The music of Don Gillis; Symphony 5 1/2, a Symphony for Fun and more

You're listening to music by Dan Gillis. This is Dan Gillis. It isn't often that a composer gets a chance to meet his listeners even electronically. And I'm very grateful to the National Educational Radio Network for the opportunity to step out from behind the bars of my music and get acquainted with you personally. This is the first broadcast of a series that will include 13 programs of music that I've written over the past 25 years or so. Much of it is for Symphony Orchestra, some of it for band, and there are several broadcasts which will present works for both solos and narrators. The series won't be an educational one primarily, but I do hope to distribute a few facts here and there.

Of course, my main desire is that you will want to hear more. My function on the show is sort of varied. I've written all of the music you'll hear. I've conducted a good deal of it. I've written the words I'll be speaking to you, and I'll also be your commentator, sort of tour guide along the way to give you whatever helpful hints I can. I may even philosophize a bit and certainly I'll try to solicit your opinions and reactions. For whether you know or not a composer is always interested in what people think of his music. Not that he'll change his ways, mind you, but he does have a curiosity about opinions. My music while contemporary is now the school that deals in 12 tone writing or electronic devices. If I were to analyze me for a class in musicology, I would say first that my melodies are traditional. Secondly, my harmonies tone will, and finally that my rhythms are filled with the vigor and intensity that is representational of our contemporary civilization. Actually, I belong to no school except perhaps my own, and my main reason for writing it is because I enjoy it.

My audience is you, whoever you are. I like humor, and you'll find it not only in my titles, but also in my music. In short, my music is me, and that sort of sums it up. My request is that you lend me your ears for 13 weeks. Perhaps by then you'll have made up your own mind based on just the music alone, which is after all the only way to judge a composer's work. On this program, the first of the series, there will be three compositions, and I'll name them for you in reverse order. My symphony number five and a half, tango lullaby, and our first number will be the final movement from a suite called Portrait of a Frontier Town. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night.

The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. Main Street Saturday Night. That was Main Street Saturday Night from Portrait of a Frontier Town. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night.

The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. Main Street Saturday Night.

The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night.

The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Night. The section is titled Main Street Saturday Saturday Night.

The section is titled Main Street Saturday Saturday Night. possessed you to name it that, that I'll save you the bother of asking the same question by explaining how it all came about. I'd finished my fifth symphony, and it already completed two movements of my sixth symphony. When I happened to think of this music, I completed it. And since I certainly didn't want to call it symphony number six, because I already had one started by that name, and it couldn't be symphony number seven because number six wasn't finished yet, I figured that because it had fallen halfway in between numbers five and six, then I just called it five and a half. It seemed like the logical thing to do, even though fractions for symphonies weren't used much.

Arthur Fiedler premiered it with a Boston pop orchestra, and then Maestro Tuscanyini heard about it from his son Walter, sent for the score, liked it, and in a slightly revised version, gave it its radio premiere with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1947. It is this performance that we'll hear now. The four movements are marked perpetual emotion, spiritual, scarcer frenia, and conclusion. Here now the symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini.

The symphony number five and a half for the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Arthur Tuscanyini. Symphony No. 5 and a half, a symphony for fun, has just been played by the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Tuscanyini on this, the first of 13 broadcasts devoted to the music of Don Gillis. Earlier we heard the Tangle Lullaby from Twinkle Toes and Main Street Saturday Night from Portido to Frontier Town, and this is Don Gillis, thanking you for listening and asking you to join us next week to hear the Ranch House Party, a work for Oble and Strings called Five Acre Pond, and The Man Who Invented Music. Two weeks from now we'll hear three works for band, and future broadcasts will include the Alamo Tulsa, Alison Orchestra, The Land of Wheat, and both my seventh and eighth symphonies. And along with the music I'll be here to elucidate, explain, and comment on how the whole

thing came about. In the brief moment that remains, I'll give you a biographical sketch which might begin, if you were to read it in a book somewhere, quote, he was born in Cameron Missouri in 1912 on June 17th. He graduated from Texas Christian University in North Texas University, and was band director for seven years at TCU before joining the staff of WBAP Fort Worth, Texas, and NBC in 1944. His instrument was trombone, his main occupation, composer, writer, and radio producer. All together he has written about 150 works ranging from songs to symphonies. He lives in Riverdale, New York, and has just finished a humorous book on conducting call from Twig to Triumph of my current activity in the field of composition, rather than a few short choral pieces, a score for the equitable life assurance exhibit at the New York World's Fair, and an overture for the festival on wheels conducted by William Yarber and Northern Michigan.

My main endeavor has been to finish the orchestration of my opera star ballet junction, and to continue preparation of my NBC series Tuscanini, the man behind the legend. This could go on, but we'll stop it for now and just say thanks again for listening to the music of Don Gilles. The music is of course recorded and come to think of it so am I. This program is produced for the National Educational Radio Network by Riverdale Productions, and John Corbett was the technical supervisor until next week then, so long. This is the National Educational Radio Network.