Book Description
Composer, critic, author, and radio personality, (Joseph) Deems Taylor (1885–1966) was one of the most influential figures in American culture from the 1920s through the 1940s. A self-taught composer, the New York City native wrote such pieces as the orchestral suite Through the Looking Glass and the acclaimed operas The King's Henchman and Peter Ibbetson, the first commissions ever offered by the Metropolitan Opera. Taylor's operatic works were among the most popular and widely performed of his day, yet he achieved greatest fame and recognition as the golden-voiced intermission commentator for the New York Philharmonic radio broadcasts and as the on-screen host of Walt Disney's classic film Fantasia. With his witty, clever, charming, and informative but unpatronizing manner, he almost single-handedly introduced classical music to millions of Americans across the nation. In this first biography of Taylor, James A. Pegolotti brings to life the remarkably multi-talented man within the context of his times. The captivating portrait recounts his formative years in the Bronx, his college years at New York University, where he composed four successive varsity musicals, his journalistic career first as a writer for the New York Tribune Sunday Magazine and then as the powerful music critic for the New York World, and his musical triumphs. Pegolotti also details Taylor's stints as editor of Musical America, president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), best-selling author of Of Men and Music and other books, collaborator with Disney and Leopold Stokowski on Fantasia, and even judge for the Miss America pageant. He describes how Taylor used his critic's pulpit to champion American music, opera, and musicians, and also chronicles his colorful personal life, including his third marriage at age sixty to a twenty-year-old costume designer. Enlivened with such figures as George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ayn Rand, and Taylor's fellow Algonquin Round Table tastemakers, this in-depth, well-balanced, and objective biography will stand as the definitive work on the great American composer-critic.
About the Author
James A. Pegolotti is Librarian Emeritus at Western Connecticut State University. He lives in Danbury, Connecticut. Gerard Schwarz is music director of both the Seattle Symphony and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Deems Taylor: A Biography FROM THE PUBLISHER
A composer, critic, author, and rad personality, (Joseph) Deems Taylor (1885-1966) was one of the most influential figures in American culture from the 1920s through the 1940s. A self-taught composer, the New York City native wrote such pieces as the orchestral suite Through the Looking Glass and the acclaimed operas The King's Henchman and Peter Ibbetson, the fist commissions ever offered by the Metropolitan Opera. Taylor's operatic works were among the most popular and widely performed of his day, yet he achieved greatest fame and recognition as the golden-voiced intermission commentator for the New York Philharmonic radio broadcasts and as the on-screen host of Walt Disney's classic film Fantasia. With his witty, clever, charming, and informative but unpatronizing manner, he almost single-handedly introduced classical music to millions of Americans across the nation.
In this first biography of Taylor, James A. Pegolotti brings to life the remarkably multitalented man within the context of his times. The captivating portrait recounts his formative years in the Bronx, his college years at New York University, where he composed four successive varsity musicals, his journalistic career first as a writer for the New York Tribune Sunday Magazine and then as the powerful music critic for the New York World, and his musical triumphs. Pegolotti also details Taylor's stints as editor of Musical America, president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), best-selling author of Of Men and Music and other books, collaborator with Disney and Leopold Stokowski on Fantasia, and even judge for the Miss America pageant. He describes how Taylor used his critic's pulpitto champion American music, opera, and musicians, and also chronicles his colorful personal life, including his third marriage at age sixty to a twenty-year-old costume designer.
SYNOPSIS
Taylor (1885-1966) is probably best known as the intermission commentator for radio broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic from 1936 to 1943, but he was also a composer and an author in his own right. Pegolotti (Librarian Emeritus, Western Connecticut State U.) describes his professional and personal life, as well as his encounters with such figures as George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Ayn Rand. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
The New York Times
[Pegolotti's] contention that Taylor enjoyed success too early, and that his multiple talents undercut his focus on any one of them, and that he resisted financial risk, all ring true. — John Rockwell
Library Journal
Pegolotti (librarian emeritus, Western Connecticut State Univ.) rescues American composer, music critic, and radio commentator Deems Taylor (1885-1966) from obscurity through this well-researched, warts-and-all biography. Integrating the cultural, political, and technological developments of the time, he traces his subject's family background, years at New York University writing shows, three disappointing marriages and escapades with various women, relations with his ex-wives and only child, presidency of ASCAP in the 1940s, and maintenance of a multifaceted career. Taylor was once named in the same breath as Aaron Copeland and George Gershwin as the future of American music, and Pegolotti convincingly posits that he could have achieved their level of fame had he concentrated on one of his talents. Nowadays, Taylor is probably best remembered as the narrator of Fantasia and for his two Metropolitan Opera commissions (The King's Henchman and Peter Ibbetson). Basic music analysis and photographs complement the narrative. Recommended for all libraries collecting in American music or 20th-century cultural studies as the only complete biography. (Index not seen.)-Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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