Ferde Grofé's Tabloid Suite [IMPORT]

George Gershwin (Composer), Ferde Grofe (Composer), Jan Stulen (Conductor), Metropole Orchestra (Orchestra), Jan Willem Nelleke (Performer)

Product Details

• Performer: Jan Willem Nelleke
• Orchestra: Metropole Orchestra
• Conductor: Jan Stulen
• Composer: George Gershwin, Ferde Grofe
• Audio CD (May 4, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: Basta Records
• ASIN: B0001Z4PIC
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #39,931 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Four Pictures of a Modern Newspaper: Run of the News

2. Four Pictures of a Modern Newspaper: Sob Sister

3. Four Pictures of a Modern Newspaper: Comic Strip

4. Four Pictures of a Modern Newspaper: Going to Press

5. Five Pictures of the Grand Canyon: Sunrise

6. Five Pictures of the Grand Canyon: Painted Desert

7. Five Pictures of the Grand Canyon: On the Trail

8. Five Pictures of the Grand Canyon: Sunset

9. Five Pictures of the Grand Canyon: Cloudburst

Disc: 2

1. Concerto in F: Allegro

2. Concerto in F: Andante Con Moto

3. Concerto in F: Allegro Agitato

Editorial Reviews

All Music Guide

"A wealth of rare material is included here...will be of considerable interest to Raymond Scott's increasing following."

Product Description

This 2-disc set features new recordings in settings previously used by Paul Whiteman. Included are the complete "Grand Canyon Suite", "Tabloid Suite" and Gershwin's "Concerto in F". This is the first recording of the complete jazz version of the "Grand Canyon Suite"!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sensational!, September 16, 2004

By	Lee Hartsfeld (Heath, OH United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm happy to report that this two-CD Ferde Grofe set is a winner from front to cover. Grofe's 1932 "Tabloid Suite," composed fifteen years after Erik Satie's music for the ballet "Parade," employs similar sound effects (including a typewriter and siren), similar machine-like rhythms and riffs, and similar contrasts of dynamics and tempi. Even the whole-tone sections (a Grofe staple) sound Satie-esque here. No waste of ink, this wonderful piece delights and entertains in both a gaudy yellow-journalistic style and a more thoughtful op-ed fashion. A dizzying, rondo-like "Run of the News" is followed by "Sob Sister," a lush and Paul-Whiteman-esque tear-jerker with shades (so to speak) of "Sunset." This is the closest we may ever come to hearing the vintage Whiteman outfit in stereo. The suite presses on with the charming and thematically-diverse "Comic Strip"--the best kind of cartoon music, very sardonic and Les Six--and concludes with the sound-effects festival, "Going to Press." Reprints--er, reprises--of earlier themes occur in this, the most "Parade"-like movement in the group. If all of this weren't enough, the Metropole Orchestra also delivers a suitably grand version of Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite" as scored for Paul Whiteman in 1932. A miracle of orchestration, this more intimate version of the suite might be better, in some ways, than the one we're used to hearing--no details of chord or melody are eroded by overactive engineering, and no portion of the brass is lost in the gorge. Here, we have the movement as Grofe intended it to burst. The second CD features Grofe's fascinating 1928 orchestration of Gershwin's "Concerto in F," lovingly presented, and with the same refreshing attention to detail. Gershwin's concerto, while an American classic, is in some ways an odd follow-up to the two masterfully-organized Grofe suites, as Gershwin had none of Grofe's sense of form. Compared to Ferde's compositional precision, George's art was virtually one of filling musical space with sounds. Then again, few people ever filled that space as memorably as he did. Order isn't everything, I suppose. (But, by all means, order this fabulous CD!)