David W. Guion: Difference between revisions
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{{short description|American classical composer}} |
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{{Infobox classical composer |
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| image = David Wendel Guion.jpg |
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| caption = Guion in 1922 |
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| birth_name = <!-- Use only if different from name in header --> |
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1892|12|15}} |
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| birth_place = [[Ballinger, Texas]], U.S. |
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| death_date = {{Death date and age|1981|10|17|1892|12|15}} |
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| death_place = [[Dallas]], Texas, U.S. |
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| era = 20th century |
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| list_of_works = <!-- Link to "List of works" subarticles here. Do not list individual pieces. --> |
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Guion (some sources show him as '''David Wendel Fentress Guion''') was born in [[Ballinger, Texas]], on December 15, 1892, to John I. and Armour Fentress Guion. Guion began to play the piano at an early age. He was intrigued by the cowboys, former cattle drivers, who worked on his father's ranch, and also by the spirituals that he heard whenever a family servant brought him to the services of an African-American church. |
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⚫ | As a young boy, he was sent by train each Saturday to [[San Angelo]], where he took piano lessons with [[Charles Finger]], who later became a prolific author and literary magazine editor. In the fall of 1907, he studied at the Whipple Academy in [[Jacksonville, Illinois]], after which he continued his studies in [[Fort Worth]] at Polytechnic College (now [[Texas Wesleyan University]]) under Wilbur MacDonald. After MacDonald's death in 1912, Guion went to [[Vienna]], where he studied at the [[University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna|Imperial Academy of Music]] with [[Leopold Godowsky]] until the spring of 1914. Returning to Texas, Guion taught piano at [[Daniel Baker College]] (now [[Howard Payne University]]) in Brownwood, and also turned his attention to composition. One of his first major successes, a virtuosic arrangement of "[[Turkey in the Straw]]", was performed by many famous pianists, most notably [[Percy Grainger]]. |
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==From pianist to cowboy-composer== |
==From pianist to cowboy-composer== |
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==Later career== |
==Later career== |
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Guion's "My Cowboy Love-Song" was the theme for the show ''Cavalcade of Texas'', which ran for six months as part of the [[Texas Centennial Exposition]] in 1936. His mother died later that year, after which Guion largely retired from public life, moving to an estate that he called "Home on the Range" along Pohopoco Creek in [[ |
Guion's "My Cowboy Love-Song" was the theme for the show ''Cavalcade of Texas'', which ran for six months as part of the [[Texas Centennial Exposition]] in 1936. His mother died later that year, after which Guion largely retired from public life, moving to an estate that he called "Home on the Range" along Pohopoco Creek in the [[Pocono Mountains]] in [[Pennsylvania]], where he lived until 1965, when his property was condemned for a dam to be constructed along the creek to create [[Beltzville Lake]]. |
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The first week of February 1950 was declared David Guion Week and was celebrated with numerous performances across Texas. Climaxing this celebration was a ceremony at [[Howard Payne University]] in which Guion received an honorary doctorate. That same year he received a commission from the [[Houston Symphony Orchestra]] to write the fourteen-movement ''Texas Suite'', which contains several newly composed pieces along with orchestrations of some of his previous works. |
The first week of February 1950 was declared David Guion Week and was celebrated with numerous performances across Texas. Climaxing this celebration was a ceremony at [[Howard Payne University]] in which Guion received an honorary doctorate. That same year he received a commission from the [[Houston Symphony Orchestra]] to write the fourteen-movement ''Texas Suite'', which contains several newly composed pieces along with orchestrations of some of his previous works. |
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Returning from Pennsylvania to Dallas, Guion lived the rest of his life in the same house that had belonged to his mother. He died in Dallas on October 17, 1981 and was buried in his hometown of Ballinger. |
Returning from Pennsylvania to Dallas, Guion lived the rest of his life in the same house that had belonged to his mother. |
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==Death== |
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He died in [[Dallas]], on October 17, 1981, and was buried in his hometown of Ballinger. |
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==Compositions== |
==Compositions== |
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*"Some o' These Days" |
*"Some o' These Days" |
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*"They've Taken My Lord Away" (1974) |
*"They've Taken My Lord Away" (1974) |
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*"The Crucifixion" |
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*Two Songs of the South: "Little Pickaninny Kid" "Greatest Miracle of All" (G. Schirmer copyright 1919) |
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===Ballets=== |
===Ballets=== |
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===Primary sources=== |
===Primary sources=== |
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*David Guion Collection, Crouch Fine Arts Library, [[Baylor University]]. |
*David Guion Collection, Crouch Fine Arts Library, [[Baylor University]]. |
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*David Guion Collections, [[Harry Ransom Center]], [[University of Texas at Austin|The University of Texas at Austin]] |
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*David Guion Collection, International Festival-Institute, [[Round Top, Texas]]. |
*David Guion Collection, International Festival-Institute, [[Round Top, Texas]]. |
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*David Guion, ''My Memoirs'' (unpublished), 1975. The Southwest Collection, [[Texas Tech University]]. |
*David Guion, ''My Memoirs'' (unpublished), 1975. The Southwest Collection, [[Texas Tech University]]. |
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==External links== |
==External links== |
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*[http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles |
*[http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fgu16 Dick, James. "Guion, David Wendel." The Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association.] |
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*[http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/guion.html David Wendell Guion Collection] at the [[Harry Ransom |
*[http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/guion.html David Wendell Guion Collection] and [https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00396 Addition to the Collection] at the [[Harry Ransom Center]] at the [[University of Texas at Austin]] |
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*[http://www.thompsonian.info/guion-music.html Thompson, Bill. David W. Guion (resource page)] |
*[http://www.thompsonian.info/guion-music.html Thompson, Bill. David W. Guion (resource page)] |
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*[http://jremmers.org/Ragtime/txfoxtrt.mid Midi version of "Texas Fox Trot"] |
*[http://jremmers.org/Ragtime/txfoxtrt.mid Midi version of "Texas Fox Trot"] |
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{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2012}} |
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2012}} |
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{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. --> |
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| ALTERNATIVE NAMES = |
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| SHORT DESCRIPTION = American musician |
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| DATE OF BIRTH = December 15, 1892 |
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| PLACE OF BIRTH = |
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| DATE OF DEATH = October 17, 1981 |
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| PLACE OF DEATH = |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Guion, David Wendel}} |
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guion, David Wendel}} |
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[[Category:People from |
[[Category:People from Ballinger, Texas]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:Musicians from Dallas]] |
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[[Category:1892 births]] |
[[Category:1892 births]] |
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[[Category:1981 deaths]] |
[[Category:1981 deaths]] |
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[[Category:American male classical composers]] |
[[Category:American male classical composers]] |
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[[Category:20th-century classical composers]] |
[[Category:20th-century American classical composers]] |
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[[Category:Texas Wesleyan University alumni]] |
[[Category:Texas Wesleyan University alumni]] |
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[[Category:University of Music and Performing Arts |
[[Category:University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna alumni]] |
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[[Category:Howard Payne University faculty]] |
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[[Category:Southern Methodist University faculty]] |
[[Category:Southern Methodist University faculty]] |
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[[Category:20th-century American male musicians]] |
Latest revision as of 11:36, 10 November 2024
David W. Guion | |
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Born | Ballinger, Texas, U.S. | December 15, 1892
Died | October 17, 1981 Dallas, Texas, U.S. | (aged 88)
Era | 20th century |
David W. Guion (December 15, 1892 – October 17, 1981), Texan composer, was best known for his arrangements of cowboy tunes, African American spirituals, and original compositions often inspired by the soundscape of west Texas.
Early life and education
[edit]Guion (some sources show him as David Wendel Fentress Guion) was born in Ballinger, Texas, on December 15, 1892, to John I. and Armour Fentress Guion. Guion began to play the piano at an early age. He was intrigued by the cowboys, former cattle drivers, who worked on his father's ranch, and also by the spirituals that he heard whenever a family servant brought him to the services of an African-American church.
As a young boy, he was sent by train each Saturday to San Angelo, where he took piano lessons with Charles Finger, who later became a prolific author and literary magazine editor. In the fall of 1907, he studied at the Whipple Academy in Jacksonville, Illinois, after which he continued his studies in Fort Worth at Polytechnic College (now Texas Wesleyan University) under Wilbur MacDonald. After MacDonald's death in 1912, Guion went to Vienna, where he studied at the Imperial Academy of Music with Leopold Godowsky until the spring of 1914. Returning to Texas, Guion taught piano at Daniel Baker College (now Howard Payne University) in Brownwood, and also turned his attention to composition. One of his first major successes, a virtuosic arrangement of "Turkey in the Straw", was performed by many famous pianists, most notably Percy Grainger.
From pianist to cowboy-composer
[edit]After Guion's father died in 1920, the family left Ballinger and moved to Dallas. Guion's father, John Isaac Guion II, was the son of a Mississippi governor (John I. Guion), and served as President of the Board of Directors at A&M College (now Texas A&M University), where Guion Hall was built in his honor. In the following decade, David Guion taught at Southern Methodist University, various private music schools in Dallas, Chicago Musical College, and in summer programs at Estes Park, Colorado. He won first prize in rodeos at Estes Park and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Guion was married briefly to Marion Ayers, daughter of the owner of a Dallas department store.
Fame on Broadway and on the radio
[edit]In 1930 at the Roxy Theater in New York City, Guion starred in the cowboy show Prairie Echoes, featuring several of his cowboy songs, including his own version of "Home on the Range". It was Guion's arrangement that transformed "Home on the Range" from a little-known cowboy tune to one of the most famous and popular of all western songs, proclaimed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as his own favorite. Guion did two series of weekly radio shows featuring his own music exclusively: Hearing America with Guion (June–September 1931) and David Guion and Orchestra (January–March 1932). These programs, which were carried across the country in a coast-to-coast hookup, contributed to the vogue for singing cowboys that continued on radio and television through the 1940s and early 1950s. Guion's ballet Shingandi, originally written for two pianos but later orchestrated by Ferde Grofé and introduced by Paul Whiteman's orchestra in November 1931 both in a live concert and in a nationwide radio broadcast, is one of the most significant American dramatic works in the style of primitivism. Concluding his two-year stay in New York, Guion returned to Dallas in the summer of 1932. Theodore Kosloff choreographed Shingandi and gave the work its first performance as a ballet in 1933.
Later career
[edit]Guion's "My Cowboy Love-Song" was the theme for the show Cavalcade of Texas, which ran for six months as part of the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936. His mother died later that year, after which Guion largely retired from public life, moving to an estate that he called "Home on the Range" along Pohopoco Creek in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, where he lived until 1965, when his property was condemned for a dam to be constructed along the creek to create Beltzville Lake.
The first week of February 1950 was declared David Guion Week and was celebrated with numerous performances across Texas. Climaxing this celebration was a ceremony at Howard Payne University in which Guion received an honorary doctorate. That same year he received a commission from the Houston Symphony Orchestra to write the fourteen-movement Texas Suite, which contains several newly composed pieces along with orchestrations of some of his previous works.
Returning from Pennsylvania to Dallas, Guion lived the rest of his life in the same house that had belonged to his mother.
Death
[edit]He died in Dallas, on October 17, 1981, and was buried in his hometown of Ballinger.
Compositions
[edit]Among the approximately 200 works by David Guion (some of which are arrangements of folk songs and African-American spirituals) are:
Piano works
[edit]- "The Arkansas Traveler"
- "The Harmonica-Player"
- "Minuet"
- "Sheep and Goat"
- "Turkey in the Straw"
- "Valse Arabesque"
- "The Texas Fox Trot" (1915)
Songs for voice and piano
[edit]- "All Day on the Prairie" (1930)
- "At the Cry of the First Bird"
- "The Bold Vaquero"
- "Embers"
- "Home on the Range"
- "How Dy Do, Mis' Springtime"
- "I Talked to God Last Night"
- "Mary Alone"
- "My Cowboy Love-Song"
- "Nobody Knows de Trouble I Sees"
- "De Ol' ark's a-Moverin'"
- "Prayer"
- "Some o' These Days"
- "They've Taken My Lord Away" (1974)
- "The Crucifixion"
- Two Songs of the South: "Little Pickaninny Kid" "Greatest Miracle of All" (G. Schirmer copyright 1919)
Ballets
[edit]- Mother Goose
- Shingandi
Orchestral works
[edit]- Prairie Suite
- Texas Suite
References
[edit]- Dick, James, "Guion, David Wendel." The Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association.
Primary sources
[edit]- David Guion Collection, Crouch Fine Arts Library, Baylor University.
- David Guion Collections, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin
- David Guion Collection, International Festival-Institute, Round Top, Texas.
- David Guion, My Memoirs (unpublished), 1975. The Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University.
External links
[edit]- Dick, James. "Guion, David Wendel." The Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association.
- David Wendell Guion Collection and Addition to the Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
- Thompson, Bill. David W. Guion (resource page)
- Midi version of "Texas Fox Trot"
- Cylinder recording of "Texas Fox Trot" by Jaudas' Society Orchestra, 1918
- People from Ballinger, Texas
- Musicians from Dallas
- 1892 births
- 1981 deaths
- American male classical composers
- 20th-century American classical composers
- Texas Wesleyan University alumni
- University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna alumni
- Southern Methodist University faculty
- Classical musicians from Texas
- 20th-century American male musicians