# Deems Taylor



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Here's a delightful little work by American composer Deems Taylor: Marco Takes a Walk. You don't see it programmed much these days. But listen to it before the cancel culture gets to it: it's based on Dr. Seuss' book And to Think I That I Saw it On Mulberry Street.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I'm listening. Should I hide my children?


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Made my day


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Manxfeeder said:


> ... Should I hide my children?


Deems Taylor is more familiarly known for the composition _Through The Looking Glass_, based on another children's books author, Lewis Carroll. Carroll, aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, has a bit of a shady side in his own genius: a penchant for a certain preference in the taking of photographs featuring young girls. Whatever their flaws, Dr. Seuss and Lewis Carroll remain brilliant and influential artists, likely on a par much higher than that of Deems Taylor, who actually did quite well as a composer in his day though largely self-taught.

My own introduction to Deems Taylor came by way of the first classical record I ever bought, the Mercury recording of Tchaikovsky's _1812 Overture_ and _Capriccio Italien_, with Antal Dorati and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.









That's Deems explaining about how the bells and cannons were incorporated into the Tchaikovsky war-horse. I purchased the album from a local record store (remember them?) for the _Capriccio_, the piece that got me originally fired-up over classical music. The _1812 Overture_, in which real cannons fire-up in this recording under Dorati and the MSO, proved a real plus, boosting my initial interest in the music of this Tchaikovsky fellow, and prompting me onto new horizons which have led to where I am now.

Admittedly, the memory of my first hearing of that cannon- and bell-filled _Overture_ remains an indelible highlight of my pursuit of classical music. Though it was Tchaikovsky and his _Capriccio_ which fostered my interest (I have several vinyl and at least one CD copy, including that first purchase, a 1958 release, of that Mercury-Dorati release still on my music shelves), and though I continue to listen to this particular recording every now and then without ever listening again to Taylor's commentary -- it remains a "desert island disc" for me, if mainly for sentimental reasons -- Deems Taylor will always be part of my formative classical music-loving experience. Which may explain why I have several of Taylor's recordings in my collection, though it is music that, though overall entertaining and well-done, does not especially inspire me to greater heights. Still, because of that Mercury record, Deems Taylor will always loom large in my recollections of the foundational beginnings of my love for classical music.


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