Mario Cesar Borges Marques d'Abreu wrote:

>The purpose of this mail on Morton Gould is not obviously to obtain a true
>reply on "why I can't find Morton Gould CD's in Lisbon, etc." but to know
>why Morton Gould is being so depreciated, so despised these days!  Nobody
>here seems to know him.  It seems this is not only common in Portugal, but
>also in the rest of Europe.  The BBC plays his music very seldom.  The same
>with german Klassikradio.

There are many reasons why his music is not performed often.  I however,
do not understand the thinking which labels his music second rate.  Some
will point to his use of the vernacular of popular music as an excuse to
not take him seriously.  He worked hard to support his family and to do so
he made his money in music as he knew how.  He did recorded many albums of
arrangements of popular music.  One ill informed colleague of mine, upon
the mention of Gould's name, said, "well you know, he was one of those
'Hollywood' composers." Actually Copland wrote more movie scores than Gould
and for that matter, some film composers were and are excellent composers.

If one had to fault Gould's music on its own terms, I could only point
to a few works which were not as convincing as others.  At his best, he
was right up there with the best of the symphonists of this country.  A
recording of his Third Symphony is due out on Albany.  It is a remarkably
fine work and I believe will go a long way to improve the public perception
of his music.  As a friend of mine...who didn't think much of Gould's
music...said upon hearing a tape I have of the Mitropoulos performance of
the Third..."this is really a fine work.  It sounds like he was trying to
write 'the great American Symphony."

A new biography of Gould is due out shortly.

Karl