Deems Taylor
Joseph Deems Taylor was born in New York City on December 22, 1885. He received his academic education in New York, at the Friends School, Ethical Culture School, and New York University. All the while he studied music with private teachers. Following his graduation from college, Taylor appeared in vaudeville, worked for several magazines, and from 1921 to 1925 was the music critic of the New York World. He first distinguished himself as a composer in 1919 with the orchestral suite, Through the Looking Glass. In 1925 he resigned from the World to concentrate on composition. In the next half dozen years he completed two operas, each successfully performed at the Metropolitan Opera: The King’s Henchman (with libretto by Edna St. Vincent Millay) in 1927, and Peter Ibbetson in 1931. Since 1927, Taylor has followed several careers besides that of one of America’s most important serious composers. He was editor of Musical America, music critic for the New York American, master of ceremonies on radio and television, program annotator, intermission commentator for broadcasts of opera and orchestral music, and author of several best-selling books on music. A highly sophisticated composer with a consummate technical skill, Taylor’s works are not for popular consumption. But he did write one composition in a popular style, Circus Day; and a second of his works, Through the Looking Glass, while intended for symphonic concerts, has enough wit and charm to fall gracefully into the semi-classical category.
Circus Day is a fantasy for orchestra, op. 18 (1925) written on commission from Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra. When Whiteman and his orchestra introduced it that year, the work was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé, but since then Taylor has prepared his own symphonic adaptation. Subtitled “eight pictures from memory” this fantasy strives “to convey one’s early impressions of a day at the circus.” The composer has provided his own program notes for the eight movements. The first, entitled “Street Parade,” describes the circus parade as it “passes on down the street.” “The playing of the band grows fainter and dies away in the distance.” “The Big Tops” tells in musical terms about “peanuts, popcorn, pink lemonade, bawling side-show barkers.” This is followed by “Bareback Riders.” “As the ringmaster cracks his whip, the riders perform the miraculous feats... that make horseback riders the objects of such awe and admiration.” The fourth movement is in three parts. The first is devoted to “The Lion’s Cage.” “The roar of the lions is blood curdling, but they go through their tricks with no damage to any of us.” The second speaks about “The Dog and the Monkey Circus.” “Into the ring dash a whole kennel full of small dogs guised as race horses, ridden by monkeys dressed as jockeys.” In the third, we get a picture of “The Waltzing Elephants.” “The great beasts solemnly waltz to a tune that is a pachydermous version of the theme of the bareback riders.” In the fifth movement, “Tight-Rope Walker,” the performer “balances his parasol; he pirouettes and slips and slides as he makes his perilous way along the taut wire.” “The Jugglers,” in the sixth movement, “juggle little balls and big ones, knives, dishes, hats, lighted candles....” Even the orchestra is seized by the contagion and finally juggles its main theme, keeping three versions of it in the air. In “Clowns,” two of them “come out to play us a tune.... Finally, after a furious argument, the entire clown band manages to play the tune through, amid applause.” The finale, the composer goes on to explain, “might better be called ‘Looking Back.’ For the circus is over, and we are back at home, trying to tell a slightly inattentive family what we saw and heard. The helpful orchestra evokes recollections of jugglers, clowns, bareback riders, tight-rope walkers, trained animals.”
Through the Looking Glass, a suite for orchestra (1919) is a musical setting of episodes from Lewis Carroll’s delightful tale of the same name. Taylor’s suite is in four movements, for which he has provided his own program. The first movement, “Dedication; The Garden of Live Flowers,” consists of “a simple song theme, briefly developed,” which leads immediately to the brisk music of “The Garden of Live Flowers.” In the second movement, “Jabberwocky,” the theme of the frightful beast, the Jabberwock, “is first announced by the full orchestra. The clarinet then begins the tale [with] the battle with the monsters recounted in a short and rather repellant fugue.” The third movement, “Looking Glass Insects” tells of “the vociferous diptera that made such an impression on Alice—the Bee-elephant, the Gnat, the Rockinghorse fly, and the Bread-and-butter fly.” The last movement, “The White Knight” has two themes. “The first is a sort of instrumental prance, being the knight’s own conception of himself as a slashing daredevil. The second is bland, mellifluous, a little sentimental—much more like the knight as he really was.”