Ferde Grofe (1892-1972)
Mississippi Suite (1926) /
Grand Canyon Suite (1931) / Niagara Falls Suite
(1961)
Ferde Grofe was born Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofe, to Emil
and Elsa von Grofe, in New York City on 27th March 1892. Shortly
thereafter the family moved to Los Angeles. Both of Ferde's parents were of
French Hugnenot extraction and his grandfather, Dr. Rudolph von Grofe, was
professor of chemislIy at Heidelberg University. Ferde Grofe came by his
instinct for music quite naturally. His father was a baritone and actor, while his
mother 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 New
York Metropolitan and for 25 years first cellist with the Los Angeles
Philharmonic; Grofe's uncle, Julius Bierlich, was for many years concertmaster
of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Grofe himself studied the piano, violin and
harmony 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 she
studied 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 his
earliest 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 and
steelworker, studying the violin and piano in his spare time. By 1908 he began
to take casual musical engagements at lodge dances, parades and picnics and in
1909 met Albert Jerome, a dancing teacher, with whom he toured Californian
mining-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 wrote
his first commissioned work, The Grand Reunion March, for an Elks Clubs
convention in Los Angeles. He joined the American Federation of Musicians that
year 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 original
arrangements and jazz improvisations. One of the musicians in the audience was
Paul Whiteman, whose orchestra Grofe joined in 1917 as pianist, permanently
employed from 1920 for the next twelve years as pianist, assistant conductor, orchestrator
and librarian. He toured Europe with the orchestra in 1923 and in 1924 had his
first real break when he orchestrated Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, a collaboration
that brought immediate notice.
Grofe now undertook the composition of original works and
among his earliest hits was the tone-poem, Broadway at Night. His
subsequent Metropolis, Blue Fantary in E Flat, Mississippi
Suite and Three Shades of Blue, reveal an astonishing development in
his handling of the symphonic jazz idiom. Challenged by a friend's suggestion
that he could even write music about a bicycle pump, he wrote two unusual
works: Theme and Variations on Noises from a Garage (1926) and Free
Air (1929). All the varied experiences of his life became inspiration for
his music, as he himself observed, grateful for the background that made possible
such compositions as Symphony in Steel, Tabloid Suite, Broadway at Night,
Mississippi Suite, Metropolis, Henry Ford Knute Rockne and Death Valley
Suite.
Grofe's popular Grand Canyon Suite, derived from his
early period roaming the desert and mountain country as an itinerant pianist,
is in five sections, each inspired by the imposing beauty of America's mighty
natural wonder. It was first performed by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra in Chicago's
Studebaker Theater on 22nd November 1931, to considerable critical
acclaim.
Sunrise depicts the mysterious moment of dawn in the
canyon with a distant roll in the kettledrums, Over a mounting series of chords
softly intoned by the woodwind, the principal theme is sung by the muted trumpet
before passing to other instruments, Gradually the sun rises, until, with a
triumphant fanfare, the full orchestra announces the break of day over the
Grand Canyon of Arizona, The Painted Desert is a water-colour of
impressive delicacy and subtlety, Mysterious chords in the lower reaches of the
orchestra are interrupted by strange figures from muted trumpets and the
brilliant upper registers of the piano, Here Grofe suggests the presence of
some ageless, unchanging life still present in the arid and apparently lifeless
desert and in the brilliant, colours of the rock formations. The popular On
the Trail begins with a thunderous hee-haw and a humorous violin cadenza
suggests the reluctant mule being roused for the ride down the canyon walls, before
the journey begins. Through cactus-covered trails over the jogging burro
rhythm, and in perfect counterpoint, we hear a cowboy tune. There is an intermezzo
as the party stops at a cabin and waterfall for refreshment. We hear the
suggestion of an old-fashioned music-box, before we are back in the saddle, jogging
forward once more. The movement ends suddenly, much in the same manner as it
began. Sunset opens with distant animal cries from the rim of the Canyon.
The day is over, the sky still alive with vibrant colours above the deepening
shadows in the great gorge. Toscanini described Cloudburst as one of the
most vivid and terrifying of musical pictures. In its opening it recalls the On
the Trail theme, before a panoramic view of the vast landscape. Dark,
scudding clouds suddenly appear and a rising wind. The evening air is filled
with fine sand and strands of tumbleweed. The storm breaks, with lightning,
thunder and pelting rain. Then, even more quickly, it is gone, with a last roll
of thunder. The moon emerges from behind the clouds and the earth rejoices,
refreshed. In the score each of the divisions of the final movement is
indicated, Approach of the Stonn, Lighming, Thunder in the Distance, Rain, Cloudburst
at its Height, Stonn Disappears Very Rapidly, Moon Comes from Behind the Clouds
and Nature Rejoices Again in all its Grandeur.
The evocative four-movement Mississippi (A Tone
Journey) - A Descriptive Suite of 1926 is generally now known as the Mississippi
Suite. The great American river, celebrated in history, legend and art,
recalls in its very name memories of great explorers, the feats of Paul Bunyan
and the adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Grofe's suite starts
with Father of Waters, an impression in music of the upper reaches of the river
itself, majestic and smooth-flowing. Here there are references to the earliest
inhabitants of the Mississippi's banks, the American Indians who gave the river
its name. The second movement, Huckleberry Finn, depicts the young rogue
of Mark Twain's story. Old Creole Days creates a romantic mood
suggesting moonlit Louisiana gardens. The portrait of the mighty river is completed
by Mardi Gras, reflecting the bustle, jollity and excitement of carnival
in New Orleans.
Productive years followed. In 1932 Grofe joined NBC as
staff conductor. A year later he composed his Tabloid Suite, based on
the newspaper business. He began working on a tone-poem entitled Rip Van
Winkle, which 22 years later became part of his Hudson River Suite. There
followed Hollywood Suite, Killorney – Irish Fantasy, Rudy Vallee
Suite, Kentucky Derby Suite and the ballet Cafe
Society. In 1937 he conducted two concerts of the New York Philharmonic. In
1939 he joined the faculty of the Juilliard School, teaching orchestration and composition,
while conducting engagements and commissions continued to pour in. Over the
next thirty years Grofe produced dozens of new compositions including film
scores, jazz band arrangements and, of course, further "nature suites",
much of his work evoking the rich musical spirit of America as he perceived it.
On 3rd April 1972 Ferde Grofe died in Santa Monica, California, after a series
of heart attacks.
Among Grofe's last major works was a commission from the
New York State Power Authority, to commemorate the opening of the largest power
plant at Niagara Falls, the Roben Moses Power Plant, On l0th February 1961, Ferde
Grofe was there to conduct the Buffalo Philharmonic in the first performance of
his Niagara Falls Suite.
The four-movement suite begins with The Thunder of the
Waters, a tone-painting tinged with Indian motifs, depicting the majesty of
the cascading water. Devil's Hole Massacre recalls the ambush by Indians
on 14th September 1763 of a British train of 25 wagons. Only eight
out of around 360 British escaped. The romantic third movement of the suite is
The Honeymooners, a waltz-like section that includes the faint sound of wedding
bells, a reminder of the popularity of Niagara Falls as a place for
honeymooners or Hollywood lovers. The finale, Power of Niagara – 1961,
in Grofe's finest Hollywood style, shows a bustling hydro-electric plant. With
a triumphantly patriotic middle section, the music suggests a factory whistle
and a crowd of workers busily producing electricity to bring comfort and
prosperity to a new generation. The suite, crafted by a master orchestrator,
offers a vivid depiction of one of America's most magnificent sights.
Victor and Marina A. Ledin