Morton Gould was a major
figure in American Music for over 70 years. He was a composer, conductor, arranger,
recording artist, pianist and head of ASCAP from 1986-1994. He received the Pulitzer Prize
in music in 1994. Often drawing from American popular music, the vernacular as he called
it, his music is often challenging and rewarding to the performer and listener. You just
listen and enjoy. This is not to say that he did not have a serious side to some of his
compositions. It’s just that, as the program notes on this disc state, "Even in
his ‘serious’ vein, Gould’s music is full of easy-listening melody, his
orchestral colors vivid and atmospheric."
This excellent disc, part of Naxos’ American Classics
series, offers three works all based on pre-existing American Tunes. Only one other
composer comes to mind, who could so thoroughly absorb and work over a well known tune,
kneading and blending it and infusing it with their own personal style and that other
composer is Percy Grainger. These are decidedly not mere arrangements of pre-existing
tunes, but new works in their own right. A perfect example is Gould’s most famous
work, American Salute. This piece from 1947 is a brilliant working out of the Civil
War tune "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" by Patrick S. Gilmore. It presents
many of the trademark Gould sounds, including brilliant orchestral writing, highly
rhythmic power and a visionary grand sweep. This piece takes you for a quick exhilarating
ride and its continuing popularity is well deserved. I’ve known this and played this
for years and never get tired of it.
With the other two works on the disc, Gould takes the principles
of American Salute and works them out on a much broader canvas. Here he gets to
flex his muscles and create two highly successful musical pictures. American Ballads and
Foster Gallery are both multi movement works around 35 minutes long, based
completely on great American tunes. The first, American Ballads was a Bi-Centennial
composition. Here Gould has the audacity to press into service some of our most cherished
tunes - "The Star Spangled Banner" and "America the Beautiful." How
much more can be done with these tunes? Again I say, "Listen and enjoy." Making
up the first two movements "Star Spangled" is fast paced tour de force, and
"Amber Waves" is the most powerful and heartfelt working of America the
Beautiful" I’ve ever heard. Movement three uses a song of Henry Clay Work,
"The Year of Jubilo," and movement five has "The Girl I Left Behind
Me" as a basis. Quick movements both. The middle piece is called
"memorials" and has "Taps" as an underling theme. Wow! It goes right
to the heart. The final movement triumphantly sets "We Shall Overcome." I say
it’s about time we dump that Russian anthem, The 1812 Overture at the Fourth
of July celebrations and use Gould’s work instead!
The Foster Gallery uses a whole slew of well-known and not
so well known Stephen Foster songs written in a similar style as American Ballads.
He uses "Camptown Races" as a sort of musical glue to this 13-movement work. The
tune reappears in different forms between movements, much as the "Promenade"
reappears in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Many of the settings of
individual tunes are short and sweet, and brilliantly creative. Several sections, such as
number six "Old Black Joe" and "My Old Kentucky Home" are longer,
thoughtful workings of their subjects and quite moving. The work adds up to a grand and
glorious whole and should be heard on American Symphony programs much more often. Sure to
be a guaranteed crowd pleaser.
All these works have been recorded before, two by Gould himself;
however, this disc is the first to couple all three together. The orchestral playing is of
high quality and full of vim and vigor. You’d think this was an American orchestra,
so thoroughly do they "get" the style. The sound is excellent as is usually the
case for Naxos. Finally at its budget price, there is really no reason not to get this
disc! One final note, it is quite interesting to compare Gould’s working of Stephen
Foster with Percy Grainger’s Tribute to Foster. This extraordinary Grainger
work uses Foster’s "Camptown Races" as a base. Tribute to Foster
evokes some of Grainger’s earliest musical memories, that of his mother singing him
to sleep with Foster’s tune. He sets Foster’s verses and then adds four of his
own to create an unforgettable musical experience, emotionally overwhelming and
exquisitely haunting. Here Grainger manages to out-Gould Gould! Anyway, check it out on a
Philips CD of Grainger Choral Works, with John Elliot Gardiner conducting. I hope
you’ll join me as I feature both the Gould and Gardiner recording along with more
from the Naxos American Series on Monday, September 25 on Monday Evening Classics.
Copyright©WWUH: September/October Program Guide, 2000 |
