Deems Taylor
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Joseph Deems Taylor (December 22, 1885 – July 3, 1966) was an American music critic, composer, and promoter of classical music.
Nat Benchley Nathaniel Robert "Nat" Benchley is an American writer and actor who has performed on stage, television, and film. Life and career Benchley is the son of Marjorie (Bradford) and Nathaniel Goddard Benchley, an author. He is the grandson of humori ...
, co-editor of ''The Lost Algonquin Roundtable'', referred to him as "the dean of American music."


Early life and family

Deems Taylor was born in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to JoJo and Katherine Taylor. He attended Ethical Culture Elementary School, followed by
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...
. Taylor married three times. His first wife was
Jane Anderson Jane Anderson (born 1954 in California) is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and director. She wrote and directed the feature film '' The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio'' (2005), and wrote the Nicolas Cage film '' It Could Happen t ...
. They were married in 1910, but divorced in 1918. In 1921, he married Mary Kennedy, who was an actress and a writer. They had a daughter, Joan Kennedy Taylor, in 1926, and divorced in 1934. He was involved romantically with soprano
Colette D'Arville Colette D'Arville (1902 – 16 December 1944) was a French soprano and musical theatre actress who had an international career in operas, concerts, and musicals from the 1920s through the 1940s. Born Marie Marthe Cescosse, she began her ...
after his divorce. Taylor married a third and last time in 1945, to costume designer Lucille Watson-Little. They were divorced eight years later. Taylor died on July 3, 1966 of
leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...
at the age of 80. He is interred at
Kensico Cemetery Kensico Cemetery, located in Valhalla, Westchester County, New York was founded in 1889, when many New York City cemeteries were becoming full, and rural cemeteries were being created near the railroads that served the city. Initially , it ...
in
Valhalla, New York Valhalla is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) within the town of Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the New York City metropolitan area. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census. The name was in ...
.


Career


Composer

Taylor initially planned to become an
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
; however, despite minimal musical training he soon took to music composition. The result was a series of works for orchestra and/or voices. In 1916 he wrote the
cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning o ...
''The Chambered Nautilus'', followed by ''Through the Looking-Glass'' (for orchestra) in 1918, earning him public praise and recognition. He acquired several students, including composer
Mary Watson Weaver Mary Eliza Watson Weaver (January 16, 1903 – November 16, 1990) was an American composer, pianist, and poet who was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Life Mary received B.A. and B. M. degrees from Smith College (Massachusetts) and Ottawa Universi ...
. In 1919, Taylor gave a series of lectures on music history in Denver, Colorado. In 1921 Taylor secured a job as music critic for the ''
New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under pub ...
'', a post he held when approached by the
Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is opera ...
to suggest a composer to write a new opera. He put forth his own name, and was accepted, the result being ''
The King's Henchman ''The King's Henchman'' is an opera in three acts composed by Deems Taylor to an English language libretto by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The libretto is based on both legend and historical figures documented in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' includi ...
'', with the
libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major li ...
by Edna St. Vincent Millay. '' Peter Ibbetson'' followed in 1929. The
Philadelphia Opera Company The Philadelphia Opera Company was the name of two different American opera companies active during the twentieth century in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The first company was founded by impresario Oscar Hammerstein I in 1908. That company disbanded ...
performed the world premiere of his third opera ''Ramuntcho'', an adaptation of Pierre Loti's 1897 novel of the same name, at the Academy of Music on February 10, 1942 with
Dorothy Sarnoff Dorothy Sarnoff (May 25, 1914 – December 20, 2008) was an American operatic soprano, musical theatre actress, and self-help guru. She had an active performing career from the late 1930s through the 1950s, during which time she sang in sev ...
as Gracieuse and William Hess as Ramuntcho. Taylor's compositions were met with great initial enthusiasm. The number of Metropolitan Opera performances for ''The King’s Henchman'' and ''Peter Ibbetson'' is greater than any opera of any other American composer, and he had as many large-scale works published as any of his American-born contemporaries. Taylor's music is often witty, always deftly formed, well-timed, and entertaining. The basic style of even his later works is academically post-Romantic, resisting any influence of progressive trends except perhaps in orchestration. This conservatism, lacking sharp individual profile or sense of deep conviction, may help to explain the initial enthusiastic acceptance of Taylor’s work but may also explain the fact that his music was virtually forgotten soon afterward.


Music commentator

Taylor was a promoter of classical music throughout his life. His journalism career included posts as music critic for the ''
New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under pub ...
'' beginning in 1921, and editor of ''
Musical America ''Musical America'' is the oldest American magazine on classical music, first appearing in 1898 in print and in 1999 online, at musicalamerica.com. It is published by Performing Arts Resources, LLC, of East Windsor, New Jersey. History 1898–19 ...
'' from 1927 to 1929. Taylor also worked extensively in broadcasting, and as intermission commentator for the
New York Philharmonic The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is ...
. He appeared in
Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
's 1940 film ''
Fantasia Fantasia International Film Festival (also known as Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, and Fant-Asia) is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcor ...
'' as the film's Master of Ceremonies, and was instrumental in selecting the musical pieces that were used in the film, including the then-controversial '' Sacre du Printemps''. In the long-unseen roadshow version of ''Fantasia'', issued on DVD in 2000, and re-released on the 2010 ''Fantasia''/''
Fantasia 2000 ''Fantasia 2000'' is a 1999 American animated musical anthology film An anthology film (also known as an omnibus film, package film, or portmanteau film) is a single film consisting of several shorter films, each complete in itself and distin ...
'' Blu-ray release, all of Taylor's voice-over work was re-recorded by veteran voice artist
Corey Burton Corey Gregg Weinberg (born August 3, 1955), known professionally as Corey Burton, is an American voice actor. He is the current voice of Captain Hook, Ludwig Von Drake, Dale and others for The Walt Disney Company, Shockwave on '' The Transformer ...
. The complete film was originally 124 minutes long, due almost entirely to the fact that Taylor's commentaries were more detailed in the roadshow version. But the original audio elements for these longer commentaries had deteriorated to the point that they could no longer be used, so Corey Burton was selected to re-record all of the dialogue for consistency. The general release version of ''Fantasia'', running 120 minutes, is the version most audiences are familiar with. In that version, Taylor's commentaries were severely abridged. The same year, 1940, he served the same role as Master of Ceremonies for the classical portion of a "Carousel of American Music", a famous concert series held in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
on September 24. The concert had
Irving Berlin Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russ ...
, George M. Cohan,
Jerome Kern Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in ove ...
,
Hoagy Carmichael Hoagland Howard Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s, and was among the first ...
, WC Handy,
Johnny Mercer John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallic ...
– and many more of America's top songwriting talents performing their own compositions. (The original release was titled "Cavalcade of American Music" and includes a performance of Taylor's own work "Circus Day".) The recording was added to the
National Recording Registry The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservat ...
in 2016. He provided the commentary of the technical story behind the recording of actual cannon fire and
carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoni ...
for the famous 1954
Mercury Records Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it ...
album, by Antal Dorati and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, of
Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
's ''
1812 Overture ''The Year 1812, Solemn Overture'', Op. 49, popularly known as the ''1812 Overture'', is a concert overture in E major written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to commemorate the successful Russian defense against Napoleon I ...
''still one of the most highly regarded recordings of that piece, and the best-selling classical LP of the 1950s. Taylor also recorded commentary for other Mercury recordings:
Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
's '' The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra''; the 1958 stereophonic re-make of the ''1812 Overture'' and
Frederick Fennell Frederick Fennell (July 2, 1914 – December 7, 2004) was an internationally recognized conductor and one of the primary figures in promoting the Eastman Wind Ensemble as a performing group. He was also influential as a band pedagogue, and gre ...
's ground-breaking two-album "The Civil War," which featured original music played on period instruments and sound-montages, narrated by Taylor, of period weaponry and music. He was also a frequent guest on the radio quiz program ''
Information Please ''Information Please'' is an American radio quiz show, created by Dan Golenpaul, which aired on NBC from May 17, 1938, to April 22, 1951. The title was the contemporary phrase used to request from telephone operators what was then called "inf ...
''. Taylor's work as a broadcaster, critic, and commentator ultimately overshadowed his work as a composer. He hosted and narrated several television music series and documentaries.Deems Taylor
at the
Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
In the early 1950s, he was also a repeat panelist on the
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
game show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, ...
, ''
Who Said That? ''Who Said That?'' is a 1948–55 NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, ...
'', and he was a repeat panelist on ''
What's My Line? ''What's My Line?'' is a panel game show that originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent U.S. revivals. The game uses celebrity panelis ...
''. Taylor was also a friend of the
Algonquin Round Table The Algonquin Round Table was a group of New York City writers, critics, actors, and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel ...
, a group of writers, actors and critics that met almost daily from 1919–1929 at Manhattan's
Algonquin Hotel The Algonquin Hotel is a hotel at 59 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The 181-room hotel, opened in 1902, was designed by architect Goldwin Starrett for the Puritan Realty Company. The hotel has hosted numer ...
. He briefly dated
Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. From a conflicted and unhap ...
. In the 1994 film ''
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle ''Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle'' is a 1994 American biographical drama film directed by Alan Rudolph from a screenplay written by Rudolph and Randy Sue Coburn. The film stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as writer Dorothy Parker and depicts the mem ...
'', Taylor was portrayed by the actor James LeGros. Taylor's other personal friendships ranged from composers
George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...
,
Vincent Youmans Vincent Millie Youmans (September 27, 1898 – April 5, 1946) was an American Broadway composer and producer. A leading Broadway composer of his day, Youmans collaborated with virtually all the greatest lyricists on Broadway: Ira Gershwin, ...
and
Jerome Kern Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in ove ...
to novelists F. Scott Fitzgerald and
Ayn Rand Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;, . Most sources transliterate her given name as either ''Alisa'' or ''Alissa''. , 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and p ...
.


Deems Taylor Award

Taylor was the third president of
ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...
, and held the post for six years. The ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards were established in 1967 to honor his memory. The Deems Taylor Award "recognizes books, articles, broadcasts and websites on the subject of music selected for their excellence."About the ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/ Virgil Thomson Awards Competition
/ref>


List of compositions

Other compositions * ''Lucrece, Suite for Strings'' * ''
Casanova Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (, ; 2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798) was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, (''Story of My Life''), is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of information about the c ...
'', Ballet music * ''Circus Day – Eight Pictures from Memory'', orchestral suite * Processional for Chorus and Orchestra


Notes


References

* * *


Further reading

* Brody, Elaine. 1977. "''The King's Henchman'': Fifty Years Later". ''Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association'' 34, no. 2:319–322. * * Marshall, Jennifer. 1979. "The American Opera Libretto in the 20th Century". ''Miscellanea Musicologica: Adelaide Studies in Musicology'' 10:131–157. * Mehrens, Christopher Emile. 1998. "The Critical and Musical Work of Deems Taylor in Light of Contemporary Cultural Patterns". PhD diss. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. . * Tawa, Nicholas E. 1994. ''Mainstream Music of Early Twentieth-century America: The Composers, Their Times, and Their Works''. Contributions to the Study of Music and Dance 28. Westport, CT: Greenwood.


External links


''Algonquin Round Table online history''
*
Jurgen – Symphonic Poem and Ballet
(composed by Deems Taylor),
James Branch Cabell: Literary Life and Legacy
'' Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Deems 1885 births 1966 deaths American classical composers American male classical composers American music critics American opera composers Burials at Kensico Cemetery Classical music radio people Musicians from New York City New York Herald Tribune people New York University alumni Classical musicians from New York (state) Algonquin Round Table 20th-century American male musicians