Evening Music

There aren't too many musical depictions of journalism, but you can hear one on this edition of Evening Music with David Garland. The Tabloid Suite: Four Pictures of a Modern Newspaper, was written by American composer Ferde Grofe back in 193 and is set in four movements "Run of the News," "Sob Sister," "Comic Strip," and "Going to Press." The suite catches the hubbub and drama of a time when New York was home to dozens of newspapers. A new recording of this news-worthy piece by the Dutch Metropole Orchestra, an ensemble which specializes in unusual early 20th Century American music.

Grofe, of course, was the original orchestrator of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, and is best known for his Grand Canyon Suite. His nknack for descriptive, colorful music is apparent throughout this colorful work. If anything, Grofe doesn't shun effects (witness the typewriter in the opening movement, or the sirens in the final segment), but all is done with taste and a secure sense of musical architecture.

 

 

Curiously, the piece has never thoroughly taken off though it always provokes a reaction. In the January 26, 1933 New York Times, a reporter offered this account of the work's premiere: "Newspaper office color and atmosphere, recently introduced on stage, screen, and radio, were interpreted in terms of music last night at the premiere of Ferde Grofe's "Tabloid," a suite in four movements, in Carnegie Hall.

Four typewriters, a revolver, a machine-gun, an emergency wagon siren, a policeman's whistle and the clack of telegraph keys were used for realism. The shots from the .32 coming out of the background of strident brasses and thumbing drums, had the audience jumping out of their ermine coats and dress suits.