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Grand Canyon Suite

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A suite , in Western classical music , is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral / concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes; and grew in scope so that by the early 17th century it comprised up to five dances, sometimes with a prelude . The separate movements were often thematically and tonally linked. The term can also be used to refer to similar forms in other musical traditions, such as the Turkish fasıl and the Arab nuubaat .

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39-683: The Grand Canyon Suite is a suite for orchestra by Ferde Grofé , composed between 1929 and 1931. It was initially titled Five Pictures of the Grand Canyon . It consists of five movements , each an evocation in tone of a particular scene typical of the Grand Canyon . Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra gave the first public performance of the work, in concert at the Studebaker Theatre in Chicago on November 22, 1931. Grofe, in 1937, described

78-599: A customer. This movement is also used extensively in the Bob Clark film " A Christmas Story ", with the Celesta solo providing the soundtrack music when Ralphie and his younger brother are seen sleeping and dreaming about Christmas morning. Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra recorded the movements of the suite in three studio sessions on April 26, April 27, and April 28, 1932 for RCA Victor at their studios in Camden, New Jersey . The suite

117-456: A number of reasons. His manuscripts became the object of a long legal battle between his heirs and the rulers of Hesse-Darmstadt . A final court decision denied the Graupner estate ownership of the music manuscripts. The heirs were unable to obtain permission to sell or publish his works and they remained inaccessible to the public. Furthermore, subsequent dramatic changes in music styles had reduced

156-575: A recording by the London Festival Orchestra under Stanley Black notable among them. Suite (music) In the Baroque era, the suite was an important musical form , also known as Suite de danses , Ordre (the term favored by François Couperin ), Partita , or Ouverture (after the theatrical " overture " which often included a series of dances) as with the orchestral suites of Christoph Graupner , Telemann and J.S. Bach . During

195-494: A shorter period, his style was always well defined." In 2021 Brilliant Classics issued a 14-CD set of Graupner's complete harpsichord music, performed by Fernando De Luca . In April 2005, a thematic catalog of Graupner's instrumental music (Oswald Bill and Christoph Grosspietsch, editors) was published by Carus-Verlag . There are plans to catalog Graupner's vocal music. In 2010, Belgian conductor and musicologist Florian Heyerick published an online and searchable digital GWV of

234-531: A subsequent settlement Graupner's past due salary was paid in full, his salary was increased; and he would be kept on staff even if his Kapelle was dismissed. With Graupner out of the running for the Cantorate in Leipzig, the next candidate to audition (on 7 February 1723), one Johann Sebastian Bach , was awarded the position. After hearing that Bach was the choice for Leipzig, on 4 May 1723 Graupner graciously wrote to

273-402: A suite in the 20th-century would come from the progressive rock band Pink Floyd . Their 1970 album Atom Heart Mother included the epic 23 minute-long Atom Heart Mother Suite on the first side of the record. The dance suite was a collection of dance music popular in the Baroque era . It consists of the following movements in this order: A suite may be introduced by a movement such as

312-504: A wife to support, in late 1722 Graupner applied for the Cantorate in Leipzig . Telemann had been the first choice for this position, but withdrew after securing a salary increase in Hamburg. Graupner, under the guise of a family-related trip, travelled to Leipzig and presented there a Magnificat (GWV 1172/22, Graupner Werkverzeichnis) set in the style of his teacher, mentor and former holder of

351-576: A young violinist. In addition to playing the harpsichord, Graupner composed six operas in Hamburg, some of them in collaboration with Keiser, a popular composer of operas in Germany. In 1709, Graupner accepted a post at the court of Hesse-Darmstadt and in 1711 became the court orchestra's Hofkapellmeister (court chapel master). Graupner spent the rest of his career at the court in Hesse-Darmstadt, where his primary responsibilities were to provide music for

390-416: Is "one of those unfortunate victims of fate and circumstance – a contemporary of Bach, Handel, Telemann, etc., who has remained largely – and unfairly – neglected." Graupner's music is enjoying a revival, due in large part to the research efforts of many musicologists , performers, and conductors. Beginning in the early 20th century, research began with Willibald Nagel 's study of Graupner's sinfonias. In

429-465: The Shining series), or entirely original movements ( Holberg Suite , The Planets ). Estienne du Tertre published suyttes de bransles in 1557, giving the first general use of the term "suite" 'suyttes' in music, although the usual form of the time was as pairs of dances. The first recognizable suite is Peuerl 's Newe Padouan, Intrada, Dantz, and Galliarda of 1611, in which the four dances of

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468-484: The University and State Library Darmstadt . Graupner wrote for exotic combinations of instruments, including the oboe d'amore , flute d'amore , and viola d'amore . Over half of his sinfonias require brass and timpani , with about 25 sinfonias requiring 3 to 4 timpani, one (sinfonia in G Major GWV 611) 5 timpani, and another, sinfonia in F Major (GWV 566), was composed for 6 timpani. A particular speciality for Graupner

507-501: The University of Leipzig where he studied law (as did many composers of the time) and then completed his musical studies with Johann Kuhnau , the cantor of the Thomasschule (St. Thomas School). In 1705, Graupner left Leipzig to play the harpsichord in the orchestra of the Oper am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg under the direction of Reinhard Keiser , alongside George Frideric Handel , then

546-551: The jazz genre. Perhaps the most notable composer is Duke Ellington / Billy Strayhorn , who produced many suites, amongst them: Black, Brown and Beige , Such Sweet Thunder , The Far East Suite , the New Orleans Suite , the Latin American Suite , and many more. Suites are also used in free jazz ( Max Roach : Freedom Now Suite , Don Cherry , John Coltrane 's A Love Supreme , etc.). Another example of

585-425: The 1750s, the suite had come to be seen as old-fashioned, superseded by the symphony and concerto, and few composers were still writing suites during that time. But since the 19th century , composers have frequently arranged ballets, operas, and other works into suites for concert performance. Arrangement into a suite can make the music more accessible and available to a wider audience, and has greatly helped popularize

624-426: The 18th century, the suite fell out of favour as a cyclical form, giving way to the symphony , sonata and concerto . It was revived in the later 19th century , but in a different form, often presenting extracts from a ballet ( Nutcracker Suite ), the incidental music to a play ( L'Arlésienne , Masquerade ), opera , film ( Lieutenant Kije Suite ) or video game ( Motoaki Takenouchi 's 1994 suite to

663-489: The 1920s, Friedrich Noack published his research on Graupner's cantatas. Baerenreiter published several sinfonias and an ouverture in the 1950s. In the early 1980s, Myron Rosenblum edited four sinfonias for the massive Barry Brook project The Symphony, 1720-1840: A Comprehensive Collection of Full Scores (New York: Garland, 1979–85), 60 vols. The year 1988 saw the publication of Oswald Bill's study of Graupner, with several articles by such Graupner experts as Peter Cahn (on

702-667: The Leipzig Cantorate, Kuhnau. On 17 January 1723 Graupner's audition, in which he presented the cantatas Aus der Tiefen rufen wir (GWV 1113/23a) and Lobet den Herrn alle Heiden (GWV 1113/23b), took place. His performance was sufficient to secure him the position and three days later the Leipzig council wrote to Graupner's patron (the Landgrave Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt ) to request that he be released. However, Ernst Ludwig insisted on Graupner remaining in Darmstadt. In

741-468: The Royal Fireworks in this form. Handel wrote 22 keyboard suites; Bach produced multiple suites for lute, cello, violin, flute, and other instruments, as well as English suites , French suites and Partitas for keyboard . François Couperin 's later suites (which he called "Ordres") often dispensed entirely with the standard dances and consisted entirely of character pieces with fanciful names. By

780-458: The age of 23. In the late 19th century, Sibelius's Karelia Suite was written for the students of the Helsinki university. Brought on by Impressionism , the piano suite was reintroduced by early 20th-century French composers such as Ravel and Debussy . Debussy's Pour le piano is a suite in three movements, published in 1901, and his Suite bergamasque , revised in 1905, is probably one of

819-547: The city council in Leipzig assuring them that Bach "is a musician just as strong on the organ as he is expert in church works and capelle pieces" and a man who "will honestly and properly perform the functions entrusted to him." Graupner was hardworking and prolific. There are about 2,000 surviving works in his catalog, including 113 sinfonias , 85 ouvertures (suites), 44 concertos , 8 operas , 1,418 religious and 24 secular cantatas , 66 sonatas and 57 harpsichord partitas . Nearly all of Graupner's manuscripts are housed in

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858-529: The court chapel. He wrote music for nearly half a century, from 1709 to 1754, when he became blind . He died in Darmstadt six years later. Graupner inadvertently played a key role in the history of music. Precarious finances in Darmstadt during the 1710s forced a reduction of musical life. The opera house was closed, and many court musicians' salaries were in arrears (including Graupner's). After many attempts to have his salary paid, and having several children and

897-738: The following. Between the Sarabande and Gigue, the following Galanteries may be included. Christoph Graupner Christoph Graupner (23 January [ O.S. 13 January] 1683 – 10 May 1760) was a German composer and harpsichordist of late Baroque music who was a contemporary of Johann Sebastian Bach , Georg Philipp Telemann and George Frideric Handel . Born in Hartmannsdorf near Kirchberg in Saxony , Graupner received his first musical instruction from his uncle, an organist named Nicolaus Kuester. Graupner went to

936-514: The general public. This changed in 1998, when Hermann Max conducted a CD of Graupner works on the CPO label. Montreal harpsichordist Geneviève Soly came across a Graupner manuscript in the Beinecke Library at Yale University in the year 2000 and started performing and recording his works. Graupner was "always on the cutting edge for his time and very innovative in his ideas for harmony, notation, and

975-659: The genesis of his piece: "Although I was born in New York City, I lost all consciousness of being a New Yorker at the age of five. From that age till a few years ago, I lived in California....In writing 'Grand Canyon Suite' I drew from notes I had made during my constant visits to the rim of the mighty work of nature. I had watched the Canyon in all seasons, in all its moods. And my findings were on paper, notes in hieroglyphics that were later transcribed into musical notes." The movements of

1014-480: The gigue appearing later than the others. Johann Jakob Froberger is usually credited with establishing the classical suite through his compositions in this form, which were widely published and copied, although this was largely due to his publishers standardizing the order; Froberger's original manuscripts have many different orderings of the movements, e.g. the gigue preceding the sarabande. The publisher's standardized order was, however, highly influential especially on

1053-503: The interest in Graupner's music. On the positive side however, the Landgrave's seizure of Graupner's musical estate ensured its survival in toto . Fate was not so kind to J. S. Bach's musical legacy, for example. Another factor that contributed to Graupner's posthumous obscurity was that, unlike Bach, Graupner had very few pupils other than Johann Friedrich Fasch to carry on his musical legacy. As critic David Vernier has summed up, Graupner

1092-473: The most famous suites, especially the third movement, Clair de Lune . Ravel is particularly well known for his Miroirs suite for piano and lesser known for Le tombeau de Couperin , both requiring tremendous skill and dexterity from the pianist. Arnold Schoenberg 's first use of the twelve-tone technique throughout an entire work was in his Suite for Piano, op. 25 . Modeled on the Baroque keyboard suite,

1131-470: The music itself, such as in Tchaikovsky 's suite from The Nutcracker , or Aaron Copland 's suite from Appalachian Spring . Suites for orchestra or concert band usually consist of one or more movements . An example is Grieg 's Peer Gynt Orchestral Suites I and II, each consisting of four movements. Such suites may consist of Carl Nielsen made a Suite for String Orchestra his Opus 1 in 1888 at

1170-570: The piece consists of six movements entitled Präludium (Prelude), Gavotte , Musette , Intermezzo , Menuett (Minuet, with Trio), and Gigue . Other famous examples of early 20th-century suites are The Planets by Gustav Holst , a "Suite for Orchestra" in which each piece represents the astrological significance of one of the seven uninhabited planets then known, as well as his First Suite in E-flat and Second Suite in F for Military Band . There are as well several examples of suites being used in

1209-447: The second (but without the internal repeats), thus I, II, I. The later addition of an overture to make up an "overture-suite" was extremely popular with German composers; Telemann claimed to have written over 200 overture-suites, Christoph Graupner wrote 86 orchestral overture-suites and 57 partitas for harpsichord , J.S. Bach had his four orchestral suites along with other suites, and Handel put his Water Music and Music for

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1248-668: The sinfonias), Joanna Cobb Biermann (musicians and salaries in Darmstadt), as well as source documents on court life in Darmstadt. Three dissertations were very important for Graupner research: H. Cutler Fall's study of the Passiontide cantatas, Rene Schmidt's study of the Christmas cantatas , and Vernon Wicker's study of solo bass cantatas. Christoph Grosspietsch published an extensive study of Graupner's ouvertures in 1994. Despite all this research, there were relatively few recordings available to

1287-569: The soundtrack for the Grand Canyon Diorama on the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad in Disneyland since the diorama's 1958 debut. On The Trail was the theme music for commercials for Philip Morris cigarettes on US radio and television from 1934 until sometime in the 1960s, accompanied by the voice of Johnny Roventini calling "Call For Philip Morris" in the style of a hotel bellhop paging

1326-557: The suite are: Grand Canyon is a 1958 short Walt Disney film in CinemaScope format directed by James Algar . It features color film footage of the Grand Canyon accompanied by the Grand Canyon Suite , though the order of the movements has been somewhat altered. In the manner of Fantasia , there is no story and no dialogue. The film won an Academy Award in 1959 for Best Short Subject . On The Trail has been used as

1365-448: The title appear repeatedly in ten suites. The Banchetto musicale by Johann Schein (1617) contains 20 sequences of five different dances. The first four-movement suite credited to a named composer, Sandley's Suite , was published in 1663. The Baroque suite consisted of allemande , courante , sarabande , and gigue , in that order, and developed during the 17th century in France,

1404-399: The use of instruments," as Soly has noted. "You have to take into consideration his various styles in relation to the actual period and the ideas he was interested in developing at that moment. The size of the catalogue imposes added difficulties in this respect, because another composer might have written for just as long, but in one style only. Mozart comes to mind: although he composed over

1443-404: The works of Bach. Many later suites included other movements placed between sarabande and gigue. These optional movements were known as galanteries : common examples are the minuet , gavotte , passepied , and bourrée . Often there would be two contrasting galanteries with the same name, e.g. Minuet I and II, to be played alternativement , meaning that the first dance is played again after

1482-532: Was released on eight 78 RPM record sides (eight single sided records/four two sided records) in 1932. The work has been recorded many times since, with performances by American orchestras conducted by Arturo Toscanini , Eugene Ormandy , Andre Kostelanetz , Leonard Bernstein , Morton Gould , Arthur Fiedler , Maurice Abravanel , Erich Kunzel , Lorin Maazel , Felix Slatkin , Antal Dorati and Howard Hanson . Performances by non-American ensembles are much rarer, with

1521-403: Was the accompanied chorale. His immense sense of originality and creativity led to him composing a large number of highly contrasting chorales using a relatively small number of tunes. Indeed, one quarter of the 1312 chorales he composed within his 1356 cantatas for Sundays and feast days of the liturgical calendar are based on just 6 tunes. After he died, Graupner's works fell into obscurity for

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