Five years before he won national acclaim with his Grand Canyon Suite, Ferde Grofé took a trip down the Mississippi.
Written in 1926, Grofé’s tone poem Mississippi Suite set the standard for his American landscape pieces that would follow. Written for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, the suite musically traces the Mississippi River from its Minnesota headwaters down to New Orleans. But, I should note, it does so not without a bit of controversy.
The first movement of the suite, “Father of the Waters,” tells the tale of the birth of the Mississippi, with Minnesotan streams converging in the traditional territory of the Chippewa tribe. Minus any real hint of Native American musical traditions. Grofé instead leans on a bit of musical exoticism, complete with tom-tom rhythms, to convey the idea of “Indian” to an audience open to the musical convention.
The second movement of Grofé’s suite turns not to history, but to literature. The bounce and playfulness of “Huckleberry Finn” acts almost as a soundtrack inspired by Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the mischief Huck might’ve found himself in along the Mississippi.
“Old Creole Days,” the third movement of Grofé’s Mississippi Suite, is the second movement that, today, might seem a bit out of touch. Concert programs at the time often explained this movement in “Old South” nostalgia, but its inspiration is a little darker. This movement is Grofé’s interpretation of spirituals sung by the enslaved people that one might have heard while sailing down the Mississippi.
Grofé ends his journey with a party, as we enter New Orleans and the “Mardi Gras” movement.
Grofé lets the brass shine to open the movement, and quickly leads into the dancing and frivolity of an imagined celebration.
Years later, the ballad section of “Mardi Gras” would get new life. Lyricist Harold Adamson wrote words for that section and called it “Daybreak.” That ballad, in 1942, became a Top 10 best seller, as sung by Frank Sinatra.
You can enjoy a recording of The Paul Whiteman Orchestra’s performance of the suite from 1928, too, with one exception. Due to technology limits at the time, they couldn’t fit it all on the record. Whiteman and Grofe decided to cut the first movement, so this album started with “Huckleberry Finn.”
Grofé took what he learned from his Mississippi adventure and pointed it a few years later at a canyon in Arizona he once saw bathed in morning sun. That piece, The Grand Canyon Suite, is considered Grofé’s best, but you could argue that, much like Twain, his storytelling skills were honed on the Mississippi. And the stories of the natural beauty of America would continue to be his muse for years to come.
