I want to give some background on my grandfather.
Tanglewood Waltz was was written by my grandfather, William H. Tallmadge, copyrighted in 1895 which makes it quite unusual in two respects. First, it has ragtime rhythms in the first strain. Second the fact of ragtime being written in waltz rhythms is unusual in itself. He had studied in the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music for two years. Shortly after that he wrote and published the waltz. He had a one-horse, two-wheeled chaise which he drove from Coshocton, Ohio all the way to Cleveland where he married my grandmother. Later, they went out to Denver, Colorado and he became the secretary of the anti-saloon league in that city. Subsequently he became an Episcopalian minister.
One further thing that he did in music that was quite creative: in the 1930s he had a boy choir in Columbus, Nebraska of about 30 members, and they toured locally and these boys were paid a nickel a rehersal, 10 cents a program. In those days that was pretty good - they practiced every week. The unusual thing about that was that he had more or less invented a little choir system for beginners. He had different hand signals for different chords. He divided the choir into three sections, and each section sang different tones according to the hand signals given. No one read music. My grandmother was a vocal teacher. She taught the soloists.
After graduating from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music my father had occasion to
direct beginning youth choirs in church and in school. He found the method
very effective. In 1949 he wrote an article describing the method. It was
published in the Etude music magazine.
Updated Tanglewood Waltz score and "Litany of Love" score written by Fern Tallmadge.
Click on a picture to expand it in a separate window.
