The Glenn Korff School of Music will present “Concert Music of Ernest Gold” at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13 in Westbrook Music Building, Room 119. The concert is free and open to the public.
Gold was an Austrian-born American composer and one of Hollywood’s most successful composers, most noted for the 1960 film “Exodus,” which won an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album or Recording of Music Score from Motion Picture or Television.
Gold’s other credits included “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” “Inherit the Wind,” “Judgment at Nuremberg” and “Fun with Dick and Jane,” among others.
But the focus for this concert is his concert music, which Clark Potter, professor of viola, has been researching.
“My interest in the music of Ernest Gold had a very interesting beginning,” Potter said. “In 2015, I received a call out of the blue from a musician and publisher in Kansas asking if I would be interested in performing the world premiere of a 70-year-old viola sonata by an Oscar-winning film composer. I said yes immediately, and he responded, ‘Don’t you want to see the music first?’ I said, ‘Sure, send it, but I’ll definitely do this.”
In April 2017, Potter and Mark Clinton, professor of piano, gave the premiere of Gold’s “Sonata for Viola and Piano,” written in 1946. They later performed the piece at the convention of the American Viola Society in Los Angeles.
“I invited Mr. Gold’s two daughters to come to the performance, and we went out to dinner after the concert,” Potter said. “It was at the restaurant where I gained a heightened interest in investigating other concert music by their father. The family has been very helpful in my research ever since, including allowing me to transcribe six hours of Mr. Gold talking into a microphone in the early 1990s, telling the story of his life. I do think this is just the beginning of my investigation into Gold’s music, and I’m hoping that I can interest some publishers in the music as well.”
Gold left a lot of music and artifacts at the National Film Music Archive at Brigham Young University, and Potter received a Hixson-Lied Faculty Development grant to visit the archive in the summer of 2023.
“At the archive, I found a couple dozen pieces that I did not know existed, including some of the music which we will perform on this recital,” Potter said. “I’m grateful to my friends who are joining me to present this music.”
John Bailey, Richard H. Larson Distinguished Professor of Music (Flute), and Clinton will perform Gold’s “Sonatina for Flute and Viola,” which is one of only two previously published pieces on the program. The other published piece is his “Songs of Love and Parting,” which will be sung by Jamie Reimer Seaman, Richard H. Larson Distinguished Professor of Music (Voice), and pianist Stacie Haneline.
Clinton and Potter will again perform the viola sonata.
“The rest of the music was found at the archive, and I really don’t know if any of it has ever been performed or even seen by many people,” Potter said.
Reimer Seaman and Hanline will perform selections of his “Song Suite” (“for Marni”), composed for his wife, Marni Nixon, a soprano and the ghost singer for featured actresses in several musical films, including Deborah Kerr in “The King and I,” Natalie Wood in “West Side Story” and Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady.” This music was in the archive in manuscript form.
Finally, Clinton will perform two pieces for solo piano, “Variations on an Original Theme” and the two-page “Prelude.”
The solo piano pieces Clinton is playing also existed in the archive only in the composer’s handwriting.
“Thankfully he has really good handwriting,” Clinton said. “But it’s still much more difficult to read than a standard printed score.”
The first solo piano piece is “Variations on an Original Theme.” The other solo piano piece, “Prelude” was written in 1941 shortly after Gold came to the U.S.
Potter said many of the pieces on the program could possibly be called “premieres,” though he can’t be entirely sure.
“I was not able to find any record of performances of much of the music on the program, which makes this concert really fun and meaningful,” Potter said.
