Gould, Morton (10 December 1913

Arranger, composer, conductor and pianist from Richmond Hill, New York, who was playing the piano by the age of five and was a published composer when he was just six. (Fittingly, the waltz was entitled “Just Six”.)

At eight years of age, he enrolled at the Institute of Musical Art, which is now famously known as Julliard. He completed his studies while still in his teens and began performing in movie and vaudeville theaters.

In 1931, he became the first staff arranger and pianist at Radio City Music Hall in New York. He worked in the radio in his twenties, arranging music for and conducting an orchestra on WOR. Around this time, he penned “Pavanne”, the first of many compositions to capture the public imagination.

On 2^nd January 1936, Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra premiered “Chorale and Fugue in Jazz”. “Foster Gallery”, a wild ride through the most famous Stephen Foster songs, was written in 1939, and eventually immortalized on vinyl by Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops.

Many of his compositions in the early 1940s reflected the understandably patriotic mood of the day: “American Salute”, “Fanfare for Freedom”, “Lincoln Legend”, and “A Song of Freedom”.

Interplay, a ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins, debuted on 1^st June 1945 and ran for just under a month, but music from it has continued to be a concert and recording favourite. On 21^st December 1945, Billion Dollar Baby, an original musical comedy with music by Gould, hit the stage and ran for over six months. In 1947, Morton Gould Showcase was released by Columbia Masterworks, and contained one of his more recognizable short works, “The Peanut Vendor”. Arms and the Girl, another musical comedy, enjoyed a run of about four months, from February to May 1950.

In 1952, “Tap Dance for Orchestra” premiered at the Eastman Theatre, with Gould conducting and its dedicatee, Danny Daniels, doing the fancy footwork. “Derivations for Solo Clarinet and Band” was written for Benny Goodman in 1955.

Other originals from the 1950s include: “Café Rio”; “Declaration: Suite”; “Dialogue (for piano and orchestra)”; “Jekyll and Hyde Variations”; “Parade (for Percussion)”; “Rhythm Gallery”; “Saint Lawrence Suite for Band”; “Santa Fe Saga”; and, “Spirituals for String Orchestra and Harp”.

In the early 1960s, he penned “Abby Variations (piano)”; “At the Piano”; “Benny’s Gig”; “Calypso Souvenir”; “Come Up From the Valley, Children”; “Festive Music”; “Formations”; and, the soundtrack of World War I, a documentary aired on CBS-TV in 1964. He received a Grammy in 1966 for his recording of Charles Ives’ “First Symphony”, on which he conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

In the late 1960s, he composed “Apple Waltzes (In Tribute to George Balanchine) which incorporated seven movements from “Audubon (Birds of America)”; “Columbia: Broadsides for Orchestra”; “Dancing Days”; “Mini-Suite for Band”; “Salutations”; “Soundings”; “Troubadour Music”; “Two for Chorus”; “Venice for Double Orchestra and Brass Choirs”; and, “Vivaldi Gallery for String Quartet and Divided Orchestra”.

He was commissioned to write three pieces for America’s bicentennial, and obliged with “American Ballads, Settings of American Tunes for Orchestra”, “Something to Do – Labor Cantata”, and “Symphony of Sprituals. In 1978, he wrote the music for the groundbreaking NBC miniseries, Holocaust, starring Meryl Streep and James Woods.

He was very prolific in the 1980s and some of the pieces he wrote include: “Celebration Strut for Orchestra”; “Concerto Concertante (for violin and orchestra)”; “Duo for Flute and Clarinet”; “Housewarming”; and, “Suite (for Cello and Piano)”.

The American Symphony Orchestra League bestowed their Gold Baton Award upon him in 1983. In 1986, he was awarded membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and was elected president of ASCAP, a post in which he served for eight years. He still managed to make time for composing “A Capella”, “Flares and Declamations”, “Notes of Remembrance”, and “Two Pianos”.

In the 1990s, some of his compositions and recordings appeared on CDs such as Aaron Copland: Billy the Kid and Rodeo Suite; Ferde Grofe: Grand Canyon Suite; Benny Goodman Collector’s Edition, Copland: Appalachian Spring; The Tender Land Suite; Morton Gould: Fall River Legend, and Stars & Stripes Forever & The Greatest Marches.

Proving himself ever on the cutting edge of music, he composed “The Jogger and the Dinosaur (for rapper and orchestra)” in 1992. The Van Cliburn International Competition commissioned him to write “Ghost Waltzes” in 1993. In 1994, he was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor and Composer of the Year by Musical America. His last orchestral piece, “Stringmusic”, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995.

He passed away in Orlando, Florida, on 21^st February 1996. He has since been given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The New York Pops recordings
Adeste Fidelis (Frederick Oakeley/John Francis Wade)
Arranger – Morton Gould
Music Director – Skitch Henderson

Sources:

Gould, Morton (10 December 1913 – 21 February 1996)

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