Ferde Grofé - Grand Canyon Suite; Mississippi Suite; Niagara Falls (William T. Stromberg)

Information

Composer: Ferde Grofé

• Mississippi, "a Journey in Tones"
• Grand Canyon Suite
• Niagara Falls Suite

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

William T. Stromberg, conductor

Date: 1999

Label: Naxos

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Review

Grofé if known to us at all is best known as the orchestrator of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Some may know him from the Ormandy-conducted CBS version of the Grand Canyon Suite. As for Grofe's music it is better described as picturesque rather than light. These are musical postcards with the occasional and sometimes disconcerting infusion of popular music.

The Mississippi Suite's Father of Waters is a slow, gentle, warm rocking, lilting sunrise interrupt by a marionettes dance in iron shod boots. The Huck Finn second movement strolls along carefree but the gross stupidity of Grofe's swanee whistles will grate with many. The brass let rip with some fruity raspberries and all dissolves into a Grand bamboula type dance. This is done with savage style by the Bournemouth players. Old Creole Days is a slow and tender serenade for rocking strings: lovely throughout and well worth extracting for CLASSIC FM in the UK. Mardi Gras is the final movement with minstrel street corner songs and dances and even a touch (or ten) of I Got Rhythm. We are treated to a big swaying jazzy conclusion.

Sunrise from Grand Canyon Suite is announced by a drum roll, high strings and bird song. The swooping woodwind aid a climax building dawn rise of impassioned strings. The whole is wonderfully swung by Stromberg and the movement escapes into a wild climax lit with sunburst grandeur. The Painted Desert is rather reminiscent of Roussel's Evocation. The harp accompanied music suggests the fountain sequence and serenade from Delius's Hassan. On The Trail has a vaudeville climax that simply undermines the suite. Composure is regained in the happy and contented Delian Sunset. Finally Cloudburst brings things to an impressive pass with strange tonalities bubbling up and piano roulades darting to the heights and the depths. I wonder if Britten heard this during his stay in USA. The Sea Interludes from Grimes might well have had some debt to this piece.

A decade or so before his death Grofe wrote a Niagara Suite. The Thunder Of Waters is grand but mixed in with the eddies and giant currents are some red indian colours. The Devil's Hole Massacre is all gloom and threat developing into a grand and imposing slaughterous uproar. Honeymooners seems to look back to 1900s or even 1890s. All very demure with little warmth or passion. Pot plants, hotel flunkies and gleaming marble. A flat and tepid glass and the one disappointing movement among the three. Charm and nothing else to sustain its 4:25. To end the whole disc Power Of Niagara (the longest movement at almost ten minutes) takes us back to the thunderous waters. It has something of Mossolov's Zavod or Iron Foundry. The rushing overwhelming power and genuine convulsive inspiration is well caught in accents which sound strangely Russian and even give us the Varèse treatment with a howling siren and a riverboat horn.

Great notes in scholarly and readable detail by series consultants Victor and Marina A Ledin. These are in English, French and German. The cover art is a painting of Niagara (1857) by Frederic Edwin Church.

Warmly recommended for great performances of these picturesque though not necessarily light pieces. They can be grouped more naturally with Delius's Florida Suite than with Leroy Anderson's populist essays. The occasional weird lapses and juxtapositions can be forgiven: they occupy less than 5% of the playing time and as for the performances they are excellent.

— Rob Barnett

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Ferde Grofé (27 March 1892 – 3 April 1972) was an influential American composer and arranger. Raised in a musical family, he became a versatile performer and later introduced innovative arranging techniques that separated brass and reed sections, contributing to early big band jazz. As pianist and chief arranger for Paul Whiteman orchestra, Grofé orchestrated George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and helped blend jazz rhythms with classical forms. His own notable works include Grand Canyon Suite and Mississippi Suite, along with later programmatic orchestral compositions and film scores.

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William Stromberg (born 1964) is an American composer and conductor. Influenced by composers such as Korngold, Herrmann and Steiner, he pursued formal training in Hollywood under film composer John Morgan. Stromberg has composed music for over a dozen feature films and earned recognition as a skilled conductor. In collaboration with Morgan, he has reconstructed and recorded numerous classic film scores for major labels including Naxos and Marco Polo. He has also conducted acclaimed recordings of American concert music and remains active internationally as a conductor and recording artist.

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