Today is the 50th anniversary of the death of American composer Douglas Moore. Does anyone remember him?
Moore was born into an old Long Island family that had lived there since the island’s settling in the 17th century. He attended, among other institutions, Yale University, where he earned two degrees; then he was off to Paris to study with Vincent d’Indy, Ernest Bloch, and Nadia Boulanger (lending credence to Ned Rorem’s famous observation, “Myth credits every American town with two things: A 10-cent store and a Boulanger student”).
Moore went on to serve as president of the National Institute and American Academy of Arts and Letters and director of music at the Cleveland Museum of Art. In 1926, he joined the faculty of Columbia University, where he remained until his retirement in 1962. With Otto Luening and Oliver Daniel, he cofounded the CRI (Composers Recordings, Inc.) label.
In addition to his work in the classical world, he also dabbled in the popular realm. He wrote the Yale fight song, “Goodnight, Harvard.” He also authored two books: “Listening to Music” (1932) and “From Madrigal to Modern Music” (1942).
As a composer, Moore must have seemed, even then, a little old-fashioned. He worked mostly in a Romantic idiom. Though sometimes hinting at American folk song and occasionally popular trends, his works lack the kind of zest evident in, say, Aaron Copland’s distillation of French neoclassicism into his much snappier frontier ballets. On the other hand, Moore enjoyed more success on the operatic stage than Copland ever did.
He collaborated with Stephen Vincent Benet on an adaptation of Benet’s short story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” (He would dedicate his Symphony No. 2 to Benet’s memory.) “Giants in the Earth” was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1951.
But his most enduring and beautiful music might just be that for “The Ballad of Baby Doe,” which was championed and recorded by Beverly Sills.
Also, some may dimly recollect Howard Hanson’s performance of “The Pageant of P.T. Barnum,” part of Hanson’s series of recordings of American music set down with the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra for the Mercury label.
At the time of his death, Moore was 75 years old. Sadly, now, at a half century’s distance, it seems that Moore is less.
Douglas Moore introduces Beverly Sills in “The Willow Song” from “The Ballad of Baby Doe.”
