The Unsung Melodists

Not many art buffs recall Charles Willson Peale's oil painting, Exhuming the F irst American Mastodon (1806-08), nor do many readers know Royall Tyler's novel. The Algerine Captive: or, The Life and Adventures of Dr. Updike Underhill (1797). Much American music of that period is equally obscure, but equally evocative in its titles and equally appealing to the imagination if given half a chance. Manhattan's Society for the Preservation of the American Musical Heritage is providing that chance in a series of 20 recordings, giving voice to some 25 little-known U.S. composers. As interpreted by Conductor Karl Krueger (formerly of the Detroit Symphony), they all emerge as competent musicians, and several give glimpses of sizable talent. Among the more interesting unsung melodists:

P: Alexander Reinagle (1756-1809), one of the most prolific of the lot, is represented by his Sonata in E Major for Early Piano, a witty, effervescent work that makes its points with economy and style. Born in England, Reinagle was an early admirer and close friend of both Karl Philippe Bach and Haydn, and his works bore the marks of their influence even after he emigrated to America at 30. A popular recitalist who played frequently for George Washington. Reinagle also turned out a quantity of popular music (America, Commerce and Freedom) and a comic opera: The Volunteers.

P: Joseph Gehot (1756-18??) was a Belgian-born composer and violinist who made his living fiddling at the City Concerts in Philadelphia. Strongly addicted to program music, he celebrated his departure for America when in his 30s by writing a twelve-part overture describing the voyage and including such detailed movement headings as "Going on board, and pleasure at recollecting the encouragement [the traveller] hopes to meet with in a land where merit is sure to gain reward." Gehot is represented in the series by his Quartetto in D Major, a pleasant if rather bland work with a folksy, hey-nonny-nonnish air. Among Gehot's other works: a comic opera titled The Maid's Last Shift, or Any Rather Than Fail.

P: Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) wrote only a handful of works in his 36 years, but at the time of his death, shortly after the Boston Symphony gave the premiere of his Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, he was already regarded as a daring and promising talent. A teacher all his life (at New York's Hackley School for boys'), he began composing under French impressionist influence, became fascinated by Javanese music, and incorporated the Oriental influence in such five-and six-notescale works as In a Myrtle Shade and Wai Kiki. His talent, as shown in recordings of Notturno for Orchestra and Three Tone Pictures for Double Quintet and Piano, was for richly colored works with strangely shifting rhythms that convey an almost trancelike effect.

P: Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-69) was the first U.S. composer to be noticed abroad. Born in New Orleans of a Jewish father and Creole mother, Gottschalk studied piano with Berlioz in Paris, quickly became such a success as a concert pianist that Barnum offered him $20,000 for a year's tour (Gottschalk refused). Playing numbers like The Dying Poet and The Last Hope, he moved the female members of his audiences to charge the stage and rip to shreds the white gloves he always wore. His recorded compositions for piano are typically bravura numbers, full of glittering runs and flashy climaxes and with little of the charm of such compositions as The Banjo, Bamboula and Ojos Criollos, in which Gottschalk used exotic Creole, Latin American and Negro folk melodies and rhythms.

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