Book I

(1910), and like _Clair de lune_ is often heard in various orchestral transcriptions; Arthur Hartmann’s adaptation for violin and piano is also familiar.

The _Petite Suite_ (_Little Suite_) for piano duet (1889) is early Debussy, more in the Romantic vein of Delibes than in the provocative idiom Debussy later made famous. As orchestrated by Henri Busser it is in the repertory of many salon and pop orchestras. There are four short movements. The first, “_En Bateau_” (“_In a Boat_”) is particularly popular. In the orchestration a gentle barcarolle melody for flute suggests the gentle course of the boat in a placid lake. This is followed by turns by a vigorous episode and a passionate section, both of them for the strings. The flute then restores placidity, and the opening sensitive melody returns in the violins. “_Cortège_” (“March”) is a pert little march tune shared by the woodwind and strings. “_Menuet_” is of classic grace while the finale, “_Ballet_,” has a compelling rhythmic vigor.

_Rêverie_ (1890) is a brief, atmospheric piece for the piano which has became a favorite with Americans because in 1938 it was adapted into the popular song, “My Reverie.”

Léo Delibes

Léo Delibes was born in St. Germain-du-Val, France, on February 21, 1836. After attending the Paris Conservatory from 1848 on, he became an accompanist for the Théâtre Lyrique and organist of the Church of St.-Jean et St.-François in Paris in 1853. Between 1855 and 1865 he wrote a dozen operas, none of them successful. In 1865 he was appointed chorusmaster of the Grand Opéra where he was encouraged to write music for ballet; the first of these was _La Source_ in 1866 (renamed _Naila_ when later given in Vienna). His most successful ballets were _Coppélia_ in 1870 and _Sylvia_ in 1876, both still vital in the repertory. In 1873 his most important opéra-comique, _Le Roi l’a Dit_, was introduced by the Opéra-Comique; Delibes’ most important opera, _Lakmé_, was first performed on April 14, 1883 by the Paris Opéra. Meanwhile, in 1881, Delibes was appointed professor of composition at the Conservatory. Three years after that he became a member of the French Academy. He died in Paris on January 16, 1891.

Delibes is often described as the creator of modern ballet music. He was the first composer to write symphonically for the dance, to bring to ballet music the fullest creative and technical resources of the skilled serious composer. Thus he opened a new field of compositions which later composers (Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and Ravel among many others) cultivated with fertility. The elegance of Delibes’ style, the caressing warmth of his lyricism, the richness of his harmonic and rhythmic language, the delicacy of his orchestration endow his ballet music with interest even when it is divorced from its choreography.

_Coppélia_ is a staple in the classic ballet repertory. It was introduced at the Paris Opéra on May 25, 1870, choreography by A. Saint-Léon, and scenario by C. Nuitter and A. Saint-Léon based upon _The Sandman_, a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann. _Coppélia_ is the first successful ballet to utilize the subject of a doll become human. Coppélia is a doll created by Dr. Coppélius. She comes to life and gets out of control. Franz, thinking she is human, falls in love with her. But when he realizes she is but a doll he becomes reconciled with his former sweetheart, Swanilda.

Delibes’ score is one of the earliest in ballet to make successful use of such folk dances as the Mazurka and the Czardas; because of his success in this direction, many later composers of ballet music were encouraged to follow suit.

An orchestral suite adapted from the score never ceases to delight audiences at both symphonic and semi-classical concerts. It opens with the “_Valse lente_,” a suave waltz to which Swanilda dances as she strives to attract the attention of Coppélia, of whom she is jealous. This is followed by the “Mazurka,” a gay episode danced by a group of villagers after Franz has mistaken Coppélia for a human and salutes her. The “Ballade” then comes as a pensive interlude; to this music Swanilda puts a stalk of wheat to her ear, following a long existing superstition, to discover if Franz has been faithful to her. When the answer is in the negative, she breaks the stalk savagely before his very eyes. “_Theme Slave Varié_” is danced by Swanilda; this section comprises a tuneful Polish melody and five variations. The stately and at times fiery “Czardas” which concludes the first act is a corybantic in which all villagers join. “_Valse de la poupée_” (or “Dance of the Doll”) is probably the most familiar musical number in the entire ballet, an elegant waltz danced by Swanilda as she assumes the dress, and imitates the actions, of Coppélia.

The _Naila Waltz_ (or _Pas des Fleurs_) was written by Delibes in 1867 as an intermezzo for the revival in Paris of Adolph Adam’s opera _Le Corsaire_, in Paris. When Delibes’ early ballet, _La Source_, was introduced in Vienna as _Naila_, this waltz was interpolated into the production. A short, vigorous introduction for full orchestra and several notes in the basses lead to the lilting waltz melody in strings, with the woodwinds soon joining in. Ernst von Dohnányi made an effective transcription of this waltz for the piano.

_Le Roi l’a dit_ (_The King Said So_) is an opéra-comique with libretto by Edmond Gondinet, introduced at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on May 24, 1873. The plot revolves around a peasant boy whom a Marquis is trying to pass off before the king as his own son. The peasant makes the most of this situation to the continual embarrassment and chagrin of the Marquis who finally manages to get rid of him by marrying him off to a maid with whom the boy is in love.

The popular overture to this light opera opens with a brisk march in full chords. A gracious little melody then unfolds in the strings. After a return of the march music in a more subdued vein, a romantic song is offered by the clarinets against plucked strings. The music now grows livelier as a principal thought is given by chattering strings and woodwind. Extended use is now made of the first graceful melody. The opening march is at last recalled to bring the overture to a boisterous end.

The second of Delibes’ famous ballets, _Sylvia_, was introduced at the Paris Opéra on June 14, 1876. The choreography was by Louis Mérante, and the text by Jules Barbier and Baron de Reinach. The classical subject is derived from mythology. Aminta, a shepherd, comes to a sacred grove seeking a huntress he had once seen there. She is Sylvia, who soon appears with her nymphs. She is later captured by Orion, the black huntsman. But her escape is effected by Eros, and she and Aminta are reunited in love.

Like _Coppélia_, _Sylvia_ has a popular orchestral suite adapted from the ballet score. After a brief Prelude comes “_Les Chasseresses_” (“The Huntresses”), sprightly music with which Sylvia and her nymphs make their first appearance; to its rhythmic strains they dance before a statue of Eros. A gentle “Intermezzo” follows, describing the nymphs as they rest near a stream. In the “_Valse lente_” Sylvia dances to a graceful musical episode. The “Barcarolle” highlights a saxophone solo; to this background music appears a ship bearing Eros, disguised as a pirate. The most celebrated single number in the entire suite comes next, the “Pizzicato,” a delicate dance performed by Sylvia disguised as a slave. The “_Cortège de Bacchus_” (“March of Bacchus”) is the dynamic music with which a bacchanalian rite is being celebrated.

Gregore Dinicu

Gregore Dinicu, who was born in Bucharest, Rumania, on April 5, 1889, is a gypsy violinist who became popular in leading Rumanian cabarets and restaurants. In 1939 he visited the United States, scoring a major success with his gypsy orchestra at the New York World’s Fair. His _Hora Staccato_, for violin and piano (or violin and orchestra)—a virtuoso piece of folk character—is his only composition to become famous outside Rumania. Jascha Heifetz, the famous virtuoso, heard Dinicu play it in Rumania and was so delighted with it that he transcribed it, and popularized it both at his concerts and on records. The Hora is an exciting Rumanian folk dance with lively rhythms and a vertiginous melody that shifts flexibly from major to minor or modal scales. These traits are all found in Dinicu’s electrifying _Hora Staccato_.

Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti was born in Bergamo, Italy, on November 29, 1797. His early music study took place in Bergamo and Naples and was completed at the Liceo Filarmonico in Bologna. Despite his strong bent not only for music but also for art, literature, and architecture, he aspired for a military career. While serving in the Austrian army he completed his first opera, _Enrico di Borgogna_, introduced in Venice in 1818. Success came four years after that in Rome with _Zoraide di Granata_. Now exempted from further military duty, Donizetti was able to devote himself entirely to composition. Between 1822 and 1829 he wrote twenty-three operas. In 1830 he achieved renown throughout Europe with _Anna Bolena_, introduced in Milan. In the five succeeding years he produced two masterworks by which he is still represented in the operatic repertory: _L’Elisir d’amore_ in 1832 and _Lucia di Lammermoor_ in 1835. From 1837 to 1839 he was the director of the Naples Conservatory. In 1839 he went to live in Paris where he wrote and had produced several highly successful operas including _The Daughter of the Regiment_ and _La Favorita_ in 1840 and _Don Pasquale_ in 1843. Soon after this he returned to his native city where he was stricken by a mental disorder and for a time confined to an asylum. He died in Bergamo on April 8, 1848.

The facility with which Donizetti wrote his sixty-seven operas is apparent in the easy flow of his lovable melodies and in the spontaneity of his aurally agreeable harmonies. He also possesses a fine theatrical gift, and much of his best music combines delightful lyricism and affecting emotion with dramatic force.

_The Daughter of the Regiment_ (_La Fille du régiment_, or _La figlia del reggimento_) was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on February 11, 1840. The French libretto by Jean François Bayard and Vernoy de Saint-Georges was translated into Italian by the composer. The setting is Tyrol in 1815, then being invaded by Napoleon’s troops. Marie is the _vivandière_ (canteen manager) of the 21st Regiment of the French army. In love with Tonio, who is suspected by the French of being a spy, she is able to prevail on the troops to save his life. But Marie is soon compelled to be separated from both Tonio and the French soldiers when it is discovered that she is the long lost niece of the Countess of Berkenfeld and must return with her aunt to her castle. The Countess wants Marie to marry the Duke of Crackenthorp. When the French troops, with Tonio among them, storm the Berkenfeld castle and want to reclaim Marie, the Countess now reveals that Marie is not her niece but her daughter and thus must obey her wishes. However, the French soldiers finally prevail on the Countess to permit Marie to marry Tonio.

The most popular selections from this tuneful, and occasionally martially stirring opera are: Marie’s moving tribute to her regiment (“_Ah, chacun le sait, chacun le dit_”) and her tender farewell as she is about to leave for Berkenfeld (“_Il faut partir, mes bons compagnons_”) and a spirited French war song to victory (“_Rataplan_”) all from the first act; and from the second act, Marie’s moving aria (“_Par le rang, et l’opulence_”), the orchestral entr’acte “_Tyrolienne_,” and the dramatic paean to France (“_Salut à la France_”) with which the opera ends.

_Don Pasquale_ is a classic in the literature of opera buffa. It received its première in Paris on January 3, 1843; its libretto (by the composer and Giacomo Ruffini) is based on a libretto created by Angelo Anelli for another opera. The central character is an old bachelor who objected to the marriage of his young nephew with a beautiful widow, Norina. To teach him a lesson, Norina puts on a disguise, involves the old man in a mock marriage, and then tortures him with her shrewish ways. Pasquale finally becomes so relieved to discover that he has merely been the victim of an intrigue, rather than a catastrophic marriage, that he does not hesitate any longer to give Norina and his nephew his consent to their marriage.

In the case of _Don Pasquale_ its overture is heard far more often than potpourris of principal sections. It opens with heavy descending chords which lead into an opulent song for cellos, soon assumed by horns and the woodwind. The heart of the overture is a saucy melody for strings. The music now becomes dramatized with transitional material, but a new gay melody is offered by the woodwind and strings. The main string melody and the succeeding sprightly tune are recalled to finish the overture in a gay mood.

_L’Elisir d’amore_ (_The Elixir of Love_) like _Don Pasquale_, is a delightful comic opera, one of the most effervescent ever written. It received its first performance in Milan on May 12, 1832. The libretto, by Felice Romani, was based on Eugène Scribe’s _Le Philtre_. Nemorino, in love with Adina who rejects him, purchases a love elixir from the quack, Dr. Dulcamara. But a sudden inheritance from his uncle, which forthwith makes Nemorino extremely popular with the girls, proves even more potent in winning Adina’s love than the potion itself.

Orchestral selections from his gay opera include one of the best loved tenor arias in the operatic repertory. It is “_Una furtiva lagrima_,” a soulful song by Nemorino in the second act with which he hopes to console Adina when he sees her jealousy suddenly aroused by the fact that he had become the favorite of the village girls. Other familiar episodes include a merry comic number “_Udite, Udite_” in which Dr. Dulcamara boasts of the power of his potions, and a beautiful aria, “_Quanto è bella_,” in which Nemorino discloses his love and longing for Adina, both in the first act.

_Lucia di Lammermoor_ is Donizetti’s most famous grand opera, and the title role has been favored by the world’s foremost coloratura sopranos. The libretto, by Salvatore Cammarano, was based on the Sir Walter Scott romance, _The Bride of Lammermoor_. The opera was first performed in Naples on September 26, 1835. Lucia, sister of Lord Ashton, is in love with Edgar; but in planning to have her marry the wealthy Lord Arthur Bucklaw, Lord Ashton uses lies and wiles to convince his sister that Edgar does not love her. On the day of the signing of the marriage contract between Lucia and Bucklaw, Edgar invades the Lammermoor castle and curses its family. Maddened by her grief, Lucia kills her husband soon after the wedding, and then dies. When Edgar learns that Lucia has loved him all the time, he commits suicide.

The favorite selections from this opera include one of the most famous ensemble numbers in all opera, the sextet “_Chi mi frena_.” It is sung in Act 2, Scene 2, by Lucia, Edgar, Bucklaw, Raimond, Ashton and Alisa after Edgar had invaded the Lammermoor castle and witnessed the signing of the marriage contract between Lucia and Bucklaw. Each of the characters here gives voice to his or her personal reaction to this dramatic situation: Lucia speaks of her despair at the treachery of her brother; Edgar wonders why he does not commit an act of vengeance; Lord Ashton is led to sympathy at his sister’s despair; Lucia’s companion, Alisa, and Bucklaw hope that bloodshed might be averted; and Raimond, a chaplain, invokes divine help.

Another highly popular excerpt from the opera offered in orchestral potpourris includes Lucia’s “Mad Scene” from Act 3, Scene 2 (“_Ardon gl’incensi_”). Dressed in a white gown, Lucia appears and mistakes her brother for her beloved Edgar, who she believes has come to marry her. Then she entreats those around her to place a flower on her grave and not to weep at her death (“_Spargi d’amaro pianto_”).

Several other selections often played include Lucia’s lyrical cavatina from Act 1, Scene 2 (“_Quando rapita in estasi_”) as she thinks of her beloved Edgar; the love duet of Lucia and Edgar from the same scene (“_Verrano a te sull’aure_”); and the wedding music from Act 3, Scene 1 that precedes the “Mad Scene” (“_D’immenso giubilo_”).

Franz Drdla

Franz Drdla was born in Saar, Moravia on November 28, 1868. He attended the Conservatories in Prague and Vienna, winning at the latter place first prize in violin playing and the medal of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. After serving for several years as a violinist in the orchestra of the Vienna Court Opera, he toured Europe as a concert violinist. From 1923 to 1925 he lived in the United States, making many concert appearances. He died in Bad Gastein, Austria, on September 3, 1944.

Drdla’s most famous compositions are slight but lyrical pieces for the violin, of which he wrote over two hundred fifty. His most famous composition is the _Souvenir_, with its familiar upward skip in the main melody and its broad sentimental middle section in double stops. In a similarly sentimental and gentle melodic vein (they might aptly be described as instrumental songs) are the _Romance_, _Serenade in A_ (No. 1), and _Vision_. All are familiar to violin students, and to lovers of light classics in transcriptions for orchestra.

Riccardo Drigo

Riccardo Drigo was born in Padua, Italy, on June 30, 1846. He first became famous as conductor of orchestral concerts at the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg. After World War I, he continued his activities as conductor in his native city. He died there on October 1, 1930.

Drigo was the composer of ballets and operas, none of which have survived. He is today remembered almost exclusively for two slight but well loved items. One is the melodically suave _Serenade_, popular in every conceivable transcription. It comes out of a ballet entitled _I milioni d’Arlecchino_ (_Harlequin’s Millions_) and consequently is sometimes known as the _Harlequin’s Serenade_. The other is _Valse bluette_, an elegant waltz melody, which the composer originally wrote for salon orchestra, but which is in the violinist’s repertory by virtue of a famous transcription.

Arcady Dubensky

Arcady Dubensky was born in Viatka, Russia, on October 15, 1890. After being graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1909 he played the violin in the orchestra of the Moscow Opera. In 1921 he came to the United States, where he later became a citizen. He served as violinist of the New York Symphony Society, and after that of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, until his retirement in 1953.

Dubensky had written many works for orchestra, whose sound technique and fresh approaches command respect. One or two of these are of popular appeal without sacrificing sound musical values. Of particular interest is the _Stephen Foster Suite_ for orchestra (1940), in which Dubensky quotes five Stephen Foster songs: “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair,” “Some Folks,” “I See Her Still in My Dreams,” and “Camptown Races.” The composer goes on to explain: “The first part represents to me a beautiful summer evening in the country. From far away I hear a choir, coming gradually closer and then fading into the distance. It sings to me the wonder song, ‘My Old Kentucky Home.’ The second part is built around ‘Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair.’ Here the melody is given to a tenor solo, with a soft, gentle orchestral accompaniment beginning with a short introduction. The last two parts are for orchestra. The fourth part centers around the song ‘I See Her Still In My Dreams.’ It is a dreamy song, and I have given it the character of an intermezzo played by string orchestra, muted. If this movement is played in slow tempo, and pianissimo, it sounds not at all realistic but like the dream it portrays. The fifth part, ‘Camptown Races’ is the focal point of the suite. The theme is treated in a number of different keys and always in a different character. Sometimes it is delicate and graceful, and sometimes rude and robust, but always it is gay.”

Paul Dukas

Paul Dukas was born in Paris, France, on October 1, 1865. After attending the Paris Conservatory, where he won prizes in counterpoint and fugue as well as the second Prix de Rome, he served as music critic for several Parisian journals. From 1910 to 1912 he was professor of orchestration at the Paris Conservatory, and from 1927 until his death its professor of composition. His first successful work was a concert overture, _Polyecute_, introduced in Paris in 1892. His Symphony in C major, first heard in 1897, enhanced his reputation while his orchestral scherzo, _The Sorcerer’s Apprentice_, also introduced in 1897, made him famous. Being exceptionally fastidious and self-critical, Dukas did not produce many compositions, but the best of these are works so aristocratic in technique and subtle in musical content that they make a direct appeal only to sophisticated music lovers. These works include the opera _Ariane et Barbe-bleue_, first performed in Paris on May 10, 1907; the ballet, _La Péri_, introduced in Paris on April 22, 1912; and some piano music. Towards the end of his life, Dukas destroyed several of his earlier works deeming them unsuitable for survival. He was one of France’s most revered musicians. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1906, and in 1918 elected a member of the _Conseil de l’enseignement supérieur_ at the Paris Conservatory. He died in Paris on May 17, 1935.

_The Sorcerer’s Apprentice_ (_L’Apprenti sorcier_), scherzo for orchestra (1897), is Dukas’ most famous composition, the one that made him known throughout the world of music. It is so witty, so vivid in its pictorial writing that it has become a favorite of both the very young and the mature. The program, which the music follows with amazing literalness, comes from Goethe’s ballad _Der Zauberlehrling_ which, in turn, was adapted from a famous folk tale. The story goes something like this: An apprentice to a magician has come upon his master’s secret formula for turning a broom into a human being and making it perform human tasks. The apprentice decides to try out this incantation for himself while the master is away, and watches with amazement as the broom acquires human powers. He orders the broom to fetch water, a command meekly obeyed. Pail after pail of water is carried into the magician’s shop by the broom until the place is rapidly being inundated. The apprentice now tries to arrest the water-fetching activity of the broom, but he does not know the proper incantation to achieve this, or to strip the broom of its human powers. In terror, the apprentice attacks the broom with a hatchet. The broom, split into two brooms, now becomes two humans performing the ritual of bringing water into the den. In despair, the apprentice cries out for his master who arrives in time to bring the broom back to its former inanimate state, and to restore order.

The atmosphere of mystery and peace prevailing in the magician’s den is created in the opening measures with a descending theme for muted violins, while different woodwinds give a hint of the principal subject, a roguish tune describing the sorcerer’s apprentice; this subject finally appears in the double bassoon, and is then repeated by the full orchestra. The call of trumpets suggests the incantation pronounced by the apprentice; a brisk theme for bassoons against plucked strings describes the parade of the broom back and forth as it brings the water; and arpeggio figures in the orchestra depict the water itself. The music then portrays the mounting terror of the apprentice as he is unable to arrest the march of the broom. After an overwhelming climax, at which point the apprentice splits the broom into two with a hatchet, the saucy march tune is doubled to inform us that two brooms are now at work. A shriek in the orchestra simulates the panic-stricken call of the apprentice. After the master arrives and sets things in order, the music of the opening measures is repeated to suggest that once again the magician’s den is pervaded by peace and mystery.

_The Sorcerer’s Apprentice_ was made into an animated motion picture by Walt Disney, the Dukas music performed on the sound track by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Stokowski; it was part of a program collectively entitled _Fantasia_ which came to New York on November 13, 1940.

Antonin Dvořák

Antonin Dvořák was born in Muehlhausen, Bohemia, on September 8, 1841. As a boy he studied the violin with the village schoolmaster. He subsequently attended the Organ School in Prague. After completing his studies, he played in various orchestras in Prague, including that of the National Theater from 1861 to 1871 where he came under the influence of Smetana, father of Bohemian national music. Dvořák first attracted interest as a composer with _Hymnus_, a choral work introduced in 1873. Two years later he won the Austrian State Prize for a symphony, and in 1878 he became famous throughout Europe with the _Slavonic Dances_. In 1883 he was appointed organist of the St. Adalbert Church in Prague. From 1892 to 1895 he was the director of the National Conservatory in New York. During this period he was influenced in his compositions by the folk music of the American Negro and Indian. From 1901 until his death he was director of the Prague Conservatory. He died in Prague on May 1, 1904.

A prolific composer of operas, symphonies, chamber and piano music, and songs, Dvořák stood in the forefront of the Romantic composers of the late 19th century and among the leading exponents of Bohemian national music. He was gifted with an expressive melodic gift, a strong and subtle rhythmic pulse, and an inventive harmonic language. Whatever he wrote was charged with strong emotional impulses, whether he used the style of Bohemian folk music or those of the American Negro and American Indian.

The _Carnival Overture_ (_Carneval_), written in 1891, is one of three overtures planned by the composer as a cycle to portray “three great creative forces of the Universe—Nature, Life, and Love.” A unifying element among them was a melody intended to describe the “unchangeable laws of Nature.” Eventually, Dvořák abandoned this plan and published the three overtures separately, calling them _In Nature_ (_In der Natur_), op. 91, _Carnival_, op. 92, and _Othello_, op. 93.

Dvořák himself provided a description of the music of _Carnival Overture_. He aimed to describe “a lonely, contemplative wanderer reaching the city at nightfall where a carnival of pleasure reigns supreme. On every side is heard the clangor of instruments, mingled with shouts of joy and the unrestrained hilarity of the people giving vent to their feelings in songs and dances.” The overture begins with a lively section portraying the gayety of the carnival. A subdued melody in the violins brings relaxation, but the hubbub soon returns. Another gentle episode depicts a pair of lovers in a secluded corner; the principal melodic material in this part is offered by the solo violin, and by the English horns and flutes. The brilliant opening material returns. It is with this spirit of revelry that the overture ends.

The _Humoresque_ in G-flat major is the seventh in a set of eight _Humoresques_ for piano (1894). This delightful, elegant piece of music in three-part song form has been transcribed not only for orchestra but for every possible instrument or combinations of instruments, and is undoubtedly the most popular composition by the composer. It was Fritz Kreisler, the famous violin virtuoso, who helped make the work so famous. Kreisler visited Dvořák in 1903 and asked him for some music. Dvořák showed him a pile of compositions, most of it completely unknown. Among these was the G-flat major _Humoresque_. Kreisler transcribed it for violin and piano, introduced it at his concerts, later recorded it, and made it universally popular. As we know it today the _Humoresque_ is not the way Dvořák intended it to sound. Dvořák wanted it to be a light, whimsical piece of music, a “humoresque,” in fast tempo. Kreisler transcribed it in a slower tempo and more sentimental mood; and it is in this style that _Humoresque_ is now known and loved.

The _Indian Lament_ is one of several compositions by Dvořák influenced by the idioms of American-Indian music. While serving as director of the National Conservatory in New York, he paid a visit to the town of Spillville, Iowa. There three Iroquois Indians visited him and entertained him with authentic Indian music. Dvořák was so taken with this strange and haunting lyricism, and the primitive rhythms, that he wrote several major works incorporating these idioms. One was a Sonatina in G major for violin and piano, op. 100 (1893). Its slow movement is a delicate song embodying the intervallic peculiarities of authentic American-Indian music. Fritz Kreisler edited this movement and named it _Indian Lament_, the version in which it has become famous. Gaspar Cassadó transcribed this movement for cello and piano.

Dvořák’s _Largo_ is the second movement of his Symphony No. 5 in E minor better known as the _Symphony from the New World_ (1893). This is the symphony written by Dvořák during his visit to the United States as director of the National Conservatory. One of his students was Harry T. Burleigh, who brought to his attention the music of the Negro Spiritual. These melodies moved Dvořák so profoundly that he urged American composers to use the style, technique and personality of these Negro songs as the basis for national American music. As if to set an example, Dvořák wrote several compositions in which his own melodic writing was strongly influenced by the Negro Spiritual. The most significant of these was his symphony, which received its world première in the United States (at a concert of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on December 15, 1893, Anton Seidl conducting). The main spacious, poignant melody of the Largo movement—given by English horn over string harmonies after a few preliminary chords—so strongly simulates the personality of a Negro Spiritual that it was long thought that Dvořák was indulging in quotation. This is not true; the melody is Dvořák’s own. Many transcriptions of this melody exist. One is the familiar song, “Goin’ Home,” lyrics by William Arms Fisher (also one of Dvořák’s pupils); another is a composition for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler called _Negro Spiritual Melody_; a third is an adaptation for salon orchestra by Sigmund Romberg.

This Largo movement has two other melodies besides the basic one in the Negro-Spiritual style. One is heard in flute and oboe, and the second in the oboe.

The _Scherzo Capriccioso_, in D-flat major, op. 66 (1883) is one of the composer’s liveliest and most dynamic larger works for orchestra, but in an idiom that is neither Bohemian nor American. It is in two sections. The first is the Scherzo, opening with an energetic subject for horns that is a kind of a motto theme for the entire work. The principal melody that follows is stated by full orchestra; after that comes a waltz-like tune for violins. The second part of the composition, a trio, is introduced by an expressive melody for English horn. A secondary theme then comes in the strings and wind. The principal idea of the first section now receives extended treatment before the second theme of the second part returns in a modified form. The work ends with a coda in which effective use is made of the opening motto subject.

Dvořák achieved international fame for the first time with the first set of eight _Slavonic Dances_, op. 46, published in 1878. He had been recommended to the publisher Simrock by Brahms; it was the publisher who suggested to Dvořák that he write Slavonic dances similar to the Hungarian dances which Brahms had made so popular. Dvořák wrote his first set for piano four-hands; but these instantly proved so successful that Simrock prevailed on Dvořák to orchestrate them. In 1886, Dvořák wrote a second set of eight _Slavonic Dances_, op. 72, once again both for four-hand piano and for orchestra. Though the melodies and harmonic schemes in all these dances are Dvořák’s, they have caught the essence of the Slavonic folk song and dance, and to such a degree that their authentic national character has never been questioned. Karel Hoffmeister wrote: “Something of the Slavic character speaks in every phrase of them—the stormy high-spirited mood of the Furiants; the whimsical merriment, the charm, the touch of coquettry, the ardent tenderness of the lyrical passages.”

The following are among the best known of these dances:

C major, op. 46, no. 1. A chord sustained through one measure is followed by a whirlwind presto passage. After a sudden pianissimo we hear a second rhythmic melody. Music of a more serene character appears in flute and strings after a change of key. A force climax is evolved to set the stage for the return of the opening whirlwind subject.

E minor, op. 46, no. 2. A poignant melody is here contrasted with a dynamic rhythmic section. Fritz Kreisler transcribed this dance for violin and piano.

A-flat major, op. 46, no. 6. A dance melody with a strong rhythmic impulse is the opening subject. Pianissimo chords lead to a new virile subject, but there soon comes a decisive change of mood with two expressive melodies. This dance, however, ends dynamically.

G minor, op. 46, no. 8. This is one of the gayest of the Slavonic dances, alive in its electrifying changes of dynamics and tonality.

E minor, op. 72, no. 2. This is one of the best loved of all these dances, a song of rare sensitivity and sadness, only temporarily alleviated by the more optimistic music of the middle section. Fritz Kreisler transcribed it for violin and piano.

A-flat major, op. 72, no. 8. Here, as in the preceding E minor dance, the emphasis is on tender, elegiac song in strings. A dramatic middle section provides some relief, but the gentle moodiness of the opening section soon returns. Fritz Kreisler transcribed it for violin and piano.

_Songs My Mother Taught Me_ is one of Dvořák’s most celebrated songs. It is one of seven gypsy songs, based on Slavonic-gypsy folk idioms, gathered in op. 55 (1880); the lyrics are by Adolf Heyduk. This nostalgic, delicate melody has enjoyed numerous transcriptions, including one for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler, and another for cello and piano by Alfred Gruenfeld.

Sir Edward Elgar

Sir Edward Elgar was born in Broadheath, near Worcester, England on June 2, 1857. He studied the organ with his father, and the violin with Adolf Pollitzer in London. In 1885 he succeeded his father as organist of St. George’s Church in Worcester. Two years after his marriage to Alice Roberts, which had taken place in 1889, he withdrew to Malvern where he lived the next thirteen years, devoted completely to serious composition. Several choral works were performed at various English festivals before Elgar achieved outstanding success, first with the _Enigma Variations_ for symphony orchestra, introduced in London in 1899, and then with his oratorio, _The Dream of Gerontius_, whose première took place in Birmingham in 1900. From then on Elgar assumed a position of first importance in English music by virtue of his two symphonies, vast amount of orchestral, choral and chamber music, and songs. He was generally regarded one of the most significant English composers since Purcell in the 17th century. Elgar was knighted in 1904, appointed Master of the King’s Music in 1924, and made a baronet in 1931. He died in Worcester, England, on February 23, 1934.

It is not difficult to understand Elgar’s enormous popularity. Together with an elegant sense of structure and style, and a consummate musicianship, he had a virtually inexhaustible fund of ingratiating lyricism. His best works are conceived along traditional lines. They are Romantic in concept, and poetic in content. These qualities—and with them a most ingratiating sentiment—are also found in his semi-classical pieces.

The _Bavarian Dances_, for orchestra, come from _The Bavarian Highlands_, a set of choral songs based on Bavarian folk songs adapted by Elgar’s wife, Alice, and set for chorus with piano and orchestra, op. 27 (1895). Three folk tunes were subsequently adapted by the composer for orchestra. Collectively called _Bavarian Dances_, the individual dances were subtitled by the composer “The Dance,” “Lullaby,” and “The Marksman.” These dances were first introduced in London in 1897 and have since enjoyed universal acceptance in some cases for their peasant rhythmic vigor, and in others for their atmospheric charm.

The _Cockaigne Overture_ (_In London Town_), for orchestra, op. 40 (1901) describes London “as represented by its parks and open spaces, the bands marching from Knightsbridge to Buckingham Palace, Westminster with its dignified associations of Church and State,” in the words of Sir George Grove. The composer himself revealed he wanted to portray in his music the sights witnessed by a pair of lovers as they stroll through the city. The hubbub of the city is depicted in the opening measures, following by an intensely romantic section highlighted by a broad melody for strings, reflecting the feelings of the lovers as they stop off momentarily to rest in a public park. They continue their walk, hear the approaching music of a brass band, then enter a church where organ music is being played. The lovers continue their walk. The animated life of the city streets once again is reproduced, and the earlier romantic melody telling of their emotional ardor for each other is repeated.

_In the South_ (_Alassio_), a concert overture for orchestra, op. 50 (1904) was written one Spring while the composer was vacationing in southern Europe. This work reflects Elgar’s intense love of Nature. The following quotation appears in the published score: “A land which _was_ the mightiest in its old command and _is_ the loveliest; wherein were cast the men of Rome. Thou are the garden of the world.” The overture opens with a gay tune for clarinets, horns, violins and cellos. It receives vigorous treatment and enlargement before a pastoral section is given by the woodwind and muted strings, a description of a shepherd and his flock. The overture then alternates between stress and tranquillity, with great prominence being given to the shepherd’s melody. A viola solo then leads to the recapitulation section.

_Pomp and Circumstance_ is a set of five marches for symphony orchestra, op. 39. The composers wanted these marches to provide such music with symphonic dimensions in the same way that dance music (polonaise or waltz, etc.) acquired artistic stature at the hands of Chopin, among others. The phrase “pomp and circumstance” comes from Shakespeare’s _Othello_. The five marches are in the keys of D major, A minor, C minor, G major, and C Major. The first two were written in 1901; the third, in 1905; the fourth in 1907; and the fifth in 1930. The most famous of these is the second in A minor, one of Elgar’s most frequently performed compositions, and music as often identified with the British Empire as “God Save the King.” It opens in a restless, vigorous vein and erupts into a spacious melody for strings which Laurence Housman subsequently set to lyrics (“Land of Hope and Glory”). Elgar once again used this same melody in his _Coronation Ode_ for King Edward VII in 1902. The opening brisk, restless music is recalled after a full statement of the melody.

The first in D major has a vigorous introduction after which unison strings come forth with a robust march tune. The opening introduction is subsequently used as a transition to the trio in which a soaring melody is set against a uniform rhythmic beat.

The fourth in G major, known as “Song of Liberty,” is also familiar. Once again the opening consists of spirited march music, and once again the heart of the composition is a broad and stately melody for the strings. This melody receives extended treatment which culminates with a rousing statement by the full orchestra.

_Salut d’amour_, for chamber orchestra, op. 12 (1889) is a nostalgic and sentimental piece of music in three-part song form that has become a salon favorite. It is also famous in a transcription for violin and piano.

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was born in Washington, D.C. on April 29, 1899. His career as a popular musician began in his adolescence when he performed jazz pieces on the piano in an ice-cream parlor in Washington, and after that formed his own jazz group. In 1923 he came to New York where he soon thereafter formed a jazz band which performed at the Kentucky Club in Harlem. Discovered by Irving Mills, the publisher, Ellington was booked for the Cotton Club where he remained several years and established his fame as an outstanding exponent of real jazz—as pianist, conductor of his orchestra, composer, and arranger. He has since joined the all-time greats of jazz music, acclaimed in night clubs, on the Broadway stage and Hollywood screen, over the radio, on records, and in triumphant tours throughout the music world.

As a composer Ellington is famous for his popular songs (“Mood Indigo,” “Sophisticated Lady” and so forth) and short instrumental jazz pieces (_Black and Tan Fantasy_, _Creole Rhapsody_, _East St. Louis Toodle-oo_, etc.) All this falls within the province of either popular music or jazz, and for this reason cannot be considered here.

Ellington has also produced a rich repertory of larger works for orchestra which have a place in the permanent library of semi-classical music in the same way that Gershwin’s larger works do. Skilfully utilizing the fullest resources of jazz techniques, styles, and idioms, Ellington has created in these larger works an authentically American music. He himself prefers to consider many of these works as “Negro music” rather than jazz; nevertheless, in their blues harmonies, jazz colorations, and melodic and rhythmic techniques these works represented jazz music at its very best.

Perhaps the most distinguished of these symphonic-jazz works is _Black, Brown and Beige_, an extended work which Ellington introduced with his orchestra in Carnegie Hall, New York, in 1943, and which he described as a “tonal parallel of the Negro in America.” The first movement, “Black,” is a musical picture of the Negro at work, singing at his labors on the docks and levees in the slavery period before the Civil War. An alto saxophone solo brings on a plangent Spiritual, “Come Sunday.” The second movement, “Brown,” represents the wars in which Negroes have participated. A tenor solo sings an eloquent blues of the unsettled condition of the Negro after the Civil War. The contemporary Negro is the inspiration for the finale, “Beige,” utilizing jazz idioms and styles in portraying the period of the Twenties, Thirties and Forties. Many facets of Negro life are drawn in brief musical episodes, including the Negro church and school, and the Negro’s aspiration towards sophistication. The work ends on a patriotic note, prophesying that the Negro’s place in the American way of life is secure.

Georges Enesco

Georges Enesco was born in Liveni, Rumania, on August 19, 1881. He studied the violin at the Conservatories of Vienna and Paris, winning highest honors in both places. Following the completion of his studies in 1899, he launched a successful career both as concert violinist and as composer. For several years he was the court violinist to the Queen of Rumania, besides making outstandingly successful appearances on the concert stage throughout Europe. His debut as composer took place in Paris before his sixteenth birthday, with a concert devoted entirely to his own works. Success came in 1901 with his _Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1_. Enesco also distinguished himself as a conductor. When he made his American debut—on January 2, 1923 with the Philadelphia Orchestra in New York City—it was in the triple role of violinist, conductor, and composer. After World War I, Enesco divided his residence between Paris and his native Rumania while touring the music world. He made his last American appearance in 1950 on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of his debut as violinist; once again he appeared in the triple role of violinist, conductor and composer. He suffered a stroke in Paris in July 1954 and died there on May 4, 1955. After his death, his native village, and a street in Bucharest, were named after him.

Enesco was Rumania’s foremost twentieth-century composer. His major compositions range freely over several different styles from nationalism, to neo-classicism, to ultra-modernism. But the works with which he first gained world fame, and which have since had the widest circulation, are those in a national Rumanian style, with Oriental-like melodies and propulsive rhythms all modeled after the exotic folk songs and dances of the Rumanian gypsies.

In such a style are his two Rumanian rhapsodies for orchestra: No. 1 in A major, op. 11, no. 1 (1901); No. 2 in D major, op. 11, no. 2 (1902). The first rhapsody is the one played more often. It opens with a languorous subject for clarinet which is soon assumed by other woodwind, then by the strings and after that (in a quickened tempo) by the full orchestra. A passionate gypsy tune follows in the strings; and this is succeeded by an abandoned dance melody in first violins and the woodwind, and an Oriental-type improvisation in solo flute. Now the mood becomes more frenetic, with a rapid succession of whirling folk-dance tunes and rhythms that are carried to a breathtaking climax. Relaxation finally comes with a gentle Oriental melody in clarinet, but this is only a passing phase. The rhapsody ends in a renewed outburst of vitality.

In comparison to the first, the second rhapsody is an emotionally reserved piece of music. After a solemn declaration by the strings, there comes an equally sober and restrained folk song in the strings. The dark mood thus projected becomes further intensified with a theme for English horn against tremolo strings and continues throughout most of the rhapsody, except for a brief interpolation of a vigorous dance melody by the solo viola.

Leo Fall

Leo Fall was born in Olmuetz, Austria, on February 2, 1873. The son of a military bandmaster, he early received music instruction from his father. Then, after attending the Vienna Conservatory, he conducted theater orchestras in Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne. An opera, _Paroli_, was unsuccessfully produced in Berlin before Fall settled permanently in Vienna to devote himself to the writing of those charming operettas in an abundantly lyric vein and graceful, sophisticated manner which the Austrian capital favored. His greatest successes were _The Dollar Princess_ in 1907, _The Rose of Stamboul_ (_Die Rose von Stambul_) in 1916, and _Madame Pompadour_ in 1923. He died in Vienna on September 15, 1925.

Fall’s most famous operetta is _The Dollar Princess_ (_Die Dollarprinzessin_), selections from which are often given on salon programs. _The Dollar Princess_—book by A. M. Willner and F. Gruenbaum based upon a comedy by Gatti-Trotha—was introduced in Vienna on November 2, 1907. Its first American performance took place on September 6, 1909 at the Knickerbocker Theater in an adaptation by George Grossmith, Jr. Some songs by Jerome Kern were interpolated into the New York production. The “dollar princess” is the heroine of the operetta: Alice Couder, pampered daughter of a New York coal magnate who goes in pursuit of Freddy. When at a lavish party at the Couder mansion she brazenly announces her intention of marrying Freddy without previously consulting him, he leaves her in disgust, and goes off to Canada where he becomes a successful business man. He cannot forget Alice, however. He brings the Couders to Canada on a pretext of discussing with the father a business deal, when he confesses his love to Alice, who no longer is brazen or arrogant.

A Viennese operetta must by necessity have a major waltz number, and _The Dollar Princess_ is no exception; “_Will sie dann lieben treu und heiss_” from Act 1, is the most important melody of the operetta. When other selections from this operetta are given they invariably include also the lilting title song from Act 2, and the seductive little duet “_Wir tanzen Ringelreih’n hin einmal und her_.”

Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla, Spain’s most significant twentieth-century composer, was born in Cádiz on November 23, 1876. After studying music with private teachers in his native city, and with J. Tragó and Felipe Pedrell in Madrid, he completed in 1905 _La Vida breve_, a one-act opera that received first prize in a competition for native Spanish operas sponsored by the Academia de Bellas Artes. From 1907 to 1914 he lived in Paris where he absorbed French musical influences and became a friend of Debussy and Ravel. In 1914 he was back in his native land; from 1921 to 1939 he lived a retiring existence in Granada, devoting himself to serious composition. He left his native land in 1939 because of his disenchantment with the Franco regime which he had originally favored. Until his death on November 14, 1946, he lived in seclusion in Alta Gracia, in the province of Córdoba, in Argentina.

Falla’s art is deeply embedded in the soil of Spanish folk songs and dance. His major works, which number a mere handful, are all evocations of the spirit of Spain in music which, though never a direct quotation from Spanish sources, is nevertheless Spanish to the core in details of melody, harmony, and rhythm. His principal works include a harpsichord concerto, _Nights in the Gardens of Spain_ (_Noches en los jardines de España_) for piano and orchestra, the ballet _El Amor brujo_, and the opera _The Three-Cornered Hat_ (_El sombrero de tres picos_).

In Falla’s most effective national idiom are two popular Spanish dances. The _Ritual Fire Dance_ (_Danza ritual del fuego_) is the seventh section from the ballet, _El Amor brujo_ (1915). Trills with the searing intensity of hot flame lead into a languorous Spanish melody for the oboe, behind which moves an irresistible rhythm. This is followed by a second subject more intense in mood, loudly proclaimed by unison horns and after that repeated quietly by muted trumpets. Throughout, this dance has an almost savage ferocity, the music continually punctuated by piercing chords; the dance is finally brought to a frenetic conclusion. The composer himself made a highly effective transcription of this dance for solo piano, and Gregor Piatigorsky for cello and piano.

The _Spanish Dance No. 1_ comes from the second act of the opera, _La Vida breve_, with which Falla first achieved recognition. An impulsive rhythmic opening serves as the background for a bold and sensual gypsy melody for horns and strings. The piece ends with rich chords for full orchestra. Fritz Kreisler made a fine transcription of this dance for violin and piano.

Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel-Urbain Fauré was born in Pamiers, France, on May 12, 1845. His music study took place in Paris with Niedermeyer and Saint-Saëns. After that he served as organist in Rennes and Paris, and held the important post of organist at the Madeleine Church in Paris from 1896 on. In 1896 he also became professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory where, from 1905 until 1920, he was director. In 1909 he was elected member of the Académie des Beaux Arts, and in 1910 made Commander of the Legion of Honor. In the last years of his life he suffered from deafness. He died in Paris on November 4, 1924.

Fauré was one of France’s major composers, creator of a considerable library of piano and chamber music as well as works for symphony orchestra which included _Pelleas and Melisande_, a suite (1898) and the _Ballade_ for piano and orchestra (1881). His music is filled with classic beauty, serenity, and a most delicate sensibility and thus makes an appeal only to a highly cultivated music lover. But a few of his works have such melodic charm and appealing moods that they cannot fail to cast a spell even on the untrained listener.

_Après un rêve_ is a song, the first in a set of three published as op. 7 (1885), lyrics by Romain Bussine. Exquisite in its sensitive lyricism, this melody has become popular in many transcriptions, some for orchestra, one for violin and piano by Mischa Elman, and another for cello and piano by Pablo Casals.

_Dolly_ (1893-1896) is a suite of six pieces for children which the composer originally wrote as a piano duet for Dolly Bardac, daughter of a woman who later became Debussy’s wife. Henri Rabaud orchestrated this suite in 1906, and it was first performed in connection with a ballet staged at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris. In this music the composer looks back on childhood and the world of the child with poetic insight and occasionally a gentle sense of humor; in this respect this suite is not unlike _Children’s Corner_ of Debussy. It opens with “Berceuse,” a gentle melody for the woodwind, which Jacques Thibaud arranged for violin and piano. This is followed by “Mi-a-ou,” a little quartet for muted trumpets. A flute solo dominates “_Le Jardin de Dolly_,” while “_Kitty Valse_” is a light and vivacious waltz tune. In “_Tendresse_” the melody is first heard in strings. A tranquil middle section presents the solo oboe above a harp accompaniment. The closing movement, “_Le Pas espagnol_” is gay and brilliant music that pays homage to Chabrier, composer of _España_.

The _Pavane_, for orchestra, op. 50 (1887) is music of stately, classic beauty over which hovers the Hellenic spirit so often found in Fauré’s most significant works. Against an insistent rhythm, the flute offers the haunting refrain of the Pavane. This dance melody is soon shared by the other woodwind, after which it unfolds completely in violins and the woodwind, other strings providing a rhythmic pizzicato accompaniment. A transition in the strings then leads us back to the graceful mood and the gentle lyricism of the Pavane melody.

The same subdued and classic repose we find in the _Pavane_ distinguishes another of Fauré’s popular compositions, the _Sicilienne_, for cello and piano, op. 78 (1898). Transcriptions for orchestra of this composition are even more famous than the original version.

Friedrich Flotow

Friedrich Freiherr von Flotow was born in Teutendorf, Mecklenburg, on April 26, 1812. He was descended from a family that traced its nobility back several centuries. After studying music in Paris with Anton Reicha and Johann Pixis between 1828 and 1830, he wrote his first opera, _Peter und Katharina_. Success came first with _Alessandro Stradella_ introduced in Hamburg in 1844, and was solidified in 1847 with the opera by which he is still remembered, _Martha_. From 1856 to 1863 he was Intendant of the Schwerin Court Theater. He went into retirement in 1880 and died in Darmstadt, Germany, on January 24, 1883.

The ebullient melodies with which Flotow flooded his operas made him extremely popular in his day. This same joyous lyricism keeps the overtures to _Alessandro Stradella_ and _Martha_ fresh in the orchestral repertory.

_Alessandro Stradella_—introduced in Hamburg on December 30, 1844—was based on a romantic episode in the life of a 17th century opera composer; the libretto was by Wilhelm Friedrich. Stradella elopes with Leonora, whose guardian hires assassins to kill the composer. But Stradella’s singing has such an effect on the assassins that they are incapable of murdering him. They let him go, and in the end the guardian himself is moved to forgive the composer and sanction his union with Leonora.

The overture opens with a solemn chant for the brass (Stradella’s song in the last act). Vigorous transitional material leads to a robust song for full orchestra which is soon repeated expressively by the strings. A sprightly tune for strings (the bell chorus of the second act) is given prominent treatment and developed climactically. The mood now alternates between lightness and gaiety with an occasional intrusion of a strong dramatic effect.

_Martha_ received its première in Vienna on November 25, 1847. The libretto, by Friedrich Wilhelm Riese was based on a ballet-pantomime by Vernoy de Saint-Georges. “Martha” is Lady Harriet in disguise as a servant girl for the sake of an amusing escapade; and the opera is concerned with her amatory adventures with Lionel, and that of her maid with Plunkett, at the Richmond fair. The complications that ensue when the men discover this deception are eventually happily resolved.

The overture begins with a slow introduction which leads into a _Larghetto_ section where considerable attention is paid to the main melody of the quintet at the close of the third act, “_Mag der Himmel euch vergeben_.” The tempo quickens as the lively country dances of the opera are presented. A crescendo reaches towards a fortissimo restatement of the main theme of the third-act quintet, and the overture ends with a brief and energetic coda.

Salon orchestras often present potpourris of this opera’s main melodies. Two are always dominant in such potpourris. “The Last Rose of Summer” (“_Qui sola, vergin rosa_”)—an aria sung by the heroine in the second act—is a melody familiar to all; it is not by Flotow, but from an old Irish song, “The Groves of Blarney,” set to a poem by Thomas Moore. The second famous melody from _Martha_ is the beautiful tenor aria from the third act, “_M’Appari_,” in which Lionel expresses his grief when he feels he has lost Martha for good.

Stephen Foster

Stephen Collins Foster, America’s foremost song composer, was born in Lawrenceville, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1826. He received no formal musical training. _Tioga Waltz_, in 1841, was his first piece of music to get performed. About a year after that, Foster published his first song, “Open Thy Lattice, Love.” His initial success came with “Oh, Susanna!” for which he received only $100. But “Oh, Susanna!” became so popular soon after its publication in 1848 that it became the theme song (with improvised lyrics) of the Forty Niners on their way to California. Beginning with 1848 he wrote songs for Ed Christy’s Minstrels—at first allowing some of them to appear as Christy’s own creations. It was within the context of the minstrel show that such permanent Foster favorites as “Camptown Races” and “Old Folks at Home” were first performed. Both songs were outstandingly successful and, because of a favorable contractual arrangement with a New York publisher, Foster was earning handsome royalties. Now feeling financially secure, Foster married Jane Denny McDowell in 1850, a relationship that was unhappy almost from the beginning. In 1860 Foster came to New York with the hope of furthering his career as a composer. But by now he was virtually forgotten by the public, and publishers paid him only a pittance for his last songs, many of them mostly hack pieces. Always disposed towards alcohol, Foster now became a habitual drunkard, living in the most abject poverty in a miserable room on the Bowery. He died at Bellevue Hospital on January 13, 1864.

Foster was the composer of numerous songs which in various orchestral arrangements are basic to the repertory of every salon or pop orchestra. His greatest songs were inspired by the Negro; they are the eloquent expressions of Northern sentiment about slavery in the South. Foster’s most famous Negro songs are: “Old Folks at Home” (or “Swanee River”), “Massa’s in de Cold, Cold Ground,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Ol’ Black Joe.”

When Foster first wrote “Old Folks at Home” his inspiration was an obscure Florida River by the name of “Pedee.” But while writing his song he thought “Pedee” not sufficiently euphonious for his purpose. He went to a map of Florida to find another river, came upon “Suwanee” which he contracted to “Swanee.”

Foster was also successful in the writing of sentimental ballads. Here his most important songs were “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair” (written for and about his wife), and “Beautiful Dreamer.”

Besides orchestral adaptations of individual songs, Foster’s music is represented on orchestral programs by skilful suites, or ingenious symphonic transcriptions of individual songs, by other composers. Arcady Dubensky’s _Stephen Foster Suite_ is discussed in the section on Dubensky, and Lucien Caillet’s _Fantasia and Fugue on “Oh, Susanna!”_ in the Caillet section. Other composers to make symphonic use of Foster’s melodies are: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (_Humoresques on Foster Themes_); Morton Guild (_Foster Gallery_); and Alan Shulman (_Oh, Susanna!_).

Rudolf Friml

Rudolf Friml was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on December 7, 1879. He received his musical training at the Prague Conservatory, after which he toured Europe and America as assisting artist and accompanist for Jan Kubelik, the noted violin virtuoso. In 1906, Friml established permanent residence in the United States, making several appearances as concert pianist, twice in the performance of his own Concerto in B-flat. He now published piano pieces, instrumental numbers, and songs which attracted the interest of two publishers, Gus Schirmer and Max Dreyfus. When, in 1912, Victor Herbert stepped out of an assignment to write the music for the operetta _The Firefly_, both Schirmer and Dreyfus recommended Friml as his replacement. _The Firefly_ made Friml famous. Until 1934 he continued writing music for the Broadway stage, achieving further triumphs with _Rose Marie_ in 1924, _The Vagabond King_ in 1925, and _The Three Musketeers_ in 1928. After 1934, Friml concentrated his activity on motion pictures in Hollywood.

Friml belongs with those Broadway composers of the early 20th century whose domain was the operetta modelled after German and Austrian patterns. As long as the operetta was popular on the Broadway stage, Friml remained a favorite, for his ingratiating melodies, pleasing sentimentality, winning charm, and strong romantic flair were in the best traditions of the operetta theater. But when the vogue for operettas died down and the call came for American musicals with native settings and characterizations, realistic approaches, and a greater cohesion between text and music, Friml’s day was over. He has produced nothing of significance since the middle 1930’s, and very little of anything else. But the music he wrote for his best operettas has never lost its appeal.

_The Firefly_, book and lyrics by Otto Harbach, was introduced in New York on December 2, 1912. The plot concerned a little Italian street singer by the name of Nina (enchantingly played by Emma Trentini). She disguises herself as a boy to get a job aboard a yacht bound for Bermuda, and is first accused and then cleared of the charge of being a pickpocket. Many years later she reappears as a famous prima donna when she is finally able to win the wealthy young man with whom she had fallen in love while working on the yacht.

Orchestral potpourris from _The Firefly_ always include three of the songs Emma Trentini helped to make famous: “Giannina Mia,” “The Dawn of Love” and “Love is Like a Firefly.” The melodious duet, “Sympathy,” is also popular.

_The Donkey Serenade_, now regarded as one of the favorites from _The Firefly_ score, was not in the original operetta when it was produced on Broadway. Friml wrote it in collaboration with Herbert Stothart for the motion picture adaptation of the operetta released in 1937 and starring Jeanette MacDonald and Allan Jones. This appealing Spanish-type melody is set against an intriguing rhythm suggesting the jogging movement of a donkey; this rhythm precedes and closes the number, which has become as celebrated in an instrumental version as it is as a song with lyrics by Chet Forrest and Bob White.

_Rose Marie_, book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II, came to Broadway on September 2, 1924 where it remained for more than a year. The rest of the country became acquainted with this lovable operetta at that time by means of four road companies. The setting is the Canadian Rockies, and the love interest involves Rose Marie and Jim, the latter falsely accused of murder. The Canadian Mounted Police, headed by Sergeant Malone, help to clear Jim and to bring the love affair of Rose Marie and Jim to a happy resolution. Selections in orchestral adaptations most often heard from this operetta include two of Friml’s most famous songs, the title number and “Indian Love Call”; a third delightful song was found in “Totem Tom Tom.” _Rose Marie_ was adapted for motion pictures three times, once in a silent version.

_The Vagabond King_ had for its central character the French vagabond poet of the 15th century, François Villon, who is made king for a day. This musical was based on the romance of J. H. McCarthy, _If I Were King_, adapted by Brian Hooker. _The Vagabond King_, which opened on September 21, 1925, was one of Friml’s greatest successes, mainly because of such rousing numbers as “The Song of the Vagabonds,” the caressing waltz melody “Waltz Huguette,” and the love song “Only a Rose,” all often heard in orchestral adaptations. _The Vagabond King_ was made into motion pictures twice, most recently in 1956 starring Kathryn Grayson and Oreste.

Julius Fučík

Julius Fučík was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on July 18, 1872. He was a pupil of Antonin Dvořák in composition. After playing the bassoon in the German Opera in Prague in 1893, he became bandmaster of the 86th and 92nd Austrian Regiments in which he won renown throughout Europe. He died in Leitmeritz, Czechoslovakia, on September 25, 1916. Fučík wrote numerous dance pieces and marches for band. The most popular of these is the stirring march, _Entrance of the Gladiators_, which became popular throughout the world and is still frequently played by salon orchestras as well as bands.

Sir Edward German

Sir Edward German was born Edward German Jones in Whitchurch, England, on February 17, 1862. He attended the Royal Academy of Music in London where, in 1895, he was elected Fellow. Meanwhile, in 1888-1889 he became the musical director of the Globe Theater in London. The incidental music he wrote there that year for Richard Mansfield’s production of _Richard III_ proved so popular that Sir Henry Irving commissioned him to write similar music for his own presentation of _Henry VIII_. German subsequently wrote incidental music for many other plays including _Romeo and Juliet_ (1895), _As You Like It_ (1896), _Much Ado About Nothing_ (1898) and _Nell Gwynn_ (1900). He also produced a considerable amount of concert music, including two symphonies and various suites, tone poems, rhapsodies, and a march and hymn for the Coronation of George V in 1911. German was knighted in 1928, and in 1934 he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society. He died in London on November 11, 1936.

German is most famous for his incidental music for the stage. He combined a graceful lyricism with a consummate skill in orchestration. He also possessed to a remarkable degree the capacity of simulating the archaic idioms of old English music of the Tudor and Stuart periods. Thus the greatest charm of his writing lies in its subtle atmospheric recreation of a bygone era; but a lightness of touch and freshness of material are never sacrificed.

Of his incidental music perhaps the most famous is that for Shakespeare’s _Henry VIII_, introduced at the Lyceum Theater in London in 1892 in Sir Henry Irving’s production. German’s complete score consists of an overture, five entr’actes, a setting of the song “Orpheus and his Lute” and other pieces. But what remain popular are three delightful old English dances from the first act; the style and spirit of old English music are here reproduced with extraordinary effect. The three are: “Morris Dance,” “Shepherd’s Dance,” and “Torch Dance.”

The best sections of his incidental music to Anthony Hope’s _Nell Gwynn_, produced at the Prince of Wales Theater in 1900, also are revivals of old English dances: “Country Dance,” “Merrymaker’s Dance,” and “Pastoral Dance.” Other delightful dances, often in an old English folk style, are found in his incidental music to _As You Like It_ (“Children’s Dance,” “Rustic Dance,” and “Woodland Dance”) and _Romeo and Juliet_ (“Pavane” and “Torch Dance”).

German also wrote several operettas, the most famous being _Merrie England_, text by Basil Hood, first performed at the Savoy Theater in London on April 2, 1902. The setting is Elizabethan England, and the plot involves the love affair of Sir Walter Raleigh and the Queen’s Maid of Honor which upsets Queen Elizabeth since she herself has designs on Sir Walter. German’s score is filled with the most delightful old world jigs, country dances, glees, and melodies imitating the style of old-time madrigals. In addition, there is here an impressive patriotic song (“The Yeomen of England”), Queen Elizabeth’s effective air (“O Peaceful England”), a rousing drinking song by Sir Walter Raleigh, a poignant ballad by the Maid of Honor, and an equally moving love duet by the Maid of Honor and Sir Walter Raleigh. Because of its effective music, rich with English flavors, _Merrie England_ has survived as one of the most popular English operettas of the 20th century, and has often been revived in London.

Among German’s many concert works for orchestra one of the most famous is the _Welsh Rhapsody_ (1902). This is a skilful symphonic adaptation of Welsh tunes, the last of which (“Men of Larech”) is utilized by the composer to bring his rhapsody to a powerful culmination. The other Welsh folk songs used earlier by the composer in this rhapsody are “Loudly Proclaim O’er Land and Sea,” “Hunting the Hare,” “Bells of Aberdorry” and “David of the White Rock.”

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 26, 1898. Though he received serious musical training in piano from Charles Hambitzer, and in harmony and theory from Edward Kilenyi, he early set his sights on popular rather than serious music. When he was fifteen he found a job as song plugger and staff pianist in Tin Pan Alley where he soon began writing songs. The first to get published was “When You Want ’Em You Can’t Get ’Em” in 1916; in the same year another of his songs, “The Making of a Girl” appeared for the first time on the Broadway stage, in _The Passing Show of 1916_. Gershwin’s first complete score for Broadway was _La, La, Lucille_, and his first smash song hit was “Swanee,” both in 1919. Between 1920 and 1924 Gershwin wrote the music for five editions of the George White _Scandals_ where he first demonstrated his exceptional creative gifts; his most famous songs for the _Scandals_ were “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” and “Somebody Loves Me.” For one of the editions of the _Scandals_ he also wrote a one-act Negro opera to a libretto by Buddy De Sylva—originally called _Blue Monday_ but later retitled _135th Street_.

Late in 1923, Paul Whiteman, the orchestra leader, commissioned Gershwin to write a symphonic work in a jazz style for a concert Whiteman was planning for Aeolian Hall, in New York. That jazz composition—introduced on February 12, 1924—was the _Rhapsody in Blue_ with which Gershwin achieved world renown, and which once and for all established the jazz idiom and jazz techniques as significant material for serious musical deployment. From then on, until the end of his life, Gershwin continued to write concert music in a popular style—growing all the time in technical assurance, in the command of jazz materials, and in the inventiveness of his melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic writing. In the eyes of the world he assumed a position of first significance among American composers. For the symphony orchestra he wrote the Piano Concerto in F, _An American in Paris_, _Cuban Overture_, _Variations on I Got Rhythm_, and the _Second Rhapsody_; for solo piano, the three piano preludes; for the stage his monumental folk opera, _Porgy and Bess_.

While devoting himself to the concert field, Gershwin did not neglect the popular Broadway theater. He produced a library of remarkable songs for such productions as _Lady Be Good_ (1924), _Oh Kay!_ (1926), _Funny Face_ (1927), and _Girl Crazy_ (1930). The best of these included “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Lady Be Good,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Clap Yo’ Hands,” “’S Wonderful,” “I Got Rhythm,” “Embraceable You,” and “But Not for Me.” The lyrics for these and other Gershwin song classics were written by his brother, Ira.

In 1930 Gershwin revealed a fresh bent for mockery and satire, together with a new skill for more spacious musical writing than that required for a song, in _Strike Up the Band_, a satire on war. These qualities in Gershwin’s music came to full ripeness in 1931 with the political satire _Of Thee I Sing!_, the first musical ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

In 1931, Gershwin wrote his first original score for motion pictures, _Delicious_. When he returned to Hollywood in 1936 he settled there permanently and wrote the music for several delightful screen musicals, among these being _Damsel in Distress_, _Shall We Dance_, and _The Goldwyn Follies_. The songs he wrote for the last-named revue (they included “Love Walked In” and “Love Is Here to Stay”) were the last pieces of music he was destined to write. He died in Hollywood, California on July 11, 1937, a victim of a cystic tumor on the right temporal lobe of the brain. His screen biography, _Rhapsody in Blue_, was produced in 1945. In 1951, the screen musical, _An American in Paris_ (whose score included several of Gershwin’s songs as well as the tone poem that gave this picture its title) received the Academy Award as the best picture of the year. _Porgy and Bess_ was adapted for motion pictures, in a Samuel Goldwyn production, in 1959.

It would be difficult to overestimate Gershwin’s importance in American music. To the popular song he brought the technical skill of a consummate musician, endowing it with a rhythmic, melodic and harmonic language it had rarely before known. By that process he often lifted it to the status of true art. To serious music he contributed the vitality and the spirit—as well as the techniques and idioms—of American popular music; serious musicians throughout the world were inspired by his example to create a serious musical art out of the materials of American popular music. Since his untimely death, his artistic stature has grown in all parts of the civilized world. There will be few today to deny him a place of honor among America’s foremost composers.

_An American in Paris_ is a tone poem for symphony orchestra inspired by a European vacation in 1928. It received its world première in New York on December 13, 1928, Walter Damrosch conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. In this music the composer describes the nostalgia of an American tourist for home, and his experiences as he strolls along the boulevards of Paris. It opens with a “walking theme,” a sprightly little tune for strings and oboe; our American is beginning his stroll. As he walks he hears the piercing warnings of taxi horns: Gershwin’s score calls for the use of actual Parisian taxi horns. The American passes a café, and stops for a moment to listen to the sounds of a music-hall melody, presented by the trombones. Then he resumes his stroll, as a second walking subject is heard in the clarinet. A solo violin (which Deems Taylor interpreted as a young lady accosting our tourist!) provides a transition to two main melodies in both of which the American’s growing feeling of homesickness finds apt expression. The first is a blues melody for muted trumpets; the second a Charleston melody for two trumpets. The blues melody receives climactic treatment in full orchestra. After a hasty recollection of the second walking theme, the composition comes to a vigorous conclusion. As Mr. Taylor goes on to explain, the tourist now decides “to make a night of it. It will be great to get home, but meanwhile, this is Paris!”

The Concerto in F, for piano and orchestra, was the immediate consequence of Gershwin’s phenomenal success with the _Rhapsody in Blue_. The Concerto was commissioned in 1925 by the New York Symphony Society and its conductor, Walter Damrosch. They introduced it in Carnegie Hall, on December 3, 1925, with the composer as soloist. This work, like its eminent predecessor, is in a jazz style; but unlike the first version of the _Rhapsody in Blue_ it boasts Gershwin’s own orchestration. (From this time on Gershwin would always prepare his own orchestrations for his serious concert music.) There are three movements. The first (_Allegro_) begins with a Charleston theme shared by the woodwind and timpani. The main body of this movement is given over to a spicy jazz tune first heard in the bassoon and after that in full orchestra; to a tender melody for solo piano; and to a lilting waltz for strings with decorative treatment by the piano. The second movement (_Andante con moto_) is lyrical throughout, and at times subtly atmospheric and poetic. Muted trumpet, against harmonies provided by three clarinets, set the romantic stage for the felicitous lyrical thoughts that ensue: a brisk, jazzy, strikingly rhythmic idea for the piano; and a broad, sensual melody for strings. This movement ends in the same sensitive atmospheric mood with which it began. In the finale (_Allegro con brio_) dynamic forces are released. Main themes from the first two movements are recalled with a particularly effective recapitulation of the second theme of the first movement in the strings.

The _Cuban Overture_ was written in 1932 after a brief visit to Havana and was introduced at the Lewisohn Stadium in New York, Albert Coates conducting, on August 16, 1932. This is a concert overture for orchestra utilizing native percussion Cuban instruments. The work has three sections played without interruption. The first consists of two melodies, a Cuban theme in strings followed by a second lyrical subject which is placed against the contrapuntal background of fragments from the first Cuban theme. A solo clarinet cadenza leads to the middle section which is a two-voice canon. The ensuing finale makes considerable use of earlier thematic material and ends with an electrifying presentation of a fully projected rumba melody in which prominent use is made of Cuban percussion instruments (cuban stick, bongo, gourd, and maracas).

The folk opera, _Porgy and Bess_, was Gershwin’s last work in the field of serious music—and his greatest. It took Gershwin over two years to write his opera, a period during which he spent some time in the opera’s setting of Charleston, South Carolina, absorbing not only local color but also native Negro music whose style he skilfully assimilated into his own writing. He completed his opera in the summer of 1935; on September 30 its world première took place in Boston; and on October 10, it began its New York run. It cannot be said that either critics or audiences were fully aware at the time that they were hearing a masterwork. Some of the Boston and New York scribes found things to admire in the opera, but most of them were highly critical. Olin Downes said “it does not utilize all the resources of the operatic composer or pierce very often to the depths of the pathetic drama.” Lawrence Gilman found Gershwin’s emphasis on the popular element a disturbing blemish while Virgil Thomson did not hesitate at the time to refer to it as “a fake.” The run of 124 performances in New York (followed by a three-month tour) represented a box-office failure.

Gershwin himself remained convinced he had written a work of first importance, but regrettably he did not live to see his faith in his opera justified beyond his wildest hopes or aspirations. Revived in New York in 1941 it had an eight-month run, the longest of any revival in Broadway history. More important still, many critics revised earlier estimates. Virgil Thomson now spoke of it as “a beautiful piece of music and a deeply moving play for the lyric theater.” Olin Downes said that Gershwin had here “taken a substantial step, and advanced the cause of native opera.” The New York Music Critics Circle singled it out as the most important musical revival of that season.

But still greater triumphs awaited the opera. In 1952, a Negro cast toured Europe under the auspices of the State Department. Before that tour was over, several years later, the opera had been heard throughout Europe, the Near East, in countries behind the Iron Curtain, the Soviet Union and Latin America. Everywhere it enjoyed acclaim realized by few contemporary operas anywhere. There were not many dissenting voices in the universal judgment that _Porgy and Bess_ was one of the most significant operas of the twentieth century, and certainly one of the most popular. And its popularity was further enhanced by the stunning production given it by Samuel Goldwyn in motion pictures in 1959.

The text of the opera was based on the play _Porgy_, by Dorothy and Du Bose Heyward, produced by the Theater Guild in New York in 1927, which in turn had been adapted from Du Bose Heyward’s novel of the same name. The opera text and lyrics were written by Du Bose and Dorothy Heyward with several additional lyrics by Ira Gershwin. The tragic love affair of the cripple, Porgy, and Bess, a lady of easy virtue, is set in the Negro tenement, Catfish Row, in Charleston, South Carolina. Porgy has found true happiness with Bess for the first time in his life. When Crown, Bess’ old sweetheart returns to claim her, Porgy kills him but manages to elude the law after having been detained a while. Upon returning to Catfish Row he discovers that his Bess had succumbed to the lure of dope, and the gay life in New York offered her by Sportin’ Life. Heartbroken, Porgy jumps in his goat cart to follow Bess to New York and try to bring her back.

The main melodic sections of the opera have provided the material for several delightful suites. The most famous is _A Symphonic Picture_ by Robert Russell Bennett, commissioned by Fritz Reiner, the conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1942. Bennett created out of the score an integrated tone poem faithful to Gershwin’s own harmonic and orchestral intentions. The tone poem (or suite) is made up of the following sequences in the order of their appearance: Scene of Catfish Row with the peddler’s calls; Opening Act II; “Summertime” and Opening of Act I; “I Got Plenty of Nuttin’”; Storm Music; “Bess, You Is My Woman Now”; “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and the finale, “Oh Lawd I’m On My Way.”

George Gershwin himself prepared an orchestral suite from his opera score in 1936, and conducted it in performances with several major American orchestras in 1936-1937. This manuscript, long forgotten, was found in the library of Ira Gershwin, and was revived in 1959 by Maurice Abravanel and the Utah Symphony. Now named _Catfish Row_, to distinguish it from other suites prepared by other musicians, it had five sections: “Catfish Row,” “Porgy Sings,” “Fugue,” “Hurricane,” and “Good Morning, Brother.”

Beryl Rubinstein transcribed five of the principal melodies from the opera for piano, and Jascha Heifetz for violin and piano.

The three piano _Preludes_ are famous not only in their original version but also in transcriptions for symphony orchestra. The first prelude, in B-flat major, is rhythmically exciting, highlighting the basic elements of the tango and the Charleston. The second, in C-sharp minor, is the most famous of the set. This is an eloquent three-part blues melody. The concluding prelude, in E-flat major, once again like the first one has greater rhythmic than melodic interest, a lively expression of uninhibited good feelings. Besides transcriptions for orchestra by Roy Bargy, Gregory Stone and several others, these preludes have been adapted for violin and piano by Heifetz, for trumpet and piano by Gregory Stone, and for saxophone and piano by Sigurd Rascher.

The _Rhapsody in Blue_ was Gershwin’s first work for symphony orchestra and it is the composition with which he first won fame, fortune, and artistic significance. It was commissioned by Paul Whiteman for an all-American music concert planned by that bandleader for Aeolian Hall, New York, on February 12, 1924. With the composer at the piano, the _Rhapsody_ appeared as the tenth and penultimate number of a long program, but it was the work that gave Whiteman’s concert its main interest and significance. The critics the following day were divided in their opinion. On the one hand, Henry T. Finck considered it superior to the music of Schoenberg and Milhaud; equally high words of praise came from Gilbert W. Gabriel, William J. Henderson, Olin Downes, Deems Taylor, and Carl van Vechten. In the opposite camp stood Pitts Sanborn and Lawrence Gilman who described the work as “meaningless repetition” and “trite, feeble, and conventional.”

But the opposing opinions notwithstanding, the _Rhapsody in Blue_ immediately became one of the most famous pieces of serious music by an American. It was transcribed for every possible instrument or groups of instruments; it was adapted several times for ballet; it was used in a motion picture. Royalties from the sale of sheet music and records brought in a fortune. Through the years it has never lost its popularity; it is still one of the most frequently performed American symphonic works.

Its prime significance rests in the fact that it decisively proved that it was possible to produce good music within ambitious structures utilizing idioms and techniques of American jazz. The _Rhapsody in Blue_ was by no means the first composition to do so; it was preceded by works by Erik Satie, Stravinsky, and Milhaud among others. But due to its enormous popular appeal it was the most influential composition of all in convincing the world’s foremost composers that jazz could be used with serious intent. Undoubtedly it was largely as a result of the triumph of the _Rhapsody in Blue_ that world-famous composers like William Walton, Constant Lambert, Maurice Ravel, Kurt Weill and Paul Hindemith among many others produced serious jazz music.

Much has been said about its diffuseness of structure, and the inept way its material is developed. But for all its faults, the _Rhapsody in Blue_ remains a vital, dynamic and at times an inspired piece of music. It is filled with wonderful lyricism; its rhythmic cogency is irresistible; its identity is completely American.

The work opened with an ascending seventeen-note slide by the clarinet which culminates in the saucy, first theme. A transition in the wind instrument leads to another brisk, jaunty idea for piano. After some development, and several ascending chords in the piano we get to the heart of the rhapsody and to one of the most famous melodies in all contemporary symphonic music: a spacious, rhapsodic song for the strings. The full orchestra repeats it. Two earlier themes are now briefly recalled, the first theme by the full orchestra, the second by the piano. A brief, dramatic coda brings the rhapsody to an exciting conclusion.

For the Paul Whiteman concert of 1924, Ferde Grofé provided the orchestration from a two-piano version handed him by the composer. Gershwin later prepared his own orchestration, and it is this version that is now given by all the major symphonic organizations.

The _Second Rhapsody_ for orchestra succeeded the more popular _Rhapsody in Blue_ by eight years; it was first performed by the Boston Symphony under Koussevitzky on January 29, 1932. Gershwin originally called this work _Rhapsody in Rivets_ because the opening measures present a strongly rhythmic subject in solo piano suggesting riveting. This “rivet theme” is then taken over by the full orchestra, after which we hear a rumba melody. These ideas are then developed. A piano cadenza brings on a spacious melody, first in strings, and then in brass. All this material is amplified before the rhapsody is swept to an exciting end.

This rhapsody was the outgrowth of a six-minute sequence written by the composer for the motion picture, _Delicious_. The sequence was intended to describe the sights and sounds of a city. In the picture only one of the six minutes of this music was retained, but Gershwin liked the rest of it well enough to expand it into a major symphonic work.

The _Variations on I Got Rhythm_, for piano and orchestra, was written for a tour of one-night stands made by Gershwin throughout the United States in all-Gershwin programs. Its first performance took place in Boston on January 14, 1934. The main subject is a famous Gershwin song, “I Got Rhythm” which Ethel Merman made famous in the musical comedy _Girl Crazy_. The symphonic work begins with a four-note ascending phrase from the first measure of the song’s chorus, presented by solo clarinet. The theme is then taken over by solo piano and after that by full orchestra, after which the entire chorus is presented by the piano. In the ensuing variations the composer changes not only the basic structure of the song, melodically and rhythmically, but also its mood and feeling, traversing the gamut of emotion from melancholy to spirited gaiety.

Still another remarkably effective symphonic adaptation of “I Got Rhythm” was made by Morton Gould, and introduced by him with his orchestra over the CBS radio network in 1944.

Gershwin wrote two marches, both with satirical overtones, which are often given at “pop concerts.” Each was meant for a musical comedy. “Strike Up the Band” comes from the musical comedy of the same name, produced on January 14, 1930 starring Clark and McCullough. This was a stinging satire on war and international diplomacy, with America embroiled in a conflict with Switzerland over the issue of chocolates. The march, “Strike Up the Band,” helps deflate some of the pomp and ceremony of all martial music.

“Wintergreen for President” comes from _Of Thee I Sing_, the epoch-making satire on politics in Washington, D.C., first produced on December 26, 1931. “Wintergreen for President” is the music accompanying a political torchlight parade whose illuminated signs read “Even Your Dog Loves Wintergreen” and “A Vote for Wintergreen Is a Vote for Wintergreen” and so on. The march music carries over the satirical implications of this procession by quoting such tunes as “Hail, Hail the Gang’s All Here,” “Tammany,” “A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” and “Stars and Stripes Forever.” This music even carries a hasty recollection of Irish and Jewish music to suggest that Wintergreen is a friend of both these people.

Gershwin’s greatest songs are often performed in orchestral transcriptions at all-Gershwin concerts and other “pop performances,” sometimes singly, and sometimes in various potpourris. Besides songs already mentioned in the first part of this section, Gershwin’s greatest ones include the following: “Bidin’ My Time” from _Girl Crazy_; “I’ve Got a Crush On You” from _Strike Up the Band_; “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” from _Shall We Dance_; “Liza” from _Show Girl_; “The Man I Love,” originally meant for _Lady Be Good_ but never used there; “Mine” from _Let ’Em Eat Cake_; the title song from _Of Thee I Sing_; “Soon” from _Strike Up the Band_; “That Certain Feeling” from _Tip Toes_; and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” from _Shall We Dance_. Among those who have written orchestral medleys of Gershwin’s songs are Nathan van Cleve, Fred von Epps, Claude Thornhill, David Broekman, Irving Brodsky, George B. Leeman, and Nathaniel Finston.

Henry F. Gilbert

Henry Franklin Belknap Gilbert was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, on September 26, 1868. He attended the New England Conservatory, and studied composition privately with Edward MacDowell, before playing the violin in various theaters. For many years music was a secondary pursuit as he earned his living in a printing establishment, a real-estate agent, factory foreman, and finally an employee in a music-publishing firm. A hearing in Paris of Gustave Charpentier’s opera, _Louise_, proved such an overpowering experience that it inspired him to devote himself henceforth to music alone. In 1902 he helped found in America the Wa-Wan Press which promoted nationalism in American music and published Gilbert’s first works. In these a strong emphasis was placed by the composer upon American folk music and American folk idioms. In 1903 he wrote _Humoresque on Negro Minstrel Tunes_. After that came his famous _Comedy Overture on Negro Themes_ (1905), the symphonic ballet _The Dance in Place Congo_ (1906), the _Negro Rhapsody_ (1913), and _Indian Sketches_ (1921). Here native elements were skilfully fused into a style that was Romantic to produce music that remains appealing for its freshness and vitality. Towards the end of his life, Gilbert was an invalid. Nevertheless, in 1927, he traveled to Germany in a wheel-chair to attend a performance of his _Dance in Place Congo_ at the Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Frankfurt. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 19, 1928.

The _Comedy Overture on Negro Themes_ (1905) is one of Gilbert’s most frequently performed compositions. It is made up of five sections played without interruption. The composer goes on to explain: “The first movement is light and humorous, the theme being made from two four-measure phrases taken from Charles L. Edwards’ book _Bahama Songs and Stories_.... This is followed by a broader, and somewhat slower, phrase. I have here used the only complete Negro tune which occurs in the piece ... formerly used as a working song by roustabouts and stevedores on the Mississippi River steamboats in the old days.... Next comes a fugue. The theme of this fugue consists of the first four measures of the Negro Spiritual ‘Old Ship of Zion.’... It is given out by the brass instruments and interspersed with phrases from the roustabouts’ song.... After this a short phrase of sixteen measures serves to reintroduce the comic element. There is a repetition of the first theme and considerable recapitulation, which leads finally to the development of a new ending or coda, and the piece ends in an orgy of jollity and ragtime.”

_Dance in Place Congo_ (1906) is both a ballet and a tone poem for orchestra. Its first version was a pantomime ballet, but soon thereafter the composer adapted his score into a composition for orchestra. The tone poem—describing the barbaric revels on a late Sunday afternoon of slaves in Place Congo, a section on the outskirts of New Orleans—opens in a dark mood which achieves a climax with an outcry in the orchestra. At this point a bamboula melody is heard in full orchestra. It is permitted to gain in intensity until it acquires barbaric ferocity. When the passions are spent, a beautiful romantic section unfolds, occasionally interrupted by a recall of the bamboula theme. Various Negro songs and dances are then presented over an insistent rhythm. The somber mood of the opening is brought back to conclude the composition.

_The Indian Sketches_ for orchestra (1921) presents several facets of American-Indian life. “They are,” explains the composer, “for the most part not musical pictures of definite incidents so much as they are musical mood pictures.” There are six sections. The first, a prelude, is music of savage power. This is followed by the subjective music of the “Invocation,” a prayer or supplication of the Great Spirit. “Song of the World” briefly develops a cry of the Kutenai Indians, and “Camp Dance” is a scherzo portraying the lighter side of Indian life. “Nocturne” is a romantic description of the dark forests alive with the distant sounds of birds and animals. The suite concludes with the “Snake Dance,” suggested by a prayer dance for rain of the Hopi Indians in Arizona.

Don Gillis

Don Gillis was born in Cameron, Missouri, on June 17, 1912. He was graduated from Christian University at Fort Worth, Texas in 1936, after having engaged in various musical activities including the direction of a band and a symphony orchestra, and the writing of two musical comedies produced at the University. Following the completion of his education he became a member of the faculty of Christian University and Southwest Baptist Seminary; served as a trombonist and arranger for a Fort Worth radio station; and played the trombone in the Fort Worth Symphony. In 1944 he became a producer for the National Broadcasting Company in New York, taking charge of many important programs including those of the NBC Symphony.

As a composer of symphonies and other orchestral compositions Gillis reveals a refreshing sense of humor as well as a delightful bent for whimsy, qualities which make some of his works ideal for programs of light music. He has often drawn inspiration and materials from American folk music and jazz, consistently producing music that combines sound musical values with sound entertainment. “My feeling,” he has said, “is that music is for the people and the composer’s final aim should be to reach them. And since the people whistle and sing, I should like them to whistle and sing my music.” Thus Gillis aims for simplicity, sincere emotions, and sheer fun. “I have tried to write so that there will be a feeling of enjoyment in the fun of the thing.”

_Portrait of a Frontier Town_, a suite for orchestra (1940), is a tuneful composition consisting of five short movements. The title of each of these provides the clue to the programmatic content of the music. The first, “Chamber of Commerce,” portrays the activities of such an organization in a typical American town. “Where the West Begins” tells of the opening of the West through two significant musical subjects, the first for strings, and the second for oboe, flute, and clarinet. “Ranch House Party” is described in the score as “brightly—in a gay manner.” A jovial melody first given by the full orchestra gives prominent attention to percussion instruments. This is followed by a mood picture, “Prairie Sunset” in which the English horn, answered by the clarinet, presents the main melody. The suite concludes with “Main Street Saturday Night,” in which gaiety and abandon alternate with suggestions of nostalgia.

_Symphony No. 5½_ (1947), is one of the composer’s wittiest works which he himself subtitled as “a symphony for fun.” It consists almost entirely of jazz melodies, some treated in burlesque fashion; the work also quotes some famous melodies in a facetious manner. The four movements have whimsical titles: “Perpetual Emotion,” “Spiritual?”, “Scherzophrenia” and “Conclusion.”

Alberto Ginastera

Alberto Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 11, 1916. He was graduated with honors from the National Conservatory in his native city where, in 1953, he became professor. In 1946 he visited the United States remaining a year on a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ginastera’s music combines musical elements native to Argentina with modern techniques and idioms, and includes ballets, chamber music, a _Pastoral Symphony_ and other works for orchestra, and pieces for the piano.

The _Dances_ from the ballet, _Estancia_ (1941) is among his most popular works. The ballet, choreography by George Balanchine, was first introduced by the Ballet Caravan. It describes life on an “estancia,” an Argentine ranch, tracing the activities of its principal character through a single day from dawn of one day to dawn of the next. The orchestral dances are rich in native melodies and rhythms, presenting the various dance sequences in “stylized version.” Two dances are especially popular: “Dance of the Wheat” and “Malambo.”

Alexander Glazunov

Alexander Glazunov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on August 10, 1865. As a boy he studied music privately while attending a technical high school. At fifteen he became a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov in harmony, counterpoint and orchestration. Such was his progress that only one year later he completed a gifted symphony which was performed in St. Petersburg in 1882 and acclaimed by several eminent Russian musicians. Between that year and 1900, Glazunov produced most of the works which won him renown not only in Russia but throughout the rest of the music world: symphonies, string quartets, numerous shorter orchestral works, and compositions in a lighter style. Here he was the traditionalist who placed reliance on palatable melodies, sound structures, and heartfelt emotion. For these reasons much of what he has written falls gracefully into the light-classic category. After 1914 he wrote little, nothing to add to his stature. Meanwhile he achieved renown first as professor then as director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He also made successful appearances as conductor following his debut at the Paris Exposition in 1899; his first appearance in the United States took place in Detroit on November 21, 1929. In 1928, Glazunov left his native land for good, and from then until his death on March 21, 1936 his home was in Paris.

The _Carnival Overture_, or _Carnaval_, op. 45 (1894) is a brilliant picture of a festival. It opens with a lively dance melody in violins and woodwind. This is followed by a more stately melody in woodwind and violins against a counter-melody in cellos and bassoons. A brief transition leads to the main body of the overture built out of two basic ideas. The first is a gay dance tune in flutes and clarinets; the second provides a measure of contrast through a more reflective subject for oboes, clarinets, horns, and cellos.

_From the Middle Ages_—a suite for orchestra, op. 79 (1902)—evokes the settings and backgrounds of the middle ages in four sections. The first is a “Prelude,” portraying a castle by the sea, the home of two lovers. Death plays the violin in the second movement, a “Scherzo”; he urges the people to dance to his abandoned fiddling. In the third part, “Serenade,” a troubadour sings his tune. The suite ends with “The Crusaders,” in which soldiers are marching off to war, while priests chant a solemn blessing.

The original title of _Ouverture solennelle_, op. 73 (1901) was _Festival Overture_; the music throughout has a festive character. After preliminary chords, woodwind and horns present a subject soon taken over and amplified by the strings. The main part of the overture begins with an expressive and soulful melody for the violins. The second theme is first given by the clarinets against a vigorous accompaniment. After the first theme receives elaboration, the overture concludes with a forceful coda.

The orchestral suite _Raymonda_, op. 57a, comes from the score to a ballet with choreography by Marius Petipa; it was introduced in St. Petersburg on January 17, 1898. The composer’s first work for the stage, this ballet has for its central character the lovely Raymonda, betrothed to a knight. After the knight has gone off to join the Crusade and fight the Saracens, Raymonda is wooed by a Saracen. When she rejects him he makes an attempt to abduct her. Just then the knight returns, and slays the culprit. The lovers thus reunited, are now able to celebrate their nuptials.

The orchestral suite is a staple in the light-classical repertory. It consists of the following sections: I. “Introduction.” Raymonda’s sorrow at the absence of her lover. A scene in Raymonda’s castle where pages indulge in athletics. II. “_La Traditrice._” The dance of pages and maidens. III. “_Moderato._” Fanfares announce the arrival of a stranger. Joy and general animation. As Raymonda enters, girls throw flowers in her path. IV. “_Andante._” Raymonda is playing the lute outside the castle in the moonlight. Raymonda dances. VI. “Entr’acte; _Valse fantastique_.” Raymonda dreams she is in fairyland with her beloved. VII. “_Grand Pas d’action._” At a feast given by Raymonda at her castle the Saracen appears, woos her, and is spurned. VIII. “Variation.” Raymonda defies the Saracen, who now tries to dazzle her with his wealth. IX. “Dance of the Arab Boys.” “Dance of the Saracens.” X. “Entr’acte.” The triumph of love and the festivities attending the nuptials.

_Scènes de ballet_, suite for orchestra, op. 52 (1894) is made up of eight parts. The first, “_Préamble_,” has an extended introduction to a main section in which the main subject is given by the violins. “Marionettes,” offers a lively theme for piccolo and glockenspiel with which this section opens and closes; midway comes a trio with main theme in first violins. The third part is a “Mazurka” for full orchestra. The fourth is a “Scherzo,” its principal idea in muted strings and woodwind. An expressive melody for cellos and violins is the heart of the fifth section, “_Pas d’action_,” while the sixth, “_Dame orientale_” is a sensuous, exotic dance melody set against the insistent beats of a tambourine. The ensuing “_Valse_” begins with an introduction following which the main waltz melody is presented by the violins. The suite concludes with a dashing “Polonaise” for full orchestra.

The orchestral suite, _The Seasons_, op. 67—like that of _Raymonda_—comes from a ballet score. The ballet—choreography by Marius Petipa—was first performed in St. Petersburg in 1900. The scenario interprets the four seasons of the year in four scenes and an apotheosis. First comes Winter and her two gnomes; they burn a bundle of faggots, whose heat causes Winter to disappear. Spring now arrives with Zephyr, Birds and Flowers. All of them join in a joyous dance. When Summer comes he is in the company of the Spirit of the Corn. Various flowers perform a dance, then fall exhausted on the ground. Satyrs and fauns, playing on pipes, try to recapture the Spirit of the Corn who is protected by the flowers. In the Autumn scene, Bacchantes perform a dance in the company of the Seasons. The Apotheosis presents an idyllic scene with stars shining brightly in the sky.

The orchestral suite adapted from the ballet score by the composer for concert purposes is one of his best known compositions. It consists of the following sections: I. “Winter: Introduction; The Frost; The Ice; The Hail; The Snow.” II. “Spring.” III. “Summer: Waltz of the Cornflowers and Poppies; Barcarolle; Variation; Coda.” IV. “Autumn: Bacchanale—Petit Adagio. Finale—The Bacchantes and Apotheosis.”

The _Valse de concert_ Nos. 1 and 2, D major and F major respectively, opp. 47 and 51, are among the composer’s most delightful shorter pieces. The first waltz, written in 1893, begins with a brief introduction after which the principal waltz melody is heard first in violas and clarinets, and subsequently in violins. A second theme is then offered by the clarinets against plucked strings, after which the first waltz reappears. The second waltz came one year after the first. This also has a short introduction in which the main waltz melody is suggested. This melody is finally given by the strings. While other thematic material occasionally intrudes, the main waltz subject dominates the entire composition.

Reinhold Glière

Reinhold Glière was born in Kiev, Russia, on January 11, 1875. He was graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1900. After two years in Berlin, he returned to his native land to become professor of composition at the Kiev Conservatory; from 1914 to 1920 he was its director. After 1920 he was a member of the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory. Glière’s most famous works are his third symphony (named _Ilia Mourometz_) introduced in Moscow in 1912, and the ballet, _The Red Poppy_. But he wrote many other works—orchestral, chamber, and vocal, as well as ballets. On two occasions he received the Stalin Prize: in 1948 for his fourth string quartet, and two years later for his ballet, _The Bronze Horseman_. He died in Moscow on June 23, 1956.

Two excerpts from the Soviet ballet, _The Red Poppy_, are perhaps the composer’s best known compositions. The ballet was first presented in Moscow on June 14, 1927 with extraordinary success. Its setting is a port in China where coolies are exploited. When a Soviet ship comes to port, its captain falls in love with a Chinese girl, Tai-Hao. She is ultimately killed by the port commander while she is trying to escape from China on the Soviet ship. Her last words urge the Chinese to fight for their liberty, and she points to a red poppy as a symbol of their freedom.

The most celebrated single excerpt from this ballet is the _Russian Sailors Dance_, for orchestra, with which the third act comes to a whirlwind conclusion. The main melody is a simple Russian tune that appears first in lower strings. It is then subjected to a series of variations, and is permitted to gain momentum through acceleration of tempo and expanding sonorities until an orgiastic climax is reached. Less popular, but still often performed, is the “Dance of the Chinese Girls” from the same ballet. A repeated descending interval leads to an Oriental dance in the pentatonic scale; in this dance percussion instruments and the xylophone are used prominently and with telling effect.

Michael Glinka

Michael Glinka was born to prosperous landowners in Novosspaskoye, in Smolensk, Russia, on June 1, 1804. His academic education took place at a private school in St. Petersburg, while he studied music with Carl Meyer, Carl Boehm and John Field. From 1824 to 1827 he worked in the office of the Ministry of Communications in St. Petersburg. Further music study then took place in Italy and Germany. After returning to his native land in 1834, he was fired with the ambition of writing a national Russian opera. That opera was _A Life for the Tsar_, produced in 1836, an epoch-making work since it is the foundation upon which all later Russian national music rests. Glinka’s second national opera, _Ruslan and Ludmila_, produced in 1842, successfully carried on the composer’s national ideals further. In the last years of his life Glinka traveled a great deal, spending considerable time in Paris, Warsaw, and Spain. He died suddenly in Berlin, Germany, on February 15, 1857.

It is impossible to overestimate Glinka’s significance in Russian music. His national operas were the source from which the later nationalists, the “Russian Five” derived their direction and inspiration.

In _Jota aragonesa_, a “caprice brilliant” for orchestra (1845) Glinka is stimulated by Spanish rather than Russian folk music. This is the first Russian composition to make serious use of Spanish folk idioms. It was written during the composer’s visit to Spain in 1845 where he was fascinated by Spanish folk songs and dances. Within a fantasy form, Glinka poured melodies and dance rhythms closely modeled after the Spanish in which the background, culture, and geography of that colorful country have been fixed.

_Kamarinskaya_ (1848), also for orchestra, is a fantasy in the field in which Glinka was both an acknowledged master and a significant pioneer—Russian folk music. This composition is based on two Russian folk songs heard by the composer in Warsaw: “Over the Hills, the High Hills” (which appears in strings following a brief introduction), and a dance tune, “Kamarinskaya” (first heard in violins).

The most popular excerpts from Glinka’s national opera, _A Life for the Tsar_, are the overture, and the Mazurka and Waltz, for orchestra. The opera—libretto by Baron von Rosen—was first performed in St. Petersburg on December 9, 1836. The action takes place in Poland and Russia in 1612. During the struggle between Russia and Poland, Romanov becomes the new Czar of Russia, and Ivan Susanin, a peasant, is the hero who saves Russia and the Czar. The love interest involves Ivan’s daughter, Antonida, and Bogdan Sabinin.

The overture opens with a stately introduction dominated by a melody for the oboe. A spirited melody brings on the main section. After this melody is developed, a second theme is offered by the clarinets. Both ideas are discoursed upon briefly, and they are given further amplification in the coda.

The Mazurka and Waltz appear at the close of the second act, climaxing a festive celebration held in the throne room of Sigismund III of Poland in his ancient castle. The Waltz comes first. Two principal waltz melodies are given by the woodwind and repeated by strings; a third waltz tune is then heard in brass, and soon taken over by the strings. The Waltz is immediately followed by the Mazurka. After a dignified introduction, a vigorous Mazurka melody unfolds. This leads to a second dance tune, first heard in the woodwind and cellos; but the first Mazurka melody soon reappears in the full orchestra. A third lively dance melody is then presented by the strings.

_Ruslan and Ludmila_ also contributed a lively overture to the orchestral repertory. This opera, with libretto by the composer and several others based on a Pushkin poem, was first heard in St. Petersburg on December 9, 1842. Ruslan is a knight who is a rival of Ratmir for the love of Ludmila. Ludmila is abducted by the dwarf Tchernomor, and after Ruslan has saved her, Ludmila’s father blesses his future son-in-law.

Vigorous chords lead to a dashing melody in violins, violas and woodwinds. A more lyrical second theme, almost folk-song in character, is then heard in violas, cellos and bassoons. Both themes are given a vigorous development in which the sprightly character of the overture is never allowed to lose its brisk pace or vitality.

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck was born in Erasbach, Upper Palatinate, on July 2, 1714, the son of a forester on the estate of Prince Lobkowitz. Gluck received his early music instruction in his native country from local teachers. He then earned his living playing the violin and cello in rural orchestras. In 1736 he came to Vienna where soon thereafter he began to serve as chamber musician for Prince Lobkowitz. After a period of study and travel in Italy he returned to Vienna, now to become one of its most influential musicians. In Vienna he had produced several of his early operas, all of them in the traditional Italian style of that period. But he soon drew away from the stilted conventions of the Italian opera to achieve a fusion of music and drama new to opera, as well as dramatic truth, simplicity, and directness of emotional appeal. His works in this new style, with which a new epoch in opera was launched, included _Orfeo ed Euridice_ in 1762, _Alceste_ in 1767, and _Iphigénie en Aulide_ in 1774, the last written for the Paris stage. After living in Paris from 1773 to 1779, Gluck returned to Vienna to remain there the rest of his life. During his last years he was an invalid. He died in Vienna on November 15, 1787.

Gluck was a giant in the early history of opera. With Rameau, he was a pioneer in establishing music drama as opposed to formal Italian opera. _Orfeo ed Euridice_, produced in Vienna on October 5, 1762—with which Gluck first set forth his new ideas and theories about opera—is the earliest opera to have survived in the permanent repertory.

A delightful _Ballet Suite_, adapted by Felix Mottl from various orchestral dances from several of Gluck’s greatest operas, is an orchestral work by which the composer is most often represented on semi-classical as well as symphonic programs. This suite includes the following: “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from _Orfeo ed Euridice_; “_Air gai_” and “_Lento_” from _Iphigénie en Aulide_; and two old baroque dances, the “Musette” and “Sicilienne” from _Armide_.

The “Dance of the Blessed Spirits” is one of the loveliest of all Gluck’s melodies, and one of the most famous from 18th century opera. This is a beatific song mainly for flute solo and strings, describing Elysium, to which Orfeo has come in search of his wife, Eurydice. Fritz Kreisler’s transcription for violin and piano is entitled _Mélodie_. Sgambati arranged it for piano solo, and Gruenfeld for cello and piano.

Benjamin Godard

Benjamin Louis Godard was born in Paris on August 18, 1849. After attending the Paris Conservatory, he received in 1878 a municipal prize for an orchestral work, besides having his first opera produced. He wrote several operas after that, winning fame with _Jocelyn_ in 1888. He also wrote a considerable amount of chamber and orchestral music, in which his fine, sensitive lyricism is evident. He died in Cannes, France, on January 10, 1895.

Among his more familiar works is the _Adagio pathétique_. This started out as a piece for violin and piano, the third of a set of compositions in op. 128. It was orchestrated by Ross Jungnickel in 1910, and is most popular in this version. This is music notable for its expressive emotion; its lyricism at times has a religious stateliness.

The most famous single piece of music by Godard, however, is the “Berceuse” from his opera, _Jocelyn_. With libretto by Paul Armand and Silvestre and Victor Capoul—based on a poem by Lamartine—_Jocelyn_ was introduced in Brussels on February 25, 1888. The setting is France during the French Revolution, and concerns the love of Jocelyn, a young priest, for the daughter of a nobleman. After many inner struggles, Jocelyn decides to remain true to his calling and give up his beloved. They meet for the last time at her deathbed to which Jocelyn has been summoned to administer absolution. The “Berceuse” is a tender aria by Jocelyn (“_Cachés dans cet asile_”) in which he calls upon angels to protect his loved one.

Leopold Godowsky

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.

Handel was a prolific composer of operas, oratorios, orchestral music, concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, sonatas, compositions for harpsichord, and chamber works. He was greatest in his religious music, in the deservedly world-famous oratorio _Messiah_, and in such somewhat less familiar but no less distinguished works as _Judas Maccabaeus_, _Samson_, _Solomon_, and _Israel in Egypt_. His greatest music is on such a consistently high spiritual plane, is filled with such grandeur of expression, and reveals such extraordinary contrapuntal skill that it does not easily lend itself to popular consumption. But one passage from the _Messiah_ is particularly famous, and especially popular with people the world over; it is probably the most celebrated single piece of music he ever wrote, and while originally for chorus and orchestra, is familiar in innumerable transcriptions for orchestra or for band. It is the sublime “Hallelujah Chorus,” about which the composer himself said when he finished writing it: “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God himself.” This grandiose choral passage, a miracle of contrapuntal technique, is undoubtedly the climactic point of the entire oratorio. When the _Messiah_ was first heard in London on March 23, 1743 (a little less than a year after its world première which took place in Dublin, Ireland, on April 13, 1742) the awesome immensity of this music made such an impression on King George II, in the audience, that he rose spontaneously in his seat and remained standing throughout the piece. The audience followed their king in listening to the music in a standing position. Since then it has been a custom in performances of _Messiah_ for the audience to rise during the singing of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

The _Harmonious Blacksmith_ is Handel’s best known composition for the harpsichord. This is the fourth movement of a harpsichord suite, No. 5 in E major, which the composer wrote in 1720; but most frequently it is played apart from the rest of the movements as a self-sufficient composition. The title _Harmonious Blacksmith_ was created not by the composer but by a publisher in Bath, England, when in 1822 he issued the fourth movement of the suite as a separate piece of music. There happened to be in Bath a blacksmith who often sang this Handel tune and who came to be known in that town as the “harmonious blacksmith.” The Bath publisher recognized the popular appeal of a title like “Harmonious Blacksmith” and decided to use it for this music. The story that Handel conceived this tune while waiting in a blacksmith’s shop during a storm is, however, apocryphal. The _Harmonious Blacksmith_ begins with a simple two-part melody which then undergoes five equally elementary variations.

The _Largo_, so familiar as an instrumental composition in various transcriptions, is really an aria from one of Handel’s operas. It was a tenor aria (“_Ombrai mai fu_”) from _Serse_ (1738) in which is described the beauty of the cool shade of a palm tree. In slower tempo it has become, in its instrumental dress, a broad, stately melody of religious character with the simple tempo marking of _Largo_ as its title.

The _Water Music_ (1717) is a suite for orchestra made up of charming little dances, airs and fanfares written for a royal water pageant held on the Thames River in London on July 19, 1717. A special barge held the orchestra that performed this composition while the musicians sailed slowly up and down the river. The king was so impressed by Handel’s music that he asked it be repeated three times. In its original form, this suite is made up of twenty pieces, but the version most often heard today is an adaptation by Sir Hamilton Harty in which only six movements appear: Overture, Air, Bourrée, Hornpipe, Air, and Fanfare.

Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, on March 31, 1732. From 1740 to 1749 he was a member of the choir of St. Stephen’s in Vienna, attending its school for a comprehensive musical training. For several years after that he lived in Vienna, teaching music, and completing various hack assignments, while pursuing serious composition. In 1755 he was appointed by Baron Karl Josef Fuernberg to write music for and direct the concerts at his palace; it was in this office that Haydn wrote his first symphonies and string quartets as well as many other orchestral and chamber-music works. From 1758 to 1760 he was Kapellmeister to Count Ferdinand Maximilian Morzin. In 1761 Haydn became second Kapellmeister to Prince Paul Anton Esterházy at Eisenstadt, rising to the post of first Kapellmeister five years after that. Haydn remained with the Esterházys until 1790, a period in which he arrived at full maturity as a composer. His abundant symphonies, quartets, sonatas and other compositions spread his fame throughout the length and breadth of Europe. After leaving the employ of the Esterházys, Haydn paid two visits to London, in 1791 and again in 1794, where he directed orchestral concerts for which he wrote his renowned _London_ symphonies. At the dusk of his career, Haydn produced two crowning masterworks in the field of choral music: the oratorios _The Creation_ (1798) and _The Seasons_ (1801). Haydn died in Vienna on May 31, 1809.

Haydn was an epochal figure during music’s classical era. He helped to establish permanently the structures of the symphony, quartet, sonata; to arrive at a fully realized homophonic style as opposed to the contrapuntal idiom of the masters who preceded him; and to arrive at new concepts of harmony, orchestration, and thematic development. He helped pave the way for the giants who followed him, most notably Mozart and Beethoven, who helped carry the classical era in music to its full flowering. To his musical writing Haydn brought that charm, grace, stateliness, beauty of lyricism that we associate with classicism, and with it a most engaging sense of humor and at times even a remarkable expressiveness. Most of Haydn’s music belongs to the serious concert repertory. He did write some music intended for the masses—mainly the Contredanses, German Dances and Minuets which, after all, was the dance music of the Austrian people in Haydn’s time. Haydn’s _German Dances_ and Minuets are especially appealing. The former was the forerunner of the waltz, but its melodies and rhythms have a lusty peasant quality and an earthy vitality; the latter was the graceful, sedate dance of the European court. Twelve of Haydn’s _German Dances_ and twelve of his Minuets (the latter called _Katherine Menuetten_) were written in the closing years of his life and published in 1794; they were intended for the court ball held at the Redoutensaal in Vienna where they were introduced on November 25, 1792. The _German Dances_ here have sobriety and dignity, and are often filled with Haydn’s remarkable innovations in melodic and harmonic writing; the Minuets are consistently light and carefree in spirit.

The _Gypsy Rondo_—often heard in various transcriptions, including one for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler—comes from the Piano Trio No. 1 in G major, op. 73, no. 2 (1795) where it is the concluding movement (Rondo all’ ongarese). It is in Hungarian style, vivacious in rhythmic and melodic content; it is for this reason that Haydn himself designated this music “in a gypsy style” and Kreisler’s transcription bears the title of _Hungarian Rondo_.

Of Haydn’s more than one hundred symphonies the one occasionally given by pop orchestras is a curiosity known as the _Toy Symphony_. Actually we now know that Haydn never really wrote it, but it was the work of either Mozart’s father, Leopold, or Haydn’s brother, Michael. But it was long attributed to Joseph Haydn, and still is often credited to him. This little symphony in C major, which is in three short movements, was long believed to have been written by Haydn during his visit to Berchtegaden, Bavaria, in 1788 where he became interested in toy instruments. The symphony uses numerous toy instruments (penny trumpet, quail call, rattle, cuckoo, whistle, little drum, toy triangle, and so forth) together with three orthodox musical instruments, two violins and a bass.

Joseph Haydn was also the composer of Austria’s national anthem, “_Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser_.” He was commissioned to do so in 1797 by the Minister of the Interior to help stir the patriotic ardor of Austrians; it was first performed in all Austrian theaters on the Emperor’s birthday on February 12, 1797. The Emperor was deeply impressed by the anthem. “You have expressed,” he said, “what is in every loyal Austrian heart, and through your melody Austria will always be honored.” Haydn himself used the same melody in one of his string quartets: as the slow second movement in which it receives a series of variations. It is for this reason that this quartet, in C major, op. 76, no. 3, is popularly known as the _Emperor Quartet_.

Victor Herbert

Victor Herbert was born in Dublin, Ireland, on February 1, 1859. He received a sound musical training at the Stuttgart Conservatory, following which he studied the cello privately with Bernhard Cossmann in Baden-Baden. For several years after that he played the cello in many German and Austrian orchestras. His bow as a composer took place with two ambitious works, a suite and a concerto, both for cello and orchestra. They were introduced by the Stuttgart Symphony (the composer as soloist) in 1883 and 1885 respectively. After marrying the prima donna, Therese Foerster, in 1886, Herbert came to the United States and played the cello in the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, his wife having been engaged by that company. He soon played the cello in other major American orchestras, besides conducting symphonic concerts, concerts of light music, and performances at important festivals. In 1893 he succeeded Patrick S. Gilmore as bandleader of the famous 22nd Regiment Band, and from 1898 to 1904 he was principal conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. After 1904 he was the conductor of his own orchestra.

Herbert won world renown as a composer of operettas for which he produced a wealth of melodies that have never lost their charm or fascination for music lovers. His first produced operetta, _Prince Ananias_, in 1894 was a failure. But one year later came _The Wizard of the Nile_, the first of a long string of stage successes Herbert was henceforth to enjoy. From then on, until the end of his life, Herbert remained one of Broadway’s most productive and most significant composers. Many of his operettas are now classics of the American musical stage. Among these are: _The Fortune Teller_ (1898), _Babes in Toyland_ (1903), _Mlle. Modiste_ (1905), _The Red Mill_ (1906) and _Naughty Marietta_ (1910). A facile composer with an extraordinary technique at orchestration and harmonization, and a born melodist who had a seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of beautiful tunes, Herbert was a giant figure in American popular music and in the music for the American popular theater. He died of a heart attack in New York City on May 26, 1924.

Victor Herbert produced a considerable amount of concert music—concertos, symphonies, suites, overtures—most of which has passed out of the more serious repertory. A few of these concert works have enough emotional impact and melodic fascination to enjoy a permanent status in the semi-classical repertory. Potpourris from the scores of his most famous operettas—and orchestral transcriptions of individual songs from these productions—are, of course, basic to any pop or semi-classical orchestra repertory. For Herbert’s greatest songs from his operettas are classics, “as pure in outline as the melodies of Schubert and Mozart” according to Deems Taylor.

_Al Fresco_ is mood music which opens the second act of the operetta, _It Happened in Nordland_ (1904). Herbert had previously written and published it as a piano piece, using the pen-name of Frank Roland, in order to test the appeal of this little composition. It did so well in this version that Herbert finally decided to include it in his operetta where it serves to depict a lively carnival scene.

_The American Fantasia_ (1898) is a brilliantly orchestrated and skilfully contrived fantasy made up of favorite American national ballads and songs. It is the composer’s stirring tribute to the country of his adoption. The ballads and songs are heard in the following sequence: “Hail Columbia,” “Swanee River,” “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” “Dixie,” “Columbia the Gem of the Ocean.” This composition comes to an exciting finish with “The Star-Spangled Banner” in a Wagnerian-type orchestration.

The operetta _Babes in Toyland_, which opened in New York on October 13, 1903, was an extravaganza inspired by the then-recent success on Broadway of _The Wizard of Oz_. Herbert’s operetta drew its characters from fairy tales, _Mother Goose_, and other children’s stories, placing these characters in a rapid succession of breath-taking scenes of spectacular beauty. The complicated plot concerned the escape of little Jane and Alan from their miserly uncle to the garden of Contrary Mary. They then come to Toyland where they meet the characters from fairy tales and Mother Goose, and where toys are dominated by the wicked Toymaker whom they finally bring to his destruction. Principal musical numbers from this score include the delightful orchestral march, “March of the Toys,” and the songs “Toyland” and “I Can’t Do the Sum.”

_Dagger Dance_ is one of the most familiar pieces in the semi-classical repertory in the melodic and rhythmic style of American-Indian music. It comes from Herbert’s opera _Natoma_, whose première took place in Philadelphia on February 25, 1911. This spirited Indian dance music appears in the second act, at a climactic moment in which Natoma, challenged to perform a dagger dance, does so; but during the performance she stabs and kills the villain, Alvarado.

_The Fortune Teller_ whose New York première took place on September 26, 1898, is an operetta that starred Alice Neilsen in the dual role of Musette, a gypsy fortune teller, and Irma, a ballet student. Against a Hungarian setting, the play involves these two girls in love affairs with a Hungarian Hussar and a gypsy musician. Hungarian characters and a Hungarian background allowed Herbert to write music generously spiced with Hungarian and gypsy flavors, music exciting for its sensual appeal. The most famous song from this score is “Gypsy Love Song,” sometimes also known as “Slumber On, My Little Gypsy Sweetheart,” sung by Sandor, the gypsy musician, in tribute to Musette.

_Indian Summer: An American Idyll_ (1919) is a tone picture of Nature which Herbert wrote in two versions, for solo piano, and for orchestra. Twelve years after the composer’s death, Gus Kahn wrote lyrics for its main melody, and for fourteen weeks it was heard on the radio Hit Parade, twice in the Number 1 position.

_The Irish Rhapsody_ for orchestra (1892) is one of several concert works in which Herbert honored the country of his birth. This work is built from several familiar Irish ballads found by the composer in Thomas Moore’s _Irish Melodies_, published in 1807. “Believe Me if All These Endearing Young Charms” comes immediately after a harp cadenza. This is followed by a variation of “The Rocky Road to Dublin,” “To Ladies’ Eyes,” “Thamma Hulla,” “Erin, Oh Erin,” and “Rich and Rare Were the Gems She Wore.” An oboe cadenza then serves as the transition to “St. Patrick’s Day.” The rhapsody ends with “Garry Owen” set against “Erin, Oh Erin” in the bass.

_Mlle. Modiste_, introduced in New York on December 25, 1905, is the operetta in which Fritzi Scheff, once a member of the Metropolitan Opera, became a star of the popular musical theater. This is also the operetta in which she sang the waltz with which, for the rest of her life, she became identified, “Kiss Me Again.” Fritzi Scheff was cast as Fifi, an employee in a Parisian hat shop. Her lowly station precludes her marriage to the man she loves, Capt. Etienne de Bouvray. An American millionaire becomes interested in her, and provides her with the funds to pursue her vocal studies. Fifi then becomes a famous opera star, thereby achieving both the fame and the fortune she needs to gain Capt. Etienne as a husband.

Early in this operetta, Fifi tries to demonstrate her talent as a singer by performing a number called “If I Were On the Stage,” in which she offers various types of songs, including a polonaise, a gavotte, and a waltz. The waltz part was originally intended by Herbert as a caricature of that kind of dreamy, sentimental music and consisted of the melody of “Kiss Me Again” which he had written some time earlier, in 1903. On opening night the audience liked this part of the number so well, and was so noisy in its demonstration, that Herbert decided to feature it separately and prominently in his operetta, had new sentimental lyrics written for it, and called it “Kiss Me Again.” This, of course, is the most celebrated single number from this operetta, but several others are equally appealing, notably one of Herbert’s finest marches, “The Mascot of the Troop,” another waltz called “The Nightingale and the Star,” and a humorous ditty, “I Want What I Want When I Want It.”

The operetta, _Naughty Marietta_—first New York performance on November 7, 1910—was set in New Orleans in 1780 when that city was under Spanish rule. The noble lady, Marietta (starring the prima donna, Emma Trentini) had come to New Orleans from Naples to avoid an undesirable marriage. There she meets, falls in love with, and after many stirring adventures wins, Captain Dick Warrington. A basic element of this story is a melody—a fragment of which has come to the heroine in a dream. Marietta promises her hand to anybody who could give her the complete song of which this fragment is a part, and it is Dick Warrington, of course, who is successful. This melody is one of Herbert’s best loved, “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life.” Other favorites from _Naughty Marietta_ are “I’m Falling in Love With Someone,” “Italian Street Song,” the serenade “’Neath the Southern Moon,” and the march, “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.”

_Pan Americana_ (1901) is a composition for orchestra described by Herbert as a “_morceau caractéristique_.” He wrote it for the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901 (where President McKinley was assassinated). The three sections are in three different popular styles, the first in American-Indian, the second in ragtime, and the third in Cuban or Spanish.

_Punchinello_ and _Yesterthoughts_ (1900) are two evocative tone pictures originally for piano from a suite of pieces describing the natural beauties of scenes near or at Lake Placid, New York. Herbert orchestrated both these numbers.

_The Red Mill_, which came to New York on September 24, 1906, was an operetta starring the comedy team of Fred Stone and David Montgomery in a play set in Holland. They are two Americans stranded and penniless at an inn called “The Sign of the Red Mill.” When they discover that little Gretchen is in love with Capt. Doris van Damm and refuses to marry the Governor to whom she is designated by her parents, they come to her assistance. After numerous escapades and antics they help her to win her true lover who, as it turns out, is the heir to an immense fortune. The following are its principal musical episodes: the main love duet, “The Isle of Our Dreams,”; “Moonbeams”; and the comedy song, “Every Day Is Ladies’ Day for Me.”

The _Suite of Serenades_, for orchestra (1924) was written for the same Paul Whiteman concert of American music at Aeolian Hall on February 12, 1924 in which Gershwin’s _Rhapsody in Blue_ was introduced. This is a four movement suite which represented Herbert’s only attempt to write directly for a jazz orchestra, and parts of it are characterized by jazz scoring and syncopations. Herbert wrote a second version of this suite for symphony orchestra. In the four movements the composer skilfully simulates four national styles. The first is Spanish, the second Chinese, the third Cuban, and the fourth Oriental.

Another familiar orchestral suite by Herbert is the _Suite Romantique_ (1901). Herbert’s vein for sentimental melody is here generously tapped. The four movements are mood pictures named as follows: “_Visions_,” “_Aubade_” (a beautiful solo for the cellos), “_Triomphe d’amour_” (a glowing love duet), and “_Fête nuptiale_.”

_The Woodland Fancies_, for orchestra (1901) also consist of four evocative and pictorial mood pictures, this time inspired by the Adirondack mountains where Herbert maintained a summer home and which he dearly loved. Here the four movements are entitled: “Morning in the Mountains,” “Forest Nymphs,” “Twilight,” and “Autumn Frolics.”

There are individual songs from several other Herbert operettas that are part of the semi-classical repertory in orchestral transcriptions. Among these are: “The Angelus” and the title song from _Sweethearts_ (1913); “I Love Thee, I Adore Thee” which recurs throughout _The Serenade_ (1897); “A Kiss in the Dark” from _Orange Blossoms_ (1922); “Star Light, Star Bright,” a delightful waltz from _The Wizard of the Nile_ (1895); and “Thine Alone” from the Irish operetta, _Eileen_ (1917).

Ferdinand Hérold

Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold was born in Paris on January 28, 1791. He began to study music when he was eleven. From 1805 to 1812 he attended the Paris Conservatory where his teachers included Adam and Méhul. In 1812 he received the Prix de Rome. Following his three-year stay in Rome he settled in Naples where he was pianist to Queen Caroline and had his first opera, _La Gioventù di Enrico_, produced in 1815. After returning to his native city he completed a new opera, _Charles de France_, which was successfully produced in 1816 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris where, from this time on, all his operas were given. Hérold wrote many serious operas before turning to the field in which he earned his importance and popularity, the opéra-comique. His first work in this genre was _Marie_ in 1826; his most successful, _Zampa_, in 1831. He also enjoyed a triumph with his last opéra-comique, _Le Pré aux clercs_, produced in 1832. Hérold died of consumption in Paris on January 19, 1833 before reaching his forty-second birthday.

About all that has survived from Hérold’s most famous opera, _Zampa_, is its overture, a semi-classical favorite everywhere. _Zampa_—libretto by Mélesville—was introduced at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on May 3, 1831. The hero, Zampa, is the leader of a band of pirates who invade an island. He meets Camille and compels her to desert her lover and marry him. During the marriage festivities the pirate leader mockingly tries to place a ring on the finger of a statue. The statue suddenly comes to life and brings Zampa to his doom by drowning.

The overture opens with a robust subject for full orchestra (derived from the pirates’ chorus of the first act). A brief pause separates this section from a slower one in which timpani rolls and loud chords in the wind precede a stately melody for wind instruments. After some development, in which the mood becomes dramatic, two new subjects are heard: the first is a sensitive melody for clarinet against plucked strings, and the second is a soaring song for the violins.

Jenö Hubay

Jenö Hubay was born in Budapest, Hungary, on September 15, 1858. His father, a professor of the violin at the Budapest Conservatory, gave him his first violin lessons. Jenö made his public debut as violinist when he was eleven, then completed his violin studies with Joachim in Berlin and with Vieuxtemps in Belgium. In 1886 he was appointed professor of the violin at the Budapest Conservatory, and from 1919 to 1934 he was its director. Hubay was one of Europe’s most eminent violinists, violin teachers, and performers of chamber music, the last with the Hubay Quartet which he founded. He died in Vienna on March 12, 1937.

Hubay was the composer of several operas, four symphonies, four violin concertos, and many pieces for the violin. He was at his best when he drew both his inspiration and materials from Hungarian folk music. Perhaps his best known work is a set of fourteen pieces for violin and orchestra collectively known as _Scènes de la Csárda_, or _Hungarian Czardas Scenes_. The czardas is a popular Hungarian folk dance in duple time characterized by quick syncopations, and exploiting alternating slow and rapid passages. These _Scènes_ are often presented as orchestral compositions. The fourth, _Hejre Kati_, is the most popular of the group, a piece of music electrifying for its rhythmic momentum. The second, known as _Hungarian Rhapsody_, and the fifth, _Waves of Balaton_, are also familiar. Besides their rhythmic vitality these compositions are of interest for their sensual melodies, and dramatic contrasts of tempo and mood.

From Hubay’s most famous opera, _The Violin Maker of Cremona_, comes a sensitively lyrical “Intermezzo,” for orchestra. Hubay wrote this one-act opera in 1894, and it was introduced in Budapest the same year. The text by Francois Coppé and Henri Beauclair concerns a violin-making contest in Ferrari, Italy, in which the prize is the beautiful girl, Giannina. A hunchback, Filippo, makes the best violin, but he generously permits Giannina to marry Sandro, the man she really loves. A transcription of the “Intermezzo” for violin and piano is popular in the repertory and bears the title of the opera. The Intermezzo had also been adapted by Stoll as a composition for voice and orchestra under the name “Lonely Night.”

Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck was born in Sieburg, Germany, on September 1, 1854. He attended the Cologne Conservatory where his teachers included Hiller (who was the first to recognize his talent), Jensen and Gernsheim. After winning the Mozart Scholarship of Frankfort in 1876, Humperdinck continued his music study in Munich with Franz Lachner and Rheinberger. In Munich he published his first important composition, a _Humoreske_ for orchestra (1880). In 1881, he received the Meyerbeer Prize and in 1897, the Mendelssohn Prize, both for composition. Between 1885 and 1887 he was professor of the Barcelona Conservatory in Spain and in 1890 he became professor at Hoch’s Conservatory in Frankfort, and music critic of the _Frankfurter Zeitung_. He achieved his greatest success as a composer with the fairy opera, _Hansel and Gretel_, produced in Weimar in 1893. After 1896, Humperdinck devoted himself exclusively to composition, and though he wrote several fine operas none was able to equal the popularity of his fairy-opera. He died in Neustrelitz, Germany, on September 27, 1921.

_Hansel and Gretel_ scored a sensational success in its own day; and, in ours, it is the only opera by which Humperdinck is remembered. Following its première in Weimar, Germany, on December 23, 1893, it was performed within a year in virtually every major German opera house. In 1894 it came to London, and in 1895 to New York. The text by Adelheid Wette (Humperdinck’s sister) is based on the Ludwig Grimm fairy tale familiar to young and old throughout the world.

The overture, and two orchestral episodes, are often performed outside the opera house. The Overture is made up of several melodies from the opera beginning with the so-called “prayer melody,” a gentle song for horns and bassoons. A rhythmic passage then describes the spell effected by the witch on the children. After this comes the lovable third-act melody in which the children are awakened by the dewman. The happy dance of the children from the close of the opera leads back to the opening prayer with which the overture comes to a gentle conclusion.

The _Dream Pantomime_ comes in the second act and is an orchestral episode in which is described the descent of the fairies who provide a protective ring around the children, alone and asleep in the deep forest. The _Gingerbread Waltz_ (_Knusperwalzer_) from Act 3 is the joyous music expressing the children’s delight after they have succeeded in pushing the witch inside the oven and burning her to a crisp.

Among Humperdinck’s many works for symphony orchestra one is occasionally performed by semi-classical or pop orchestras. It is the _Moorish Rhapsody_ (1898) written for the Leeds Festival in England. The first movement, “Tarifa—Elegy at Sunrise” reflects the sorrow of a shepherd over the decay of the Moorish people. “Tangiers—A Night in a Moorish Café” is a coffee-house scene highlighted by the sensual chant of a café singer. The suite concludes with “Tetuan—A Rider in the Desert,” depicting a desert ride with a view of Paradise in the distance. To carry into his music an Oriental atmosphere, Humperdinck modeled some of his principal themes after actual Moorish melodies, such as the second theme of the first movement for English horn, and the main melody for woodwind in the second movement.

Jacques Ibert

Jacques Ibert was born in Paris on August 15, 1890. He attended the Paris Conservatory between 1911 and 1919, with a hiatus of several years during World War I when he served in the French Navy. In 1919 he won the Prix de Rome. While residing in the Italian capital he wrote a symphonic work with which he scored his first major success, the suite _Escales_, introduced in Paris in 1924. From 1937 to 1955 he was director of the Academy of Rome. During this period he also served for a while as director of the combined management of the Paris Opéra and Opéra-Comique.

Ibert has written many works in virtually every form, which have placed him in the front rank of contemporary French composers. Many of these compositions are in a neo-classical idiom. Occasionally, however, he has made a delightful excursion into satire. It is with one of the latter works, the _Divertissement_ for orchestra (1930) that he has entered the semi-classical repertory, though to be sure this composition is also frequently given at symphony concerts. The _Divertissement_ begins with a short Introduction in which the prevailing mood of levity is first introduced. Then comes the “_Cortège_.” A few introductory bars suggest two march themes, the first in strings, and the second in trumpet. After that appears a loud quotation from Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” from his _A Midsummer Night’s Dream Suite_. The “Nocturne” is a dreamy little melody which precedes a delightful “Waltz” and a breezy “Parade.” The finale is in the style of an Offenbach can-can, with the piano interpolating some impudent dissonant harmonies.

Michael Ippolitov-Ivanov

Michael Ippolitov-Ivanov was born in Gatchina, Russia, on November 19, 1859. He was graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1882 where he was a pupil in composition of Rimsky-Korsakov. From 1882 to 1893 he was associated with the Tiflis Music School, first as teacher, then as director. In 1893 he was appointed professor of composition at the Moscow Conservatory on Tchaikovsky’s recommendation, and from 1906 to 1922 he served as its director. He also distinguished himself as a conductor of opera in Moscow. He died in that city on January 28, 1935.

Ippolitov-Ivanov’s best music profited from his intensive researches into Caucasian folk music. His principal works have assimilated many of the Oriental melodic and rhythmic idioms of songs and dances from that region. His most popular work of all is the _Caucasian Sketches_ for orchestra, op. 10 (1895). The first movement, “In the Mountain Pass,” brings up the picture of a mountain scene. Horn calls are here used prominently. “In the Village” opens with a cadenza for English horn and proceeds to a beautiful melody for viola set against a persistent ⅜ rhythm. “In the Mosque” dispenses with the strings while describing an impressive religious ceremony. The suite ends with the stirring “March of the Sirdar,” a “sirdar” being an Oriental potentate.

Ivanovici

Neither Ivanovici’s first name nor details of his life are known. He was born in Banat, Rumania, in 1848, distinguished himself as a bandleader in his native country, and died in Bucharest on April 1, 1905. For his band concerts he wrote many popular concert numbers. One of these is the concert waltz, _The Waves of the Danube_ (_Donauwellen_), written in 1880, and achieving from the first phenomenal popularity throughout Europe. The main waltz melody of this set of waltzes was expropriated by Al Dubin and Dave Franklin for the American popular song “The Anniversary Song,” (lyrics by Saul Chaplin), which was effectively used in the motion picture _The Jolson Story_ in 1946, sung on the sound track by Jolson himself.

Armas Järnefelt

Armas Järnefelt was born in Viborg, Finland, on August 14, 1869. He studied music in Helsingfors with Ferruccio Busoni and Martin Wegelius; in Berlin with A. Becker; and in Paris with Massenet. Beginning with 1898, and for several years thereafter, he conducted opera performances in Viborg and Helsingfors. In 1907 he settled in Sweden where three years later he became a citizen. There he became court composer and the conductor of the Royal Opera. After returning to Helsingfors in 1932, he directed the Opera for four years and the Helsingfors Municipal Theater for one. He also appeared as guest conductor of many important Finnish orchestras, distinguishing himself particularly in performances of music by Jean Sibelius (his brother-in-law). In 1940, Järnefelt received the official title of Professor. He died in Stockholm in June 1958.

Järnefelt wrote many works for orchestra, including suites, overtures, and shorter works. One of the last is _Berceuse_ for two clarinets, one bassoon, two horns, violin solo and strings (1905), a moody and sensitive piece of music. The romantic main melody appears in solo violin after four introductory bars for muted strings.

His most popular composition is the _Praeludium_ for chamber orchestra. It opens with a three-measure introduction for plucked strings. This is followed by a brisk march subject for oboe which is soon discussed by other winds, and after that by the violins over a drone bass. A passage for solo violin leads to the return of the march melody.

Dmitri Kabalevsky

Dmitri Kabalevsky was born in St. Petersburg on December 30, 1904, and received his musical training in Moscow, at the Scriabin Music School and the Moscow Conservatory. He was graduated from the latter school in 1929, and in 1932 he was appointed instructor there. His first success as composer came in 1931 with his first symphony, commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the Russian revolution; this was followed in 1934 by his second symphony, which enjoyed an even greater triumph both in and out of the Soviet Union. In 1939 Kabalevsky was elected a member of the Presidium of the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers; in 1940 he was given the Order of Merit; and in 1946 he received the Stalin Prize for the second string quartet. He has also written operas, concertos, additional symphonies, and piano music.

A composer who has always been partial to the more conventional means and techniques, and has relied heavily on broad and stately melodies and subjective feelings, Kabalevsky has managed to produce several compositions that have wide appeal. One is the sprightly _Colas Breugnon Overture_. _Colas Breugnon_ was an opera adapted by V. Bragin from a novel by Romain Rolland; it was first performed in Leningrad on February 22, 1938. The central character is a 16th-century craftsman—a jovial man who enjoys life and has a spicy sense of humor and a happy outlook on all things. The overture is essentially a study of that man, consistently gay and sprightly. There are two main melodies, both of them lively, and both derived from Burgundian folk songs.

Another popular work by Kabalevsky is _The Comedians_, op. 26 (1938), an orchestral suite made up of selections from the incidental music to a children’s play, _The Inventor and the Comedians_. The play is about the varied and picaresque adventures of a group of wandering performers in various towns and at public fairs. There are ten episodes in the suite, each in a light, infectious style that makes for such easy listening that this work is often given at children’s concerts. The ten sections are: Prologue, Galop, March, Waltz, Pantomime, Intermezzo, Little Lyrical Scene, Gavotte, Scherzo, and Epilogue.

Emmerich Kálmán

Emmerich Kálmán was born in Siófok, Hungary, on October 24, 1882. He studied composition in Budapest. In 1904 one of his symphonic compositions was performed by the Budapest Philharmonic, and in 1907 he received the Imperial Composition Prize. After settling in Vienna he abandoned serious composition for light music. From this time on he devoted himself to and distinguished himself in writing tuneful operettas. His first success came in 1909 with _Ein Herbstmanoever_, presented in New York as _The Gay Hussars_. Subsequent operettas made him one of Europe’s leading composers for the popular theaters. The most famous are: _Sari_ (1912), _The Gypsy Princess_ (1915), _Countess Maritza_ (1924) and _The Circus Princess_ (1926). In 1938 he left Vienna, and after a period in Paris, he came to the United States where he remained until 1949. He completed his last operetta, _The Arizona Lady_, a few days before his death in Paris, on October 30, 1953; it was presented posthumously in Berne, Switzerland, in 1954.

Kálmán’s forte in writing music for operettas was in combining the charm, _Gemuetlichkeit_ and sentiment of Viennese music in general, and the Viennese waltz in particular, with the hot blood and sensual moods of Hungarian gypsy songs and dances.

_The Circus Princess_ (_Die Zirkusprinzessin_)—first performed in Vienna in 1926, and in New York in 1927—was set in St. Petersburg and Vienna during the period immediately preceding World War I. When Fedora rejects the love of Prince Sergius by insisting she would sooner marry a circus performer, he seeks revenge by engaging a famous circus performer to pose as a member of nobility and woo and win Fedora. After their marriage, Fedora discovers the true identity of her husband, and leaves him. But she soon comes to the realization she is really in love with him and promises to come back if he in turn offers to give up his profession—a profession she now despises not from snobbery but because of fears for his safety. Two delightful waltz melodies—“_Leise schwebt das Glueck vorueber_” “_Im Boudoir der schoensten Frau_”—and an intriguing little melody that recurs throughout the operetta, “_Zwei maerchenaugen_” are the principal selections from this operetta.

_Countess Maritza_ (_Die Graefin Mariza_) is Kálmán’s most popular and successful operetta. It was first produced in Vienna in 1924, and in New York in 1926. The setting is Hungary in 1922. An impoverished count, Tassilo, finds employment on the estate of Countess Maritza under the assumed name of Torok. He falls in love with her, but when she learns of his real background she feels he is a fortune hunter interested only in her wealth. About to leave the employ of the countess and to bid her permanent farewell, Tassilo’s fortune suddenly takes a turn for the better when his aunt, a Princess, comes to inform him that Tassilo is a wealthy man after all, due to her manipulations of his tangled business affairs. Now convinced that he loves her for herself alone, the Countess Maritza is only too happy to accept him as her husband.

This score contains some of Kálmán’s finest and most beguiling music in a Hungarian-gypsy style. The most famous song is in this sensual, heart-warming idiom: “Play Gypsies, Dance Gypsies” (“_Komm Zigan, Komm Zigan, spiel mir was vor_”). This number begins with a languorous, romantic melody that soon lapses into a dynamic Hungarian-gypsy dance. Austrian waltz-music in a more sentimental manner is found in three winning songs: “Give My Regards to the Lovely Ladies of Fair Vienna” (“_Gruess mir die reizenden Frauen im schoenen Wien_”), “I Would Like to Dance Once More” (“_Einmal moecht’ ich wieder tanzen_”) and “Say, Yes!” (“_Sag ja, mein Lieb_”).

_The Gypsy Princess_ (_Die Csárdásfuerstin_) was first performed in Vienna in 1915, and produced in New York in 1917 under the title of _The Riviera Girl_. The heroine is Sylvia Varescu, a performer in a Budapest cabaret, who is loved and pursued by Prince Edwin. But the Prince’s father insists that he marry the Countess Stasi. Eventually the father’s heart is softened and he becomes more tolerant towards having Sylvia as a daughter-in-law when he is discreetly reminded that once he, too, had been in love with a cabaret singer. The principal selections from his score include two soaring waltz melodies: “_Machen wir’s den Schwalben nach_” and “_Tausend kleine Engel singen hab mich lieb_.” The score also includes a dynamic Czardas, and a pleasing little tune in “_Ganz ohne Weiber geht die Chose nicht_.”

_Sari_ was introduced in New York in 1914. Pali is a gypsy violinist who has grown old and is eclipsed at one of his own concerts by his son, Laczi. Pali throws his beloved Stradivarius into the flames. Since both father and son have fallen in love with the same girl, the older man also renounces her. He wants Laczi to have her as well as his musical success. A bountiful score includes such delights as “Love Has Wings,” “Love’s Own Sweet Song,” “My Faithful Stradivari,” and “Softly Through the Summer Night.”

Kéler-Béla

Kélér-Béla was born Albert von Keler in Bartfeld, Hungary, on February 13, 1820. He studied law and worked as a farmer before turning to music in his twenty-fifth year. After studying in Vienna with Sechter and Schlesinger he played the violin in the orchestra of the Theater-an-der-Wien. In 1854 he went to Berlin where he became conductor of Gungl’s Orchestra. He was soon back in Vienna to take over the direction of the famous Joseph Lanner Orchestra. From 1856 to 1863 he conducted an army band, and from 1863 to 1873 an orchestra in Wiesbaden. He died in that city on November 20, 1882.

Kéler-Béla wrote about one hundred and thirty compositions in the light Viennese style of Lanner and the two Johann Strausses. His works include waltzes, galops, and marches, a representative example of each being the waltz _Hoffnungssterne_, the _Hurrah-Sturm_ galop, and the _Friedrich-Karl_ march.

His most popular work is the _Hungarian Comedy Overture_ (_Lustspiel Ouverture_). It opens in a stately manner with forceful chords and a sustained melody in the woodwind. But the comedy aspect of this overture is soon made evident with two lilting tunes for the woodwind, separated by a dramatic episode for full orchestra. These two tunes receive extended enlargement. The overture ends with a succession of emphatic chords.

Jerome Kern

Jerome David Kern was born in New York City on January 27, 1885. He first studied the piano with his mother. After being graduated from Barringer High School in Newark, New Jersey, he attended the New York College of Music where he was a pupil of Alexander Lambert, Albert von Doenhoff, Paolo Gallico and Austen Pearce. He received his apprenticeship as composer for the popular theater in 1903 in London, where with P. G. Wodehouse as his lyricist he wrote a topical song, “Mr. Chamberlain” that became a hit. After returning to the United States he worked in Tin Pan Alley and immediately became a prolific contributor of songs to the musical stage. In 1905 his song “How’d You Like to Spoon With Me?” was interpolated into _The Earl and the Girl_ and became an outstanding success. From that time on, and up to the end of his life, he wrote over a thousand songs for more than a hundred stage and screen productions, thereby occupying an imperial position among American popular composers of his generation. His most famous Broadway musicals were: _The Girl from Utah_ (1914), _Very Good, Eddie_ (1915), _Oh, Boy!_ (1917), _Leave it to Jane_ (1917), _Sally_ (1920), _Sunny_ (1925), _Show Boat_ (1927), _The Cat and the Fiddle_ (1931), _Music in the Air_ (1932), and _Roberta_ (1933). His most significant motion pictures were _Swingtime_ with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, _You Were Never Lovelier_ and _Cover Girl_ both with Rita Hayworth, and _Centennial Summer_. Over a dozen of his songs sold more than two million copies of sheet music including “All the Things You Are,” “They Didn’t Believe Me,” “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” and “Look for the Silver Lining.” Two of his songs received the Academy Award: “The Way You Look Tonight” from _Swingtime_ and “The Last Time I Saw Paris” interpolated into _Lady Be Good_. Kern died in New York City on November 11, 1945.

Kern wrote two compositions for symphony orchestra which have entered the semi-classical repertory even though they are also performed by major symphony orchestras. These were his only ventures into the world of music outside the popular theater. One was _Mark Twain: A_ _Portrait for Orchestra_ which he wrote on a commission from André Kostelanetz, who introduced it with the Cincinnati Symphony in 1942. This is a four movement suite inspired by the personality and life of Kern’s favorite author, Mark Twain. The first movement, “Hannibal Days,” describes a sleepy small town on a summer morning a century ago. The cry “Steamboat comin’!” pierces the silence. The town suddenly awakens. In the second movement, “Gorgeous Pilot House” Mark Twain leaves home to become a pilot’s assistant on the Mississippi steamboat; this period in Mark Twain’s life, which spans about nine years, ends with the outbreak of the Civil War. In “Wandering Westward,” Twain meets failure as a Nevada prospector, after which he finally turns to journalism. The suite ends with “Mark in Eruption,” tracing Twain’s triumphant career as a writer.

Kern’s second and only other symphonic work is _Scenario_ in which he drew his basic melodic materials from his greatest and best loved musical production, _Show Boat_. Kern prepared _Scenario_ at the behest of Artur Rodzinski, conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, who felt that the music of _Show Boat_ had sufficient artistic validity to justify its use in a major symphonic work. Rodzinski introduced _Scenario_ in Cleveland with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1941, and since that time it has been performed by most of the major American orchestras.

A discussion of _Show Boat_ is essential before _Scenario_ can be commented upon. The libretto and lyrics are by Oscar Hammerstein II, based on the famous novel by Edna Ferber. _Show Boat_, in a lavish Florenz Ziegfeld production, was introduced in New York in 1927 and was an instantaneous box-office and artistic triumph. It has, to be sure, become a classic of the American stage, continually revived in all parts of the country, three times adapted for motion pictures, and has been given by an American opera company in its regular repertory. It proved a revolution in the American musical theater by avoiding the usual stilted routines and patterns of musical comedy—chorus girls, production numbers, synthetic humor, set dances and so forth—and arriving at an integrated musical play filled with authentic characterizations, backgrounds, atmosphere and dramatic truth. The story opens and closes on _Cotton Blossom_, a show boat traveling along the Mississippi to give performances at stops along the river. The principal love action involves Magnolia, daughter of Cap’n Andy (owner of the boat) and the gambler, Gaylord Ravenal. They run off and get married, but their happiness is short-lived. Magnolia, though pregnant, leaves her irresponsible husband. After the birth of Magnolia’s daughter, Kim, the mother earns her living singing show boat songs in Chicago where she is found by her father and brought back to _Cotton Blossom_. Eventually, Magnolia and Ravenal are reconciled, and their daughter Kim becomes the new star of the show boat.

The most famous songs from this incomparable Kern score are: “Only Make Believe” and “Why Do I Love You?”, both of them love duets of Magnolia and Ravenal; two poignant laments sung by the half-caste Julie, a role in which Helen Morgan first attained stardom as a torch-song performer, “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man” and “Bill” (the latter with lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse); and a hymn to the Mississippi which has acquired virtually the status of an American folk song, “Ol’ Man River.”

_Scenario_ makes extended use of these songs in an integrated piece of music. It opens with a sensitive passage for muted strings and continues with a theme for horn; both subjects are intended to portray the Mississippi River and are the motto subjects of the entire work. The main melody of this tone poem is “Ol’ Man River,” first given softly by violas and bass clarinet. Other major songs of the musical play follow, among them being “Only Make Believe” and “Why Do I Love You?”, after which “Ol’ Man River” is heard for the last time.

Many of Kern’s more than a thousand popular songs are now classics in the popular repertory. They are so fresh and spontaneous in their lyricism, so inventive in the harmonic background, so filled with charm and grace that their survival seems assured. Two symphonic compositions by Robert Russell Bennett are constructed from one or more of Kern’s best known songs. One is _Symphonic Study_, a tone poem introduced in 1946 by the NBC Symphony under Frank Black. This work presents several Kern songs in correct chronological sequence beginning with “They Didn’t Believe Me.” After that come “Babes in the Wood,” “The Siren’s Song,” “Left All Alone Again Blues,” “Who?”, “Ol’ Man River,” “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” and “All the Things You Are.” The second of Bennett’s symphonic compositions is the _Variations on a Theme by Jerome Kern_, written in 1934 and soon after that introduced in New York by a chamber orchestra conducted by Bernard Herrmann. The theme here used for an effective series of variations is “Once in a Blue Moon” from the Broadway musical _Stepping Stones_.

Albert Ketelby

Albert William Ketelby was born in Birmingham, England, in or about 1885. Precocious in music he completed a piano sonata when he was only eleven. For six years he attended the Trinity College of Music in London where he captured every possible prize. When he was sixteen he became a church organist in Wimbledon, and at twenty-one he conducted a theater orchestra in London. He later distinguished himself as a conductor of some of London’s most important theater orchestras, besides appearing as a guest conductor of many of Europe’s major symphonic organizations, usually in performances of his own works. For many years he was also the music director of the Columbia Gramophone Company in England. He died at his home on the Isle of Wight on November 26, 1959.

A facile composer with a fine sense for atmospheric colors and for varied moods, Ketelby produced a few serious compositions among which were a _Caprice_ and a _Concerstueck_ (each for piano and orchestra), an overture and _Suite de Ballet_ (both for orchestra) and a quintet for piano and woodwind. He is, however, most famous for his lighter compositions, two of which are known and heard the world over. _In a Monastery Garden_ opens with a gentle subject describing a lovely garden populated by chirping birds. After that comes a religious melody—a chant of monks in a modal style. _In a Persian Garden_ is effective for its skilful recreation of an exotic background through Oriental-type melodies, harmonies, and brilliant orchestral colors. Ketelby wrote several other compositions in an Oriental style, the best of which is _In a Chinese Temple Garden_.

Aram Khatchaturian

Aram Khatchaturian was born in Tiflis, Russia, on June 6, 1903. He was of Armenian extraction. He came to Moscow in 1920, and enrolled in the Gniessen School of Music. From 1929 to 1934 he attended the Moscow Conservatory. He first achieved recognition as a composer in 1935 with his first Symphony, and in 1937 he scored a major success throughout the music world with his first piano concerto, still a favorite in the modern concert repertory. As one of the leading composers in the Soviet Union he has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the Order of Lenin in 1939, and the Stalin Prize in 1940 and 1942. In 1954 he visited London where he led a concert of his own music, and early in 1960 he toured Latin America.

Khatchaturian’s music owes a strong debt to the folk songs and dances of Armenia and Transcaucasia. It is endowed with a sensitive and at times exotic lyricism, a compulsive rhythmic strength, and a strong feeling for the dramatic.

The most popular single piece of music by Khatchaturian comes from his ballet, _Gayne_ (or _Gayaneh_), first performed in Moscow on December 9, 1942, and the recipient of the Stalin Prize. The heroine of this ballet is a member of a collective farm where her husband, Giko, proves a traitor. He tries to set the farm afire. The farm is saved by a Red Commander who falls in love with Gayne after Giko has been arrested.

Khatchaturian assembled thirteen numbers from his ballet score into two suites for orchestra. It is one of these pieces that has achieved widespread circulation: the “Saber Dance,” a composition whose impact comes from its abrupt barbaric rhythms and vivid sonorities; midway, relief from these rhythmic tensions comes from a broad folk song in violas and cellos. “Saber Dance” has become popular in numerous transcriptions, including an electrifying one for solo piano. In 1948 Vic Schoen made a fox-trot arrangement that was frequently played in the United States.

Two other excerpts from these _Gayne_ suites are also familiar. “Dance of the Rose Girls” presents a delightful Oriental melody in oboe and clarinet against a pronounced rhythm. “Lullaby” has a gentle swaying motion in solo oboe against a decisive rhythm in harp and bassoon; flutes take up this subject, after which the melody grows and expands in full orchestra, and then subsides.

_Masquerade_ is another of Khatchaturian’s orchestral suites, this one derived from his incidental music to a play by Mikhail Lermontov produced in 1939. Each of the five numbers of this suite is appealing either for sensitive and easily assimilable melodies or for rhythmic vitality. Gentle lyricism, of an almost folk-song identity, characterizes the second and third movements, a “Nocturne” and “Romance.” The first and the last two movements are essentially rhythmic: “Waltz,” “Mazurka,” and “Polka.”

George Kleinsinger

George Kleinsinger was born in San Bernardino, California, on February 13, 1914, and came to New York City in his sixth year. He was trained for dentistry, and only after he had left dental school did he concentrate on music. His first intensive period of music study took place with Philip James and Marion Bauer at New York University where he wrote an excellent cantata, _I Hear America Singing_, performed publicly and on records by John Charles Thomas. Kleinsinger then attended the Juilliard Graduate School on a composition fellowship. In 1946 he scored a major success with _Tubby the Tuba_. He later wrote several other works with humorous or satiric content, often filled with unusual instrumental effects. Among these are his _Brooklyn Baseball Cantata_; a concerto for harmonica and orchestra; and the musical, _Archy and Mehitabel_ (_Shinbone Alley_), which was produced for records, on Broadway and over television. In a more serious vein are a symphony and several concertos.

_Tubby the Tuba_, for narrator and orchestra (1942) belongs in the class of Prokofiev’s _Peter and the Wolf_. It serves to familiarize children with the instruments of the orchestra, but because of its wit and simple melodies it also makes for wonderful entertainment. It tells the story of a frustrated tuba who complains that he must always play uninteresting “oompahs oompahs” while the violins are always assigned the most beautiful tunes. In the end Tubby happily gets a wonderful melody of his own to enjoy and play. All the characters in this tale are instruments of the orchestra. In 1946 a recording of _Tubby the Tuba_ sold over a quarter of a million albums. Paramount made a movie of it, and major orchestras throughout the country presented it both at children’s concerts and in its regularly symphonic repertory.

Fritz Kreisler

Fritz Kreisler, one of the greatest violin virtuosos of his generation, was born in Vienna, Austria, on February 2, 1875. He was a child prodigy at the violin. From 1882 to 1885 he attended the Vienna Conservatory, a pupil of Leopold Auer, winning the gold medal for violin playing. In 1887, as a pupil of Massart at the Paris Conservatory, he was recipient of the Grand Prix. In 1888, he toured the United States in joint concerts with the pianist, Moriz Rosenthal, making his American debut in Boston on November 9. Upon returning to Vienna, he suddenly decided to abandon music. For a while he studied medicine at the Vienna Academy. After that he entered military service as an officer in a Uhlan Regiment. The decision to return to the violin led to a new period of intensive training from which he emerged in March 1899 with a recital in Berlin. From 1901 on until his retirement during World War II he occupied a magistral place among the concert artists of his time.

As a composer, Kreisler produced a violin concerto and a string quartet. But his fame rests securely on an entire library of pieces for the violin now basic to that repertory and which are equally well loved in transcriptions for orchestra. The curious thing about many of these compositions is that for many years Kreisler presented them as the genuine works of the old masters, works which he said he had discovered in European libraries and monasteries, and which he had merely adapted for the violin. He had recourse to this deception early in 1900 as the expedient by which a still young and unknown violinist could get his own music played more frequently, besides extending for his own concerts the more or less limited territory of the existing violin repertory. His deception proved much more successful than he had dared to hope. Violinists everywhere asked him for copies of these pieces for their own concerts. Publishers in Germany and New York sold these “transcriptions” by the thousands. As the years passed it became increasingly difficult for Kreisler to confess to the world that he had all the while been palming off a colossal fraud. Then, in 1935, Olin Downes, the music critic of the _New York Times_, tried to trace the source of one of these compositions—Pugnani’s _Praeludium and Allegro_—now a worldwide favorite with violinists. Downes first communicated with Kreisler’s New York publishers who were suspiciously evasive. After that Downes cabled Kreisler, then in Europe. It was only then that the violinist revealed that this piece was entirely his, and so were many others which he had been presenting so long as the music of Vivaldi, Martini, Couperin, and Francoeur among others.

It was to be expected that musicians and critics should meet such a confession with anger and denunciation. “We wish to apply the term discreditable to the whole transaction from start to finish,” one American music journal said editorially. In England, Ernest Newman was also devastating in his attack. “It is as though Mr. Yeats published poems under the name of Herrick or Spenser,” he said.

Yet, in retrospect, it is possible to suggest that musicians and critics should not have been taken altogether by surprise. For one thing, as Kreisler pointed out, numerous progressions and passages in all of these compositions were in a style of a period much later than that of the accredited composers, a fact that should have inspired at least a certain amount of suspicion. Also, when Kreisler presented his own _Liebesfreud_, _Liebesleid_, and _Schoen Rosmarin_ as transcriptions of posthumous pieces by Joseph Lanner in a Berlin recital, and was vigorously assailed by a Berlin critic for daring to include such gems with “tripe” like Kreisler’s own _Caprice Viennois_, Kreisler replied with a widely published statement that those pieces of Lanner were of his own composition. The reasonable question should then have arisen that if the three supposedly Lanner items were by Kreisler, how authentic were the other pieces of old masters played by the virtuoso?

Besides all this, Kreisler himself provided a strong clue to the correct authorship in the frontispiece of his published transcriptions. It read: “The original manuscripts used for these transcriptions are the private property of Mr. Fritz Kreisler and are now published for the first time; they are, moreover, so freely treated that they constitute, in fact, original works.”

The furor and commotion caused by the uncovering of this fraud has long since died down. It has had no visible effect on Kreisler’s immense popularity either as a violinist or composer. Since then, all this music has been published and performed as Kreisler’s without losing any of its worldwide appeal.

Among the compositions by Kreisler which he originally ascribed to other masters in imitation of their styles were: _Andantino_ (Martini); _Aubade provençale_ (Couperin); _Chanson Louis XIII et Pavane_ (Couperin); _Minuet_ (Porpora); _Praeludium and Allegro_ (Pugnani); _La Précieuse_ (Couperin); _Scherzo_ (Dittersdorf), _Sicilienne et Rigaudon_ (Francoeur); _Tempo di minuetto_ (Pugnani).

Perhaps the best loved pieces by Kreisler are those in the style of Viennese folk songs and dances in which are caught all the grace and Gemuetlichkeit of Viennese life and backgrounds. Some he originally tried to pass off as the works of other composers, as was the case with the already-mentioned _Liebesfreud_, _Liebesleid_, and _Schoen Rosmarin_, attributed to Lanner. Some were outright transcriptions. _The Old Refrain_ is an adaptation of a song “_Du alter Stefanturm_” by Joseph Brandl taken from his operetta, _Der liebe Augustin_, produced in Vienna in 1887. Still others were always offered as Kreisler’s own compositions and are completely original with him: _Caprice Viennois_, for example, and the _Marche miniature viennoise_.

Among other original Kreisler compositions which he always presented as his own are the following: _La Gitana_, which simulates an Arabian-Spanish song; _Polichinelle_, a serenade; _Rondino_, based on a theme of Beethoven; _Shepherd’s Madrigal_; _Slavonic Fantasia_, based on melodies of Dvořák; _Tambourin Chinois_; and _Toy Soldiers’ March_.

Édouard Lalo

Édouard Lalo was born in Lille, France, on January 27, 1823. After receiving his musical training at Conservatories in Lille and Paris, he became a member of the Armingaud-Jacquard Quartet, a renowned French chamber-music ensemble. In 1848-1849 he published some songs; in 1867 he received third prize in a national contest for his opera, _Fiesque_; and in 1872 he was acclaimed for his _Divertimento_, for orchestra, introduced in Paris. Two major works written for the noted Spanish violinist, Pablo de Sarasate, added considerably to his reputation: a violin concerto in 1872, and the celebrated _Symphonic espagnole_, for violin and orchestra, two years after that. One of his last major works was the opera, _Le Roi d’Ys_, introduced at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on May 7, 1888. In that same year he was made Officer of the Legion of Honor and sometime later he received the Prix Monbinne from the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In the last years of his life he was a victim of paralysis. He died in Paris on April 22, 1892.

A composer of the highest principles and aristocratic style, Lalo is essentially a composer for cultivated tastes. One of his works, however, makes for easy listening. It is the _Norwegian Rhapsody_ (_Rapsodie norvégienne_), for orchestra (1875). There are two sections. The first begins slowly and sedately, its main melody appearing in the strings. Here the tempo soon quickens and a sprightly passage ensues. The second part of the rhapsody, ushered in by a stout theme for trumpets, is vigorous music throughout.

Josef Lanner

Josef Lanner, the first of the great waltz kings of Vienna, was born in the Austrian capital on April 12, 1801. When he was twelve he played the violin in the band of Michael Pamer, a popular Viennese composer of that day. In 1818 Lanner formed a trio which played in smaller cafés and at the Prater. In 1819 the trio grew into a quartet with the addition of the older Johann Strauss (father of the composer of _The Blue Danube_), then only fifteen years old. Soon afterwards, the quartet was expanded into a quintet. By 1824, Lanner’s ensemble was a full-sized orchestra popular throughout Vienna, heard in such famous café houses as the _Goldenen Rebbuhn_, and the _Gruenen Jager_, as well as at leading balls and other gala social events in Vienna. The call for Lanner’s music was so insistent that to meet the demand it soon became necessary to create two orchestras; one led by Lanner, and the other by the elder Strauss. Lanner remained an idol of Vienna until his death, which took place in Oberdoebling, near Vienna, on April 14, 1843.

For his various ensembles and orchestras Lanner produced a wealth of popular Viennese music: quadrilles, polkas, galops, marches, and more than a hundred waltzes. It is in the last department that Lanner was most important, for he was one of the first composers to carry the waltz to its artistic fulfillment. With composers from Mozart to Schubert, the waltz was only a three-part song form with a trio. Johann Hummel and Karl Maria von Weber suggested a more spacious design by assembling several different waltz tunes into a single integrated composition. Lanner extended this form further. He prefaced each series of waltzes with an introduction in which the theme of the main melody was often suggested; after the waltz melodies had been presented, Lanner brought his composition to completion with a coda which served as a kind of summation of some of the ideas previously stated. Between the introduction and the coda came the succession of lilting, lovable, heart-warming waltz-melodies so remarkable for their grace, elegance, freshness and poignancy that Lanner has sometimes been described as “the Mozart of the dance.” Nevertheless, Lanner always emphasized soaring lyricism where the elder Strauss was more partial to rhythm. The Viennese used to say: “With Lanner, it’s ‘Pray dance, I beg you.’ With Strauss it’s ‘You must dance, I command you!’”

The form which Lanner finally crystallized, and the style with which his waltz music unfolded, were adopted by the two Johann Strausses, father and son, who were destined to bring this type of Viennese music to its ultimate development. Thus Lanner was the opening chapter of a musical epoch. He was the dawn of Vienna’s golden age of waltz music.

Lanner’s most famous waltz is _Die Schoenbrunner_, op. 200, his swan song. Other outstanding Lanner waltzes are: _Die Pesther_, op. 93, _Die Werber_, op. 103, _Hofballtaenze_, op. 161, _Die Romantiker_, op. 167, and _Abendsterne_, op. 180. “With Lanner,” wrote H. E. Jacob, “the romantic epoch began for the waltz, and the flower-gardens and green leaves of Spring penetrated into the ballroom. Lanner’s compositions are unsophisticated and unpretentious, but his waltzes could no more be commonplace than could a flower.”

Charles Lecocq

Charles Lecocq was born in Paris on June 3, 1832. For four years he attended the Paris Conservatory where, as a pupil of Bazin and Halévy, he received prizes in harmony and fugue. For a while he earned his living teaching the piano and writing church music. In 1857 he shared with Bizet the first prize in a competition for one-act operettas sponsored by Offenbach. This winning work, _Le Docteur miracle_, was successfully introduced in Paris that year. After that Lecocq wrote several light operas which were failures, before he enjoyed a major success with _Fleur de thé_ in 1868, first in Paris and subsequently in England and Germany. His greatest successes came with two crowning works in the French light-opera repertory: _La Fille de_ _Mme. Angot_ in 1872, and _Giroflé-Girofla_, in 1874. Between 1874 and 1900 he wrote over thirty more operettas. He died in Paris on October 24, 1918 after enjoying for almost half a century a place of signal honor among France’s composers for the popular theater.

Lecocq is remembered today mainly for _La Fille de Mme. Angot_ and _Giroflé-Girofla_. The first of these was introduced in Brussels on December 4, 1872. In Paris, where it was given on February 23, 1873, it enjoyed the formidable run of more than five hundred consecutive performances. The book—by Siraudin, Clairville and Koning—was set in Paris during the French Revolution. Clairette, daughter of Mme. Angot, must marry the barber Pomponnet even though she loves the poet, Pitou. To avoid an undesirable marriage, even at the risk of arrest, Clairette sings a daring song by Pitou about an illicit affair between Mlle. Lange (reputed a favorite of Barras, head of the Directory) and a young lover. When Pitou proves fickle, and is discovered in the boudoir of Mlle. Lange, Clairette stands ready to forget him completely and to take Pomponnet as her husband.

The sprightly overture, filled with vivacious tunes and dramatized by energetic rhythms, is a favorite of semi-classical orchestras. So are several dances from the operetta, including an electrifying Can-Can, and a sweeping _Grand Valse_ with which the second act comes to an exciting close. The main vocal excerpts are Pomponnet’s passionate avowal of Clairette’s innocence, “_Elle est tellement innocente_” and the duet of Mlle. Lange and Clairette, “_Jours fortunés de notre enfance_” both from Act 2.

_Giroflé-Girofla_—book by Vanloo and Leterrier—was introduced in Brussels on March 21, 1874. Giroflé and Girofla are twin sisters. Giroflé is pressured by her parents to marry the banker, Marasquin; Girofla is in love with an impoverished fire-eating Moor, Mourzouk. When Girofla is secretly abducted by pirates, the Moor comes to her home demanding to see her, only to mistake Giroflé for Girofla. The complicated situation ensuing becomes resolved only after Girofla is rescued and brought back home.

The most frequently heard excerpts from this gay score are the Pirates’ Chorus, “_Parmi les choses_”; the rousing drinking song, “_Le Punche scintille_”; the ballad, “_Lorsque la journée est finie_”; and the love duet, “_O Ciel!_”

Ernesto Lecuona

Ernesto Lecuona was born in Havana, Cuba, on August 7, 1896. As a boy of eleven he published his first piece of music—an American two step still popular with some Cuban bands. While attending the National Conservatory in Cuba, from which he was graduated in 1911 with a gold medal in piano playing, he earned his living as a pianist in cafés and movie theaters. In 1917 he paid the first of several visits to the United States, at that time making some records and giving a piano recital. He then made concert tours throughout America and Europe playing the piano and conducting semi-classical and popular orchestras. His performances were largely responsible for popularizing in America both the conga and the rumba in the 1920’s. He also made some successful appearances at the Capitol Theater, in New York, where he introduced his own music, including such outstanding successes as _Malagueña_, _Andalucía_, and _Siboney_ (the last originally entitled _Canto Siboney_, which became an American popular-song hit in 1929). These and similar pieces made Lecuona one of the most successful exponents of Latin-American melodies and dance rhythms in the United States. Lecuona has written over five hundred songs, forty operettas, and numerous compositions both for orchestra and for piano solo.

From a piano suite entitled _Andalucía_ come two of Lecuona’s best known instrumental compositions. The first is also called _Andalucía_, a haunting South American melody set against a compulsive rhythm. It was made into an American popular song in 1955.

Another movement from _Andalucía_ is even more familiar: the _Malagueña_. Since its publication as a piano solo in 1929, _Malagueña_ has sold annually over a hundred thousand copies of sheet music each year; it has become a favorite of concert pianists; it is also often performed by salon and pop orchestras everywhere in orchestral transcriptions; and it has been adapted into a popular song, “At the Crossroads.” It is in three sections, the first being in the malagueña rhythm dynamically projected in slowing expanding sonorities; a contrast comes in the middle part with a poignant Latin-American melody.

_Andalucía_, the single movement and not the suite as a whole, has been given a brilliant orchestral dress by Morton Gould who has also orchestrated two outstandingly popular Lecuona songs. One is “La Comparasa,” a picture of a traditional parade during the Carnival season in which Negroes and muleteers play their native instruments and sing their sensual songs. The other is “Gitanerias,” haunting gypsy music.

Franz Lehár

Franz Lehár was born in Komorn, Hungary, on April 30, 1870. His father, a bandmaster, was his first music teacher. When Franz was twelve, he entered the Prague Conservatory where he remained six years specializing in the violin with Bennewitz and theory with Foerster. His studies were completed in 1888, after which he played the violin in the orchestra of the Eberfeld Opera. He subsequently became an assistant bandleader of his father’s ensemble and a director of Austria’s foremost Marine bands. In 1896 he realized his first success as a composer of operettas with _Kukuschka_, produced in Leipzig. In 1902 he became conductor of the Theater-an-der-Wien, in Vienna, home of operettas. There, in the same year, he had produced _Viennese Women_ (_Wiener Frauen_). The operetta after that was _The Gypsy_ (_Der Rastelbinder_), seen in 1902 in one of Vienna’s other theaters. With _The Merry Widow_ (_Die lustige Witwe_), seen in 1905, Lehár achieved a triumph of such magnitude that from then on he was one of Austria’s most celebrated operetta composers (and one of the wealthiest) since Johann Strauss II. He wrote about thirty more operettas (three of them in the single year of 1909-1910). The most famous were _The Count of Luxembourg_ (_Der Graf von Luxemburg_) in 1909; _Gypsy Love_ (_Zigeunerliebe_) in 1910; _Frasquita_ in 1922; _Paganini_ in 1925; _The Tsarevitch_ (_Der Zarewitsch_) in 1927; and _The Land of Smiles_ (_Das Land des Laechelns_) in 1929. During World War II Lehár lived in seclusion at his villa in Bad Ischl, Austria. After the war he became embittered by the widely publicized accusation that he had been pro Nazi, arising no doubt from the well-known fact that _The Merry Widow_ was Hitler’s favorite operetta. What was forgotten in this attack against Lehár was the fact that his wife had been classified by Nazis as non-Aryan and that on one occasion both and he and his wife were subjected by the Gestapo to house arrest. Lehár died in Bad Ischl, Austria, on October 24, 1948. He is one of the few composers to outlive the copyrights of some of his most famous works.

Lehár’s popularity in the early part of this century gave the Viennese operetta a new lease on life at a time when its heyday was believed over. It was through the influence of Lehár’s immense popularity and success that composers like Oscar Straus, Emmerich Kálmán, and Leo Fall began writing their own operettas. Lehár’s best stage works have been described as “dance operettas” because of the emphasis placed on dance music, the waltz specifically. The dance usually becomes the climax, the focal point, of the production. Stan Czech further points out that Lehár’s waltzes are “slower and sweeter than those of Johann Strauss, were definite prototypes of the modern slow waltz, and their Slav atmosphere gave them an exciting and individual character.”

_The Count of Luxembourg_ (_Der Graf von Luxemburg_)—text by Willner and Robert Bodanzky—was first given in Vienna on November 12, 1909. This operetta opens in an artist’s studio in Paris where René, the impoverished Count of Luxembourg, is offered five hundred thousand francs by Prince Basil if René is willing to marry the singer Angele and let her share his title. The reason for this peculiar arrangement is that the Prince is himself in love with Angele, wants to marry her, but prefers that his wife have a title. After they get married, René and Angele discover they are in love with each other, a fact which eventually the Prince is willing to accept since he is ordered by the Czar to marry a legitimate Countess. As in most Lehár’s operettas, the high musical moment comes with a waltz—the infectious duet of René and Angele, “_Bist du’s, lachendes Glueck_,” which is also extremely popular in orchestral adaptations. Other appealing numbers are the second act duet, “_Lieber Freund, man greift nicht_” and the tenor aria, “_Maedel klein, Maedel fein_.”

_Frasquita_, produced in Vienna on May 12, 1922, is remembered most often for one of Lehár’s most beautiful vocal numbers, the nostalgic and romantic _Frasquita Serenade_, “_Hab ein blaues Himmelbett_.” Fritz Kreisler made a fine transcription for violin and piano, and Sigmund Spaeth provided the melody with American lyrics.

_Gypsy Love_ (_Zigeunerliebe_), had its world première in Vienna on January 8, 1910. The librettists (Willner and Bodanzky) provided a romantic storybook setting of Rumania, and a romantic central character in the form of the gypsy violinist, Jozsi. Zorika is ineluctably drawn to Jozsi though she is actually betrothed to his half-brother, Jonel. In a dream, she gets a foretaste of what her life would be with one so irresponsible and fickle as a gypsy violinist, with the result that she is more than happy to marry Jonel. The main waltz melody (one of Lehár’s greatest) is “_Nur der Liebe macht uns jung_” and the most infectious Hungarian tune is Jozsi’s soaring entrance gypsy melody to the accompaniment of his violin, “_Ich bin ein Zigeunerkind_.”

From _The Land of Smiles_ (_Das Land des Laechelns_) comes what is probably the best loved and most widely sung of all of Lehár’s vocal numbers, “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz” (“Thine Is My Heart Alone”) which opened not in Vienna but in Berlin, on October 10, 1929. This was actually a new version of an old Lehár operetta, originally called _The Yellow Jacket_ (_Die gelbe Jacke_) which had been introduced in Vienna in 1923. The romantic plot of both operettas involved a Chinese diplomat, Prince Sou-Chong, and Lisa, daughter of an Austrian Count. They marry and settle in Peking in whose strange setting, Lisa’s love for the Prince soon turns to hate. With great magnanimity—even though this is in violation of ancient Chinese traditions and customs—he allows Lisa to leave him and return home.

In _The Yellow Jacket_, “Thine Is My Heart Alone” is sung by Lisa, and at that time this number made little impression. The famous tenor, Richard Tauber, fell in love with it, and performed it so extensively in his recitals everywhere that he and the song became inextricably identified. When Lehár revised his operetta and renamed it _The Land of Smiles_, he cast the song “Thine Is My Heart Alone” as a major second-act aria for Prince Sou-Chong, Richard Tauber playing the part of the Prince. _The Land of Smiles_ was a personal triumph for Tauber who appeared in it over 2,500 times all over the world. “Thine Is My Heart Alone” became with him something of a theme song. He rarely gave a concert anywhere without singing it either on the program itself or as an encore. When _The Land of Smiles_ was given in New York City in 1946, with Tauber as the star, the operetta was renamed _Yours Is My Heart_; in this production Tauber sang the song four times in four different languages, French, Italian, German, and English.

There can be little question but that _The Merry Widow_ (_Die lustige Witwe_) is one of the most famous operettas ever written. It was a sensation when first performed, in Vienna on December 28, 1905. It came both to London and New York in 1907, a major success in both places. In Buenos Aires it was performed simultaneously in five theaters in five different languages. Since 1907 there was hardly a time when _The Merry Widow_ was not being performed in some part of the world. It has enjoyed in excess of six thousand performances, a thousand of these in Vienna alone. On several occasions it has been adapted for the screen.

Victor Léon and Leo Stein wrote the text. This is the usual operetta material involving a beautiful heiress from a mythical kingdom. She is Sonia from Marsovia, who is leading a gay life in Paris. Beautiful and wealthy, she is inevitably sought out by the most handsome men of Paris. The government of Marsovia is eager to get her to marry one of its native sons, the dashing Prince Danilo, thereby keeping her fortune at home. As she conducts her vivacious night life she is zealously watched over by the Marsovian Ambassador, Baron Popoff, who never loses an opportunity to further the interests of Danilo. Eventually, Sonia has had her fling and is ready to settle down with the Prince.

The _Merry Widow Waltz_, “_S’fluestern Geigen, Lippen schweigen_,” an eye-filling climax to the third act, is not only the most popular excerpt from this operetta but also one of the most celebrated waltzes ever written. A secondary waltz, “Vilia” is also highly beguiling, while a third musical favorite from this score is “_Da geh’ ich zu Maxim_” (“_The Girl at Maxim’s_”).

What is one of Lehár’s best waltzes, second in popularity only to that of _The Merry Widow_, does not come from any operetta. It is the _Gold and Silver Waltzes_ (_Gold und Silber Waelzer_), op. 79 which he wrote as a concert number.

Ruggiero Leoncavallo

Ruggiero Leoncavallo was born in Naples, Italy, on March 8, 1858. He was graduated from the Bologna Conservatory, then spent several years traveling. He finally came to Paris where he earned his living playing the piano, singing, and writing music-hall songs. The powerful Italian publisher, Ricordi, commissioned him to write a trilogy of operas set in the Renaissance. Leoncavallo completed the first of these operas, _I Medici_, but it proved too expensive to mount and was shelved. This experience convinced him that he ought to write an opera of slighter dimensions, one which would not cost too much to produce, and which would be in the realistic style (“_Verismo_”) just made so popular by Mascagni’s _Cavalleria Rusticana_. In four months’ time, Leoncavallo completed _Pagliacci_, the opera through which his name survives. It received a triumphant première in Milan in 1892, with Toscanini conducting. Though Leoncavallo wrote many operas after that he never wrote one as good or as popular as the one that made him world famous. Only one of these later operas has retained interest, _Zaza_, introduced in 1900. A third opera, _La Bohème_, was well received when introduced in Venice in 1897, but was soon thrown into complete obscurity by a rival opera on the same subject, that of Puccini. In 1906 Leoncavallo toured the United States in performances of _Pagliacci_. The failures of his last operas made him a bitter, broken man in the last years of his life. He died in Montecatini, Italy, on August 9, 1919.

The composer prepared his own libretto for _Pagliacci_, a play within a play. A troupe of strolling players headed by Canio arrives for performances in a Calabrian village. Canio’s wife, Nedda, falls in love with Silvio, one of the villagers, and she in turn is being pursued by the pathetic clown of the troupe, Tonio. Through Tonio, Canio discovers his wife has been unfaithful to him, but fails to learn the identity of his rival. At the troupe’s evening performance—and in a play that closely resembles the actual happenings within the company—Canio kills Nedda when she fails to tell him who her lover is. But Silvio, in the audience, reveals himself by rushing on the stage to help Nedda. There Canio kills him.

Many of the selections from this opera are famous, but the most famous of all is the tenor aria, in which Canio speaks his immense grief on discovering that his wife has a lover, “_Vesti la giubba_.”

The other familiar excerpts include the baritone prologue, “_Si può_,” in which Tonio explains to his audience that the incidents in the play about to be presented are true to life and that the players are not performers but human beings; Nedda’s delightful ballatella, “The Bird Song” (“_Stridono lassù_”) where she tries to forget about Tonio’s initial response of jealousy by watching and describing the casual and carefree flight of birds overhead; the “Harlequin’s Serenade” in the play within the play sequence in the second act, “_O Columbina!_”; and a melodious orchestral Intermezzo which separates the first and second acts, music which hints darkly at impending tragedy through a poignant recall of Tonio’s prologue.

Anatol Liadov

Anatol Liadov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on May 10, 1855, the son and grandson of eminent Russian conductors. He was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but was so derelict about attending classes that in 1876 he was expelled. Reinstated two years later he now became fired with both ambition and industry, proved a brilliant student, and was graduated with highest honors. He was then appointed teacher of theory there, eventually becoming a renowned professor, a post he retained until the end of his life. He died in Novgorod, Russia, on August 28, 1914.

Liadov was at his best in his fairy tales for orchestra (_The Enchanted Lake_, _Baba Yaga_ and _Kikimora_); in songs; and in smaller pieces for the piano. He was a student of Russian folk music of which he made numerous adaptations, and whose styles and idioms percolated into many of his compositions.

The _Eight Russian Folksongs_, a suite for orchestra, op. 58 (1906) is one of Liadov’s adaptations. There are eight movements. In the first, “Religious Chant,” the main song is that chanted by children in religious processions; it is heard in English horn and bassoons. This is followed by “Christmas Carol,” its main theme presented by oboes and clarinets. “Plaintive Melody” is a village song, and “I Danced With a Mosquito,” a humorous scherzo in which muted strings simulated buzzing mosquitoes. The fifth movement is “Legend of the Birds” where the bird song is presented by the woodwind. “Cradle Song” is a tender melody for strings. This is followed by a lively rhythmic section, “Round Dance.” The suite ends with the “Village Dance Song,” music that usually accompanies the crowning of the May Queen.

Liadov is also the composer of a delightful trifle called _The Music Box_ in which the delicate little tune is the kind that lends itself gratefully to the tinkle of a music box. Liadov wrote this piece for the piano, op. 32, but it is better known in orchestral transcriptions.

Paul Lincke

Paul Lincke was born in Berlin, Germany, on November 7, 1866. After completing his music study he played the violin and bassoon in numerous theater orchestras. He later distinguished himself as a theater conductor. In 1897 he had his first operetta produced in Berlin. Thereafter he wrote many operettas, all originally given in Berlin; he became one of the foremost exponents of the light musical theater in Germany of his time. The most famous were _Frau Luna_ (1899), _Fraeulein Loreley_ (1900), _Lysistrata_ (1902), _Prinzessin Rosine_ (1905), and _Casanova_ (1914). His last operetta was _Ein Liebestraum_, produced in Hamburg in 1940. From 1918 to 1920 he was conductor at the Folies-Bergère in Paris. He died in Klausthal-Zellernfeld, Germany, on September 3, 1946.

His most famous composition is a song from _Lysistrata_ (1902): “The Glow Worm” (“_Gluehwuermchen_”), which achieved phenomenal popularity throughout the world independent of the operetta. It is still famous both as a vocal composition and in orchestral transcriptions. A new vocal version, with amusing lyrics by Johnny Mercer, was published and popularized in the United States in 1952.

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt was born in Raiding, Hungary, on October 22, 1811. A prodigy pianist who made an impressive debut in Hungary when he was nine, Liszt was financed by several Hungarian noblemen to study the piano with Czerny in Vienna. In 1822, Liszt made a sensational debut in that city, and in 1824, after a period of additional study in Paris, an equally momentous appearance in the French capital. For the next three years Liszt concertized throughout Europe, becoming an idol of music audiences everywhere. Then, in 1827, he decided to abandon music for what he regarded as nobler pursuits. He devoted himself in turn to religion, politics, literature, and philosophy without finding the satisfaction he sought. Then, in 1830, he went back to music. For about two years he worked industriously on his piano technique, reassuming an imperial position among the virtuosos of his generation beginning with 1833. He combined profound musicianship and a phenomenal technique with such a flair for showmanship and self-aggrandizement, that it can be said that the modern piano virtuoso (both in the best and worst sense of that term) was born with him.

In 1848, Liszt came to Weimar to fulfill duties as Kapellmeister to the Grand Duke. The eleven-year period of this office represented music-making of the highest order, as Liszt devoted himself to presenting the foremost operatic and symphonic music in the best possible performances. He was indefatigable in propagandizing the music of the avant-garde composers of his day, reviving Wagner’s _Tannhaeuser_ and presenting the world première of that master’s _Lohengrin_ at a time when Wagner was in disrepute in Germany because of his revolutionary activities.

Finding himself incapable of maintaining the high standards he had set, and disturbed by the prevailing antagonism to his espousal of new music, Liszt left Weimar in 1859. Once again he sought refuge in a career outside music. In 1865 he submitted to the tonsure and entered the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi as abbé. But music was not abandoned. He taught the piano to gifted pupils who came to him from all parts of the world; and he wrote an abundant amount of music, mainly for the piano. He died in Bayreuth, Bavaria, on July 31, 1886, still at the height of his powers and fame as composer, pianist and teacher.

Liszt left a vast repertory of music, including tone poems, symphonies, piano concertos, songs, and a library of works for the piano. At his best he was a great innovator, and a creator of vast dramatic and poetic concepts. At worst, he was a showman shamelessly wooing his public with superficial effects and trivial material. Most of his works belong to the concert hall, but some of it has enormous popular appeal as salon music.

The most famous of the latter is the _Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2_ in C-sharp minor (1847), originally for piano solo but subsequently orchestrated by the composer himself. This was one of nineteen compositions in which Liszt developed the form of the rhapsody and helped to make it popular; which he filled with strong national feelings and the individual traits of Hungarian folk music. One of the features of all these rhapsodies is their dynamic alternation of slow and sensual music (called _lassan_) with fast, dramatic, exciting passages (called _friskan_). The second _Hungarian Rhapsody_ opens with a _lassan_, a slow, stately declamation. Then, after a clarinet cadenza, the _friskan_ appears, a spirited melody for violins and woodwind. After that fast and slow passages, soft and loud dynamics, and rapidly changing meters and rhythm help to generate excitement and create drama. The drama and the excitement of this music never seem to lose their impact however many times this rhapsody is listened to.

Of Liszt’s twelve tone poems for orchestra the most famous is _Les Préludes_ (1850). The tone poem, or symphonic poem, is Liszt’s creation in an attempt to bring to orchestral music the pictorial, dramatic and programmatic qualities of Wagner’s music dramas. Thus Liszt conceived a one-movement composition, flexible in form, in which a story is told, picture described, or poem interpreted. The inspiration for _Les Préludes_ is the _Méditations poétiques_ of Lamartine, from which several lines are quoted in the published score to provide the music with its program:

“What is life but a series of Preludes to that unknown song of which death strikes the first solemn note? Love is the magic dawn of every existence; but where is the life in which the first enjoyment of bliss is not dispelled by some tempest; its illusions scattered by some fatal breath; its altar consumed as by a thunderbolt? What soul, this cruelly hurt, but seeks to repose with its memories in the sweet calm of pastoral life? Yet no man is content to resign himself for long to the mild, beneficent charms of Nature, and when the trumpet gives the alarm he hastens to the post of danger, on whatever field he may be called to fight, so that once more he may find in action full consciousness of himself and the possession of all his powers.”

_Les Préludes_ opens with a dignified subject in the basses which is subjected to considerable change and amplification before the main melody is introduced. This melody is an elegiac song expressing the happiness of love; its first entrance comes in four horns, strings, and harp. The music is carried to a climactic point, after which a frenetic mood is projected. Plaintively the oboe recalls the main melody; a country dance tune is offered by the horn; and the main melody reappears with opulent treatment. Another section of storm and stress follows before the final majestic statement of the main melody.

Of Liszt’s voluminous writings for the piano, one composition above all others has won favor throughout the music world as a tender, and sentimental expression of love. It is the _Liebestraum_, “Love’s Dream.” Liszt actually wrote three _Liebesträume_, but it is the third of this set—in A-flat major (1850)—which is considered when we speak or hear of the _Liebestraum_. All of these three piano compositions are adaptations of songs by the same composer; the third _Liebestraum_ originated as “_O Lieb’, so lang du lieben kannst_,” words by Freiligrath.

Frederick Loewe

Frederick Loewe was born in Vienna, Austria, on June 10, 1904. A musical prodigy, he began to study the piano when he was five; started composition at seven; at thirteen made a successful appearance as pianist with the Berlin Symphony; and at fifteen was the composer of a hit song, “Katrina,” that sold over a million copies of sheet music in Europe. He received a thorough musical training from Busoni, Eugène d’Albert, and Emil Nikolaus Rezniček, winning the Hollander Medal for piano playing in 1923. One year after that he came to the United States. Unable to make any progress in his musical career, he spent the next decade traveling around the country and filling all sorts of odd jobs. He punched cattle, mined gold, served as a riding instructor, and even boxed professionally. Eventually he came back to New York where he found a job in a Greenwich Village café playing the piano. In 1938 four of his songs were heard in a Broadway musical, _Great Lady_, a failure. A meeting with Alan Jay Lerner, a young lyricist and librettist, brought him a gifted collaborator. They wrote a musical comedy that was produced by a stock company in Detroit, and another called _What’s Up_ that was seen on Broadway. Their first major success came with the Broadway musical, _Brigadoon_, in 1947. _My Fair Lady_, in 1956, was one of the greatest successes of the Broadway theater. They also helped make entertainment history further by writing songs for the motion picture musical, _Gigi_, the first to win nine Academy Awards, including one for Lerner and Loewe for the title song. In 1960, Lerner and Loewe wrote the Broadway musical _Camelot_ based on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

_Brigadoon_ was a whimsical Scottish fantasy which came to Broadway on March 13, 1947, book and lyrics by Lerner. Brigadoon is a mythical town in Scotland which comes to life for a single day once every hundred years. Two American tourists happen to come to Brigadoon during its one day of existence. They become a part of its quaint life, and one of them falls in love with a Scottish lass. The musical highlights include a song that became a hit in 1947, “Almost Like Being In Love,” and several that have a charming Scottish flavor, including “Come to Me, Bend to Me,” “The Heather on the Hill,” and “I’ll Come Home With Bonnie Jean.”

_My Fair Lady_, produced on March 15, 1956, was Lerner’s adaptation for the popular musical theater of Bernard Shaw’s _Pygmalion_. Eliza Doolittle, an ignorant flower girl and daughter of a cockney, is transformed by the phonetician, Professor Henry Higgins, into a cultivated lady who is successfully palmed off upon high English society as a duchess. Higgins falls in love with her and, though a long confirmed bachelor, finds he can no longer live without her. _My Fair Lady_ became one of the most highly acclaimed musical productions of recent memory; Brooks Atkinson called it “one of the best musicals of the century.” It achieved a fabulous Broadway run and was brought by many touring countries to all parts of the civilized world, including the Soviet Union. It captured one third of the honors annually conferred on the theater by the Antoinette Perry Awards. The original-cast recording sold over three million discs. The principal numbers from Loewe’s captivating score include three romantic songs, two of the Hit Parade variety (“I Could Have Danced All Night” and “On the Street Where You Live”) and the third, “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”; two atmospheric numbers that evoke musically the place and setting of the play, “The Ascot Gavotte” and “The Embassy Waltz”; and the two cockney ditties of Eliza’s father, “Get Me to the Church On Time” and “With a Little Bit of Luck.”

Albert Lortzing

Gustav Albert Lortzing was born in Berlin on October 23, 1801. His parents were actors compelled to lead an itinerant life which made it impossible for Albert to obtain any systematic education. His mother taught him music, the study of which he later continued briefly in Berlin with Rungenhagen. His first effort at composition consisted of some songs, but in 1824 he completed his first opera, _Ali Pascha von Janina_. From 1833 to 1844 he was employed as a tenor at the Municipal Theater in Leipzig, for which he wrote the comic opera _Die beiden Schuetzen_, successfully produced in 1837. He achieved his greatest success the same year with the comic opera, _Zar und Zimmermann_, which within a few years’ time became a favorite among theater audiences throughout Europe. His later operettas included _Der Wildschuetz_ (_The Poacher_) in 1842 and _Der Waffenschmied_ (_The Armourer_) in 1846, while one of his finest romantic operas was _Undine_ in 1845. Lortzing also filled several engagements as conductor of operas and operettas in Leipzig, Vienna and Berlin, and as an opera impresario. He died in Berlin on January 21, 1851, one day after his last opera, _Die Opernprobe_ (_The Opera Rehearsal_) was introduced in Frankfort.

Lortzing was one of the earliest and most successful exponents of German national comic opera; and _Czar and the Carpenter_ (_Zar und Zimmermann_) was his masterwork. It was first produced in Leipzig on December 22, 1837. The music is consistently light and tuneful, frequently in the style of German folk songs. The libretto, by the composer, is a delightful comedy based on an actual historic episode: the escapade of Peter the Great of Russia in Holland where he worked as a carpenter. In the Lortzing comic opera, Peter the Great is a carpenter on a ship at Saardam where he meets a compatriot, also named Peter, who is a deserter. Temporarily they become rivals for the affection of Mary. After the arrival of the Ambassadors from France and England to seek out the Emperor, the latter quietly departs for his homeland, leaving behind him both money and an official pardon for the other Peter. The gay spirit of the comic opera as a whole is magically caught not only in its vivacious overture, but in several familiar excerpts. The most notable are: the Burgomaster’s comic entrance song, “_O sancta justa_”; in the second act, the Wedding Chorus, and the French Ambassador’s beautiful air, “_Lebe wohl, mein flandrisch’ Maedchen_”; in the third act the vigorous _Clog Dance_ (_Holzschutanz_), and the very famous air of Czar Peter, “_Sonst spielt’ ich mit Zepter_.”

Alexandre Luigini

Alexandre Luigini was born in Lyons, France, on March 9, 1850. He was the son of the distinguished conductor of the Théâtre-Italien in Paris. After attending the Paris Conservatory—where he was a pupil of Massenet and Massart among others—the younger Luigini played the violin in his father’s orchestra. In 1870 he began a successful career as ballet composer with _Le Rêve de Nicette_, given in Lyons. His greatest success came with the _Ballet Égyptien_, first seen in Lyons in 1875. For twenty years Luigini was the conductor of the Grand Theater in Lyons and professor of harmony at the Lyons Conservatory. Until the end of his life he was the conductor of the Opéra-Comique in Paris. He died in Paris on July 29, 1906.

An orchestral suite derived from some of the most attractive pages of the _Ballet Égyptien_ score is a favorite of bands and salon orchestras everywhere. This is music striking for its Oriental-type melodies and harmonies, and for its colorful orchestral hues. The first two movements are particularly popular. The first begins with a strong and stately theme, but midway comes a gayer section in an exotic Oriental style. The second movement highlights a capricious subject for the woodwind, once again in a recognizable Oriental style.

Hans Christian Lumbye

Hans Christian Lumbye was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 2, 1810. As a young man he played in military bands. He then formed an orchestra of his own which achieved extraordinary fame throughout Copenhagen (specifically at the Tivoli) with light musical programs. For these concerts Lumbye produced a library of light music: waltzes, galops, polkas, marches, and so forth. This music is so filled with infectious tunes and pulsating rhythms—and they are so light in heart and spirit—that they have won for their composer the sobriquet of “The Johann Strauss of the North” and the status of Denmark’s foremost creator of semi-classical music. He died in Copenhagen on March 20, 1874.

Lumbye’s dance pieces are played wherever there is a salon, pop or café-house orchestra. Among his best waltzes are _Amelie_, _Hesperus_, and _Sophie_. Other successful Lumbye compositions are the _Columbine Mazurka_, the _Champagne Galop_, _Concert Polka_, _Dream Pictures_, _An_ _Evening at the Tivoli_, _King Frederick VII Homage March_, and the _Railway Galop_.

Edward MacDowell

Edward Alexander Macdowell, one of America’s most significant 19th-century composers, was born in New York City on December 18, 1861. After preliminary music study with private teachers, he attended the Paris Conservatory from 1876 to 1878, and the Frankfort Conservatory in Germany from 1879 to 1881. Maintaining his home in Germany, MacDowell joined the faculty of the Darmstadt Conservatory in 1881, and in 1882 he made an official bow as a composer by introducing his first piano concerto in Zurich, and his _Modern Suite_ for piano in Germany. He returned to the United States in 1888, settling in Boston where a year later the Boston Symphony under Gericke introduced his now-famous Second Piano Concerto, the composer appearing as soloist. From then on, most of his important symphonic works were introduced by the Boston Symphony, placing him in the vanguard of American composers of that period. In 1896 he filled the first chair of music created at Columbia University in New York; at that time he was described as “the greatest musical genius America has produced.” MacDowell resigned in 1904 after sharp differences with the trustees of the University over the way a music department should be run. The bitterness and frustrations suffered by MacDowell during this altercation with the University undermined and finally broke his always delicate health. His brain tissues became affected. From 1905 on he was a victim of insanity, spending his time in an innocent, childlike state, until his death in New York City on January 23, 1908. Shortly after his death the MacDowell Memorial Association was founded to establish a retreat for American creative artists on MacDowell’s summer residence in Peterborough, New Hampshire, which MacDowell’s widow had deeded to the Association.

A composer whose artistic roots lay deep in the soil of German Romanticism, MacDowell was a composer who filled his writing with noble poetic sentiments and the most sensitive emotions. His sense of style and his feeling for structure were the last words in elegance, and his lyricism and harmonic language were ever ingratiatingly inviting to the ear.

The _Indian Suite_, op. 48 (1892) is the second of MacDowell’s suites for orchestra. It is one of several works in which MacDowell uses melodic and rhythmic material of the American Indian, blending this idiom with his usual sensitive and poetic style. This is one of MacDowell’s most popular works for orchestra. The first movement, “Legend,” has a slow introduction in which the main melody is given by three unaccompanied horns in unison. The melody is taken over by other instruments and developed. Here the material comes from a sacred ceremony of Iroquois Indians. The second movement is “Love Song,” whose principal subject is immediately given by the woodwind; this melody is derived from the music of Iowa Indians. “War Time” follows, a movement dominated by a melody to which Indians of the Atlantic Coast ascribed supernatural origin. This melody is heard in the first sixteen measures in two unison unaccompanied flutes. A subsidiary section follows. “Dirge,” the fourth movement, is a woman’s song of mourning for an absent son, come from the Kiowa Indians. The mournful melody is heard in muted violins. The suite ends with “Village Festival,” in which two light and vivacious melodies from the Iroquois Indians are presented; the first is a woman’s dance, and the second a war song.

The most familiar pieces of music written by MacDowell—_To a Water Lily_ and _To a Wild Rose_—come from the _Woodland Sketches_, op. 51 (1896), a suite for solo piano made up of ten sections, each a descriptive poem in tones. In this suite MacDowell became one of the first American composers to interpret the beauty of American scenes and countrysides in delicate melodies. Both _To a Water Lily_ and _To a Wild Rose_ are exquisite tone pictures of Nature, and both have enjoyed numerous transcriptions. The other eight movements of the _Woodland Sketches_ are: _Will o’ the Wisp_, _At an Old Trysting Place_, _In Autumn_, _From an Old Indian Lodge_, _From Uncle Remus_, _A Deserted Farm_, _By a Meadow Brook_, and _Told at Sunset_.

Albert Hay Malotte

Albert Hay Malotte was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 19, 1895. The son of a choirmaster, he himself was a boy chorister, at the St. James Episcopal Church in his native city. After his music studies were completed in Paris and London, he served as organist in Chicago and London. In 1927 he opened a school for organists in Los Angeles, but when sound came to the screen he gave up the school to write music for the films. He subsequently joined the music staff at the Walt Disney studio, creating music for several of Disney’s animated cartoons, including _Ferdinand the Bull_. He has written ballets, choral music, and songs, besides scores for motion pictures, having received early in his career as composer important advice, guidance and encouragement from Victor Herbert.

Malotte is most famous for his song, “The Lord’s Prayer,” published in 1935, and since become a favorite of concert singers everywhere. Its deep religious sentiment, and the exciting dramatic thrust of its concluding measures, have an inescapable impact on audiences.

Gabriel Marie

Gabriel Marie was born in Paris, France, on January 8, 1852. After completing his music study at the Paris Conservatory he served for six years as chorusmaster of the Lamoureux Orchestra. Between 1887 and 1894 he conducted the concerts of the Société nationale de musique. He later led the orchestral performances in Bordeaux and Marseilles, and during the summers at the Vichy Casino. He was traveling in Spain when he died there suddenly on August 29, 1928.

Marie was a successful composer of light music for orchestra. The one composition which has survived is _La Cinquantaine_, a sentimental piece for orchestra which is also famous in adaptations for violin and piano, or cello and piano. Marie described this work as an “air in the old style.” It is in three-part song form. The first and third parts consist of a light, delicate little air; the middle section is in a slower and statelier style.

Martini il Tedesco

Jean Paul Égide Martini—sometimes called “Il Tedesco” or “The German” to distinguish him from Padre Martini the famous 18th century Italian composer and theorist—was born in Freistadt, in the Palatinate, on September 1, 1741. His real name is Schwarzendorf. After completing the study of the organ and serving for a while as church organist, he won a prize for a military march for the Swiss Guard. For many years he was an officer of a Hussar regiment. During this military service he completed an opera, _L’Amoureux de quinze ans_ (successfully introduced in Paris in 1771) and a considerable amount of band music. After leaving the army, he served as music director for the Prince of Condé and the Comte d’Artois; as conductor at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris; and as Inspector and teacher of composition at the Paris Conservatory. He died in Paris on February 10, 1816.

The composer of twelve operas, some church music and many songs, Martini is today remembered for a single song—the eloquent and tender love melody, “_Plaisir d’amour_,” written originally for voice and harp, and arranged by Berlioz for voice and orchestra. Since Berlioz’ time it has enjoyed numerous instrumental adaptations. Effective use of the song, as recurring theme music, was made in the American motion picture starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer, _Love Affair_ (1939).

Pietro Mascagni

Pietro Mascagni was born in Leghorn, Italy, on December 7, 1863. He studied music with private teachers in Leghorn, then for several years attended the Milan Conservatory. In 1884 he was appointed conductor of the municipal band in Cerignola. Meanwhile in 1880 he had completed his first opera, _Pinotta_. Success as composer came later in 1890 with the world première of the opera, _Cavalleria Rusticana_ in Rome. A sensation when first introduced, _Cavalleria Rusticana_ made the rounds of the world capitals to enjoy a triumph experienced by few operas before or since. Mascagni wrote many operas after that. Though he enjoyed varying degrees of success with _L’Amico Fritz_ in 1891 and _Iris_ in 1898, he never again duplicated the acclaim given _Cavalleria Rusticana_; and it is still the only one of his operas performed in the world’s foremost opera houses. As he himself once said sadly: “It is a pity I wrote _Cavalleria_ first. I was crowned before I became king.” Mascagni made many tours as a conductor. He visited the United States in 1902 in performances of several of his operas, and South America in 1911. In 1929 he succeeded Toscanini as musical director of La Scala in Milan. Identifying himself closely with the Fascist regime—even to the point of writing an opera, _Nerone_, glorifying Mussolini—Mascagni was subjected to considerable abuse and attack after World War II. He was deprived of his property and other assets. The last year of his life was lived in poverty and disrepute in a small hotel room in Rome, where he died on August 2, 1945.

_Cavalleria Rusticana_ is a one-act opera, libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci based on a short story by Giovanni Verga. The setting is Sicily in the latter part of the 19th century. Turiddu, a soldier, is in love with Lola, wife of Alfio, a teamster. But he has also conducted an illicit affair with Santuzza. When Turiddu rudely rejects Santuzza, she finds revenge by revealing to Alfio the love intrigue existing between Lola and Turiddu. In the duel that follows Alfio kills Turiddu.

The most celebrated single excerpt from the opera is the melodious Intermezzo for orchestra which accompanies the departing townspeople as they leave church after the Easter services. This music is radiant with the holiness and serenity of the Easter holiday.

Other popular excerpts include the lovely Siciliana, “_O Lola bianca_,” a tenor aria which is sung offstage and breaks into the middle of the opening orchestral prelude; this is a serenade by Turiddu to Lola, sung to harp accompaniment. Santuzza’s passionate aria, “_Voi lo sapete_” is the one in which she first discloses to Alfio that his wife and Turiddu are lovers. Turiddu’s deeply emotional aria, “_Addio alla madre_” is his poignant farewell to his mother just before he engages in the duel in which he meets his doom.

Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet was born in Montaud in the Loire region of France on May 12, 1842. He entered the Paris Conservatory when he was nine, subsequently winning prizes in fugue and piano playing and, in 1863, the Prix de Rome. Four years later his first opera, _La Grand’ Tante_, was produced in Paris. During the Franco-Prussian War he was a member of the National Guard. After the war, he achieved recognition as a composer with his incidental music to _Les Érynnies_, an oratorio _Marie Magdaleine_, and an opera _Le Roi de Lahore_. In 1878 he was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the youngest man ever to receive this honor, and was appointed professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory. He held the latter post until his death with outstanding distinction. His most significant operas appeared between 1880 and 1900, and included _Hérodiade_ (1881), _Manon_ (1884), _Le Cid_ (1885), _Werther_ (1892), _Thaïs_ (1894) and _Sapho_ (1897). He died in Paris on August 13, 1912.

A style that had lyrical charm, tender feelings, and poetic content placed Massenet with the foremost French composers for the lyric theater. The same qualities are found to a large degree in his instrumental compositions, and endow them with their immense audience appeal. He had a vein of tenderness that was his uniquely, often contrasting this with striking passion and intensity. A master of many different moods and emotions, he was able to convey them in music that is suave and polished in the best French tradition.

_Alsatian Scenes_ (_Scènes alsaciennes_) is one of Massenet’s most popular orchestral compositions. It is the seventh of his suites for orchestra and was written in 1881. For each of its four movements the composer provided an explicit program. About the first movement, “Sunday Morning” (“_Dimanche matin_”) the composer writes: “I recall with particular delight the Alsatian village Sunday morning at the hour of divine service; the streets deserted, the houses empty except for the elderly ones who sun themselves before their doors. The church is full, and the sacred hymns are heard at intervals in passing.” “The Tavern” (“_Au cabaret_”) is described as the happy meeting place of his friends “with its little windows framed with lead, garlanded with hops and roses.... ‘Ho, Schmidt, some wine!’ And the songs of the forest rangers going to shooting matches. Oh, the joyous life and the gay companions!” “Under the Linden Trees” (“_Sous les tilleuls_”) depicts pictorially “the edge of the fields on a Sunday afternoon, the long avenue of linden trees, in the shadow of which, hand in hand, quietly talks a pair of lovers.” The suite ends with “Sunday Evening” (“_Dimanche soir: Air alsacien, Retraite française_”). “In the market place, what noise, what movement! Everyone at the doorsteps, groups of young gallants in the streets, and dances which embody in rhythm the songs of the country. Eight o’clock! The noise of the drums, the blare of the trumpets—’tis the retreat! The French retreat! And when in the distance the sound of the drum died down, the women called their children in the street, the old men relighted their big old pipes, and to the sounds of violins the dance is joyously recommenced in smaller circles, with couples closer.”

The ballet music for _Le Cid_ is strikingly appealing for its exotic melodies and lambent orchestral colors. This opera, text by Louis Gallet and Edouard Blau, is based on Corneille’s tragedy; its première performance took place in Paris on November 30, 1885. The setting is 12th century Burgos, in Spain, where Rodrigo called Le Cid, or The Conqueror, kills Chimène’s father in a duel. She seeks vengeance but is unable to carry it out because she has fallen in love with him. The ballet music appears in the second scene of the second act. A public square is alive and colorful with dancing crowds, and six dances are performed in rapid succession, some with melodic and rhythmic material derived by Massenet from Spanish folk sources. These are the dances: “_Castillane_,” a highly rhythmic dance found in the Castille region of Spain; “_Andalouse_,” a sinuous, gypsy-like dance from Andalusia; “_Aragonaise_,” a dance popular in the Aragon district; “_Aubade_,” a gentle lyrical section; “_Catalane_,” a dance popular in Catalonia; “_Madrilène_,” a two-part dance from Madrid, the first quiet and introspective, the second dynamic; and “_Navarraise_,” a dance from Navarre.

The popular “_Élégie_,” a plangent melody muted in its grief, comes from the incidental music to _Les Érynnies_ with which Massenet first won acclaim in 1873. The play, by Charles Marie Leconte based on Aeschylus, was produced with Massenet’s music at the Odéon in Paris. Here the “_Élégie_” appeared as “_Invocation_,” scored for string orchestra. Later on Massenet arranged this section for cello and piano, and it was upon this occasion that he renamed the piece _Élégie_. It was later on also transcribed for violin and piano, and adapted into a song with lyrics by E. Gallet.

Three other sections from _Les Érynnies_ have almost as much emotional appeal as the _Élégie_, but in varied moods. The “Entr’acte” is a passionate song for unison violins over a disturbed accompaniment. “Grecian Dance” begins with a vivacious dance tune for two flutes in thirds. A slow dialogue ensues between oboes and clarinets, in which the main subject has an Oriental identity. A fast section brings this movement to a close. “_Scène religieuse_” is a graceful, at times solemn, minuet in which a solo cello provides the main melody.

The famous opera _Manon_ (1884) has two delightful dance episodes that are particularly well known, a gavotte and a minuet. _Manon_ was based on the famous tale of Abbé Prévost, _L’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut_, adapted by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille. Its setting is France in the 18th century, and in the spirit of that place and time Massenet recreated two old-world dances, both of them appearing in the first scene of the third act, during a festival-day celebration in Paris. Before the curtain goes up, the graceful music of the minuet is heard in the orchestra as an entr’acte. After the rise of the curtain, and the appearance of Manon, she expresses her hedonistic philosophy of life in a gavotte (“_Obéissons quand leur voix appelle_”). This gavotte is often heard in an exclusively instrumental arrangement.

The _Phèdre Overture_ (1876) is another of Massenet’s frequently performed orchestral compositions. The music closely follows the action of the Racine tragedy, in which Phedre—daughter of King Minos and wife of Theseus—falls in love with Theseus’ son, Hippolytus, who fails to respond to her passion. The overture begins in a gloomy mood, forecasting ominously the imminent tragedy awaiting Phedre and Hippolytus. Phedre’s grief over her unreciprocated love is suggested by a passionate subject for clarinet; a second equally passionate melody brings us the picture of Hippolytus sent to his doom by an irate father. Violins in unison now bring us a rapturous melody speaking of Phedre’s love, while a fiery dramatic section that follows tells of the doom awaiting Hippolytus at the hands of Neptune.

_Picturesque Scenes_ (_Scènes pittoresques_) is the fourth of Massenet’s suites for orchestra, completed in 1873. There are four short, tuneful sections: “March” (“_Marche_”), “Air de Ballet,” “Angelus” and “Bohemian Festival” (“_Fête bohème_”). The religious music of the third movement, “Angelus,” with its solemn tolling of bells, is the most popular section of this suite, frequently performed separately from the other movements.

Second only to the “_Élégie_” in popularity among Massenet’s best-loved melodies is the “Meditation” which comes from the opera _Thaïs_. This excerpt is an orchestral entr’acte with violin obbligato heard just before the first scene of the second act. The opera, libretto by Louis Gallet based on the novel of Anatole France, describes the degradation of Athanaël, a Cenobite monk, because of his unholy passion for Thaïs, a courtesan. The radiant music of the “Meditation” describes Thaïs’ renunciation of a life of pleasure for one of the spirit.

Robert McBride

Robert Guyn McBride was born in Tucson, Arizona, on February 20, 1911. As a boy he learned to play the clarinet and saxophone. He later played both instruments in various dance orchestras. In 1933 he was graduated from the University of Arizona, and a year after that received there his Master’s degree. Having studied the oboe in college, he played that instrument with the Tucson Symphony for several years. Then, after additional study of the piano, composition and voice, he joined the music faculty of Bennington College in Vermont in 1935, holding this post eleven years. During this period he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1942, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him a prize for creating a “new idiom in American music.” McBride has made successful use of jazz, popular and folk elements in serious chamber-music and orchestral compositions.

The _Mexican Rhapsody_ (1936) is one of McBride’s best known works for orchestra. He wrote it in Arizona while studying at the University. It was first presented in Tucson in a two-piano arrangement, then in its definitive orchestral version, and finally as a choreographic presentation. McBride here makes a colorful and freshly conceived presentation of four Mexican folk songs familiar to many: “_El Rancho Grande_,” “_Jarabe_” (or “Hat Dance”), “_Cuatro Milpas_,” and “_La Cucaracha_.”

McBride has written several interesting compositions in a jazz style. One of the best is the _Strawberry Jam_ (1942). This is a caricature of a jazzband jam session, but with the utilization of modern harmonies and symphonic orchestration. _Stuff in G_, for orchestra (1942), is in the racy, tuneful style of Tin Pan Alley, while _Swing Stuff_ (1941) brings to the symphonic orchestra the improvisational devices and techniques and the beat of Swing music.

Harl McDonald

Harl Mcdonald was born in Boulder, Colorado, on July 27, 1899. His music study took place in Redlands, California and at the University of Southern California. The winning of prizes from the American Federation of Music Clubs for two orchestral works enabled him to go to Europe and attend the Leipzig Conservatory. In Germany, his symphonic fantasy, _Mojave_, was successfully introduced by the Berlin State Opera Orchestra. After returning to the United States he was appointed in 1926 to the music faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he later became professor of music, and finally head of the music department. At the University he conducted various choral groups which appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra. From 1939 until his death he was manager of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which introduced many of his orchestral compositions. McDonald wrote four symphonies, a two-piano concerto, a violin concerto, and various suites and tone poems for orchestra. He died in Princeton, New Jersey, on March 30, 1955.

The _Children’s Symphony_ was a work intended to teach children something about symphonic form through melodies they knew and loved. The form of the symphony is adhered to—in the presentation of two themes, their development, and recapitulation. Simple and unsophisticated, this symphony makes ideal listening for children, but there is enough charm here to provide considerable enjoyment to older people as well. In the first movement, McDonald uses for his two main themes, “London Bridge” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep.” In the second movement we hear “Little Bo Peep” and “Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be?”; in the third, “Farmer in the Dell” and “Jingle Bells”; and in the finale, “Honey Bee” and “Snow Is Falling On My Garden.”

_Rhumba_, for symphony orchestra, is the third movement of McDonald’s Symphony No. 2 (1935). But this movement (which in the symphony displaces the conventional scherzo) is so popular that it is often played apart from the rest of the work. The symphony itself was inspired by the turbulent 1930’s, with its labor conflicts, breadlines, unemployment, and depression. _Rhumba_ injected a gay note into these somber proceedings, attempting to interpret “the passionate search after good times and diversions, and the restless pursuit of intoxicated pleasures,” as the composer explained. McDonald goes on to say that he here used the rumba rhythm because he liked it and because it seemed to him to be the pulse of those times.

Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn-bartholdy was born in Hamburg, Germany, on February 3, 1809. His grandfather was the famous philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn; his father, a successful banker. Both were of Jewish origin. When Felix was still a boy, however, his immediate family was converted to Protestantism, the occasion upon which they added the name of “Bartholdy” to their own to distinguish them from the other members of their family. A pupil of Ludwig Berger and Karl Friedrich Zelter, Felix was extraordinarily precocious in music. When he was seven and a half he made a successful appearance as pianist in Berlin; by the time he was twelve he had already written operas and symphonies; and in his seventeenth year he produced an unqualified masterwork in the _Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. In 1827, one of his operas was produced in Berlin, but by that time he had already completed thirteen symphonies and a library of chamber music as well.

In 1829, Mendelssohn conducted in Berlin the first performance of Bach’s _Passion According to St. Matthew_ to be given since Bach’s own day. This concert became a powerful influence in reviving interest in Bach’s music, which at that time had been languishing in both neglect and obscurity. A few weeks after Mendelssohn had directed a repeat performance, he made his first trip to England where he led the première of a new symphony and was made honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic. A tour of Scotland that followed immediately was the inspiration for his overture, _Fingal’s Cave_.

In 1833, Mendelssohn served as musical director of the city of Duesseldorf. He held this post only six months. Much more significant was his engagement as the principal conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig in 1835 which, during the five years of his leadership, was elevated to a position of first importance among the world’s symphony orchestras.

In 1841, Mendelssohn became head of the music department of a projected Academy of Arts in Berlin. This appointment did not prevent him from visiting England where he was received with an adulation accorded to no foreign musician since Handel. Returning to Berlin he found that the Academy of Arts project had been abandoned. He was now made Kapellmeister to the King, an honorary post allowing him complete freedom of activity and movement. During the next few years he conducted concerts of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, and paid two more highly successful visits to England. He was also instrumental in helping to found the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843. Always of delicate health and sensibilities, Mendelssohn collapsed at the news that his beloved sister, Fanny, died in 1847. He died in Leipzig soon after that, on November 4, 1847.

The finest qualities of German Romantic music can be found in Mendelssohn. He had the Romantic’s partiality for fantasy and the supernatural, together with the lightness of touch with which to create such worlds through music. He had the Romantic’s gift for translating natural scenes, landscapes and lyric poetry into sensitive tone pictures. He had a most winning lyricism and graceful harmonic and orchestral gift, and he never lacked the ability to charm and enchant his listeners with the most tender and lovable musical expression. Other composers may have written profounder or more emotionally stirring music than Mendelssohn; but no one could be more ingratiating, sensitive, or refined. Some of Mendelssohn’s serious symphonic works are so full of the most wonderful melodies and beguiling moods that they have the universal appeal of semi-classics.

The concert overture, _Fingal’s Cave_, or as it is also sometimes known, _Hebrides Overture_, op. 26 (1832) was inspired by the composer’s visit to the Scottish Highlands in 1830. The opening theme in lower strings and bassoons suggests the roll of the waves at the mouth of a cave, a melody that came to the composer while visiting the caves of Staffa. This idea is developed, then a second beautiful melody unfolds in cellos and bassoons.

The orchestral suite, _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, op. 61 is derived from the incidental music comprising thirteen numbers which Mendelssohn wrote for a Potsdam production of the Shakespeare comedy in 1843; the Overture, however, was a fruit of the composer’s youth, having been written in 1826. The magic world of fairies and elves which Mendelssohn projected so delicately in his youthful overture is preserved in many of the numbers he wrote seventeen years later. The Overture, op. 21, is initiated with four sensitive chords, and proceeds with fleeting, diaphanous music for strings with which we are suddenly plunged in fairyland. The main thematic material to follow comprises a haunting song for horn, a romantic episode for woodwind and strings, and a sprightly fairy dance for strings.

Three other musical sections from this incidental music, and basic to the orchestral suite, are famous. The “Nocturne” is a broad, moody song for horns. The “Scherzo”—like the Overture—is a picture of the world of fairies, gnomes and elves, though in a more energetic and spirited vein. The “Wedding March” is now one of the most frequently played pieces of wedding music, second in popularity only to Wagner’s wedding music from _Lohengrin_; it first became popular as wedding music at the nuptials of the English Princess in London in 1858. A trumpet fanfare leads to the dignified march melody which is twice alternated with melodious trio sections.

“On Wings of Song” (“_Auf Fluegeln des Gesanges_”), op. 34, no. 2 (1834) is Mendelssohn’s best-known song, a melody of incomparable loveliness and serenity. The poem is by Heine. Franz Liszt transcribed it for piano; Joseph Achron for violin and piano; Lionel Tertis for viola and piano. It has also enjoyed various orchestral transcriptions.

_Ruy Blas_, op. 95 (1839)—like _Fingal’s Cave_—is a concert overture for orchestra; here the inspiration is the drama of Victor Hugo. Four solemn bars for wind instruments lead to the principal subject, first violins and flutes; clarinets, bassoons, and cellos later offer the second contrasting staccato theme.

The _Spinning Song_ and the _Spring Song_ are both instrumental favorites, and both come from the _Songs Without Words_ (_Lieder ohne Worte_), for solo piano. The form of “song without words” is a creation of Mendelssohn: a brief composition of such essentially lyric character that it is virtually a “song” for the piano. Mendelssohn wrote forty-eight such pieces gathered in eight books. The _Spinning Song_ in C major appears in op. 67 as the fourth number (1844). This is a tender melody placed against a rhythmic background suggesting the whirring of a spinning wheel. The _Spring Song_ in A major is surely one of the most familiar tonal pictures of the vernal season to be found in the semi-classical literature; it appears in op. 62 (1842) as the concluding number. Both the _Spinning Song_ and _Spring Song_ appear in all kinds and varieties of transcriptions.

The stirring _War March of the Priests_ is a number from the incidental music for Racine’s drama, _Athalie_, op. 74 (1843); this incidental music was first performed with the Racine play in Berlin in 1845.

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer was born in Berlin, Germany, on September 5, 1791. His name, at birth, was Jakob Liebmann Beer. When Meyer, a rich relative, left him a legacy, he decided to change his name to Meyerbeer; some years later upon initiating a career as composer of Italian operas he Italianized his name. His music study took place with Clementi, Zelter, Anselm Weber and Vogler, the last of whom encouraged him to write his first opera, _Jephtha’s Vow_ (_Jephtha’s Geluebde_), a failure when first performed in Munich in 1812. A second opera, performed in Stuttgart, was also a failure; Meyerbeer now seriously entertained the thought of abandoning composition altogether. The noted Viennese composer and teacher, Antonio Salieri, however, convinced him what he needed was more study. This took place in Italy where for several years Meyerbeer assimilated Italian traditions of opera. His first endeavor in this style was _Romilda e Costanza_, a success when introduced in Padua in 1817. During the next few years Meyerbeer wrote several more operas, some of them on commission, and became one of Italy’s most highly regarded composers for the stage. In 1826, Meyerbeer settled in Paris where association with composers like Cherubini and Halévy, made him impatient with the kind of operas he had thus far created. In 1831, with _Robert le Diable_, he entered upon a new artistic phase in which Italian methods, procedures and traditions were discarded in favor of the French. _Robert le Diable_, produced at the Opera on November 21, 1831 was a sensation. Meyerbeer continued writing operas in the French style for the remainder of his life. These are the operas by which he is most often represented in the world’s opera theaters: _Les Huguenots_ (1836), _Le Prophète_ (1849), and _L’Africaine_ (1865). Meyerbeer died in Paris on May 2, 1864.

Meyerbeer was an exponent of drama in the grand style, his finest operas being filled with big climactic scenes, elaborate stage effects, and eye-filling visual displays. But he also had a pronounced dramatic gift, one which evoked from Wagner the highest admiration; and a pronounced expressiveness of lyricism.

_L’Africaine_ (_The African_) is Meyerbeer’s last opera, and many regarded it as his best. He completed it in 1864 just before his death, and its world première at the Paris Opera took place posthumously on April 28, 1865. The text, by Eugène Scribe, is set in Lisbon and Madagascar in the 15th century. The main action concerns the love of Selika, an African queen, for the Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama; Da Gama in turn is loved by Inez, daughter of Don Diego. Selika offers the explorer a secret route to the land of which she is queen, Madagascar, and with which Da Gama becomes enraptured. But when Inez appears, he abandons Selika for her, and leaves the magic island. Heartbroken, Selika kills herself by breathing the deadly fragrance of a manchineel tree.

The opera’s most popular excerpt is Vasco da Gama’s rapturous tenor aria from the fourth act in which he describes the beauty of Madagascar, “_O Paradis_.” Another vocal favorite is the baritone ballad of Nelusko, slave of Selika, “_Adamastor, roi des vagues profondes_”; as he steers the ship bearing Selika and Vasco da Gama to Madagascar he sings of Adamastor, monarch of the sea, who sends ships to their doom on treacherous reefs.

The _Coronation March_ (_Marche du couronnement_)—music of pomp and circumstance—comes from the opera _Le Prophète_, first performed at the Paris Opéra on April 16, 1849. Eugène Scribe’s libretto is based on an actual historical episode in 16th century Holland centered around the Anabaptist uprising, with John of Leyden, leader of the Anabaptists, as the principal character. In Act four, scene two, John is being crowned king outside the Muenster Cathedral. As a magnificent royal procession enters the Cathedral, the music of the _Coronation March_ matches in splendor and grandeur the visual majesty of this scene. Another popular musical excerpt for orchestra from this opera is Prelude to Act 3, a colorful and rhythmic Quadrille that leads into the opening scene of that act, providing the lively musical background for a ballet and ice-carnival skating scene. Liszt made a technically brilliant transcription for the piano of this Quadrille music.

_Les Huguenots_ (_The Huguenots_) was first performed at the Paris Opéra on February 29, 1836, the year it was completed; the libretto was by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps. In 16th century Touraine and Paris, Raoul, a Huguenot nobleman, has saved the life of Valentine, daughter of the Catholic leader, St. Bris. She falls in love with Raoul, but the latter repudiates her, believing her to be the mistress of Count de Nevers. When he discovers he has been mistaken, Raoul risks his life to see her. During this visit he overhears a Catholic plot to massacre the Huguenots. After Raoul and Valentine get married, they are both murdered in the massacre—Valentine by her own father.

The Overture to _Les Huguenots_ is built almost entirely from the melody of the famous Lutheran chorale, _Ein’ feste Burg_, which in the opera itself served as the musical symbol for militant Protestantism. The outstanding individual excerpts from the opera include Raoul’s beautiful romance from Act 1 describing the woman he has saved, “_Plus blanche que la blanche hermine_”; the rhapsodic description in the second act of the Touraine countryside by Marguerite de Valois, betrothed to Henry IV of Navarre, “_O beau pays de la Touraine_”; and in the fourth act the stirring “Benediction of the Swords,” (“_Gloire au grand Dieu vengeur_”) with which the Catholics are blessed by three monks on the eve of their holy war against the Huguenots.

The exciting _Torch Dance_, No. 1, in B-flat is not from one of Meyerbeer’s operas. It was written in 1846 for the wedding of the King of Bavaria, and originally was scored for brass band. It is now most frequently heard in orchestral adaptations. Meyerbeer subsequently wrote two other _Torch Dances_: the second in 1850 for the wedding of Princess Charlotte of Prussia, and the third in 1853 for the wedding of Princess Anne of Prussia.

Karl Milloecker

Karl Milloecker was born in Vienna, Austria, on May 29, 1842. His father, a jeweler, wanted him to enter the family business, but from his childhood on, Karl was drawn to music. After studying music with private teachers, he attended the Conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Meanwhile, in his sixteenth year, he supported himself by playing the flute in a theater orchestra. When his music study ended, he became conductor of a theater in Graz in 1864; there his first operetta was produced one year later. In 1866 he was back in Vienna, and from 1869 to 1883 he was principal conductor at the Theater-an-der-Wien where most of his famous operettas were produced including _Countess Du Barry_ (_Graefin DuBarry_) in 1879, _The Beggar Student_ (_Der Bettelstudent_) in 1882, _Gasparone_ in 1884, and _Poor Jonathan_ (_Der arme Jonathan_) in 1890. Milloecker died in Baden, near Vienna, on December 31, 1899.

Milloecker’s most famous operetta is _The Beggar Student_ (_Der Bettelstudent_), which was first produced at the Theater-an-der-Wien in Vienna on December 6, 1882, and after that enjoyed highly successful performances at the Casino Theater in New York in 1883, and the Alhambra in London in 1884. The scene is Cracow, Poland; the time, 1704. General Ollendorf, spurned by Laura, evolves an elaborate plot to avenge himself. He finances the impoverished student, Symon, dresses him up as a lord, and sends him off to woo and win Laura. Only after the wedding does the General reveal the fact that Symon is a beggar. Just as disgrace faces the young man, he becomes involved in a successful maneuver to restore the rejected Polish king to his throne. Thus he acquires wealth and a title, and is welcomed with pride and love by Laura and her mother. Potpourris and selections from this tuneful operetta always include the principal waltz melody which comes as a first act finale, “_Ach ich hab’ sie ja nur auf die Schulter gekuesst_.” Other delightful excerpts include Symon’s mazurka, “_Ich knuepfte manche zarte Bande_,” his lament “_Ich hab’ kein Geld_,” and the second act duet of Symon and Laura, “_Ich setz den Fall_.”

Moritz Moszkowski

Moritz Moszkowski was born in Breslau, Germany, on August 23, 1854. He received his musical training at three leading German Conservatories: the Dresden Conservatory, the Stern Conservatory and Kullak Academy in Berlin. He began a career as pianist in 1873, touring Europe with outstanding success. He also achieved recognition as a teacher of the piano at the Kullak Academy. In 1897, he went into retirement in Paris where he lived for the remainder of his life. In 1899 he was elected a member of the Berlin Academy. Towards the end of his life his financial resources were completely depleted, and his fame as composer, pianist, and teacher had long been eclipsed. He died in poverty and obscurity in Paris on March 4, 1925.

Though he wrote operas, ballets, suites, concertos and a symphony, Moszkowski was at his best—and is most famous today—for his lighter music in a Spanish idiom. Typical of his music in this style were the rhythmic _Bolero_, op. 12, no. 5, for piano solo; the languorous and haunting _Guitarre_, op. 45, no. 2, for piano solo (transcribed by Pablo de Sarasate for violin and piano); and the dashing _Malagueña_, from the opera _Boabdil_.

But his most celebrated compositions are the delightful _Spanish Dances_, opp. 12, and 65, two books of pieces for piano solo or piano duo, which have been arranged for orchestra. The most popular are the first in C major, the second in G minor, and the fifth (a bolero) in D major. While none of these dances can be accepted as authentic Spanish music—actually they are only a German Romantic’s conception of what Spanish music is—they make most effective use of Spanish dance rhythms.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, on January 27, 1756. The son of Leopold, Kapellmeister at the court of the Salzburg Archbishop, Wolfgang Amadeus disclosed his remarkable musical powers at a tender age. He began composition at the age of five, completed a piano sonata at seven, and a symphony at eight. Taught the harpsichord, also very early in his childhood, he revealed such phenomenal abilities at improvisation and sight reading that he was the wonder and awe of all who came into contact with him. His ambitious father exhibited this formidable prodigy for several years before the crowned heads of Europe; and wherever he appeared the child was acclaimed. Goethe said: “A phenomenon like that of Mozart remains an inexplicable thing.” In Milan in 1770 he was commissioned to write an opera _Mitridate, rè di Ponto_, successfully performed that year. In Bologna he became the only musician under the age of twenty to be elected a member of the renowned Accademia Filarmonica. And in Rome he provided dramatic evidence of his extraordinary natural gifts by putting down on paper the entire complex score of Allegri’s _Miserere_ after a single hearing.

As he outgrew childhood he ripened as a composer, gaining all the time in both technical and creative powers. But he was a prodigy no more, and though he was rapidly becoming one of the most profound and original musicians in Europe he was unable to attract the adulation and excitement that had once been his. Between 1772 and 1777, as an employee in the musical establishment of the Salzburg Archbishop, he was treated like a menial servant. The remarkable music he was writing all the time passed unnoticed. Finally, in 1782, he made a permanent break with the Archbishop and established his home in Vienna where he lived for the remainder of his life. Though he received some important commissions, and enjoyed several triumphs for his operas, he did not fare any too well in Vienna either. He had to wait several years for a court appointment, and when it finally came in 1787 he was deplorably underpaid. Thus he lived in poverty, often dependent for food and other necessities of life on the generosity of his friends. And yet the masterworks kept coming in every conceivable medium—operas, symphonies, sonatas, quartets, concertos, choral music and so forth. A few people in Vienna were aware of his prodigious achievements, and one of these was Joseph Haydn who called him “the greatest composer I know either personally or by name.” During the last years of his life Mozart was harassed not only by poverty but also by severe illness. Yet his last year was one of his most productive, yielding his last three symphonies, the _Requiem_, the opera _The Magic Flute_ (_Die Zauberfloete_), the _Ave Verum_, and a remarkable piano concerto and string quintet. He died in Vienna on December 5, 1791 and was buried in a pauper’s grave with no tombstone or cross for identification.

Through his genius every form of music was endowed with new grandeur, nobility of expression and richness of thought. He was a technician second to none; a bold innovator; a creator capable of plumbing the profoundest depths of emotion and the most exalted heights of spirituality. Yet he could also be simple and charming and graceful, in music remarkably overflowing with the most engaging melodies conceived by man, and characterized by the most exquisite taste and the most consummate craftsmanship. Thus Mozart’s lighter moods in music are often also endowed with extraordinary creative resources and original invention; yet they never lose their capacity to delight audiences at first contact.

The music Mozart wrote directly for popular consumption were the hundred or so _Dances_ for orchestra: _Country Dances_, _German Dances_, _Minuets_. The greatest number of these consist of the _German Dances_. These are lively melodies in eight-measure phrases and with forceful peasant rhythms. Some of the best _German Dances_ are those in which Mozart utilized unusual orchestral resources or instruments to suggest extra-musical sounds. _The Sleighride_ (_Die Schlittenfahrt_), K. 605, in C major, simulates the sound of sleigh bells in the middle trio section, sounded in the tones A-F-E-C. _The Organgrinder_ (_Der Leiermann_), K. 602, imitates the sound of a hurdy-gurdy. In _The Canary_ (_Der Kanarienvogel_), K. 571, flutes reproduce the chirping of birds.

The _Country Dance_, or _Contretanze_, is sometimes regarded as the first modern dance, forerunner of the quadrille. Structurally and stylistically these are very much like _German Dances_ with a peasant-like vitality and earthiness. Here, too, Mozart sometimes realistically imitates non-musical sounds as in _The Thunder Storm_ (_Das Donnerwetter_), K. 534, in which the role of the timpani suggests peals of thunder.

Mozart’s most popular Minuet—indeed, it is probably one of the most popular minuets ever written—comes from his opera _Don Giovanni_, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, and first performed in Prague in 1787. The hero of this opera is, to be sure, the Spanish nobleman of the 17th century whose escapades and licentious life finally bring him to doom at the hands of the statue of the Commandant come to life to consign him to the fires of hell. The Minuet appears in the fifth scene of the first act. Don Giovanni is the gracious host of a party held in his palace, and there the guests dance a courtly minuet while Don himself is making amatory overtures to Zerlina.

In a lighter mood, also, is the _Eine kleine Nachtmusik_ (_A Little Night Music_), K. 525, a serenade for string orchestra (1787). This work is consistently tuneful, gracious, charming. The first movement has two lilting little melodies, which are presented and recapitulated with no formal development to speak of. The second movement is a Romance, or Romanza, a poetic song contrasted by two vigorous sections; the main thought of this movement is then repeated between each of these two vigorous parts. After that comes a formal minuet, and the work ends with a brisk and sprightly rondo.

Mozart’s popular _Turkish March_—in the pseudo Turkish style so popular in Vienna in his day—comes out of his piano Sonata in A major, K. 331 (1778), where it appears as the last movement. This march is extremely popular in orchestral transcription.

Modest Mussorgsky

Modest Mussorgsky was born in Karevo, Russia, on March 21, 1839. When he was thirteen he entered the cadet school of the Imperial Guard in St. Petersburg, from which he was graduated to join the Guard regiment. In 1857 he met and befriended several important Russian musicians (including Balakirev and Stassov) under whose stimulus he decided to leave the army and become a composer. Until now his musical education had been sporadic, having consisted of little more than some piano lessons with his mother and a private teacher. He now began an intensive period of study with Balakirev, under whose guidance he completed a _Scherzo_ for orchestra which was performed in St. Petersburg in 1860, as well as some piano music and the fragments of a symphony. Associating himself with Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, and Cui he now became a passionate advocate of musical nationalism, becoming the fifth member of a new school of Russian music henceforth identified as “The Mighty Five” or “The Russian Five.” In 1863, with serfdom abolished in Russia, he lost the outside financial resources he had thus far enjoyed as the son of a landowner. To support himself he worked for four years as a clerk in the Ministry of Communications; in 1869 he found employment in the forestry department. During this period music had to be relegated to the position of an avocation, but composition was not abandoned. He completed the first of his masterworks, the orchestral tone poem, _A Night on the Bald Mountain_, in 1866. A lifelong victim of nervous disorders, melancholia and subsequently of alcoholism, his health soon began to deteriorate alarmingly; but despite this fact he was able to complete several works of crowning significance in 1874 including his folk opera, _Boris Godunov_, and his _Pictures at an Exhibition_, for piano. After 1874 his moral and physical disintegration became complete; towards the last months of his life he gave indications of losing his mind. He died in St. Petersburg on March 28, 1881.

As one of the most forceful and original members of the “Russian Five” Mussorgsky’s greatest works certainly do not lend themselves to popular distribution. His writing is too individual in its melodic and harmonic construction; and his works show too great a tendency towards musical realism to make for p