Meredith WILSON: Serious Composer (Who Likes Slapstick Comedy) And Conductor Keeps Young in Music Business

Biography

Meredith Willson

Serious Composer

(Who Likes Slapstick Comedy)

And Conductor Keeps Young in

Music Business”

Meredith Wilson, whose agile pen and brisk baton will be responsible for the music on NBC’s “The Big Show” on Sunday nights (premiere Nov. 5, 6:00-7:30 p.m., EST), is a musician of remarkably variegated experience—ranging from serious composition and the writing of best-selling-books to band-leading and slapstick comedy.


His many-faceted character, as a matter of fact, so baffled the distinguished British conductor, Dr Albert Coates, during a broadcast in which  Wilson clowned with the late Frank Morgan that Coates was temporarily horrified.


“I conducted you ‘Missions of California” symphony because I considered you one of the most promising of the young American composers”.


Coates told  Wilson later, “but when I saw you doing that slapstick” Coates shuddered, failed to finish the sentence.


He was a busy man for the next 10 years, directing sometimes as many as 17 musical radio programs a week and finding time for such extra-curricular activities as conducting the Seattle Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.


For nearly four years during World War II he was addressed as Major  Meredith Willson , head of the music division of the Armed Forces Radio Service, which produced such memorable programs as “Command Performance” and “Mail Call” for GIs all over the world.


Through his wartime work  Willson  discovered that the most popular programs were those with much music, very little talk and—surprisingly enough—with commercials. The GIs were nostalgic for segmental music, they missed the sponsors’ messages, which were cut out of the programs transcribed for the Armed Forces.


Among  Willson's serious compositions are included the “San Francisco” symphony, the “Missions of California” symphony and the “O.O.Melntyre Suite”. His popular music is well known: “You and I” and finish the sentence.


Wilson subsequently redeemed himself in the British conductor’s eyes, however, because he made it apparent that his genuine talent for comedy did not impaid his musical integrity.


Born in Mason City, Iowa,  Willson began to study the piano as soon as he was big enough to reach the Keyboard. At 12 he conducted a symphony orchestra of grown men. He attended Mason City High School and at 14 he left for New York and the Damrosh Institute of Musical Alts. He took private flute lessons from Georges Barrere.


When  Willson   was 17 he auditioned for John Philip Sousn, who signed him for a nationwide tour. At 21 he was seated in the New York Philharmonic, playing for five years under the baton of Tascanini and other notables.


In 1932  Willson   joined NBC as general musical director of the Western Division, with headquarters in San Francisco – a city he still remembers, he says, with a moist eye, is well known: “You and I “ and “Two in Love”, which are being included in a forthcoming  Meredith Willson  record album, were the first two songs by a single composer to place simultaneously in top positions on the “You Hit Palade”. In addition he has written marches, anthems and the musical scores for a number of films, notably “The Great Dictator” and “The Little Foxes”.


Willson  is tall (Over six feet), black haided, genial – and remarkably young-looking. He attributes his youthful appearance neither to exercise, good living, nor any particular hobby (he has none, outside of music), but simply to being in what he calls “the music business”.


A prolific prose wdlter,  Willson   has to his credit a best seller—“And There I Stood with My Piccoli”, published two years ago by Doubleday and going strong.


The  Willson , incidentally, have a Dachshund called Piccolo.