American Gothic

From Wind Repertory Project
Michael Daugherty

Michael Daugherty (Mvts. 1 and 3 trans. Danny Galyen; mvt. 2 trans. Michael Daugherty)


General Info

Year: 2013 / 2019
Duration: c. 23:30
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Original Medium: Symphony
Publisher: Michael Daugherty Music, through Bill Holab Music
Cost: Score and Parts – Rental   |   Score Only (print) – contact publisher


Movements

1. On a Roll - 5:30
2. Winter Dreams - 9:15
3. Pitchfork - 7:30


Instrumentation

Full Score
C Piccolo
Flute I-II
Alto Flute (optional but preferred)
Oboe I-II
English Horn
Bassoon I-II
Contrabassoon
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III-IV
B-flat Bass Clarinet
E-flat Contra-Alto Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Saxophone
E-flat Alto Saxophone
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Trumpet I-II-III
Horn in F I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II
Bass Trombone
Euphonium
Tuba
String Bass (optional but preferred)
Piano
Celesta
Timpani
Percussion I-II-III-IV, including:

  • Bell Tree
  • Chimes
  • Crotales
  • Finger Cymbals
  • Glockenspiel
  • Marimba
  • Mark Tree
  • Shakers
  • Sleigh Bells
  • Vibraphone
  • Washboard

Violin (playing bluegrass)


Errata

None discovered thus far.


Program Notes

American Gothic (2013) for symphonic band was commissioned by the University of Northern Iowa Wind Ensemble (Danny Galyen, Director of Bands). The world premiere was given by the University of Northern Iowa Wind Ensemble under the direction of Danny Galyen, at Russell Hall, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa on April 19, 2019.

American Gothic is a contemporary musical reflection on the creative world of Iowa artist Grant Wood (1891-1942). Composed in memory of my father, Willis Daugherty (1929-2011), the music also reflects on the years when I grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as the oldest of five sons in the Daugherty family.

With a bustling downtown and opulent movie palaces, with first-rate art and music programs in the public schools, and with a wonderful symphony orchestra, art museum, public library, and community theater, Cedar Rapids is a Midwestern center for the arts. My father was a self-taught dance band drummer in the area, while my mother Evelyn Daugherty (1927-1974) appeared in community theater productions such as Gypsy. They encouraged their sons to pursue studies in music and art in Cedar Rapids, and all the Daugherty brothers played in local bands, including The Soul Company.

I first became aware of Grant Wood when I was a ten-year-old boy enrolled in art classes at the old Cedar Rapids Public Library (now the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art). Prominently displayed in the room where we learned to draw and paint was Grant Wood’s original painting of his mother, entitled Woman with Plant (1928). I realized that Grant Wood was everywhere in Cedar Rapids: his paintings and lithographs at the Museum of Art; his farm mural at the old Montrose Hotel; his carved wooden Mourner’s Bench in the principal’s office at McKinley Junior High School; his stained glass Memorial Window at the Veteran’s Memorial Building. I often rode my bicycle past the artist’s studio at 5 Turner Alley, where Grant Wood created his most famous painting, American Gothic (1930).

My father was a fan of Grant Wood’s regionalist art. He was a tour guide at the Grant Wood Studio, and he displayed reproductions of American Gothic along with Stone City (1930) at his home. Much like a character in the background of Grant Wood’s paintings from the 1930s, my father milked the cows and fed the horses every morning on the farm before walking several miles down a desolate gravel road to a one-room country grade school located in Walker, Iowa.

In 2012, I returned to Cedar Rapids to revisit the small towns of Eastern Iowa. I drove along the back roads and farms where my father grew up, and where Grant Wood found inspiration for the people and places captured in his art. All the while, I was collecting musical ideas and mental images to create an emotional framework for my composition.

1. On a Roll

Band version arranged in 2019 by Danny Galyen in collaboration with Michael Daugherty

The first movement features a rollicking melody with colorful orchestration, suggesting the vivid colors and dynamic curves of Grant Wood’s paintings of rural Iowa. Just as Grant Wood simplified elements of the Iowa landscape into a precisely placed compositional design, I have created an abstract musical pattern. Like the modernist geometric patterns imposed on rolling hills in Young Corn (1931) and in Spring Turning (1936), the music rolls along in a continuous ascending and descending melody that moves from one instrument to the other, from the tuba to the saxophones. The percussion crackles like the sound of the corn growing in row after row on a hot summer day.

2. Winter Dreams

Band version arranged in 2015 by Michael Daugherty

The second movement is inspired by the bleak winter scenes of rural Iowa depicted in Grant Wood’s black and white lithographs of the 1930s, such as “January” and “February.” The upper woodwinds play a haunting melody and the saxophones respond with a melancholy countermelody, evoking a cold winter wind whistling down the valley. The title of this movement hearkens back to Jay Sigmund (1885-1937). As an Iowa poet and close friend of Grant Wood, Sigmund was instrumental in persuading Wood to turn his attention from France back to Iowa for artistic inspiration. In a poem entitled “Grant Wood,” Sigmund describes how “time found a new son / Dreaming on the plain.”

3. Pitchfork

Band version arranged in 2019 by Danny Galyen in collaboration with Michael Daugherty

The title of the third movement refers to the pitchfork gripped by the dour farmer who stands alongside his spinster daughter in Grant Wood’s painting, American Gothic. Many have speculated on the hidden meanings of this American masterpiece: is it a homage to the farmers of Iowa? A social satire? A political critique? A private joke? For me, this iconic painting reveals the ambiguities of American culture and Grant Wood’s dry wit. After all, Grant Wood was a founding member of the infamous Grant Wood Garlic Club in Cedar Rapids, and a practical joker, like my father. For this movement, I have composed playful, toe-tapping music. A quirky melody played by the woodwinds is punctuated by spiky chords in the brass section, and bluegrass riffs on a solo violin. Like the gothic window in the background of Grant Wood’s painting, this movement is a window into my contemporary musical vision of American Gothic.

Program Notes by composer


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