Rhapsody at Rosecliff
Photo courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County
We recently presented a program of music composed for small theater orchestra at Rosecliff in Newport. The program was built around Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue which is celebrating its 100th year. In 1926, Rhapsody in Blue was arranged for a small theater orchestra. We chose this version based on the size of Rosecliff’s ballroom. The ballroom is big, but we couldn’t fit a full orchestra and an audience in there!
To augment the program, we searched for music with similar instruments and came up with the evening’s program—outlined below. You may not have heard of some of these talented composers, but we hope the stories below give you a desire to look further into their lives and their music.
Light Cavalry - Poet and Peasant March (1915)
Mayhew Lake was born on October 25, 1879, in Southville, Massachusetts. He studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, and at the age of 16, was hired as a violinist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Lake joined the army as a musician, serving with the 2nd United States Artillery Regiment in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Not long after being discharged from active duty, he became the conductor of the Payret Theater in Havana, Cuba at the age of 21. He moved to New York City in 1910, and in 1913 was hired as the editor-in-chief for wind and orchestral music at Carl Fischer (a New York City music publishing company), where he would remain until 1948. He was a sought-after guest conductor throughout the country and arranged a number of works for band and orchestra. He worked with Al Jolson, Mae West, Percy Grainger, Paul Whiteman, and John Philip Sousa, who was a huge fan of Lake’s composition and orchestration abilities.
Lake’s march was based on themes from composer Franz von Suppe’s Poet and the Peasant Overture. This 1846 overture was originally composed as incidental music for Karl Elmar’s play, Poet and the Peasant. Mayhew Lake took themes from von Suppe’s overture for his 1915 march.
Excerpt from Light Cavalry - Poet and Peasant March, by Mayhew L. Lake
Video courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County
Dawn, from “A Suite” (1910)
Kate Vannah was born in Gardiner, Maine in 1855. After graduating from high school, she attended St. Joseph’s Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland. She was an organist, pianist, composer, and writer. During her life, she wrote for newspapers in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City under her pen name, Kate Van Twinkle. In 1892, she published Verses, her first book of poetry. She would publish a second book of poetry later. Her poetry appeared in newspapers and journals all over the country.
Vannah published her first set of songs at the age of 18. During her lifetime, she composed at least 50 songs and more than a dozen instrumental pieces.
Photo of Kate Vannah. Women in Music and Law, Florence Edith Clinton Sutro, Author’s Publishing Company, 1895, p. 21.
Excerpt from Dawn, by Kate Vannah
Video courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County
Vannah talks about her writing in the January 1902 edition of The Writer: A Monthly Magazine for Literary Workers, see below:
“Writers of the Day.” The Writer: A Monthly Magazine for Literary Workers, vol. 15, January, 1902, p. 126.
Sheet music for Kate Vannah’s Dawn.
Excerpt from Dawn, by Kate Vannah
Video courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County
In 1910, Vannah composed a suite for piano. A review of the suite appears in the October 8, 1910 Music Trade Review:
“One rarely drops in at a hotel, restaurant, or similar resort where there is music nowadays, without hearing at least one if not all three of the triad of beautiful instrumental compositions by that remarkable woman composer, Kate Vannah, comprising ‘Dawn,’ ‘Sleepy Baby’ and ‘For Thee.’ Like many more of Miss Vannah's works, these are published by M. Witmark & Sons, who have brought out a catalog containing thematics of all of them. The three numbers just mentioned, ‘Dawn,’ ‘Sleepy Baby’ and ‘For Thee,’ are the only instrumental numbers in this catalog. They are really ‘songs without words,’ and are usually programmed A, R and C, respectively. These delightful products of Miss Vannah's genius are now to be found in the studios of the foremost teachers of the piano, and are being performed by the leading orchestras, such as Kaltenborn's and Nahan Franko's, etc. They are never failing sources of delight to lovers of really good music.”
This orchestral arrangement of Dawn was created by Otto Langey in 1910, the same year Kate Vannah composed the original. Langey was a Prussian born cellist and composer who performed in London and Boston before moving to New York City in 1909 to work as an editor for G. Schirmer Music Publishing Company.
Air de Ballet (1884/1910)
Photo of Cecile Chaminade. Representative Women: Being a Little Gallery of Pen Portraits,
Lois Oldham Henrici, The Crafters Publishers, Kansas City, 1913, p. 47.
Cecile Chaminade was born in a village outside of Paris in August of 1857. At the age of 10, she was recommended to study at the Paris Conservatory, but her father forbade it because he believed it was improper for a young woman to attend the school. However, she was allowed to study privately with the conservatory faculty. Chaminade started giving recitals of her own music around 1878. She would perform recitals all over the world. On tours of the U.S., she performed at major venues including Carnegie Hall and the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. In her lifetime she composed more than four hundred musical works.
Excerpt from Air de Ballet, by Cecile Chaminade
Video courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County
Chaminade originally composed Air de Ballet as a solo piano work. French Composer and cellist Ernest Gillet arranged it for theater orchestra in 1910.
Excerpt from Air de Ballet, by Cecile Chaminade
Video courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County
A Little Song (1915)
Leo Erdody was born in Chicago in December of 1888. His father was a Hungarian conductor and pianist. After studying music in Berlin and working in Europe as a musician, he returned to the United States and by 1913 was living and working as a musician in New York City. He would go on to a career in movie music until his death in Los Angeles in 1949. In 1944, he and Ferde Grofé were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Motion Picture for The Minstrel Man.
Sheet music for Leo Erdody’s A Little Song.
In 1915, Erdody composed A little Song, which would go on to be one of his more popular works. The dedication on the sheet music reads, “in grateful remembrance to Mrs. Alfred Vanderbilt.” Why was this work dedicated to Mrs. Vanderbilt in 1915? On May 7, 1915, the RMS Lusitania (a British ocean liner) was torpedoed by a German U-Boat off of the Irish coast. One of the passengers who lost their lives that day was Alfred Vanderbilt, son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, owner of the Breakers.
Excerpt from A Little Song, by Leo Erdody
Video courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County
In 1916, A Little Song was added to the musical suggestion cue sheet for the silent film, “A Man and his Soul.”
The Movie Picture World Magazine, vol. 27, no. 6 February 12, 1916, p. 951.
Pirates of Penzance Waltzes (1880)
Catlin, E.N. Title Page of “Love Among the Roses,” 1869. G.D. Russell & Company, Boston.
Edward Noble Catlin was born in Clinton, NY in 1836. At a young age he began his musical career as a violinist in a theater in Utica, NY. He then went to Boston in 1864, where one of his early jobs was with Buckley’s Serenaders, a burlesque troupe. He moved to Europe and became the musical director of the American Circus in Paris. He eventually returned to Boston and in 1871 became musical director of the old Boston Museum and would go on to direct orchestras at the Park and Tremont Theaters until his retirement in 1911. He died in 1926 in Cooperstown, NY. During his life he wrote or arranged music for 44 plays.
Catlin, E.N. Title Page of “Choice Orchestral Selections,” 1880. E.N. Catlin, Boston.
Excerpt from Pirates of Penzance Waltzes, by E.N. Catlin
Video courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County
Rhapsody in Blue (1924/1926)
2024 celebrates the 100th anniversary of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. We were honored to share the stage with pianist Dr. Kirill Gliadkovsky. We performed the 1926 small theater orchestra arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue by Ferde Grofé.
The below article goes into some detail about the rather odd circumstances behind how the musical work came to be. When reading the January 4, 1924 New York Tribune, Gershwin was surprised to learn about the composition he was supposedly writing for an upcoming concert.
February 17, 1924, The Brooklyn Eagle.
Excerpt from Rhapsody in Blue, by George Gershwin
Video courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County
The first known performance of Rhapsody in Blue in Newport, Rhode Island took place in 1931 at the Casino Theatre and it resulted in the largest audience the Casino had hosted.
July 31, 1931, Newport Mercury and Weekly News
Excerpt from Rhapsody in Blue, by George Gershwin
Video courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County
A special thank you to the Preservation Society of Newport County for hosting this musical program in celebration of 100 years of Rhapsody in Blue. Thank you to everyone who came out for this special night of music.
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