More from Morton

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

For easy summer listening, this week I present two more albums of Morton Gould's popular song arrangements, made for Columbia after he had been promoted to green-label Masterworks status:

String Time
1. Body and Soul (Johnny Green)
2. Laura (David Raskin)
3. Holiday for Strings (David Rose)
4. Sophisticated Lady (Duke Ellington)
5. Solitude (Duke Ellington)
6. Over the Rainbow (Harold Arlen)
7. The Surrey With the Fringe On Top (Richard Rodgers)
8. Stormy Weather (Harold Arlen)
Morton Gould and His Orchestra
Recorded July 11 and 15, 1946
Columbia Masterworks set M-663, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 63.38 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 43.86 MB)

Music at Midnight
1. Caravan (Duke Ellington)
2. Moonglow (Will Hudson)
3. Song of the Bayou (Rube Bloom)
4. Deserted Ballroom (Morton Gould)
5. Mood Indigo (Duke Ellington)
6. Serenade in the Night (Cesare Andrea Bixio)
7. Deep Purple (Peter de Rose)
8. Swamp Fire (Harold Mooney)
Morton Gould and His Orchestra
Recorded November 14, 15 and 22, 1950
Columbia Masterworks set MM-992, four 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 70.52 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 46.93 MB)

It will be seen that each collection contains two Duke Ellington tunes, and that "Music at Midnight" also has one of Gould's own compositions, originally a piano piece that he had recorded a decade earlier. To the expected string orchestra of "String Time" Gould's orchestrations add a harp and celesta, and, in the case of "The Surrey With the Fringe On Top" - played entirely pizzicato - also such appurtenances as sleigh bells, wood block, whip and even a banjo. "Music at Midnight" has the distinction of being Columbia's last Masterworks 78-rpm set to be released on a regular schedule concurrent with LP releases, in April, 1951. With the May releases 78s were dropped, although five set numbers (993 to 997) had been assigned, and after that, only selected Masterworks releases appeared as 78s, usually semi-classical in nature.

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

Morton Gould's First Decca and Columbia Sets

Summertime, and the listenin' is easy....or it should be, I suppose. Anyway, it seems a good time to share my latest Morton Gould acquisitions, One of these is his first-ever album, a group of piano solos recorded for Decca in 1940. His association with Decca did not last long; it produced exactly one other set (with a string orchestra) before he switched to Columbia, a relationship that proved much more fruitful. His first album with Columbia (as a conductor) included one of the same pieces as the first Decca set. This was the delightful "Pavanne" - his most popular piece - which he deliberately spelled incorrectly, with two n's, in the hope that ignorant radio announcers would pronounce it correctly!

Morton Gould At The Piano in a Group of His Own Compositions:
1. Pavanne (from "American Symphonette No. 2")
2. The Prima Donna (from "Caricatones")
3. American Caprice
4. The Child Prodigy (from "Caricatones")
5. Tropical
6. The Ballerina (from "Caricatones")
7. Deserted Ballroom
8. Gavotte (from "American Symphonette No. 3")
Recorded October 9, 1940
Decca set DA-195, four 10" 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 66.01 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.12 MB)

A Morton Gould Concert
1. Gould: Pavanne (from "American Symphonette No. 2")
2. Friml: Donkey Serenade (from "The Firefly")
3. Freire: Ay, Ay, Ay
4. Trad.: España Cañi
5. Trad.: Dark Eyes
6. Rodgers-Hart: Where or When (from "Babes in Arms")
Morton Gould and His Orchestra
Recorded c. April-May 1942
Columbia set C-96, three 12" 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 62.98 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 41.70 MB)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss (?)

The "Pavanne" was originally written for orchestra, but the other selections in the Columbia set feature Gould as arranger. Somehow he works in a reference to Enesco's Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1 in his arrangement of the Russian folk song "Dark Eyes". Of the piano compositions, attention is called to the group for which he coined the word "Caricatones" - for me, the most amusing of these is "The Child Prodigy", in which he works in not only the expected Hanon and Kreutzer exercises but also references to Haydn's D Major piano sonata and Chopin's "Minute Waltz"!

Morton Gould and Menotti

It's been a while since I've offered anything by Morton Gould, whose centennial year we are in (he was born Dec, 10, 1913), so I make partial amends with a work that he himself, according to his biographer Peter Goodman, considered one of his most important pieces.  This is the Dance Variations, a concerto for two pianos written in 1953 on commission by Arthur Whittemore and Jack Lowe, who premiered the score with Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic in October of that year, and, one month later, also made this first recording.  (As far as I am aware, the work has received only one other recording, by Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas, about twenty years ago for Koch International Classics, no longer available on CD but only as an MP3 download.)  I concur with the composer's assessment and that of Goodman, who calls it "a score of depth and complexity" - it is a major addition to the all-too-meager repertoire of two-piano concertos and its neglect is unjustified.

Gould: Dance Variations, for two pianos and orchestra (1953)
Arthur Whittemore and Jack Lowe, pianists
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded November 22, 1953
Side 1 of RCA Victor LM-1858, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 57.72 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 27.93 MB)

With the other work on this LP, we are in slightly more familiar territory, although Gian-Carlo Menotti (1911-2007) is best remembered as an operatic composer.  His ballet Sebastian was written in 1944, before the operas that brought him his greatest fame, The Medium, The Consul, and Amahl and the Night Visitors.  This recording of the ballet's Suite by Stokowski was actually also made in stereo, but not issued as such until 24 years later, with a different coupling.  Here is the original mono version:

Menotti: Sebastian - Ballet Suite
NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded September 28, 1954
Side 2 of RCA Victor LM-1858, one LP record
Link (FLAC file, 60.44 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 30.87 MB)

LM-1858 was issued with two different covers; the one I have (pictured above) is the second one, from 1958.  I've seen the original cover at a local college library but remember none of the details; in particular, I can't remember whether the Gould or the Menotti was credited first.

Double Gould for Double Orchestra

Happy New Year, everyone!  2013 will see some important composer anniversaries - Verdi, Wagner, Britten among them - but the one I'm feeling most enthusiastic about right now is Morton Gould, although his birthday isn't until December!  And so, here's an LP which I don't believe has ever been reissued, featuring two works by Gould which I don't believe have ever been otherwise recorded.  Perhaps understandably so, for both are for double orchestra!  The recording was accomplished, in this case, by overdubbing, something which had long been a standard practice with pop recordings; but the Billboard issue of April 6, 1968, quoted the producer of the album, Roger Hall, as saying that this was the first time RCA's classical division had overdubbed a complete symphony orchestra.  This LP also represented another "first" - it was the Seattle Symphony's first recording for a major label:

Morton Gould: Venice and Vivaldi Gallery
Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Milton Katims
Recorded April 1 and 2, 1968
RCA Red Seal LSC-3079, one stereo LP record
Link (FLAC files [Venice], 139.64 MB)
Link (FLAC files [Vivaldi Gallery], 139.61 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 108.58 MB)

Of the works themselves, I found "Venice" more enjoyable on first hearing, but found that "Vivaldi Gallery" held up a little better on repeated hearings.  Perhaps that's because I found the latter a little bit perplexing when I first heard it - I recognized several of the Vivaldi themes (most notably, from the slow movement of the D major lute concerto) but I was expecting something similar to Stravinsky's "Pulcinella," (or Gould's own "Foster Gallery"), where the source material, though greatly modernized, is structurally left intact, whereas Gould's procedure is more to use the Vivaldi themes as starting points for his own structures.  But enough of my soapbox; listen and judge for yourself!

Morton Gould: After Dark

Ad from LIFE magazine, June 18, 1945

This week I offer something which, had someone told me five years ago (when I acquired this set, for free) that I would be transferring and offering it as a download I would have said they were crazy!  Ordinarily, the type of lush orchestral stylings of popular song à la Kostelanetz or Mantovani, as represented in this album, is complete anathema to me; however, I have become convinced over the past year that Morton Gould (1913-1996) was a genius, and, like it or not, the numerous albums he made of his own arrangements of popular material are a part of his legacy.  (One might argue that they made the more serious part of his legacy possible, as they certainly earned him a lot of money!)  Moreover, Gould's arrangements seem to me a cut above the Kostelanetz standard - more symphonic in character.  Kosty was mainly concerned with gorgeous sounds, and Gould matches him on that level, but there are subtleties of harmony and counterpoint that I don't recall hearing in a typical Kostelanetz cover.  Even so, I wouldn't recommend listening to this album all at once; after one or two tracks, my mind tends to wander.  Here are the details:

"After Dark"
1. Temptation (Freed-Brown)
2. Speak Low (Nash-Weill)
3. Dancing in the Dark (Schwartz-Dietz)
4. Bésame Mucho (Consuelo Velazquez)
5. That Old Black Magic (Mercer-Arlen)
6. I Get a Kick Out of You (Cole Porter)
7. I've Got You Under My Skin (Cole Porter)
8. The Very Thought of You (Ray Noble)
Morton Gould and His Orchestra
Recorded November 22, 1944
Columbia set C-107, four 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 83.48 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 42.71 MB)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

This was Gould's last album in Columbia's Popular series (and one of that series' rare 12-inch albums); afterwards, he was switched to the green-label Masterworks semi-classical line, where Kostelanetz reigned supreme.  No doubt Kosty didn't like that!  Certainly, Gould never got the promotion that Kostelanetz got at Columbia, and by 1954 he had jumped ship for RCA.

Bloch and Gould on Mercury Wing

This one's in response to a request.  One of my correspondents had expressed a desire to hear again Antal Dorati's performance, with the Minneapolis Symphony, of Morton Gould's "Spirituals for Orchestra," saying that this recording is superior not only to Walter Susskind's 1958 Everest recording (with the London Symphony, which can be heard on Youtube here and here) but even to Gould's own (with the Chicago Symphony)!  I don't know about the latter claim, since I don't know that recording, but it does seem to me that Dorati gets it right (and I would also add that he beats Rodzinski, who was one of the first to conduct the piece, and whose Columbia 78 set with the New York Philharmonic I used to have):

Morton Gould: Spirituals for Orchestra (1941)
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antal Dorati
Recorded February 5-7, 1953
Side 2 of Mercury Wing MGW-14034, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 51.65 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 29.61 MB)

This LP, which I found in my father's record collection, is a reissue, and the coupling is, it seems to me, a bit incongruous.  But it is the finest, most dynamic performance I think I have ever heard of Bloch's First (and, at the time this recording was made, only) Concerto Grosso:

Bloch: Concerto Grosso No. 1, for string orchestra with piano obbligato (1925)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rafael Kubelik
with George Schick (piano)
Recorded April 23-24, 1951
Side 1 of Mercury Wing MGW-14034, one LP record
Link (FLAC files, 69.33 MB)
Link (FLAC files, 32.21 MB)

Shostakovich: Second and Third Symphonies

Cover design by Lorraine Fox

This is the first time that I have offered a stereophonic recording on this blog, one that I feel is deserving of wider circulation than it is currently receiving.  These, the two poor stepchildren of Shostakovich's symphonic oeuvre, which the composer himself essentially disowned, have never received more persuasive performances than on this 1968 release conducted by Morton Gould.  They have seldom been recorded at all, except in complete cycles of Shostakovich's symphonies (on the other hand, these are the only Shostakovich symphonies Gould recorded), and most of these recordings seem to take the attitude that, yes, this music is junk, but these symphonies are part of one of the most important 20th-century cycles and therefore can't be ignored, so let's make the music sound more important than it is and hope nobody notices.  A fatal approach, if you ask me.  Gould, a fine composer of much fun music himself, understood that the way to make this music come off was to have fun with it.  After all, Shostakovich was a young man in his early 20s when he wrote it, and in the relatively carefree days before Stalin put his stranglehold over all the arts, nose-thumbing was an essential part of Shostakovich's musical nature.  Even the ridiculous words are an object of fun for Gould's chorus - just listen to the way they belt out the final line of the Second Symphony - "October, Communism, and LEHHHHHHH-NIN!"

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 2, Op. 14 ("To October") and
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 3, Op. 20 ("May Day")
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Morton Gould
Issued in 1968
RCA Red Seal LSC-3044, one stereo LP record
Link (FLAC file [Symphony No. 2], 104.22 MB)
Link (FLAC file [Symphony No. 3], 156.68 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 73.41 MB)

If anyone knows recording details for this release, I would certainly like to hear about it.

Gould: American Concertette

Cover by Alex Steinweiss

The more works by New York-born Morton Gould (1913-1996) I hear, the more I am convinced that he is one of the most seriously underrated of American composers.  I'm sure the abundance of popular-music stylings that pop up in his pieces hasn't helped his case any, nor has the fact that, in the 1940s and 1950s at least, he made his share of Kostelanetz-like arrangements of popular tunes which he recorded with his own orchestra.  But the best of his work has wit, charm and craftsmanship second to none for an American composer.  Typical is this gem of a miniature piano concerto from 1943, which he originally called "American Concertette" - it didn't receive the subtitle "Interplay" until turned into a ballet two years later:

Morton Gould: Interplay (American Concertette), for piano and orchestra
Robin Hood Dell Orchestra of Philadelphia
Morton Gould, pianist and conductor
Recorded August 1, 1947
Columbia Masterworks set MX-289, two 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 39.55 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 20.96 MB)

The piece is in four short movements, the second of which is a quirky Gavotte, and the third a Blues that took on a life of its own as a solo piano piece.  Incidentally, the suffix "-ette" to denote works of smaller structure than full scale ones (e.g., "Concertette," "Symphonette") was Gould's invention, which he subsequently came to regret.