Deems Taylor (1885-1966) was a popular composer and classical music promoter during his lifetime, and his operas The King’s Henchman and Peter Ibbitson have more performances at the Metropolitan Opera than any other opera by an American composer.1 Taylor is possibly best known for serving as Master of Ceremonies in Disney’s Fantasia, and since this role made him instrumental in exposing a wide audience to classical repertoire, his own creative pursuits could give insight as to what inspired and motivated him. This piano prelude is from very early in his career and would serve as an excellent starting point for someone wishing to get an overview of Taylor’s development as a composer throughout his life.
While Taylor met great success as a composer in his time, he was possibly more well known as writer. Taylor’s first published works as a writer were poems that were published in 1904.2 Taylor began writing articles and worked for publications such as the New York Tribune Sunday Magazine.3 During his time as a columnist for New York Evening Mail, Taylor wrote a column called “Always in Good Humor” which was “genial chatter about the worlds of literature, theater, and music, as well as his own experiences ranging from play-going to girl friends to tennis.”4 A distinct characteristic of Taylors writings, whether as a columnist or poet, is his keen wit and humor. Therefore, it is not surprising that he became a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of people in New York that gathered at the Algonquin Hotel for the sole purpose of engaging in witty conversation.5 Taylor’s cleverness is not limited to his poems and articles; his compositions are also fine examples of his intelligence and creativity.
Deems Taylor’s intelligence and self-driven hard work are at the root of his success as composer. In fact, Taylor had very little formal instruction as a composer or musician.6 Most of what Taylor learned about music, he learned from books and self instruction. Taylor said that, “at the age of seven I read a biography of Mozart and decided to become a composer.”7 As a child, Taylor’s parents bought him a piano. He took piano and music theory lessons for a short time. However, this was his only formal studies in music.8 When he was sixteen-years-old, Taylor saw the score of Wagner’s opera Tannhauser.9 Inspired by this score, Taylor delved into composition. Following the premier of Taylor’s first opera, he wrote to the friend that introduced him to the Wagner score, “I wonder if you remember introducing me to the score of ‘Tannhauser’ at Camp Dudley in 1901? That summer turned a page in my life and I have always been grateful to you.”10 In addition to Wagner, Taylor was also inspired by several other composers. In order to learn more about orchestration, Taylor read Hector Berlioz’s “Treatise on Orchestration” and also studied the scores of Mozart, Wagner, Debussy, and Tchaikovsky.11
The piano prelude was written during an important time in Taylor’s life. In 1916, his first wife became a war correspondent.12 As a result, Taylor became concerned about the welfare of his marriage and followed her to the front in the hopes of reconnecting with her.13 However, his attempt was unsuccessful and returned soon thereafter while his wife remained in Europe.14 Following his return to the States, Taylor found an editorial position at Collier’s magazine.15 In the fall of 1918, Taylor worked on his composition for chamber orchestra, Through the Looking Glass, which was well received in 1919.16 Taylor published his Op. 5 “Two Studies in Rhythm,” consisting of “Prelude” and “Poem,” in 1918, placing the work very early in his compositional output.
Since “Prelude” is part of a collection entitled “Two Studies in Rhythm,” the metrical aspect of the composition takes a particularly prominent place in terms of analysis. The piece is in ⅞, with most bars deliberately formatted so that there are no breaks in the eighth note stemming (i.e., the eighth note passages are not marked as being separated into 4+3 or 3+4 groupings within each measure, as is common practice in ⅞ time, but rather as continuous groups of 7). However, a 4+3 grouping is still generally implied in the less active part, which is most often a half note followed by a dotted quarter note. At a few points (mm. 21, 25, 48, and 50), 3+4 and 4+3 are juxtaposed on top of one another through a two-voice texture in one hand that contains both the half note to dotted quarter note motif and its opposite.
The first four bars lay out the main melodic motive, a simple but colorful line that feels more angular than it is due to the rhythmic imbalance of ⅞ time and that utilizes chromaticism to take on a slightly bluesy, jazzy feel. Throughout the piece, activity is traded off between the two hands, with every eighth note within the measure being present almost constantly within one voice or another. After a series of ascending octave passages ending in a climactic sforzando in m. 32, the piece begins to dwindle as the dynamics drop to pianissimo and the original theme is repeated an octave higher. The theme subsequently ascends into the piano’s upper register, contrasting against its earlier descent into a rumbling bass range, and slowly trickles back down until the opening of the piece is repeated verbatim and closes with a delicate ascending passage that falls back onto a simple closed voicing in a middle register.
Although the Prelude was published in 1918, it was likely composed in 1913, which is when the manuscript this edition is based on has been dated from. As mentioned previously, 1913 was a tumultuous time for Deems Taylor, as he was still early on in his first marriage that ended in divorce in 1918. This piece could therefore potentially reflect the difficulty of this period for him, and foreshadows the more intensive opera writing he would enter into within a few years time.
1. James A. Pegolotti, Deems Taylor: A Biography (UPNE, 2003), 182.
2. James A. Pegolotti, Deems Taylor: Selected Writings (Taylor & Francis, 2007), 1.
3. Pegolotti, Taylor: Selected Writings, xii.
4. Pegolotti, Taylor: Selected Writings, 1.
5. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 67.
6. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 11.
7. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 9.
8. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 11.
9. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 15.
10. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 15-16.
11. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 35.
12. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 43.
13. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 47-8.
14. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 50-1.
15. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 51.
16. Pegolotti, Taylor: A Biography, 54.
