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I first encountered the name of Grohg some 25 years ago on the sleeve of Morton Gould's marvellous Chicago Symphony recording of Aaron Copland's Dance Symphony of 1929. Copland had hastily extracted this score from an unperformed ballet (written in Paris in 1922–5) in order to enter a major competition organized by RCA Victor records, when he realized that he would be unable to complete the planned Symphonic Ode in time for the deadline. I found this music very attractive indeed – amusingly Ballets Russes-ian to be sure but, in the precision and transparency of its sound-world, very characteristic of its author and not at all suggestive of a first attempt at orchestration (Grohg pre-dates the Organ Symphony, which was the first orchestral music of his own that Copland actually heard). I was also intrigued by the idea of a ballet that had been suggested by F. W. Murnau's classic silent horror film Nosferatu (1922).
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1 The RCA Victor prize was ultimately divided among three winners, and although the Dance Symphony was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Stokowski in 1931, it was not recorded until the mid-1960s. A conversation with Morton Gould, who instigated that recording, revealed that the condition of the orchestral parts suggested few – if any – performances in the 30-plus interim years, and that new material had to be recopied in order for the record to be made. In the event, this material was to make possible the speedy extraction of complete Grohg parts.
2 From the mid-1980s the precarious state of Copland's health precluded any direct approach for purposes of clarification.
3 Scenes XV–XVI of Hear Ye! are less characteristic, in places, of Copland than strikingly anticipatory of the Bernstein of West Side Story! Could a precocious Bernstein have heard it in the 1930s during its early run of performances?