*A Parisian in America
(A Response to George Gershwin’s American in Paris)
(2000) Approximate duration: 8:00
Wind Band - Commissioned by the Connecticut Chapter of ASBDA
A Parisian in America is a depiction of the travails of Monsieur Rolleaux, a Frenchman from Paris visiting New York City in 1928 (the same year that Gershwin’s American was in Paris). M. Rolleaux (a distant relative of Ives' American Rollo*) presents himself as a jaunty cosmopolitan gentleman, perhaps one who has lived off the family money and is accustomed to a life of privileges (he "appears" first as a bassoon "a little bit tipsy"). He ambles around and lets everyone know that he has arrived, surrounded by whiffs of his national anthem. As his self-satisfaction grows, his particular theme takes on rhythm and begins to subsume everything, including the Star-Spangled Banner, the very anthem of his host country! (Hear the "land of the free and the home of the brave.") At the height of his revelry, M. Rolleaux steps off the curb and this reverie is broken by taxis and the mad rush of 5th Avenue traffic, all of which threaten to extinguish him. He brushes himself off, and then, re-gathering his deflated French ego, he again attempts to cross the street. He probes the traffic here and there and eventually makes it across the street. He turns the corner, only to run smack dab into the middle of the Macy’s Day parade! The marching bands immediately engulf him — hear his frantic attempts to reach the other side as he is buffeted by the marchers, who are also disrupted by him in their attempts to deliver standard march melodies. M. Rolleaux’s façade breaks a bit and one hears traces of his common ancestry— Freré Jacques, Sur la Pont D’Avignon, Alouette and a whiff here and there of Gershwin’s American across the sea. M. Rolleaux makes it to the island in the center of the street and rests. This episode was a major trauma for him, a man unaccustomed to manual labor of any kind and any contact with the vulgate. He puffs up in pride that he triumphed over the parade and achieved the "island." His motive and L’Marseillaise begin to spin out and he regains his jaunty composure and, tentatively at first (perhaps by extending only one toe into the street), strikes out again to conquer the other half of the street. A car whizzes by, taxis threaten: he resolved to try Canada (hear a sprinkling of O Canada), and scurries off into the bustle of New York traffic.
Another use for those expensive Gershwin taxi-horns!
_________________________________________________
* Rollo - Origin and Significance
Rollo emerged as one of the most popular children's book characters in the decades preceding the American Civil War, a creation of author Jacob Abbott (1803-1879) in 1835. The American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) used "Rollo" as a short-hand for musical complacency. Rollo was, according to John Kirkpatrick, "a good little boy with an inquiring nature, and the more he has to have everthing explained to him in great detail, the more information could be packed into each Rollo book. For Ives he became a symbol of the literal mind unable to imagine anything beyond what he'd been taught." Or, as Henry and Sidney Cowell put it, Rollo was for Ives "one of those white-livered weaklings who cannot stand up and receive the full force of a dissonance like a man."
Ives used Rollo, in particular, to stand for those music critics unable or unwilling to comprehend his music. For example, he states in his Memos: "Every so often, an article or a clipping or a 'verbal massage' is sent to a man (see name on dotted line), which shows that Rollo has a job, writing his opinion about things the facts of which he doesn't know and doesn't try to know. If he can't hear and doesn't know it, he's a mental-musico-defective (from the neck up) - if he doesn't try to hear and knows he doesn't know, then he is getting money under false pretenses! In other words, these commercial pansies are either stupid or they are liars." https://www.rollorocks.com/about/history.htm
(A Response to George Gershwin’s American in Paris)
(2000) Approximate duration: 8:00
Wind Band - Commissioned by the Connecticut Chapter of ASBDA
A Parisian in America is a depiction of the travails of Monsieur Rolleaux, a Frenchman from Paris visiting New York City in 1928 (the same year that Gershwin’s American was in Paris). M. Rolleaux (a distant relative of Ives' American Rollo*) presents himself as a jaunty cosmopolitan gentleman, perhaps one who has lived off the family money and is accustomed to a life of privileges (he "appears" first as a bassoon "a little bit tipsy"). He ambles around and lets everyone know that he has arrived, surrounded by whiffs of his national anthem. As his self-satisfaction grows, his particular theme takes on rhythm and begins to subsume everything, including the Star-Spangled Banner, the very anthem of his host country! (Hear the "land of the free and the home of the brave.") At the height of his revelry, M. Rolleaux steps off the curb and this reverie is broken by taxis and the mad rush of 5th Avenue traffic, all of which threaten to extinguish him. He brushes himself off, and then, re-gathering his deflated French ego, he again attempts to cross the street. He probes the traffic here and there and eventually makes it across the street. He turns the corner, only to run smack dab into the middle of the Macy’s Day parade! The marching bands immediately engulf him — hear his frantic attempts to reach the other side as he is buffeted by the marchers, who are also disrupted by him in their attempts to deliver standard march melodies. M. Rolleaux’s façade breaks a bit and one hears traces of his common ancestry— Freré Jacques, Sur la Pont D’Avignon, Alouette and a whiff here and there of Gershwin’s American across the sea. M. Rolleaux makes it to the island in the center of the street and rests. This episode was a major trauma for him, a man unaccustomed to manual labor of any kind and any contact with the vulgate. He puffs up in pride that he triumphed over the parade and achieved the "island." His motive and L’Marseillaise begin to spin out and he regains his jaunty composure and, tentatively at first (perhaps by extending only one toe into the street), strikes out again to conquer the other half of the street. A car whizzes by, taxis threaten: he resolved to try Canada (hear a sprinkling of O Canada), and scurries off into the bustle of New York traffic.
Another use for those expensive Gershwin taxi-horns!
_________________________________________________
* Rollo - Origin and Significance
Rollo emerged as one of the most popular children's book characters in the decades preceding the American Civil War, a creation of author Jacob Abbott (1803-1879) in 1835. The American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) used "Rollo" as a short-hand for musical complacency. Rollo was, according to John Kirkpatrick, "a good little boy with an inquiring nature, and the more he has to have everthing explained to him in great detail, the more information could be packed into each Rollo book. For Ives he became a symbol of the literal mind unable to imagine anything beyond what he'd been taught." Or, as Henry and Sidney Cowell put it, Rollo was for Ives "one of those white-livered weaklings who cannot stand up and receive the full force of a dissonance like a man."
Ives used Rollo, in particular, to stand for those music critics unable or unwilling to comprehend his music. For example, he states in his Memos: "Every so often, an article or a clipping or a 'verbal massage' is sent to a man (see name on dotted line), which shows that Rollo has a job, writing his opinion about things the facts of which he doesn't know and doesn't try to know. If he can't hear and doesn't know it, he's a mental-musico-defective (from the neck up) - if he doesn't try to hear and knows he doesn't know, then he is getting money under false pretenses! In other words, these commercial pansies are either stupid or they are liars." https://www.rollorocks.com/about/history.htm
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