arie your second paragraph second-line assessment is totally off. this orchestration works, know as a suit, compass all the major aspects of a clasical work, so the facto is a classical work, however, as you know this suit was commissioned by the president of the fair and it was not the only work commissioned by Robert Moses from this composer due to their friendship. it was requested that the suit uses some of the motifs of the fair. a national call with fanfares to come to the fair. and 52 million answered the call. so arie listen to this work again. i have seen people crying to this part.
Upon encountering the nadir that is the World's Fair Suite, for the good of humanity it is to be hoped that this remains the one and only recording of this half-hour exercise in playing very poor music, very loudly. It is in fact very difficult to say just how bad this music is. Vacuous, shallow, repetitive, and extremely unsubtle. Any idea that this piece represents a world in sound is fantasy. It is probably easier to point out that for me the highlight of this tripe is the end of movement five, after the noise has faded to silence. Personally, I would have preferred this highlight to come about 34 minutes earlier. Whoever was responsible for commissioning Grofe, who seemed to write a Suite for just about everything, to cobble together the dire nonsense that resulted owes the world a fulsome apology. It was a total waste of money, paper and everyone's time and effort. Mercifully for the world of music, Grofe died in 1972 and hasn't been heard from since. It is of course to be hoped his remains are working for eternity on the Dead and Buried Suite. In many ways, the World's Fair Suite shows the poverty of invention that was to be had in American mid-twentieth century composers who failed to get taken on by Hollywood alongside truly outstanding émigrés like Miklos Rozsa. Grofe, who makes Copland look like a genius, mostly falls back on the sort of clichés found in "tuneful" Richard Strauss from around 1900, but where Strauss showed invention and skilful orchestration, Grofe has nothing to say except for producing episodes of meaningless bombast. In places, Grofe tries to be modern by using overlapping rhythms and conflicting harmonies but he is not even a poor imitation of Charles Ives, let alone Edgard Varese. For Grofe, it just simply does not work. The orchestral playing of this barrage of dross is actually first rate, so if only the fine orchestra used for the event had been given something worthwhile to play it could have been memorable as opposed to forgettable. Thankfully, it doesn't take long to forget it.
"Mercifully for the world of music, Grofe died in 1972"." Grofe, who makes Copland look like a genius." Why this agression? You don't like the music, that's allright. But others enjoy it, and your hostility is impossible to enjoy. And last but not leat: Grofé himself didn't do the orchestration of this piece.
I respect your opinion but I like 1964/1965 New York World's Fair Suite, No insult intended but if you went to the FAIR you would better understand what Ferde was saying nytwf64,org
You can't fault a piece or a composer for not being what it doesn't intend to be. Grofe was not trying to be Strauss or even Copland. All he set out to do was tp write light mood pictures that capture America in an appealing way. And in this he succeeded admirably.
arie your second paragraph second-line assessment is totally off. this orchestration works, know as a suit, compass all the major aspects of a clasical work, so the facto is a classical work, however, as you know this suit was commissioned by the president of the fair and it was not the only work commissioned by Robert Moses from this composer due to their friendship. it was requested that the suit uses some of the motifs of the fair. a national call with fanfares to come to the fair. and 52 million answered the call. so arie listen to this work again. i have seen people crying to this part.
Upon encountering the nadir that is the World's Fair Suite, for the good of humanity it is to be hoped that this remains the one and only recording of this half-hour exercise in playing very poor music, very loudly. It is in fact very difficult to say just how bad this music is. Vacuous, shallow, repetitive, and extremely unsubtle. Any idea that this piece represents a world in sound is fantasy. It is probably easier to point out that for me the highlight of this tripe is the end of movement five, after the noise has faded to silence. Personally, I would have preferred this highlight to come about 34 minutes earlier.
Whoever was responsible for commissioning Grofe, who seemed to write a Suite for just about everything, to cobble together the dire nonsense that resulted owes the world a fulsome apology. It was a total waste of money, paper and everyone's time and effort. Mercifully for the world of music, Grofe died in 1972 and hasn't been heard from since. It is of course to be hoped his remains are working for eternity on the Dead and Buried Suite.
In many ways, the World's Fair Suite shows the poverty of invention that was to be had in American mid-twentieth century composers who failed to get taken on by Hollywood alongside truly outstanding émigrés like Miklos Rozsa. Grofe, who makes Copland look like a genius, mostly falls back on the sort of clichés found in "tuneful" Richard Strauss from around 1900, but where Strauss showed invention and skilful orchestration, Grofe has nothing to say except for producing episodes of meaningless bombast. In places, Grofe tries to be modern by using overlapping rhythms and conflicting harmonies but he is not even a poor imitation of Charles Ives, let alone Edgard Varese. For Grofe, it just simply does not work.
The orchestral playing of this barrage of dross is actually first rate, so if only the fine orchestra used for the event had been given something worthwhile to play it could have been memorable as opposed to forgettable. Thankfully, it doesn't take long to forget it.
"Mercifully for the world of music, Grofe died in 1972"." Grofe, who makes Copland look like a genius." Why this agression? You don't like the music, that's allright. But others enjoy it, and your hostility is impossible to enjoy. And last but not leat: Grofé himself didn't do the orchestration of this piece.
I respect your opinion but I like 1964/1965 New York World's Fair Suite, No insult intended but if you went to the FAIR you would better understand what Ferde was saying nytwf64,org
You can't fault a piece or a composer for not being what it doesn't intend to be. Grofe was not trying to be Strauss or even Copland. All he set out to do was tp write light mood pictures that capture America in an appealing way. And in this he succeeded admirably.
So… how did you like it?