Ferde Grofe: what do you know, or anything you would like to know, about this American composer?
(from the UK) He is greatly underestimated – IMHO. Ican remember the days when it was fashionable for music critics to sneer at the Grand Canyon Suite – yet just the other day in a leading UK music magazine which runs a column ‘If you like this, you’ll also like..’ the subject was Strauss’ Also Sprach and among other ‘dawn sequences’ recommended was that in the GCS. I have CDs which couple that with his Mississippi Suite and Niagra Falls Suite and another with The Hollywood, Death Valley and Hudson River Suites That latter is particularly good with the evocation of an ‘Albany Night Boat’ Interestingly enough, the performances are all by the British Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, albeit conducted by the American, William Stromberg.
