Synopsis
Well respected and widely performed during his lifetime, John Alden Carpenter was one of the first composers to incorporate elements of popular song and jazz into concert music. His highly original yet refined orchestral music was championed by Bruno Walter, Fritz Reiner, and other celebrated conductors, and his sensitive songs were performed by such legendary singers as Alma Gluck and Kirsten Flagstad.
Avidly interested in vernacular culture and receptive to a wide range of musical influences, Carpenter set to music verses by Langston Hughes and created a ballet score based on George Herriman's celebrated comic strip Krazy Kat. His whimsical suite Adventures in a Perambulator was on the docket for Walt Disney's planned sequel to Fantasia, and his ballet Skyscrapers, which enjoyed successful mountings in New York and Munich, was the only American work commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes.
Pollack skillfully balances Carpenter's personal and musical lives, covering his interactions with musicians of every stripe, his high profile in the Chicago Renaissance cultural scene, and his two marriages. In this expansive and fair-minded biography, Pollack explains the factors that pulled Carpenter out of the spotlight and argues persuasively for Carpenter's continuing importance.