Ferde Grofe

A Song of India is arranger/composer Ferde Grofe's (1892-1972) whimsical transformation of the famous potboiler from Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 1898 opera Sadko. Grofe, who was to orchestrate George Gershwin's famous Rhapsody in Blue for Paul Whiteman three years later, did this arrangement in 1921 for the emerging Whiteman Orchestra, whom he had happened upon at a San Francisco skating rink two years earlier.

Notes by Roy Wiseman