Background
Morton Gould was born in the Richmond Hill section of Queens, N. Y. , on December 10, 1913, the son of a Viennese-born realtor and his Russian wife.
Morton Gould was born in the Richmond Hill section of Queens, N. Y. , on December 10, 1913, the son of a Viennese-born realtor and his Russian wife.
When Morton Gould earned a scholarship to the Institute for Musical Art at the age of eight, he was the youngest person to train at the school. However, his experience at the Institute proved disappointing. He studied composition with Vincent Jones and piano with Abby Whiteside, and Whiteside became his long-time coach, advisor, and friend.
As a teenager Gould gave piano recitals in the New York City area, often improvising on themes contributed by the audience.
in jazz bands, and as part of a two-piano duo on the local vaudeville circuit.
Reiner was impressed, and said that he would recommend Gould for a scholarship to the prestigious Curtis Institute.
“I don’t know whether formal training would have been for the better, ” he said in Musical America.
In 1931 the still teenage Gould became the pianist at the newly opened Radio City Music Hall, where he performed solos as well as played with the Hall orchestra.
At age 24 Gould composed his famous Second Sym-phonette, which contained his highly melodic and popular “Pavanne” segment.
He said in the Washington Post, “I was very embarrassed when I was young—put out by the fact that people liked my music. ”
“It bothered me that because my music was popular it couldn’t be important, ” he added in Musical America.
“But in those days, the feeling was that you did one kind of music or the other.
The idea of crossing over was not accepted. ”
One of Gould’s greatest talents was his ability to place popular standards into a symphonic context.
His Cowboy Rhapsody transferred melodies such as “Home on the Range” into the symphonic realm, and works such as American Ballads, Classical Variations on Colonial Themes and Spirituals for Orchestra drew heavily on Americana.
According to Harrison in Contemporary Composers, “In fact Gould has been more successful than some more renowned figures in applying classical procedures to jazz, folk and pre-rock popular idioms. ”
After leaving his post at WOR in 1942, Gould took on similar responsibilities for NBC and other radio stations.
He provided music for shows such as the “Cresta Blanca Carnival” program and “The Chrysler Hour” on CBS.
Gould soon branched out into music for theater and film.
He was commissioned to score ballet music for Agnes DeMille’s Fall River Legend in 1949, George Balanchine’s Clarinade in 1964, and for Jerome Rob-bins’s tribute to Fred Astaire, I’m Old Fashioned, in 1983.
Gould has always considered himself an eclectic composer who eagerly embraces new musical influences.
Gould satisfied his interest in jazz with pieces such as Derivations in 1956, which he composed especially for clarinetist Benny Goodman.
He was also praised for his compositions for two or more pianos, especially his Two Pianos that he composed for the first Murray Dranoff Foundation’s International Two Piano Symposium in 1987.
He was in Orlando, Florida at the time as artist-in-residence at the Disney Institute.
Slated to conduct the concert, he was advised not to because he was feeling ill.
Morton Gould was a member of the board of the American Symphony Orchestra League and of the National Endowment for the Arts music panel.
Gould was married to Shirley Uzin, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1943. In the following year, Gould married to Shirley Bank. This marriage too ended in divorce. Gould had four children.