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Rag-Blues-Rag
Rag-Blues-Rag was published in 1964 in an anthology entitled New Music for the Piano. Written by composers from across the United States, the works in this anthology were collected by Joseph Prostakoff for the Abby Whiteside Foundation; according to pianist Robert Helps, "They knew practically every composer in the country, and asked many of them for pieces for the collection." At the suggestion of his teacher Abby Whiteside, Helps made a recording of 21 of these works in 1966, one performance of which is featured here.
Morton Gould (1913-1996) was active throughout his life as a composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist. In addition to his prolific output of orchestral, band, chamber, and choral music, he composed for musical theater, ballet, film, television, and radio. Much of his work includes elements of American popular music including jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk music.
Born in Richmond Hill, New York, Gould was recognized as a musical prodigy early in his childhood, composing and publishing his first work, Just Six, at the age of six. Two years later he began studies at the Institute of Musical Art in New York (now Juilliard School of Music) and New York University, studying piano with Abby Whiteside and theory and composition with Vincent Jones. During his teenage years in the Great Depression, he supported his family by performing in vaudeville acts, movie theaters, dance studios, and a piano duo with Bert Shefter.
Gould became nationally known for his work in radio. He was house pianist for Radio City Music Hall when it opened in 1932; he conducted, arranged, and composed for the weekly program "Music for Today" on WOR Mutual Radio, New York; and he appeared on the "Cresta Blanca Carnival" program and "The Chrysler Hour" on CBS. These programs featured a number of well-known musical figures including Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington. One of radio's early commercial jingles was Gould's "Cresta Blanca" theme.
Gould's prominence in the 1940's led him to work in a variety of fields for the rest of his career, from composing and starring in the film Delightfully Dangerous (1945) to collaborating on a pair of Broadway musicals to creating music for choreographers Jerome Robbins, Agnes De Mille, and George Balanchine. He received commissions from orchestras throughout the US, many of which he conducted himself, as well as the Library of Congress, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He hosted and composed for the television programs "World of Music", "World War I", and "Holocaust".
The many recordings Gould made in his lifetime can be found on major labels as well as Albany, Centaur, Citadel, CRI, Koch International Classics, Premier, Reference, and Summit. He served on the board of the American Symphony Orchestra League and was president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) from 1986 to 1994. During the last two years of his life Gould received the Kennedy Center Honor for contributions to American culture and the Pulitzer Prize for his final orchestral work Stringmusic (1994).
related websites
http://www.schirmer.com/composers/gould_bio.html
Pianist and composer Robert Helps was an active performer of 20th-century piano and chamber music, touring in the US extensively with sopranos Bethany Beardslee and Phyllis Curtin, violinists Isidore Cohen and Rudolf Kolisch, and fellow composer/pianist Aaron Copland. As a composer he received awards and commissions from the Ford, Fromm, Guggenheim, and Naumburg Foundations, as well as the Thorne Music Award. His work as both pianist and composer is recorded on the Columbia, CRI, Desto, Deutsche Grammaphon, GM, New World, Son Nova, and Victor labels. Helps was educated at Columbia University in New York, the University of California, Berkeley, and studied piano privately with Abby Whiteside and composition with Roger Sessions. His own teaching positions included a number of California schools (San Francisco Conservatory, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley) as well as the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, Princeton University in New Jersey, and Manhattan School of Music in New York. From 1980 until his death in 2001 Helps taught at the University of South Florida, Tampa.
related websites
http://www.bonkfest.org/bios/helps.html
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