Elie Siegmeister's Whimsical 'Around New York' Suite

American composer Elie Siegmeister (1909–1991) accepted an invitation to contribute to a concert series being developed for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.

Joseph Binder: Poster for the 1939 World’s Fair

Concerts of music by American composers were set up, and Siegmeister’s contribution was a work he’d written in 1936 for saxophonist Cecil Leeson on commission from the 1936 Works Progress Administration (WPA) project for American musicians.

Cecil Leeson

The full title of the work, Around New York, carries a more revealing subtitle: Whimsical Pieces for Alto Saxophone and Piano. Siegmeister takes us out and around the city with two New York activities: commuting to work by ferry and having a day off.

Elie Siegmeister, 1943

The first movement, Spring Fever on a Ferry Boat, gets the boat underway and our passenger aboard. Around him, the water swirls, the trees on the bank are in bloom, and the sun is finally warming. His attention wanders from the chugging of the ferry to more introspective considerations, and then he lands.

Elie Siegmeister: Around New York – I. Spring Fever on a Ferry Boat (Paul Cohen, alto saxophone; Allison Brewster Franzetti, piano)

There’s more than a little sound of Gershwin in the second movement, Floor Walker’s Day Off. A floorwalker was a managerial position in a department store. The floorwalker was there to oversee the staff, help customers, resolve complaints, etc. All day was spent on his feet, overseeing everything and knowing where everything was located and how to do things. Now, we just ask to see ‘the manager’, and someone appears out of the back room.

In the British sitcom, Are You Being Served?, the character of Captain Stephen Peacock (Frank Thornton) is the floorwalker.

Are You Being Served?, with Captain Peacock at the far right

Where does Siegmeister take our man on his day off? He spends every day on his feet, walking around the same store. We hear this in the opening – the trudging steps, but some of the music from the Spring Day movement infiltrating. He walks at a steady pace until the excitement of the city gets to him, and he speeds up. And then slows down and, at the end, can rest.

Elie Siegmeister: Around New York – II. Floor Walker’s Day Off (Paul Cohen, alto saxophone; Allison Brewster Franzetti, piano)

The activities at the 1939 World’s Fair opened on 30 April 1939, 150 years after George Washington’s inauguration. President Roosevelt spoke, and 600,000 visitors attended the opening day. The first year ended on 31 October 1939, with nearly 26 million attendees. A Second season opened in May 1940 and closed permanently on 27 October 1940. The onset of WWII in August 1939 caused the US to take in 400 of the fair’s foreign workers since they couldn’t return home, exhibitions were sold off since they could no longer be moved home, exhibitions from enemy countries (Italy, and others) were disposed of, and some of the French artwork loaned by the Louvre was moved temporarily to the Metropolitan Museum.

The music part of the fair included all kinds of concerts, from bands to orchestras. Coordinating concerts were held at Carnegie Hall and The Metropolitan Opera House. In 1939 and 1940, a total of 15 musicals were given at the fair. Religious music concerts, concerts of American Music, and concerts by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) were given. The one music failure was the lack of a signature song for the fair – despite contributions by George Gershwin with Dawn of a New Day, Vera Love’s Hello There! New York World’s Fair, and William Grant Still’s Rising Tide, each with the Fair’s distinctive Trylon and Perisphere, designed by Wallace Harrison and J. Andre Fouilhoux.