Interplay is a ballet with choreography by Jerome Robbins introduced in New York in 1945. The score is an adaptation of the composer’s American Concertette, for piano and orchestra, written for the piano virtuoso, José Iturbi. The text of the ballet contrasts classic and present-day dances; Gould’s music is a delightful contrast between old forms and styles, and modern or popular ones. Interplay, as the concert work is now called, has four movements, each of popular appeal. The first, “With Drive and Vigor,” was described by the composer as “brash.” It has two sprightly main themes and a brief development. This is followed by a “Gavotte” in which the composer directs “a sly glance to the classical mode.” The third movement is a “Blues,” “a very simple and, in spots, ‘dirty’ type of slow, nostalgic mood.” The finale, “Very Fast” brings the composition to a breathless conclusion through unrelenting motor energy.
Latin-American Symphonette, for orchestra (1941) is the fourth of Gould’s sinfoniettas using popular idioms. The three earlier ones exploit jazz, while the fourth consists of ideas and idioms indigenous to Latin America. Each of the four movements consists of a stylized Latin-American dance form: “Rumba,” “Tango,” “Guaracha,” and “Conga.”
In Minstrel Show (1946) Gould tried to bring to orchestral music some of the flavor of old time minstrel-show tunes and styles. There are no borrowings from actual minstrel shows. All the melodies are the composer’s own, but they incorporate some of the stylistic elements of the original product. “The composition,” Gould goes on to say, “alternates between gay and nostalgic passages. There are characteristic sliding trombone and banjo effects, and in the middle of the piece the sandpaper blocks and other percussion convey the sounds and tempo of a soft-shoe dance. The score ends on a jubilant note.”
Yankee Doodle Went to Town, like the American Salute, is the presentation of a popular American tune in modern orchestration and harmony. The tune in this case is, to be sure, “Yankee Doodle,” probably of English origin which made its first appearance in this country in 1755. The general belief is that it was used by a certain Richard Shuchburg, a British Army soldier, to poke fun at the decrepit colonial troops. For two decades after that the tune was frequently heard in the Colonies as the means by which British soldiers could taunt Colonials. Once the Revolution broke out, however, the colonists used “Yankee Doodle” as its favorite war song, and it was sung lustily by them when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. Gould’s orchestration emphasizes some of the humorous elements in the song, while giving it some freshness and vitality through his fine sense for orchestral color and striking harmonizations.
Charles Gounod
Charles François Gounod was born in Paris on June 17, 1818. He received his academic education at the Lycée St. Louis, and his musical training at the Paris Conservatory with Halévy and Lesueur among others. In 1839 he won the Prix de Rome. During his stay in Italy he became interested in church music and completed several choral works. He turned to opera after returning to Paris, his first work for the lyric stage being Sapho, successfully produced at the Paris Opéra in 1851. From then on, for many years, he concentrated mainly on opera, winning world renown in 1859 with Faust. In 1870 he visited London where he conducted orchestral and choral concerts. During the last years of his life he devoted himself for the most part to the writing of religious music. Gounod died in Paris on October 18, 1893. He is most famous for his operas, and most specifically for Faust, though Mireille (1864) and Roméo et Juliette (1867) have also been highly acclaimed and frequently given. Gounod was a composer who conveyed to his music sensitive human values. He was a melodist of the first order, his lyricism enhanced in its expressiveness through his subtle feeling for orchestral and harmonic colors.
The Ave Maria, while originally a song, is famous in transcriptions for solo instruments and also for orchestra. The interesting feature of this work is the fact that Gounod wrote this spiritual, deeply moving melody to the famous prayer in Latin, against an accompaniment comprising the music (without any change whatsoever) of Bach’s Prelude in C major from the Well-Tempered Clavier. The marriage of melody and accompaniment is so ideal it is difficult to realize that each is the work of a different composer from a different generation.
Gounod’s masterwork, the opera Faust, is surely one of the most celebrated works of the French lyric theater. Many of its selections are deservedly popular. The opera—libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré based on the poetic drama of Goethe—was first performed in Paris on March 19, 1859. Strange to report, it was originally a failure with both audience and critics. Not until it was revived in Paris in 1869 did the opera finally win favor; from this point it went on to conquer the world. One of the reasons for this permanent, if somewhat belated, success, is the sound theatrical values of the libretto. The opera is consistently excellent theater, rich with emotion, pathos, drama, pomp and ceremony. The story, of course, is that of the celebrated Faust legend. Faust makes a pact with the devil, Mephistopheles, to trade his soul for the return of his youth. As a young man, Faust makes love to Marguerite. When she becomes a mother she kills her child. Faust comes to her prison cell to entreat her to escape, but she does not seem to understand him. After her punishment by death, Faust is led to his own doom by Mephistopheles.
Perhaps the most famous single excerpt from the opera is the rousing Soldier’s Chorus (“Gloire immortelle des nos aïeux”) from Act 4, Scene 3. The soldiers, returning from the war, sing out their joy on coming home victorious. This episode is celebrated in transcriptions either for orchestra or for brass band. Almost as popular is the captivating Waltz in Act 2. In the opera it is sung and danced by villagers during a celebration in the public square (“Ainsi que la brise légère”); this excerpt is also familiar in transcription.
The Walpurgis Night Ballet Music from Faust, though generally omitted from the performances of the opera itself, has become a concert favorite. This music is given in Paris during the first scene of the last act. The classic queens—Helen, Phryne and Cleopatra—and their attendants are called upon to dance to distorted versions of several of the opera’s beloved melodies. There are here seven dances of which six appear in the score only with tempo markings: Waltz, Adagio, Allegretto, Moderato maestoso, Moderato con moto, Allegretto, and Allegro vivo.