Examples of classical music from Utah from the late 1800s to the 1960s.
Twilight Waltz for classical guitar duo, 1896, composed by Herman E. Campbell. Sorry, but I have not yet found any background on this composer. He may or may not have even been a Utahn, but this piece was in an LDS Church magazine of 1896 in which almost all music contributions were by locals, so we’re adding it here on faith. (Audio only, and WAY too mechanical sounding due to the synthesized instruments used. I’m looking for options on getting a live guitar recording to upgrade this one.)
Melody in A, for Violin and Piano, 1905 by William C. Clive. He was thought of as one of the virtuoso violin performers in the area, but was also a music teacher, publisher, conductor and composer. This gentle solo was his opus 5, meaning it was among his earliest works. It held a special place in his heart and his career. You could call it his “signature work”, which he performed regularly for years and taught to his violin students. He certainly wrote other violin solos that were more technically challenging, but this one really shines when performed with the right phrasing. This live studio recording was provided by performers from Ukraine, the Bozhyk Duo, (Oleks on violin and his wife Yulia on piano), through the online gig contracting platform fiverr.com .
Saltair March, Godfrey Buglione – This 1910 piece was composed by the bandmaster of a regimental infantry band stationed at Fort Douglas near the University of Utah in SLC. The title of the piece refers to a once popular beach resort on the shores of the Great Salt Lake which featured frequent concerts by local bands, including Buglione’s own military band. Hear it in a recording by a modern military band. (This band recording is not a project of mine, but is part of a very ambitious series/archive of commercial band music recordings.) Utah composer and film maker Marden Pond also used a band version of this piece in his documentary film “Great Salt Lake – Utah’s Sanctuary.” There was a reduction to a solo piano version made available for sale as sheet music, with a recording of that version available higher on this page in the “piano solo” section.
Saltair March, Wasatch March, Fort Douglas March, and Deseret News March are all selections by Godfrey Buglione, but they are not yet recorded for this gallery. Each has a specific local Utah inspiration. The Deseret News was (and still is) a major newspaper in the state, so using that title was sure to get a mention published. The Wasatch Mountain range which towers over the east side of the Salt Lake Valley is the obvious inspiration for another, although that title might also refer to a company or organization which shared that name. (Composers of marches in that time period, including Sousa, often wrote original music titled after companies or organizations that commissioned a new piece, or after newsworthy events that inspired the music.) The third march is titled after the US Military’s Fort Douglas where Buglione was the official bandmaster for a decade and routinely gave public band concerts at the Fort and around the Salt Lake City area. The geography of these three compositions with local place names all lines up. Fort Douglas is on the east side of Salt Lake City, at the foot of the Wasatch mountains, overlooking the city, and from the Fort in the foothills one could even see the Saltair beach resort fifteen miles away, so all three titles/references are linked by geography. Sheet music has been located for the Wasatch March, but it is a rather tedious job to convert all the various instrumental parts in a band piece to computer notation for recording. Still looking for an archive with the Fort Douglas March and/or the Deseret News March available.
Lullaby Land & Irish Love Song – Originally offered as songs for young women’s voices in an LDS (Mormon) Church magazine of the early 1900s, but they also sound rather nice as adapted to be played as instrumentals for violin & piano or flute & piano. Lyrics were by a Utah poet and daughter of a prominent SLC family, Kate Kendall Thomas, who was then living an artsy Bohemian lifestyle in NYC. Her collaborator in this composing partnership was Laura Sedgwick Collins of New York, who may have been the only female composer in the pool of American students taught by Dvorak during his time in the USA. There is also sheet music for a 3rd song available by these collaborators, but it is longer and more complex than these two, so it will take quite a while to get around to posting that one, if ever. Both “Lullaby Land” and “Irish Love Song” are now being shared in imperfect recordings due to issues with the notation having some obvious glitches.
The Bugle Calls from a 1917 song with music by Robert Sauer. There was so much topical music generated during the WWI and WWII eras in all styles. This Patriotic Pop song was a call to arms, asking young American men to be ready to join the War effort – interesting because of the composer’s roots in Germany, while the thrust of this song is for Americans to go fight them. Robert Sauer was born and raised in Germany and got a fine music institute training there. He moved to Utah in his 20’s as a Mormon convert, hiring on as director of the Band program at BYU in Provo, where he stayed for decades. His most well-known piece as a composer was the famous pop/showtune, “When It’s Springtime in the Rockies,” which was recorded countless times. The selection presented here uses a trumpet solo in place of the vocal line, due to the title. The first half of the piece has original themes, then it shifts. It should be easy to spot the use of other melodies, such as the actual military bugle call “Reveille” (used to tell troops to get up and report for duty) and the warhorse, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” (The audio is offered here, but as with other music featuring brass instruments my software makes the trumpet sound tinny. Will probably re-do this one someday with upgraded sound.)
The Sun Dance Opera of 1913 was co-written by William F. Hanson and Xitkala-Sa, a Native American of Sioux background. They were living in Vernal, Utah when the collaboration started, and the first few performances were staged there. Hanson seemed to handle the musical notation from musical themes provided by Zitkala-Sa, a.k.a. Gertrude Simmons Bonnin in her westernized name. The initial reaction was quite positive, and several regional tours were produced, along with larger productions at BYU and even a few in NYC. The work was later revised several times by Hanson alone over a period of 20 years, leaving the shared authorship situation in some doubt. A sample of some of the opera’s music for violin and piano can be heard in a YouTube video as part of a lecture/demonstration, with the music performance starting around time marker 6:50 of the video. This is posted as a link only, and this page claims no credit for the recording. (But we might look into adding another version, depending on legalities connected to the copyright status of the various versions of the score manuscript.) Click to go to YouTube for the sample of the Sun Dance Opera.
Utah – A Lively Little FoxTrot from 1921 by Ogden’s Joseph G. Scoville. Quite the traveller, after his roots in Ogden he spent time in London, then Berlin Germany for advanced music studies, then to New York City for a spell, then back to Ogden where he operated a music studio while composing, publishing and performing. Some references indicate he later was headquartered in Los Angeles. This selection was printed as a song, but was also offered in various instrumental arrangements. Recorded here for flute and piano, both played by Tim from Fiverr. (Click below to hear it played through once without the repeat for extra verses.)
Liahona – Two instrumental selections from the 1936 cantata composed by William King Driggs, a strong composer and musician, but probably better known as father of the “King Sisters” singing group. This is just a piano reduction taken from the vocal score version, while the original work was for orchestra, organ, chorus, vocal soloists, etc. The two selections in this video are the Introduction/Prelude, and one of several “Barcarolle” sections which depicted travels to the new world, as related in the LDS scripture the Book of Mormon. Hear these two selections of “Liahona” in a 6.5 minute video.
Handcarts West! – Snippets from a 1958 musical theatre production written to be performed by teens. This sheet music was included in the printed script that performers worked from. ( I know, I know … FROM WHICH performers worked…) The “Book” (story/script) was by Ruth Hale, a major figure in LDS/Mormon community theatre circles, and a co-founder of the popular Hale Center Theater. Music was composed and/or arranged by Samuel O. Pratt, who was probably related to the family central to the Lyon & Healy Harp Company. My personal opinion is that some of the piano music here requires abilities beyond that of an average teen performer, which may have limited the reach of this production. Hear a few excerpts at my YouTube page, where you may also stumble onto other videos on similar topics.
Deseret – A full scale grand opera shown live on national TV on NBC in 1961 when the major television networks occasionally tackled serious arts event programming. Composed by the multi-talented Leonard Kastle, who also directed an acclaimed noir detective movie. This work has a plot revolving around the drama and turmoil of a reluctant young plural bride candidate for Brigham Young. Not especially anti-Mormon or pro-Mormon so much as an artistic look at a dramatic/historic situation explored on stage. This is not a project of mine, but I’m linking it here as an item of note on the topic of classical music in Utah history. The video for this production was not preserved, which was sadly routine for TV networks of that time period, and the entire production was thought to be lost until a few years ago when a nearly complete copy of the audio was found in the personal archives of one of the performers. A few copies of the conductor’s score were printed and might be found in regional libraries. (And one on my own bookshelf!) Hear almost 2-hours of audio from the opera – nearly complete but missing a few scenes – at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3o-jEcpqnI If “Opera on Mormon Themes” is of interest to you, a long article on the subject from the Deseret News in 2009 mentions over 50 such works, with or without Utah composers. Read it at: https://www.deseret.com/2009/1/17/20377941/mormons-opera-and-mormon-operas/
Pan’s Dance from the film score for “The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao” — or this alternate link. (Sorry, but the links for this one keep changing, so I’ve added extras that were active at the time of posting. Do a Google search if these don’t get you there.) Here is an interesting musical side trip. Music by Leigh Harline, from his soundtrack to a 1964 film. This short scene from a film score is a nice little classical-inspired piece in Tarantella style featuring flute and chamber orchestra. (In clips with video from the film the music may not start until later in the scene.) The composer, Leigh Harline, got early training in Utah, assisting with Gustave Schuster’s music studio and later at the University of Utah. He played several instruments, and even fronted a jazz band. His talent was obvious, and he found quick professional success in Hollywood, including composing famous music for major Disney films among other scores, and even winning Academy Awards for some of his songs. This selection is from his score for an eccentric western/fantasy film about a magical travelling circus in the American Southwest, in which Tony Randall played multiple roles. I played no role in making this clip – just linking it here from various sources as a quirky addition to the list.
Palmyra 1820 by composer James Prigmore, who had a rich history in (Utah) and national professional music circles, from orchestral to vocal to theatre, dance, film and TV score music and beyond. “Palmyra 1820“, based on LDS Church history, was a major work for chorus and orchestra, and was given a premier in the Mormon Tabernacle in the 1960s. A limited number of vinyl/LP records were made of the concert, and I was happy to share one with the composer, who did not have a copy for himself, about a year before he passed away.
…. to be continued. However, I try to respect composers’ Copyrights and Intellectual Properties (IP), so I am often limited in sharing later works.
Special Request! Pageant Quest! Hoping to find sheet music or audio recordings of the various pageants from Utah’s musical past – or at least those from before the 1970s. For instance: There was a major “Easter Pageant” held inside Zion National Park in the late 1940s. Newspaper accounts from the time mention a 50 piece orchestra (mostly from the college in Cedar City which is now SUU) and a full chorus, actors, narrators, staging, costumes and possibly special effects. But only one specific music title is mentioned – Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.” In addition to the pageant content, Seldon Heaps was mentioned as performing organ prelude music while the large crowd of nearly 5,000 attendees settled in. If anyone can supply details about additional music, especially anything by local composers, that would be a real treat. THANKS!
What is next for this site? Around a dozen new videos, audio examples, or music mentions were added in late 2025, bringing the total of works on this page to over 40 selections. Another dozen may appear in 2026 as they are in various stages of preparation. Other possible upgrades might be to:
1) Add a “Wikipedia” link or comparable link to share deeper info/trivia about some of these composers.
2) List the sources of some of the sheet music used here. Maybe even post some examples of downloadable sheet music PDFs from this list?
3) Will also be considering other ways to structure the list, as it is getting long enough to make it hard to navigate/skim for a quick look at the material. Maybe a change to listing styles? Break the list into additional categories on different pages? Perhaps split the list into four (4) pages for piano, chamber music, large ensembles, vocal and choral, to allow for people to browse it more quickly without needing to look at dozens of entries.
4) Scheme to find a way to get real vocal performances recorded for some of the many topical songs of a century ago, including a bunch of comic songs referencing polygamy. There are new advancements in automated singing software, but I have not tried those systems yet.
5. Reserve a better web site name (URL) reflecting the subject being showcased.
Site stuff. At the risk of being obvious, most of the videos on this list are housed on my personal YouTube page, along with other unrelated content I’ve posted there. This “Utah Classical Music Gallery” does have a “play list” there for the items from this list with videos. See my channel at: https://www.youtube.com/@douglaswood6813/videos
The audio-only listings are hosted on this site, but I may soon need to upgrade the storage for them.
