Goldman Band
Encyclopedia
The Goldman Band was formed by American musician and composer Edwin Franko Goldman
in 1918 (see 1918 in music
) from the earlier New York Military Band. Goldman had organized the New York Military Band in 1911. Both bands were based in New York city
.
It was Goldman’s contention that the New York symphony and orchestra musicians in the summer bands of the time rarely rehearsed and didn’t take these performances very seriously. He saw the potential for starting a really good wind ensemble.
The Goldman Band's first concert under that name was in 1920 at Columbia University
. The program was representative of Goldman’s choices in transcriptions and original works including compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach
, Victor Herbert
, Edward MacDowell
, Johan Svendsen
, Ambroise Thomas
, Richard Wagner
, and Karl Michael Ziehrer
.
For ninety-three years the Goldman Band performed free public concerts at a variety of venues in New York city, including on the Green at Columbia, Central Park
and Prospect Park. Famous instrumental and vocal performers appeared with the band along with guest conductors such as Percy Grainger
and Vivian Dunn
. Traditional and classical works were performed as well as new works for band. Goldman requested new works for band from European composers including Ottorino Respighi
, Albert Roussel
, and Jaromir Weinberger
. With professional musicians and endowment funds from the Guggenheim’s, the band was able to perform in New York and also tour the U.S. and Canada and perform on radio and television.
, took the podium until his death in 1980. Ainslee Cox followed him until his death in 1988, then Gene Young to 1997, then David Eaton to 2000, and the last conductor Christian Wilhjelm 2000-2005.
in the summer of 1937. The first performance of Darius Milhaud
’s Suite française, Op. 248 was performed by the Goldman Band on June 13, 1945. The first performance of Arnold Schoenberg
's Theme and Variations for Full Band, op.43a, was performed by the Goldman Band on June 27, 1946, with Richard Franko Goldman conducting. On June 23, 1947 the band and a chorus of 200 performed the American premiere of Hector Berlioz
’s Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale
.
The band made numerous recordings for Capitol Records
, American Decca, RCA Victrola
, and New World Records
.
s, two oboe
s, one E-flat clarinet
, one bass clarinet
, nineteen clarinet
s (eight firsts, six seconds, five thirds), two alto saxophone
s, one tenor saxophone
s, one baritone saxophone
, two bassoon
s, four cornet
s, four trumpet
s, five French horns
, six trombone
s, two euphonium
s, four tuba
s, two string basses
, one Harp
, three percussion
.
Edwin Franko Goldman
Edwin Franko Goldman is one of America's prominent band composers of the early 20th century. He composed over 150 works, more notably his marches. He is known for founding the renowned Goldman Band of New York City and the American Bandmasters Association...
in 1918 (see 1918 in music
1918 in music
-Events:* March 3 - Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 2 is premiered in Budapest* May 24 - Béla Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle is premiered in Budapest.*April 30/May 1 - Toivo Kuula is mortally wounded in the Finnish Civil War....
) from the earlier New York Military Band. Goldman had organized the New York Military Band in 1911. Both bands were based in New York city
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
It was Goldman’s contention that the New York symphony and orchestra musicians in the summer bands of the time rarely rehearsed and didn’t take these performances very seriously. He saw the potential for starting a really good wind ensemble.
The Goldman Band's first concert under that name was in 1920 at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. The program was representative of Goldman’s choices in transcriptions and original works including compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
, Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Edward Alexander MacDowell was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches", "Sea Pieces", and "New England Idylls". "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose"...
, Johan Svendsen
Johan Svendsen
Johan Severin Svendsen was a Norwegian composer, conductor and violinist. Born in Christiania , Norway, he lived most his life in Copenhagen, Denmark....
, Ambroise Thomas
Ambroise Thomas
Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas was a French composer, best known for his operas Mignon and Hamlet and as Director of the Conservatoire de Paris from 1871 till his death.-Biography:"There is good music, there is bad music, and then there is Ambroise Thomas."- Emmanuel Chabrier-Early life...
, Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, and Karl Michael Ziehrer
Karl Michael Ziehrer
Karl Michael Ziehrer was an Austrian composer. In his lifetime, he was one of the fiercest rivals of the Strauss family; most notably Johann Strauss II and Eduard Strauss....
.
For ninety-three years the Goldman Band performed free public concerts at a variety of venues in New York city, including on the Green at Columbia, Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
and Prospect Park. Famous instrumental and vocal performers appeared with the band along with guest conductors such as Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger
George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
and Vivian Dunn
Vivian Dunn
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Vivian Dunn KCVO OBE FRSA was the Director of Music, Portsmouth Division, Royal Marines1931-53 and Principal Director of Music, Royal Marines, from 1953 to 1968. He was the first military musician to be knighted.Francis Vivian Dunn was born in Jabalpur, India...
. Traditional and classical works were performed as well as new works for band. Goldman requested new works for band from European composers including Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral "Roman trilogy": Fountains of Rome ; Pines of Rome ; and Roman Festivals...
, Albert Roussel
Albert Roussel
Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel was a French composer. He spent seven years as a midshipman, turned to music as an adult, and became one of the most prominent French composers of the interwar period...
, and Jaromir Weinberger
Jaromír Weinberger
- Biography :Weinberger was born in Prague, from a family of Jewish origin. He heard Czech folksongs from time spent at his grandparents' farm as a youth. He started to play the piano at age 5, and was composing and conducting by age 10. He began musical studies with Jaroslav Křička. Later teachers...
. With professional musicians and endowment funds from the Guggenheim’s, the band was able to perform in New York and also tour the U.S. and Canada and perform on radio and television.
Conductors after Edwin Franko Goldman
After Goldman’s death at age 78 in 1956, his son, Richard Franko GoldmanRichard Franko Goldman
Richard Franko Goldman was a conductor, educator, author, music critic, and composer.After graduating from Townsend Harris High School in Queens, New York he attended Columbia University, graduating in 1930 with an A.B. . He then went to Paris to study composition with Nadia Boulanger...
, took the podium until his death in 1980. Ainslee Cox followed him until his death in 1988, then Gene Young to 1997, then David Eaton to 2000, and the last conductor Christian Wilhjelm 2000-2005.
Some Premieres
Over the years a large number of famous composers have written for the band. The Goldman Band gave the first complete performance of Percy Grainger's masterpiece Lincolnshire PosyLincolnshire Posy
Lincolnshire Posy is a piece by Percy Grainger for concert band composed in 1937 for the American Bandmasters Association. Considered Grainger's masterpiece, the work is composed of six movements, each adapted from folk songs that Grainger had collected on a 1905–1906 trip to Lincolnshire,...
in the summer of 1937. The first performance of Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
’s Suite française, Op. 248 was performed by the Goldman Band on June 13, 1945. The first performance of Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's Theme and Variations for Full Band, op.43a, was performed by the Goldman Band on June 27, 1946, with Richard Franko Goldman conducting. On June 23, 1947 the band and a chorus of 200 performed the American premiere of Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
’s Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale
Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale
Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale , Op. 15, is the fourth and last symphony by the French composer Hector Berlioz, first performed on 28 July 1840 in Paris...
.
The band made numerous recordings for Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
, American Decca, RCA Victrola
RCA Victrola
RCA Victrola was a budget label introduced by RCA Victor in the early 1960s to reissue classical recordings originally issued on the RCA Victor "Red Seal" label. The name "Victrola" came from the early console phonographs marketed by the Victor Talking Machine Company...
, and New World Records
New World Records
New World Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in American music. The label was established in 1975 through a Rockefeller Foundation grant to produce a 100 disc anthology covering 200 years of American music....
.
Band Instrumentation
Instrumentation between 1930–1956, when the band consisted of 64 members, was: four fluteFlute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, two oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, one E-flat clarinet
E-flat clarinet
The E-flat clarinet is a member of the clarinet family. It is usually classed as a soprano clarinet, although some authors describe it as a "sopranino" or even "piccolo" clarinet. Smaller in size and higher in pitch than the more common B clarinet, it is a transposing instrument in E, sounding a...
, one bass clarinet
Bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
, nineteen clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s (eight firsts, six seconds, five thirds), two alto saxophone
Alto saxophone
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...
s, one tenor saxophone
Tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
s, one baritone saxophone
Baritone saxophone
The baritone saxophone, often called "bari sax" , is one of the largest and lowest pitched members of the saxophone family. It was invented by Adolphe Sax. The baritone is distinguished from smaller sizes of saxophone by the extra loop near its mouthpiece...
, two bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, four cornet
Cornet
The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...
s, four trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, five French horns
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
, six trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s, two euphonium
Euphonium
The euphonium is a conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument. It derives its name from the Greek word euphonos, meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced"...
s, four tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
s, two string basses
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
, one Harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
, three percussion
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
.