunes and styles. There are no borrowings from actual minstrel shows. All the melodies are the composer’s own, but they incorporate some of the stylistic elements of the original product. “The composition,” Gould goes on to say, “alternates between gay and nostalgic passages. There are characteristic sliding trombone and banjo effects, and in the middle of the piece the sandpaper blocks and other percussion convey the sounds and tempo of a soft-shoe dance. The score ends on a jubilant note.”

_Yankee Doodle Went to Town_, like the _American Salute_, is the presentation of a popular American tune in modern orchestration and harmony. The tune in this case is, to be sure, “Yankee Doodle,” probably of English origin which made its first appearance in this country in 1755. The general belief is that it was used by a certain Richard Shuchburg, a British Army soldier, to poke fun at the decrepit colonial troops. For two decades after that the tune was frequently heard in the Colonies as the means by which British soldiers could taunt Colonials. Once the Revolution broke out, however, the colonists used “Yankee Doodle” as its favorite war song, and it was sung lustily by them when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. Gould’s orchestration emphasizes some of the humorous elements in the song, while giving it some freshness and vitality through his fine sense for orchestral color and striking harmonizations.

Charles Gounod

Charles François Gounod was born in Paris on June 17, 1818. He received his academic education at the Lycée St. Louis, and his musical training at the Paris Conservatory with Halévy and Lesueur among others. In 1839 he won the Prix de Rome. During his stay in Italy he became interested in church music and completed several choral works. He turned to opera after returning to Paris, his first work for the lyric stage being _Sapho_, successfully produced at the Paris Opéra in 1851. From then on, for many years, he concentrated mainly on opera, winning world renown in 1859 with _Faust_. In 1870 he visited London where he conducted orchestral and choral concerts. During the last years of his life he devoted himself for the most part to the writing of religious music. Gounod died in Paris on October 18, 1893. He is most famous for his operas, and most specifically for _Faust_, though _Mireille_ (1864) and _Roméo et Juliette_ (1867) have also been highly acclaimed and frequently given. Gounod was a composer who conveyed to his music sensitive human values. He was a melodist of the first order, his lyricism enhanced in its expressiveness through his subtle feeling for orchestral and harmonic colors.

The _Ave Maria_, while originally a song, is famous in transcriptions for solo instruments and also for orchestra. The interesting feature of this work is the fact that Gounod wrote this spiritual, deeply moving melody to the famous prayer in Latin, against an accompaniment comprising the music (without any change whatsoever) of Bach’s Prelude in C major from the _Well-Tempered Clavier_. The marriage of melody and accompaniment is so ideal it is difficult to realize that each is the work of a different composer from a different generation.

Gounod’s masterwork, the opera _Faust_, is surely one of the most celebrated works of the French lyric theater. Many of its selections are deservedly popular. The opera—libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré based on the poetic drama of Goethe—was first performed in Paris on March 19, 1859. Strange to report, it was originally a failure with both audience and critics. Not until it was revived in Paris in 1869 did the opera finally win favor; from this point it went on to conquer the world. One of the reasons for this permanent, if somewhat belated, success, is the sound theatrical values of the libretto. The opera is consistently excellent theater, rich with emotion, pathos, drama, pomp and ceremony. The story, of course, is that of the celebrated Faust legend. Faust makes a pact with the devil, Mephistopheles, to trade his soul for the return of his youth. As a young man, Faust makes love to Marguerite. When she becomes a mother she kills her child. Faust comes to her prison cell to entreat her to escape, but she does not seem to understand him. After her punishment by death, Faust is led to his own doom by Mephistopheles.

Perhaps the most famous single excerpt from the opera is the rousing _Soldier’s Chorus_ (“_Gloire immortelle des nos aïeux_”) from Act 4, Scene 3. The soldiers, returning from the war, sing out their joy on coming home victorious. This episode is celebrated in transcriptions either for orchestra or for brass band. Almost as popular is the captivating Waltz in Act 2. In the opera it is sung and danced by villagers during a celebration in the public square (“_Ainsi que la brise légère_”); this excerpt is also familiar in transcription.

The Walpurgis Night Ballet Music from _Faust_, though generally omitted from the performances of the opera itself, has become a concert favorite. This music is given in Paris during the first scene of the last act. The classic queens—Helen, Phryne and Cleopatra—and their attendants are called upon to dance to distorted versions of several of the opera’s beloved melodies. There are here seven dances of which six appear in the score only with tempo markings: _Waltz_, _Adagio_, _Allegretto_, _Moderato maestoso_, _Moderato con moto_, _Allegretto_, and _Allegro vivo_.

When an orchestral potpourri from the opera is given by semi-classical orchestra, it includes some other beloved excerpts: Marguerite’s “Jewel Song” (“_Je ris de me voir_”), in which she speaks her joy in finding the casket of jewels secretly placed for her in her garden by Faust; the rousing _Kermesse_ or Fair Music that opens the second act, “_Vin ou bière_”; Mephistopheles’ cynical comment on man’s greed for gold, “_Le Veau d’or_”; Faust’s hymn of love for Marguerite, “_O belle enfant! je t’aime_”; the “Chorus of Swords” (“_De l’enfer qui vient émousser_”), a vibrant exhortation by the young men of the village who, sensing they are in the presence of the devil, raise their swords in the form of a cross to confound him.

The _Funeral March of a Marionette_ (_Marche funèbre d’une marionnette_) is a delightful piece originally written for the piano in 1873, and after that transcribed by the composer for orchestra. Gounod had hopes to make it the first movement of a piano suite. When he failed to complete that suite, he issued the march as a separate piece of music in the now-famous orchestral version. The opening march music tells of the procession of pallbearers to a cemetery as they carry a dead marionette. A brighter spirit is induced as the pallbearers stop off at an inn. Then the procession continues. The funereal atmosphere of the closing measures speaks of the ephemeral nature of all life, even the life of a marionette.

The opera _Mireille_—libretto by Barbier and Carré based on Mistral’s poem, _Mirèio_—is not often performed. But this is not true of its overture. The opera was first performed in Paris on March 19, 1864. The story revolves around the tragic love affair of the Provençal girl, Mireille, and the basket-weaver, Vincent. The overture opens with a slow introduction in which a stately idea is offered by the woodwind. In the main body, the principal melody is heard in the strings while the subsidiary theme is first presented by the violins. After both ideas are amplified, a crescendo section leads to the triumphant reappearance of the first theme in the full orchestra. The overture ends with a short but spirited coda.

Out of the opera _Roméo et Juliet_ comes a most charming waltz. The opera was introduced in Paris on April 27, 1867. The libretto, once again by Barbier and Carré, was based on the Shakespeare tragedy. The waltz opens the first act, a ballroom scene in the Capulet palace honoring Juliet. Against the lilting strains of this music, the guests perform an eye-filling dance.

Percy Grainger

Percy Aldridge Grainger was born in Melbourne, Australia on July 8, 1882. After receiving some piano instruction from his mother he was sent to Germany in his twelfth year to continue his music study with James Kwast and Ferruccio Busoni. In 1900 he made his debut as concert pianist in London, following which he made an extended tour of Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. A meeting with Grieg, in 1906, was a significant influence in Grainger’s artistic development. Grieg infected the young man with some of his own enthusiasm for folk music. The result was that Grainger now began to devote himself to research in the English folk music of the past. His orchestral and piano arrangements of many of these folk tunes and dances, between 1908 and 1912, were responsible for bringing them to the attention of the music world. In 1915, Grainger made his debut as pianist in the United States. He has lived in America since that time, devoting himself to concert work, lecturing and teaching, besides composition. Grainger died in White Plains, New York, on February 20, 1961.

In his own music, Grainger reveals the impact that his studies in English music made upon him: in his partiality to modal writing, to the contrapuntal technique, to placid lyricism. But it is in his fresh arrangements of old English songs and dances that Grainger is most famous. “Even when he keeps the folk songs within their original dimensions,” says Cyril Scott, “he has a way of dealing with them which is entirely new, yet at the same time never lacking in taste.”

_Brigg Fair_ is a plaintive melody of pastoral character from the district of Lincolnshire. It was used by the contemporary British composer, Frederick Delius, as the basis for his orchestral rhapsody of the same name (dedicated to Grainger).

The bucolic and ever popular _Country Gardens_ is a “Mock Morris,” the “Mock Morris” being an old English dance popular during the reign of Henry VII and since then associated with festivities attending May Day. Grainger’s original transcription was for piano solo, and only later did he adapt it for orchestra.

_Handel in the Strand_ is a lively clog dance. _Irish Tune from County Derry_ is better known as the _Londonderry Air_, a poignant melody now known to us through numerous versions other than that originally made famous by Grainger. The piece, designated as a Mock Morris, is one of a series in a collection entitled _Room Music Tit Bits_. “No folk music tune-stuffs at all are used herein,” says the composer. “The rhythmic cast of the piece is Morris-like, but neither the build of the tunes nor the general layout of the form keeps to the Morris dance shape.”

The lively _Molly on the Shore_ was first written for piano before being adapted by the composer for orchestra. _Shepherd’s Hey_ is a Mock Morris and consists of four tunes, two fiddle tunes and two folk songs.

Of Grainger’s own compositions three are of general interest. The _Children’s March_ (1917) was written during World War I for the United States Army Band. “This march,” says the composer, “is structurally of a complicated build, on account of the large number of different themes and tunes employed and of the varied and irregular interplay of many contrasted sections. Tonally speaking, it is a study in the blend of piano, wind, and percussion instruments.”

_Passacaglia on Green Bushes_ has two versions. One is for small orchestra, and the other for a large one. This composition is built around the folk melody “Green Bushes” which remains unchanged in key, line, and rhythm throughout the work (except for eight measures of free passage work near the beginning, and forty measures at the end). Against this melody move several folk-like melodies of Grainger’s own invention.

_Youthful Suite_ for orchestra is made up of five sections. Part of this work was completed in 1902, and part in 1945. The first movement, “Northern March,” derives its character from the melodic and rhythmic traits of the folk music of North England and Scotland. The main melody here acquires its folk-song character through the use of the flat-seventh minor scale. “Rustic Dance” achieves an exotic quality through the employment of an unusual variant of the F major chord. “Norse Digger” is a somber lament in which is mourned the passing of a dead hero, possibly from an Icelandic saga. “Eastern Intermezzo” has an Oriental cast. The repeated use of drum beats and the virile rhythms were inspired by a reading of a description of the dance of the elephants in _Toomal of the Elephants_ from Kipling’s Jungle Book. This suite ends with a formal “English Waltz.”

Enrique Granados

Enrique Granados was born in Lérida, Spain, on July 27, 1867. After completing his music study at Conservatories in Barcelona and Madrid, and privately with Charles de Bériot in Paris, he earned his living playing the piano in Spanish restaurants. In 1898, his first opera was produced in Madrid, _Maria del Carmen_. The national identity of this music was to characterize all of Granados’ subsequent works and place him among the most significant of Spanish national composers. His most famous composition is _Goyescas_, a remarkable series of piano pieces inspired by the paintings of Goya; the composer later adapted this music for an opera, also called _Goyescas_, which received its world première in New York at the Metropolitan Opera on January 28, 1918. Granados came to the United States to attend this performance, after which he visited Washington, D.C. to play the piano for President Wilson at the White House. He was aboard the ship _Folkstone_, sailing from Folkstone to Dieppe, when it was torpedoed by a German U-Boat during World War I on March 24, 1916, bringing him to his death.

In their rhythmic and harmonic vocabulary, Granados’ best music is unmistakably Spanish. Perhaps his most famous single piece of music is an orchestral “Intermezzo” from the opera _Goyescas_. He wrote it after he had fully completed his score to the opera because the directors of the Metropolitan Opera filled the need of an instrumental interlude. This sensual Spanish melody is as famous in various transcriptions (including one for cello and piano by Gaspar Cassadó) as it is in its original orchestral version.

Twelve _Spanish Dances_, for piano, op. 37 (1893) are also popular. The most frequently performed of these is the fifth in E minor named _Andaluza_ (or _Playera_). Fritz Kreisler transcribed it for violin and piano, one of numerous adaptations. The sixth in D major is also familiar—_Rondalla Aragonesa_, a jota, transcribed for violin and piano by Jacques Thibaud.

Edvard Grieg

Edvard Hagerup Grieg, Norway’s greatest composer, was born in Bergen on June 15, 1843. Revealing unusual talent for music as a boy, he was sent to the Leipzig Conservatory in 1858. He remained there several years, a pupil of Plaidy, Moscheles, and Reinecke among others. In 1863 he returned to his native land where several of his early compositions were performed. He then lived for several years in Copenhagen. There he met and became a friend of two musicians who interested him in Scandinavian music and musical nationalism: Niels Gade and Rikard Nordraak. Under their guidance and stimulation Grieg began writing music in a national style, beginning with the _Humoresques_ for piano, op. 6, which he dedicated to Nordraak. Grieg also became a sponsor of Scandinavian music and composers by helping Nordraak organize a society for their benefit. In 1866, Grieg helped arrange in Oslo the first concert ever given over entirely to Norwegian music; a year later he helped found the Norwegian Academy of Music. He also served as a conductor of the Harmonic Society, an important influence in presenting Scandinavian music.

After marrying Nina Hagerup in 1867, Grieg settled in Oslo to assume an imperial position in its musical life. He also achieved worldwide recognition as a composer through his violin Sonata in F major, the A major piano concerto, and the incidental music to Ibsen’s _Peer Gynt_. He was the recipient of many honors both from his native land and from foreign countries. His sixtieth birthday was honored as a national Norwegian holiday. From 1885 on Grieg lived in a beautiful villa, Troldhaugen, a few miles from Bergen. Music lovers made pilgrimages to meet him and pay him tribute. His remains were buried there following his sudden death in Bergen on September 4, 1907.

Its national identity is the quality that sets Grieg’s music apart from that of most of the other Romanticists of his day. Though he rarely quoted folk melodies or dance tunes directly, he produced music that is Norwegian to its core. In his best music he speaks of Norway’s geography, culture, people, backgrounds, holidays, and legends in melodies and rhythms whose kinship with actual folk music is unmistakable.

The _Holberg Suite_ for string orchestra, op. 40 (1885)—or to use its official title of _From Holberg’s Time_—was written to honor the bicentenary of Ludvig Holberg, often called the founder of Danish literature. The composer also adapted this music for solo piano. Bearing in mind that the man he was honoring belonged to a bygone era, Grieg wrote a suite in classical style and with strictly classical forms; but his own romantic and at times national identity is not sacrificed. The first movement is a “Prelude,” a vigorous movement almost in march time. This is followed by three classical dances—“Sarabande,” “Gavotte,” and “Musette.” The fourth movement temporarily deserts the 17th and 18th centuries to offer a graceful “Air” in the manner of a Norwegian folk song, but the classical era returns in all its stateliness and grace in the concluding “Rigaudon.”

_In Autumn_, a concert overture for orchestra, op. 11 (1865, revised 1888) was Grieg’s first effort to write symphonic music. This composition is a fresh and spontaneous expression of joy in Nature’s beauties. The principal melody is a song written by Grieg in 1865, “Autumn Storm.” This material is preceded by an introduction and followed by a coda in which a happy dance by harvesters is introduced.

The _Lyric Suite_ for orchestra, op. 54 (1903) is an adaptation by the composer of four numbers from his _Lyric Pieces_, for piano—a set of sixty-six short compositions gathered in ten volumes, each a delightful miniature of Norwegian life. The first of the four episodes in the _Lyric Suite_ is “Shepherd Lad,” scored entirely for strings, music in a dreamy mood whose main romantic melody has the character of a nocturne. “Rustic March” (or “Peasant March”), for full orchestra, has for its principal thought a ponderous, rhythmic theme first given by the clarinets. The third movement is a poetic “Nocturne” whose main melody is presented by the first violins. The suite ends with the popular “March of the Dwarfs” in the grotesque style of the composer’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from _Peer Gynt_. This movement alternates a sprightly fantastic march tune (first heard in the violins) with an expressive melody for solo violin.

The _Norwegian Dance No. 2_ is the second of a set of four folk dances originally for piano four hands and later transcribed by the composer for orchestra, op. 35 (1881). This second dance, in the key of A minor, is probably the composer’s most famous composition in a national idiom. It is in three parts, the flanking section consisting of a sprightly rustic dance tune, while the middle part is faster and more vigorous contrasting music. The other somewhat less familiar, but no less beguiling, _Norwegian Dances_ are the first in D minor, the third in G major, and the fourth in D major.

The _Peer Gynt Suite No. 1_, for orchestra, op. 46 (1876) consists of four numbers from the incidental music for the Ibsen drama, _Peer Gynt_, produced in Oslo in 1876. Ibsen’s epic is a picaresque drama about a capricious and at times spirited Norwegian peasant named Peer, and his fabulous adventures, some of them amatory. He abducts the bride, Solveig, then deserts her; as an outlaw he roams the world; when he returns home he finds Solveig still believing in him and through that belief he comes upon salvation.

The first movement of Suite No. 1 is a bucolic picture, “Morning,” in which a barcarolle-type melody is prominent. This is followed by a tender elegy for muted strings, “Ase’s Death,” Ase being Peer Gynt’s mother. A capricious, sensual dance follows, “Anitra’s Dance,” a mazurka-like melody with an Oriental identity. The final movement, “In the Hall of the Mountain King” is a grotesque march built from a four-measure phrase which grows in volume and intensity until it evolves into a thunderous fortissimo.

Grieg prepared a second suite from his incidental music for _Peer Gynt_, op. 55. Only one movement from this set is popular, “Solveig’s Song,” a haunting Norwegian song for muted strings portraying Solveig, the abducted bride who thereafter remains forever faithful to Peer Gynt. This is the final movement of a suite whose preceding movements are “Ingrid’s Lament,” “Arabian Dance,” and “Peer Gynt’s Homecoming.”

_Sigurd Jorsalfar_, a suite for orchestra, op. 56 (1872, revised 1892) also comes from the incidental music to a play, in this case a historical drama of the same name by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, produced in Oslo in 1872. The central character is the twelfth-century Norwegian king, Sigurd, who joins the Crusades to fight heroically against the Saracens. There are three movements to this suite. The first “Prelude” is subtitled “In the King’s Hall,” and has three distinct sections. In the first of these the main thought is a theme for clarinets and bassoons against plucked strings; in the second, a trio, the most prominent melody is that for flute imitated by the oboe; the third part repeats the first. The second movement is “Intermezzo” or “Borghild’s Dream.” This is serene music alternated by an agitated mood. The finale is “March of Homage” in which trumpet fanfares and a loud chord for full orchestra set the stage for the main theme, in four cellos. This same theme is later proclaimed triumphantly by the full orchestra. Midway there appears a trio in which the first violins offer the main melody.

_Two Elegiac Melodies_, for string orchestra, op. 34 (1880) are adaptations of two of the composer’s most famous songs found in op. 33, “Heartwounds” and “The Last Spring,” lyrics by A. O. Vinje. Both melodies are for the most part in a somber mood. The first is in a comparatively fast time while the second is in slow tempo.

_Two Northern Melodies_, for string orchestra, op. 63 (1895) is, as the title indicates, in two sections. The first, “In the Style of a Folksong,” offers its main melody in the cellos after a short introduction. The second, “The Cowherd’s Tune,” begins with a slow, simple tune and ends with a delightful peasant dance.

The Broadway operetta, _Song of Norway_, was not only based upon episodes in the life of Grieg but also makes extensive use of Grieg’s music. The book is by Milton Lazarus based on a play by Homer Curran, and the lyrics and music are by Robert Wright and George Forrest. The operetta opened on Broadway on August 21, 1944 (Lawrence Brooks played Grieg, and Helena Bliss his wife, Nina) to accumulate the impressive run of 860 performances. Since the operetta has become something of a classic of our popular theater through frequent revivals—and since its music is sometimes heard on concerts of semi-classical music—it deserves consideration. The story centers mainly around the love affair of Grieg and Nina Hagerup, and their ultimate marriage; it also carries the composer from obscurity to world fame. Wright and Forrest reached into the storehouse of Grieg’s music for their songs. “Strange Music,” which became a popular-song hit in 1944 and 1945, is based on one of Grieg’s _Lyric Pieces_ for piano, _Wedding Day in Troldhaugen_. “I Love You” is based on Grieg’s famous song of the same name (“_Ich liebe Dich_”) which he actually wrote to express his love for Nina; the lyric was by Hans Andersen, and the song appeared in a set of four collected in op. 5 (1864). Musical episodes from Grieg’s G major Violin Sonata, the _Peer Gynt Suite_, _Norwegian Dance No. 2_, the A minor Piano Concerto, and some of the piano pieces provided further material for popular songs and ballet music.

Ferde Grofé

Ferde Grofé was born Ferdinand Rudolph Von Grofé in New York City on March 27, 1892. He began to study the violin and piano early. During his adolescence he became a member of the viola section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. While engaged in serious music he started playing with jazz ensembles. Before long he formed one of his own, for which he made all the arrangements, and whose performances attracted considerable interest among jazz devotees. Paul Whiteman was one of those who was impressed by Grofé’s brand of jazz. In 1919 he hired Grofé to play the piano in, and make all the arrangements for, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Grofé worked for Whiteman for a dozen years, a period during which he prepared most of the arrangements used by Whiteman, including that of George Gershwin’s historic _Rhapsody in Blue_ at its world première in 1924. In 1924, Grofé wrote his first symphonic composition in a jazz style, _Broadway at Night_. One year later, came the _Mississippi Suite_, his first success. In 1931 he scored a triumph with the _Grand Canyon Suite_, still his most celebrated composition. After 1931, Grofé toured the country as conductor of his own orchestra, making numerous appearances in public and over the radio. From 1939 to 1942 he taught orchestration at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and in 1941 he began an eight-year contract with the Standard Oil Company of California to conduct the San Francisco Symphony over the radio. Grofé has also written music for motion pictures and special works for industry.

With Gershwin, Grofé has been an outstanding composer of symphonic music utilizing jazz and other popular styles and idioms. He is distinguished for his remarkable skill at orchestration, which frequently employs non-musical devices for special effects—for example, a typewriter in _Tabloid_, pneumatic drills in _Symphony in Steel_, a bicycle pump in _Free Air_, shouts and door-banging in _Hollywood Suite_, and the sound of bouncing bowling balls in _Hudson River Suite_.

The _Grand Canyon Suite_ (1931), Grofé’s most significant composition as well as the most famous, is an orchestral description in five movements of one of America’s natural wonders. The first movement, “Sunrise,” opens with a timpani roll to suggest the break of dawn over the canyon. The main melody depicting the sunrise itself is heard in muted trumpet against a chordal background. As the movement progresses, the music becomes increasingly luminous, until the sun finally erupts into full resplendence. “The Painted Desert” is an atmospheric tone picture. Nebulous chords suggest an air of mystery before a sensual melodic section unfolds. “On the Trail” is the most popular movement of the suite, having for many years been expropriated as the identifying theme-signature for the Philip Morris radio program. An impulsive, restless rhythm brings us a picture of a jogging burro. A cowboy tune is then set contrapuntally against this rhythm. In “Sunset” animal calls precede a poignant melody that speaks about the peace and serenity that descend on the canyon at sunset. “Cloudburst” is the concluding movement in which a violent storm erupts, lashes the canyon with its fury, and then subsides. Tranquillity now returns, and the canyon is once more surrounded by breathless and quiet beauty.

The _Hudson River Suite_ (1955) was written for André Kostelanetz, the conductor, who introduced the work in Washington, D.C. This music provides five different aspects of the mighty river in New York, and its associations with American history. The river itself is described in the opening movement, “The River.” This is followed by a portrait of Henry Hudson. The colonial times and the land of Rip Van Winkle are discussed in the third movement, “Rip Van Winkle,” while in “Albany Night Boat,” a delightful account is given of New York in years gone by, when a holiday trip on the boat was a favorite pastime of New York couples. The suite ends with “New York” a graphic etching of the metropolis along the Hudson.

The _Mississippi Suite_ (1925)—like its eminent successor, the _Grand Canyon Suite_—was written for Paul Whiteman, who introduced it in Carnegie Hall. The first movement, “Father of the Waters” has a melody of an American-Indian identity representing the river. In “Huckleberry Finn,” the character of the boy is suggested by a jazz motive in the tuba, later amplified into a spacious jazz melody for strings. “Old Creole Days” highlights a Negro melody in muted trumpet soon taken over by different sections of the orchestra. The closing movement is the suite’s best known section and the composer’s own favorite among his compositions. Called “Mardi Gras” it is a lively and colorful picture of carnival time in New Orleans. A rhythmic passage with which the movement opens serves as the preface to an eloquent melody for strings.

David Guion

David Wendell Fentress Guion was born in Ballinger, Texas, on December 15, 1895. He received his musical training at the piano with local teachers and with Leopold Godowsky in Vienna. After returning to the United States he filled several posts as teacher of music in Texas, and from 1925 to 1928 taught piano at the Chicago Music College. Early in the 1930’s he appeared in a cowboy production featuring his own music at the Roxy Theater in New York and soon thereafter made weekly broadcasts over the National Broadcasting Company network. A David Guion Week was celebrated throughout Texas in 1950.

He is best known for his skilful arrangements and transcriptions of Western folk songs and Negro Spirituals, some of which first became famous in his versions. His orchestral adaptation of “The Arkansas Traveler” has long been a favorite on “pop” concerts. A familiar legend helped to dramatize this American folk song to many. A traveler caught in the rain stops outside an Arkansas hut where an old man is playing part of a folk tune on his fiddle. Upon questioning him the traveler learns that the old fiddler does not know the rest of the song, whereupon the stranger takes the fiddle from him and completes it. The two then become devoted friends.

Even more famous is David Guion’s arrangement of “Home on the Range,” in 1930. It is not quite clear who actually wrote this song. It was discovered by John A. Lomax who heard it sung by a Texan saloon keeper, recorded it, and published it in his 1910 edition of _Cowboy Songs_. Only after Guion had arranged it did it become a national favorite over the radio, its popularity no doubt immensely enhanced by the widely circulated story that this was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s favorite song.

Guion’s concert arrangement for full orchestra of “Turkey in the Straw” is also of interest. This folk tune—sometimes known as “Zip Coon”—first achieved popularity on the American musical stage in the era before the minstrel show. It was published in Baltimore in 1834 and first made popular that year by Bob Farrell at the Bowery Theater. After that it was a familiar routine of the black-faced entertainer, George Washington Dixon. Several have laid claim to the song, but it is most likely derived from an English or Irish melody.

Other arrangements and transcriptions by Guion include “Nobody Knows De Trouble I’ve Seen,” “Oh, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” “Ride Cowboy Ride,” “Short’nin’ Bread,” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

Guion has also written several compositions of his own in which the folk element is pronounced. One of these is named _Alley Tunes_, three musical scenes from the South. Its most famous movement is the last, “The Harmonica Player,” but the earlier two are equally appealing for their homespun melodies and vigorous national identity: “Brudder Sinkiller and His Flock of Sheep” and “The Lonesome Whistler.” Another pleasing orchestral composition by Guion is a waltz suite entitled _Southern Nights_.

Johan Halvorsen

Johan Halvorsen was born in Drammen, Norway, on March 15, 1864. After attending the Stockholm Conservatory he studied the violin with Adolf Brodsky in Leipzig and César Thomson in Belgium. In 1892 he returned to his native land. For many years he was the distinguished conductor of the Oslo National Theater. His admiration of Grieg (whose niece he married) directed him toward musical nationalism, a style in which many of his most ambitious works were written. He was the composer of three symphonies, two rhapsodies, a festival overture, several suites, and a number of peasant dances all for orchestra. He died in Oslo on December 4, 1935.

The _Andante religioso_, in G minor, for violin and orchestra, is a richly melodious and spiritual work which has gained recognition with semi-classical orchestras. But Halvorsen’s most popular composition is the _Triumphant Entry of the Boyars_, for orchestra. The boyar or boyard was a military aristocrat of ancient Russia, a tyrant as notorious for his cruelty as for his extravagant way of life. Halvorsen’s vigorous, colorful march has an Oriental personality. It opens with a stirring march subject for clarinet against a drone bass in cellos and double basses, and it highlights a fanfare for trumpets and trombones.

George Frederick Handel

George Frederick Handel was born in Halle, Saxony, on February 23, 1685. After studying the organ in his native city he settled in Hamburg where he wrote, and in 1705 had produced, his first operas, _Almira_ and _Nero_. A period of travel and study in Italy followed, during which he was influenced by the Italian instrumental music of that period. In 1710 he was appointed Kapellmeister in Hanover. In 1712 he settled permanently in England where in 1727 he became a British subject and Anglicized his name. He became one of England’s giant figures in music, first as a composer of operas in the Italian style, and after that (when the vogue for such operas died out) as a creator of oratorios. For several years he was the court composer for Queen Anne and royal music master for George I. In 1720 he was appointed artistic director of the then newly organized Royal Academy of Music. In the last years of his life he suffered total blindness, notwithstanding which fact he continued giving public performances at the organ, conducting his oratorios, and writing music. He died in London on April 14, 1759 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.