Music: Grofe's America

"I am not foolish enough to try to place myself in a class, for example, with Ravel and Sibelius, whom I admire tremendously," says Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofe ("Ferde Grofe"), "but there is a real place for my kind of music. Some time, when I get older—I am 44 now—I may try a strict symphony form, but in the meantime I am going on trying to describe America in music." The America of Ferde Grofe (pronounced Ferdy GroFay), plump onetime arranger for Paul Whiteman and for the past five years a highly successful...