Is “music appreciation” still a thing in elementary schools?

I fear not. In the United States, anyway, so much emphasis is placed on mastering the basics — reading, writing and ‘rithmetic — that soft stuff pertaining to “art” tends to be jettisoned.

Which is too bad, because being exposed to the great music of the western canon is a good thing. Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and, more recently, Copland, Gershwin, Mahler …

We had music appreciation in eighth grade at my elementary school, First Lutheran, in Long Beach. It may have come from time carved out of the day; it also may have been played during lunch, which we often took at our desks. I know Mr. Paul Brott, the principal of the school, was behind this.

At first, I was vaguely annoyed at the idea of “classical” in the classroom, but it would go along and I would hear a passage and perk up and say, “I know that!” In many cases, it was music in the background of Disney or Warner Brothers cartoons. Or maybe even from TV — Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” was used as the theme song of the Lone Ranger western.

Sometimes, Mr. Brott would play something he thought was particularly evocative. Story-telling. Perhaps Le Mer, by Debussy; Peer Gynt by Grieg. Or something like the Grand Canyon Suite, by Grofe.

Which is a long introduction to today’s earworm: The fourth movement of Ferde Grofe’s best-known piece of music.

Follow this link to the New York Philharmonic’s version of the Grand Canyon Suite, directed by Leonard Bernstein.

We are interested in the movement named “Sunset” — which begins at the 18:30 mark.

Even more so than usual, I cannot easily explain why this five-minute stretch of music has been banging around inside my head for weeks now.

Maybe it’s the bombastic-ness of it all. Maybe it’s the odd instrumentation. It does sound a bit like a sunset. Have to concede that.

Who was Grofe? He was a guy with Old World heritage, born in 1892, who took all the classes and put in the time that would lead to a musical career in, say, Vienna.

But during his lifetime Europe went up in flames, twice, and Grofe made a good call by moving to Los Angeles — where he could find work in movies and TV. He did the sound track for a space movie entitled Rocketship X-M and best known now for being the first space movie after World War II. (It also touched on the possibility of nuclear war, which was talked about a lot, in 1950, once it became clear the Soviets had nukes.)

Grofe’ did lots of patriotic music over his long career as well as several pieces tied to U.S. geographical landmarks — Death Valley Suite, Yellowstone Suite, Hudson River Suite, etc.

After the Grand Canyon Suite he is best known for orchestrating Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue — which Gershwin had written for two pianos. We almost always hear it that way, now.

I suppose Grofe’ ranks, in the harsh and competitive world of composers, as a gifted hack or a second/third-tier great. Even when he was alive he did not get a lot of love from critics; he was accused of “excessive instrumentation” and his material was also deemed “the essence of slick commercialism”.

The Grand Canyon Suite is as good as he got, and it has more than a little braying and banging in it, but then it has that five-minute stretch that I can’t get out of my head.

If a musician can create something that sticks in another human’s head for weeks at a time … he or she cannot be dismissed outright.

Play the Grand Canyon Overture for the kids. Tell them it has donkeys in it, and a sunrise and a sunset … see if they can hear them!