Grofe: Grand Canyon Suite / Mississippi Suite / Niagara Falls

Bourn So:Stromberg

Regular: £11.49

Sale: £11.49
Regular

Out of Stock

Unit Price: per

Cat No: 8559007

Release Date: 01 January 2000

Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943900727

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: GROFE

Description
Ferde Grofe (1892-1972)Mississippi Suite (1926) /Grand Canyon Suite (1931) / Niagara Falls Suite (1961) Ferde Grofe was born Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofe, to Emiland Elsa von Grofe, in New York City on 27th March 1892. Shortlythereafter the family moved to Los Angeles. Both of Ferde's parents were ofFrench Hugnenot extraction and his grandfather, Dr. Rudolph von Grofe, wasprofessor of chemislIy at Heidelberg University. Ferde Grofe came by hisinstinct for music quite naturally. His father was a baritone and actor, while hismother was a cellist and music teacher of some note. There were other musicians in the family: Bernhardt Bierlich,Grofe's maternal grandfather, was an associate of Victor Herbert at the NewYork Metropolitan and for 25 years first cellist with the Los AngelesPhilharmonic; Grofe's uncle, Julius Bierlich, was for many years concertmasterof the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Grofe himself studied the piano, violin andharmony with his mother and the viola with his grandfather. He attended Los Angeles City Schools and later St. Vincent's College, the present Lnyo1a University.When his father died in 1899, he joined his mother in Germany, where shestudied at the Leipzig Conservatory for three years. Upon their return to Los Angeles,Madame Grofe opened a music studio. It was at this time that Grofe wrote hisearliest compositions, three piano rags, Harem, Rattlesnake and Persimmon. In 1906 Grofe left home to work variously as a bookbinder,truck-driver, usher, newsboy, elevator-operator, lithographer, typesetter andsteelworker, studying the violin and piano in his spare time. By 1908 he beganto take casual musical engagements at lodge dances, parades and picnics and in1909 met Albert Jerome, a dancing teacher, with whom he toured Californianmining-camps. By day the pair operated a cleaning and pressing establishment,at night Grofe played for Jerome's pupils. It was also in 1909 that Grofe wrotehis first commissioned work, The Grand Reunion March, for an Elks Clubsconvention in Los Angeles. He joined the American Federation of Musicians thatyear and began a ten-year association with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra,playing the viola. In 1915 Grofe was playing at the Portola Louvre in San Francisco where musicians would drop in after hours to hear his originalarrangements and jazz improvisations. One of the musicians in the audience wasPaul Whiteman, whose orchestra Grofe joined in 1917 as pianist, permanentlyemployed from 1920 for the next twelve years as pianist, assistant conductor, orchestratorand librarian. He toured Europe with the orchestra in 1923 and in 1924 had hisfirst real break when he orchestrated Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, a collaborationthat brought immediate notice. Grofe now undertook the composition of original works andamong his earliest hits was the tone-poem, Broadway at Night. Hissubsequent Metropolis, Blue Fantary in E Flat, MississippiSuite and Three Shades of Blue, reveal an astonishing dev
Tracklisting