Ferde Grofé

Ferde Grofé also Ferde Grofé Sr. ( born March 27, 1892 in New York; † April 3, 1972 in Santa Monica, California ) was an American composer, arranger and conductor French- Huguenot descent.

Life

He was born Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé into a musical family and grew up in Los Angeles. After his father died in 1899, he followed his mother to Germany, spent three years studying at the Leipzig Conservatory there.

Back in Los Angeles, he studied piano and violin playing, first earned money as a lift boy, newsboy, bookbinders and with similar jobs, with 15 but increasingly also as a musician, played at dances, parades and picnics. He also played alto horn in brass bands and viola at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1909 he wrote his first composition, The Grand Reunion March for a meeting of the Elks Club. He also played in nightclubs in Los Angeles, where he became popular for his arrangements and improvisations. There met him in 1917, Paul Whiteman, for whose band he then pianist, arranger, co-conductor and music librarian was.

For Whiteman he orchestrated 1924 Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin. From then on, he began with larger compositions for orchestra, some of them with a pinch of humor. In particular it reveals itself in its dedicated bicycle air pump works Theme and Variations on Noises from a Garage ( 1926) and Free Air ( 1929). Grofé most important compositions are

• Mississippi: A Journey in Tones (1925 ) a suite with the phrases Father of Waters, Huckleberry Finn, Old Creole Days and Mardi Gras
• Metropolis: A Fantasy in Blue ( 1928)
• Grand Canyon Suite (1929-1931) with the sets Sunrise, The Painted Desert, On the Trail, Sunset and Cloudburst
• Hollywood Suite (1935-1938) with the sets On the Set- Sweepers, The Stand - in, Carpenters and Electricians, Preview, Production Number and Director - Star - Ensemble
• Death Valley Suite ( 1949) with the sets Funeral Mountains, '49er Emigrant Train, Desert Waterhole and Sandstorm
• Hudson River Suite (1955 ) with the sentences The River, Henry Hudson, Rip Van Winkle, Albany Night Boat and New York!
• Niagara Suite ( 1961) with the sentences Thunder of the Waves, Devil's Hole Massacre, The Honeymooners and Power of Niagara - 1961

The suites provide musical journey pictures from the USA dar. Especially the Mississippi Suite and the Grand Canyon Suite be performed to this day also of renowned conductors and orchestras. 2002 was again performed at the Schwetzingen Festival by the SWR Big Band, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and clarinetist Pierre Paquette under the direction of pianist Dennis Russell Davies Gershwin 's Rhapsody in Blue in its original instrumentation by Ferde Grofé.

With a studio orchestra in which also played the jazz musician Tommy Dorsey, him in December 1933 his only Hiterfolg came with the standard "Temptation", the # 19 on the Billboard Top 30 achieved. Bing Crosby sang it in the same year in the film Going Hollywood, making him into a swing classics.

Grofé was a member of the Masonic lodges Silver Trowel No. 414 in Los Angeles and St. Cecile No. 568 in New York City.

On the CD are just a few of his works available (in several recordings, the "Hollywood Suite" and the " Grand Canyon Suite"). Known to a wider audience Grofé was the CD " Gershwin by Grofé " Arrangements for the Gershwin recordings are used in the explicit Grofé. James Algar used 1958 Grofé Grand Canyon Suite as film music for his short documentary Grand Canyon, which won an Oscar.

1945 Grofé was nominated together with Leo Erdődy for an Oscar in the category Best Music within the musical.