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AMERICAN COMPOSERS TODAY
COMPOSERS
TODAY
A Biographical and Critical Guide
Compiled and Edited by
DAVID EWEN
THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY
NEW YORK 1949
Copyright 1949
By The H. W. Wilson Company
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
"7
9
;/, r , r INTRODUCTION
American Composers Today is a biographical an.d critical guicfc^t<bh, cre-
ative figures in serious music who have been functioning in this country
and in Latin America between 1900 and the present day, and whose work
has found acceptance in the concert hall, opera house, over the radio, or on
phonograph records.
The term "American composer'* is, for the purposes of this volume,
used in its broadest possible meaning. This book embraces the following
categories: (1) Those composers who were born in the United States, or
those of foreign birth who have become naturalized citizens; (2) the major
creative figures of Latin America, particularly those whose work is known
in this country; (3) those who after 1933 fled from Europe to this hemi-
sphere to find a new home here.
A great deal of emphasis has been placed by the editor on the younger
composers in the United States. Our increasingly rich musical life has
found a definite place for the younger and lesser known composers on the
programs of most of .our important musical organizations. The editor con-
sequently felt that this book could be of service to the music lover by pro-
viding information about these men not easily available elsewhere.
For most of the sketches in this book, the composers themselves provided
the necessary factual data, and have carefully checked them. To these com-
posers, this editor wishes to express his profound indebtedness for their
patience in answering innumerable queries and in correcting several different
drafts which, incidentally, helped to rectify numerous errors which have
crept into other reference books. The editor is also grateful to the many in-
dividuals who contributed photographs and granted permission to reproduce
them.
The pronunciation of unusual or difficult names is indicated in footnotes
to the biographies. The system of marking used follows Webster's New
International Dictionary.
It was found convenient to use abbreviations in the text and bibliography
for names of organizations, societies, or record companies which appear
recurrently. These include the following :
AC A American Composers Al-
liance
AS CAP American Society of
Composers, Authors and Pub-
lishers
BMI Broadcast Music Inc.
C Columbia Records
CBS Columbia Broadcasting- Sys-
tem
CHS Concert Hall Society
Cos Cosmo Records
D Decca Records
Di - Disc Records
H Hargail Records
ISCM International Society for
Contemporary Music
K Keynote Records
M Musicraft Records
NAAC National Association of
American Composers and Con-
ductors
NBC National Broadcasting Com-
pany
NMQR New Music Quarterly
Recordings
OWI Office of War Information
SPAM Society for the Publication
of American Music
T Technicord Records
V Victor Records
YFR Yaddo Festival Recording
1 CTO
ma.) PUBLIC
12587 J 6'
MAY 2 "1 194!
AMERICAN COMPOSERS TODAY
Maurice Goldberg
Joseph Achroa 1886-1943
JOSEPH ACHRON was born in Lod-
zeye, a small town in former Russian-
Poland (now Lithuania), on May 1, 1886.
He was only two
when his father gave
him his first violin les-
sons on an especially
constructed instru-
ment. At the age of
two and a half, Jo-
seph Achron com-
posed his first melody.
When he was five he
began to study the
violin with Michaelo-
witsch in Warsaw. Later, Isidor Lotto was
his teacher. In his eighth year, Achron made
his concert debut. A tour followed, culmi-
nating with a private performance at the
Imperial Palace before Czar Nicholas II and
the Dowager Qarina Maria.
After these concerts, Achron entered the
Imperial Conservatory at Warsaw in the
violin class of Leopold Auer, During one of
the harmony lessons, Achron showed his
teacher, Liadov, a prelude he had just written
in which, for the sake of a definite effect, he
had consciously committed that first deadly
sin of harmony, consecutive fifths. Liadov,
usually a martinet where harmonic rules were
concerned, smiled at this rebellious gesture
and said, "If you will write on your exam-
ination in harmony a prelude as good as this,
you will receive the highest mark, in spite
of the parallel fifths!"
Liadov encouraged Achron to become a
composer. Achron showed some of the
works he wrote at this time to Glazunov> the
famous Russian teacher and composer. Gla-
zunov, who felt that the smaller pieces shewed
talent, detected technical shortcomings in the
larger works, and urged Achron to curb his
creative output until he had completed a rig-
orous course in theory and composition. Fol-
lowing Glazunov's advice, Achron studied
counterpoint, canon, fugue, and form from
1907 to 1910, after which he composed with
greater intensity than ever before. One of the
larger works of this period was his First
Sonata for Violin and Piano.
In 1911, the president of the Society for
Hebrew Folk Music in St. Petersburg invited
Achron to become a member of its music
committee, then consisting of a group of
young enthusiasts including Lazare Sammsky
(chairman), Moses Milner, Gniessen, and
Alexander Kreyn. Being interested in the
problem of writing Hebrew music, Achron
accepted the offer and as an experiment
wrote a composition for violin and piano on
a theme which he had heard in his boyhood
in a Warsaw 'synagogue. This composition,
sketched within half an hour, was eventually
to become famous as the Hebrew Melody, in
the repertory of most famous violinists today.
From 1913 to 1916, Achron taught at the
Kharkov Conservatory. From 1916 to 1918,
he served in the Russian Army, thus witness-
ing both the February 1917 and the October
1918 revolutions as a soldier. When, in
1918, Achron discarded his uniform, he re-
sumed his musical activities with greater
assiduity than ever. During a period of four
years he gave more than a thousand violin
concerts, conducted master classes at the
Leningrad Artists Union, and composed in-
tensively.
In November 1922, Achron left for a
world tour which culminated with his arrival
in New York in 1925. Before his departure,
a farewell concert of his works had been ar-
ranged in Russia by the two publishers of
contemporary Hebrew music, Yibnek and
Yuval Between 1925 and 1934, Achron
made his home in New York City. During
this period, several important performances
of his works brought him to the attention
of the music world : Salome's Dance, a choral
work, performed at the Metropolitan Opera
House in 1925 ; the First Concerto for Violin
and Orchestra, which he himself introduced
with the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Four
Improvisations for string quartet, first per-
formed at a concert of the League of Com-
posers in 1930; the Sabbath Evening Service ,
commissioned by Temple Emanu-El and in-
Achron: a'khron
8 Alletide
troduced in 1931 ; and the Second Concerto
for Violin and Orchestra.
His most representative works are those
which he wrote In a Hebraic idiom. These
include the Stempenyu Suite, for violin and
piano (introduced by the violinist Joseph Szi-
geti), the Golem Suite, the Dance of the
Tsadikim, and the Sabbath Evening Service.
In writing his Hebrew music, Achron bor-
rowed freely from racial sources. Some-
times, in shaping his melodies, he utilized
cantillations of the Bible; this gave his lyric
line an exotic character. Frequently, he in-
terpolated authentic Jewish folk music. To
these Jewish materials he brought the fullest
resources of his musical art a complete
command of counterpoint, harmony, orches-
tration. He had such a capacity for absorb-
ing folk and Biblical elements within the
framework of his own music that the com-
pleted work lost all foreign identity and
became Achron's personal expression.
Of his method of composition, Achron
has said, "Before starting a composition, the
thematic material must be satisfactory to me.
It Is, of course, subject to change, but funda-
mentally it will remain the same. I do not
make now any special form-schemes in ad-
vance, permitting the development of my
material to grow in its natural way, and
giving to the 'plant 5 one or another direction.
I notice that if one thinks logically, and
works on the thematic material as a juggler
might, one cannot be misled; the material
develops by itself in a clear musical form,
though quite often in an unusual one/*
In 1934, Achron transferred his home
from New York City to Hollywood, Cali-
fornia, where for a decade he devoted him-
self to teaching and composing. There he
died on April 29, 1943.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Elegy,
for string quartet, Op. 62, 1927; Four Improvisa-
tions, for string quartet, Op. 65, 1927; Sinfonietta,
for string quartet, Op. 71, 1935. Choral Music
Epitaph, for chorus and orchestra, Op, 38, 1915;
Salome's Dance, Op. 61, 1925; Evening Service for
the Sabbath, Op. 67, 1931-32. Orchestral Music
Hebrew Melody, for violin and orchestra, Op. 33,
1911; First Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op.
60, 1925; Dance Overture, 1932; Golem Suite, for
chamber orchestra, 1932; Little Dance Fantasy,
1933; Dance of the Tsadikim, 1933; Second Con-
certo for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 68, 1933; Third
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 72, 1937.
RECORDINGS: Hebrew Melody, V-l 19572
(Heifetz).
ABOUT: Bauer, M. Twentieth Century Com-
posers; Congress Weekly May 21, 1943.
Humberto Allende 1885-
riUMBERTO ALLENDE the grand
homme of modern Chilean music, and
the first Chilean composer to write in a
modern vein, was
born in Santiago on
June 29, 1885. He
received his musical
training at the Na-
tional Conservatory
of his native city.
While still a student
he conducted two of
his orchestral compo-
sitions with the Con-
servatory orchestra.
In 1905, he was graduated from the Con-
servatory as violinist, and three years later
as composition student. During the cen-
tenary celebration of the Independence of
Chile, Allende won the second prize of
1,500 Chilean pesos for his Symphony in
B Flat. This money enabled him to tour
Europe in a survey of it's musical education*
In 1911, he returned to his country and
was appointed a member of the Chilean
Folklore Society. His intense interest in,
and preoccupation with, Chilean folk music
was henceforth reflected in his composition,
which became intensely national in character.
In 1913, he wrote a symphonic suite entitled
Escenas Campesinas Chilenas which utilized
native Chilean idioms. This work attracted
a great deal of attention, and drew the ad-
miration of Felipe Pedrell, Spain's leading
musical figure.
One of Allende's most important works
is a set of twelve piano pieces, Tonadas de
Caracter Popular Chileno, which he wrote
between 1917 and 1922, and which was
published in Paris in 1923. "What a de-
light are these little pages," wrote Florent
Schmitt, "what sharp and deep sensibility
is revealed here. . . . This music, which
one can play fifty times over without time,
enjoying it anew, makes us think of Chopin's
mazurkas, which these tonadas resemble in
their nostalgic flavor."
Allende: al-yen'da
Antheil 9
Nicolas Slonimsky explains that the word
"tonada" means literally "something to be
intoned. ... In its Latin-American form,
tonada is a dance in two parts, of which
the first is slower than the second." Slo-
nimsky further explains that "Allende's har-
monic style is definitely established [in these
pieces]. It is acridly bitonal, with consider-
able chromatic interweaving in the inner
voices/'
Several of these tonadas were transcribed
by Allende for orchestra and chorus, and
in this form three of them were introduced
with considerable success in Paris on Janu-
ary 30, 1930. Another characteristic work
by Allende is La Voz de las Calles, a bril-
liantly contrived symphonic poem, written
in 1920. This composition is built around
melodies sung in Santiago by street-vendors.
Allende has also written several impres-
sive concertos. That for violoncello and or-
chestra, written in 1915, was warmly praised
by Debussy. A later concerto, for violin and
orchestra, received second prize at the Quad-
ricentennial Music Contest held in Santiago,
in November 1941.
Since 1928, Allende has been teaching
composition at the National Conservatory in
Santiago. On several occasions he has been
a representative to important folk-music con-
ferences or music festivals abroad : at Khar-
kov in 1924, Prague in 1928, and Barcelona
in 1929.
Allende lives with his wife and two
daughters in seclusion on the outskirts of
Santiago. One of his daughters, Tegualda,
is a gifted sculptress.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music String
Quartet 1926. Orchestral Music Symphony in B
Flat, 1910; Escenas Campesinas Chilenas, symphonic
suite, 1913, revised 1930; Concerto for Violoncello
and Orchestra, 1915; La Voz de las Calles, sym-
phonic poem, 1920; La Despedida, for two sopranos,
contralto, and orchestra, 1934; Two Songs, for
soprano and orchestra, 1938; Concerto in D Major
for Violin and Orchestra, 1941. Piano Music
Tonadas de Cadlcter Popular Chileno, 1917-1922;
Four Etudes, 1929,
ABOUT: Slonimsky, N. Music of Latin
America.
George Antheil 1900-
TN the period between the two World
Wars, the Ballet Mecanique was looked
upon as the ultimate in iconoclastic music.
Today, its composer, George Antheil, laments
the fact that his name is still associated with
a style he discarded long ago. Once the
enfant terrible of music, Antheil is today a
composer in the traditional forms who de-
scribes himself as a kind of modern classicist
and points rather proudly to his ability to
write melody.
"I was born/' writes Antheil, "on July 8,
1900, in Trenton, New Jersey, of German-
Polish ancestry, mostly Polish. My child-
hood was like that of most American kids
except that I exhibited a great love for music
at an early age, studying the violin when I
was five. The piano came much later, when
I was ten. The study of harmony was begun
in my twelfth year. My first serious teacher
was Constantine von Sternberg, former pupil
of Liszt. He was an old man, but devoted
to my talent; he in-
sisted upon a strict
contrapuntal basis.
Many persons believe,
or have until recently
believed, that I have
had little theoretical
training, but this is
not so. I studied very
intensively during
those early adolescent
years, and was able
to write passable, and even musical, fugues
when I was eighteen. Also sonata-allegro
movements.
"At several Philadelphia Orchestra con-
certs I heard Stravinsky's Petrushka, which
revolutionized all of my previous musical
ideas. I commenced studying every piece of
new music I could put my hands on. I left
Sternberg in 1919, went to New York, and
became a pupil of Ernest Bloch. It was
while I was with Bloch that I composed my
First Symphony. I wanted the symphony
to express that part of America which I saw
all around me : Trenton, the Delaware River,
the people I knew, the sounds and emotions
I felt.
"Sternberg introduced me to Mrs. Bok
(now Mrs. Efrem Zimbalist). She gave me
a scholarship for the. Settlement School (the
forerunner of the Curtis Institute) . I studied
there for a period, improving my piano play-
ing amongst other things."
In 1922, Antheil went on a tour of Eu-
rope as a concert pianist, making his debut
in London on June 22. Even then, he ac-
Antheil: an'til
10 Antheil
quired the reputation of being a "bad boy"
of music, largely because of his insistence
on playing the ultra-modern piano music of
the time. For a while he settled in Berlin,
where his First Symphony was introduced
by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by
Schultz von Dornberg. The audience re-
acted politely, but the critics were hostile.
The realization that he wanted to be a
composer and not a concert pianist impelled
him in 1923 to abandon his concert tours
impetuously, to go to Paris and devote him-
self exclusively to composition. He took
quarters on the Rue de POdeon, above the
famous Shakespeare Bookshop of Sylvia
Beach (publisher of James Joyce's Ulysses).
In these quarters he wrote a great deal of
chamber music, his Second Symphony, and
his provocative Ballet Mecanique.
His fame soared rapidly, especially in
the more fashionable Parisian salons. His
concerts were packed to the doors. The
avant-garde among the Parisian intellectuals
adopted him as one of their own. Jean
Cocteau sang his praises; Ezra Pound spoke
of him as a genius in a book entitled Antheil
and the Theory of Harmony.
In 1925, Antheil completed the Ballet
Mecanique, with which one period in his
development came to a close, a period in
which he aspired to write music "of preci-
sion, . . . strange, cold, dreamlike, ultraviolet
music," as he himself described it. The
Ballet Mecanique was neither a ballet nor
an actual description of factories and ma-
chines. Scored for anvils, airplaine propel-
lers, electric bells, automobile horns, and
sixteen player pianos, it was described by
its composer as a "mechanistic dance of life."
"My idea was to warn the age in which I
was living of the simultaneous beauty and
danger of its own unconscious mechanistic
philosophy. . . ."
The Ballet was introduced in a Parisian
salon in January 1927, where it was a great
success. On April 10, of the same year,
it was performed at Carnegie Hall, New
York (the conductor was Eugene Goossens
and Aaron Copland one of the pianists).
Unfortunately, the concert went in for the
sensational; the propeller was visible, a
gigantic eyesore on the stage; the number of
pianos was doubled; the whole atmosphere
was that of a three-ring circus. Because of
the blatant publicity with which the concert
was launched, and the garishness with which
'it was realized, Antheil was severely criti-
cized as a sensation-seeker. This almost
wrecked his career. For years, the notoriety
of that performance pursued him, and made
it difficult for musicians and audiences to,
take him seriously. But Antheil had had noth-
ing to do with launching this publicity ; he had
accepted the concert in good faith and had had
no idea his manager would go in for such gar-
ish effects.
The year 1927 was a heartbreaking one
for Antheil. Besides his fiasco in New York,
his piano concerto (introduced in Budapest,
and then repeated in Paris at the Concerts
Golschmann) was considered by Antheil a
failure. A period of discouragement fol-
lowed. But after a few years there came a
turn of fortune. The premiere of his opera
Transatlantic at the Frankfort Opera, in
May 1930, was a splendid success. It re-
ceived twenty curtain calls on the opening
night. Built around a presidential candidate
and his hunt for Helena, a beautiful wom-
an, it was a saga of America, racy with jazz
effects and idioms. It was novel; it was
modern; it was American to the core. It
spoke of modern hotels, Childs restaurants,
department stores. One of the arias was
sung in a bathtub. The German audiences
liked its feverish tempo and jazzy atmos-
phere.
In 1932, Antheil won a Guggenheim Fel-
lowship which enabled him to write another
opera, Helen Retires, with libretto by John
Erskine. Introduced at the Juilliard School
of Music, in February 1934, it was a failure.
The book was rather dull and verbose; the
music "a tissue of contradictions," as one
critic described it.
After 1933, Antheil went to Hollywood
where he worked for a while for the movies.
At the same time he devoted himself to the
writing of his Third Symphony, and with it
emerged into a new creative era, an era in
which he established new values for him-
self through an intensive restudy of the
masterpieces of the past. "I began to re-
alize that no young artist starts the world
all over again for himself, but merely con-
tinues ... the heritage of the past, pushing
it if possible on a little further."
Bacon 11
The Fourth Symphony was introduced by
the NBC Symphony under Leopold Sto-
kowski on February 13, 1944. "I put every-
thing I knew into this symphony. . . , Most-
ly into it had gone El Alamein, Stalingrad,
and the new America I saw awakening. The
feeling of it. You can put these big abstrac-
tions into music," Though this symphony
is a strange melange of styles and moods it
incorporates military music, waltzes, a fugue,
music for eccentric dancing, Red army
choruses, and what not it was praised by
many critics for its lusty enthusiasm and
wit. It has been performed by many lead-
ing American and European orchestras and
is one of Antheil's greatest successes to date.
Later works by Antheil include a Noc-
turne for orchestra, introduced by the St.
Louis Symphony under Vladimir Golschmann
on December 10, 1944. Subtitled "Decatur at
Algiers/' this work was written in commemo-
ration of that historic episode ; but it was also
inspired by memories of his visits to Tunisia
during 1924-27.
"I find," Antheil today confesses, "that
I have only the mildest interest in the
works of Stravinsky which I used to ad-
mire so greatly, and, frankly, in those of
most other moderns of the Stravinsky period.
As I grow older, I find myself more and
more finding my true musical happiness in '
the works of the great masters of the past
particularly Beethoven. I still cannot stand
Wagner; but an old hatred of mine has be-
come an admiration Sibelius. I find that I
like the work of the serious Englishmen since
1910 much better than I used to."
Antheil's home is in Hollywood, where,
occasionally, he writes music for the films;
among these is The Specter of the Rose.
His wife, Boske, is a niece of the celebrated
Austrian writer, Arthur Schnitzler. The
Antheils have one son.
To speak of AntheiPs music is to speak
of only one facet of an amazing career.
For a period he wrote articles for Esquire,
and a lovelorn column for a newspaper
syndicate. He is also the author of a mys-
tery novel, written under the pen name of
Stacey Bishop, and a political book, The
Shape of the War to Come, published
anonymously in 1940. With the movie star
Hedy Lamarr he invented and patented a
radio torpedo. He cqnsiders himself an
amateur endocrine criminologist, that is, one
who has studied the relationship between
crime and glandular disturbances in the crim-
inal.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Balle toFighting the
Waves, 1929; Dreams, 1935. Chamber Music
Three Sonatas for Violin and Piano, 1923, 1923,
1924; Three String Quartets, 1924, 1928, 1946;
Chamber Music for Eight Instruments, 1932; Sona-
tina for Violin and Piano, 1945 ; Second Sonata for
Violin and Piano, 1948. Operas Transatlantic, 1929 ;
Helen Retires, 1932. Orchestral Music Ballet Me-
canique, 1925 ; First Symphony in F Major, 1926 ;
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, 1926; Second
Symphony, "American," 1937; Fourth Symphony,
1942; Nocturne, 1944'; Over the Plains, 1945; Con-
certo for Violin and Orchestra, 1946; Specter
Waltzes, 1947; Fifth Symphony, 1947; The Chil-
dren's Symphony, 1948.
RECORDINGS: Piano Sonata No. 2, "Airplane,"
NMQR-1112 (Hoffmann).
ABOUT: ^Antheil, G. The Bad Boy of Music;
Pound, E. Antheil and the Treatise of Harmony;
Modern Music May- June 1931,
Ernst Bacon 1898*
J7RNST BACON was born in Chicago
on May 26, 1898. Academic studies at
Northwestern University, the University of
Chicago, and the Uni-
versity of California
were combined with
musical studies with
Alexander Raab and
Glenn Dillard Gunn.
After an additional
period of study in
Europe with Karl
Weigl and Bree, Ba-
con gave concerts for
one season abroad,
and then sporadically in this country, Sub-
sequently he studied composition and con-
ducting with Ernest Bloch and Eugene
Goossens.
In 1925, Bacon was appointed instructor
of piano and an assistant conductor of opera
at the Eastman School of Music. This
marked the beginning of a long career as a
teacher. From 1928 to 1930, he was a mem-
ber of the faculty of the San Francisco Con-
servatory. In 1934, he organized the Bach
Festival at Carmel, California, and from
1935 to 1937, he was supervisor of the Fed-
eral Music Project in San Francisco, as well
as conductor of tke Federal Symphony Or-
chestra. In 1938, he became acting professor
12 Barber
of music at Hamilton College. In the fall
of the same year, he was appointed head of
the Music School of Converse College at
Spartanburg, South Carolina, During this
period he reorganized the Spartanburg Music
Festival on a basis of regional development
rather than the former program of using
visiting artists. In the fall of 1945, he be-
came director of the School of Music at
the University of Syracuse.
Among Bacon's principal works are two
symphonies, which were introduced by the
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1933
and 1938; two engaging symphonic suites;
more than two hundred songs (the best of
them performed by Roland Hayes, Onegin,
Gauthier, and John Charles Thomas; some
choral music; and an opera based on a text
by Paul Horgan, A Tree on the Plains, which
was commissioned by the League of Com-
posers and successfully performed in Spar-
tanburg and New York. In 1947, A Tree on
the Plains received the David Bispham
medal.
Alfred Frankenstein called Bacon's First
Symphony "a work of noble outline, great
depth of feeling and skillful original forms."
Henry Cowell wrote, after the premiere of
A Tree on the Plains, "musical history was
made . . . because it contains elements of
greatness." Olin Downes called the orches-
tral suite, From These States "genuine music
in the folk vein . . . written with an expres-
sive intention which is devoid of pretense or
self-consciousness."
Bacon's style is derived from native
American influences, has romantic tenden-
cies, and occasionally shows "a real flair for
homely comedy." His work, wrote Virgil
Thomson, "is remarkably pure in its expres-
sive intent. It communicates its meaning
with a straightforward and touching hu-
manity."
Bacon was awarded a Pulitzer Traveling
Scholarship and a Guggenheim Fellowship,
the former in 1932, the latter in 1939 and
again in 1942.
"I am an ardent believer in indigenous
American music," writes Bacon, "and have
written some essays on the subject, as a
result of which I am often quoted as being
chauvinistic. I am, of course, no advocate
of American music, right or wrong, by any
means, and I resent being quoted. as saying,
'Give Americans a chance,' because that
statement in itself implies a rather servile
state of music in this country, which can
only be admitted as fact but not as principle.
If I am anything that can be labeled I am a
regionist and I have taken particular pains
in my various jobs to emphasize the im-
portance of developing the local resources
with no apologies to the centralized and
commercialized musical business that seems
to smother enterprise throughout the country.
"As to my musical outlook, I cannot sub-
scribe to the idea of a complete break with
classical tradition and I am quite sure that
a classical background is perfectly in keep-
ing with the expression of any of the diver-
sified facets of the American spirit if a per-
son only concerns himself with the meanings
of our modern life, its economics, its poetry,
its drama, and particularly its linguistic ten-
dencies. I am a great believer in the speech
origins of music and in their important ef-
fect upon musical cadences and melodic
directions/'
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Quintet
for Piano and Strings, 1946. Choral Music Can-
tata, for mixed chorus, baritone and soprano soli,
and orchestra, 1936; The Ecclesiastes, oratorio-
cantata (Emily Dickinson). Operas K Tree on
the Plains (Paul Horgan) 1942. Orchestral Music
Symphonic Prelude and Fugue, 1926 ; Symphony
in D Minor, 1932; From These States, symphonic
suite, 1936; Second Symphony, 1937; Ford Theatre
Suite, 1945. Orchestral Songs The Postponeless
Creature (Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson) for
baritone and orchestra, 1931; Whispers of Death
(Whitman), for baritone and orchestra, 1931; My
River (Dickinson) for tenor and orchestra, 1931;
Black and White Songs (folk material) 1931.
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers.
Samuel Barber 1910"
SAMUEL BARBER was bom in West
Chester, Pennsylvania, a town on the out-
skirts of Philadelphia, on March 9, 1910. He
is a nephew of the famous contralto Louise
Homer, His father was a doctor ; his mother,
a talented pianist. He began to study the
piano when he was six years old with Wil-
liam Hatton Green, a pupil of Leschetizky,
A year after that, he first attempted compo-
sition in a piece for the piano called Sadness.
At twelve, he served as organist for a church
in West Chester. Two years after that, he
entered the Curtis Institute as a charter
pupil, studying the piano with Isabella Ven-
Barber 13
<n
v
gerova, singing with Emilio de Gogorza, and
composition with Rosario Scalero. In 1928,
he won the Beams Prize in composition.
His first works were for chamber-music
ensembles, and one of the best of these was
Dover Beach, for medium voice and string
quartet, set to lyrics by Matthew Arnold.
In 1932, he composed his first orchestral
work, an overture entitled The School for
Scandal, which the Boston Symphony Or-
chestra later introduced under the baton of
Koussevitzky. In
1933, a second orches-
tral work, inspired by
Prometheus Unbound,
showed remarkable
* * development and
*> growth. This work,
7 Music for a Scene
from Shelley, was in-
troduced by the New
. k York Philharmonic
Symphony Orchestra
under Werner Janssen on March 24, 1935,
and was praised for its tenderness of mood
and melodic originality.
In 1935, a year in which he won both
the Pulitzer Scholarship and the American
Prix de Rome, Barber went to Europe,
spending several years in Austria and Italy.
In Vienna, he gave seyeral Lieder recitals,
including many of his own songs on his
programs; and -he conducted a little. Else-
where in Europe, he met Arturo Toscanini
who was greatly impressed by his talent.
One of his more pleasurable memories of
that European visit was an afternoon spent
with Toscanini playing and singing Monte-
verdi's Orfeo.
It was while he was a Fellow at the
American Academy that he wrote his first
major work, the Symphony in One Move-
ment. Introduced by Molinari and the Au-
gusteo Orchestra in Rome in 1936, it was
well received, although Barber recalls with
amusement overhearing one dowager ex-
claiming huffily: "That young man should
have been strangled at birth!" In January
1937, this symphony was introduced in the
United States by the Cleveland Orchestra
under Artur Rodzinski, and that summer,
Rodzinski performed it at the Salzburg Fes-
tival, the first time an American work was
thus honored.
Meanwhile, in 1936, Barber won the
Pulitzer Scholarship a second time, the first
composer to accomplish this. In 1938 he
was honored by being the first American
composer selected by Toscanini for per-
formance by the NBC Orchestra. On No-
vember 5, 1938, Toscanini conducted the
premiere of two Barber works: the Adagio
for strings, and the Essay for orchestra.
Toscanini's recording of the Adagio is thus
far his only performance of an American
work on discs.
Barber belongs among the conservative
American composers, more especially in his
earlier works, in that he pays considerable
attention to his architectonic construction, is
not afraid to yield to fluent melodic writing,
prefers simplicity to complexity, and is ever
in search of a deeply poetic idea. The first
Essay is characteristic. Built upon a series
of simply stated themes, it is constructed
with extraordinary workmanship and ex-
pressed with deep feeling. It has the com-
pactness of form of a fine literary essay, is
clear in its thinking, and inevitable in its
logic.
Characteristic, too, is the Symphony in
One Movement, which Rodzinski once de-
scribed as one of the greatest works written
by an American. The composer calls it a
"synthetic treatment of a 'four-movement
classical symphony/* The four sections of
the traditional symphony are here com j
pressed into one, constructed out of three
themes which are stated at the very opening
of the work. On March 8, 1944, the New
York Philharmonic, under Bruno Walter,
introduced a revised version of this sym-
phony, and recorded it for Columbia.
Because his music is neither regional
nor national, because it is projected with
such sincerity and often with such moving
beauty, it has enjoyed great success out of
this country as well as in it. His abundant
lyricism and fine poetic speech are appreci-
ated everywhere. At Salzburg, his Sym-
phony was given an ovation. Toscanini
brought the Adagio to South America where
it enjoyed a success few modern American
works have known. Sibelius has praised
the Adagio. And both the Adagio and the
first Essay were rousingly received when
introduced in Moscow in 1945.
Barber 13
gerova, singing with Emilio de Gogorza, and
composition with Rosario Scalero. In 1928,
he won the Bearns Prize in composition.
His first works were for chamber-music
ensembles, and one of the best of these was
Dover Beach, for medium voice and string
quartet, set to lyrics by Matthew Arnold.
In 1932, he composed his first orchestral
work, an overture entitled The School for
Scandal, which the Boston Symphony Or-
chestra later introduced under the baton of
Koussevitzky. In
1933, a second orches-
tral work, inspired by
Prometheus Unbound,
showed remarkable
development and
*^ growth. This work,
7* Music for a Scene
from Shelley , was in-
pr- troduced by the New
York Philharmonic
Symphony Orchestra
under Werner Janssen on March 24, 1935,
and was praised for its tenderness of mood
and melodic originality.
In 1935, a year in which he won both
the Pulitzer Scholarship and the American
Prix de Rome, Barber went to Europe,
spending several years in Austria and Italy.
In Vienna, he gave several Lieder recitals,
including many of his own songs on his
programs; and -he conducted a little. Else-
where in Europe, he met Arturo Toscanini
who was greatly impressed by his talent.
One of his more pleasurable memories of
that European visit was an afternoon spent
with Toscanini playing and singing Monte-
verdi's Orfeo.
It was while he was a Fellow at the
American Academy that he wrote his first
major work, the Symphony in One Move-
ment. Introduced by Molinari and the Au-
gusteo Orchestra in Rome in 1936, it was
well received, although Barber recalls with
amusement overhearing one dowager ex-
claiming huffily: "That young man should
have been strangled at birth!" In January
1937, this symphony was introduced in the
United States by the Cleveland Orchestra
under Artur Rodzinski, and that summer,
Rodzinski -performed it at the Salzburg Fes-
tival, the first time an American work was
thus honored.
Meanwhile, in 1936, Barber won the
Pulitzer Scholarship a second time, the first
composer to accomplish this. In 1938 he
was honored by being the first American
composer selected by Toscanini for per-
formance by the NBC Orchestra. On No-
vember 5, 1938, Toscanini conducted the
premiere of two Barber works: the Adagio
for strings, and the Essay for orchestra.
Toscanini's recording of the Adagio is thus
far his only performance of an American
work on discs.
Barber belongs among the conservative
American composers, more especially in his
earlier works, in that he pays considerable
attention to his architectonic construction, is
not afraid to yield to fluent melodic writing,
prefers simplicity to complexity, and is ever
in search of a deeply poetic idea, The first
Essay is characteristic. Built upon a series
of simply stated themes, it is constructed
with extraordinary workmanship and ex-
pressed with deep feeling. It has the com-
pactness of form of a fine literary essay, is
clear in its thinking, and inevitable in its
logic.
Characteristic, too, is the Symphony in
One Movement, which Rodzinski once de-
scribed as one of the greatest works written
by an American. The composer calls it a
"synthetic treatment of a 'four-movement
classical symphony." The four sections of
the traditional symphony are here corrp
pressed into one, constructed out of three
themes which are stated at the very opening
of the work. On March 8, 1944, the New
York Philharmonic, under Bruno Walter,
introduced a revised version of this sym-
phony, and recorded it for Columbia.
Because his music is neither regional
nor national, because it is projected with
such sincerity and often with such moving
beauty, it has enjoyed great success out of
this country as well as in it His abundant
lyricism and fine poetic speech are appreci-
ated everywhere. At Salzburg, his Sym-
phony was given an ovation. Toscanini
brought the Adagio to South America where
it enjoyed a success few modern American
works have known. Sibelius has praised
the Adagio. And both the Adagio and the
first Essay were rousingly received when
introduced in Moscow in 1945.
14 Barlow
His later works show no change in his
lyric writing or his aristocratic style though
they do reveal an ever-growing technical skill
and a deepening thought and enriched ma-
turity of conception. These works include
the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, in-
troduced by Albert Spalding and the Phila-
delphia Orchestra under Ormandy in 1941 ;
the second Essay for orchestra (New York
Philharmonic under Bruno Walter, 1942) ;
the Second Symphony (Boston Symphony
Orchestra under Koussevitzky, 1944) ; the
Capricorn Concerto, for flute, oboe, trumpet,
and strings, named after Barber's home in
Mt. Kisco, New York; the Concerto for
'Cello and Orchestra, introduced by Raya
Garbousova with the Boston Symphony Or-
chestra under Koussevitzky on April 12,
1946.
The Second Symphony was composed on
a commission by, and is dedicated to, the
Army Air Forces. The emphasis in this
work, says the composer, is on the emotional
rather than the narrative factor. While it
is not program music, it makes an attempt
to suggest in tones the sound of a radiobeam,
and that of a plane spiraling to earth. This
is somewhat more astringent and dissonant
music than Barber has written up to this
time, and is music obviously inspired and
influenced by the war. Another work in-
fluenced by the war is the Commando March,
composed for military band in 1943, and
used extensively in American short-wave
broadcasts.
Besides his orchestral music, Barber has
written chamber works, choral music, and
songs. It is to be expected that some of
Barber's most felicitous writing should be in
the song form. He is instinctively lyrical;
and, being a trained singer himself, he
knows the voice well, and likes writing for
it. His songs have been performed by many
leading artists including Flagstad, Kipnis,
Traubel, Marian Anderson, Bampton, and
Povla Frijsh.
About a year after Pearl Harbor, Barber
joined the armed forces, and was assigned
to the Army Air Corps, where his duties
were chiefly musical. In 1945, soon after
his release from the army, Barber was
awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in
1946 his Concerto for Violoncello and Or-
chestra was selected by the Music Critics
Circle as the Qiitstanding new American work
of the preceding season.
Dark-haired, eyes intense under heavy
eyebrows, a beak nose pointing to a promi-
nent chin, Samuel Barber makes a striking
impression. He lives in a rambling cottage
in Mt. Kisco, New York, sharing his home
with Gian-Carlo Menotti, the composer. The
house includes, at opposite ends, two sound-
proof studios, so that both composers may
work without disturbance.
Away from his composition, Barber likes
best to read books in several different lan-
guages, to go to an occasional play, to take
long walks, and to climb mountains. He
dresses conservatively, and his preference is
for blue colors.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballet Serpent Heart,
1946; Cave of the Heart, revision of Serpent Heart,
1947. Chamber Music Dover Beach, for medium
voice and string quartet, Op. 3, 1931; Sonata for
Violoncello and Piano, Op. 6, 1932; String Quartet
No. 1, Op. 11, 1936 Choral Music The Virgin
Martyrs (Helen Waddell) Op. 8, No. 1, 1935; Let
Down the Bars, Death (Emily Dickinson) Op. 8,
No. 2, 1936; A Stopwatch and Ordnance Map
(Stephen Spender) Op. 15, 1940; Reincarnations
(James Stephens) Op. 16, 1936, 1940. Orchestral
Music The School for Scandal, overture, Op. 5,
1932; Music for a Scene from Shelley, Op. 7, 1933;
Adagio, for strings, Op. 11, 1936; Symphony in One
Movement, Op. 14, 1936, revised 1944; Commando
March, originally for band, 1943; Symphony No. 2,
Op. 19, 1944; Capricorn Concerto, for flute, oboe,
trumpet, and strings, Op. 21, 1944; Concerto for
Violoncello and Orchestra, 1945; Medea, Ballet
Suite, 1947; Knoxville: Summer of 1915, 1947.
RECORDINGS: Adagio, V-l 18287 (NBC Sym-
hony Toscanini) ; Dover Beach, V-8998 (Curtis
tring Quartet ; Barber) ; Capricorn Concerto,
CHS-4 (Saidenburg Little Symphony) ; Sonata for
'Cello and Piano, CHS-1B (Garbousova-Kahn) ;
Essay, V-18062 (Philadelphia Orchestra Or-
mandy) ; Symphony in One Movement, CM-X252
(New York Philharmonic Bruno Walter).
ABOUT: Modern Music March- April 1945;
Musical America April 10, 1944; New York Post
May 9, 1946.
Samuel L. M. Barlow 1892
CAMUEL L. M. BARLOW was bora in
New York City on June 1, 1892, and re-
ceived his academic and musical education
at Harvard University and at the Institute
of Musical Art. He later studied in Paris
with Isidor Philipp, and in Rome with Otto-
rino Respighi. During World War I, he
served as a lieutenant in the United States
Army in France.
Although Barlow's works were heard in a
concert in New York as early as 1915, and his
Barlow 15
songs with orchestra were performed in 1924
both in New York and in Paris, he did not
achieve any appreciable success until 1928
when his symphonic poem, Alba, was intro-
duced to the United States by the Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra after having been per-
formed successfully in London. Important
performances followed. Eugene Goossens
introduced the Concerto for Piano and Or-
chestra in Rochester in 1931, Barlow playing
the piano part. In 1933, the Augusteo Orches-
tra under Amfiteatroff performed the Bieder-
meier Waltzes in Rome. In 1935, he achieved
international fame when his charming opera
Mon Ami Pierrot, on a libretto by Sacha
Guitry, was the first
work by an American
composer produced
by the Opera Comique
in Paris. In 1936,
Leopold Stokowski
and the Philadelphia
Orchestra gave a suc-
cessful performance
of Babar, a "sym-
phonic concerto for
magic lantern and or-
chestra." And, in 1939, the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, under Barlow's own direction, in-
troduced Sousa ad Parnassum and Leda,
Barlow likes to make his music as melo-
dious as he can and describes his style as
more international than American, with a
leaning toward the French school of Ravel.
Lawrence Gilman described him as a "poet
with an antiseptic wit." He has also com-
posed music for the theatre, his best known
score being that for Amphitryon 38, pro-
duced by the Theatre Guild in New York,
with the Lunts in the leading roles.
Barlow has played an active role in pub-
lic affairs as well as in musical. He has
been a moderator of the Forum for Democ-
racy conducted at Town Hall, New York.
He has lectured extensively on current politi-
cal problems and the international scene, and
has served on the executive committees of
important political organizations. As a Fel-
low of the Carnegie Endowment, on a gov-
ernment mission to South America, he found
occasion to lecture and make several radio
addresses (in Spanish) on the role of the
arts in the United States and the interaction
of art and artists between North and South
America. In 1945, he gave postgraduate
lectures on art at the University of Puerto
Rico, at the request of the Department of
the Interior. For many years, he was dra-
matic and ballet critic for Modern Music,
and a contributor of articles on musical sub-
jects to many well-known magazines. He
is the author of Politics and Art.
Barlow describes himself as "an inveter-
ate urbanite." He lives in New York City,
in the very same house in which he was
bo'rn, and where his family had lived for
four generations. "I can be removed to the
country on promise of trout fishing or duck
shooting, otherwise I agree with Mrs. Jack
Gardner's, 'Go kick a tree for me P " In
days of affluence he greatly enjoys travel.
His wife is the former Ernesta Drinker, the
"white girl" in the Metropolitan Museum
painting by her aunt, Cecilia Beaux. They
have one child, and two grandchildren.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Ballet -Ratio Sardo, 1938.
Chamber Music Three Songs from the Chinese,
for six instruments, piano, and tenor, 1924 ; Scherzo,
for string quartet, 1933; Ballad, for string quartet,
1933; Chamber-Music, for string quartet, 1933;
Conversation with Chekhov, trio for piano, violin,
and 'cello, 1940. Operas Mon Ami Pierrot, 1934;
Amanda, 1936. Orchestral Music Alba, 1927;
Vocalise, for voice and orchestra, 1929 ; Concerto
for Piano and Orchestra, 1931 ; Spanish Quarter,
1933; Biedermeier Waltzes, 1933; Babar, sym-
phonic poem, 1936 ; Sousa ad Parnassum, 1939 ;
Leda, 1939.
ABOUT: Howard, J. T, Our Contemporary
Composers.
Wayne Barlow 1912-
AYNE BARLOW was born in Elyria,
Ohio, on September 6, 1912. He be-
gan to study the piano when he was seven,
an d the violin four
years later. At the
same time, he attend-
ed the public schools
of Rochester, New
York, in whose musi-
cal organizations he
was active. While at
high school he began
writing piano pieces.
One of these won
first prize in a contest
held among preparatory students of the
Eastman School of Music. A composition
for piano and orchestra was performed upon
his graduation from high school.
Byron Morgan
16 Barlow
His collegiate study took place at the
Eastman School of Music where he received
the degree of Bachelor of Music in 1934.
While attending school he held a position as
organist at the Immanuel Baptist Church in
Rochester, and became intensely interested
in choral writing and church music. The
existence of a- ballet school at the Eastman
School also led him to write three works in
that form.
In 1935, he won the Lillian Fairchild
Memorial Award for creative work in the
arts given annually to a resident of
Rochester or vicinity. During the same year he
received his master's degree in composition,
and in 1937 his doctorate, also in composi-
tion. His teachers included Edward Royce,
Bernard Rogers, and Howard Hanson. For
a period in 1935 he studied with Arnold
Schoenberg at the University of Southern
California.
Since 1937, Barlow has been a member of
the faculty of the Eastman School of Music,
teaching subjects ranging from elementary
ear-training through advanced theory and
counterpoint to original composition and or-
chestration. He has also given graduate
courses in the technique of analysis of music
from the Gregorian chant to twentieth cen-
tury musical style.
In 1934, Barlow composed a prelude for
orchestra entitled De Profundis. This was
introduced in Rochester on April 18, 1934.
A still more significant work, showing a
greater technical skill and a growing articu-
lateness was the rhapsody for oboe and
strings, The Winter's Passed, composed in
1938, and introduced that year in Rochester.
This is the only work by Barlow containing
actual folk-song material. It employs two
southern Appalachian mountain tunes of
contrasting nature, harmonized for the most
part in modal style. The piece is in varia-
tion form with bridges between consecutive
treatments of tunes.
Of Barlow's ballets, the most significant
is perhaps The Black Madonna, written in
1941-42. Composed to a play by William
Sharp, it is one of a series of highly imagi-
native and emotionally powerful pieces pub-
lished under the title of Vistas. A strong
Celtic influence is evident in this work.. The
ballet employs choral speech as a means
of heightening the emotional tension of the
tragedy, which deals with a primitive chief-
tain's passion for the tribal goddess, who is
human.
Barlow has written numerous songs and
choral works. Of these the songs from the
Silence of Amor, for soprano and chamber
orchestra, should be singled out for special
attention. Composed in 1937-38, they were in-
troduced on April 25, 1939 in Rochester.
These songs are settings of three "prose-
rhythms" by William Sharp, taken from his
collection The Silence of Amor. The set-
tings attempt to establish in orchestral color
and voice line the exotic flavor of the poems,
as well as the subtle rhythmic flow. They
have had marked success in performances
throughout the country.
Given a commission by station WHAM
in Rochester, New York, for" a new chamber
orchestral work written especially for radio
performance, Barlow composed Nocturne,
inspired by lines from Walt Whitman. Its
premiere took place during the Eastman
School American Music Festival in April
1946, over a national radio network.
Of his principles as a composer, Barlow
has this to say: "The basic principle toward
which I direct conscious effort is that of at-
taining a balance among the elements of
melody, harmony, rhythm, and form. So
far as these elements individually are con-
cerned, my first concentration is on melody
and rhythm (which includes contrapuntal
possibilities). In rhythm I work for utmost
freedom of line in avoiding the casting of a
melody in a rigid metrical mold; in this I
prefer not to use constantly changing time
signatures, but rather feel free to place me-
lodic, dynamic, and harmonic accents at any
point in a measure that remains, in general,
a fixed length. My viewpoint is essentially
that of sixteenth century practice.
"I perceive harmony as a logical out-
growth of melodic line and, in the case of
my own work, of often rapidly shifting
tonalities, or tone centers, empirically con-
structed from new and different organiza-
tions of harmonic material. I consider the
problem of finding new and esthetically satis-
fying substitutes for the older principles of
tonality of first importance for the con-
temporary composer. The adaptation of
musical forms to new materials remains a
Barth 17
pressing problem In integrating the various
elements into a unified work."
Away from his music, Barlow likes to
dabble with photography, and to study the
science of radio and phonographic reproduce
tion. He is a detective story fan and goes fre-
quently to the movies; his pet detestation is
radio soap-operas.
He has edited and synchronized the
musical score for a one-hour film called
Highlights and Shadows, produced by the
Eastman Kodak Company in 1938; for it
he wrote some original music. From 1937 to
1943, he was executive assistant to the direc-
tor of the Eastman School of Music in
matters relating to the school's annual Amer-
ican Composers' Concerts and festivals. He
has written extensively about music, and is
the author of a monograph in the field of
acoustics, discussing the relation of subjec-
tive tones to reproduced music.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Ballets Foist Faces, 1934-
35; Three Moods for Dancing, choreographic suite,
1939-40; The Black Madonna, 1941-42. Choral
Music TAQTL in Exile, cantata, 1936-37; Madrigal
for a Bright Morning, 1941; Twenty-third Psalm,
1943. Orchestral Music De Proftmdis, prelude,
1934; Sinfonietta, for chamber orchestra, 1935-36;
Songs from. the Silence of Amor, for soprano and
chamber orchestra, 1937-38; The Winter's Passed,
rhapsody for oboe and strings, 1938; Lyrical Piece,
for clarinet and strings, 1945. Nocturne, for cham-
ber orchestra, 1946 ; Serenade, 1946.
RECORDINGS: The Winter's Passed, VM-802
(Sprenkle; Eastman-Rochester Symphony Han-
son).
ABOUT : Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers.
Haas Barth 1897-
WANS BARTH wa$ born in Leipzig, Ger-
JL A many, on June 25, 1897.
"I recollect quite vividly," writes Barth,
"that my first attempt
at composition took
place when I was
four. When I arrived
at six, I had learned
to play one of Bee-
thoven's sonatas, and
composed a piece
called Romance,
which I still remem-
ber and can play even
now. I was awarded
a scholarship at the famous Leipzig Con-
servatory, and before I was twelve I had
written more than a dozen compositions,
many of which I played at recitals, and one
of which was published. When my father
reminded me that Brahms once told him he
tore up about half the pieces he wrote be-
cause he did not consider them good enough,
I rather regretted the publication.
"I was still quite young when I became
convinced that writing music solely in the
major and minor keys was too restricting for
the expression of much originality. I had,
of course, heard of Scriabin, but except for
two of his pieces for the left hand alone
in the standard idiom, I was not very fa-
miliar with his work, I knew nothing what-
ever of atonal music. One night, I woke up
about three o'clock and thought: Why write
in keys? Why not use the entire chromatic
scale? This idea absorbed me until dawn,
when I arose and wrote eight pages, using
the chromatic scale as a basis. This was my
first piano sonata, and within a month it
was completed. A few years later, I per-
formed it at Town Hall, New York, and it
received a rather good reception at the hands
of the critics.
"In quick succession came a Piano Con-
certo, in two movements, a number of
smaller piano compositions, and a song.
I was to have introduced the Piano Con-
certo with the State Symphony Orchestra
under Casella at Carnegie Hall, but one
month before the scheduled performance the
orchestra went into bankruptcy.
"Meanwhile, I had gone to Germany to
give some recitals and to study further with
several famous European teachers. While
there, I became acquainted with Busoni, who
became particularly excited by the subject of
the subdivision of tones, a problem he had
been pondering for some time.
."It was almost ten years later that I
interested Sigismund Klein in playing two
pieces written in quarter tones for two
pianos. One of these was a short sonata
of mine, the other a composition by Charles
Tves. The Society of Friends of Music
sponsored this concert, and I heartily agreed
with the critics who considered this experi-
ment a failure. It was too difficult to play
quarter tones smoothly on two instruments.
"Busoni had encouraged me to try build-
ing a quarter-tone piano. With the help of
George L. Weitz, a piano mechanic and a
18
genius in his line, I set to work in earnest
trying to figure out a way of building a
quarter-tone instrument. In 1928, Weitz
and I succeeded in constructing the first
portable quarter-tone piano. As soon as it
was finished, I wrote six solo pieces, as well
as a concerto for the quarter-tone piano and
strings, the first such concerto ever written.
"The Society of Friends of Music spon-
sored the debut of the piano and my new
pieces. Another concert was given in the
ballroom of the Plaza Hotel in New York
before an audience of distinguished musi-
cians. The reception was good, though the
feelings were mixed regarding the way quar-
ter-tone music affected them. Leopold Sto-
kowski came to my house and listened to
my music for nearly two hours. The re-
sult of this was that I made three appear-
ances with the Philadelphia Orchestra,
Stokowski conducting. After this, came
performances with other orchestras, two
concerts in Carnegie Hall, and a tour of the
United States and Havana featuring the
harpsichord, piano, and quarter-tone piano.
Unfortunately, assembling the new piano for
each performance was expensive and the de-
pression of the early thirties brought my
career to a seeming halt.
"At this period, I turned more assidu-
ously to composition, and wrote my first
symphony. Entitled the Prince of Peace
Symphony t it is based on the life of Jesus.
It can be performed in combination with
pantomime.
"Since 1936, I have written Ten Etudes,
for pianq^ and orchestra, a second sonata
for piano, two piano suites, and a second
symphony. In addition, I have done much
editing and arranging, and have brought out
a book of technical studies and other
pedagogical material.
"Rachmaninoff once said to me : 'It is
not easy to be a pianist, composer, and teach-
er. One of them is bound. to be neglected/
I have certainly felt the truth of his state-
ment. The works, mentioned above, have
been written at the sacrifice of my practicing
and playing the piano. The teaching I could
not afford to drop.
"I am still convinced that the day of
quarter-tone music will come. It may be
made popular, possibly, through the medium
of jazz and dance music."
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Quintet,
wtih quarter-tone piano, 1930. Operas Miragia,
comic opera, Op. 2, 1916, revised 1931. Orchestral
Music Concerto for Quarter-Tone Piano and
Orchestra, Op. 15, 1930; Suite, for quarter-tone
strings, brass, and kettledrums, 1930; First Sym-
phony, "Prince of Peace," Op. 25, 1940; Ten Etudes,
for piano and orchestra, Op. 26, 1942-44; Second
Symphony, 1948. Piano Music Two Piano Sonatas,
Op. 7 and 14, 1929, 1932-37; Two Piano Suites, Op.
20, 23, 1938, 1941.
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. This Modern Music.
Bela Bartok 1881-194S
TRI&LA BARTOK, foremost Hungarian
composer of our time, spent the last few
years of his life in this country and wrote
some of his most im-
portant works here ;
before he died in New
York City in 1945.
He was born in
Nagyszentmiklos,
Hungary, on March
25, 1881. His father
died when Bela was
only eight years old.
His mother took over
not only the financial
burden of the family, but also the musical
education of her son. In his ninth year,
Bela Bartok composed his first work, a set
of piano pieces ; one year after that, he made
his debut as pianist.
His mother transferred her home to
Pressburg in 1893 so that her son might find
richer opportunities for music-study and de-
velopment. Laszlo Erkel taught him the
piano, and Ernst von JDohnanyi ( four years
Bela's senior) became his friend and adviser.
Dohnanyi encouraged Bartok to enroll at the
Liszt Academy in Budapest. From 1899 to
1903, Bartok was a student at the Academy,
a pupil of Thoman and Koessler, in a class
that also included Zoltan Kodaly. He was
one of the most brilliant students of the
Academy in both composition and piano. He
composed a great deal; his most ambitious
work of this period was a patriotic sym-
phony, Kossutk, strongly derivative from
the tone poems of Liszt and Richard Strauss.
For a few years of appalling poverty,
Bartok played the piano professionally, did
some teaching, and made musical arrange-
ments. In 1907, he was engaged as profes-
sor of the piano at the Liszt Academy.
Bart6k: bar-tok'
Bartok 19
He was first drawn to Hungarian folk
music in 1905. The story goes that he heard
a servant girl at work singing a passionate
and unusual melody, and was thus first made
aware that a treasure lay hidden in the un-
written folk music of his native land. In
1905, he made his first journey throughout
Hungary in search of folk songs. This
quest proved so fruitful that he continued
his researches for the next eight years, fre-
quently in the company of Kodaly, writing
down music, making phonograph records,
collecting more than six thousand melodies.
This fabulous treasure, dug out of obscurity
by Bartok's patient searching, revealed the
fact that authentic Hungarian music was far
different from the sentimental tunes made
popular by Liszt and Brahms; that it was,
indeed, savage, passionate, even barbaric,
frequently derived from old ecclesiastical
modes.
Inevitably, this folk art had a volcanic
effect on Bartok's own music. In his youth,
he had been a disciple of Brahms; some-
what later, he echoed the style of Richard
Strauss and Liszt. Now he evolved his own
style, a style which derived its character and
personality from the folk songs of Hungary.
"Bartok," wrote Lawrence Oilman, "steeped
his own compositions in the somberaess and
wildness and humor of this ancient, authen-
tic music of the Hungarian peasantry. . . .
Thus the past of his nation lives again in
Bartok, amazingly sophisticated and meta-
morphosed, but charged with its old power
and raciness and savor."
As Bartok's musical style became increas-
ingly involved, the music public turned
sharply away from it: Bartok' s struggle for
recognition was long and bitter. Each new
Bartok work, from the Two Portraits for
orchestra and First String Quartet to the
ballet, The Wooden Prince, was received
with antagonism and intolerance. The
Wooden Prince, however, was moderately
successful, and so was an opera, Bluebeard's
Castle.
Slowly, gradually, Bartok won the re-
spect and tribute of the world of music,
though even up to the time of his death he
never enjoyed that frequency of perform-
ances that a composer of his formidable
stature deserved. As his style became more
and more incisive and compressed, as his
music gained in intensity and acerbity, his
works his string quartets, his first two
concertos for piano and orchestra, the rhap-
sodies, the Dance Suite alienated a great
part of the listening public, who found this
art too cerebral, too severe. Oilman char-
acterized Bartok well when he described
him as "acrid, powerful, intransigent: the
musician of darkly passionate imagination,
austerely sensuous, ruthlessly logical, a
cerebral rhapsodist; a tone-poet who is both
an uncompromising modernist and the resur-
rector of an ancient past." A composer with
such traits was not likely to be the darling
of a large public.
For many years, Bartok traveled ex-
tensively as pianist in performances of his
music. His first trip to the United States
was made in 1927. In 1940, the war in
Europe brought him once again to this
country. For a while, he was a visiting pro-
fessor at Columbia University.
The last years of his life were unhappy.
He was in a foreign land, and he never
quite acclimatized himself to it. He was in
financial straits. Besides, he was a sick man ;
for the last three years of his life, he ran a
fever almost continuously. Despite his de-
jection and poor health, he was able to com-
pose a great deal. In 1943, he completed
the Concerto for Orchestra, which had been
commissioned by the Koussevitzky Founda-
tion. A work of unusual melodic vitality
and full of seductive rhythms, it hardly be-
trayed the state of mind in which the com-
poser wrote this music; in many respects,
it is one of the most optimistic of Bartok's
works.
His last work was the Third Concerto
for Piano and Orchestra. His son, on leave
from the Navy, sat by his bedside to rule
out the score paper on which Bartok wrote
his music. Bartok looked upon this work
as his last spiritual will and testament to
the world; he dedicated it to his wife, Ditta
Psztory Bartok. On the last bar of his
sketch copy he wrote in the Hungarian word
vege "the end" the first time he had ever
done this. Obviously, Bartok knew that his
life work was over.
"Though the composer was seriously ill,"
wrote one reviewer about this concerto, "the
20 Bauer
vigor of his intellect was apparently un-
diminished. His concerto moves from be-
ginning to end with undeviating assurance.
And there is most affecting of all a
serenity in the slow movement that could
only be the work of a man who had risen
above the pains of the flesh."
He died of leukemia on September 26,
1945. By a curious irony, Bartok was to
win in death that general recognition he had
never quite known in life. Within a few
months of his death, there were forty-eight
major orchestral performances of his works,
twenty-five of them in the months of Janu-
ary and February 1946 alone. Several of
his works received ovations.
He was a shy, little man, who hated all
forms of publicity, detested talking about
himself or his music, fled from the lime-
light. He lived exclusively for music, and,
where music was concerned, his integrity
was uncompromising. His main hobby was
collecting, at first insects, then unusual
species of flowers, and later ethnographical
curiosities.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Second
String Quartet, Op. 17, 1917; First Sonata for
Violin and Piano, 1921; Second Sonata for Violin
and Piano, 1922; Third String Quartet, 1927; Fourth
String Quartet, 1928; Twenty-four Duos for Two
Violins, 1933; Fifth String Quartet, 1934; Con-
trasts, for violin, clarinet, and piano, 1940; Sonata
for Violin and Piano, 1943. Choral Music Hun-
garian Folksongs, 1912; Cantata Prof ana, 1930.
Orchestral Music Two Portraits, Op. 5, 1907;
Dance Suite, 1923 ; First Concerto for Piano and
Orchestra, 1926; Five Hungarian Folksongs, 1927;
Two Hungarian Folksongs, 1928; First Rhapsody
for Violin and Orchestra, 1928; Second Rhapsody
for Violin and Orchestra, 1929; Second Concerto
for Piano and Orchestra, 1931 ; Music for Strings,
Percussion, and Celesta, 1935; Concerto for Violin
and Orchestra, 1938; Rhapsody for Violin, Clarinet,
and Orchestra, 1939; Divertimento, 1939; Concerto
for Orchestra, 1943; Third Concerto for Piano and
Orchestra, 1945.
RECORDINGS: Concerto for Violin and Orches-
tra, VM-1120 (Menuhin; Dallas Symphony
Dorati) ; Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra,
CM-674 (Sandor; Philadelphia Orchestra Or-,
mandy). Contrasts, CM-X178 (Szigeti; Bartok;
Goodman) ; Mikrokosmos, CM-455 (Bartok)
Quartet No. 1, VM-286 (ProArte) ; Quartet No. 2,
VM-320 (Budapest) ; Quartet No. 4, CHS-8 (Guilet
String Quartet); Rhapsody No. 1, C-11410D
(Szigeti; .Bartok); Violin Sonata, No. 2, CHS-12
(Spivakovsky; Balsam).
ABOUT: Gray, C. A Survey of Contemporary
Music; Harasztt, E. Bela Bartok: His Life and
Work; Salazar, A. Music in Our Time; Etude
February 1941 ; Modem Music Winter 1946; Musi-
cal Quarterly January 1946.
Marion Bauer 1887
T WAS bora in Walla Walla, Washing-
ton/' writes Marion Bauer, "on August
15, 1887, the youngest of seven children,
only four of whom
were living when I
came into the world.
My parents were
French. My mother
was a linguist and a
scholar, who spent
most of her life with
her books. But it was
from my father that
I inherited rny talent
and love for music.
He had a beautiful natural tenor voice and
had the ability to play any of the instru-
ments- of the military band.
"After my father's death, in 1890, the
family moved to Portland, Oregon. I re-
ceived my schooling in the public schools of
Portland and later at St. Helen's Hall, where
for a few years my mother, who was a gifted
linguist, taught. I was graduated from the
Hall before I was sixteen. It was some-
what of a problem to decide what career I
should follow, for I showed aptness for
drawing, for teaching and for writing, as
well as for music. As soon as my school
days were over, however, I followed the
path of least resistance and went to New
York where I began a serious study of mu-
sic, first with my sister, and then with Henry
Holden Huss, who taught me piano and
harmony. The gift for musical composition
did not assert itself until after I had begun
my theoretical studies in New York. I had
improvised melodies from the time I was a
little girl, but always complained that I
didn't know what to do with my left hand !
"Almost coincidental with my first har-
mony lessons, I began writing songs, I was
having trouble with my eyes and was mak-
ing daily visits to the oculist. While waiting
to be admitted to his office one morning, I
found in a magazine a poem by Gouverneur
Morris, and on a piece of scrap paper I
scratched a staff and composed my first
song. This was followed by two others, one
of which, Bourdillon's Light, was published
by the John Church Co. and was sung by
Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heiiik in 1911.
Bauer 21
"Raoul Pugno, the famous French violin-
ist, was touring America in 1906, and he had
brought his wife, and his daughter Renee,
to this country with him. Renee and I be-
came great friends and I was asked to teach
her English. We made such progress that
when it came time for the family to return
to France, Mme. Pugno invited me to visit
them in their country home at Gargenville
(Seine et Oise) to continue Renee's English
lessons and to have piano lessons with M.
Pugno. He had seen my first little attempts
at composition and was very encouraging,
telling my sister that he would arrange for
lessons in harmony, which he did. I had
my own little piano and spent my mornings,
after a half -hour walk, through the beautiful
estate, in practice. My harmony teacher was
Nadia Boulanger. I had interesting lessons
with Pugno, although I was not technically
on a par with his other pupils, one of whom
was Germaine Schnitzer.
"When I went back to New York, I
taught theory and piano, and studied with
Eugene Heffley. Mr. Heffley advised me to
devote my time and attention to composing
and to the study of composition, as he con-
sidered that my real musical talent was crea-
tive. Until the time of his death, in July
1925, he guided my musical studies, gave my
compositions invaluable criticisms, directed
the development of my musical taste, advised
me as to what books, musical arid otherwise,
to read, stimulated my interest in contempo-
rary music, and gave me opportunity to
satisfy my desire to understand it.
"It was after my return from France,
too, that I met Walter Henry Rothwell, who
had come to America as conductor of Henry
Savage's production in English of Wagner's
Parsifal, and who later became conductor of
the St. Paul Orchestra. Rothwell was a fre-
quent visitor to our New York home. He
found some sketches of mine lying on the
piano and immediately became interested in
my work and advised my sister to send me
to Germany for intensive study. As a result
of his advice, I spent a year (1910-11) in
Berlin, studying counterpoint and musical
form with Dr. Paul Ertel, and writing a
number of songs which were published in
1912 by Arthur P. Schmidt of Boston with
whom I signed a seven-year contract. When
the St. Paul Orchestra disbanded, due to war
conditions, Rothwell established himself in
New York, and I became his first composi-
tion pupil. I received some of my most val-
uable training during these years of war, be-
fore he was called to Los Angeles to direct
the Philharmonic Orchestra.
"In 1921, a small group of young Ameri-
can composers founded the American Music
Guild. Our object was to learn each other's
music and to present worthy works by other
American composers to the New York public.
This organization was short-lived because of
lack of funds, but it existed long enough
to accomplish its purpose and to open the
way for other societies with similar aims,
such as the International Music Guild and
the League of Composers.
"As a member of the American Music
Guild, I had the opportunity to measure my
powers and my limitations with those of my
colleagues, and to profit by the constructive
criticism my works received at their hands.
The result was a period of study in Europe.
This time I decided that in Paris I would
find the kind of work and musical environ-
ment for which I was seeking, and I went
abroad in May 1923, remaining in France
until January 1926, except for brief vacations
at home. These were some of the richest
years in my life from the standpoint of study
and development. I studied fugue with
Andre Gedalge for a season, and met many
of the composers and musicians in prom-
inence at the time,
"Before I had been in New York a week,
after my return from Europe, I was made
a member of the Executive Board of the
League, of Composers, and of the teaching
staff of New York University in the depart-
ment of music.. In 1927, I was made an
assistant professor at New York University
and, in 1930, when Albert Stoessel resigned
as head of the department, I became acting
head for a season, with a promotion to asso-
ciate professor/'
In 1932, Miss Bauer was invited by Whit-
man College in Walla Walla, Washington,
to visit her birthplac* and to receive an
honorary master's degree. Fifty years be-
fore, her mother had been professor of lan-
guages at Whitman.
Marion Bauer has not confined her teach-
ing exclusively to New York University.
Since 1935, she has taught in the summer
22 Becker
schools of Mills College (California) ; the
Carnegie Institute of Technology at Pitts-
burgh; the Cincinnati Conservatory of Mu-
sic ; the Teachers College of Columbia Uni-
versity; and the Juilliard Summer School.
For many years she has delivered a series of
annual lectures in contemporary trends in
music at Chautauqua. After 1943, she be-
came a regular member of the faculty of the
Institute of Musical Art of the Juilliard
School in New York, remaining at the Juil-
liard when the Institute went out of exist-
ence.
Nor have these years seen a diminution
in her writing of musical compositions. She
has written several important chamber
works: the Sonata for Viola and Piano (in-
troduced in 1936 by Zoltan Kurthy and
Frank Sheridan at a concert of the League
of Composers) ; the Concertino, for oboe,
clarinet, and string quartet (commissioned
by the League of Composers and introduced
in 1940 over the Columbia Broadcasting Sys-
tem) ; and the Trio Sonata, for flute, 'cello,
and piano. Perhaps her most important
writing has been in the field of chamber
music.
Also in the larger form are a choral
work with orchestral accompaniment called
China (text by Boris Todrin), successfully
introduced at the Worcester Festival on Oc-
tober 12, 1945, and the Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra, first played in May 1943, at
the High School o-f Music and Art in New
York and published as the American Youth
Concerto. In her larger works she has what
one critic called a ' 'masculine stride"; her
style here is vigorous, muscular, and modem.
In the field of the song she has shown
a great variety of style and mood, a con-
summate craftsmanship, and a sensitive ca-
pacity to transfer the atmosphere and feeling
of a poem into tones. Among her most
successful songs is a set of four to texts
by John Gould Fletcher which were sung
by Helen traubel on April 24, 1936.
Miss Bauer has collaborated with Ethel
Peyser on two books,. How- Music Grew and
Music Through the Ages. She is also the
author of Twentieth Century Music and
Musical Questions and Quizzes, and has been
a contributor to musical magazines and the
International Cyclopedia of Music and Mu-
sicians,
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music First
Violin Sonata, 1921 ; String Quartet, Op. 20, 1925 ;
Fantasia quasi una sonata, for violin and piano,
Op. 18, 1928; Duo for Oboe and Clarinet, Op. 25,
1932; Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 23, 1935;
Five Greek Lyrics, for flute, Op. 29, 1938; Sonatina
for Oboe and Piano, Op. 32-A, 1939; Concertino
for Oboe, Clarinet, and String Quartet, Op. 32-B,
1940; Trio-Sonata, for flute, 'cello, and piano. 1944;
Prelude and Fugue, for flute and piano, Op. 43,
1947. Choral Music Three Noels, Op. 22, 1929;
Here at High Morning, Op. 27, 1931; The Thinker,
Op. 35, 1938; A Garden is a Lovesome Thing
(Thomas Browne) Op. 28, 1938; China (Boris
Todrin) Op. 38, 1944; At the New Year (Kenneth
Patchen) Op. 42, 1947. Orchestral MusicSun
Splendor, Op. 19, 1934; A Lament, Op. 20. 1935;
Symphonic Suite, Op. 34, 1940; Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra, Op. 36, 1943. Piano Music Sun
Splendor, Op. 19, 1926; Four Piano Pieces, Op. 21,
1930; Two Aquarelles, Op. 39, No. 1 and 2, 1944,
1945.
RECORDINGS: White Birches, VM-764 (Beh-
rend) .
ABOUT : Cobbett, W. W. Cyclopedic Survey of
Chamber Music; Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers ; Upton, W. T. Art-Song* in America.
John. J. Becker 1886-
JOHN J. BECKER was born In Hender-
son, Kentucky, on January 22, 1886. He
was educated at the Evansville, (Indiana)
High School, the
Kruger Conservatory
in Cincinnati, and at
the Wisconsin Con-
servatory in Milwau-
kee where he was a
pupil of Dr. Wilhelm
Middelschulte of the
Notre Dame Univer-
sity, an outstanding
authority on counter-
point and Bach. With
the collaboration of
Becker did extensive research in the field of
early Catholic composers before the time of
Bach, studying their influence on Bach and
the succeeding generations. He also inter-
ested himself vitally in Germanic culture:
his doctoral thesis was a comparative study
of the literature and music of romantic
Germany.
He has been a veritable dynamo of ener-
gy. He has lectured extensively, held many
seminars in esthetics, and occupied many
teaching posts, including a directorship of
music at Notre Dame University; he has
also been chairman of the fine arts division
Dr. Middelschulte,
Bennett 23
of St. Thomas College in St. Paul, Minne-
sota and, since 1943, professor of music and
composer-in-residence at Barat College, Lake
Forest, Illinois, He has directed choral
groups and orchestras in the Midwest. He
has been associate editor of the New Music
Quarterly and the New Music Editions, and,
for a period, was State Director of the
Federal Music Projects in Minnesota. With
Ives, Ruggles, Cowell, and several others,
he was an active member of the Pan Ameri-
can Association of Composers. He was di-
rector for western United States of this As-
sociation, and through its agency conducted
concerts of modern American music in the
West Midwest, and North, He has written
extensively on music, and is now at work
on a comprehensive philosophy of music, the
material for which he has been assembling
for twenty years. He has also been compos-
ing works in many different forms.
He has explained that his roots as a com-
poser rest in the sixteenth century. Indeed,
in his music he combines the harmonic and
contrapuntal resources of the great choral
music of the distant past, with the spirit of
our own times. He is a combination of the
very old, and the very new; and through
this combination he has arrived at an indi-
viduality of style which is easily indentifi-
able. Here is how Henry Cowell has de-
scribed his music: "Becker . . . bases his
style on the art of the great early vocal poly-
phonists, de Lassus, Palestrina, Vittoria,
etc. Using their breadth and religious feel-
ing, he has poured his own modern mate-
rials into the old polyphonic forms. Utiliz-
ing these as a basis, he has also created new
orchestral forms. Becker works towards a
difficult ideal : the perfection of the ancient
contrapuntist's style, together with the use
of his own harmonies and melodies. His
achievements place him among the most sig-
nificant of the Anglo-Saxon modern com-
posers." Arthur Cohn has written that
Becker is one of the few moderns "who have
advanced the science of orchestration beyond
the early masters."
In summing; up his esthetic philosophy,
Becker says: 'The duty of every creative
artist is clear. There must be no compro-
mise with mediocrity. There must be a con-
stant striving for perfection. All resources
of expression must be mastered, but this is
not enough. The composer must add new
resources, evolve new techniques, develop
new sound patterns, new harmonies, new
contrapuntal procedures, new musical ideals,
new approaches to orchestral writing, and
he must mold them into new forms of
beauty. Accomplishing this, he adds new
formulae to the ever-changing laws of artis-
tic creation."
Becker is interested in philosophy, esthet-
ics, and literature. His hobby is collecting
books, particularly different translations of
Goethe's Faust and Dante's Divine Comedy.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber MusicHeine
Song Cycle, 1924; Soundpieces, for string quartet,
and for string quintet, No. 3-6, 1936 1937, 1938,
1940; Quartet for Piano and Strings, 1937; String
Quartet, 1937 Choral Music Out of the Cradle
Endlessly Rocking, 1929; Missa Symphonica, 1933;
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, for narrator and
high-school chorus, 1940; Mass, 1944; Moments
from the Passion, 1945. Orchestral Music Sym-
phony No. 1, 1912; Symphony No. 2, 1920; Sym-
phony No. 3, "Symphonia Brevis," 1929; Concerto
Arabesque, for piano and orchestra, 1930 ; Con-
certino Pastorale, for two flutes and orchestra, 1933 ;
Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, 1933; Sound-
pieces, for strings, No. 1-B, 2-B, and 4-B, 1933;
Prelude to Shakespeare, 1935 ; Concerto for Viola
and Orchestra, 1937; Concerto Satirico, for piano
and orchestra, 1938; Symphony No. 4, "Dramatic
Episodes," 1938; When the Willow Nods, suite,
1939; Dances from Antigone, 1940; Rain Down
Death, suite, 1940; Symphony No. 5, "Homage to
Mozart," 1943; Symphony No. 6, based on Kreym-
borg's Ballad of Fallen France and Lincoln's
Gettysburg Address, 1942; Symphony No, 7, based
on the Sermon on the Mount, 1946.
RECORDINGS: Credo, NMR-1014 (Greek By-
zantine Chorus Vriondes).
ABOUT: John Becker: American Composer, a
brochure published by Barat College ; Howard,
J. T. Our Contemporary Composers; Southern
Literary Messenger October 1939.
Robert Russell Bennett 1894-
JJOBERT RUSSELL BENNETT was
born in Kansas City, -Missouri, on June
15, 1894. He has provided the following
description of his early life: "Ill-health as
a matter of fact, infantile paralysis caused
a shift to the country when I was six. There
nine years were passed learning piano from
my mother, and violin, trumpet, and subse-
quently many other instruments from my
father., Father had a band and orchestra and
since some member was usually absent, and
the missing member had to be replaced, I
was usually called upon as replacement, no
matter what the instrument. With improved
24 Bennett
health, I began to study harmony in Kansas
City with Carl Busch, then conductor of the
Kansas City Symphony Orchestra. During
the next four years, a few small compositions
of mine were published by Theodore Presser
in Philadelphia.
"In 1916, possessed of savings to the
amount of about two hundred dollars, a
move to New York was accomplished
mostly on nerve. There ensued a period
when I was copyist for G. Schirmer, ar-
ranger of whatever music I could find to
arrange, and then a year in the War. On
my return from the army, in December 1919,
I was married.
"Not long after, I began a quiet but lu-
crative career as an orchestrator of musical-
comedy scores in New York, which enabled
us to bundle up our savings and sail for
Paris again, mostly on nerve. In Paris, I
studied with Nadia Boulanger and began
real work as a composer this, rather against
my original intention, as I was and am con-
vinced that too much
music is written, and
I was more anxious at
the time to do con-
ducting and possibly
critical work than
composing. European
musicians, however,
advised me to write
music. In 1927, a
Guggenheim Fellow-
ship was won, and, a
year later, renewed. With this help, the Euro-
pean stay was extended sufficiently to account
for a large list of works."
Bennett first came to the notice of the
music world when, in 1926-27, his Symphony
won honorable mention in a contest con-
ducted by Musical America, Two and a half
years later, he was the winner of two RCA
symphonic awards, for two different orches-
tral works: Sights and Sounds, and the now
well known symphony, Abraham Lincoln.
Attention focused on him, he found leading
orchestras and musical organizations recep-
tive to his works. On October 24, 1931, the
Abraham Lincoln Symphony was introduced
by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Sto-
kowski. Lawrence Gilman referred to this
score as "remarkable 35 in construction and
content. It is in four movements, in each of
which (in the composer's own explanation)
he has "used two outstanding attributes of
Lincoln's character as the inspiration for the
themes." The first movement calls forth the
atmosphere and backgrounds of Lincoln's
home and is contrasted by an elegiac subject
suggestive of the man's sadness. The slow
movement speaks of "the sentiment of young
America of that day," while in the scherzo
(third movement) Lincoln's weakness for
pranks and general devilment is portrayed.
The last movement was intended by the com-
poser as a proclamation of what "I felt to
be a triumph of a great soul, rich, unbending,
inevitable."
Though a work like this symphony is
catholic in style and classical in approach,
other pieces of this period ingeniously intro-
duce the jazz idiom into serious musical
forms in a novel and intriguing way. In
this category belong the March, for two pi-
anos and orchestra, introduced on July 19,
1930 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic con-
ducted by Karl Krueger; the Variations on
a Theme of Jerome Kern, first performed
by the New York Chamber Orchestra, Ber-
nard Herrmann conducting, at Town Hall,
New York, on December 3, 1933; and the
Concerto Grosso for dance band and sym-
phony orchestra, the premiere of which took
place at the Eastman Theater, Rochester,
Howard Hanson conducting, on December
9, 1932.
Subsequent major works in' the more am-
bitious forms fulfilled the rich promises of
the Abraham Lincoln Symphony and placed
Bennett among the more important com-
posers of our time. On April 8, 1935, his
opera Maria Malibran, with text by Robert
A. Simon, was introduced by the opera de-
partment of the Juilliard School of Music,
Albert Stoessel conducting. (In 1944, Ben-
nett wrote a second operatic work, this time
in one act, entitled The Enchanted Kiss, The
libretto by Robert A. Simon was based on a
story of O. Henry.) The Philadelphia Or-
chestra under Iturbi introduced Adagio Era-
ica, written "to the memory of a soldier,"
on April '25, 1935. The Concerto for Violin
and Orchestra was performed by Joseph
Coleman and the WOR Symphony Orches-
tra on December 26, 1941 over the Mutual
network. Nocturne and Appassionata, for
piano and orchestra, was played by the Phil-
Bennett 25
adelphia Orchestra under Saul Caston, with
Milton Kaye as soloist.
Other works were written as a result of
important commissions: principally, Holly-
wood, commissioned by the League of Com-
posers and first performed by the NBC Sym-
phony under Frank Black on November 15,
1936 over the network of NBC; and the
Eight Etudes, for symphony orchestra, or-
dered by the Columbia Broadcasting System,
and introduced over that network by the
Columbia Broadcasting System Orchestra,
Howard Barlow conducting, on July 17,
1938.
Generally speaking, Bennett's approach is
that of a serious musician, with a consum-
mate command of his technique, a fine re-
spect for form, and an approach to his
esthetic problems that reveals a sound clas-
sicist. At times, however, he betrays an ir-
repressible bent for the witty and the satiric,
even in works not couched in the jazz idiom.
In such works, as one writer said, "he covers
every feeling with a bon mot" as if "ad-
dressing himself mainly to the smart set."
Such a work is the Symphony in D, sub-
titled "For the Dodgers/' in which the vaga-
ries of a "notorious" baseball team are
mockingly reproduced in tones. The score
calls for a narrator who impersonates "Red"
Barber, the famous radio sports announcer.
This symphony, first performed by the New
York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra
under Hans Wilhelm Steinberg, on August
3, 1941, has enjoyed many successful per-
formances.
Bennett's attempt to give musical inter-
pretation to baseball is also in evidence in his
Eight Etudes. This work, comprising eight
studies in orchestral balance, and sonority,
is dedicated to eight different people; and
the fourth etude "pictures the profound art
of baseball pitching, often referred to as
a 'classic' when the pitcher wins/' and is
dedicated to Carl Hubbell.
Bennett has been equally active in the
field of light music. In Tin Pan Alley, he is
known as one of the most adroit orchestra-
tors in the business. Most of the famous
musical comedies by Gershwin, Porter, and
Jerome Kern were orchestrated by him, as
well as innumerable successes over a period
of some twenty years, including such Broad-
way triumphs as Oklahoma!, Bloomer Girl,
and Carmen Jones.
"Although I make my living at commer-
cial music/' writes Bennett, "I am convinced
that the contribution of our lighter com-
posers, authors of what may become Amer-
ican folk songs, is very small. I believe in
the deeper thoughts of our better composers
to the point of trusting great music to take
care of itself against any onslaught of criti-
cism, public reaction, and financial gain for
the less cultured (although in many cases
equally gifted) writers."
Of his work in the serious field, he says :
"I have never made an attempt to exploit
my original music; such publications and
performances as have taken place were the
result of me interest of my friendly con-
temporaries. Were it not for the restrictions
of some of the performing rights societies
that I belong to, the whole world could have
anything I've written in manuscript, plus my
hope that the world will approach my seri-
ous efforts in the same spirit that I do."
Bennett has been intimately associated
with radio work. In 1941, he conducted
Russell Bennett's Notebook over the Mutual
network, for which program he composed
many entertaining and novel features. In
1942, he was given the Award of Merit by
the National Association for American Com-
posers and Conductors - because of this pro-
gram. On December 8, 1944, Bennett
launched a new weekly program; a unique
feature of this series was a different orches-
tral fantasy each week based on American
folk tunes.
Of his activities outside of music, Ben-
nett confesses a passion for baseball, a love
for tennis, and a strange predilection for
trying to figure out winners in horse races
without ever making a single bet on his
choices.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Chamber Music Sonata
for Violin and Piano, 1927 ; Toy Symphony, for five
woodwinds, 1928; Water Music, for string quartet,
1937; Hexapoda, for violin and piano, 1940; Five
Improvisations, for trio, 1946; Sonatine, for So-
prano and harp, 1947; Six Souvenirs, for two
flutes and piano, 1948. Choral MusicTheme and
Variations : About a Lorelei, 1929 ; Aux quatre
coins de Paris, 1929. Operas Maria Malibran
1935; The Enchanted Kiss, 1944. Orchestral Music
Charleston Rhapsody, 1926: Sights and Sounds,
1929; Abraham Lincoln Symphony, 1929; March,
for two pianos and orchestra, 1930; American
Ballade, fantasia on Stephen Foster melodies, 1932;
Adagio Eroica, 1933; Concerto Grosso, for orches-
26 Berezowsky
tra and small band, 1933; Variations on a Theme
by Jerome Kern, 1934; Hollywood, 1936; Eight
Etudes, 1938; Symphony in D, "For the Dodgers,"
1941 ; Nocturne and Appassionata, for piano and
orchestra, 1941 ; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra,
1941 ; Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, a symphonic pic-
ture, 1943. The Four Freedoms, symphony, 1943;
Classic Serenade, for string orchestra, 1945; Over-
ture to an Imaginary Drama, 1945 ; A Dry Weather
Legend, 1946; Symphony, 1946; Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra in B Minor, 1948. Piano Music
Vu, etudes, 1928; Two Sonatinas, 1941, 1944; Tema
sporca con variazoni, 1946.
RECORDINGS: Hexapoda, D-454 (Heifetz) ;
Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, CM-572 (Pittsburgh
Symphony Reiner) .
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers; New York Herald Tribune October 11,
1931; New York Times November 15, 1942.
Nicoiai Berezowsky 1900-
J^TICOLAI BEREZOWSKY was born in
St. Petersburg, Russia, on May 17,
1900. His musical education was begun at
an early age. In his
eighth year he was
enrolled at the Im-
perial Capella of St.
Petersburg, where he
became solo soprano
of the choir. He was
also taught the violin.
After his thirteenth
birthday, he earned
pocket money by
playing in orchestras
during his summer vacations. In 1917, he
was graduated from the Capella with high
honors. For two years he was concert-
master at the National Opera at Saratov.
The provincial life there smothered him, but
the authorities refused to permit him to
abandon that post. With the aid of a bor-
rowed passport, and a disguise as a woman,
he escaped from Saratov, went to Moscow,
and there, abandoning his disguise, became
violinist in the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre.
The authorities soon caught up with hirruand
put him in prison. But for the intervention
of the committee of the Bolshoi Theatre he
might have been shot As it was, he was
given permission to remain in Moscow.
In 1920, he was sent by the Soviet Com-
mission of Education, together with several
other musicians, to southern Russia. For
each concert during this tour he was paid
Bcrezowski: be-re-zuv'ske
Maurice Goldberg
with butter and sugar; these he exchanged
for gold pieces. When he had accumulated
about fourteen dollars in gold, he decided to
make his escape out of Russia. It took him
four months to make the voyage from Rus-
sia to Poland on foot. In Poland, however,
he was imprisoned, but through the agency
of the Near East Relief Society which com-
municated with his sister in the United
States and received money from her he
was able to make his way to this country.
He arrived in New York City in Sep-
tember of 1922, and soon afterwards was
given a job as violinist in the orchestra of
the Capitol Theatre, then directed by Eugene
Ormandy. At the 'same time, he applied at
the Juilliard Graduate School of Music for
scholarships in violin-playing and composi-
tion. Awarded these, he became a pupil of
Rubin Goldmark and Paul Kochanski. In
October 1923 still continuing his studies at
the Juilliard he was appointed a member
of the New York Philharmonic's violin
section.
In 1926, Berezowsky first attracted atten-
tion as composer with his Theme and Varia-
tions, a sextet for strings, clarinet, and pi-
ano, performed at the Chamber Music Fes-
tival in Washington, D. C, sponsored by
Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. A work
of technical assurance, fluent in its melodic
and harmonic writing, it showed its author
to be possessed of a strong creative gift. His
Hebrew Suite was introduced by the New
York Philharmonic under Willem Mengel-
berg in 1929, further emphasizing his talent.
This work was striking not only for its in-
triguingly exotic colors and sensuous tex-
tures, but also for the unusual success with
which a Greek Catholic was able to capture
the spirit of authentic Hebraic lore.
In 1929, encouraged by many prominent
musicians including Mengelberg, Berezow-
sky resigned from the New York Philhar-
monic to devote himself to composition. The
next two years he spent in Europe, conduct-
ing some of its orchestras in his works.
Perhaps the most important of his music to
be introduced at this time was his Violin
Concerto, performed by Carl Flesch with
Berezowsky conducting the Dresden Phil-
harmonic Orchestra. This concerto was re-
vived in 1944 in New York when it scored
an impressive success.
Berger 27
His F,irst Symphony was first performed
by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, directed
by the composer on March 16, 1931. Philip
Hale found it to be "pleasing, melodious,
without being lush." Hale added further:
"Mr. Berezowsky had something to say that
was worth while, and often said it effec-
tively." In 1932, Berezowsky's Sinfonietta
was awarded a prize in a contest con-
ducted by the National Broadcasting Com-
pany. .Other major works proved his con-
tinued growth and fruition as a composer
particularly his symphonies. The second
was performed by the Boston Symphony
Orchestra under Koussevitzky on February
16, 1934; the third, by the Rochester Phil-
harmonic under Iturbi in 1937; the fourth,
commissioned by the Koussevitzky Founda-
tion, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
under Koussevitzky in 1943.
Berezowsky 's music is sound structur-
ally, modern in spirit, generally pleasing in
melodic content, and full of good spirits. In
his best works he has an irrepressible ebulli-
ence, a driving energy that gives his music a
zest and sparkle. One critic said that his
Christmas Festival Overture (introduced by
the New York Philharmonic under Howard
Barlow in December 1943), "sparkled and
blazed with gay colors like a tree brilliant
with lights"; another critic described his
Soldier on the Town (first performance by
the New York Philharmonic under Rodzin-
ski in 1943) as "bright and jaunty, with crisp
and witty orchestration." Even in his sym-
phonies, his good humor and energy are fre-
quently prevalent.
From 1935 to 1940, Berezowsky was a
member of the Coolidge Quartet of the Li-
brary of Congress. He has also been active
as a conductor, and was assistant conductor
at CBS from 1932 to 1936, returning in 1941
for another conductorial assignment. He has
been a guest conductor of most major
American orchestras, and one of his proud-
est achievements with the baton is his
abridged version of Moussorgsky's Boris
Godounoff, which he recorded for Victor.
In 1944, Berezowsky received an award
from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters in recognition "of his distinguished
position in American music/' In 1948 he
received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Chamber Music Suite for
Woodwinds, Op. 11, 1930; Duo for Clarinet and
Viola, Op. 15, 1931; Woodwind Quintet, Op. 22,
1941 ; Music for Seven Brass Instruments, Op. 24,
1939 ; String Sextet, Op. 26, 1940. Choral Music
Bowdoin Hymn, 1944; Gilgamesh, cantata, 1946.
Operas Prince Batrak, 1920; Ship South, 1941.
Orchestral Music Hebrew Suite, Op. 3, 1929; Sym-
phony No. 1, Op. 12, 1929; Concerto for Violin and
Orchestra, Op. 14, 1931; Sinfonietta, Op. 17, 1931;
Symphony No. 2, Op. 18, 1933; Concerto for
Violoncello and Orchestra, Op. 19, 1935; Symphony
No. 3, Op. 21, 1937; Toccata, Variations and Finale,
for* string quartet, Op. 23, 1938 ; Introduction and
Walt2, Op. 25, 1939; Concerto for Viola and
Orchestra, Op. 28, 1941 ; Concerto for Clarinet and
Orchestra, Op. 29, 1941 ; Symphony No. 4, Op. 27,
1943; Soldier on the Town, Op. 30, No. 3, 1943;
Christmas Festival Overture, 1943; Concerto for
Harp and Orchestra, Op. 31, 1945; Passacaglia for
Theremin and Orchestra, 1947.
RECORDINGS: String Quartet No. 1, VM-624
(Coolidge) ; Suite for Woodwinds, NMQR
(Barrere Ensemble).
ABOUT : Berezowsky, A. Duet with Nicky.
Arthur V. Berger 1912-
A RTHUR VICTOR BERGER was born
^ in New York City on May 15, 1912.'
His family did not acquire a piano until he
was nine years old,
but from that time on
he derived his great-
est pleasure in impro-
vising and picking
out familiar frag-
ments on the key-
board. Not until sev-
eral years later did he
receive any formal
training; most of his
musical knowledge
up to the time of his sixteenth year was self-
acquired from books on music and scores.
Despite his inadequate preparation, he soon
began writing little pieces for the piano, and
a conventional sonata.
When he decided in favor of a musical
career, he found himself attracted more to-
wards the peripheral phases: teaching and
criticism, principally. After two, years of
academic training at the College of the City
of New York, he enrolled in the School of
Music Education at New York University
in order to qualify himself as a^tcacher in
secondary schools. There he met jfcCQme
Moross and Bernard Herrmann, who nMv
drifted there for the same reason. The three
young men were thrown together by a com-
28 Berger
mon militant interest in the avant-garde
musical trends, in which enthusiasm they
were not discouraged by the head of the
theory department, Vincent Jones.
Through Moross and Herrmann, Berger
came into a circle of young creative musi-
cians headed by Aaron Copland, later known
in modern-music circles in New York as the
Young Composers Group. About this time,
Berger's composing took a rather atonal
turn, but few people, outside of his first
composition teacher, Vincent Jones, saw his
music, about which he was rather secretive.
To his musical colleagues, Berger was rather
known for his radio lectures (under the
aegis of the Pan American Association of
Composers), his activities as founder and
editor of the Musical Mercury, and his con-
tributions to musical magazines both in this
country and abroad.
Late in 1934, a fellowship in the newly
organized Professional School of the Longy
School of Music brought Berger to Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts. He simultaneously
enrolled in musicology at Harvard's Gradu-
ate School and became a member of the
jnusic staff of the Boston Evening Tran-
^script. During the next few years his inter-
est shifted from composition to criticism and
musicology.. He received his M.A. from
Harvard in 1936, and continued work to-
wards a Ph.D., mainly under Walter Piston
(theory), Prall (esthetics), and Leichtentntt
(music history). He later received the Paine
Fellowship from Harvard for two successive
years, during which time he lived in France,
and studied with Nadia Boulanger. The day
he sailed from America he married Esther
Turitz, piano teacher and singer.
While abroad, his interests returned to
the creative and analytic aspects of music.
When he returned to this country in 1939 to
teach at Mills College, California, he began
again to compose. Retrospectively, Berger
explains this five-year moratorium from
composition by the fact that atonalism, to
which he had previously become attached,
ultimately proved for him a dead-end. Only
after burying himself in the classics, and in
the trend of the more recent Stravinsky, did
a plausible direction suggest itself to him.
While abroad, he did a minute analysis of
Stravinsky's music, which he hopes some day
to formulate into a book.
Berger feels that a composer's resources
are enriched by embracing the whole of tra-
dition rather than (as it has recently oecome
fashionable to do) one little corner of it.
He believes that Stravinsky has reestab-
lished the connection with tradition, though
he himself has remained thoroughly con-
temporary.
To date, Berger's most widely played
work has been his Quartet in C Major, for
woodwinds, the premiere of which was given
by the San Francisco Woodwind Quintet, of
which Pierre Monteux was the artistic di-
rector. It has been performed by several
groups on the East and West coasts. Writ-
ing about young California composers, Dari-
us Milhaud has spoken of this work as "well
achieved, with loving attention to minute
detail." Virgil Thomson, in the Herald
Tribune, described it as "a ^delight." "Its
tunes are magnificently simple, its contra-
puntal writing witty and apt, its architectural
make-up ample and easy."
Following a two-year engagement as in-
structor of theory and composition at Mills
College, Berger taught at the North Texas
State College, and later at Brooklyn College,
New York. From 1943 to 1946 he was a
member of the musical staff of the New
York Sun, and since fall 1946, of the New
York Herald Tribune. He has also written
numerous articles for important music jour-
nals, and is a member of the Board of Gov-
ernors of the American Composers Alliance
and of the Program Committee of the
League of Composers.
Berger has composed some excellent
songs, a group of which, entitled Words for
Music Perhaps (lyrics by Yeats) was intro-
duced in New York on May 22, 1945." One
critic, reviewing this cycle, wrote: "Mr.
Berger's songs showed a provocative origin-
ality . . . while still maintaining a singable
melody. Arresting threads of counterpoint
in the accompaniment punctuated the mood
of the songs and added musical interest,"
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Chamber Music Quartet
in C Major, for woodwinds, 1941; Three Pieces
1? r stri ?,< Q qua ^ t ' W/ Sonata for Violin an <*
Piano, 1948. Choral Music 92nd Psalm for a
cappella chorus, 1946. Orchestral Afiwur Serenade
for chamber orchestra, 1944; Three Pieces for
strings, 1945. Piano Music Entertainment Piece,
ballet for piano, 1940; Fantasy, 1941; Suite 1945-
Bagatelles, 1946; Partita, 1947. Song*- Words for
Music Perhaps (Yeats) 1940.
ABOUT ; Modern Music January-February 1944.
Bergsma 29
William Bergsma 1921-
BERGS MA was born in
Oakland, California, on April 1, 1921.
From the age of six he played the violin in
orchestras "rather
badly," he confesses.
His musical career
began to interest him
in Burlingame High
School (which had a
good music depart-
ment) ; there he was
given full scope to
develop musically.
"If I wanted to write
a piece and copy the
parts, the orchestra would play it, and did;
my first complete composition was for or-
chestra, and was played at one of its con-
certs, as were two or three later ones. If I
wanted to try conducting, the orchestra was
there to experiment on ; and, with occasional
concerts or incidental music to plays, there
even was an audience."
In the summer of 1937, "I hid a lack of
a high-school diploma and enrolled in my
first formal composition course in the Uni-
versity of Southern California, taught by
the visiting Howard Hanson." At the end
of a six- week session, Hanson suggested to
Bergsma that he send him a work with
which the young composer was then oc-
cupied. It was the* ballet Paul Bunyan,
planned "rather impractically for puppets
and solo dancers/' Dr. Hanson broadcast a
suite from the ballet from Rochester and
later staged the work with an altered ballet
scenario. Pierre Monteux later broadcast
still another suite from this ballet, and set
off about twenty-five performances and
broadcasts.
In 1938, Bergsma entered Stanford Uni-
versity, keeping up his musical activities in
the music department of that institution. He
also wrote some incidental music for ballet
groups in the San Francisco area. Two
years after this, he entered the Eastman
School of Music, remaining there as a stu-
dent, and later as a Teaching Fellow until
1944. He studied composition with Howard
Hanson, and orchestration with Bernard
Rogers. "As a composer, I was given access
to three different orchestras, a ballet group,
a small chorus, and virtually any kind of
chamber ensemble. There were also specific
occasions and inducements in the form of
the Symposia and Festivals of American
Music, as well as other concerts."
Under these stimulating conditions, he
wrote his First String Quartet, performed
by the Gordon String Quartet in 1942. A
work of robustness and strength, throbbing
with the vitality of youthful enthusiasms,
his work attracted a great deal of attention.
It won the Beams Prize in 1943, and the
award of the Society for the Publication of
American Music in 1945. In 1942, too,
another of Bergsma's ballets was staged,
Gold and the Senor Commandante; two ex-
cerpts from this score were recorded for
Victor by Howard Hanson and the Eastman
Rochester Orchestra. In 1943, his Sym-
phony, for chamber orchestra (commissioned
by Town Hall, New York) and Music on a
Quiet Theme (which, a year later, won a
special publication award in the Independent
Music Publishers Contest) added to his
growing reputation. In 1944, the Gordon
String Quartet introduced his Second Quar-
tet, which had been commissioned by the
Koussevitzky Foundation.
He taught at Drake University, in Des
Moines, during the summer of 1944, and
spent the rest of that year at his California
home in Redwood City, writing a set of
songs and some Christmas music for Stan-
ford University. Early in 194S, he settled
in New York, writing and participating in a
few concerts. In May, he was awarded
$1,000 by the National Institute of Arts and
Letters in a grant conferred on talented non-
members who have demonstrated outstand-
ing achievement.
Though his music has shown strong in-
fluences of several modern composers like
Shostakovich, it is by no means derivative,
and has an individuality of its own. Power
and vigor are its predominating traits ; but
on occasion as in the slow movement of the
Second Quartet -he has a fine poetic vein
which evokes moods and atmosphere of
singular eloquence.
"I don't consider myself a particularly
nationalistic composer," Bergsma explains.
"But the opportunities and occasions for
writing and performing music I've had are
the ordinary ones open to a reasonably tal-
30 Bernstein
ented young American today. They are the
result of the pioneering and propagandizing
of such men as Theodore Thomas, Edward
MacDowell, Howard Hanson, and many
others. I hope and believe that the compos-
ers of my generation will fulfill their hopes."
Of his method of working, he says: "It
changes with every work, except that I work
best and fastest when someone is bullying
me for a specific occasion."
In 1946, Bergsma was appointed to the
composition faculty of the Juilliard School
of Music and was awarded a Guggenheim
Fellowship. In 1947 he was commissioned
by Carl Fischer, Inc. to write The Fortunate
Islands, for 'string orchestra, in honor of the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the League of
Composers.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : B'allets Paul Bunyan,
1937; Gold and the Senor Commandante, 1941.
Chamber MusicTwo String Quartets, 1942, 1944;
Suite for Brass Quintet, 1946. Choral Music
Time for Sleep (Benet) 1945; On the Beach at
Night (Whitman) 1946; Black Salt, Black Pro-
vender (Bogan) 1946. Orchestral Music Suite
from Paul Bunyan, 1937; Suite from Gold and
the Senor Commandante, 1941 ; Symphony, for
chamber orchestra, 1942; Music on a Quiet Theme,
1943; Suite from a Children's Film, 1945; The
Fortunate Islands, 1947. Songs Six Songs (E. E.
Cummings) 1945.
ABOUT: Reis, C. Composers in America (rev.
ed.).
Leonard Bernstein 1918-
T EONARD BERNSTEIN was born in
Lawrence, Massachusetts, on August 25,
1918. The story goes that a relative of his
sent to his home an
old upright piano for
which she had no
further use. From
the moment Leonard
first touched the keys
he insisted upon les-
sons. "After one
month," he says, "I
knew with finality
that I would become
a musician." During
his high school and college years, his piano
teachers were Helen Coates and Heinrich
Gebhard. Academic studies, however, were
not neglected. After finishing preliminary
studies in the public schools, he matricu-
lated in Harvard University, where his
teachers in music included Walter Piston
and Edward Buriingame Hill. His fellow-
pupils at Harvard still remember his amaz-
ing musical gifts. Recalled one of them re-
cently, "His extraordinary memory and his
flair for improvisation were almost legend-
ary. ... I remember with great nostalgia
his appearance as piano accompanist at a
series of historical films presented by the
Harvard Film Society. The Battleship Po-
temkin rode at anchor to the accompaniment
of Copland's Piano Variations, excerpts
from Petrushka, and Bernstein's own para-
phrases of Russian folk songs. Many Har-
vard Music Club programs would have been
lost if Bernstein had not been willing to
tackle, almost at sight, anything from the
Stravinsky Concerto for Two Piano Solos to
a work by one of his fellow students."
Soon after his graduation from Harvard
in 1939, a few celebrated musicians (Mitro-
poulos among them) convinced him that he
ought to become a conductor. Studies in
conducting followed with Fritz Reiner at
the Curtis Institute, together with orchestra-
tion with Randall Thompson, counterpoint
with Richard Stohr, and the piano with Isa-
bella Vengerova. In 1940 and 1941, he won
scholarships in conducting at Tanglewood,
the seat of the Berkshire Festival, where he
was a pupil of Koussevitzky.
Koussevitzky appointed him his assistant
at Tanglewood for 1942. In 1943, the entire
music world was electrified to learn that the
new musical director of the New York Phil-
harmonic Symphony Orchestra, Artur Rod-
zinski, selected this young, unknown, and
comparatively inexperienced young man as
his assistant with that world-famous organ-
ization. Hardly a month after that season
had begun, Bernstein had an opportunity to
prove himself. The sudden illness of Brunq
Walter, guest conductor of the Philharmon-
ic, demanded a last-minute substitute. Bern-
stein was called upon, Rodzinski, who drove
down from his home in Stockbridge, Massa-
chusetts, to hear this debut, said Bernstein
revealed "prodigious talent." Koussevitzky,
listening to the concert over the radio, wired
his congratulations. The New York Times
ran an editorial on the event the following
morning. The critics were virtually unani-
mous in declaring that here was one of the
major baton discoveries in many years.
Bernstein 31
In subsequent appearances as a conduc-
tor, Bernstein proved that his initial success
was not mere chance. He had self-assurance,
consummate mastery of his technique, capac-
ity to arouse his men to electrification, a
quiet and modest determination to let the
music speak for itself, and an instinctive
feeling for style. He has appeared as a
guest conductor with virtually every famous
orchestra in this country, and was invited
to appear in the International Music Festival
held in Czechoslovakia in late spring of
1946 where he conducted two concerts of
American music. He has toured Europe sev-
eral times, has conducted in virtually every
European capital, and has toured Palestine
with the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. In
the fall of 194S, he acquired an orchestra of
his own, when he was appointed to succeed
Leopold Stokowski as musical director of
the New York City Symphony Orchestra.
His first creative work was written in
1941-42, the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano.
It is a creditable work, written with musi-
cianship and sound instinct. But, like most
chamber-music works by comparative novi-
ces, it is rather sprawling in its form with
an indiscriminate choice of material. It has
charm and youthful freshness; but it was
impossible to guess that this composition
would be succeeded in one year by a work
like the Jeremiah Symphony.
Leonard Bernstein himself directed the
world premiere of his symphony with the
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on January
28, 1944. The symphony, explains Bernstein,
"does not make use to any great extent of
actual Hebrew thematic material The first
theme of the Scherzo is paraphrased from a
traditional Hebrew chant, and the opening-
phrase of the vocal part in the Lamentation
is based on a liturgical cadence still sung to-
day in commemoration of the destruction of
Jerusalem by Babylon. ... As for program-
matic meanings, the intention is again not
one of literalness, but of emotional quality.
Thus the first movement (Prophecy) aims
only to parallel in feeling the intensity of the
prophet's pleas with his people ; and the
Scherzo (Profanation) to give a general
sense of the destruction and chaos brought
on by the pagan corruption within the priest-
hood and the people. The third movement
(Lamentation), being a setting of a poetic
text, is naturally a more literary conception.
It is the cry of Jeremiah as he mourns his
beloved Jerusalem, ruined, pillaged, and dis-
honored, after his desperate efforts to save
it."
The symphony is a work abundant in
ideas, spacious in design, moving in fervor;
as the work of a young man in his twenties,
it was, indeed, an amazing production. It
was selected by the Music Critics Circle as
the most important new American work of
the 1943-44 music season, It has since been
extensively performed by virtually all the
great American orchestras, and has been re-
corded by Victor.
In sharp contrast to this symphony was
a wofk in another field, that of ballet:
Fancy Free, commissioned by the Ballet
Theatre and done in collaboration with Je-
rome Robbins, the choreographer. Its pre-
miere took place on April 18, 1944, Bern-
stein conducting, and was described by John
Martin as a "smash hit ... a modern ballet
in the best sense of the phrase ... a rare
little genre masterpiece."
Still another musical field to be invaded
by young Bernstein was that of popular
music. He wrote the score for a Broadway
musical revue, On the Town, which opened
in New York on December 28, 1944, and in-
stantly became one of the most resounding
hits of the season. The movies were reputed
to have paid $250,000 for the screen rights,
and several of the songs from this show be-
came hits.
Bernstein is essentially a young man of
the modern world. He dresses smartly,
dances well, plays boogie-woogie brilliantly.
A passionate reader of the classics, he also
finds relaxation in a light novel or movie.
Athletics interest him greatly, especially
swimming and horseback riding. Indifferent
to even long-accepted conventions, he prefers
to conduct without a baton, and frequently
while wearing an ordinary business suit.
While composing, he usually works in a
feverish atmosphere. Fancy Free was writ-
ten in trains, and also through means of the
telephone, telegraph, and phonograph rec-
ords. The symphony was also written in a
frenetic atmosphere. "In this effort," John
Richmond informs us, "he was assisted by
friends, who inked notes and drew bar lines,
32 Blitzstein
and his sister, who put in signatures. It took
ten days to finish this orchestration, and also
took plenty of beakers of coffee to keep
Lenny awake on the job. He spent several
days in bed recovering from his creative
binge."
PRINCIPAL WORKS: BalletsFancy Free, 1944;
Facsimile, 1946. Chamber Music Sonata for
Clarinet and Piano, 1941-42. Choral Music Hash-
kivenu, for tenor solo, mixed chorus, and organ,
1945. Orchestral Music Jeremiah Symphony, 1942;
Suite from Fancy Free, 1944; Three Dance Epi-
sodes from On the Town, 1945 ; Facsimile : A
Choreographic Essay, 1947. Piano Music Seven
Anniversaries, 1942-43; Four Anniversaries, 1947-
48. Songs I Hate Music, song cycle, 1943; La
bonne cuisine, four songs for mezzo-soprano and
piano, 1948.
RECORDINGS: Facsimile, VM-1 142-43 (RCA
Victor Orchestra Bernstein) ; Fancy Free, D-406
(Ballet Theatre Orchestra Bernstein) ; Jeremiah
Symphony, VM-1026 (St. Louis Symphony; Nan
Merriman Bernstein) ; Sonata for Clarinet and
Piano, H-MW501 (Oppenheim; Bernstein).
ABOUT: Modern Music May- June 1945; New
York Times Magazine January 28, 1945; Seventeen
August 1946; Tomorrow May 1945.
Marc Blitzstein 1905"
BLITZSTEIN, one of the fore-
most composers of music of social con-
sciousness, was born in Philadelphia on
March 2, 1905 to
Russian- Jewish par-
ents. Although his
family was not par-
ticularly musical,
Marc showed unusual
musical talent from
j ^01$^ childhood on. At the
p '_ age of three he began
'v^Jk ftj'i playing the piano,
MB m gave his first concerts
StenaF.Siznon ^ fi ^ ^^ com ^
posing at seven, and when he was fifteen ap-
peared as soloist with the Philadelphia
Orchestra. He attended the Philadelphia
public schools, and won a scholarship for the
University of Pennsylvania where he later
"flunked" in gym. He then turned exclu-
sively to music. Attending the Curtis Insti-
tute, he studied composition with Scalero,
at the same time commuting to New York
to take piano lessons from Siloti. In 1926
he went to Europe, studying under Nadia
Boulanger in Paris, and Arnold Schoenberg
in Berlin.
Blitzstein: blits'stfn
When he returned to the United States,
he did some lecturing on music for women's
clubs and at Columbia University and the
New School for Social Research. He also
did a great deal of composing, utilizing ultra-
modern idioms which inspired one Philadel-
phia critic to describe this music as full of
"Donner und Blitzstein" His works were
performed at concerts of modern music in
New York, Paris, and London, and evoked
contradictory criticisms. During this period,
Blitzstein said of his music : "I do not con-
sider my music essentially experimental ; for
materials I use what has been bequeathed to
our generation of composers by the pioneers
of the movement called 'Modern Music'; all
my works tend to solve in various ways the
problems of a suitable and necessary form
for the content." The critics thought other-
wise, calling him a dabbler in new forms and
tonalities. Wrote one critic: "Blitzstein's
experiments with tones have not always been
felicitous. . . . But in his better works, Marc
Blitzstein is definitely a vigorous and orig-
inal voice." His better works in this vein
included Percussion Music for Piano, the
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Romantic
Piece, for orchestra, and a series of songs
entitled Is 5.
Actually, Blitzstein did not achieve his
identity or arrive at full expression as a
composer until he embraced the "people's
cause," and attempted to preach gospels of
political and social propaganda in his music.
His first gesture in this direction was an
oratorio, The Condemned, which he wrote in
1932 about the trial and execution of Sacco
and Vanzetti. "In The Condemned" wrote
Henry Brant, "Blitzstein's work reaches a
critical stage where his developing interest in
expressing a positive social viewpoint is al-
most directly in conflict with the rigid, im-
personal stylization of his musical and liter-
ary language. It is significant that during
the next three years he composed no major
dramatic work/'
When he finally did undertake a major
dramatic work, he wrote the opera which
first made him nationally famous, and with
which he achieved artistic importance for the
first time. The Cradle Will Rock was writ-
ten in 1936 under the auspices of the WPA
for the Federal Theatre, and directed by
Orson Welles. Dealing with the formation
of a steel union and the efforts of a capitalist
Blltzstein 33
to fight the union, The Cradle Will Rock
was too provocative a subject for the Federal
Theatre, which at the last moment withdrew
its support. The small audience that had
gathered outside the Maxine Elliott Theatre
for the opening performance found the audi-
torium closed to them. They were told to
wait patiently, while members of the cast
entertained outside the theatre. Another
theatre, meanwhile, was found the nearby
Venice and the audience was directed there.
Since no costumes, scenery, or orchestra was
available, the opera was presented in oratorio
form, while Blltzstein sat at the piano,
played the score, and made informal com-
ments about the action taking place. This
novel way of presenting the opera, together
with the inherent vitality of the opera itself
created a profound impression. John
Mason Brown considered it "the most ex-
citing propaganda tour de force our stage
has seen since Clifford Odets' Waiting for
Lefty. 3 ' The music critics praised the music
for its wit, satire, freshness. The opera,
now financed by private funds, was a great
success on Broadway; and its composer be-
came famous.
Once again, a Blitzstein opera became the
storm center when his No for an Answer
was introduced at Mecca Temple, New York,
on January 5, 1941. This time the opera
was written expressly to be presented with-
out orchestra, scenery or costumes with the
composer again playing the score on the
stage and making informal comments as he
played. No for an Answer concerns a group
of Greek waiters, seasonal workers at a
big hotel in a summer resort, who form a
social club which soon develops into a union.
Dire things happen to the members when
an attempt is made to smash the union.
"The theme," explained Blitzstein, "is what
happens to basic democratic principles in
time of stress what happens to the little
people, in whose behalf the democratic prin-
ciples exist, in time of stress."
Soon after the premiere performance,
Paul Moss, License Commissioner of New
York City, prohibited further presentations
of this opera on the grounds that Mecca
Temple was guilty of building violations
which made the house unsuitable for oper-
atic performances. Since opera had been
presented at Mecca Temple many times be-
fore this, and without interference, this move
was interpreted as an act of censorship on
the part of city authorities against a radical
production.
Besides the two operas, Blitzstein corn-
posed a radio song-play in 1937 called I've
Got the Tune. This has been called a par-
able about a modern musician who, having
invented a melody, must search for a lyric
with meaning to it. The composer travels
about New York searching for his lyric as
he goes from one place to another his melody
changes character. Finally, he appears at a
workers' parade. The composer has, at last,
found his place, and the tune has found its
lyric. Both composer and tune join the
workers' parade.
In 1940, Blitzstein was awarded the
Guggenheim Fellowship. After Pearl Har-
bor, he voluntarily joined the army and
was finally assigned to the Eighth Air Force.
There he was given various musical assign-
ments: the writing of the score for Garson
Kanin's documentary film, The True Glory;
the composition of a symphonic work, Free-
dom Morning, dedicated to the Negro sol-
dier, and based upon melodic and rhythmic
material provided by the soldiers themselves ;
the writing of the symphony, The Airborne,
dedicated to the Army Air Forces.
Scored for symphony orchestra, male
chorus, vocal quartet, tenor and baritone
soloists, and a narrator (or as Blitzstein pre-
fers, a "monitor") The Airborne was intro-
duced on April 11, 1946 at the City Center
in New York under Leonard Bernstein's
direction. The audience gave it one of the
most thunderous ovations to greet a new
work that season, and the critics were vir-
tually unanimous in calling the score a sig-
nificant and vital contribution to the modern
repertory. The symphony deals with the
history of human flight from the time of
Icarus to the end of World War II, and
is a gripping text full of political implica-
tions : perhaps no more moving music has
been inspired by this war than the section
describing the ruined cities laid low by Fas-
cist bombs or the salutation to the free, open
sky, symbol of freedom. The Symphony re-
ceived the Page One Award of the News-
paper Guild.
In 1946, Blitzstein was awarded a grant
by the American Academy of Arts and Let-
ters.
34 Bioch
PRINCIPAL WORKS : BalletCain. 1930; Show,
1947. Chamber Music String Quartet, 1930; Sere-
nade for String Quartet, 1932. Choral MusicThe
Condemned, 1933; Children's Cantata, 1935; The
Airborne symphony with chorus and soli, 1943-44.
Operas 'Triple-Sec, opera-farce, 1928; Parabola
and Circula, one-act opera, 1929; The Harpies, one-
act opera, 1931; The Cradle Will Rock, 1936; I ve
Got the Tune, radio song-play, 1937 ; No for an
Answer, 1939-40. Orchestral Music Gods, for
mezzo-soprano, 'cello soloist, and string orchestra,
1926- lig Saw, ballet suite, 1927; Romantic Piece,
1930- "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, 1931;
Variations 1934; Freedom Morning, symphonic
poem, 1943. Piano Music Sonata, 1927; Percus-
sion Music, 1929. Songs Pom Songs, for ban-
tone (Whitman) 1928; Is 5 (E. E. Cummmgs)
1929.
RECORDINGS: The Cradle Will Rock, M-C18
(original cast Blitzstein) ; No for an Answer, K-
N105 (original cast Blitzstein) ; Symphony, The
Airborne, VM-1117 (Holland; Scheff; Collegiate
Chorale Shaw ; New York City Symphony-
Bernstein) ; Four Excerpts from Show, CHS-B9
(Blitzstein).
ABOUT: Copland, A Our New Music; Mod-
ern Music Summer 1946; New York Post April 1,
1946; Scrutiny 1942.
*Ernest Bloch 1880-
pRNEST BLOCH, the son of a Swiss
merchant, was born in Geneva on July
24, 1880. His father and mother were
bourgeois shopkeep-
ers in whose lives
music played a negli-
gible part. They as-
p i r e d to make of
their son a self -re-
specting business
man. The resolve to
become a musician,
however, was so
strongly entrenched
in Ernest Bloch even
in childhood that he was soon able to over-
ride successfully the opposition of his par-
ents. In his fourteenth year, therefore, Bloch
began the study of composition under Jacques
Dalcroze and the violin under Louis Rey in
Geneva. The first taste of music so intoxi-
cated him that he turned instinctively to
musical creation, producing within two years
an Oriental Symphony and an Andante for
string quartet.
In his seventeenth year, Bloch left Gen-
eva for Brussels for more intensive musical
training. He studied the violin with Eugene
Ysaye and composition with Francois Rasse.
* This sketch is condensed and revised from Ewen's
Twentieth-Century Composers. By permission of the pub-
lishers, Thomas Y. Crowell Co.
Anne Pilser Dewey
After a few years, he went to Germany.
Describing his studies, he says: "My mas-
ter was Ivan Knorr, at Frank fort-on-the-
Main. He was a profoundly great peda-
gogue. He taught me to teach myself. . . .
After that I went to Munich and studied
with Thuille. I composed my first symphony
in Munich and then went to Paris."
The First Symphony, in the key of C-
sharp Minor, was completed in 1902. Bloch 's
inability to gain a hearing for the work-
either in Paris or Germany coupled with
the news of the growing financial duress of
his family brought him back to Geneva in
1904, and he became bookkeeper, salesman,
and traveling merchant for his father's shop.
"I will write music as I feel I must," he said
at the time, "and if it is good it will be
heard; otherwise it will not. Meanwhile I
will be a merchant." But business did not
absorb all of Bloch's interests. Several hours
each week he lectured at trie University of
Geneva on metaphysics. In 1909, he became
a conductor of subscription concerts in Lau-
sanne and Neuchatel. And, during the night
he worked on his first and greatest love
composition.
During these hours of night, Bloch com-
posed a series of works which brought his
idiom to development : Poemes d'automne,
for voice and orchestra, Hiver-Printemps,
two symphonic sketches, and an opera on a
libretto by Edmund Fleg, Macbeth.
In 1909, he dispatched the manuscript of
his opera to the management of the Paris
Opera Comique. To his amazement, the
opera was accepted for performance. On
November 30, 1910 it was introduced in
Paris, arousing considerable discussion and
conflicting opinions. Certain critics, like
Arthur Pougin, denounced it. Others, how-
ever, recognized in it a new, important voice.
Pierre Lalo spoke of the opera as "one of
the most profoundly interesting works which
has been given on the operatic stage in these
last years; a work in which the singularly
powerful nature of a dramatic composer re-
veals itself."
One of the critics in Paris who believed
in Bloch was Romain Rolland. This was the
result of perusing the manuscript score of
the C-sharp Minor symphony. To express
his great faith in Bloch's genius, Rolland
made the trip from Paris to Geneva to meet
and talk to the young composer. Rolland
Bloch 35
has described his astonishment at finding
Bloch sitting behind a high desk, in the store
of his father, working patiently over the
business accounts. Bitterly, Rolland ex-
pressed his indignation to Bloch that a com-
poser of such promise should devote time to
business. This, no doubt, made a profound
impression on the young composer. He de-
cided to abandon business and to devote him-
self completely to music.
In 1915 there took place a complete per-
formance of Rloch's Symphony in C -Sharp
Minor in Geneva under the baton of the
composer. Rolland was in the audience.
The letter that Rolland wrote to Bloch in-
dicates his high regard for his discovery:
"Your symphony is one of the most im-
portant works of the modern school I don't
know of any work in which a richer, more
vigorous, more passionate temperament
makes itself felt."
It was at this time that Bloch's style
underwent a definite evolution, that he be-
came imbued with the idea of creating a
Hebrew music that would give expression to
his race. "Racial consciousness is absolutely
necessary in music even though nationalism
is not," he announced in his esthetic creed.
"I am a Jew. I aspire to write Jewish music
riot for the sake of self-advertisernent, but
because it is the only way in which I can
produce music of vitality if I can do such a
thing at all." At another time, in explaining
his Jewish music, Bloch wrote : "It is not
my purpose or my desire to attempt a 'recon-
struction' of Jewish music, or to base my
work on melodies more or less authentic. I
am not an archeologist. I hold that it is of
first importance to write good, genuine music
my own music. It is the Jewish soul that
interests me, the complex, glowing, agitated
soul that I feel vibrating through the Bible."
With such works as the Two Psalms
(137 and 114), for soprano and orchestra,
Trois Po ernes Juifs, for orchestra (composed,
in the memory of his father), and Psalm
22, for baritone and orchestra, Bloch first
rediscovered his race and associated himself
with it. By the close of the 1916, Bloch was
to travel even deeper into the Hebraic world
with the completion of such works as
Schelomo, for violoncello and orchestra, a
portrait in tone of the great Biblical Jew,
and Israel Symphony, a proud and exultant
affirmation of his race.
It is this Hebrew period that produced
many of Bloch 's most famous works. At its
best, this music speaks with a sublime vocab-
ulary. It has depth, vision, eloquence, and a
burning enthusiasm. Its tremendous vitality
is irresistible. It is a poignant document
revealing new vistas of beauty. Oriental in
orchestration and harmony, biblical in its use
of Semitic intervals, highly nerved and emo-
tional, it is Hebraic music to the core the
proud expression not only of a race but of a
highly sensitive creator.
Early in 1916, Ernest Bloch came to
America as conductor of the Maud Allen
troupe that had been booked for an extensive
tour of the country. The sudden bankruptcy
of this venture left Bloch stranded in a
foreign country without friends or resources,
but a few months later some prominent
musicians, discovering his plight, combined
their efforts to bring him the recognition he
deserved. In December 1916 the Flonzaley
Quartet performed his B Minor Quartet
with great success. Several months later,
Dr. Karl Muck invited Bloch to be a guest
conductor of the Boston Symphony Orches-
tra in a performance of Trois Poemes Juifs.
Artur Bodanzky, in New York, devoted an
entire program of the Society of Friends of
Music to Bloch 's works, including the world
premiere of Schelomo. One year later,
Bloch directed another program of his music
with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1919,
the award of the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
prize of $1,000 for the Suite for Viola and
Orchestra brought about several perform-
ances of this work. These performances
succeeded in bringing Bloch that interna-
tional fame as a composer that Rolland had
prophesied for him.
In 1920, Bloch was appointed director of
the Cleveland Institute of Music. Though he
was never happy either as an administrator
or as a teacher principally because too fre-
quently his high ideals were in direct conflict
with expediency and practicality he held
this post for five years. In this position, he
composed several outstanding works, includ-
ing the Baal Shem Suite for violin and
piano, the Quartet Pieces, the Concerto
Grosso f for string orchestra and piano, and
what is probably the greatest music of this
period, the Quintet for Piano and Strings.
It is interesting to mention that the Concerto
Grosso was composed by Bloch partly with
36 Bloch
an eye to some of his pupils whose composi-
tions were needlessly elaborate, to show them
what could be done with simpler means.
In 1925, Bloch resigned his directorial
post with the Cleveland Institute, having
been antagonized by its more political as-
pects. A pedagogical post brought him at
this time to San Francisco. There, in 1927,
he composed his symphony America, which
won the $3,000 award offered by the maga-
zine Musical America for an outstanding
American musical work for large orchestra.
The symphony (submitted, as prescribed by
the rules, under a pen name) was the unani-
mous selection of the judges, and it was
performed simultaneously by the leading
symphony orchestras in America. Following
America, Bloch produced a w r ork as a tribute
to his native country, Helvetia.
In the works ranging from the Concerto
Grosso to Helvetia Bloch seemed to have
digressed from his Hebraic path. The dis-
cerning listener will realize, however, that
the digression is not quite so marked as it
appears. The piano quintet, the Concerto
Grosso, even the America symphony may not
be Hebrew compositions; but they are the
creations of a Hebraic consciousness. It was
well pointed out by Isaac Goldberg that the
Indians of the America symphony dance
with Chassidic feet. Bloch may have tem-
porarily deserted Hebrew music, but Hebrew
music refused to desert him. As a matter of
fact, many critics look upon the piano quintet
as one of his most religious works, one of
the most poignant and profound expressions
of his race that he had written up to this
time.
A generous endowment by one of San
Francisco's art patrons enabled Bloch to give
up the teaching of music, in 1931, and to
devote himself completely to creative work.
He left America, for a far-flung corner of
Switzerland Ticino, Roveredo, near Italy
to compose a work which he had been plan-
ning for years : a musical Sacred Service for
the Sabbath morning prayers of the Jewish
synagogue. In constructing the work, Bloch
intended it to become something more than a
ritual service; he hoped to create a monu-
mental song of faith for all humanity,
"Though intensely Jewish in roots"- to
quote Bloch himself "the message seems to
me above all a gift of Israel to the whole of
mankind. It symbolizes for me far more
than a Jewish service; but in its great sim-
plicity and variety, it embodies a philosophy
acceptable to all men."
The Sacred Service was composed at a
time of great moral crisis, from which it
possibly derives its especial vision and sig-
nificance. It is one of Bloch's most deeply
felt works, in which "the sacred emotion of
the race that slumbers far down in our soul"
has been given eloquent expression a work
of tenderness and passion, power and humil-
ity. When the Service was completed, Bloch
returned to America, after an absence of
three years, to direct the first performance
of the work at a concert of the Schola Can-
torum in New York on April 11, 1934.
With A Voice in the Wilderness, for or-
chestra and 'cello obbligato introduced by
the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Klem-
perer on January 21, 1937 Bloch produced
another work that is identifiably Hebraic. It
has a quality of prophetic mysticism about it,
a sublimity which undoubtedly has its roots
in the Bible.
Among Bloch's more recent works are
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra a rhap-
sodic work in which the opening movement
exploits an American Indian idiom intro-
duced by Szigeti and the Cleveland Orches-
tra under Rodzinski on December IS, 1938;
Evocations, first performed by the San Fran-
cisco Symphony in 1938; the Suite Sym-
phonique in which, as Downes wrote, "the
passionate and picturesquely Hebraic char-
acter of Bloch's earlier music gives place to
a more severe and less personal idiom"
introduced by the Philadelphia Orchestra
under Monteux in the fall of 1945 ; and the
Second String Quartet, which received the
Music Critics Circle Award as the best
chamber-music work of the 1946-1947 sea-
son.
Ernest Bloch lives in a huge, rambling
house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, at
Agate Beach, in Oregon, where he is in vir-
tual isolation. For recreation, he reads
Schopenhauer and other philosophers, takes
long walks, picks mushrooms, or suns him-
self on the beach. For a period each sum-
mer he gives courses in the music of Bach
and Beethoven at Berkeley University in
California. One of his daughters, Suzanne,
is famous as a performer on the lute, and as
an authority on old music and instruments;
Borowski 37
another daughter, Lucienne, is a gifted sculp-
tress and painter ; a son, Ivan, is an engineer.
In 1942 Bloch was awarded a gold medal
by the American Academy of Arts and Let-
ters and was made a member.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Chamber Music Quartet
In B Minor, 1916; Suite for Viola and Piano, 1919;
First Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1920; Second
Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1922; Piano Quintet,
1923; Baal Shem, suite for violin and piano, 1923;
Second String Quartet, 1945. Choral Music-
Sacred Service, 1930-33. Operas Macbeth, 1904-
09; Jezebel, 1918. Orchestral Music Symphony in
C-sharp Minor, 1901 ; Hiver-Printemps, tone poem,
1904_05 ; Poemes d'Automne, for voice and orches-
tra, 1906; Trois Poemes Juifs, 1913; Three Psalms,
137, 114, and 22, for voice and orchestra, 1912-14;
Schelomo, rhapsody for 'cello and orchestra, 1916;
Israel Symphony, 1912-16; Concerto Grpsso, for
piano and chamber orchestra, 1924; America Sym-
phony, 1926; Helvetia, 1928; A Voice in the Wil-
derness, with 'cello obbligato, 1936; Evocations,
suite, 1937; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra,
1938; Suite Symphonique, 1945.
RECORDINGS: Baal Shem, C-X188 (Szigeti) ;
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, CM-380
(Szigeti; Paris Conservatory Orchestra Harty) ;
Concerto Grosso, VM-563 (Curtis Chamber Orches-
tra Bailly) ; Piano Quintet, VM-191 (Pro Arte;
Casella); Schelomo, VM-698 (Feuermann; Philadel-
er); First String Quartet, CM-392 (Stuyvesant).
ABOUT: Ewen, D. Book of Modern Com-
posers; Pannain, G. Modern Composers; Saminsky,
L. Music of Our Day ; Tibaldi Chiesa, M. Ernest
Bloch.
Felix Borowski 1872-
BOROWSKI was born at Burton-
in-Kendal, Westmorland, England, on
March 10, 1872. Both of his parents were
musical The elder
Borowski was his
son's first instructor
on the violin, later
sending him on to
Jacques Rosenthal.
Musical theory and
composition were
studied with various
teachers until 1887
when, on the advice
Eugene L. Kay, Evamton Q f Joseph Joachim,
Borowski was sent to the Cologne Conserva-
tory. There he was a pupil of Gustav Jen-
sen (composition), Ernest Heuser (piano),
and Georg Japha (violin). On his return to
London, Borowski continued the study of
counterpoint with Pearce, and violin with
Pollitzer. Much of his musical development,
however, Borowski ascribes to the frequent
performance of chamber music at his home.
In 1892, his professional career 'began
with an appointment as teacher of the violin
at a girl's school in Aberdeen, Scotland.
When the school failed, and Borowski re-
turned to London, his Russian Sonata, for
piano, was published (1856) and attracted
the attention of Grieg. An enthusiastic let-
ter by Grieg to young Borowski came to the
notice of Dr. Florenz Ziegfeld, president of
the Chicago Musical College, then on a visit
to the British capital. He offered Borowski
a job as instructor of composition and violin
at his school. Borowski went to Chicago in
1897, and he has lived there ever since.
In 1916, Borowski succeeded to the presi-
dency of the Chicago Musical College, re-
signing that post in 1925. In addition to his
teaching and his creative activities, Borowski
was (and still is) busy in the field of musical
literature. In 1905, he became music re-
viewer for the Musical Courier. The fol-
lowing year, he took a similar post with the
Chicago Evening Post. So much comment
was made on his work as musical journalist
that, in 1907, the Chicago Record-Herald
invited him to be its music editor; he held
this position until the demise of the paper in
1917. Borowski then joined the staff of the
Christian Science Monitor, and in 1942 he
became the music editor of the Chicago Sun.
In 1928, Borowski revised G. P. Upton's
The Standard Opera, and two years later did
a similar service for Upton's The Standard
Concert Guide. Both volumes were incor-
porated into a single one in 1936 under the
title of The Standard Opera and Concert
Guide.
It is as a composer, however, that Felix
Borowski demands most attention. He be-
gan his creative career with small salon
pieces suitable for pedagogical purposes. In
all probability, Borowski is now unhappy
about the popularity which greeted such
trifles as his Valsette and La Coquette, for
piano, or Adoration, for the violin.
He was still in his early twenties when
the afore-mentioned Russian Sonata, and the
A Minor Quartet were hailed by Edvard
Grieg. Shortly after BorowskPs arrival in
Chicago, his Marche Triompkale for orches-
tra was published and performed. In the
years that followed, Borowski addressed
Borowski; bo-rofske
38 Bowles
himself to the larger forms, and practically
covered the whole field of composition (with
the exception of the oratorio). He wrote
prolificacy for symphony orchestra, and
many of his larger works have been ex-
tensively performed by American symphony
orchestras.
One of Borowski's early orchestral
works, Ecce Homo, has recently had a sud-
den resurgence of popularity. Composed in
1923, it was introduced by the State Sym-
phony Orchestra under Josef Stransky on
January 2, 1924. It then lay dormant and
neglected for more than a decade. Reintro-
duced in 1938 by the Illinois Symphony, it
attracted so much note that before long
many other orchestras took it up, and within
the space of two seasons it enjoyed more
than half a dozen important performances.
The significance of the title of this work is
connected with the exclamation of "Behold
the Man!" made by Pontius Pilate when
Christ was brought before him for trial.
Among Borowski's early works is a
ballet-pantomime, Boudour, written in 1917-
18 and successfully produced by the Chi-
cago Opera Company on November 25, 1919,
with the composer conducting. Subsequent
performances of this ballet took place in
New York, Boston, and South America. A
second ballet, A Century of the Dance, was
commissioned by the Ford Motor Company.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballets Roudour, ballet-
pantomime, 1917-18; A Century of the Dance, in
five episodes, 1934. Chamber Music Three String
Quartets 1897, 1928, 1945. Operas Fernando del
Nonsentsico, 1936. Orchestral Music filegie sym-
phonique, 1917; Peintures, 1917; Le printemps
passionne, 1919-20; Youth, 1922; Ecce Homo, 1923;
Semiramis, 1924-25; Overture to a Pantomime, for
chamber orchestra, 1925; Rhapsody, for organ and
chamber orchestra, 1925; Symphony No. 1, 1931-32;
Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, 1933; Symphony No.
3 in G Major, 1936-38; The Little Match Girl, for
narrator and orchestra, 1943 ; Requiem for a Child,
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers.
Paul Bowles 1911-
T WAS born in New York on December
30, 1911," writes Paul Bowles, "and
divided the first sixteen years of my life
between that city and various country houses
in New England and upper New York State.
My first interest in music came from a purely
hypnotic reaction that musical sounds always
had on me not music itself, for it always
had formal patterns (even jazz), and showed
direction, had some sort of climax and worst
of all had a predictable end. I refer to the
musical sounds I could produce myself by
spinning a large musical top or by sliding a
metal object up and down the strings of a
German zither my
grandfather had given
me, or the creaking
of a rusty door hinge ;
these sounds seemed
to me the culmination
of beauty, and always
put me promptly into
a non-thinking state
which lasted as long
as I repeated the
sounds. I confess that
these basic infantile criteria still seem per-
fectly valid to me, because they still operate
on me with as much force as ever.
"When I first heard Arabic music on
records, I determined to go and live where I
could be surrounded by sounds like those,
because there seemed very little else one
could ask for in life. Accordingly, when I
was twenty, I went to Morocco and started
a four-year sojourn (with European inter-
ludes) in North Africa. The Sahara was a
good place to write purely Occidental music,
since one uses the music that is there simply
for living, and not as material for anything
else.
"For a year and a half prior to going to
North Africa, I had been having daily les-
sons with Aaron Copland, first in New York,
and then in Berlin. In Paris, I used to take
my things to Virgil Thomson, whose matter-
of-fact attitude toward music at first seemed
brutal to me, and then, when I had accepted
it, the properly healthy one. From 1931 to
1934, I studied with Nadia Boulanger, Roger
Sessions, and Israel Citkowitz. All this,
however, should not be considered a formal
musical education, as I never did have the
patience to continue with my studies, and
probably learned very little from them."
To fill in some details in the broader out-
lines of Bowles's autobiographical sketch:
For a short period he went to the University
of Virginia, but, impatient with the routines
of academic life, he ran away and worked in
Paris as a telephone operator and bank clerk.
Braascomfoe 39
He made one more attempt to go to college,
escaped from it again this time for good
and went back to music study in Europe. It
was then that he went to North Africa,
where he developed a taste for barbaric and
primitive cultures, and where he made an
intensive study of Moroccan folk music.
"What interested me most in the writing
of music at that time/' Bowles continues,
"was the possibility of making music which
would be expressive, and yet not in the ora-
torical way European art-music is expressive.
Conversational inflections, even the ones of
imaginary conversational remarks inside the
head, should replace what seemed to me the
incredibly formal idiom of delivery taken
for granted as the psychological basis for
forming melodic logic. From the point of
view of establishing connection with a pub-
lic, this desire was probably disastrous for
me; people are not interested in psychologi-
cal realism in music. What really interests
them is a good show. Which, of course,
involves using the traditional melodic in-
flections of speechifying, along with all the
trappings of sound, formal patterns, and
emotional direction this device would logic-
ally and technically entail.
"Then I discovered that "incidental music'
for the theatre was one perfect medium for
carrying out some of the ideas I had sub-
consciously been trying to express. Here it
is no longer a crime, but a virtue, for a com-
poser to prescind the emotional content of
his music before presenting it ; here he can
say exactly what he wants, and everyone will
understand it (although, of course, no one
listens to it because the spoken word and the
visual action take precedence in the exer-
cising of the spectator's receptive faculties).
Here, and in writing for the films too, one
can with immunity write climaxless music,
hypnotic music in one of the exact senses of
the word, in that it makes its effect without
the spectator's being aware of it. For the
past few years I have been putting much of
energy into the writing of functional scores,
for the theatre (My Heart's in the High-
lands, Twelfth Night, Jacobowsky and the
Colonel, Watch on the Rhine, The Glass
Menagerie), for ballets, for the films. Each
year, however, has been spent partly in some
region of Latin America, where the music
after that of Spain, Africa, Greece, and the
Levant seems to me to contain the phil-
osophical and emotional elements I need in
order to keep happy/'
In 1941, Bowles received a Guggenheim
Fellowship, which enabled him to live in
Mexico and complete an opera, The Wind
Remains, introduced at the Museum of
Modern Art in New York in March 1943.
After returning to New York, he was ap-
pointed to the musical staff of the New York
Herald Tribune.
Bowles's great preoccupation with the
music of Africa, Spain, and Latin America
has influenced his own writing. Some of
his most successful works have recreated
the backgrounds and atmospheres of these
countries, and have skillfully expropriated
certain of the subtleties of their musical
idioms. In this category belong his opera,
The Wind Remains, with a libretto by
Garcia Lorca; the ballet, Pastorela, which
had been performed extensively throughout
South America; the Danza Mexicana, for
orchestra, introduced in 1943 by the Colum-
bia Concert Orchestra tinder Bernard Herr-
mann; and many of his piano pieces and
songs.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballets -Yankee Clipper,
1936; Pastorela, 1941; Colloque sentimentale, 1944;
Facsimile, 1946. Chamber Music Sonata for Oboe
and Clarinet, 1930; Sonata for Flute and Piano,
2932; Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1934; Mediodia,
for eleven instruments, 1 1937; Music for a Farce,
for clarinet, trumpet, piano, and percussion, 1938;
Romantic Suite, for nine instruments, 1939; Sonata
for Two Pianos, 1945. Choral Music Parle De-
troit, cantata for soprano, male quartet, harmonium,
1933; Tornado Blues, 1939. 0mw Denmark
Vesey (Charles Henri Ford) 1938; The Wind Re-
mains (Garcia Lorca) 1941. Orchestral Music
Suite for Orchestra, 1933; Ballet Suite from
Pastorela, 1941; Danza Mexicana, 1943.
RECORDINGS: Huapango, El Sol, Cafe sin
Nombre, NMQR-1414 (Bowles) ; Sonata for Two
Pianos CHS-5 (Gold; Fizdale) ; Songs, Di-730 (Be
Spirito),
ABOUT: Salazar. A. Music in Our Time.
Music and Letters April 1945.
Gena Branscombe 1881-
QENA BRANSCOMBE, composer of sig-
nificant choral music and songs, dates
her American, ancestry from 1640, when her
pioneer ancestors, John Allison of Edinburgh
and Caspar Hoover of Holland, landed in
New Amsterdam. She was born in Picton,
Ontario, Canada, on November 4, 1881. At
five, she began to compose little pieces for the
piano, and a year later she was already ap-
Branscombe: branz'kum
40 Branscombe
pearing in public. After completing high
school (in her fifteenth year) she was sent
to the Chicago Musical College for her first
serious study of music. Felix Borowski, who
discovered her crea-
tive gift, was her
teacher in composi-
tion for seven years;
her teachers of the
piano included Dr.
Florenz Ziegfeld,
Hans von Schiller,
Arthur Friedheim,
and Rudolph Ganz ;
she also studied song-
writing with Alexan-
der von Fielitz. The college awarded her two
gold medals for composition, the first of
which was given the year she was graduated.
Upon receiving her Bachelor of Music
degree, she became a member of the piano
faculty of the Chicago Musical College. In
1907, she became director of the piano de-
partment of the Whitman College Conserva-
tory of Music in Washington. The vacation
months of 1908 were spent in study and
travel abroad. In the summer of 1909 she
returned to Berlin to study with Humper-
dinek and give recitals of her own works.
In 1910, she married John Ferguson Tenney
of New York City, where she settled per-
manently. There have been four children:
Gena, Vivian Allison, Betty (deceased), and
Beatrice.
She has had a long and distinguished
career as a conductor of choral societies : the
MacDowell Chorus of Mountain Lakes, New
Jersey (later known as the Branscombe
Chora!) from 1931 to 1943; the American
Women's Association Choral from 1931 to
1934; the New Jersey State Chorus from
1940 to 1942. She was invited to conduct the
first organized chorus of the American
Women's Voluntary Services in Jackson
Heights, New York (1942-44). She was also
selected to conduct the National Chorus of a
thousand voices in a concert in Atlantic City,
New Jersey, which was part of the Golden
Jubilee Celebration of the General Federa-
tion of Women's Clubs; this, incidentally, is
the largest group over which a woman con-
ductor has raised a baton. In 1945, she
became conductor of the Contemporary Club
Chorus of Newark.
Probably her most significant achieve-
ment with the baton has been with the
Branscombe Choral of New York, a group
of seventy-five women's voices, which she
has led since 1934. This group earned a
distinguished place for itself in New York's
musical life with regular concerts at Town
Hall, and with broadcasts over the major
networks. It inaugurated the custom of
singing Christmas music at Pennsylvania
Station in New York each year. During
World War II the group gave numerous
performances in military hospitals.
Her experiences as choral conductor
served her in good stead in her composition,
for her best work has been in the field of
choral music. One of her distinguished
works is the Pilgrims of Destiny, for solo
voices, chorus, and orchestra, for which she
wrote the text as well as the music. This
composition has to do with the colorful and
dramatic happenings aboard the Mayflower,
a day and a night before the sighting of
land. The first complete performance was
given under the auspices of the National
Federation of Music Clubs at historic Ply-
mouth in 1929. One year earlier, when this
w r ork was given a partial performance at
Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., the
National League of American Pen Women
awarded it their annual prize for the most
distinguished work produced that year by a
woman. It was for this work, and for its
services to patriotic education, that Miss
Branscombe's name was inscribed perpetu-
ally upon the Honor Roll of the National
Society at Constitution Hall.
Another famous choral work is Youth of
the World. Written in 1932, it was first
performed the following year in New York,
with the composer conducting. It was sub-
sequently presented successfully in Boston,
Princeton (in a performance by the West-
minster Choir), Chicago, Albany, Toronto,
Cleveland, Manila, and London. It was also
broadcast over the NBC network and by the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Our Canada from Sea to Sea was written
in 1939 as a gesture of international good
will, and has been widely broadcast both in
this ^ country and in Canada. Coventry's
Choir, inspired by the devastating air attack
on Coventry by the Nazis, was written in
the fall of 1943 and introduced in May 1944,
at Town Hall, Speaking of this work, Louis
Brant 41
Riancolli wrote: "Miss Branscombe .cen-
tered the score in the strange sight beheld by
Coventry's dazed populace on emerging from
its ruined homes. Amid the debris, the great
Gothic tower of St. Michael's still stood.
With mounting feeling, the music and text
trace the ancient town's history. . . . Woven
into the fabric are motifs suggestive of mon-
astic Britain. . . . Down the ages, Coventry's
choir sang, the chorus recalled. . . . Then
came November 14, 1940, and bombers blast-
ing the cathedral to bits. But the tower
stood, and round it that Sunday flocked be-
reaved townsfolk, praying and singing. . . .
In plain-spun style, tense with fervid feeling
and grim lyric defiance, Coventry's Choir
managed to evoke the scene."
Gena Branscombe has written more than
a hundred published songs, the best known
of which include The Morning Wind, I
Bring You Heartsease, Happiness, Serenade,
Across the Blue Aegean Sea, and Blow
Softly Maple Leaves. Besides her original
music, she has published some forty choral
arrangements of classic and modern works,
for which she also furnished the English
translations for the original German, French,
Italian, Russian, or Hungarian texts.
In 1932, an honorary degree was con-
ferred on her by Whitman College because
of her "service to music and literature." The
citation spoke of her "imaginative genius in
words and music/' which enabled her "to
embody in imperishable beauty the deep spir-
itual idealism in historic America."
She served the cause of American music
as national chairman of music and folk
song in the General Federation of Women's
Clubs from 1930 to 193S, making available
to clubs throughout the country some thirty
well-contrasted programs of works by Amer-
ican composers. She has also been president
of the Society of American Women Com-
posers, vice president and director of the
NAACC, radio chairman for the New York
State Federation of Music Clubs, and vice
president of the National Opera Club.
She has a passionate belief in the power
of music as one of the "greatest healing and
regenerative forces operating on this earth."
Her personal creed is simple: to be con-
stantly developing her technical equipment,
to work steadily, to write (as far as she is
able) music that brings to its listeners some
quality of refreshment, encouragement, en-
tertainment, comfort, or illumination.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Sonata
for Violin and Piano, 1920; Carnival Fantasy^ for
violin and piano, or for six instruments and piano,
1932; A Lute of Jade, for soprano with piano, or
soprano and five instruments, 1937. Choral Music
The Dancer of Fjaard, 1926; Pilgrims of Destiny,
choral drama, 1927; Youth of the World, 1932;
Sun and Warm Brown Earth, 1934; Our Canada
from Sea to Sea, 1939; Coventry's Choir, 1943.
Orchestral Music Quebec, symphonic suite, 1930;
Procession, 1935; Overture to Pilgrims of Destiny,
1937; Elegie, 1937.
ABOUT: Elson, L. Women in Music; Howard,
J. T. Our Contemporary Composers.
Henry Brant 1913*
T WAS born in Montreal on September
15, 1913," writes Henry Brant, "and
started to compose music at the age of eight.
My family moved to
New York City in
1928. From then until
1934 I was a scholar-
ship student at the
Juilliard School of
Music, where I won
prizes and awards in
composition. Early in
my studies I adopted
the theory that to-
day's composers Giles
should be schooled in all the principal con-
temporary techniques and styles, as well as
those of the past. Accordingly, for a time I
wrote deliberately after the manner of
Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Bartok,
Prokofieff, Milhaud, and Weill, as well as in
the style of composers of the immediate past,
including Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, Strauss,
and Mahler. I divided the work of each mas-
ter into two or three periods, and conscien-
tiously analyzed and imitated each period. I
did not go to Europe to learn any of this on
the spot ; it seemed advisable to cushion the
powerful impact of the well-established mod-
ern European styles as much as possible.
"In the early 1930's a composer with
conservatory training who lacked private
means had the choice of supporting himself
as a teacher, instrumentalist, arranger, or
perhaps critic (but certainly not as a 'seri-
ous* composer!), I went into professional
arranging partly with the object of studying
the jazz arts and techniques at first hand. It
turned out to be much more than that ; in the
42 Brunswick
course of fifteen years I have orchestrated
almost everything that can be called music,
symphonic or popular. This activity af-
forded me a unique insight into the methods
of my American contemporaries. (To risk a
new cliche no composer is a hero to his
arranger ; the same goes for band leaders
and producers.) Then, too, in the course of
participating in the creation of so much
music not one's own, a certain professional
tolerance and awareness are acquired, a kind
of objectivity towards the rest of the world's
music.
"Now as to composing : I have done most
of it in odds and ends of time in between
work as an arranger, or else in rather a hur-
ry to meet deadlines. I feel most at home
composing for films, radio scripts, or dra-
matic situations: i.e., I am more stimulated
by text and actual subject matter than by
abstract musical problems such as new dis-
tortions of the sonata form.
"So far I am almost exclusively an in-
strumental composer. As an arranger I
have had to make friends with the orchestral
instruments and their problems; thus I think
easily and most naturally in terms of the
orchestra. My weakness is new orchestral
combinations, and in this department I ex-
periment continually. At odd moments I
work on a textbook which is to embody the
results of rny fifteen years of observation
and analysis of orchestral resources."
One of Brant's favorite hobbies is the
collection and mastery of rare wind instru-
ments, among them the recorder, double
flageolet, Chinese oboe, Moroccan flute, and
tin whistle. On the tin whistle he is able to
execute difficult virtuoso music, such as the
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto or the caprices
of Paganini. One of his works, entitled
Chico^Groucho, and Harpo- ( 'thrtt faithful
portraits" (of the Marx brothers), is scored
for tin whistle solo with chamber orchestra.
Brant has frequently composed for un-
orthodox instruments or combinations of in-
struments. All Day is scored for the flute
family (three piccolos, five flutes, and three
alto flutes) ; Prelude and Fugue is for string
quartet and woodwind quartet. He has also
written a Concerto for Saxophone and Or-
chestra, which Sigurd Rascher introduced
with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on May
12, 1945. y
Other works, however, are in a more
traditional vein as regards instrumentation.
One of the best of these is a poignant Dedi-
cation in Memory of a Great Man, the
a great man" being Franklin Delano Roose-
velt. It combines elegiac tenderness with a
proud and triumphant affirmation of the
Four Freedoms. Inspired by the death of
President Roosevelt, it was introduced by
the ABC Symphony Orchestra under Max
Goberman on June 23, 1945. His First
Symphony, one of his most ambitious works
to date, was successfully introduced by the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, under Thor
Johnson, on January 30, 1948. Brant has
also composed splendid and original scores
for the ballet; one of these, The Great
American Goof, with libretto by William
Saroyan was successfully introduced in 1940
by the Ballet Theatre.
Since 1943, Brant has been teaching mod-
ern orchestration at Columbia University
Extension and since 1947 at the Juilliard
School. He wrote several musical scores
for films made by the OWI for distribution
overseas during the war. Beginning in 1945
he was musical director of the dramatic
radio program "Labor U.S.A." (ABC net-
work), composing and conducting all inci-
dental music used on this weekly series. In
1946, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellow-
ship. In 1947 he wrote the score for the
Palestinian film, My Father's House.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Ballets City Portrait,
1939; The Great American Goof, 1939. Chamber
Mime All Day, for flute family, 1933; Prelude
and Fugue, for string quartet and woodwind quar-
tet, 1934; Chico, Groucho, and Harpo, for tin
whistle solo with chamber orchestra, 1938; Music
for an Imaginary Ballet, for trio, 1946. Orchestral
M usi r Fantasy and Caprice, for violin with or-
chestra, 1940; Concerto for Saxophone and Orches-
tra, 1941 ; Sermon, Ballad, Skit and Procession, a
symphony, 1943-45; Dedication in Memory of a
Great Man, 1945 ; Spanish Underground, for chorus
and orchestra, 1946; Symphony No. 1 1947- Sym-
phony No. 2, 1948.
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers; Saroyan, W. Razzle Dazzle.
Mark Brunswick 1902-
RK BRUNSWICK was born in New
York City on January 6, 1902. He
attended the Horace Mann School and then
the Phillips Exeter Academy. His original
intention was to become a scientist, or a doc-
tor; but the fascination of music grew ever
Brunswick 43
stronger until he realized that he must devote
his life to it. When he was eight, the world
of music was synonymous in his mind with
Wagner's Nibehtngcn Ring. The first opera
he ever saw Das R he in go Id was one of the
unforgettable experiences of his childhood.
By the time he was
fifteen, Wagner was
supplemented in his
musical world by Bee-
thoven and Tchaikov-
sky. It was at this
time that he aban-
doned his school and
devoted all his time to
composition and
theory, both of which
he was studying with
Rubin Goldmark. For his general academic
education, he depended exclusively on read-
ing.
After "going through the mill for five
years with Goldmark," Brunswick came
under the influence of Ernest Bloch, who, in
Brunswick's own words, "was doing so much
at that time (1922) to intensify our Ameri-
can musical culture and to educate a whole
generation of our composers." A year spent
in study with Bloch brought Brunswick a
greater insight into the form of the masters.
During a trip to Europe, Brunswick spent
some time in Vienna, hearing the great
operas of Mozart. Wagner was still one of
his favorites, but he now ceased to be the
central figure. More and more, Brunswick
turned to Viennese music of the classical
period, finding therein an artistic satisfaction
not even Wagner could provide.
He began to feel that, valuable though it
was, his year with Bloch had made him
somewhat "muscle-bound" as a composer.
However, intermittent work at composition
with Nadia Boulanger in Paris gave him
greater freedom of technique and purpose.
Conservative at first, he now became increas-
ingly aware of the importance of composers
like Bartok and Stravinsky in the develop-
ment of contemporary musical thought; he
was to discover Hindemith somewhat later.
In discussing Schoenberg and his group,
Brunswick explains: "While sympathetic to
me by reason of their intransigent attitude
to art and faithfulness to principles, [they]
nevertheless always repelled me by their hy-
peremotional chromatic diction, both vocal
and instrumental ; also the dogmatic denial of
tonality ran too counter to my own musical
instincts for me to respond in any positive
way."
In Europe, Brunswick composed his
Opus 1, Two Movements, for string quartet.
While more dissonant than his earlier ap-
prentice works, it was nevertheless definitely
tonal, and the scheme of the tonality was not
far removed from that of classical music.
The work was first heard in Vienna in 1935,
then featured at the International Society of
Contemporary Music Festival at Barcelona
in 1936; it was introduced in New York in
1939.
"I have always been particularly respon-
sive to very old music, that of Palestrina,
Lasso, and of even older times," he says.
"This music has in various ways influenced
my musical thought profoundly though
never with any conscious attempt on my part
to create a hybrid musical style. Above all,
its rhythmic freedom and its austere power
have been absorbed intuitively into my own
musical speech." Two choral preludes
(Christ lag in Todesbanden and Das alte
Jahr Vergangen 1st) and a motet (Fragment
from Sappho), written between 1927 and
1933, show this influence most obviously.
In 1932, Brunswick wrote a Fantasia for
Viola Solo for his friend, the virtuoso Marcel
Dick. Dick introduced this work in Vienna
and New York with marked success.
"Much of my time in those years was oc-
cupied with working on an opera Lysistrata,
based on the comedy of Aristophanes. I
finally realized that chances of operatic per-
formance were slight, and I rescued the best
parts and incorporated them into a concert
or ballet suite for mezzo-soprano, women's
chorus, and orchestra."
He feels his most characteristic work to
date is his Symphony in B Flat, completed in
the summer of 1945, and introduced by the
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra under Mi-
tropoulos on March 7, 1947. It is dissonant,
but always clear in its tonal relationships;
and the style could be called classic, though
not in the traditional meaning of the term.
"I am extremely critical of the work of
other composers, and equally critical of mine.
Composing for me is very difficult. While
I naturally would like it to be easier, I realize
44 Burleigh
that in this musical world of today, with its
conflicting and uncertain tendencies and in-
fluences, the achieving and maintaining of
true individuality and purity of musical
thought will always require an intensity of
effort and of imagination that can never be
'easy/ If this makes for small creative out-
put, I cannot wish it otherwise."
His activities, outside of composing, in-
clude teaching, and writing about music. He
finds teaching second nature to him. "In it
I can lose myself, and at the same time be
refreshed by contact with students and their
works in my own creative work and in my
whole relation to music." Since September
1946 he has been chairman of the Music De-
partment of the College of the City of New
York.
Both in Vienna and New York, Bruns-
wick has been active in promoting contem-
porary music. He was on the executive
board of the Austrian section of the IS CM
and has been for several years the president
of the United States section. He has helped
to organize many concerts devoted to con-
temporary works, both American and Euro-
pean.
In 1938, Brunswick organized, and up to
1943 helped to administer, the National Com-
mittee for Refugee Musicians. In the emer-
gency created by the Fascist persecution of
Europeans, Brunswick exerted great effort in
helping many European colleagues from the
humblest to the most famous by placing
them in positions which both rescued them
personally and gave enrichment to our own
American musical life.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Two
Movements, for string quartet, 1925-26; Fantasia
for Vioia Solo, 1932. Choral Music Fragment of
Sappho, motet for a cappella chorus, 1932;
Lysistrata, ballet-suite, for mezza-soprano, chorus,
and orchestra, 1936, Orchestral Music Symphony
in B Flat, 1945.
Cecil Burleigh 1885-
|ECIL BURLEIGH was born in Wyo-
ming, New York, on April 17, 1885. He
began studying the violin with a local teacher
in Omaha, Nebraska, when he was nine years
old. At the same time, he took lessons in
theory, and devoted himself a great deal to
improvisation at the piano. "My first at-
tempts at composition/' he writes, "were dur-
ing the high school years, After reading
Ivanhoe, Kenilwortk, and Lady of the Lake,
I found myself giving musical expression to
scenes contained thereinmere sketchy frag-
ments at the time, but revealing a natural
leaning toward impressionism. Strangely
enough, during my student days abroad, this
hopeful beginning completely disappeared in
a sea of composition which never rose above
the imitative stage/'
In 1903, Burleigh went to Berlin, there
to devote himself to a three-year period of
study with Anton Witek, Max Grunberg, and
Hugo Leichtentritt.
He returned to this
country in his twen-
tieth year and con-
tinued to study piano
with fimile Sauret
and composition with
Felix Borowski. At
that time, a hearing of
MacDowell's music
for the first time re-
awakened his early
impressionistic tendency. "I had at last re-
turned to secure ground which was traversed
thenceforth without digression/'
Between 1919 and 1921, he held various
po.sts as instructor of violin and composition
in Colorado, Iowa, and Montana. At the
same time, he entered upon a career as con-
cert violinist ( following a preparatory period
of study with Leopold Auer). He gave nu-
merous recitals throughout the country, ap-
peared as soloist with many major orchestras,
and appeared in joint recitals with Rosa Pon-
selle, Louis Graveure, Rudolph Ganz, and
as co-artist with John McCormack and Ethel
Barrymore.
His composition was also pursued inde-
fatigably, enriched by periods of study with
Walter Roth well and Ernest Bloch. As a
concert violinist, he introduced his own first
two violin concertos with the Minneapolis
Symphony (conducted by Verbrugghen) and
the Cleveland Orchestra (under Sokoloff) re-
spectively. These concerts have since been
performed by many major orchestras in Eu-
rope, South Africa, and the United States
He subsequently wrote a third concerto.
After a prolonged period of productivity,
in which he wrote numerous works in many
Cadman 45
different forms, he lapsed into a period of
creative inactivity. But his marriage in 1940
to Jessie Meredith Jennings was instrumen-
tal in restoring his creative power. He has
repudiated many of his earlier works
his publishers cooperating with him in this
respect by withdrawing many of his early
published works and has turned to compo-
sitions along more ambitious lines and with
richer and more mature concepts. Among
these newer works are included Leaders of
Men, a suite for orchestra, and The American
Processional, for violin and piano. Leaders
of Men is described by the composer as a
suite which "derives its name from qualities
which characterize individuals who, in
periods of history, have endeavored to lead
humanity out of its confusion and perplex-
ities, A groping of the masses reveals a
necessity for leadership." American Proces-
sional is a work based upon the development
of the country from the days of the Indian
to our own generation.
"To me/' Burleigh has told an inter-
viewer, "all composition divides itself into
three classes: absolutism, impressionism, and
realism. Personally, I greatly favor the
first two, but'in any case, the music must be
able to stand alone regardless of the pro-
gram."
Of modern American music, he says: "I
am in sympathy with those Americans who
write music which is untouched by any literal
use of jazz, Indian, Negro, or folk tunes, in
the effort to give it a nationalistic flavor.
Music that is broader in meaning, like that of
Brahms, Tchaikovsky, or Debussy, while it
will naturally take on the character of the
country from which it emanates, is addressed
to the world."
In 1922, Burleigh was appointed profes-
sor of violin and composition at the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin, a post he holds at the
present time. His avocational interests in-
clude painting and the reading of English
and American classics.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Ascen-
sion Sonata, Op. 22, 1914; Sonata, "From the Life
of St. Paul," Op. 29, 1920; Hymn to the Ancients,
quintet, 1940; American Processional, for violin
and piano, 1941; Two Quartets, "Illusion," and
"Transition," 1945. Orchestral Music Three con-
certos for violin and orchestra, Op. 25, 43, 60, 1915,
1919, 1928; Evangeline, tone poem, Op. 41, 1929;
Mountain Pictures, Op. 42, 1930; Leaders of Men,
suite, 1940; From the Muses, for small orchestra,
1944; Trilogy* of Symphonies, "Creation," "Proph-
Keystone
ecy," and "Revelation," 1944. Piano Music Ballad
of Early New England, Op. 58, 1924; Three Mood
Pictures, Op. 56, 1926.
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. Cecil Burleigh; Etude
April 1943.
Charles Wakefield Cadman 1881-1946
/CHARLES WAKEFIELD CADMAN
was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania,
on December 24, 1881. His ancestry was
musical : his great-
grandfather (Samuel
Wakefield) built the
first pipe organ west
of the Alleghenies
and was a hymnolo-
gist ; his mother was a
fine choir singer. Even
as a child, Charles
was always sensitive
to music, and sat fas-
cinated by any kind
of musical performance, whether that of a
small orchestra, or that of a mediocre singer
in the local theatre. When Charles was thir-
teen, his family acquired a piano. The boy
studied harmony with Leo Oehmler, then
orchestration with Luigi von Kunits in Pitts-
burgh, and made rapid progress. Three years
after taking his first piano lesson, he played
the organ in a Pittsburgh suburban church. '
However, the urge to compose was
stronger in him than the desire to be either
a concert pianist or an organist. For many
years, his pastime had been to scribble musi-
cal ideas on paper. In his sixteenth year
he published a "march two-step" (in the
style of Sousa) called Carnegie Library
March', the title page had a flamboyant pic-
ture of the Homestead (Pennsylvania) Li-
brary and Music Hall He followed the
local band around the town (and in mud)
in order to hear it play his march in a
parade; and at the Music Hall he presented
Andrew Carnegie and Charles M. Schwab
with copies tied up in a red ribbon. Since
his father was a steel-mill employee, the
whole thing rather "clicked." The youthful
composer canvassed the entire vicinity with
copies of his march, selling enough of them
over a two-year period to defray the ex-
penses for harmony lessons and further
piano study.
Cadman
In or about 1902, Cadman met Nellie
Richmond Eberhart, the lyric writer, who
had moved with her family from Nebraska
to Homestead. She interested him in song-
writing. Within a year or so, the two col-
laborators had sold about twelve songs to
Xew York, Chicago, and Philadelphia music
publishers. Then, in 1907, they conceived
the idea of utilizing Amerindian themes as a
basis for song settings. Mrs. Eberhart wrote
the lyrics for what she later called Four
American Indian Songs, and for these Cad-
man wrote the music. This cycle included
From the Land of the Sky-Blue Water and
The Moon Drops Low, the latter winning a
prize in the Carnegie Art Institute prize con-
test in Pittsburgh in 1909. These songs were
rejected seven times by publishers before
being accepted by a Boston firm. When
Lillian Nordica sang From the Land of the
Sky-Blue Water in 1909 it became an im-
mediate hit, and soon every great concert
artist of the period incorporated either that
song, or something else, by Cadman. An-
other of Cadman's songs composed at about
this time was At Dawning. For four years
it rested untouched on the shelves of the
Ditson Company. Then John McCormack
featured it on one of his concert tours, and
before that season was over the song was
a sensation. It has since become one of the
most successful of Cadman's songs, having
sold well over two million copies.
In 1909, Cadman spent a summer among
the Omaha Indians, and he obtained a
great many ceremonial songs and flageolet
love calls. This further intensified his early
interest in Indian music. In subsequent
composition, and in forms larger than that
of the song, he frequently incorporated In-
dian themes and styles. Noteworthy in this
category is his opera Shanewis, produced at
the Metropolitan Opera House in 1918, and
sometimes ^ referred to as one of the first
really indigenous American operas; inci-
dentally, It was also the first American work
to survive more than one season at the Met-
ropolitan, Noteworthy, too, are such in-
strumental works as the Thunderbird Suite
and To a Vanishing Race. Cadman's Indian
music so pleased the critic Henry T. Finck
that he wrote: "Cadman is the most prom-
ising composer who has come forward since
the death of Edward MacDowell."
Not only was Cadman the first composer
to utilize successfully Indian themes as a
basis for song literature and larger works,
frankly admitting that they were "idealized/ 1
but he also collected and revealed much of
the authentic aboriginal material in lecture-
recitals given with an Indian singer,
Tsianina. Cadman lectured throughout the
United States from 1914 until 1926, when he
retired from that field.
It would, however, be a grievous mistake
to pigeonhole Cadman as a composer of
American Indian music because he earned
some of his greatest triumphs in that idiom.
He wrote numerous other works, and some
of them, as singularly significant and original
as his Indian works, have not even a re-
mote relation to the Indian idiom. Such a
work is his opera A Witch of Salem, which
ran for two years at the Chicago Opera
House during Mary Garden's administration.
Cadman's more recent works are also devoid
of any Indian traces. The best of these in-
clude the G Minor Quintet, introduced in
San Diego in 1937 ; the "American overture"
Huckleberry Finn Goes Fishing] and the
Aurora Borealis for piano and orchestra
which the composer introduced with the
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra under
Fabien Sevitzky in December 1944.
Indeed, it was Cadman's belief that the
"employment" of any style of folk song in-
digenous to America does not lead to what
is broadly called "American music." He ac-
knowledged the fact that the occasional in-
troduction and use of Negro, Indian, cow-
boy, or Kentucky mountain tunes may add
"color" or "local flavor" at times, but he did
not at all feel that the use of this native
material was essential to the writing of either
significant or authentic American works.
Cadman, who lived in Southern Califor-
nia from 1917 up to the time of his death,
was a resident of Los Angeles, with whose
musical life he was intimately associated :
he was on the Mayor's "Civic Music Com-
mittee" and other projects, and was one of
the founders of the Hollywood Bowl. His
greatest interest, besides composing, was de-
veloping young musicians of talent, and
sponsoring the education of several of them.
His major hobby was motion-picture pho-
tography; on occasion he liked to go fishing.
Cadman died of a heart attack in Los
Angeles on December 30, 1946.
Carpenter 47
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Trip in
D Major, 1913; Sonata in G, for violin and piano,
1937; Quintet in G Minor, for piano and strings,
1937; A Mad Empress Remembers, for 'cello and
piano, 1943-44. Operas Shanewis, 1917; A Witch
of Salem, 1923-24; Raniala. Orchestral Music
Thunderbird Suite, 1914; Oriental Rhapsody, 1917;
Dark Dancers of the Mardi Gras, 1932; American
Suite, 1937; Symphony No. 1, 1939; Aurora
Bo real is, for piano and orchestra, 1942 ; Huckle-
berry Finn Goes Fishing, 1945.
RECORDINGS: At Dawning, V-4369 (Eddy) also
V-1165 (Kreisler) ; From the Land of the Sky Blue
Water, V-2055 (Jeannette MacDonald) also V-1115
(Kre : s!er).
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers.
John Alden Carpenter 1876-
JOHN ALDEN CARPENTER, a lineal
descendant of the John Aldens of co-
lonial fame, was born at Park Ridge, Illinois,
on February 28, 1876.
His mother, an ac-
complished amateur
singer who had stud-
ied in Paris with
Marchesi, was John's
first music teacher.
More formal instruc-
tion took place in
Chicago with Amy
Fay (Theodore
Thomas's sister - in -
law) and W. C. E. Seeboeck; later music
study was pursued under Professor John
Knowles Paine at Harvard University, from
which Carpenter was graduated with a B.A.
degree in 1897. After graduation there were
other periods of study, notably with Sir Ed-
ward Elgar for a few months in Rome in
the winter of 1908, and later in Chicago
with Bernhard Ziehn from 1909 to 1912.
Carpenter considers this association with
Ziehn as his most fruitful period of study.
In the meantime, immediately after grad-
uation from Harvard, Carpenter entered his
father's business (Geo. B. Carpenter & Co.,
mill, railroad, and vessel supplies, in Chi-
cago) of which he later became vice presi-
dent. He continued in that capacity until
his retirement in 1936.
Carpenter's first work to be given an
important performance was his Sonata for
Violin and Piano which he wrote during his
period pf study with Bernhard Ziehn, to
whom it is dedicated. The performer was
Mischa Elman, and the performance took
place in New York in 1912. Subsequently
this sonata was performed by Albert Spald-
ing and other famous violinists and pub-
lished by Schirrner's, in whose current cata-
log it is still found. In 1914, a series of
songs composed to lyrics by Tagore, Gitan-
jali, impressed critics with their fresh ap-
proach and instinctive feeling for subtle
atmosphere. As Felix Borowski noted, these
songs "had beauty undisfigured by cheap
tunefulness, and the harmonic subtlety struck
a new note in native composition."
A composition quite different in char-
acter was heard one year later in a perform-
ance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
It was the now-famous witty Adventures in
a Perambulator, Carpenter's first orchestral
work, a suite in six movements recording a
baby's impressions of the city streets as he is
being wheeled by his nurse in his perambula-
tor. The vivid tone pictures are highly
spiced with an engaging sense of humor,
and have amusing interpolations of snatches
of popular songs.
In 1919, Carpenter's first ballet, The
Birthday of the Infanta, was performed by
the Chicago opera. (An orchestral suite
drawn from that ballet was introduced by
the Chicago Symphony one year later.) A
second ballet, Krazy Kat, was heard at
Town Hall, New York, in 1922. But Car-
penter's most famous work in this genre,
possibly his most famous work of all, came
in 1925. In the previous year, he had been
invited by Diaghilev, in connection with a
projected American tour, to write a ballet
of "American life." The first performance
was to take place the following spring in
Monte Carlo. The score was completed on
time, but plans for the American tour had to
be abandoned, and Carpenter's work, under
the title Skyscrapers, had its first perform-
ance by the Metropolitan Opera Ballet or-
ganization in 1926. Drawing copiously from
the resources of jazz music, Carpenter pro-
duced a work in which the modern city is
reproduced with all its frenetic confusion.
Jazz, here used seriously for the first time in
ballet-form, becomes a uniquely apt idiom
with which to express the modern city life
in its enervating stress,
Skyscrapers, both in its original ballet
form and as an orchestral suite, placed Car-
penter in the front rank of American com-
48 Carter
posers. This place he has retained with a
succession of important works in many dif-
ferent forms. A tone poem, Sea Drift, the
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, and the
orchestral Danza showed an ever-increasing
command of orchestral resources as well as
a consummate mastery of form and an in-
creasing maturity of artistic conception.
An early symphony, originally introduced
at the Norfolk Festival in 1917, was ex-
tensively revised twenty years later in honor
of the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra; its premiere took place
with that orchestra in October 1940. A
second symphony, the fulfillment of Car-
penter's artistic maturity, came two years
later.
In the field of choral music, Carpenter
produced one work of major significance. It
is The Song of Faith, a cantata for chorus
and orchestra, written for the Washington
Bicentennial celebration in 1932. Against
an instrumental background, a narrator
chants the last testament of George Wash-
ington, in a work remarkable for directness,
simplicity, and sincerity. Carpenter has also
written excellent chamber music together
with a long list of songs which have won
their way into the concert repertory of many
famous singers.
W, J. Henderson characterized Carpen-
ter's music excellently when he pointed out
that his best works are marked by a "whim-
sical fancy, a delicate, even poetic humor,
and tender sentiments." Henderson* further
remarked that Carpenter's melodic invention
is "facile and his themes have fluency and
grace/* Carpenter has received honorary
degrees from many universities, including
Harvard, Northwestern, and the University
of Wisconsin. He was made Knight of the
Legion of Honor in 1921, and in 1943 was
appointed to the American Academy of Arts
and Letters. On February 13, 1947 it was
announced that Carpenter had been awarded
a gold medal by the National Institute of Arts
and Letters "for distinguished services in
music" the first time in nine years such an
honor had been conferred.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballets The Birthday of
ife c lnfa ^? a * 1 919; . Kraz y Kat ' I921 ' Skyscrapers,
1925. Chamber Music Sonata for Violin and
w^rl l2 'i^f Q e artet > 192 ^ Piano Q uintet '
1933 Choral MusicSong O f Faith, cantata, 1932.
Qrchistrd Music Adventures in a Perambulator,
IV15; Concertino for Piano aad Orchestra, 1916-
Symphony No. 1, 1917, revised 1940; Patterns for
piano and orchestra, 1932; Sea Drift, symphonic
poem, 1933; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra,
1938; Symphony No. 2, 1942; Dance Suite, 1943;
Seven Ages, 1945.
RECORDINGS: Adventures in a Perambulator,
VM-239 (Minneapolis Symphony Ormandy) ; Sky-
scrapers, orchestral suite, VM-130 (Victor Sym-
phony Shilkret).
ABOUT: Seldes, G. Seven Lively Arts; Musi-
cal Quarterly October 1930.
Elliott Garter 1908-
COOK CARTER, JR., was
born in New York City on December 11,
1908. He revealed a bent for music even
before he could read
or write. This inter-
est in music, however,
was not particularly
encouraged at home,
though he did take
some piano lessons.
It was during the last
years at the Horace
Mann High School
that his great love for
music was given en- Tripp
couragement and direction. At this time, he
was taken to his first public concerts by
friends whose great interest lay m the music
of the moderns. Through these concerts, he
came to know Charles Ives, who encouraged
him to pursue the study of music seriously.
When he went to Harvard University in
1926, he had not yet made up his mind to
become a professional musician, and so he
concentrated on English literature. He did
not abandon music, however : he studied the
piano with Newton Swift and solfeggio with
Hans Ebell, at the Longy School. During this
period, he went to as many concerts of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra as he could,
sometimes three times a week; he also sang
in the Harvard Glee Club.
It was during his last year as an under-
graduate that he decided definitely to devote
himself to musical composition. After re-
ceiving his B.A. degree from Harvard in
1930, he continued at the University as a
graduate student in music. He took courses
in harmony and counterpoint with Walter
Piston; choral composition with A. T, Davi-
son; history of music with Edward Burl-
ingame Hill. At that time, the eminent Eng-
lish composer, Gustav Hoist, was a visiting
professor, and Carter took a course in com-
Carter 49
position under him. In 1932, Carter received
his master's degree at Harvard, and (on the
advice of Piston) went to Paris to continue
his studies with Nadia Boulanger.
From 1932 to 1935, he studied composi-
tion privately with Boulanger, besides tak-
ing her course in counterpoint at the cole
Normale de Musique. He sang in a madri-
gal group which specialized in French madri-
gals and was directed by Henri Expert; he
also directed a chorus of his own.
In 1932, while still in France, he com-
posed incidental music for a Harvard Classi-
cal Club presentation of Sophocles' Phil-
octetes, which was the first of his works to
be given public performance ; this took place
in Cambridge in the winter of 1933.
He returned to America in 1935, settled
in Cambridge, and began to hunt for a job, a
quest which proved unsuccessful because
of the depression. While in Cambridge, he
wrote incidental music for another Classical
Club presentation, that of Plautus' Hostel-
laria. An excerpt from his music, Taran-
tella, was later performed by the Harvard
Glee Club on its tour during the fall of 1936 ;
and in May 1937 it was also performed by
the Boston Pops Orchestra directed by G.
Wallace Wood worth.
In the summer of 1936, Lincoln Kirstein
encouraged him to write a short ballet on the
subject of Pocahontas. He wrote a brief
work for solo piano on this subject, which
was so successful in its performances that
Carter decided to expand it into a full-length
ballet. The Ballet Caravan presented it at
the Martin Beck Theatre in New York in
April 1939. A suite for orchestra, drawn
from this ballet, won the prize for the Pub-
lication of American Music given by the
Juilliard Foundation (1940).
In the fall of 1936, Carter came to New
York to live. A year later, he began writing
reviews and articles for Modern Music. In
1938, his choral setting of Robert Herrick's
To Music won a prize in a contest conducted
by CBS, Columbia Records, and the WPA.
It was performed in the spring of that year
by Lehman Engel's Madrigal Singers in New
York. Since then, Carter has written other
splendid choral works, one of which An-
other Music made one critic refer to its
composer as one of our "best equipped com-
posers of significant choral works/'
In 1939, Carter was married to Helen
Gaulois, a sculptress; a son, David Cham-
bers Carter, was born to them on February
1> 1944. The Carters went to live in An-
napolis, where the composer was appointed
to the faculty of St. John's College. During
his first two years there, he organized a
chorus and directed various musical activ-
ities besides planning a program of music
teaching which sought to integrate the study
of music into the liberal arts curriculum of
the college. In the succeeding year, he be-
came a regular teacher at the college, con-
ducting freshman seminars and classes de-
voted to the reading and study of the great
texts of Greek thought. Besides this, he
continued his various musical activities.
His method of teaching music at St.
John's was devised in cooperation with the
philosopher Scott Buchanan, dean of the
college. It was based on an entirely new
approach to the problem, different from that
usually found in other American colleges.
Music was studied as a branch of mathe-
matics, or physics, as well as a medium of
expression. This study was required of
everyone in the school. His article in Mod-
ern Music (October 1944) gives details of
this innovation in musical education.
Teaching at St. John's, however, left
little time for musical composition. Carter
therefore resigned and went to Santa Fe,
New Mexico, where he completed his First
Symphony in the winter of 1942. Then he
came back East and was given the post of
music consultant at the Office of War In-
formation. In this capacity, he prepared a
large collection of recordings of serious
music, both American and European, to be
used on short-wave transmitters for overseas
broadcasts, and to be sent to radio stations
at government outposts all over the world.
During a vacation on Fire Island, New York,
in 1944, he wrote his Holiday Overture
which won a prize of $500 given by the In-
dependent Music Publishers, In the spring
of 194S, he received a Guggenheim Fellow-
ship, a prize in the American Composers
Alliance and Broadcast Music Inc. contest
(for his Quartet for Alto Saxophones), and
honorable mention for his Prelude, Fanfare
and Polka, for radio orchestra.
One of Carter's most ambitious works is
his First Symphony, which was introduced
by the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Or-
'50 Castelnuovo-Tedesco
chestra, conducted by Howard Hanson, on
April 27, 1944. In three movements, it is
largely lyrical in character, with a gay last
movement. The first movement is a series
of variations in which the main theme re-
turns as in a sonata form : it is melodic, and
quiet in character. The second movement is
like a hymn ; and the last movement is in the
nature of a dance. The work was suggested
to the composer when he was living on Cape
Cod and was interested in various character-
istics of New England thought and feeling
as seen not only among the people he met
there but also among the great New England
writers of the past. The entire symphony
is subdued in character, restrained in color,
sober in emotional expression; it generates
power through poignant lyricism rather than
dramatically.
Other major works by Carter include his
Piano Sonata (1945-46) and the ballet The
Minotaur (1946). The piano work was first
performed by Webster Aitken at a concert in
New York on February 16, 1947. "Full of
power and brilliance/' it is conceived as a vir-
tuoso piece. The Minotaur was given by the
Ballet Society on March 26, 1947 in New
York. "The violence of the legend of Ariadne
and the Minotaur is something to which Mr.
Carter was profoundly sensitive/' wrote one
critic. "The rapid succession of ideas, many
of them sensitive and striking, was gratify-
ing. . . . One could marvel at the extent of the
work and complexity of thought that went
into the process/'
In addition to music, Carter's favorite
occupation is reading. His taste in books is
very wide, but he finds greatest satisfaction
in the classic literature of the past; few
contemporary novels interest him, although
he is a devotee of contemporary poetry as
well as of contemporary philosophic thought.
His sport is swimming. He likes to dp gar-
dening, to wander about the streets of New
York, to visit art galleries, to go to the
Planetarium or the Museum of Natural His-
tory in New York, and to learn about tech-
nical processes, scientific and industrial.
"My general outlook is in the direction of
Platonism, as seen by Whitehead. I like
music to be beautiful, ordered, and expres-
sive of the more important aspects of life.
Music may very well exhibit a certain local
color ; but to be primarily interesting in this
way seems to me to bend towards triviality.
We are human first and Americans after-
wards. Feelings have their own internal
logic, and it is up to the composer to follow
this in the ordering of his music."
In 1946 Carter was appointed to the
faculty of the Peabody Conservatory in
Baltimore, Maryland.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballet Pocahontas, 1936,
revised 1939; Minotaur, 1946. Chamber Music
Pastoral, for piano and viola, 1940; Quintet for
Woodwinds, 1948 ; Sonata for Violoncello and
Piano, 1948. Choral MusicTo Music, 1938; The
Defense of Corinth (Rabelais) for men's chorus
and piano four hands, 1941 ; The Harmony of
Morning, for women's chorus and small orchestra,
1945; Emblems, for men's chorus and piano, 1947.
Orchestral Music Incidental music to Plautus'
Mostellaria, 1935; Suite from Pocahontas, 1939;
Symphony No. 1, 1942; Holiday Overture, 1944.
Piano Music Sonata, 1946. Songs Voyage (Hart
Crane) 1943; Warble for Lilac Time (Whitman)
1943; Three Poems of Robert Frost, 1943.
ABOUT: Saminsky, L. Music of Our Time.
Modern Music March-April 1938.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco 1895"
TI/rARIO CASTELNUOVO - TEDESCO,
important Italian composer, now a resi-
dent of California, was born on April 3,
1895 in Florence, It-
aly, in the Tuscan
hills where his family
had lived for four
hundred years. "I be-
lieve," the composer
says, "that I inherited
my musical talent
from my mother's
side, especially from
my maternal grand-
father, who had en-
couraged me a great deal in my studies. I
knew him to be musical, but not a musician,
and it was several years after his death that
we found in the recesses of his library, hidden
by books, a little notebook in which he had
noted, by hand, music for several Hebrew
prayers. The discovery of this little note-
book proved one of the deepest emotions of
my life, and has become for me a precious
heritage."
At the Cherubim Royal Institute of Mus-
ic, Castelnuovo-Tedesco studied composition
with Ildebrando Pizzetti and piano with Del
Valle. Pizzetti's influence on the younger
man was profound. At the age of fifteen,
.Castelnuovo-Tedeseo: c6s-tel-noo-6V6 te-des'co
Castelnuovo-Tedesco 51
Mario composed a piano piece, Cielo di
Settembre, in which the influence of the
teacher is apparent. Further evidence of
Castelnuovo-Tedesco's talent came in 1913
with another piano work, Questo Fu il Carro
della Morte. For many years Castelnuovo-
Tedesco devoted himself only to the shorter
forms of music, and wrote numerous pieces
for the piano and songs of unquestioned
talent.
In 1920, he turned to larger forms. The
first important work was Fioretti, for voice
and orchestra, a setting of three verses by
St. Francis of Assisi. Five years after this,
an opera, La Mandragola, based on the com-
edy of Machiavelli, won the Italian Prize.
Introduced in Venice in 1926, it established
Castelnuovo-Tedesco as one of the major
younger voices in Italy.
The first time that one of Castelnuovo-
Tedesco's works was performed in the
United States was in 1930 when Arturo
Toscanini conducted the Symphonic Varia-
tions with the New York Philharmonic. In
the years that followed, numerous major
works were heard here: in 1931, Heifetz
played the Concerto Italiano, and two years
later gave the world premiere of the second
concerto, The Prophets, with Toscanini con-
ducting the accompaniment; the overture,
The Taming of the Shrew, was heard in
1931 and 1933 ; in 1935, Gregor Piatigorsky
presented the Concerto for Violoncello and
Orchestra with Toscanini ; in 1939, the over-
ture The Merchant of Venice was introduced
at the Lewisohn Stadium, New York.
Several major influences have had pro-
found repercussions on Castelnuovo-Tedes-
co's works. One of these was Shakespeare.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco's passion for the Avon
bard is proved by the numerous works
nine overtures, thirty-three songs, twenty-
seven sonnets, and numerous duets inspired
by Shakespearean plays. Another influence
was old Hebrew music, which produced sev-
eral important works including the Sacred
Service, and the concerto, The Prophets,
which, in its three movements, attempts to
characterize three major Biblical prophets,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Elijah. A third influ-
ence has been the hills of Tuscany, in which
Castelnuovo-Tedesco was born and reared.
As Guido Gatti wrote: "The general phys-
iognomy of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's work
bears a striking resemblance to the region
about his native Florence, rich in soft un-
dulating lines, all delicately traced by the
whole gamut of colors, grays and greens of
every value."
When Italy set out on its own anti-
Semitic program, to prove to the world its
solidarity with Nazi Germany, Castelnuovo-
Tedesco left his native land and came to the
United States. On November 2, 1939, he
appeared as soloist with the New York Phil-
harmonic, Barbirolli conducting, in the first
performance of his Second Concerto for
Piano and Orchestra.
After settling for a brief period in Larch-
mont, New York, Castelnuovo-Tedesco went
to California and made his home perma-
nently in Beverly Hills. He did a great deal
of composing for Hollywood films, fre-
quently under a pseudonym; one of the
scores which he has acknowledged was that
for the Rene Clair movie, And Then There
Were None. Some of his recent serious
works reflect American experiences, includ-
ing the Humoresques on Foster's Themes, An
American Rhapsody and the Indian Songs
and Dances.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco describes himself as
a "quiet, middle-aged gentleman, with white
hair, living peacefully in a small bungalow,
with a tiny garden/* He writes further : "I
don't love Los Angeles as I used to love my
beautiful city of Florence; but I love the
sunshine and the blue sky of California, just
as I used to love those of Italy. Sometimes,
when I am in my little garden, I feel much
like Candide. When, at the end of his ad-
venturous career, he cultivates his little gar-
den on the Bosporus to earn his living,
Pangloss asks him: "Isn't this the best of
all worlds?' 'Yes/ answers Candide, 'but
everybody has to cultivate his little garden/
"I believe I have cultivated my little
garden, all my life, and honestly. I still
enjoy writing music, and I still love (as I
did in my youth) great poetry, beautiful
books, good paintings; these and the hills,
the sea, the flowers, my little family, and a
few sincere friends. I have a quiet con-
science, and many good memories, and I
still believe in God.
"I would like some day to go back to
Italy, to see it again ; but America is now my
home. I would like to see again Florence
and the cypresses of Usigliano di Lari, and
52 Castro
I would consider myself happy if my old
bones could be buried there. America is a
splendid country to live in. Italy is a lovely
country to die in."
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballets The Birthday of
the Infanta (Oscar Wilde) 1942; The Octoroon
Ball, 1947; Naomi and Ruth, 1947. Chamber Music
Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, 1928; Trio,
1928; Sonata quasi una Fantasia > for violin and
piano, 1929; Quartet, 1929; The Lark, poem in form
of a rondo, for violin and piano, 1930; Piano
Quintet, 1932; Second Trio, 1932; Concertino for
harp and seven instruments, 1935 ; Divertimento, for
two flutes, 1943; Sonata for Violin and Viola, 1945;
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, 1945; Sonata for
Bassoon and Piano, 1946. Choral Music Lecho
Dodi, 1939; Sacred Service for the Sabbath Eve,
1943. Operas La Mandragola, 1921-23; Bacco in
Toscana, 1925-26; Aucassin and Nicolette, 1938.
Orchestral Music Concerto Italiano, for violin and
orchestra, 1924; First Concerto for Piano and
Orchestra, 1927; Symphonic Variations, for violin
and orchestra, 1928; The Prophets, concerto for
violin and orchestra, 1932; Concerto for Violoncello
and Orchestra, 1933; Second Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra, 1937; Concerto for Guitar and
Orchestra, 1939; Nine Concert Overtures: Tam-
ing of the Shrew, Merchant of Venice, Twelfth
Night, Julius Caesar, A Winter's Tale, A Mid-
summer Night's Dream, King John, Antony and
Cleopatra, Coriolanus, 1930, 1933, 1933, 1934, 1934,
1940, 1941, 1947, 1947; Poem, for violin and
orchestra, 1942; Serenade, for guitar and chamber
orchestra, 1943; Indian Songs and Dances, 1943;
Humoresques on Foster's Themes, 1943 ; An Ameri-
can Rhapsody, 1943; Noah's Ark, 1944. Piano
Music Cipressi, 1920; Alt Wien, 1923; Piedigrotta,
1924; Le Danza del Re David, 1925; Chorals on
Hebrew Melodies, 1926; Sonata, 1928; Films, 1931;
Preludi Alpestri, 1936; Candide, 1944. Songs
More than 300 songs, including the cycles : Coplas,
1915; 'Stella Cadenti, 1915; Fioretti di San Fran-
cesco, 1919; 33 Shakespeare Songs, 1921-25; Son-
etti di Dante, 1926; Heine Lieder, 1929; Romances
Vietos, 1933; Fragments de Marcel Proust, 1936;
Leaves of Grass (Whitman) 1936; 27 Shakespeare
Sonnets, 1945.
RECORDINGS: Cipressi, V-16449 (Castelnuovo-
Tedesco) ; Sea Murmurs, arranged for violin and
piano, V-1645 (Heifetz).
ABOUT : Ewen, D. Book of Modern Com-
posers.
Juan Jose Castro 1895-
JUAN JOSfe CASTRO, Argentine com-
poser, was born in Buenos Aires on
March 7, 1895. He began the study of music
in his native city; then, winning a govern-
ment stipend in 1914, went to France for a
five-year stay to study there with Vincent
dTndy. Upon his return to his country, he
first founded a quintet, which gave distin-
guished performances of chamber music, then
a chamber orchestra which introduced a
great library of old and modern music to
Castro: cos'tro
Argentine music lovers. Since 1929, he has
devoted a great share of his musical activity
to conducting symphony orchestras. As prin-
cipal conductor of the orchestra of the Colon
Theatre, he has done valuable work in intro-
ducing modern ballets
to Argentine audi-
ences including
those by Stravinsky,
Manuel de Falla, and
Prokofieff. He has
also served as a guest
conductor of most of
the leading South
American orchestras.
Because of his asso-
ciation with demo- Wilenski
cratic groups in Argentina, Castro was
temporarily removed from his post with the
Teatro Colon Orchestra in October 1943.
In 1942, Juan Jose Castro toured the
United States, at which time he was instru-
mental in introducing many of his works
to American audiences. This was his second
stay in the United States, the first taking
place in 1934 when he was awarded a Gug-
genheim Fellowship.
His principal works are for orchestra,
and in them he has revealed a modern style
and a strong individual approach. In 1931,
the ISCM included his Allegro, Lento and
Vivace at its annual festival, conducted by
Alfredo Casella. Critics acclaimed him then
as a young composer of great promise. Since
then, many of his more important works
have been widely performed by leading mu-
sical organizations. La Chellah, given its
premiere in Buenos Aires on September 10,
1927, was later performed by Clemens
Krauss. A Una Madre, introduced in
Buenos Aires two years earlier, was directed
in Europe by Gregor Fitelberg. On July
22, 1931, Ernest Ansermet featured Castro's
Symphony with considerable success.
One of Castro's most ambitious works is
the Sinfonia Biblica, for orchestra and
chorus. This symphony was inspired by the
life of Christ, and is divided into three parts :
Annonciation, Entree a Jerusalem, and
Golgotha. The first performance was given
by the Teatro Colon orchestra, under the
baton of the composer, on November 15, 1932.
Castro has also composed significant
works in a native idiom. In this class belong
two excellent symphonic works: Sinfonia
Cazden 53
Argentina, the first performance of which
took place under the conductor's baton on
November 29, 1936, and Sinfonia de los
Campos, which Erich Kleiber introduced in
Buenos Aires on October 29, 1939.
Two of Castro's brothers are excellent
musicians. Jose Maria Castro, born in 1892,
is also a composer whose works are fre-
quently heard in Buenos Aires. The best of
his works include a Concerto for Piano and
Orchestra, the Overture for a Comic Opera,
and a Concerto Grosso. As one of the
founders of the Grupo Renovacion, he has
been vitally interested in popularizing mod-
ern music in Argentina. Another brother,
Washington Castro, born in 1909, has taught
the violoncello at the Municipal Conserva-
tory of Buenos Aires, and has written several
interesting piano works and pieces for the
violoncello.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballet Mekhano, 1934.
Chamber Music Trio, for violin, clarinet, and
piano, 1919. Orchestral Music Dans les Jardins des
Morts, 1924; A Una Madre, 1925; La Cheliah,
1927; Suite Breve, 1929; Suite Infantil, 1929; Three
Symphonic Pieces, 1930; Sinfonia, 1931; Sinfonia
Biblica, 1932; Scherzo, 1934; Sinfonia Argentina,
1936; Sinfonia de los Campos, 1939; Concerto for
Piano and Orchestra, 1941. Piano Music Sonata,
1917; Toccata, 1941.
ABOUT: Slonimsky, N. Music of Latin Amer-
Norman Cazden 1914-
TVTORM AN CAZDEN was born in New
^ York City on September 23, 1914. Both
his academic and his musical education have
been comprehensive.
He was graduated
from the College of
the City of New York
in 1943 cum laude,
and a member of
Phi Beta Kappa. His
music education be-
gan in 1921 with,
piano lessons under
Bernard Ravitch.
After six years of
private study he entered the Institute of
Musical Art, where his teachers included
Newstead, Wedge, Mannes, and Seeger. In
1930, he received his regular piano diploma,
in 1931 the certificate of maturity with piano
as major, and in 1932 the teacher's diploma
with honors. From 1932 to 1939 he attended
the Juilliard Graduate School, majoring in
piano under Ernest Hutcheson, and in com-
position under Bernard Wagenaar. From
1943 to 1945, he did postgraduate work at
Harvard Unversity with Piston, Copland,
Pratt, Merritt, and Woodworth, receiving
his master's degree in 1944, and the John
Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship in 1945
and again in 1946. He received his doctorate
in musicology in 1948.
After making his debut as a pianist at
Town Hall, New York, in 1926, Cazden
made many solo appearances and accom-
panied vocal, instrumental, and dance groups.
He was also active as a teacher and lec-
turer. In 1941, he held the position of
assistant musical director of radio station
WNYC in New York and was in charge of
that station's American music festival in that
year. The following year he was music
director of station WLIB in Brooklyn, New
York, and in 1942-43, he became music di-
rector for the Humphrey- Weidman Reper-
tory Company in New York. During the
summers of 1943 and 1944 Cazden was
music director at Camp Woodland in Phoe-
nicia, New York. He continued there as
consultant in the study of the regional folk
music of the Catskill Mountains from 1945
through 1948.
Cazden's works have been performed in
New York, Princeton, Cambridge, and New
Haven, as well as over the radio. Much of
his writing has been functional, having been
designed as practical material for teaching
purposes, and for use by modern dance
groups, and thus has been produced under
the direct stimulus of and in close contact
with an immediate use. His chamber music
compositions, similarly, have usually been
written for particular instrumentalists, or
have resulted from commissions, such as
from the League of Composers and the
Juilliard Alumni Association. He has made
extensive use of American ballad and square
dance material in his works.
Apart from his activity as a composer,
Cazden is the author of Musical Consonance
and Dissonance, and has collaborated with
Herbert Haufrecht and Norman Studer in a
collection of folk songs of the Catskill Moun-
tains.
Cazden and his wife, the former Court-
ney Borden, live in Poughkeepsie, New York,
where he is assistant professor of music at
54 Chanter
Vassar College. "In addition to composing
and teaching," Cazden writes, "my chief in-
terest lies in the somewhat abstruse problems
of musicology. I regard my work, whether in
composing, teaching, playing the piano, or in
research, as directed in general towards bring-
ing more understanding and enjoyment of
music to people that's what music is for."
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music String
Quartet, Op. 9. 1936; Three Chamber Sonatas, for
clarinet and viola, Op. 17, 1938; Quartet for Violin,
Clarinet, Viola, and Violoncello, Op. 23, 1939; Three
Recitations, for 'cello, or viola, and piano, Op. 24,
1939; American Suite, for 'cello and piano, Op. 31,
1940; Quintet for Two Violins, Viola, an'd Two
'Cellos, Op. 32, 1941 ; Sonata for Horn and Piano,
Op. 33, 1941 ; Sonata for Flute and Piano, Op. 36,
1941; Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 43, 1943;
Four Presentations, for violin and piano, Op. 45,
1944. Orchestral Music Concerto for Ten Instru-
ments, Op. 10, 1937; Preamble, Op. 18, 1938; Six
Definitions, Op. 25, 1939-40; Three Dances, Op. 28,
1940; Stony Hollow, Op. 47, 1944-46; Symphony,
Op. 49, 1945-48. Piano Music Sonatina, Op. 7,
1935; Sonata, Op. 12, 1938; Variations, Op. 26,
1940 ; Passacaglia, Op. 46, 1944.
ABOUT: Reis, C. Composers in America (rev.
ed.).
George Chadwick 1854-1931
(See Composers of Yesterday]
Theodore Qianler 1902-
T WAS born in Newport, Rhode Island/'
writes Theodore Chanler, "on April 29,
1902, the youngest of eight children. My
taste for music de-
veloped early and by
the time I was twelve
years old it seemed
Hkely that this was
to be my profession.
My mother, herself a
fine amateur pianist,
planned my education
accordingly. Had my
power of concentra-
tion equaled my
'promise/ her plans would probably have
worked out all right. As it was they deterio-
rated into a wavering policy of sending me
to boarding school one year and to some
conservatory of music the next. I did well
at neither. Music absorbed my sensibilities
but my mind and will were in a deep vegeta-
tive sleep.
"I managed somehow to get ready for
college and was about to enter Harvard in
Yvonne Le Koux
1920 when I met Ernest Bloch. I became so
entranced with his personality and teaching
that my liberal-minded parents consented
that I skip college and follow him to Cleve-
land, where he had just been made director
of the newly founded Cleveland Institute of
Music. I was the first of that nucleus of
young musicians, including Bernard Rogers,
Roger Sessions, and Quincy Porter, who
went to Cleveland to be with him. The
others, however, were all somewhat older
than I, and were equipped to, teach classes at
the Institute as well as to attend those given
by Bloch. I was still too undisciplined to
profit by so much independence, and after
two years of it my mental and moral slum-
bers had only deepened. Eventually, I went
to Paris where I had the privilege of study-
ing for two years with Nadia Boulanger.
Again, as had been the case with Bloch, I
made a promising start, only to relapse after
a while into my habitual coma.
"What finally roused me from it? The
Catholic Church, marriage, and, at long last,
music itself. For some people the practice
of an art can of itself apparently serve as
sufficient foundation for a well-integrated
life. It never could for me; and the only
wonder is that it should have taken me so
many years to discover the difference be-
tween the flower and the root."
Chanler's works are few, but they are all
works of distinction. A ballet for piano and
two dancers, Pas de Trois, was presented at
the Alvin Theatre in New York in May
1942. He has written a highly effective
fugue for two pianos called The Second Joy-
ful Mystery (introduced in Town Hall, New
York, in February 1943). But his most im-
portant writing has been in the song- form.
Of Chanler 's songs, Robert Tangeman
wrote : "Chanler has developed an integrated,
mature style, quietly and thoughtfully. He
displays complete sincerity and lack of pre-
tentiousness. In him matter and manner
reach an organic synthesis more typical of
an older culture than of an artistically youth-
ful nation. His songs are the expression
of a personality whose strength and tender-
ness bring wisdom and a new beauty into
American music."
"Although I teach and do occasional
writing,^ Chanler informs us, "compos-
ing is my chief occupation. Ideas do not
come to me unless I look for them; which
Chasms 55
does not mean that I control the source of
supply. Who does? But if nine days out of
ten are spent in vain search and something
turns up on the tenth, it seems safe to con-
clude that the one profitable day could not
have occurred singly. The only danger of
such doggedness lies in its threat to the
quality of one's patience, which should
never lose its alertness and expectancy. The
proverbial patience of the ox is of no help
here. My aim or perhaps it would be more
honest to call it my ideal, since I seldom
attain it is that ear, mind, and heart should
assent unanimously/'
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballet Pas de Trois, for
piano and two dancers, 1942. Chamber Music
Nocturne, for violin and piano, 1925. Piano Music
The Second Joyful Mystery, fugue for two pianos,
1942-43. Songs Eight Epitaphs, song cycle (Wal-
ter De La Mare) 1935-37; Four Rhymes from Pea-
cock Pie, song cycle (Walter De La Mare) 1940;
The Flight (Leonard Feeney) 1944; The Children,
song cycle (Leonard Feeney) 1945.
ABOUT: Modern Music May-June 1945.
Abram Cfaasins 1903-
CHASINS, a versatile figure in
contemporary music, was born in New
York City on August 17, 1903, His parents
had emigrated from
Russia shortly before
his birth and settled
in New York. At the
age of seven he began
to study the piano
with Bertha Tap-
per, who remained
his teacher for three
years and was an im-
portant influence in
that she was the first
to fire him with the ambition to become a
professional musician. When he was twelve,
he studied counterpoint, theory, and har-
mony with Rubin Goldmark. And, follow-
ing this, he studied piano under Ernest
Hutcheson, who was his musical mentor for
six years.
In 1926, Josef Hofmann was so im-
pressed by Chasms' early compositions and
piano playing that he took him to Europe
as his protege. When Chasins returned, he
was appointed a member of the Curtis Insti-
tute faculty, in the departments of piano and
composition. For nine years, Chasins de-
W. Colston Leigh
voted himself to composition, concertizing,
research, and teaching. He resigned from
Curtis in 1935.
The first indication of his talent as a
composer came in 1925 when his Three
Chinese Pieces for piano a witty and spar-
kling set which immediately became popular
with many concert artists was published.
In 1928, Chasins published more important
works his Twenty-four Preludes which, in
their variety of mood and consummate com-
mand of the resources of the piano, tempted
some critics to compare them favorably with
Chopin's preludes.. Among the many admir-
ers of these works were Rachmaninoff and
the Soviet composer, Shostakovich.
Many of Chasins' one hundred or so
published works for the piano are in the
standard teaching literature, and are inter-
nationally performed by leading soloists.
Among his later works in this category is
his Narrative (subtitled "Remembrance of
Things Past") published in 1942. It is. a
major work, beautifully integrated into a
nine-minute movement, tender in its lyricism,
and magnetizing in its bravura passages.
Another of Chasins' more recent pieces
which disclose his extraordinary command
of the piano idiom is the Schvanda Fantasy,
a "veritable tour de force/' as one critic
described it, in which the two themes of
Weinberger's famous Polka from his opera
Schwanda are freely treated and brilliantly
exploited in an "opulent fantasy."
Chasins also has written effectively in the
larger forms. In 1929, when he made his
formal debut as a pianist, he introduced his
own First Piano Concerto with the Philadel-
phia Orchestra, directed by Gabrilowitsch.
This work was particularly notable for its
beautiful slow movement. In 1933, Chasins
also introduced his Second Piano Concerto,
again with the Philadelphia Orchestra, under
the direction of Stokowski. This concerto
was extensively revised, and was reintro-
duced in 1938 by the New York Philhar-
monic under John Barbirolli. This is how
Lawrence Oilman described the revised con-
certo: "The concerto is in one continuous
movement. It is entirely concerned with the
extension and development of two themes
and their various figures. ... A short
finale, combining the themes, completes the
work," In the summer of 1945, Chasins re-
vised the concerto a third time* rescored
56 Chavez
much of it, shortened it, and composed a new
coda. It was retitled Symphonic Variations
for piano and orchestra.
In April 1931, Chasins achieved inter-
national fame when his works became the
first American compositions to be conducted
by Arturo Toscanini. Two pieces were se-
lected by Toscanini for performance with
the New York Philharmonic: Parade, and
an orchestration of one of the numbers from
the Three Chinese Pieces, "Flirtation in a
Chinese Garden."
In 1932, Chasins initiated a weekly radio
program over the Columbia network entitled
"Piano Pointers," in which he performed,
dissected, and analyzed the great works of
piano literature. Three years later it was
moved to the NBC network. This program
was so successful that it was kept on the air
until 1938. In July 1943, Chasins resumed
his association with radio by becoming music
consultant to the New York Times radio
station, WQXR, New York. In 1944, he
was given the Award of Merit by the Na-
tional Association for American Composers
and Conductors "for outstanding service to
American music/' In 1947 he was appointed
music director of WQXR.
Chasins has had a successful career as
concert pianist. He toured Europe in 1926,
in 1931, and in 1932, and has subsequently
given numerous recitals and made many ap-
pearances with leading orchestras through-
out the United States. In the summer of
1945, he appeared as soloist at the Berkshire
Music Festival directed by Serge Kous-
sevitzky. Olin Downes wrote: "Of course,
Chasins is a musician and virtuoso of the
highest order."
In 1934, he was music consultant at the
University of Pennsylvania, where he collab-
orated with Professors Hart, Fuller, and
Lusby of the Moore School of Electrical
Engineering in their experiments on "pre-
cision study of piano touch and tone." These
findings were later incorporated by Sir
James Jeans in a book on the nature of
sound. Chasins also has lectured at leading
universities and musical institutions. He is
particularly interested in the subjects of
musical analysis and ornamentation and
style of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies.
During World War II, Chasins worked
with the United States Treasury Department
and, through his musical efforts, was instru-
mental in raising large sums of money for
war bonds. He was four times cited by
the United States Government for "meritori-
ous service rendered in the radio field for
the financing program of World War II."
Chasins lives in New York City. He has
said, "I am interested in almost everything in
the world, and if I had to devote all of my
time and interest only to music, I would con-
sider my life misspent." His hobbies include
reading prodigiously, playing chess (which
he studied with Jose Capablanca), tennis,
playing bridge, and collecting and telling
good stories (some of which were quoted
by Bennett Cerf in Try and Stop Me). He
is a methodical worker, and is able to accom-
plish so many things, in so many different
musical fields, by carefully allocating his
time to each endeavor. He confesses that
his composing necessarily has been done dur-
ing his "spare time." Unfortunately, he finds
that this method does not seem conducive
to the kind of repose and mental solidity that
he has found necessary for creative work.
Like Brahms, he once declared, "I've written
a lot, and most of it is in the trash basket."
As a result, Chasins took a sabbatical from
the concert platform in 1946 to give more
concentrated time to composition. Chasins
now makes a limited number of appearances,
mainly as soloist with orchestras.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Orchestral MusicFirst
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, 1929 ; Parade,
1931; Three Chinese Pieces, 1931; Second Concerto
for Piano and Orchestra, 1933, revised 1938; Sym-
phonic Variations, a revision of the Second Piano
Concerto, 1945. Piano Music Three Chinese
Pieces, 1925 ; Twenty- four Preludes, 1928 ; Schvan-
da Fantasy, 1940; Narrative, 1942. Songs Three
Songs for Soprano and String Orchestra, 1946.
RECORDINGS: Three Chinese Pieces, V-1852
(Chasms).
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers; Musical Times (London) October 1933.
Carlos Chavez 1899-
QARLOS CHAVEZ is not only Mexico's
foremost composer, but also its most
vital and influential musical figure. It can
be said of him that, virtually single-handed,
he transformed Mexico from a musically
backward country into an alive and progres-
sive one, with an active musical life, and a
school of native composers that is richly
productive.
Chavez: cha'ves
Chavez 57
He was born in Mexico City on June 13,
1899. Except for a few lessons on the piano,
which he took in his tenth year from his
brother, he has been self-taught in music.
He persistently refused to accept any formal
instruction. From books which he devoured
voraciously he acquired a knowledge of
harmony, counterpoint, theory, and orches-
tration. His knowledge of composition came
from a minute and dissecting analysis of the
music of the masters. He now explains that
his later independence as a composer was
made possible only by the fact that he was
not influenced early in life by any teachers.
He began creative work formally in his
eighteenth year, his first works strongly in-
fluenced by European music. He did not
free himself from these influences until he
came into contact with the indigenous music
of Mexico. He discovered that there were
peoples in Mexico who still used music as
their Indian ancestors
had done, as an essen-
tial part of a commu-
nal life. He lived with
.p__ these peoples, steeped
.;j/f* himself in their music,
became intimately ac-
quainted with their
native instruments.
Subsequently, his
great interest in na-
tive Mexican folk
music led him to make difficult trips into the
mountains for the purpose of making a first-
hand study of Mexican-Indian folk music.
He arrived at his own individual style by
incorporating the style and idiosyncrasies of
native Mexican folk music Into his own
works ; through this channel he arrived at an
authentic realization of Mexican art. The
first work in which these native elements
were evident was a ballet, New Fire, which
he wrote in 1921 on a commission by the
Secretary of Education. Linear, rather than
harmonic, this music is full of harsh con-
trasts so characteristic of Chavez' later Mexi-
can works.
As a young man, Chavez traveled exten-
sively through Germany and France for the
purpose of acquainting himself with the
most modern trends in music. Returning to
this hemisphere, he settled for a few years in
New York City, where some of his early
works were performed by the International
Composers Guild.
Back in his native land, Chavez began to
assume a position of first importance in its
musical life. In 1928, he organized the now-
celebrated National Symphony Orchestra in
Mexico City, which he has since then led in
brilliant concerts of old and new music, with
particular emphasis on the work of younger
Mexican composers. In the same year, he
also became director of the National Con-
servatory, which he proceeded to reorganize
and modernize along European lines. In
1933, he became head of the Department of
Fine Arts. In these varied capacities, he
was instrumental in bringing about a veri-
table renascence of musical activity in Mex-
ico. He encouraged the younger composers
to write cultivated music inspired by native
folk influences and utilizing native Indian
scales and tone qualities. He encouraged
performances of native music on native in-
struments.
In his own composition, he set a standard
for other Mexican composers to follow. He
wrote a series of remarkable works whose
roots are embedded deeply in the soil of na-
tive Mexican-Indian folk art. One of these
is the ballet H. P., completed as a four-
movement symphony in 1931 and presented
in that form by the National Symphony Or-
chestra in Mexico soon afterward. In 1932,
Leopold Stokowski introduced this work as
a ballet, with scenery and costumes designed
by Diego Rivera. The dances from the sec-
ond and third movements have frequently
been heard independently on symphony pro-
grams, and represent some of the most vital
pages in the score.
Two other now famous works, strongly
influenced by Chavez' researches into Mex-
ican music, are the Sinfonia de Antigona
(commissioned by the Department of Fine
Arts in 1932 as incidental music for a per-
formance of Jean Cocteati's Antigone) and
the Sinfonia India, composed in 1935 and
first heard over the Columbia Broadcasting
System on January 23, 1936. These works
have an almost stark and bare simplicity, a
reflection of the attempt of Indian music to
pierce only to essentials. The Sinfonia
India uses not only authentic Indian folk
themes but even such Indian instruments as
the water-gourd, rasps, rattles, and Indian
drums.
58 Clapp
In 1936, 1937, and 1938, Chavez visited
the United States and served as guest con-
ductor of the Boston Symphony, the Phila-
delphia Orchestra, the New York Philhar-
monic, the NBC Symphony, and other major
symphonic organizations, frequently per-
forming his own music. In 1938, he received
a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Chavez is the author of Towards a New
Music.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Ballets The New Fire,
1921; Los Cuatros Soles, 1926; H. P., 1926-27.
Chamber Music String Quartet, 1921 ; Sonata for
Four Horns, 1929-30. Orchestral Music Energia,
1925; H. P., 1931; Sinfonia de Antigona, 1933;
Sinfonia Proletaria, 1934; El Sol, for chorus and
orchestra. 1934; Sinfonia India, 1936; Concerto for
Harp and Orchestra, 1938; Concerto for Piano and
Orchestra, 1941.
RECORDINGS : Sinfonia de Antigona, V-12338-9
(Mexican Symphony Orchestra Chavez) ; Sin-
fonia India, V-12337-8 (Mexican Symphony Or-
chestra Chavez ) .
ABOUT: Copland, A. Our New Music; Ewen,
D. (ed) Book of Modern Composers; Rosenfeld,
P. Discoveries of a Music Critic; Musical Quar-
terly October 1936.
Philip Greeley Clapp 1888-
T WAS born in Boston on August 4,
1888," writes Philip Greeley Clapp.
"My father, a schoolmaster, was of scien-
tific bent, but had
many other interests,
including music. My
^ s mother never prac-
i>V,K, ticed music as a pro-
f fession, but was an
excellent singer, and
was broadly educated
in all the arts. I was
an only child. As
soon as it became
clear that I was likely
to become a musician, the family discussions
regarding my education threatened to be-
come long and complex. It was finally
settled that I should receive both a college
education and the best of musical training,
provided only that I should eventually enter
a respectable profession. Since in due time
Harvard University and the Boston Tran-
script offered me concurrent employment,
the matter of. my profession was settled
without bloodshed.
"I studied violin with Jacques Hoffmann
(1895-1905), and piano, theory, and compo-
sition with John P. Marshall (1899-1905).
I was admitted at fifteen to the "family
pew" in Symphony Hall, which fortunately
was just behind that of Allen A. Brown,
who brought to the concerts the full scores
which he was then loaning and later gave to
the Boston Public Library. From childhood
on I had the privilege of frequent counsel
and the generous personal and professional
interest of Benjamin Johnson Lang, George
Whitfield Chadwick, and Arthur Foote as
long as they lived.
"My general education included the Rox-
bury Latin School and Harvard University
(B.A. magna cum laude, 1908; M.A. with
highest final honors, 1909; Ph.D., 1911). I
held the William Merrick Scholarship for
two of my undergraduate years. I was con-
ductor of the Pierian Sodality Orchestra at
Harvard, 1907-09. As a graduate student,
I held the Frederick Sheldon Traveling
Fellowship, which provided for two years
of travel and study in Europe. My travels
included many musically and artistically im-
portant cities of Germany, Italy, France, and
England. During the winter of 1909-10, I
studied composition and conducting with
Max von Schillings. I spent most of the
winter, 1910-11, in London doing research in
the British Museum Library on my thesis,
Modern Tendencies in Musical Form. Dur-
ing my two years in Europe, I was a special
correspondent for the Boston Transcript,
reviewing many outstanding concerts and
operatic productions.
"The two great influences of my forma-
tive years were rny mother, and later, Dr.
Karl Muck. I had the privilege of Dr.
Muck's generous and comprehensive counsel
regarding composition, conducting, scholar-
ship, teaching, artistic objectives, and prac-
tical routine.
"After one year as Teaching Fellow at
Harvard, and two years as instructor of
music at Middlesex School for Boys, I
arranged (with Dr. Muck's advice and guid-
ance) to do two years of conducting in an
opera house in Germany with the plan of
entering the field of conducting permanently
as a source of livelihood. In the spring of
1913, Dr. Muck had selected me to conduct
the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on its
spring tour when a substitute conductor was
sent for because of the sudden illness of the
regular conductor. The outbreak of the First
Glapp 59
World War put a stop to my plans for a
conducting apprenticeship in Europe. Dur-
ing the ensuing year, I spent a part of each
week in Gloucester as acting head of the
Gloucester School of Music. From 1915 to
1918, I was Director of Music at Dartmouth
College. From 1909 until my enlistment in
the army in June 1918, and again from Jan-
uary to September 1919, I was engaged by
the Boston Transcript as a special writer on
music. In the army, I was bandleader in the
73rd C.A., A.E.F., from June to December
1918.
"In September 1919, I entered upon my
present position as Director of Music at the
University of Iowa. On various leaves of
absence, I have held the following guest
appointments : lecturer, University of Cali-
fornia, summer of 1926 and 1929; Director
of Extension, Juilliard School of Music,
1927-28; conductor, American Orchestra So-
ciety (of New York) for three months, in
the spring of 1929."
Clapp has composed many works in
many different forms; but he has probably
been most successful in his symphonies, of
which he has to date (1948) composed
twelve. He composed his First Symphony
in 1908 (revised in 1932), but it was not
performed until 1933. His Second and Third
symphonies, however, were introduced in
1914 and 1917 respectively by the Boston
Symphony Orchestra directed by Dr. Karl
Muck. They displayed a splendid sense of
symphonic form, with a classical approach
and a flair for dramatic writing. While
Clapp prefers to avoid any definite program
in the writing of his symphonies, they are
inspired by extra-musical ideas. The First
Symphony was obviously inspired by the
outdoors, and is pastoral in character. The
Ninth Symphony, subtitled "The Pioneers,"
is based upon "the conception of those vigor-
ous early settlers who, in the face of the
gravest hardships, persisted in pushing on
into the unknown until they had conquered a
continent." The Sixth Symphony, subtitled
"Golden Gate/' is a descriptive picture in
three movements of the "sea and the sky,"
"the night," and "the roar and clash of
heavy traffic in crowded streets of the city."
The Tenth Symphony is "heroic" in concept
and projection.
A short work which has enjoyed success-
ful performances is the Overture to a
Comedy, introduced by the Cleveland Phil-
harmonic Orchestra on December 28, 1940.
The composer had no particular comedy in
mind when he wrote this work, but "char-
acters, scenes, and situations from diverse
sources suggested this and that element in
the piece." This is a merry and witty work
and was admirably received when it was per-
formed by the St. Louis Symphony Orches-
tra under Vladimir Golschmann in 1943.
Besides his orchestral music, Clapp has
written skilfully for chorus and for chamber
music ensembles, revealing in whatever he
writes sound musicianship and an integrity
of a high order.
"Some people regard my procedure in
notating a composition as an idiosyncrasy,"
Clapp says, "because I begin by writing out
the full score. I have never made written
sketches, but I have the whole plan and
many details of a composition well sketched
out in my mind when I start to write. Occa-
sionally, the first version stands as the final
version, but usually there are many changes
which occur to me. I keep revising a com-
position until I am satisfied with it. I enjoy
having pleasant conversation going on or
someone reading aloud while I am writing.
This usually helps to prevent my making
errors, as it keeps me from thinking too far
ahead in the composition I am working on.
"As a composer, I find myself unable to
"commit myself to an exclusive theory, pro-
gram, or Ism,* and unable to advise others
to do so. A composer must study and prac-
tice to use and control his tools with as fine
workmanship as he can attain, but apparent-
ly his best if not his only chance of com-
posing anything of durable worth is to ex-
press his own musical ideas as honestly and
as clearly as he can. He had better write as
well as he can the kind of music which he
really wants to write: then he may even
manage to communicate it."
Clapp confesses that his most absorbing
hobby is railroad operation, "probably be-
cause of a certain symphonic quality which
I find in 'choo-choos.' "
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music String
Quartet in C Minor, 1909, revised 1924 and 1936;
Sonata in D Minor, for violin and piano, 1929;
Suite in E Flat, for brass sextet, 1937; Suite, for
trombone quartet, 1938; Prelude and Finale, for
woodwind quintet, 1939; Fanfare Prelude, for brass
choir, 1940, Chor<d Music A Chant of Darkness,
cantata (Helen Keller) 1924, revised 1929, 1932, and
1933. Opera The Taming of the Shrew, 1946.
60 Cohn
Orchestral Music Norge, symphonic poem, 1908,
revised 1919; Symphony in E Major, 1908, revised
1932; A Song of Youth, symphonic poem, 1910,
revised 1935'; Dramatic Poem, with solo trombone,
1912, revised 1940; Summer, orchestral prelude,
1912, revised 1918 and 1925; Second Symphony in
E Minor, 1914, revised 1936 and 1943; Third Sym-
phony in E-flat Major, 1917, revised 1936 and 1941 ;
Fourth Symphony in A Major, 1919, revised 1924,
1932, and 1941 ; Concerto for Two Pianos and Or-
chestra, 1922, revised 1936 and 1941; Fifth Sym-
phony in D, 1926, revised 1932 and 1941; Sixth
Symphony, "Golden Gate," 1926, revised 1929;
Seventh Symphony in A Major, 1928; Eighth
Symphony in C Major, 1930, revised 1934 and 1937;
An Academic Diversion, 1931 ; Ninth Symphony,
"The Pioneers/' 1931, revised 1933 and 1935; Over-
ture to a Comedy, 1933, revised 1937; Tenth Sym-
phony, "Heroic," 1935, revised 1937 and 1943;
Fantasy on an Old Plain Chant, with solo 'cello,
1938, revised 1939; Prologue to a Tragedy, 1939;
Eleventh Symphony in C Major, 1940; Twelfth
Symphony in B Flat, 1944; A Hill Rhapsody, sym-
phonic poem, 1945.
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers.
Arthur Cohn 1910-
A RTHUR COHN was born in Philadel-
phia, Pennsylvania, on November 6,
1910. His musical education began when he
was nine, with the
study of the violin.
After nine years as a
pupil at the Combs
Conservatory in Phil-
adelphia he further
pursued violin study
with Sascha Jacobin-
off and harmony and
counterpoint with
William F. Happich.
Cohn learned orches-
tration by himself by reading every book on
the subject he could find (regardless of the
language), as well as by playing in and con-
ducting numerous orchestras. A Juilliard
Fellowship award in composition in 1933
enabled him to complete his studies with
Rubin Goldmark, Sidney Sukoenig, and
George Volkel.
In 1928, he organized the Dorian String
Quartet which concertized for five years and
then was disbanded for lack of funds. In
1933, he founded a new chamber-music
ensemble, the Stringart Quartet, which
toured for five seasons, specializing in con-
temporary works. This intimate association
with chamber-music performance was an ex-
perience which was to serve Cohn richly in
the writing of his own chamber works.
In 1933, he was appointed to the faculty
of the Symphony Club of Philadelphia
where he was put in charge of all the cham-
ber-music work, and where he became assist-
ant concertmaster of the orchestra. Leopold
Stokowski picked Cohn out as one of the
best violinists in Philadelphia, and invited
him to perform at the first Youth Concert
he directed.
A various assortment of activities inter-
twined with these pursuits until 1934 when
Cohn became associated with the Philadelphia
City Symphony Orchestra as first violin,
acting as concertmaster for several months.
In 1934, he co-founded with Isadore Freed
the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra and the
Composers' Laboratory. After 1934, he was
also appointed head of the theory departments
of three schools in Philadelphia, as well as
that of the Bryn Mawr Conservatory. One
of the founders of the Philadelphia Music
Center, he also organized its orchestra, and
delivered some sixty lectures there.
In 1934, Cohn was appointed administra-
tor and director of the Music Copying Proj-
ect at the Free Library of Philadelphia. The
purpose of this project was the copying and
preservation of unpublished American or-
chestral works; subsequently, Cohn ex-
panded this program to include European
and refugee composers, as well as Latin-
American music. From a beginning of but
a dozen men, the project finally reached a
total of about 105 employees copying some
3200 works during nine years. The day this
venture was terminated, Cohn was appointed
Director and Head of the Fleisher Collection
of the Free Library of Philadelphia the
largest collection of orchestral music in the
world. The staff procedures, operations,
and direction of this important work are ex-
clusively under his direction. In October
1948, Cohn became director and head of the
Music Department of the Free Library.
Cohn began composing when he was
fourteen and wrote continuously, but all
his early works have been destroyed.
Cohn numbers as his first opus, the First
String Quartet which he wrote in 1928. The
Second String Quartet and Three Tran-
scriptions, written in 1930 and 1931 were
his first important works to be performed;
they were introduced by the Dorian String
Cohn 61
Quartet in Philadelphia. Besides revealing
a command of chamber-music style, these
works showed a fine and independent spirit
and a flexible use of modern techniques. In
1935, Cohn received several commissions
one of them from the New Theatre in Phil-
adelphia, and several others from dance
groups. Two one-man concerts of his music
were sponsored by the WPA Composers'
Forum Laboratory in New York, and one in
Philadelphia. Other compositions were per-
formed at the Yaddo Festival at Saratoga
Springs, New York, at the Westminster
Choir Festival, by the Rochester Symphony
under Hanson, over the air by the pianist
Erno Balogh, and in New York and Phila-
delphia concert halls. Music for Ancient
Instruments was awarded first prize in the
national contest held by the American So-
ciety of Ancient Instruments in 1938-39,
and was introduced by that organization in
New York City in January 1940.
Two of Cohn's most important works
are the Four Symphonic Documents and the
Concerto for Flute and Orchestra. The
former was written in the period just before
the outbreak of World War II. The titles
of the four movements are: Oppression;
Dictators; Exiles; and .... The work was
finished on exactly the day that the Nazis
invaded Poland. This shattering event made
Cohn erase the original title he had planned
for the fourth section and, by leaving it
nameless, to leave the purpose and meaning
of the music to the will of the listener. Hans
Kindler and the National Symphony Orches-
tra have performed the "Exiles" movement.
The Flute Concerto, an exceedingly dif-
ficult work, requires that the solo instrument
be electrically amplified. The third move-
ment of the composition is a Kaddisch and
the fourth is a set of variations based on an
Indian prayer song.
Cohn's other musical activities have in-
cluded conducting, writing on music for
magazines and newspapers, lecturing, teach-
ing of advanced composition to numerous
pupils, and the preparation of a gigantic
treatise concerning orchestration. He is in
constant demand as an adviser on orches-
tration, and has rescored and rearranged
Gliere's The Red Poppy for the Ballet Russe
de Monte Carlo and Lukas Foss's Gift of
the Magi for the Ballet Theatre. He has also
orchestrated Piatigorsky's Variations on a
Paganini Theme.
Despite his rather hectic and crowded
schedule, Cohn manages to find time to read
three newspapers a day, an average of about
twenty magazines a month, and several
novels and non-fiction books a year. He
tries to read practically everything that
comes out on music book, magazine, or
pamphlet. He is interested in all sports, ex-
cept golf and wrestling, and is an avid fol-
lower of baseball, football, and basketball.
He likes to attend plays and movies ; a good
double- feature movie relaxes him.
"I like to work in solitude need solitude
for the best production," Cohn writes. "I
can work fast because I do much thinking
constantly, making the creation much "simpler
when the time comes to actually go through
the labor of production. I love to work, and
at the moment my great obsession is to put
down my orchestration findings, obtained
over the many years I have been in hourly
contact with orchestral scores about twenty-
five thousand of them.
"In composing, I follow no school, or
definite scheme, and do not belong to any of
the prevalent cults. I believe in a free tonal-
ity that follows the inner organic movement
of the music all this, providing the melodic
impulse is strong, defined, and recognizable.
I find that all too many composers lack or-
chestration sensitivity and sensibility."
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Ballets Producing Units,
Op. 20, 1934; Trial, Op. 21, 1934; Death of God,
Op. 23. Chamber Music String Quartet No 1,
Op. 1, 1928; String Quartet No. 2, "Six Minia-
tures," Op. 4, 1930; String Quartet No. 3, "Con-
ceptions in Bronze," Op. 7, 1932; The Pot Bellied
Gods; eleven songs for baritone and string quartet,
Op. 8, 1933 ; Music for Brass Instruments, for four
trumpets and three trombones, Op. 9, 1933; Suite
in E. Minor, for violin and piano, Op. 10, 1933;
The Twelve, for declaimer and string quartet
(Alexander Blok) Op. 15, 1934; Paraphrase on a
Folk Tune, Op. 17, 1935; Four Revolutionary Ut-
terances, Op. 19, 1935 ; Fourth String Quartet,
"Histrionics," Op. 24, 1935; Music for Ancient In-
struments, Op. 29, 1938; Quintet, with film slides,
Op. 38, 1941; Suite, for solo bassoon, 1944; Suite,
for bassoon and piano, 1944 ; Clarinet Quintet, 1946.
Choral Music -Mass Song, Op. 25, 1935; Dulce et
Decorum Est, Op. 8, No. 2, 1937. Orchestral Music
Suite for Orchestra, Op. 3, 1931; Retrospections,
Op. 11, 1933; Music to Too Late to Die, Op. 16,
1935; Five Nature Studies, Op. 12, 1928-36; Four
Preludes, for string orchestra, Op. 27, 1938; Four
Symphonic Documents, Op. 30, 1939; Suite for
Viola and Orchestra, Op. 28, 1939; Histrionics, for
large string orchestra, Op. 32, 1939; Quintuple
Concerto, Op. 31, 1940; Concerto for Flute and
Orchestra, Op. 37, 1941; Concerto for Violin and
Orchestra, 1946.
62 Cole
RECORDINGS: Fourth String Quartet, YFR
(Galimir Quartet).
ABOUT: Gerson, R. Music in Philadelphia;
American Mercury April 1946; Saturday Evening
Post February 28, 1948.
Rossetter Gleason Cole 1866"
DOSSETTER GLEASON COLE, the
youngest of six children, was born on
February 5, 1866, on a farm near Clyde, Oak-
land County, Michi-
gan. His ancestry is
thoroughly American.
On the paternal side
he is the sixth in line
of descent from the
first John Cole to
come from England
to Connecticut (about
1710) ; on the mater-
nal side, he is the
eighth in line of de-
scent from the first Thomas Gleason to come
to Massachusetts from Sulgrave, England,
in 1651.
Although he displayed very early in life
quite unusual creative musical ability, Rosset-
ter Cole's talents in this field were given no
especial attention. Along with his brothers
and sisters, he was educated in the public
schools of Ann Arbor (to which the family
had moved in 1875 because of its great edu-
cational advantages), graduating from the
high school in 1884 and from the Univer-
sity of Michigan in 1888 with the degree,
Bachelor of Philosophy.
As a student in high school he studied har-
mony for a short time with Francis L. York.
But when he was ready to enter college, so
little was he conscious of the possession of
any marked musical ability that he entered
the University of Michigan with the ex-
pectation of becoming a civil engineer; this
expectation, however, lasted only to the end
of his freshman year, when he returned to
the Liberal Arts course and gave more at-
tention to music, electing all the courses in
the theory of music then offered by Profes-
sor Calvin B. Cady. Throughout his college
course he was chapel organist and leader of
the University Glee Club, which each year
toured the cities of the Middle West; he also
served as organist of the local Methodist and
Presbyterian churches. During his senior
year, as part of his work in composition, he
wrote his first large work, a lyrical cantata
The Passing of Summer, for soli, chorus, and
orchestra, whicb'was performed on the even-
ing before his graduation in University Hall
by the University Musical Society, the only
event of this kind in the history of this in-
stitution. (This cantata, revised and reor-
chestrated, was published as Opus No. 14 in
1902.)
For two years after graduation, Cole
taught English, German, and Latin in the
Ann Arbor and Aurora (Illinois) High
Schools. Then he decided to test himself by
some intensive musical study in Europe. In
1890 he went to Berlin, and there he
began the study of score-reading and con-
ducting with Gustav Kogel, organ with Wil-
helm Middelschulte, and, on the advice of
Joseph Joachim, composition with Heinricn
van Eycken. On the latter' s suggestion he
successfully competed for a scholarship in
the Royal Masterschool for Composition,
which entitled him to three years' study with
Max Bruch. However, lack of funds com-
pelled him to return to America before the
completion of this scholarship. The out-
standing products of his two-year Berlin stay
were a Sonata in D Major, for piano and
violin (later published as Op. 8) and a
Passacaglia for two pianos.
On his return to America in August 1892,
Cole entered the field of college work. He
held the positions of professor of music and
director of the School of Music successively
in Ripon College (Wisconsin), 1892-94;
Grinnell College (Iowa), 1894-1901; and the
University of Wisconsin, 1907-09. From
1908 to 1939 he was head of the department
of music in the Columbia University Sum-
mer Sessions in New York City.
Since 1902, except for the two years at
the University of Wisconsin, he has resided
in Chicago as composer, teacher of composi-
tion and theory, lecturer, organist in prom-
inent local churches, and writer on musical
topics. In the latter field he is the author of
Choral and Church Music (Volume VI of
the fourteen-volume series, The Art of Mu-
sic), published in 1917, and has contributed
nine articles on prominent musicians for the
Dictionary of American Biography.
As a teacher, Cole's work has been re-
stricted to the field of composition and musi-
cal theory. For many years he has been
Cole 63
deeply interested in various phases of musi-
cal associational work. While in Grinnell
College he was vice president for Iowa of
the Music Teachers National Association
(1897-1900) ; later he served three terms as
its president (1903, 1909, 1910). He has
also served four terms as dean of the Illin-
ois Chapter of the American Guild of Or^
ganists (1912-14, 1929-31), and two terms
as president of the Society of American
Musicians (1939-41). He has received two
honorary degrees : Master of Arts from the
University of Michigan (1913) and Doctor
of Music from Grinnell College (1937), both
in recognition of his work as a composer.
Since 1915 he has been director of the
theory department, and since 1935 dean of
the Cosmopolitan School of Music in Chi-
cago.
Cole has written about 125 compositions
in various categories, of which slightly over
a hundred have been published. The longest
and the most elaborate of his works is the
three-act romantic opera The Maypole Lov-
ers, libretto by Carty Ranck. It was com-
posed between June 1919 and January 1927,
mostly at the MacDowell Colony. The
libretto was copyrighted in 1917 under the
title of Merrymount, but as the later opera
by Richard Stokes and Howard Hanson was
performed in 1934 under the same title, the
name of Cole's work was changed. Though
the two operas have the same historical back-
ground in early Massachusetts colonial his-
tory, the story and action of- the two works
have nothing in common except for a may-
pole scene. Cole's opera has never been per-
formed in its entirety, but excerpts have
been heard. These include the first orches-
tral suite from the opera, which has had
three performances by the Chicago Sym-
phony Orchestra under Frederick Stock, the
first on January 9-10, 1936. There is a
Suite No. 2 from the same opera. The com-
poser regards this opera as containing some
of his strongest music. In 1934 the Society
for American Opera awarded him the David
Bispham Memorial Medal for this work.
Of Cole's three major choral works, the
best is Op. 36, The Rock of Liberty, a "pil-
grim ode," the libretto of which was written
by Abbie Farwell Brown. Commissioned by
the publisher, Arthur P. Schmidt, for the
Pilgrim Tercentenary celebration, it was
composed between August 1919 and April
1920, and was introduced by the Madison
(Wisconsin) Choral Union, directed by
Peter W. Dykema, on December 7, 1920.
During the 1920-21 season it was given
twelve times by choruses of over a hundred
voices and by many smaller ones and it was
one -of the three choral works performed by
the Chicago Apollo Musical Club at its semi-
centennial Festival in May 1922.
Cole has also written numerous works
for orchestra, the best of which include the
Pioneer overture, Op. 35, written at the sug-
gestion of Frederick Stock for the centennial
celebration of Illinois statehood (1918).
This overture was introduced by the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra on March 14-15, 1919,
the composer conducting. Notable, too, is
the Heroic Piece, Op. 39, originally com-
posed in 1923 for orchestra and organ solo,
and as such first performed on February 11,
1924 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
but rescored in 1938 for orchestra alone. In
the latter form it was first heard on May 14,
1939 by the Illinois Orchestra directed by
Izler Solomon.
Cole describes his musical style as fol-
lows : "In looking over all of my important
things recently, I have been quite agreeably
surprised to find that even in my early things
the same sense of glowing melody and warm
harmony is present, as in my later works.
What evolution has taken place in my style
has been more, I think, in the constant en-
richment of rny harmonic vocabulary, with
far richer and more subtle harmonic implica-
tion and far greater freedom from the or-
dinary key limitations. I presume my pres-
ent style might be classified as liberal* with
decided modernistic tendencies, yet clinging
more or less to a certain nineteenth century
warmth of harmony and clear melodic out-
line."
Of his personal life: "My habits are
quite sane and normal an evening at home
with a book or a small group of congenial
friends is my idea of 'the comfortable life/
I thoroughly love teaching, possibly too
much for the greater unfolding of my crea-
tive abilities. Outside the limits of my pro-
fessional life, I have taken greatest interest
in the field of civic, national, and interna-
tional affairs."
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Chamber Music Sonata in
D Major, for violin and piano, Op. 8, 1891 ; Ballade,
for 'cello and piano, Op. 25, 1905-06. Chard Music
The Passing of Summer, Op. 14, 1887-88; The
64 Cole
Broken Troth, Op. 32, 1916; The Rock of Liberty,
Op. 36, 1919-20. Opera The Maypole Lovers,
1919-27. Orchestral Music Symphonic Prelude,
Op. 28, 1911; Overture Pioneer, Op. 35, 1918;
Rhapsody, Op. 30, 1913-42; Heroic Piece, Op. 39,
1923, revised 1938; Two Suites from The Maypole
Lovers, 1934, 1942; Variations on Folksong El-A-
Noy, No. 3 of 12 Variations by 12 American com-
posers, 1941.
ABOUT: Hughes, R. and Elson, A. American
Composers; Kinscella, H. G. Music on the Air;
Musician December 1925.
Ulric Cole 1905-
TTLRIC COLE (no relation to the com-
poser discussed above) was born in New
York City on September 9, 1905. When
she was a year and a
half old, her father, a
'cellist, and her moth-
er, a dramatic so-
prano, joined the
Mad am a Butterfly
company of the Sav-
age Grand Opera,
which was then tour-
ing the United States.
Part of the time, the
child toured with the
company and, on several occasions, she actu-
ally appeared on the stage as the Japanese-
American baby of Cio-Cio-San.
The next move was to Pittsburgh, where
her father joined the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra, then conducted by Emil Paur.
At this time Ulric Cole, aged three, went to
orchestra rehearsals with her father and be-
came a sort of backstage mascot; on Friday
afternoons she went to the actual concerts
with her mother. She absorbed a great deal
of the music she heard, and seemed to find
no difficulty in reproducing the thematic
material of principal symphonies on the key-
board.
When the Pittsburgh Symphony was
temporarily dissolved in 1910, the Cole fam-
ily moved to Chicago. There Ulric Cole
began formal piano lessons. After two years,
they moved on to Los Angeles, .where her
father became a member of the Los Angeles
Symphony. There she studied piano with
Homer Grunn up to 1923. As Grunn was a
composer, she learned a considerable amount
of structure and counterpoint during her
piano lessons.
Besides school, there were student re-
citals and an occasional appearance as com-
poser-pianist with her parents. There was
also plenty of tennis, swimming, long hikes
in the hills with her Airedale dog, and camp-
ing and fishing trips in the mountains. Gen-
erally one or two piano pieces resulted from
these trips, which deeply satisfied both an
esthetic need and a love of solitude.
Like her mother, she was a constant
reader, absorbing the best of American and
British authors and a good many rather dif-
ficult classics, as well as Darwin, the Koran,
the Bible, books on Confucianism, and so on.
As a result of this reading, and early at-
tendance at nearly all denominations of Sun-
day schools, she developed a dislike for any
type of religious proselytizing. She became
then, and still is, an agnostic who believes in
the Golden Rule.
At fifteen, Ulric Cole was graduated from
Hollywood High School. Afterward she
spent two more years at school, and did
some work in composition with Charles
Wakefield Cadman. Soon after her eight-
eenth birthday she settled in New York.
There, at the Institute of Musical Art, she
was placed in the graduating class, studying
counterpoint with Percy Goetschius, and
piano with George Boyle. Her first pub-
lished piece, Above the Clouds, for piano,
was accepted for publication during this
season. Goetschius invited her to write the
chief contrapuntal item for the final student
concert. She wrote a Prelude and Fugue,
for two pianos, performed it with a fellow
student, then left the Institute (without
graduating) for a fifteen-week concert tour
of the Midwest. It was a summer of one-
night stands, bad pianos, tornadoes, floods,
extreme heat, small-town hotels, and board-
ing houses in the company of two lady horn
players. Her job was to play their accom-
paniments and to perform, as a solo, the
Liszt Fifteenth Rhapsody.
From 1924 to 1927, Miss Cole studied
with Josef Lhevinne and Rubin Goldmark
on fellowships at the Juilliard Graduate
School. In addition to practicing four hours
a day and writing music, she earned money
as a piano teacher, manuscript reader for a
publishing house, copyist for Ferde Grofe
(then Paul Whiteman's arranger), and radio
pianist. Hans Letz introduced her First
Sonata for Violin and Piano in 1927, and
Cone 65
has since that time edited and prepared the
first performances of all her chamber-music
works and edited the string parts of her
orchestral works.
The summer of 1926 she spent in Eng-
land, Norway, and France; from 1927 to
1929, she lived in Paris, and, for three
months, in Malaga, Spain. Back in the
United States, she spent three years in New
York, studying for two more years with
Rubin Goldmark at the Juilliard Graduate
School. Three years were then spent in
Palo Alto California, and the summer of
1932 in France. Since 1935 she has lived in
New York.
From 1936 to 1942, she taught piano and
composition at the Masters School in Dobbs
Ferry, New York. At the present time she
is a member of the editorial staff of Time.
All of her works have had a long period
of incubation a condition which to her
seems necessary to the production of satis-
factory music.
In 1932, she composed Divertimento for
String Orchestra and Piano, which enjoyed
considerable success in many performances
throughout the country. The last movement
of this Divertimento was originally written
for two pianos and orchestra, in which form
it was introduced at the Juilliard Graduate
School. The success of this performance
encouraged Miss Cole to enlarge the work,
and she added a first and second movement
to it. The three movements are subtitled:
Toccata, Intermezzo, and Fantasia. On Jan-
uary 23, 1936, Frank Black, conducting the
NBC String Symphony, introduced the work
over the NBC network. In 1939, this Diver-
timento, again revised, was performed by
Eugene Goossens in Cincinnati (the composer
at the piano), with subsequent performances
by Howard Hanson in Rochester, Reginald
Stewart in Toronto, and Hans Kindler in
Washington, D.C
Another significant work by Miss Cole
is the Quintet for Piano and Strings, the
first performance of which took place at the
Juilliard School of Music on April 13, 1937,
and which has since that time been heard at
important chamber-music concerts and over
the radio. In 1941, this quintet was pub-
lished by the SPAM,
On March 1, 1946, Eugene Goossens and
the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra intro-
duced Ulric Cole's Second Concerto for
Piano and Orchestra, the composer offici-
ating at the piano. This concerto does not
possess a slow movement in the accepted
traditional sense. Instead, the second move-
ment is in the character of a passacaglia, a
set of free variations on a somber theme
which, Cole explains, reflects the grave spirit
of the period in which the music was com-
posed (summer of 1941).
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Sonata
for Violin and Piano, 1927; Suite for Piano, Violin,
and 'Cello, 1930-31; String Quartet, No. 1, 1931-32;
String Quartet No. 2, 1936; Quintet for Piano and
Strings, 1936. Orchestral Music Concerto for
Piano and Orchestra, 1927-28; Divertimento, for
String Orchestra and Piano, 1932, revised 1936 and
1939; Two Sketches, for string orchestra, 1938;
Second Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, 1941.
ABOUT: Reis, C Composers in America (rev.
ed.).
Edward T. Cone 1917-
J7DWARD T. CONE was born in Greens-
boro, North Carolina, on May 4, 1917.
Both of his parents were native-born Ameri-
cans. Cone was edu-
cated in the public
schools in Greensboro,
and after graduation
from high school, at-
tended the Riverdale
Country School in
Riverdale, New York.
During this time, he
studied piano, pri-
vately in Greensboro,
and in Riverdale at petalt
the Country School. He also had some pri-
vate instruction in harmony and counter-
point.
In 1935, he went to Princeton Univer-
sity, majoring in music, and specializing in
composition under Roger Sessions, with
whom he studied counterpoint, strict com-
position, fugue, and free composition. In
1939, he was graduated and the following
autumn he went to New York to continue
his study of composition with Sessions,
piano with Karl Ulrich Schnabel, and mu-
sicology at Columbia University.
He returned to Princeton University in
1941 as part-time instructor in the music
66 Converse
department, while earning the graduate de-
gree of Master of Fine Arts. From the
autumn of 1942 until the winter of 1945,
he served in the armed forces, principally
in the Middle East. When he was released
from the army, in December 1945, he re-
turned to Princeton as one of the Woodrow
Wilson Fellows, and as a part-time instruc-
tor in the music section.
His first work to receive performance
was a string quartet which he composed as
a senior thesis at Princeton. Subsequently,
several of his works, including his Sonata for
Violin and Piano, his Quintet for Clarinet
and Strings, and several of his piano pre-
ludes, were introduced at concerts of the
League of Composers.
His music has been considered radical in
style, but it is never atonal or 'poly tonal.
"My tastes/' he explains, "are both catholic
and orthodox: my favorite composers are all
the great names from Bach to Berlioz.
Among the later romantics, though, I find
that Verdi and Mahler are coming more
and more to replace Brahms and Wagner
in my affections.
"I am essentially opposed to 'schools' or
'systems.' I believe that one should attempt
to communicate as accurately as possible the
music that he hears within him; that is all.
You will see from this that I ani not among
those who consider it important to create
an 'American style/ I think it important
that Americansor anyone else should
write music, and that this music should be
heard. Granted this, the American style
will grow of itself, and future musicologists
will have another happy hunting-ground."
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music String
Quartet, 1938-39; Sonata for Violin and Piano,
1939-40; Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, 1940-41;
Nocturne, for 'cello and piano, 1946; Divertimento,
for woodwinds, 1941-46; Elegy, for violin and piano,
1946; Rhapsody for Viola and Piano, 1947. Choral
Music-- The Lotos Eaters, cantata (Tennyson) 1939;
Excursions, suite for a cappella mixed chorus
(Thoreau) 1946; Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,
1946; Two Psalms for chorus and orchestra, 1947-
48. Orchestral Music Dover Beach, for baritone
and orchestra, 1940-41 ; An Overture for the War
1941-42. Piano Music Preludes, 1939-40; Prelude
and Variations, for four hands, 1941-46; Sonata
1946-47. '
J. E. Purely
cd.).
ABOUT: Reis, C. Composers in America (rev.
Frederick Shepherd Converse 1871-1940
FREDERICK SHEPHERD CONVERSE
was born in Newton, Massachusetts, on
January 5, 1871. He completed his early
academic studies at
the Newton public
schools and studied
music with local piano
teachers. He then en-
tered Harvard Uni-
versity where he con-
tinued his musical
work under John
Knowles Paine, de-
spite the fact that his
father wished him to
have a commercial career. In 1893, Con-
verse was graduated from Harvard with all
the honors in music and was also honored
by having his Sonata for Violin and Piano
performed at the commencement exercises.
Shortly after graduation, Converse en-
tered the business world, as his father had
planned for him. He did not remain there
long, drawn away by his great love for music.
After a short period of further musical study
in Boston under Carl Baermann and George
Chad wick, Converse went to Europe in 1894,
enrolling at the Royal School of Music in
Munich as a pupil of Joseph Rheinberger.
In 1898, he was graduated with high honors.
His Symphony in D Minor, performed at
this time, gave the first indication of his
creative talent.
After returning to the United States,
Converse was appointed instructor at the
New England Conservatory of Music. In
1904, he became a teacher of composition
at Harvard University, and almost immedi-
ately he was promoted to an assistant pro-
fessorship. But in 1907, he resigned from
all teaching to devote himself entirely to com-
position. It was at this time that -he pro-
duced some of his most famous works, in-
cluding his opera, The Pipe of Desire, his
Mystic Trumpeter, for orchestra, and his
choral work, Job.
In 1908, the Boston Opera Company was
formed, with Converse as its vice president.
In this executive capacity, he went to Europe,
settling in Vevey, Switzerland,- within easy
traveling distance of Europe's leading musi-
cal capitals. The collapse of the Boston
Copland 67
Opera Company and the selection of his
opera The Pipe of Desire by the Metropol-
itan Opera House brought him back to
America in 1910.
During World War I, Converse entered
the Motor Corps of the Massachusetts State
Guard as a private, ultimately rising to the
rank of captain in the supply department of
the 13th Regiment. He was industrious in
promoting music in training camps, and in
conducting community choruses. At the re-
quest of the government, he composed (in
collaboration with John Alden Carpenter)
a symphonic arrangement of the American
national anthem which was performed by
symphony orchestras throughout the country
during the war period.
In 1921, Converse returned to pedagogi-
cal duties. Joining the faculty of the New
England Conservatory of Music, he taught
musical theory and composition for ten years,
then was elected dean. In 1938, he retired
from this position.
One of Converse's major works is opera
The Pipe of Desire, which enjoys the dis-
tinction of being the first opera by an Amer-
ican-born composer to be performed at the
Metropolitan Opera House, and which sub-
sequently won the David Bispham Medal,
"The first impression of Mr. Converse's mu-
sic it comes even in the prelude is almost
intoxicating," wrote H. T. Parker. "Mr. Con-
verse has . . . 'feeling/ instinct and imagina-
tion. There are twenty tokens of it through-
out the opera in his power of dramatic
climax, in his ability to make the vivid, em-
phasizing, illuminating phrase in voice or or-
chestra at the poignant moment, in the steady
variety of treatment, in the weaving of the
voices, instruments, speech and action into a
significant, moving and musically beautiful
whole; in his skill to summon and maintain
communicating atmosphere and mood."
With works like the Optra The Sacrifice
and the Symphony in C Minor, Converse's
reputation grew until he became accepted as
one of our important creative voices. After
1927 Converse began to give musical inter-
pretation to American scenes, backgrounds,
and experiences in his music, beginning with
his witty and satirical Flivver Ten Million,
introduced by the Boston Symphony Or-
chestra under Serge Koussevitzky in the year
of its composition. In 1928, Converse wrote
California, and a year after that American
Sketches, the latter work inspired by Carl
Sandburg's The American Songbag.
Converse was a fine sportsman, having
been an expert golfer and polo player. His
happiest days were spent in his summer
home on Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire,
where he would indulge in shooting, fishing,
sailing, and gardening. During the winter
months, his favorite hobby was woodcarving :
he was a highly talented maker of violins.
He always used to say that he was a
thoroughly happy man : happy in his work,
and play, happy with his teaching duties,
and happy with his family life. "Life it-
self," he wrote with an almost religious
fervor, "is to me a constant marvel and I
thank God for it."
Frederick Converse died In Boston on
June 8, 1940.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music First
String Quartet; Second String Quartet, 1904;
Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, 1911; Third
String Quartet; Piano Trio, 1931. Choral Music-
Job, 1908; The Peace Pipe, 1914; The Answer of
the Stars, 1919; The Flight of the Eagle, 1930.
Operas The Pipe of Desire, 1906; The Sacrifice,
1911; Sinbad the Sailor, 1913; The Immigrants,
1914; Pageant and Masque of St. Louis, 1914.
Orchestral Music Festival of Pan, 1900; Endym-
ion's Narrative, 1901 ; Night and Day, two poems
for piano and orchestra, 1901 ; Euphrosyne, concert
overture, 1903; The Mystic Trumpeter, 1905;
Ormazd, symphonic poem, 1910; Ave atque Vale,
1916; Symphony in C Minor, 1919; Second Sym-
phony in E Minor, 1922; Fantasia for Piano and
Orchestra, 1922; Song of the Sea, 1923; Elegiac
Poem, 1925; Flivver Ten Million, 1927; California,
1928; American Sketches, 1933; Third Symphony
in F, 1936.
ABOUT: Howard, J. T, Our Contemporary
Composers.
Aaron Copland 1900-
r n HE following personal sketch Is from
Aaron Copland's Our New Music :*
"I was born on November 14, 1900 on
a street in Brooklyn that can only be described
as drab. It had none of the garish color of
the ghetto, none of the charm of an old New
England thoroughfare, or even a pioneer
street. ... I mention it because it was there
that I spent the first twenty years of my life.
Also, because it fills me with mild wonder
each time I realize that a musician was born
on that street. . . . Music was the last
thing anyone would have connected with it.
In fact, no one had ever connected music
* Reprinted by permission of Whittlesey House, New
York.
Copland: Copland
68 Copland
with my family or with my street. The idea
was entirely original with me. And unfortu-
nately the idea occurred to me seriously at
thirteen or thereabouts which is rather late
for a musician to get started. . . .
"The idea of becoming a composer seems
gradually to have dawned upon me some time
around 1916, when 1 was fifteen years old.
Before that I had taken the usual piano les-
sons, begun at my own insistence some two
years previously. My parents were of the
opinion that enough money had been invested
in the musical training of the four older chil-
dren with meager re-
sults and had no in-
tention of squander-
ing further funds on
me. But despite the
reasonableness of this
argument, my persist-
ence finally won them
over. I distinctly re-
member with what
fear and trembling I
victor Kraft knocked on the door
of Mr. Leopold Wolfsohn's piano studio on
Clinton Avenue in Brooklyn, and once again
all by myself arranged for piano lessons.
"The idea of composing came, as I say,
several years later. It was Mr. Wolfsohn
who helped me find a harmony teacher when
I realized that to be a composer one had to
study harmony. ... So it came about that
in the fall of 1917 I began harmony lessons
with the late Rubin Goldmark. . . .
"By the spring of 1918, I had been grad-
uated from high school and was able to de-
vote all my energies to music. . . . During
these formative years I had been gradually
uncovering for myself the literature of mu-
sic. Some instinct seemed to lead me logi-
cally from Chopin's waltzes to Haydn's
sonatinas to Beethoven's sonatas to Wagner's
operas. And from there it was but a step
to Hugo Wolf's songs, to Debussy's preludes
and to Scriabin's piano poems. In retro-
spect it all seems surprisingly orderly. As
far as I can remember no one ever told me
about 'modern music.' I apparently hap-
pened on it in the natural course of my musi-
cal explorations. It was Goldmark, a con-
vinced conservative in musical matters, who
first actively discouraged this commerce with
the 'moderns.' That was enough to whet
any young man's appetite. The fact that
the music was in some sense forbidden only
increased its attractiveness. Moreover, it
was difficult to 'get. The war had made the
importation of new music a luxury ; Scriabin
and Debussy and Ravel were bringing high
prices. By the time I was eighteen I already
had something of the reputation of a musical
rebel in Goldmark's eyes at any rate.
"As might be expected, my composi-
tion of that period, mostly two-page songs
and piano pieces, began to show traces of my
musical enthusiasms. It soon was clear that
Goldmark derived no pleasure from seeing
what seemed to him to be 'modernistic ex-
periments.' The climax came when I brought
for his critical approval, a piano piece called
The Cat and the Mouse. He regretfully ad-
mitted that he had no criteria by which to-
judge such music. From that time on my
compositional work was divided into two
compartments : the pieces that really inter-
ested me, that were composed on the side,
so to speak, and the conventional student
work written in conformity with the 'rules/
"It was a foregone conclusion twenty
years ago that anyone who had serious pre-
tentions as a composer would have to go
abroad to finish his studies. Before the war
it was taken for granted that 'abroad' for the
composers meant Germany. But I belonged
to the postwar generation, and so for me
'abroad' inevitably meant Paris. The hitch
was that I knew not a living soul in Paris
or in all France, for that matter.
"At about this time, I read in a musical
journal of the proposed establishment of a
music school for Americans to be inaugu-
rated during the summer of 1921 in the
Palace at Fontainebleau. I was so quick to-
respond to this announcement that rny name
headed the list of enrollments. . . .
"Paul Vidal of the Paris Conservatoire
taught us composition at the Fontainebleau
School, He turned out to be a French ver-
sion of Rubin Goldmark, except that he was
harder to understand because of the peculiar
French patois that he talked. Before the
summer was very far advanced, rumors be-
gan to circulate of the presence at the school
of a brilliant harmony teacher, a certain
Nadia Boulanger, This news naturally had
little interest for rne, since I had long fin-
ished my harmonic studies. It took a con-
Copland 69
siderable amount of persuasion on the part
of a fellow student before I consented to
look in' on Mile. Boulanger's class. On
that particular day she was explaining the
harmonic structure of one of the scenes from
Boris Godounoff. I had never before wit-
nessed such enthusiasm and such clarity in
teaching. I immediately suspected that I
had found my teacher. ... I visited Mile.
Boulanger in the fall and asked her to accept
me as her pupil. She must have been about
thirty-three years old at the time, and, as
far as I know, I was her first full-fledged
American composition student. . . . My one
year in Paris was stretched to two and then
to three years,
"It was a fortunate time to be studying
music in France. All the pent-up energies
of the war years were unloosed. Paris was
an international proving ground for all the
newest tendencies in musk. Much of the
music that had been written during the dark
years of the war was now being heard for
the first time. Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bar-
tok, Falla were all new names to me. And
the younger generation was heard from also
Milhaud, Honegger, Auric, and the other
noisy members of the Group of Six. Works
by many composers outside France were per-
formed, too Hindemith, Prokofieff, Szy-
manowski, Malipiero, Kodaly. It was a
rarely stimulating atmosphere in which to
carry on one's studies. . . .
"During my three years in Paris I had
composed several Motets for unaccom-
panied voices, a Passacaglia for piano, a
song for soprano with the accompaniment of
flute and clarinet, a Rondino for string quar-
tet, and finally a one-act ballet called Grohg,
my first essay in the orchestral field. With
this baggage under my arm I returned to
America in June 1924. . . .
"The immediate business in hand was the
writing of a symphony for organ and or-
chestra. Nadia Boulanger was engaged to
appear as organ soloist with the old New
York Symphony and the Boston Symphony
the following winter. Before I left Paris
she had had the courage to ask me to supply
her with a concerto for her American tour.
I, on the other hand, had the temerity to
accept the invitation. This, despite the
fact that I had written only one work in ex-
tended form before then, that I had only
a passing acquaintance with the organ as an
instrument, and that I had never heard a
note of my own orchestration. The sym-
phony was composed that summer while I
perfunctorily performed my duties as pianist
in a hotel trio at Mil ford, Pennsylvania.
"I returned to New York in the fall to
finish the orchestration of the symphony and
began to look about me. Without my being
aware of it, postwar activities in Europe had
affected American musical circles also.
Shortly after my departure for France the
International Composers' Guild and the
League of Composers had begun to famil-
iarize the American public with the output
of the new composers of the 'left' Like
many other composers of the so-called 'radi-
cal 5 tendencies, I naturally turned to them for
support. Through the good offices of Marion
Bauer I was invited to play some of my
works for the executive board of the League
of Composers. The board voted to accept
my two piano pieces the Cat and the Mouse
and the Passacaglia for performance at
their November concert. This was the first
performance of any of my compositions in
my native land. It was followed in January
by the performance of the Symphony for
organ and orchestra, with Walter Damrosch
as conductor and Nadia Boulanger as
soloist. ...
"The performance of the symphony
brought me into personal contact with the
conductor whose concerts I had admired in
Paris. Serge Koussevitzky was serving his
first term as conductor of the Boston Sym-
phony that winter. . . . Koussevitzky made
no secret of his liking for my symphony.
He told me that he had agreed to conduct a
chamber orchestra in an all-modern concert
for the League of Composers the following
winter. It was his idea, agreed to by the
League, that I be commissioned to write a
new work for that concert. It seemed to me
that my first winter in America was turning
out better than I had reason to expect
"Shortly afterward, the Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation was established for a
preliminary trial year, and I was awarded
the first fellowship extended to a composer.
This was renewed the following year, and
so financial stability was assured until the
fall of 1927.
"Now I was free to devote my entire
energies to the composition of the new work
70 Copland
for Koussevitzky's League concert. I was
anxious to write a work that would immedi-
ately be recognized as American iri character.
This desire to be 'American' was sympto-
matic of the period. It made me think of
my Symphony as too European in inspira-
tion. I had experimented a little with the
rhythms of popular music in several earlier
compositions, but now I wanted frankly to
adopt the jazz idiom and see what I could
do with it in a symphonic way. Paul Rosen-
feld suggested the MacDowell Colony as a
good place to work during the summer
months. It was there that I wrote my
Music for the Theatre, a suite in five parts
for small orchestra. . . .
"The jazz element in Music for the
Theatre was further developed in my next
work, a Concerto for Piano and Orchestra,
which I played as soloist with the Boston
Symphony in Boston and New York. This
proved to be the last of my 'experiments'
with symphonic jazz. With the Concerto I
felt I had done all I could with the idiom,
considering its limited emotional scope. . . .
"In 1929, just before the economic crash,
the RCA Victor Company offered an award
of $25,000 for a symphonic work. This un-
precedented sum obviously implied a compo-
sition of major proportions. With this in
mind, I began work on a big one-movement
symphony that I planned to submit for the
prize under the title: Symphonic Ode. Un-
fortunately, two weeks before the competi-
tion was to close officially, I realized that I
could not finish rny Ode in time. In despair
at having nothing to offer, I seized upon the
old ballet, Grohg, written in Paris, and ex-
tracting three of the movements I liked best,
called the whole a Dance Symphony and sent
it in on the final day. The judges found no
one work worthy of the full award and so
decided to divide it among five of the con-
testants. My Dance Symphony won me
$5,000. The Symphonic Ode was finished
subsequently and performed as one of the
works celebrating the fiftieth anniversary
of the Boston Symphony.
"In retrospect it seems to me that the
Ode marks the end of a certain period in my
development as a composer. The works that
follow it are no longer so grand or so ful-
some. The Piano Variations (1930), the
Short Symphony (1933), the Statements for
orchestra (1935) are more spare in sonority,
more lean in texture. They are difficult to
perform and difficult for the audience to
comprehend.
"During these years I began to feel an
increasing dissatisfaction with the relations
of the music-loving public and the living
composer. The old 'special' public of the
modern music concerts had fallen away, and
the conventional concert public continued
apathetic or indifferent to anything but the
established classics. It seemed to me that
we composers were in danger of working
in a vacuum. Moreover, an entirely new
public for music had grown up around the
radio and phonograph. It made no sense to
ignore them and to continue writing as if
they did not exist. I felt that it was worth
the effort to see if I couldn't say what I had
to say in the simplest possible terms.
"My most recent works, in their separate
ways, embody this tendency toward an im-
posed simplicity. El Salon Mexico is an
orchestral work based on Mexican tunes;
The Second Hurricane is an opera for school
children of high-school age to perform;
Music for Radio was written on a commis-
sion from the Columbia Broadcasting System
especially for performance on the air; Billy
the Kid is a ballet written for the Ballet
Caravan, which utilizes simple cowboy songs
as melodic material ; The City, Of Mice and
Men and Our Town are scores for films."
One of Copland's most recent, and most
successful, works also in this self-imposed
simple vein is the ballet Appalachian Spring
which he wrote on a commission from the
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation for
the dancer, Martha Graham. Its premiere
took place at the Coolidge Festival in Wash-
ington, D. C. on October 30, 1944. In 1945,
the score won the Pulitzer Prize for music
and was selected by the Music Critics Circle
as the outstanding new theatrical work of
the year. Virgil Thomson described Cop-
land's music as "pastoral" in style, "blithe
and beatific." For his music, Copland drew
copiously from folklore sources in writing
a score that is skillfully contrived, appealing
in mood and atmosphere, American in spirit.
Gowell 71
Copland's Third Symphony, introduced
in Boston by Serge Koussevitzky and the
Boston Symphony Orchestra on October 18,
194$, was described by Dr. Koussevitzky as
"the greatest American symphony it goes
from the heart to the heart." It was awarded
the Boston Symphony Award of Merit, and
was singled out by the Music Critics Circle
as the most important new orchestral work
by an American composer.
Aaron Copland has been a most vital
force in spreading propaganda for, and ar-
ranging concerts of, modern American mu-
sic. He has been a member of the executive
board of the League of Composers, founder
of the Copland- Sessions concerts in New
York, founder and director of the American
Festivals of Contemporary Music at Yaddo,
and organizer of the American Composers
Alliance. He has also spread the gospel of
modern American music as a writer, lecturer,
and teacher. His books are What to Listen
for in Music and Our New Music.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballets Grohg, 1925, re-
vised 1932; Billy the Kid, 1938; Rodeo, 1942; Ap-
palachian Spring, 1943-44. Chamber Music As It
Fell Upon a Day, for soprano, flute, and clarinet,
1929; Vitebsk, trio, 1934; Two Pieces, for string
quartet, 1939; Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1943.
Choral Music The House on the Hill, for women's
voices, 1925; An Immorality (Ezra Pound) for
women's voices, 1925; Lark (Genevieve Taggart)
for baritone and a cappella chorus, 1938; Las
Agachadas, 1942. Opera The Second Hurricane,
play-opera for high schools, 1937. Orchestral Music
Symphony for Organ and Orchestra, 1924; First
Symphony, 1925; Music for the Theatre, 1925;
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, 1926; Sym-
phonic Ode, 1929; A Dance Symphony, 1930; Short
Symphony, 1933; Statements, 1935; El Salon Mex-
ico, 1936; Music for the Radio, 1937; An Outdoor
Overture, 1938; Quiet City, 1939; Quiet City, 1940;
Suite from Our Town, 1940; A Lincoln Portrait,
1942; Danzon Cubano, 1942; Suite from Ap-
palachian Spring, 1943-44; Third Symphony, 1946;
Letter from Home, 1946.
RECORDINGS: Appalachian Spring, suite, VM-
1048 (Boston Symphony Koussevitzky) ; Danzon
Cubano, CHS-A2 (Smit) ; A Lincoln Portrait, CX-
266 (Spencer; New York Philharmonic Rodzin-
ski) ; Music for the Theatre, VM-744 (Eastman-
Rochester Symphony Hanson) ; Piano Variations,
CX-48 (Copland); El Salon Mexico, VM-546
( Boston Symphony Koussevitzky) ; Sonata for
Piano, CHS-A2 (Smit) ; Two Pieces, for string
quartet, C-70092 (Dorian Quartet).
ABOUT: Berger, A. V. Aaron Copland (bro-
chure); Copland, A. Our New Music; Ewen, D.
Book of Modem Composers ; Rosenf eld, P. Discov-
eries of a Music Critic; Musical Quarterly October-
December 1945.
Henry Cowell 1897-
JLJENRY COWELL was born in Menlo
Park, California, on March 11, 1897.
His father was Irish, son of the Dean of Kil-
dare ; his mother came
from an English-
Irish farm family in
the Middle West. His
parents held original
educational theories
which demanded com-
plete intellectual free-
dom for everyone,
and this, coupled with
Cowell's ill health as
a child, resulted in the
most informal type of education conceivable.
He did, however, have conventional violin
lessons from the age of five, and at seven he
performed sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven
in recital. At eight, illness obliged him to
abandon the violin; he then determined to
become a composer, and gave his instrument
away. At eleven, he undertook an opera
based on Longfellow's Golden Legend. Too
poor to own a piano, he began about this time
to "practice" mentally several hours a day,
to learn to combine in his inner ear tone qual-
ities of various instruments. This went on
for several years, during a period of extreme
privation. From the time he was twelve,
until his mother died when he was eighteen,
the boy supported them both, chiefly by
searching out, raising, and selling rare wild
plants.
By the time he was fourteen, he had
saved enough money to buy a ramshackle old
piano. This led to experiments resulting in
the discovery of tone-clusters (chords built
on seconds, instead of thirds or fourths) and
other original tonal effects. His first public
appearance in a program of his own composi-
tion was at the San Francisco Musical dub
on March 12, 1912.
CowelFs name has since been widely as-
sociated with tone-clusters. Though he did
name them, he does not claim to have in-
vented them, Gesualdo, Dandrieu, Rebikoff,
and Charles Ives all preceded him with groups
of simultaneous seconds; but it is true that
Cowell discovered them independently, with-
out knowledge of their use by others. Alban
Berg, Bartok, Stravinsky, Casella, Ornstein,
Cowell: cou'el
72 Gowell
Prokofieff, Varese, Harrison, and Shostako-
vich have all used them since, and they are
common with jazz pianists.
Another method of extracting sound from
the piano with which the name of Co well is
associated is the use in formal composition of
conventional violin technique applied to piano
strings ; he has used harmonics, muted tones,
and pizzicati in various piano pieces.
When he was seventeen, he was sent by
friends to the University of California to
study under Charles Seeger; he already had
more than a hundred compositions to his
credit. He could not matriculate on account
of lack of proper credentials, but he attended
classes for three and a half years, and was
made an assistant in the Department of Mu-
sic. When America entered World War I,
Cowell enlisted and, as it turned out, spent
the war period conducting a band in Allen-
town, Pennsylvania. When the war was
over, he studied for two years at the Insti-
tute of Applied Music in New York.
Between 1923 and 1933, Henry Cowell
made five European concert tours, and an
annual tour of the United States, with pro-
grams of his own piano works. At his first
European concert, in Leipzig in 1923, a riot
call was put in and the police were called to
quell the fighting which had broken out in the
aisles and on the stage between the "pros"
and the "cons." As the melee subsided,
Cowell was discovered at the piano; -he had
stubbornly continued his performance. When
he first appeared in England, a famous re-
view consisted largely of compliments to the
makers of the piano which had withstood the
onslaught of a composer of tone clusters,
since these broad groups of seconds are
played with the palm of the hand, the
clenched fist, and often the entire forearm.
A New York editor sent his sports reviewer
to cover the "bout" between "Battling Cow-
ell" and "Kid Knabe" at Carnegie Hall.
By 1926, the initial astonishment at his
unconventional attitude toward the tradi-
tional piano technique had worn off, and the
leading liberal critics of Europe and America
began to write of CowelFs music with under-
standing and admiration, crediting him with
complete seriousness of purpose and integ-
rity, and applauding his extraordinary gifts.
Men like Lawrence Gilman, W. J. Hender-
son, Percy Scholes, Henri Prunieres, Erwin
Felber, Adolph Weissman, Julius Korngold,
and many others wrote vigorous apprecia-
tions of the strength and significance of Cow-
ell's music, and the importance of the new
materials he was using. By 1940, more than
two hundred and fifty pianists had performed
Cowell's music at public performances in
America and Europe.
His first Berlin appearance was arranged
by Artur Schnabel, who was sufficiently in-
terested in the new techniques to learn some
of Co well's pieces himself. Bela Bartok ar-
ranged one of Cowell's first Paris perform-
ances. Cowell also played before President
Masaryk and about two hundred members
of the Czech Parliament in Prague in 1926.
An interesting feature of his 1928 tour
was an official invitation to visit Russia, as
the second American musician to appear in
that country after the Revolution (Roland
Hayes was the first). Miaskovsky was a
member of the Russian State Edition's edi-
torial committee which sponsored the publi-
cation of two Cowell pieces, Tiger and Reel,
the first music by an American to be pub-
lished in Soviet Russia.
In 1931, Cowell felt that new directions
in musical composition indicated the need for
enabling composers to become familiar with
complex counter-rhythms. He therefore in-
vented the Rhythmicon, an electric device,
which was built by Leon Theremin in accord-
ance with Cowell's suggestions. His interest
in the science of sound resulted in the pub-
lication of a new book, New Musical Re-
sources (1931). His second book, American
Composers on American Music (1933) is a
symposium of articles by American com-
posers on American composers.
Cowell has been an indefatigable pro-
moter of the music of other living composers,
and all his organizational activities have been
directed toward obtaining a hearing for a
wide range of contemporary works, both in
Europe and the Americas. In 1927, he
founded New Music, a cooperative non-profit
organization which issues the only quarterly
periodical devoted to the publication of scores
of experimental new music, and recordings
of the same or similar material. In 1940,
Cowell was appointed Consultant for the
Music Division of the -Pan American Union.
He has also directed the Editorial Project for
Latin American Music, under the Pan Amer-
Creston 73
ican Union, in the course of which several
thousand manuscripts were examined for
recommendation to publishers in the United
States. He was afterwards in charge of the
Music Distribution Project, which established
loan libraries of scores and records by North
American composers in each of the twenty
Latin American republics.
For two years (1943-45) Co well acted
as consultant in music and chief music editor
for the OWL Partly as a result of the in-
tensive study of non-European folk and
primitive music which he had made under a
Guggenheim Fellowship in 1930-32, Co well
was consulted on all music used by the OWI
in its broadcast to both enemy and friendly
countries.
Of late years, Co well has written more
often for symphony orchestra, symphonic
band, voice, and various chamber groups and
less for piano. His present interest lies in
the carrying forward of a style which
characterized American rural hymnody at the
beginning of the last century. In this vein is
a series of hymns with fuguing tunes for
orchestra and other instrumental and vocal
combinations, which are in their general tex-
ture quite new to modern music. This is
very plain music which depends for its effect
upon its sustained contrapuntal eloquence
rather than upon novelty in instrumentation
or any current sophisticated and ejaculatory
manner. It is an intense and exalted music,
of classic purity and simplicity.
Cowell has been greatly attracted by
country tunes of British origin which have
been a long time in circulation in America,
and their characteristics have always exerted
a strong unconscious influence on his music.
He has recently been developing this ten-
dency deliberately, and one of his most suc-
cessful works in this manner is the Tales of
Our Countryside.
Cowell's approach to composition is not
romantic ; he is not looking for "self expres-
sion," nor the development of a personal, in-
dividual style. CowelFs esthetic philosophy
is nearer that of the classic sixteenth, seven-
teenth, and eighteenth centuries than it is to
the romanticism of the nineteenth. Like all
innovators, he learns as he goes, and would
rather write a new work than rework the
details of an old one.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Sin-
fonietta, 1925; Ensemble for String Quartet, 1925;
Seven Paragraphs, for string trio, 1926; Suite for
Violin and Piano, 1927; Movement, for string
quartet, 1934; United Quartet, 1936; Ostinati with
Chorales, for oboe or clarinet with piano, 1937;
Toccata, for soprano, flute, 'cello, and piano, 1938;
Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1946. Choral Music
The Corning of Light, 1937; American Muse,
1943; Fire and Ice, 1943. Orchestral MusicCon-
certo for Piano and Orchestra, 1929; Synchrony,
1930; Symphony No. 2, "Anthropos," 1939; Sym-
phonic Set, 1940; Ancient Desert Drone, 1940;
Tales of Our Countryside, 1941 ; Symphony No. 3,
"Gaelic," 1942; Celtic Set, 1943; United Music,
1944; Hymn and Fuguing Tune, No. 2 and 3,
1944; Big Sing, 1945. Symphonic Band Music-
Celtic Set, 1938; Shoonthree, 1939; Shipshape Over-
ture, 1941; Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 1, 1943;
Animal Magic, 1944; Grandma's Rhumba, 1946;
Small Symphony, 1947; Big Sing, 1947. Piano Music
Advertisement, tone clusters, 1920; Antinomy,
tone-clusters, 1921; Tiger, tone clusters, 1927; Sini-
ster Resonance, with muted piano strings and har-
monics, 1930.
RECORDINGS : Movement, C-6974D (Dorian) ;
Ostinati with Chorales, NMR (Marx; Fine); Suite
for Woodwind Quintet, NMR (Barrere Ensemble) ;
Tales of Our Countryside, C-X235 (Cowell; Amer-
ican Youth Orchestra Stokowski) ; Vocalise, YFR
(Luening).
ABOUT: Bauer, M. Twentieth Century Music;
Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary Composers;
Magazine of Art May 1936; Modern Music Fall
1946.
Paul Creston 1906-
pAUL CRESTON originally his name
was Joseph Guttoveggio was born in
New York City on October 10, 1906. His
family was poor, and
after he had attended
the New* York public
schools, and two and
a half years of high
school, he was com-
pelled to abandon his
academic education
and seek work. Pas-
sionately fond of
music, he would
spend the early hours
before work, and the late hours of night, in
practicing and in study.
"The first six years of piano instruction,"
he writes, "were definitely of mediocre qual-
ity. My very first piano teacher was one of
those rare individuals who taught all instru-
ments but played none, and my musical fare
consisted mainly of operatic transcriptions
and the Waldteufel waltzes. Actually, with-
out being aware of it, I was teaching myself
by reading many books on music funda-
mentals and piano playing. At the age of
74 Creston
fourteen I began to mingle with other music
students and soon realized that my parents
were wasting money on a charlatan. It was
soon after that that I met Carlo Stea, a pupil
of Randegger, who taught me for a while
to prepare me for study with Randegger
himself. After having studied with Randeg-
ger and Dethier I continued by myself (not
having financial means for further lessons)
conducting a thorough investigation of the
principles of piano playing from the time of
Kullak to Otto Ortmann.
"I began composing soon after the ac-
quisition of my first piano, although I con-
sidered it more- a pastime than a serious
pursuit. This was at the age of eight. My
real ambition at the time was to be a concert
pianist. But just as I composed for pleasure,
I also indulged in poetic creations, my first
poem being written at the age of twelve.
Consequently, there came a time in my life
when I was undecided whether I should fol-
low a musical or a literary career, especially
since at the age of seventeen I had three
articles published in the Dance Magazine
besides a number of articles in Etude. When
I was about twenty-two I reasoned thus : 'In
the literary field I am competent in only two
phases, poetry and essays. I have tried my
hand at short stories and even a novel, and
failed miserably. In music, I have a certain
degree of facility no matter what the form I
choose. Music must be my work.' From
that time to 1932 (the date of my Opus 1)
I wrote many pieces for piano, some music
for the concert dance, experimental frag-
ments, and such, all of which are now resting
in oblivion. At the same time I began my
unceasing study of harmony, counterpoint
and compositions, from the works of the
masters, past and present."
Since his Opus 1, a set of Five Dances
for piano, Creston has composed some forty
major works in many different forms which
have been performed extensively in the
United States, Mexico, South America, and
Europe, and over radio networks. Practically*
every one of our important orchestras has
represented Creston on programs under the
greatest conductors. Beyond this, he has not
passed unnoticed by official honors. He
won a Guggenheim Fellowship twice (1938,
1939), the Citation of Merit by the National
Association of Composers and Conductors
twice (1941, 1943), a $1,000 grant by the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
(1943), and the Ditson Fund Award (1945) .
In his musk Creston has what Virgil
Thomson has described as "musical abund-
ance." He writes fully and opulently his
works are replete with ideas, some of them
quite engaging. His music makes pleasurable
listening not only because it is unusually
lyrical and caters to the ear but because it is
so beautifully constructed and delights the
intellect.
In 1940, Creston completed his First
Symphony, the culminating point of his
career up to that time. Its first major per-
formance took place at Carnegie Hall on
March 23, 1943, by the Philadelphia Or-
chestra under Ormandy. In 1943, the Music
Critics Circle selected this symphony as the
outstanding new American work of the
preceding season. Olin Downes said that it
was characterized by "clear-cut, straightfor-
ward musical thinking," by "balance of lyri-
cal, rhythmical and contrapuntal elements,"
by "general skillfulness and sound-worthiness
of the instrumentation/' by a style which
does not "ride to death some technical theory,
form, or formula."
Creston composed a Second Symphony
which was introduced by the New York
Philharmonic under Artur Rodzinski on
February 15, 1945. Creston explains that the
symphony was conceived as "an apotheosis
of the two foundations of all music: song
and dance," and he arranged it in the form
of an Introduction and Song, and Interlude
and Dance. The critical opinion was that
the music was skillful, varied in its orchestral
color, romantic in spirit, the work of a sin-
cere and finely equipped musician.
Other major orchestral works by Creston
have been widely performed. These include
a moving Chant of 1942, inspired by the
grave events of 1942 with a world at war.
"The year of 1942," wrote the composer,
"was one of the greatest antitheses : black
despondency and inspiring hope. Despond-
ency from the acts of barbarism in the de-
gradation of Poland and Greece, and the
murder of Lidice. Hope in the nobler as-
pects of humanity with the sacrifice at Tou-
lon and the defense of Stalingrad. Chant of
1942 is the record of one person's moods
in the contemplation of these events, moods
shared, no doubt, by many. It is, however,
Damrosch 75
neither a picture, nor a story, but a series of
moods."
Creston's Frontiers inspired by the
American migration to the West was writ-
ten upon a commission by Andre Koste-
lanetz, and was introduced by that conductor
in Toronto on October 14, 1943. Pastorale
and Tarantella, successfully introduced by
the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Dean
Dixon on January 27, 1942, is described by
the composer as "similar in idea but not in
content or form to the Prelude and Dance,
in that it is a composition in two sections:
the first of a preludic character, and the
second in dance form."
Besides his orchestral works, Creston has
written chamber and choral compositions
and numerous pieces for the piano.
"I have often asked myself the question
why I compose/' he writes, "and have an-
swered myself as follows: 'As I eat and
exercise for my physical health ; and as I
read and study for my mental development;
so do I pray and compose for my spiritual .
well-being/ In short, composing is a form of
prayer with me; or expressed differently,
music is a form of religion. One of the
truths in the Vedanta philosophy which im-
pressed me greatly was that one could wor-
ship God in many ways : through prayer,
through work, through mental development,
through good deeds, etc. Music being my
work, I chose it as one of the* methods of
worship."
Creston lives, with his wife and two
sons, in the suburbs of Yonkers, New York.
He is organist at St. Malachy's Church, in
New York, and musical director of several
radio programs, and he teaches piano and
composition. Creston has had many hobbies,
among them riddles, puzzles, cryptography,
and graphology. He has invented three sys-
tems of shorthand, and numerous ciphers.
Hypnotism, natural therapy, musical therapy,
and Yoga have also claimed his interest. He
is also an ardent amateur photographer.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballet A Tale about the
Land, 1940. Chamber AfimrThree Poems from
Walt Whitman, for 'cello and piano, 1934; Suite
for Saxophone and Piano, 1935; String Quartet,
1936; Partita, for flute, violin, and string orchestra,
1937; Suite for Viola and Piano, 1937; Suite for
Violin and Piano,. 1939; Sonata for Saxophone and
Piano, 1939; Homage, for viola and organ, 1947.
Choral Music Three Chorals, 1936; Missa Pro
Defunctis, 1938; Dirge, 1940. Orchestral Music
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, for chamber
orchestra, 1934; Threnody, 1938; Symphony No. 1,
1940; Concertino, for marimba and orchestra, 1940;
Prelude and Dance, 1941 ; Concerto for Saxophone
and Orchestra, 1941 ; A Rumor, 1941 ; Pastorale and
Tarantella, 1941; Dance Variations, for voice and
orchestra, 1942; Fantasy, for piano and orchestra,
1942; Chant of 1942, 1943; Frontiers, 1943; Sym-
phony No. 2, 1944; Poem, for harp and orchestra,
1945; Fantasy for Trombone and Orchestra, 1947.
Piano Music Five Dances, 1932; Seven Theses,
1933; Sonata, 1936;- Five Two-Part Inventions, 1937;
Five Little Dances, 1940; Prelude and Dance No. 1
and 2, 1942. Songs The Bird of the Wilderness,
1932; Four Songs to Death, 1935; Three Sonnets,
1936; Psalm XXIII, 1945.
RECORDINGS: Scherzo from Symphony No. 1,
C-11713D (American Youth S toko wski) ; Suite
for Saxophone and Piano, NMR-1313 (Leeson;
Creston).
ABOUT: Thomson, V. The Musical Scene;
Musical America October 1944.
Walter Damrosch 1862-
T^TALTER DAMROSCH, a patriarchal
figure in American music, is better
known as a conductor and as a force in the
development of musi-
cal culture in this
country than as a
composer. Yet he has
written several works
ranging from his
ever-popular song
Danny Deever to The
Scarlet Letter, one of
the first operas by an
American composer
to an American text. NBC
(The premiere took place in 1896.)
He was born in Breslau, Germany, on
January 30, 1862, the son of Leopold Dam-
rosch, a celebrated conductor and musical
figure. Richard Wagner was to be Walter's
godfather, but Wagner refused because
when he had performed a similar function
for another son of Leopold, that child died
in infancy.
When Walter Damrosch was five years
old his family came to the United States.
His father soon became a significant figure
in New York's musical life, becoming the
founder of the Oratorio Society of New
York and the New York Symphony Society,
and the first Wagnerian conductor of the
Metropolitan Opera House. Conscious of
the fact that Walter would some day follow
in his footsteps, he began training the boy in
the various instruments of the orchestra and
76 Damrosch
had him perform in the orchestras which he
conducted. Walter was then sent to Europe
for additional music study with Draeske and
Hans von Biilow.
Dr. Leopold Damrosch died in 1885 and,
as. he had planned, Walter stepped into his
shoes. He not only took over the direction
of the Oratorio Society of New York and
the New York Symphony Society, but he
also carried on the work, started by Dr.
Leopold Damrosch, of launching the first
cycle of Wagnerian operas at the Metro-
politan. In 1895, Damrosch organized and
launched his own opera company, which
toured the United States extensively. But
from 1900 to 1902 he was back on the con-
ductor's stand of the Metropolitan Opera
House. In 1903, he reorganized his New
York Symphony Society and established it
on a permanent basis. For the next twenty
years, he was its musical director. While it
cannot be said that he was ever a great con-
ductor, he was a vital and significant force
in developing the musical tastes of this coun-
try. By touring the country with his or-
chestra, he was instrumental in bringing
great symphonic music to places where it
was virtually unknown. He was the first
conductor in America to perform such now-
accepted masterpieces as Brahms's Fourth
Symphony, Tchaikovsky's Fifth and Sixth
symphonies, and Wagner's Parsifal (which
he directed in concert form before its per-
formance at the Metropolitan). He also in-
troduced the works of the living composers,
giving a hearing to the music of Elgar,
D'Indy, Stravinsky, Vaughan- Williams,
Bruckner, and Sibelius at a time when these
composers were rarely heard in this country.
During World War I, Damrosch helped
to organize a training school for bandmasters
in France. After the war, this school was
transformed into the celebrated Fontaine-
bleau School of Music, founded exclusively
for American musicians.
In 1926, the New York Symphony was
disbanded. Except for occasional guest ap-
pearances with other orchestras, Damrosch
now withdrew from the concert field. He
had found a new interest- the radio and
was quick to grasp its fabulous potentialities
for the spreading of good music to the
masses. He was the first to bring concerts
of great symphonic music to the radio, at a
time when it was felt there simply were no
audiences for this type of music. His broad-
casts in 1926, 1927, and 1928 set the stage
for all future symphonic broadcasts. He
was the first to recognize the value of radio
as an educational medium. In 1928, he in-
augurated his famous Music Appreciation
Hour for school children which ultimately
reached a weekly audience of five million
school children.
On April 12, 1935, Damrosch directed a
festival concert in New York City in honor
of his fortieth year as a conductor in New
York.
Damrosch has composed several operas,
including The Scarlet Letter, introduced by
the Damrosch Opera Company in 1896,
Cyrano de Bergerac, and The Man Without
a Country, the latter two performed by the
Metropolitan Opera House in 1913 and 1937
respectively. His first opera was so strongly
influenced by the Wagnerian style that one
musician derisively dubbed it the "Nibe-
lungenlied of New England." In his later
two operas, the Wagnerian element is less
noticeable, and while the music has occasion-
al charm, it is nevertheless still quite unorig-
inal, carrying within itself the echoes of nu-
merous other composers. In 1939, Damrosch
presented a completely revised version of his
opera Cyrano de Bergerac at Carnegie Hall.
Damrosch, who lives in a private house
on East 71st Street in New York City, is
married to the daughter of James G, Blaine,
a former Secretary of State of the United
States. Between his unceasing musical work
and his hobbies, his life is crowded with
activity. In the wintertime, his favorite
pastime is to build elaborate pasteboard
houses of his own design. He reads a great
deal, and interests himself vitally in the cur-
rent political problems. In the summer, he
goes in for gardening. His only superstition
is the belief that the number twenty-two is
lucky for him.
One of his most engaging traits is a
warm sense of humor. Once, directing a
benefit concert which called for the partici-
pation of sixteen pianists, he mischievously
whispered to the first row of the audience:
"What they need here is not a conductor
but a traffic cop." Before one of his lectures
on Wagner, he reminisced to his audience:
"When I look at your young, shining faces,
I recognize many who attended my first
Wagner lecture fifty years ago."
Daniels 77
He has always succeeded in creating a
personal bond between himself and his audi-
ences. "I don't understand it, either," he
whispered to them after conducting a highly
modernistic work which had inspired snick-
ers. Once, directing a youthful and very
noisy symphony by Aaron Copland, he an-
nounced : "Any young man who can try a
symphony like this at the age of twenty-
three, will be ready to commit murder in five
years." During the performance of his own
opera, Cyrano de Bergerac, at Carnegie Hall,
he noticed out of the corner of his eye that
some members of the audience were begin-
ning to trickle out. At the end of the act he
pleaded : "Please don't go home. The best
part is coming."
In 1941 Darnrosch revived an old in-
terest in the piano, and began practicing it
assiduously. On March 28, 1941 he made
his piano "debut" with a chamber-music en-
semble in New York City. At that time he
described himself as a "child prodigy of
seventy-eight/' while the critics found his
performances alive "with a beginner's zest
and a veteran's zeal."
Walter Darnrosch has appeared in the
motion pictures The Star Maker and Carne-
gie Hall, and is the author of an autobiogra-
phy.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Choral Music An Abra-
ham Lincoln Song, for baritone solo, chorus, and
orchestra, 1935; Dunkirk, for baritone solo, male
chorus, and orchestra, 1943. Operas The Scarlet
Letter, 1896; Cyrano de Bergerac, 1913; revised
1939; The Man Without a Country, 1937; The
Opera Cloak, 1942; Elephants in Congress, comic
opera, 1944. Orchestral Music Incidental Music to
Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis, 1915 ; Incidental Music
to Sophocles' Electra, 1917. Songs Danny Deever;
Death and General Putnam.
RECORDINGS: Danny Deever, V-6638 (Werren-
rath).
ABOUT: Darnrosch, W. My Musical Life;
Ewen, D. Music Comes to America; Finletter, G.
From the Top of the Stairs; American Mercury
March 1935; Musical Quarterly January 1932.
Mabel Daniels 1S79-
[ABEL DANIELS was bora in Swamp-
scott, Massachusetts, on November 27,
1879. Her family, on both sides, was musi-
cal; her father for many years up to the
time of his death had been president of the
Handel and Haydn Society of Boston. Al-
though she composed a waltz for the piano
when she was ten years old, it was not until
she entered Radcliffe College that music be-
came the most important element in her life ;
up to then, she had revealed a greater pref-
erence for literature than music, having
written many stories and poems in childhood.
In Radcliffe College, however, she took an
active part in all the musical activities, was
leader and soloist of the Glee Club, and com-
posed the music for two operettas performed
by the students. Graduating from Radcliffe
magna cum laude, she continued her music
study with George W. Chadwick in Boston
(composition and orchestration), and with
Ludwig Thuille in Munich. On her return
from Europe, she published a volume about
her experiences abroad as a music student,
An American Girl in Munich (1905).
She has composed many works in various
forms, mostly choral. Her major choral
works include The Song of Jael, a cantata
for mixed voices, orchestra, and dramatic
soprano, introduced at the Worcester Fes-
tival in 1940 with Rose Bampton, soloist,
and Albert Stoessel, -conductor. She wrote
Exultate Deo, for mixed chorus and orches-
tra, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of
the founding of Radcliffe College. After be-
ing introduced by the Harvard Glee Club
and Radcliffe Choral Society, it was given
a successful performance by the Boston
Symphony Orchestra and the Cecilia Society
under the direction of Serge Koussevitzky.
It was also featured at two of the West-
chester Festivals, and was heard in numer-
ous performances throughout the country,
and in places as distant as Manila.
One of her best known orchestral pieces
is Deep Forest, a prelude originally for
chamber orchestra, and first performed in
this form by the Barrere Little Symphony in
Town Hall, New York, in 1932. Later she
rewrote it for large symphony orchestra, and
it has been directed by Koussevitzky, Kind-
ler, Sokoloff, Barbirolli, and others. Fea-
tured in the ASCAP Festival on the pro-
gram of serious American music at Carnegie
Hall in 1939, it made Daniels the only wom-
an composer to be represented at this event.
Still another popular orchestral work by
Daniels is Pirates' Island, a humorous piece,
78 Dawson
which has not only been performed by many
important orchestras but was also produced
as a ballet by Ted Shawn's company at a
concert at Robin Hood Dell. Equally suc-
cessful has been the Pastoral Ode, for flute
and string orchestra. Following its premiere
by members of the Boston Symphony Or-
chestra, with George Laurent as soloist, it
was performed over the radio by the NBC
Orchestra under Frank Black, and has had
numerous concert performances.
Miss Daniels' earlier style was essentially
conservative leaning towards the poetic and
the impressionistic. One critic pointed out
that she has "something in common with
Edward MacDowell," particularly in her
sensitive tonal portraits and re-creation of
subtle atmospheres. More recently, her style
has grown in strength and originality.
She received the honorary degrees of
Master of Arts from Tufts College in 1933
and Doctor of Music from Boston Univer-
sity in 1939. In 1945 she was elected an
alumna trustee of Radcliffe College.
Miss Daniels has been greatly interested
in advancing the cause of good music among
students. She established a loan fund, which
was named in her honor, for students major-
ing in music at Radcliffe College. She was
also responsible for the "Mabel Daniels Bene-
ficiary Fund," which has been helpful to
needy students.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music -Three
Observations, for three woodwinds, 1943; Two
Pieces for Violin and Piano, 1948. Choral Music
Peace With a Sword, 1917; Eastern Song, 1921-
Song of Elfland, 1924; The Holy Star, 1928; Exul-
tate Deo, 1929; The Christ Child, 1931; Christmas
in the Wood, 1934; The Song of Jael, 1938; Dum
Dianae Vitrea, 1942; Flower- Wagon, 1945, Orches-
tral Music Fairy Scherzo, 1914; Deep Forest, 1932-
34; Pirates' Island, 1935; Pastoral Ode, for flute
and string orchestra, 1940; Digressions, for string
orchestra, 1947.
ABOUT: Reis, C. Composers in America (rev.
ed).
William L. Dawson 1899-
LEV! DAWSON was born
in Anniston, Alabama, on September
26, 1899. In his childhood, he was appren-
ticed to a shoemaker, learning his trade so
well that he was able to sew on a pair of shoe
soles by hand in twenty minutes. When the
boy expressed a desire to learn music he was
discouraged by his father, to whom a musician
meant one who earned his living playing in
honky-tonks. However, after some persua-
sion on the part of several interested neigh-
bors, the father finally consented to have his
son join the local band.
The boy's inmost ambition was to enter
Tuskegee Institute. For this purpose, he de-
cided to save all his pennies and nickels.
Unfortunately some neighborhood boys dis-
covered that Dawson was hiding his savings
under the house and appropriated the money
for themselves. This delayed his plans for
some time. He then worked for a local dry
goods store, deliver-
ing packages, and out
of his earnings bought
a bicycle, evidently
temporarily deflected
from his ambition.
Meanwhile he took
private lessons in
arithmetic and gram-
mar from the princi-
pal of a local school,
paying fifty cents a p - H - Polk
month for this instruction. After a year, he
sold his bicycle for six dollars, which was
enough to pay his way to Tuskegee.
At Tuskegee, Dawson was classified as a
"special agricultural student," and was as-
signed to the school's farm where he earned
his entrance fee and a portion of the cost of
the expenses for his instruction. At the In-
stitute, Dawson was admitted to the Institute
Band and Orchestra, which was under the
direction of Captain Frank L. Drye. Before
graduating from Tuskegee in 1921, Dawson
learned to play most of the band and or-
chestral instruments. He also found time
to study the piano and harmony with Alice
Carter Simmons. During the same period,
he joined the Institute Quintette, with which
organization he traveled extensively.
His first job after his graduation from
Tuskegee was at the Kansas Vocational, Col-
lege in Topeka, Kansas, where he taught
band and orchestral instruments, and con-
ducted the band. During his stay in Topeka,
he studied composition and orchestration
DeLamarter 79
with Dean Henry V. Stearns of the music
department at Washburn College.
In May 1922, Dawson resigned this posi-
tion, and became director of music at Lin-
coln High School, in Kansas City, Missouri.
Here he remained for four years, teaching
and supervising instrumental music in the
grade schools, conducting a choir, doing
radio work, and studying theory and com-
position at the Horner Institute of Fine Arts
with Dr. Carl Busch and Regina G. Hall.
He was an honor student at Horner Insti-
tute and was graduated in 1925 with a
Bachelor of Arts degree. On the gradua-
tion program, his Trio, for violin, 'cello, and
piano, was performed.
Dawson now went to Chicago, to study
composition with Adolph Weidig at the
American Conservatory. He won a scholar-
ship in composition with Weidig and, in
1927, he received the master's degree in
composition with honors from the American
Conservatory. He remained in Chicago,
continuing his studies under Dr. Thorvald
Otterstrom, and doing some arranging, edit-
ing, conducting, and radio work. From 1926
to 1930, he played first trombone in the Civic
Orchestra of Chicago, conducted by Fred-
erick Stock and Eric DeLamarter. In 1929,
the Chicago Daily News conducted a contest
to select a bandmaster for the 1933 World's
Fair. Dawson entered this competition, and
won a post for himself. In the fall of 1930,
he returned to the Tuskegee Institute to or-
ganize its School of Music and serve as di-
rector a position he holds at the present
time. He has also conducted the celebrated
Tuskegee Choir.
On several occasions, Dawson won im-
portant prizes for his songs. But his first
important success as a composer came on
November 14, 1934 when the Philadelphia
Orchestra under Stokowski introduced his
Negro Folk Symphony. This symphony is
based entirely upon Negro folk material, its
themes drawn from famous spirituals. Three
of the themes employed by Dawson were
those which he learned at his mother's knee.
The three movements of the symphony are
entitled: "The Bond of Africa," "Hope in
the Night/' and "O Lem-me Shine/ 1
This symphony, which is perhaps Daw-
son's most famous work to date, has been
performed extensively throughout the coun-
try. Olin Downes said of it that "the best
pages . . . have a big curve, a real melodic
line which is developed by the composer and
does not consist merely in the quotation of a
phrase of folk-melody. In essence, this music
has dramatic feeling, a racial sensuousness
and directness of melodic speech, and a bar-
baric turbulence."
Dawson follows a rather methodical life,
working hard during the day, and sleeping
eight hours a night regularly. He enjoys the
study of languages and the reading of bi-
ographies. He is also a philatelist. His fa-
vorite pastime is to converse with old people
because "their philosophy of life is a part
of their living and I profit so much from
their company." He dislikes "petty gossip/'
and one of his pet peeves, he says, "is the
person who is more concerned with the let-
ters after his name than with the contribu-
tion he is able to make toward the better-
ment of his fellow man."
Dawson writes further: "I believe in
God as the father of mankind; I believe in
my race; I believe in myself; I believe in
humanity. I believe that a composer should
write music which is a part of his spiritual
and moral self rather than from those out-
side influences which are not a part of his
own experiences."
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Trio in
A, for violin, 'cello and piano, 1925; Sonata in A
for Violin and Piano, 1928. Choral Music Out in
the Fields, 1928; Break, Break, Break, 1929; Behold
the Star, 1945 ; Hail Mary, 1946. Orchestral Music
Scherzo, 1930; Negro Folk Symphony, 1931;
Negro Work Song, 1940; Interlude, for piano and
orchestra, 1943.
ABOUT : Forward January 6, 1940,
Manuel de Falla
(See Falla, Manuel de)
Eric DeLamarter 1880-
j?RIC DELAMARTER was born in Lan-
sing, Michigan, on February 18, 1880.
Early piano and organ study prefaced his
professional career as a church organist,
which was launched when he was only fifteen
years old. Later music studies were continued
with Mary Wood Chase (piano) and Wilhelm
Middelshulte (organ). During a leave of
absence taken in 1901 he pursued additional
DeLamarter: de-la-mart'cr
80 Dello Joio
studies of the organ in France with Alexan-
der Guilmant and Charles Marie Widor. De
Lamarter was organist at the New England
Congregational Church in Chicago for twelve
years. However, his principal post as organ-
ist was with the Fourth Presbyterian Church
in Chicago, a post he held for twenty-three
years, combining this with the direction of
the choir.
In 1905, he became a music critic of the
Chicago Record-Herald, subsequently serv-
ing in the same capacity for the Chicago
Inter-Ocean and the Chicago Tribune. In
1910, he turned to still another activity
that of conducting when he succeeded
Frederick Stock as conductor of the Musical
Arts Society. Since that time, he has had a
long and successful career with the baton.
In 1918 he took over the direction of the
Chicago Orchestra from Frederick Stock for
one year; he continued with this organiza-
tion for nearly two decades as assistant, then
associate, conductor. He also conducted the
summer concerts at the Ravinia Park for
seven years, and directed two concerts a day
for ten weeks at the
Century of Progress
1 Exposition in Chi-
Jj cago. During all this
time, he was also the
^ v conductor of the Civic
Orchestra in Chicago,
and appeared as guest
of many leading
American organiza-
^ Jlj tions. After his retire-
ment from profes-
sional work in Chicago, he joined the Starr" of
WOR, in New York, to direct radio concerts
for a year.
His first major work to receive perform-
ance was his First Symphony, introduced by
the Chicago Orchestra under Stock on Janu-
ary 13, 1914. Since that time, DeLamarter's
works have been extensively performed, not
only by the Chicago Symphony, but by othfer
celebrated musical organizations, chamber-
music groups, and by orchestras over the
radio.
In his composition, DeLamarter seeks
for those qualities which he feels are essen-
tial traits of all great music. "These," he
explains, "are beauty and nobility of thought
and feeling, logic in architecture, and clarity
of presentation." He writes in a romantic
vein, and scrupulously avoids any set school
or modern tendency. He explains: "Super-
imposed planes of tonalities, harmonic angu-
larities, distorted and extravagant melodic
quips, neurotic rhythms and all the other
signboard tricks are not The Formula; they
are merely the ingredients. Anyone may use
them; anyone can use them, if he has a bit
of mathematical mind and some patience and
imagination.
"A composer's raw material is tone, like
the painter his color. His use of that raw
material is determined by the idea he wishes
to convey. If it be an idea timely only to
transitory fancies, he is a fool not to address
his audience in the fashionable epigram of
the moment. If it be an idea worthy of more
serious estimate, he is just as foolish to ig-
nore the modernistic design as to ignore the
classic matters of logic of thought and clarity
of presentation. After all, a concert of
music is something to be heard. It is not a
clinic."
Eric DeLamarter's greatest pleasure is to
play the 'cello. "I never have the same audi-
ences twice, if the audience can help it."
Besides music, he likes yachting and attend-
ing boxing matches.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballets The Betrothal
1919; The Black Orchid; Dardanus, an arrange-
ment of Rameau's music. Chamber Music Sonata
for Violin and Piano; Thumb-Box Sketches, for
'cello and piano; Trio in F Major; Trio in G Ma-
jor; Quartet in G Major; Quartet in F Major;
Serenade in D Minor, for violin, viola, and 'cello;
Triolet in D Major, for two violins and viola ;
Foursome in C Major, for three violins and viola.
Choral Music The Pipes of Pan; The Four
Winds; TheDeTsAwa'; June Moonrise; A Prayer
for the Old Courage; Psalm CXLIV; The Good
Shepherd. Orchestral Music Symphony No. 1 in
D, 1914; Serenade, 1915; Masquerade, overture,
1916; Fable of the Hapless Folktune, 1917; Two
Concertos for Organ and Orchestra, 1920, 1922;
Symphony No. 2, after Walt Whitman, 1926; The
Dance of Life, suite for ballet, 1931 ; Symphony
No. 3, 1931; Symphony No. 4, 1932; The Giddy
Puritan, overture.
ABOUT; Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers.
Norman Dello Joio 1 913-
DELLO joio was bom on
January 24, 1913 in New York City,
descendant of a long line of Italian musi-
cians. His father, a composer and organist,
was his first teacher. At the age of fifteen,
Dello Jbio 81
Norman Dello Joio studied the organ with his
godfather, Pietro Yon, the famous organist
of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. He
then continued his musical education at the
Institute of Musical Art in New York City
where he studied both the organ and the piano
with Gaston Dethier. It was at this time that
he first considered
seriously the study of
composition. At the
Institute his creative
talent first earned
recognition when his
Piano Trio won the
Elizabeth Sprague
Coolidge award.
While his music study
was taking place,
Dello Joio also pur-
sued the study of academic subjects at the
All Hallows School in New York, and at the
City College of New York.
In 1939, he received a fellowship at the
Juilliard Graduate School in New York,
where he worked in composition with Ber-
nard Wagenaar. In the summer of 1940
and 1941, he received a fellowship to study
composition with Paul Hmdemith at the
Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood,
Massachusetts. During the intervening win-
ter, he continued with Hmdemith at the Yale
School of Music in New Haven. In 1942-43,
he won the Town Hall Composition Award
for his Magnificat, for orchestra. He was
awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships in
1944 and 1945, and in 1946 he was given a
$1,000 grant by the American Academy of
Arts and Letters.
Dello Joio is a prolific composer who has
written works in virtually every form.
Among them are three ballets, two of which,
Prairie and The Duke of Sacramento* were
commissioned by Eugene Loring for his
ballet company, the Dance Players. The
third ballet, On Stage, was commissioned by
the Ballet Associates and is now part of the
regular repertory of the Ballet Theatre. It
has been performed for two seasons at the
Metropolitan Opera House in New York
and extensively throughout the United
States.
His Symphony for Voice and Orchestra,
set to Stephen Vincent Benefs Western Star,
was commissioned for the Collegiate Choir
by Robert Shaw, who introduced it in the
spring of 1945. Other major orchestral
works include a Sinfonietta, a Concerto for
Two Pianos and Orchestra, two Concertinos
(one for flute and orchestra, the other for
piano and orchestra), a Concerto for Harp
and Orchestra, and a Concerto for Harmon-
ica and Orchestra. These works have been
performed by all the major networks, under
various celebrated conductors, and have also
had extensive representation on the pro-
grams of our major symphony orchestras.
Norman Dello Joio started his profes-
sional career as a musician at the age of
twelve by assisting his father as an organist.
Subsequently, he held numerous posts both
as organist and as choirmaster in New York
churches. At the age of twenty, he had his
own jazz band, which performed extensively
in the East. In 1941-43 he was musical di-
rector of the ballet company, the Dance
Players. He now teaches composition at
Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New
York.
Throughout his life he has been vitally
interested in sports, particularly in baseball.
At one point in his life he had to make a
serious choice between baseball and music as
a life profession when he received an en-
ticing offer to join a professional ball club.
In the spring of 1942, Dello Joio was
married to a ballet dancer who gave up her
own career to further his. They are cur-
rently living alternately in New York City
and in Wilton, Connecticut.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Ballets Prairie, 1942 ; The
Duke of Sacramento, 1942; On Stage, 1945. Cham-
ber Music Trio for Flute, 'Cello, and Piano;
Sextet, for three recorders or woodwinds and three
strings, 1943 ; Dtio Concertante, for 'cello and piano,
1943. Chard MusicVigil Strange, 1942; The
Mystic Trumpeter, for chorus and French horn,
1943; Western Star, for narrator, soloists, chorus,
and orchestra, 1944; A Jubilant Song; Symphony
for Voices and Orchestra. Orchestral Music- Con-
certino for Piano and Orchestra, 1939; Concertino
for Flute and Orchestra, 1940; Sinfonietta, 1941;
Duke of Sacramento, suite, 1942; Concerto for
Harp and Orchestra, 1942; Concerto for Harmonica
and Orchestra, 1942; Magnificat, 1943; To a Lone
Sentry, 1943; American Landscape, 1944; Ricercare,
for piano and orchestra, 1946; Concert Piece, 1947;
Three Symphonic Dances, 1947.
RECORDED Music: Trio for Flute, 'Cello, and
Piano, CHS-13 (Baker; Saidenberg; Hamhro).
ABOUT: Reis, C Composers in America Crev
ed).
82 Diamond
D
Gloria Hoffman.
Jacques de Menasce
(See Menatce, Jacques de)
David Diamond 1915-
,AVID DIAMOND was born in Roch-
ester, New York, on July 9, 1915. In
a Rochester public school he first revealed
his musical bent:
while his friend at
the next desk did his
class problems for
him, he devoted him-
self busily to com-
position. He studied
music at the Cleve-
land Institute of
Music, where he was
a violin pupil of An-
dre de Ribaupierre.
At the Eastman School of Music, in Roch-
ester, he was a composition pupil of Bernard
Rogers. Here he was enabled to hear a
great deal of music, and he today recalls
being moved on hearing Rogers' Raising of
Lazarus, and becoming violently antagonistic
to the program nature of Beethoven's Pas-
toral Symphony.
In 1934, Diamond came to New York
City, winning a scholarship for the Dalcroze
School of Music, where he studied improvi-
sation with Paul Boepple, and analysis and
composition with Roger Sessions. At this
time, he heard that Paul Whiternan was
sponsoring a competition, the winner of
which would be financed for a two years'
course of study. Diamond entered his Sin-
fonietta in the competition, and was given
the prize.
A scholarship enabled him to go to
Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, While
in Paris, Diamond wrote a few large works,
including a ballet, Tom, based on a book by
E. E. Cummings, a Concerto for Violin and
Orchestra, and a Psalm, for orchestra, in-
spired by a visit to Pcre Lachaise and dedi-
cated to Andre Gide. The Psalm later won
the Juilliard Publication Award and was
performed by the San Francisco Symphony
Orchestra.
When he returned to New York, Dia-
mond worked behind a soda fountain, and
spent his leisure hours in composing. At
this time, he wrote an Elegy, dedicated to
Maurice Ravel, who had just died. In the
spring of 1938, Diamond won a Guggenheim
Fellowship and went to Europe for another
yeajr of study and composition. On his re-
turn to this country, Diamond lived for a
while in Yaddo, at Saratoga Springs, where
he composed his First Symphony. This
symphony was introduced by the New York
Philharmonic under Mitropoulos in 1941,
and won for the composer the Prix de
Rome.
In later works notably the Concerto for
Two Pianos (written for Gerhart and Mor-
ley) ; the Second String Quartet; the
Rounds, for string orchestra (introduced by
the Minneapolis Symphony under Mitro-
poulos in 1944, and in 1946 singled out by
the Music Critics Circle for special praise) ;
the Second Symphony (the premiere of
which took place with the Boston Symphony
Orchestra under Koussevitzky in 1944) ;
the Third String Quartet (selected for spe-
cial praise by the Music Critics Circle in
1947) ; and the Sonata for Violin and Piano,
introduced in 1948 by Joseph Szigeti he
has shown increasing command of his tech-
nique and a crystallization of his style. In
whatever form he writes, it is usually with
distinction. His prevailing qualities are ten-
derness, passion and strength. He projects
himself with vigor, and leaves behind him
the impression of a strong and forceful per-
sonality who compels attention.
In 1943, Diamond was awarded the Pade-
rewski Prize, and one year later a $1,000
grant by the American Academy of Arts
and Letters.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Ballets Tom (E. E. Cum-
mings) 1936; The Dream of Audubon (Glenway
Wescott) 1946, Chamber Music Sonata for 'Cello
and Piano, 1936-38; Concerto for String Quartet,
1936; Quintet for Flute, String Trio, and Piano,
1937; Quartet for Piano and String Trio, 1938;
Sonata for 'Cello and Piano, 1938; String Quartet
No. 1, 1940; String Quartet No. 2, 1943-44; Con-
certo for Two Solo Pianos, 1942 ; String Quartet
No, 3, 1946; Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1947.
Choral Music This Is the Garden (E. E. 'Cum-
mings) 1935; Three Madrigals (Joyce) 1937; Two
Choruses (E. E. Cummings) 1940; Young Joseph,
1944, Orchestral MusicFirst Symphony, 1935;
Psalm, 1936; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra,
1936; Aria and Hymn, 1937; Overture, 1937; Varia-
tions for Small Orchestra, 1937; Heroic Piece, for
small orchestra, 1938; Elegy, 1938; Concerto for
'Cello and Orchestra, 1938; Concerto for Chamber
Orchestra, 1940; Second Symphony, 1944; Rounds,
Donovan 83
for string orchestra, 1944; Third Symphony, 1945;
Fourth Symphony, 1945; Second Concerto for
Violin and Orchestra, 1947 ; Music for Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet, 1947.
ABOUT: Howard, J, T. Our American Music
(3d ed.) ; Saminsky, L. Music of Our Day (rev.
ed).
Richard Donovan 1891-
l^ICHARD FRANK DONOVAN was
born in New Haven, Connecticut, on
November 29, 1891. He studied at the
School of Music at
Yale University, the
Institute of Musical
Art, and in Paris
with Charles Marie
W i d o r . Concerning
his musical training
Donovan writes: "At
about the age of sev-
enteen, I began to
absorb a practical
knowledge of music
through playing the piano in dance bands
and in theatre pits in New Haven, an ex-
perience I have always considered valuable.
That there was a wider world of music, I
learned one day when one of these small
bands took me to a rehearsal of the New
Haven Symphony Orchestra, which Horatio
Parker used to rehearse in the Old College
Street Hall. Local performers professional
and amateur came together once a week
for real musical sustenance. On my first
visit, I was pressed into service as a player
on the triangle. My inability, ,however, to
count 214 silent bars, play one note, then
count 63 before playing the next, earned the
justified scorn of the short-tempered Dr.
Parker, and I was dismissed from the stage
with appropriate verbal brick-bats. I was
allowed to remain as listener, however, and
there I got the feeling of a. symphony or-
chestra, and a glimpse of the world of seri-
ous music. These early impressions were
merely intensified when later I enjoyed the
privilege of listening to the rehearsals of
Walter Damrosch, Furtwangler, Mengel-
berg, Bruno Walter, Toscanini, and others.
"While pursuing the education that every
musician requires, I never ceased to keep
contact With applied music either as organ-
ist in a church, as teacher of some kind of
school music, or as accompanist for a choral
society. What I learned from Professor
Walter Henry Hall of Columbia and from
Dr. Miles Farrow, organist of the Cathedral
of St. John the Divine (where, for a time, I
served as assistant organist), I have tried to
apply in my choral composition and choral
conducting. Actual participation in music
has always interested me more than factual
knowledge about it."
Donovan has taught at the Taft School,
Smith College, the Institute of Musical Art,
and at present is serving as professor of the
theory of music at the School of Music,
Yale University. "In my teaching at the
Yale School of Music, where I give courses
ranging from plain-song to contemporary
music," the composer writes, "I try to place
the emphasis on the music itself, rather than
on the bare chronological record of its de-
velopment. My position as choirmaster at
Christ Church, New Haven, enables me to
bring to life some of the great body of plain-
song. And as one of the conductors of the
New Haven Symphony Orchestra, I follow
a policy of playing not only the great clas-
sics, but also a piece of contemporary music
on each program. It is gratifying to find
that local audiences now take without ques-
tion the music of living composers along
with the classics."
For his composition, Donovan must de-
pend on the summer months. During the
busy winter season, he can only revise, patch
up, or possibly score music composed earlier
but little more than that. His music is
marked by skillful polyphonic writing, but
imbued with the modern spirit. It is fre-
quently gentle and .contemplative, frequently
introspective the work of a composer who
is perhaps given more to pensive mood than
to turbulent feelings.
Donovan has been a member of several
committees arranging the Yaddo music fes-
tivals of contemporary American music. In
1942, he was appointed a member of the
Corporation of Yaddo. He was a member
of the staff of the Middlebury College Com-
posers' Conference at its first two sessions
during the summers of 1946 and 1947.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber AfimVSextet,
for wind instruments and piano v 1932; Four Songs,
for soprano and string quartet, 1933; Trio, 1937;
Serenade, for oboe, violin, viola, and 'cello, 1940,
Choral Music Chanson of the .Bells of Oseney,
84 Dubensky
1930; To All You Ladies Now at Land, 1932; Three
Unaccompanied Choruses, 1937; Fantasy on Amer-
ican Folk Ballads, 1940; Good Ale, 1946; How
Should I Love? 1947; A Hymn to the Night, 1947.
Orchestral Music 'Wood-Notes, for flute, harp, and
strings, 1925; Smoke and Steel, symphonic poem,
1932; Symphony, for chamber orchestra, 1937;
Ricercare, for oboe and strings, 1938; Suite, for
oboe and strings, 1943 ; Design for Radio, for cham-
ber orchestra, .1944; New England Chronicle, 1947;
Symphony, 1948.
RECORDINGS : Serenade for Oboe, Violin, Viola,
and 'Cello, NMR (Wann; Tinterow; Porter;
Bodenhorn) ; Songs for Soprano and String Quar-
tet NMR (Grace Donovan; Quartet); Suite for
Piano, NMR (Gerschefski) ; Trio, YFR (Schmidt;
Swenson; Duke).
ABOUT- Reis C Composers in America (rev.
ed.).
Arcady Dobensky 1890-
RCADY DUBENSKY was born in Vi-
atka, Russia, on October 15, 1890.
When he was eight, he sang in the cathedral
choir ; and at thirteen,
he earned his living
playing the violin in
a theatre orchestra.
In 1904, he went to
Moscow, and was en-
rolled in the Moscow
Conservatory of
Music. There he
studied violin under
Grimaly, counter-
point with Ilyinsky,
and conducting with Arends. He was gradu-
ated in 1909. Soon after his graduation, he
became first violinist with the Moscow Im-
perial Opera orchestra, a position he held
until 1919.
He made his bow as a composer at a
comparatively early age. In 1916, the Im-
perial Opera at Moscow presented his comic
opera, Romance with Double-Bass, which
revealed considerable flair for wit.
In 1921, Dubensky came to the United
States and joined the violin section of the
New York Symphony Society. When that
orchestra was amalgamated with the New
York Philharmonic, Dubensky became part
of the new organization, of which he is still
a member.
He was first introduced as a composer to
American music audiences in 1927, when he
himself conducted portions of his Russian
Bells symphony with the New York Sym-
Dubensky: d5o-ben'ske
Benato Toppo
phony. This work, which has a distinct
Tchaikovsky flavor, attracted favorable com-
ment because of its compositorial skill, and
because it was "simple, melodious" music.
Leopold Stokowski was impressed by
Dubensky's talent and proceeded to encour-
age him by giving premieres to several of
his important works. These included The
Raven, a "melodeclamation" in which the
music 'accompanies a recitation of Edgar
Allan Poe's famous poem, and the sonorous
Fugue for Eighteen Violins, a modern com-
poser's tribute to Bach. Both works revealed
that though Dubensky clung tenaciously to
the accepted traditions in music, he could
speak in a highly personal language. Sto-
kowski also introduced a sprightly overture,
Tom Sawyer, and a musical reincarnation of
a distant past entitled Anno 1600.
Stokowski was not alone in giving per-
formance to Dubensky's works. The Fugue,
indeed, has been included on the programs
of most of our major orchestras ; and an ex-
tensive revision of Anno 1600 was reintro-
duced by the New York Philharmonic. In
1939, Fiorello H. La Guardia, then Mayor
of New York, conducted Dubensky's Fan-
fare at. the opening of the World's Fair.
Alfred Wallenstein introduced two other
Dubensky works with his Sinfonietta over
the Mutual network: A Political Suite,
which deals musically with different politi-
cal "isms," including monarchism, fascism,
and communism ; and a Serenade, dedicated
to Mayor La Guardia of New York. The
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, under
Fabien Sevitzky, gave the first performance
of Stephen Foster: Theme, Variations and
Finale in 1940. In 1943-44 Prelude and
Fugue in B-flat Minor was performed sev-
eral times by the Boston Symphony Orches-
tra under the direction of Dr. Serge Kous-
sevitzky.
In discussing his own music, Dubensky
speaks of himself as "one of the American
composers who have followed the traditions
and forms of the old classical school." He
explains that he works best at night. "Musi-
cal ideas come to my mind first in visual
forms accompanied by music which I then
put down on paper and work out." His
favorite composers are Bach, Beethoven,
Mozart, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky.
Dukelsky 85
He Is a prodigious reader, his interests
ranging from philosophy to fairy tales.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Passa-
caglia, for violin and 'cello, 1931; String Quartet
In C Major, 1932. Operas Romance with Double-
Bass, comic opera, 1916; Down Town, 1930; On
the Highway, 1936; Two Yanks in Italy, 1944.
Orchestral Music Russian Bells, 1928; Prelude and
Fugue, 1932; Fugue for Eighteen Violins, 1932;
Reminiscences, 1932; Tom Sawyer, overture, 1936;
Political Suite, 1936; Serenade, 1937; Anno 1600,
suite for strings, 1937, revised 1939; Fanfare, 1939;
Stephen Foster: Theme, Variations and Finale,
1940; Prelude and Fugue in B-flat Minor, 1942;
Orientale, 1945; Overture to an Italian Comedy,
1946.
RECORDINGS : Fugue for Eighteen Violins, VM-
912 (Indianapolis Symphony Sevitzky) ; Gossips,
V-4186 (Philadelphia Chamber Sevitzky) ; The
Raven, V-2000-01 (Philadelphia Symphony Sto-
kowski) ; Stephen Foster, VM-912 (Indianapolis
Symphony Sevitzky).
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. Our Contemporary
Composers.
Vladimir Dukelsky 1903-
"fTLADIMIR DUKELSKY is two musical
personalities in one. As Vernon Duke
he has been a successful Tin Pan Alley com-
poser, writing scores
for many Broadway
successes ( including
the Ziegfield Follies
of 1935 and 1936,
The Show Is On,
Cabin in the Sky,
Banjo Eyes, etc.)*
and for several mov-
ies. His "hit" songs
include April in Par-
is and Taking a
Chance on Love. He is also the composer
of symphonies, concertos, and ballets, re-
serving for these more serious works his
own name of Vladimir Dukelsky.
"I was born on October 10, 1903," he
writes, "in Pskov, in Northern Russia. My
mother was part Spanish, and my father's
mother was a direct descendant of the kings
of Georgia in the Caucasus. So I am not
terribly Russian after all. I was slated for
a diplomatic career, so at four I started the
study of languages. But before I was seven,
I was trying to compose, and my parents saw
which way I was headed. I studied at the
Kiev Conservatory with Gliere until I was
fifteen, and the revolution broke out. My
family were not active in politics, but had
the misfortune of not being of the proletar-
iat so we fled south to Odessa on our way
to Constantinople.
"As for composition, my first important
work was a ballet in fourteen acts which I
wrote when I was eight years old. During
the Revolution, I suddenly became very seri-
ous, and started writing fugues. In 1919, I
was an extremely pale young man, not hav-
ing much to eat, and unsuccessfully imitat-
ing Debussy in my music."
In Constantinople (he arrived there in
1919) Dukelsky wrote a ballet, A Syrian
Tale, his first published work. For two
years, he supported himself by arranging
concerts for a refugee branch of the
Y.M.C.A. He came across Gershwin's
Swanee which, then and there, made him an
ardent admirer of Gershwin, and inspired
him to become a popular-song composer.
When Dukelsky came to the United States
in 1921, one of the first persons he sought
was Gershwin, who encouraged him, and
gave him valuable advice. Ultimately, Du-
kelsky returned the favor: when Gershwin
died in Hollywood, leaving his score for the
Goldwyn Follies uncompleted, it was Dukel-
sky who finished it for him.
Meanwhile, in America, Dukelsky worked
at odd jobs, earning just about enough to
keep body and soul together. He prepared
the musical accompaniment for a magician's
act, played the piano for a vaudeville danc-
ing team, wrote the music for a night club
show. All this was not encouraging, and in
1924, Dukelsky decided to go to Europe. In
Paris he met Diaghilev, to whom he showed
the manuscript of a piano concerto. Dia-
ghilev liked it well enough to commission
its composer to write a ballet. The result
was Zephyr and Flora, introduced by the
Ballet Russe in Monte Carlo on April 28,
1925, and later heard in Paris and London.
It was in Paris, too, that Dukelsky met
Serge Koussevitzky, ,who was so impressed
by the young man's talent that he accepted
a few of his works for publication by his
Parisian publishing house. Later on, Kous-
sevitzky was to be one of the staunchest
champions of Dukelsky 's music in this coun-
try, introducing many of his major works,
and in ten years* time performing more than
six times as many Dukelsky works as all the
other American orchestras combined. In
86 Elwell
gratitude for the way Koussevitzky and the
Boston Symphony Orchestra sponsored his
music, Dukelsky has written a piano suite
entitled Hommage a Boston,
From Paris, Dukelsky went to London
where he wrote an operetta called Yvonne,
produced in 1926, and comparatively suc-
cessful, despite the sobriquet which Noel
Coward applied to it " Yvonne the Ter-
rible." He also wrote the score for Edgar
Wallace's only musical comedy, The Yellow
Mask (1928), which had a long run. In
1929, Dukelsky was back in America. Since
that time, he has neatly followed a dual
course: writing serious music "for the sake
of my soul,' 5 and popular music for the
benefit of his pocketbook.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra under
Koussevitzky introduced Dukelsky's First
Symphony on March IS, 1929, and on April
25, 1930, performed his Second Sym-
phony. The Second Symphony has enjoyed
numerous important performances, including
one by the Warsaw Philharmonic at the
International Music Festival in London and
Oxford in 1931. Besides the two sym-
phonies, Dukelsky also wrote a concerto for
violin, another for 'cello, a ballet suite, and
other orchestral works which were all well
received when introduced by the Boston
Symphony.
Here is how Nicolas Slonimsky describes
Dukelsky's music : "Dukelsky does not strive
for the ultimate in complexity. Whether as
Vladimir Dukelsky or as Vernon Duke, he
professes a love for a natural melodic line.
He likes to stay within a diatonic scheme of
seven notes to a scale, and shuns the chro-
matic entanglements. Nonetheless, Dukel-
sky's music is rich in texture, and the free
modulatory plan which he pursues in most
of his mature works, contributes to the im-
pression of tonal variety and harmonic
spaciousness. . . . Dukelsky delights in un-
usual instrumental combinations, and knows
how to draw the maximum effect from
minimum resources."
In August 1942, Dukelsky. enlisted in the
Coast Guard, receiving the rating of cox-
swain. While in the Coast Guard, he wrote
the music for its revue, Tars and Spars,
which was subsequently filmed by Holly-
wood. He also wrote the Coast Guard fight-
ing song, The Silver Shield. In September
1945, he was honorably discharged with the
rank of lieutenant ^commander.
To an interviewer, Dukelsky said: "I
feel that the era of f neo diatonicism' is here.
The day of the 'streamlined' pseudo-func-
tional music, with its accent on aimless 'free'
counterpoint, motor-like animation, and de-
liberately ascetic and bloodless orchestra-
tion, is gone. There is a whole school of
young and no longer young Americans who
persist in writing 'pieces' (their favorite
word) according to Hindemith's best recipes
and peppering them with so-called 'native'
rhythms more commonly known as 'licks'
on Broadway. There is still more 'America'
in a Gershwin. As for myself, I am sorry
to admit I can alk United States on the
musical comedy stage alone."
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Ballets Zephyr and Flora,
1925; Public Gardens, 1935; Field Day, 1936;
Entr'acte, 1938; Pal de Blanchisseuses, 1946. Cham-
ber Music Trio for Flute, Bassoon, and Piano,
1930; Etude, for bassoon and piano, 1932; Capriccio
Mexicano, for violin and piano, 1933 ; Three Pieces
for Woodwinds and Piano, 1940; Nocturne, for
woodwinds, French horn, and piano, i945. Choral
Music Dushenka, 1927; Epitaph, 1935; Leningrad,
oratorio, 1937; Moulin Rouge, 1943-44; Victorian
Street Ballads, 1944; A Song About Myself, 1945;
Ballade Made in Hot Weather, 1945, Opera
Mistress into Maid (Pushkin) 1928. Orchestral
Music Symphony in F Major, 1928; Symphony
in D-flat Major, 1929; Dedicaces, for piano,
woman's "voice, and orchestra, 1939; Concerto for
Violoncello and Orchestra, 1943; Ballade, for piano
with strings and tympani, 1943; Ode to the Milky
Way, 1945; Symphony in E Major, 1946.
ABOUT: Christian Science Monitor August 21,
1943.
Herbert Elwell 1898-
OERBERT ELWELL, music critic and
composer, has divided his time between
composing, teaching, and reviewing concerts.
He was born in Min-
neapolis on May 10,
1898, attended the
public schools there,
and entered the Uni-
versity of Minnesota,
where he studied
piano with Carlyle
Scott, then head of
the music department,
and theory with Pro-
fessor Donald M. Hewett
Ferguson. At the close of World War I,
Elwell went to New York and had instruc-
tion in composition with Ernest Bloch for
Elwell 87
two years. Then came an opportunity to
attend the newly established American Con-
servatory at Fontainebleau. This brief in-
troduction to European musical training
brought him into contact with Nadia Bou-
langer, with whom he studied composition
for a period of three years. In 1923, he
competed for the American Prix de Rome
and was awarded a three-year fellowship
in music at the American Academy in Rome.
This fellowship provided opportunities for
further travel and study, including visits to
Vienna and Berlin, as well as contacts in
Italy with Respighi, Casella, and Malipiero.
He spent another year in Paris before re-
turning to New York.
In 1928, he accepted an offer to become
head of the composition and advanced theory
department at the Cleveland Institute of
Music. He held this position for seventeen
years. During this time, he also wrote pro-
gram notes for the Cleveland Orchestra,
taught composition at summer sessions of
the Eastman School of Music in Rochester,
and wrote critical articles. He was ap-
pointed assistant director of the Cleveland
Institute in 1935. In 1945, he relinquished
his duties at the Institute in order to devote
more time to composition. Since 1932 he
has been music critic for the Cleveland Plain
Dealer.
Among his earlier works is a ballet, The
Happy Hypocrite (after the story of Max
Beerbohm), which was produced and danced
by Charles Weidman and the Dance Reper-
tory Theatre in New York in 1931, and
which has remained in the Weidman reper-
tory. An orchestral suite from this ballet
was first performed by the Augusteo Or-
chestra in Rome under the composer's di-
rection. It later won the Eastman School
of Music Publication Contest.
Among Elwell's more recent works is the
Introduction and Allegro, which won the
Juilliard Publication Award. Since its
premiere by the New York Philharmonic
under Efrem Kurtz in the summer of 1942,
it has been played by many major orches-
tras, including the Cleveland Orchestra
under Artur Rodzinski. The largest work
composed by Elwell so far is a setting for
mixed chorus, baritone solo, and orchestra
of the poem, Lincoln, by John Gould
Fletcher. This work captured the Paderew-
ski Prize of $1,000 for 1945.
In recent years, Elwell has devoted spe-
cial attention to the writing of songs, some
of which have been successfully introduced
by James Melton, Donald Dame, and Janet
Fairbank.
"For me," Elwell explains, "The best
foundation for creative effort is in vocal
music, where melodic character is para-
mount, and where music draws its rhythms
from the rich diversity of natural speech
inflections. The kind of harmony which best
promotes the rhythmic character of the
phrase is, for me, the right harmony, irre-
spective of its quality as dissonance or con-
sonance, or its value in contemporary cur-
rency. Dissonance, so often associated with
modernism, is largely a matter of atmos-
pheric color, and therefore of secondary
importance. It has always been a relative
matter, anyway, and so long as it continues
to give to harmony the suggestion of unrest
moving to repose, it carries out the special
and directional feeling which for centuries
has been one of the chief and indispensable
characteristics of the music of western cul-
ture. Dissonance can be employed only up
to a certain point without bringing into
operation the law of diminishing returns as
fas as motion and space are concerned. Its
unrestrained use can easily result in that
non-progressive, or static type of harmony
so unnecessarily bewildering to the non-
musician, a type of harmony, incidentally,
which forced impressionism up the blind
alley from which it has never escaped.
"My own music is experimental only in
the sense that all creative effort is an adven-
ture in self -development. I am concerned
less with originality than with having sharp,
practical tools with which to work. And I
hope I may be able to pass on with some
profit to others, who are more talented than
I am, whatever information I may have
gained about workmanship."
Elwell was married to Maria Cecchini in
Verona, Italy, in 1926. His two principal
non-musical interests are gardening and
Chinese checkers.
In 1946 the honorary degree of Doctor
of Music was conferred upon him by \Vest-
ern Reserve University. In addition to his
88 Engel
work as critic he now teaches composition
at Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballet The Happy Hypo-
crite (Beerbohm) 1925. Chamber Music Quintet
for Piano and Strings, 1924; Sonata for Violin
and Piano, 1938; String Quartet in E Minor, 1940;
Blue Symphony, song cycle for medium voice and
string quartet, 1944. Chora! Music 1 Was With
Him, 1943; Five Songs (Li Po) 1943; Lincoln
(Fletcher) 1945. Orchestral MusicSuite from
The Happy Hypocrite, 1927; Introduction and
Allegro, 1942; Pastorale, for violin and orchestra,
1947. Piano Music Sonata, 1928.
ABOUT: Reis, C, Composers in America (rev.
ed.).
A. Lehman Engel 1910-
A LEHMAN ENGEL, conductor and
composer, was born In Jackson, Mis-
sissippi on September 14, 1910. His aca-
demic and music
studies were under-
taken in Cincinnati,
the latter at the Cin-
cinnati Conservatory
and the Cincinnati
College of Music. In
1929, he came to
New York City,
where for one year
he studied theory
Edoardo TrUCCO
James J. . Krtagsmun
and Antonio Lora, and for four years he
was a fellowship pupil at the Juilliard Grad-
uate School, where one of his teachers was
Rubin Goldmark. Later he studied with
Roger Sessions,
His professional career as a musician
began in 1933 when he conducted the Amer-
ican premiere of Kurt WeilFs Der Jasager.
Other conducting assignments included the
Broadway run of WeilFs Johnny Johnson,
in 1937 ; the world premiere of Aaron Cop-
land's children's opera The Second Hurri-
cane, also in 1937; and from 1936 to 1939
the direction of the Madrigal Singers, a
branch of the WPA Music Project, which
for several seasons gave significant con-
certs of the great choral music of the past.
A great deal of Engel's composition in
these years was of a functional nature, espe-
cially for the Broadway theatre. In this
category belongs the incidental music he
wrote for such major productions as Hamlet,
with Maurice Evans, A Hero is Born,
Murder in the Cathedral, Shoemaker's Holi-
day, with Orson Welles and Joseph Gotten,
Macbeth, with Maurice Evans, Thunder
Rock, A Kiss for Cinderella, Within the
Gates, Henry Fill, and Heavenly Express.
He has composed music for the dance
which was featured by Martha Graham,
Charles Weidman, Tashamira, and others.
Among his earlier works for orchestra is the
Traditions and Jungle Dance, which was suc-
cessfully introduced by the Philadelphia Or-
chestra. His music for chorus has been
heard not only in this country but also in
Vienna and Moscow.
During World War II, Engel served for
four years in the navy, spending the first
half of that time conducting symphony con-
certs with many artists, and the second half
supervising music for all navy films. He
wrote the scores for many of these navy
pictures including some which have been
commercially successful notably Fury in
the Pacific, The Fleet That Came to Stay,
Report to Judy, and Well Done.
Engel has also been active as a teacher,
having served on the faculty of the Henry
Street Settlement (where he was head of the
opera department), Walden School, Ethical
Culture School, and Sarah Lawrence College.
He writes: "I feel that music should as
far as possible be a part of the public's
everyday life and I feel that composers who
supply music of this sort have an oppor-
tunity of becoming increasingly vital through
their understanding of the need of the wide
public. I do not believe in composing works
for the closet shelf, for in spite of sharp
deadlines I believe that some of my own
scores for films and records written to order
on short notice and some of my scores for
the theatre constitute- my best work."
Engel composes as most people go to
their office daily, and without waiting for
inspiration. Actually, his composing hours
are much longer than most office hours.. Of
his interests outside of composition, Engel
says : "I love to conduct, I love the theatre,
I love to read, and I like all movies, good or
bad. But I cannot stand bad plays."
PRINCIPAL WORKS: a//*/.r Scientific Crea-
tions, 1932; Traditions, 1938. Chamber Music
String Quartet, 1934; Sonata for 'Cello and Piano.
1945. Opera Mtd&L, opera-ballet, 1935. Orches-
tral M usic Symphony No. 1, 1939; Symphony
Falla 89
Manuel Frres
No. 2, 1945 ; The Creation, for narrator and or-
chestra, 1945; Concerto for Viola and Orchestra,
1945; Overture, 1945. Piano MusicSonata, 1937.
ABOUT: Reis, C. Composers in America (rev.
ed.).
Manuel de Faila 1876-1946
TOURING the last few years of his life,
Manuel de Falla, Spain's greatest com-
poser of our time, lived in Alta Gracia in
the province of Cor-
doba in Argentina.
He was born in
Cadiz on November
23, 1876. His mother
gave him his first
piano lessons ; and
while still a child,
Falla made a pub-
lic appearance with
her in a four-hand
arrangement of
Haydn's Seven Words from the Cross.
However, before he had studied with his
mother very long, Falla outdistanced her
completely. More experienced teachers were
now found for him: Elois Galluzo (piano)
and Enrique Broca (harmony and theory).
A public concert in Cadiz the first orches-
tral performance Falla had ever heard con-
vinced him that he wanted to become a
professional musician.
He was later sent to the Madrid Conser-
vatory where he came under the influence
of two great Spanish musicians: the com-
poser, Felipe Pedrell, and the pianist Jose
Trago. Though he won highest honors as
a piano student, and although Trago was
convinced that Falla had the makings of
a great virtuoso, Falla knew that his pref-
erence lay with creative work. Pedrell en-
couraged this direction, and at the same
time imbued the younger man with his own
passionate ideals for Spanish music, a music
built upon the foundations of folklore. It
was Pedrell who introduced Falla to the
fabulous wealth of Spanish folk music and
who first inspired Falla with the artistic ideal
of interpreting the glamor, mystery, and
charm of his native land in music that had
folklore overtones.
When Falla completed his course of
study in Madrid, he was eager to go to
Paris. To raise the necessary funds, he
composed light musical scores (which were
unsuccessful) for the Spanish theatres, and
taught and played the piano. Meanwhile,
he gave convincing proof of his great talent
by winning, in 1905, the Ortis y Cusso prize
for piano-playing and first prize in a com-
petition for national opera conducted by the
Real Academia de Bellas Artes with his first
important work, La Vida Breve.
In 1907, Falla bought a seven-week
round trip ticket for Paris. He remained
in Paris seven years, experiencing there
great suffering and want. But the -rich mu-
sical activity of the French capital was an
exciting experience for a young and sensi-
tive musician, and his personal contacts
with such outstanding French musicians as
Debussy, Dukas, Ravel, Schmitt, and Rous-
sel he found richly rewarding. During these
years Falla composed only two works, a
setting of three poems by Gautier and four
compositions for piano entitled Pieces Espa-
gnoles. He was too busy absorbing musical
impressions to devote himself to creative
work.
On April 1, 1913, La Vida Breve was
given its first performance not in Spain,
but at the Municipal Casino in Nice. This
presentation received so much praise that
the following January the work was incorpo-
rated into the repertory of the Paris Opera
Comique.
In 1914, Falla returned to Spain, evad-
ing the outbreak of World War I by a
few months. A few months after his return,
La Vida Breve was performed in Madrid,
and was extraordinarily successful For the
next few years, Falla traveled throughout
Andalusia in order to come into closer
contact with Spanish backgrounds and life,
finally settling in Granada. At the same
time, he began an ambitious program of
musical works all in an authentic Spanish
idiom. In 1915, he completed the ballet
based upon a libretto of Gregorio Martinez
Sierra (which had in turn been derived from
an old Andalusian gypsy folk tale), El Amor
Bru/o. El Amor Brufo was first performed
at the Teatro del Lara in Madrid on April
15, 1915 with moderate success. A suite
for orchestra and voice, drawn from the
score of the ballet, was soon after this In-
troduced by a symphony orchestra directed
by Enrique Fernandez Arbos. This suite
subsequently became one of Falla's most
famous orchestral works.
Be Falla; da fal'ya
90 Falla
Falla's next significant composition was
the Nights in the Gardens of Spain, for
piano and orchestra, the first performance
of which was directed by Arbos in 1916.
The titles of the three movements suggest
the Spanish pictures the composer had in
mind when he wrote this music. The first
movement is entitled "In the Gardens of the
Generalife"; the second, "A Dance Heard
in the Distance" ; the third, "In the Gardens
of the Sierra de Cordoba." This is one of
Falla's most poetic works u a really won-
derful evocation," wrote Turina, "although
in a sense the most tragic and sorrowful of
his works. In the peculiar flavor of the
orchestral sonority, one can in fact discern
a feeling of bitterness, as if the composer
had striven to express a drama of an in-
timate and passionate nature."
Now recognized as one of Spain's fore-
most composers, Falla was sought out by
Diaghilev for an original score to a scenario
which Martinez Sierra prepared from a
witty novel by Don Pedro Antonio de Alar-
con, The Three Cornered Hat. With settings
and costumes designed by Pablo Picasso, it
was introduced by the Ballet Russe in Lon-
don on July 23, 1919, and was a magnificent
success.
Three years after the creation of The
Three Cornered Hat, Falla composed a
charming score for a puppet-show, El Re-
tablo de Maese Pedro, based upon scenes
from Don Quixote. This was introduced in
the Paris salon of Princesse de Polignac in
June 1923. A work of far different char-
acter followed this puppet-play. It was the
Concerto for Harpsichord, Flute, Oboe,
Clarinet, and Violoncello, dedicated to Wan-
da Landowska, and introduced by her at a
festival of Falla's music which Pablo Casals
conducted in Barcelona in November 1926.
Between 1926, and his death in 1946,
Falla worked on what he considered his most
ambitious composition La Atlantida for
solo voices, chorus, and orchestra, based
upon a great Catalonian poem of Jacinto
Verdaguer. He died without bringing it to
completion.
To Edgar Istel, Falla once explained
his musical credo: "Our music must be
based on the natural music of our people,
:m the dances anci songs, that do not always
show close kinship. In some cases the
rhythm alone is marked by clapping and
drumsticks, without any melody; in others
the melody stands out. .by itself; so that no
one should employ vocal melody alone as a
manifestation of folk music, but everything
that accompanies it or exists without it,
never losing sight of the milieu wherein all
this has its being."
'Talk's music," wrote J. B. Trend, "is
extremely individual. . , . Andaluz on his
mother's side, Falla seems to combine the
imagination of the Spaniard with the sense
of formal perfection of the man of the
Mediterranean. To a power of obtaining
the subtlest orchestral effects with the
simplest means, of seeing where the point is
and going straight toward it, is added a
power of what the Spaniards call evocacion
a sense of poetry or suggest! veness . . .
something which can be felt rather than
explained."
From 1922 until 1939, Falla lived in
Granada, atop a hill which removed him
from the city itself and which was crowned
by the ancient Alhambra, only a few minutes
from his door. A recluse by temperament,
Falla rarely left Granada, where his life
was systematically routinized. He rose early
each morning, took a prolonged walk, then
attended mass at the San Cecilio Church.
He then devoted himself to several hours
of intensive composition. A siesta followed
the noonday meal, after which friends and
neighbors were entertained- at his home.
Some work followed later in the evening,
and at an early hour, Falla retired.
He was described as "slight of build . . .
with large expressive eyes dreamy, melan-
choly, kind. Sometimes when his voice,
always flexible in quality, expressed a sub-
ject he felt intensely, he became a stammer-
ing child, credulous, timid, desirous of know-
ing. . , . On those occasions when doubt
or failure assailed his spirit, one might have
called him an old man with a slow, grave
voice, ready to forfeit his last hopes."
When civil war broke out in Spain,
Falla sympathized with the Franco forces
because, profoundly religious as he was, he
saw in the Nationalist movement a check to
the antireligious activities in Spain. In 1938,
Franco appointed him president of the
Institute of Spain. But then the Franco
regime began to disillusion him greatly until
he felt that he could live in his native coun-
Farwel! 91
try no longer. In 1939, he went to South
America to conduct concerts of his own
work, and subsequently established his home
permanently -in Argentina. On November
14, 1946, he died in his sleep at his home in
Alta Gracia, in the province of Cordoba.
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Ballets El Amor Brujo,
1915; The Three Cornered Hat, 1917-19. Chamber
Music Psyche, for mezzo soprano, flute, harp,
oboe, clarinet, violin, and 'cello, 1924; Concerto for
Harpsichord, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, and
'Cello, 1923-26. Choral Music La Atlantida, un-
completed. Operas -La Vida Breve, 1904-05; El
Retablo de Maese Pedro, opera for marionettes and
singers, 1919-22. Orchestral Music Nights in the
Gardens of Spain, for piano and orchestra, 1909-15.
RECORDINGS: El Amor Brujo, CM-663 (Brice;
Pittsburgh Symphony Reiner) ; Concerto for
Harpsichord and Chamber Music Ensemble, C-X9
(Ensemble Falla) ; Nights in the Gardens of
Spain, VM-505 (Boston Pops Orchestrar-Fiedler) ;
La Vida Breve: "Rondine" and "Vivan los que
Rien," V-14615 (Bori) ; Two Dances, C-11146
(Theatre Monnaie Orchestra Bustin).
ABOUT: Chase, G. Music of Spain; Pannain,
G. Modern Composers; Roland, M. Manuel de
Falla; Salazar, A. Music in Our Time; Trend,
I. B. Manuel de Falla and Spanish Music.
Arthur Farwell 1872-
RTHUR FARWELL was born in St.
Paul, Minnesota, on April 23, 1872.
Following his graduation in 1893 from the
Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology,
where he specialized
in electrical engineer-
ing, he turned seri-
ously to music. It
was in Boston, while
a pupil at the Insti-
tute, that he heard
his first orchestral
concert and was at
once convinced that
he wanted to become a composer. From
1893 to 1897 he studied harmony, counter-
point, and composition with Homer Norris
in Boston, receiving at the same time occa-
sional criticism from Edward MacDowell
and George Chadwick. In 1897, he went to
Europe for further study: for two years he
worked with Engelbert Humperdinck and
Hans Pfitzner in Germany and Alexandre
Guilrnant in Paris.
Upon his return to the United States,
Farwell was appointed Lecturer on Music at
Cornell University. At this time, he inter-
ested himself in the musical idioms of the
American Indian, of which he made an in-
tensive study, and which he incorporated
into his composition at this time. Some of
these American Indian works received im-
portant performances and first brought him
to a prominent position as a composer : nota-
bly, Dawn, introduced at the St. Louis Ex-
position in 1904, The Domain of the Hura-
kan, which had New York hearings, and
various pieces for the piano, including Amer-
ican Indian Melodies, Navajo War Dance,
and Pawnee Horses.
In 1901, Farwell founded the Wa-Wan
Press at Newton Center, Massachusetts,
dedicated to the publication of progressive
American compositions without regard to
their commercial value, and to the publica-
tion of compositions on American folk
themes generally. This was the first prac-
tical enterprise in America for the advance-
ment of native composition, Lawrence Gil-
man referred to it as * 'probably the most
determined, courageous, and enlightened en-
deavor to assist the cause of American music
that has yet been made." The press brought
forth the work of thirty-seven composers, a
number of whom achieved great prominence.
In 1912, the publications of this organization
were transferred to G. Sch inner.
Farwell's activity on behalf of American
composers was not confined exclusively to
publishing music. He made several trans-
continental tours in lecture-recitals, spread-
ing the gospel of American music. And in
1905, he established the American Music
Society, a national organization of which
he became president. In 1909, this Society
had twenty "centers/' throughout the United
States, giving monthly programs of Ameri-
can works.
In 1909, Farwell transferred his activi-
ties to New York, where he became chief
critic for Musical America. In 1910, he was
appointed Supervisor of Municipal Concerts
In the New York City public parks by Mayor
Gaynor, and in 1915 he succeeded David
Mannes as director of the Music School
Settlement.
In 1918, he settled in California, joining
the faculty first of the University of Cali-
fornia in Los Angeles, then of the Univer-
sity of California in Berkeley. He also
founded the Santa Barbara Community
School of the Arts, and for two seasons
92 Ficher
conducted the Santa Barbara Community
Chorus. From 1921 to 1925, he held the
first Composers' Fellowship of the Pasadena
Music and Art Association. In 1927, he
went to Michigan to become head of the
music theory department at the Michigan
State College. He held this post with dis-
tinction for twelve years. After that, he
returned to New York City to devote himself
exclusively to creative work.
Indeed, despite his activity in so many
different musical directions, Farwell has
never neglected composition. Major works
by him have been extensively performed.
Critics have tended to exaggerate the role of
his Indian music in relation to his total
work, possibly because of their popularity.
Actually, his Indian composition was a com-
paratively early phase of his career, and by
no means the most significant. His works
based on Indian melodies number only about
thirty-five out of a total output of several
hundred compositions.
FarweJFs works have been regarded by
the radical composers as conservative, and
by steadfast conservatives as radical. Much
of his earlier work was, in its day, con-
sidered daringly advanced, as for example
the Pawnee Horses, which Charles Martin
Loeffler many years ago called "the best
composition yet written by an American,"
and which in 1944 was successfully revived
by the pianist John Kirkpatrick. But as he
saw the extremes to which music was going,
Farwell insisted on maintaining a middle
course, modern enough to suit his own artis-
tic purposes, but showing no sympathy with
sensationalism. He refused to accord valid-
ity to the so-called "new idiom" of the times
as a genuine expression of human feeling;
yet he still welcomed any daring dissonance
which achieved a truly expressive spirit. A
recent work showing FarwelFs later develop-
ment, the Polytond Studies for piano, con-
tains many passages which make his earlier
radical pieces appear pale by contrast.
In all his work, emotional or mystical
as it might be, Farwell aims at structural
logic. "My aim in composition," he writes,
"is for truth and beauty: truth to what I
honestly feel, and the highest beauty which
I can sense and capture. Truth and beauty
are qualities divine and sacred. So far as
any composer successfully embodies these
qualities in music, that music must be held
equally divine and sacred. Music born of
intellect and emotion is not enough. Its
matter should spring from the intuition, to
be molded into*' shape by intellect and emo-
tion. Intuition is awakened by asking of the
spirit within."
Among Farwell's best known orchestral
works are his Symbolistic Studies and the
orchestral suite, The Gods of the Mountain.
Of the Symbolistic Studies, No. 3 and No. 6
have been widely performed. The third
study is inspired by a poem by Walt Whit-
man and had its premiere in Philadelphia in
1928, Pierre Monteux conducting; the sixth
one, subtitled "Mountain Vision," won the
State-National Competition of the National
Federation of Music Clubs in 1929, and was
heard over a national network, with Howard
Barlow conducting.
The Gods of the Mountain is an orches-
tral suite developed from music written for
Dunsany's play. It was introduced by the
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, under
Henri Verbrugghen, on December 13, 1929,
and among numerous other performances
was one in New York, in 1931, directed
by Henry Hadley. The critic of the Musical
Courier wrote: "Aside from its dramatic
implications, the music is sufficiently satu-
rated with the beauty of the modern orches-
tral idiom to evoke interest and admiration."
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music The
Hakp, string quartet, Op. 65, 1922; Sonata for
Violin and Piano, Op. 80, 1928; Sonata for Solo
Violin, Op. 96, 1934; Quintet for Piano and Strings,
Op. 103, 1937. Orchestral MusicDzwn, Op. 12,
1901; The Domain of the Hurakan, Op. 15, 1903;
Symbolistic Study No. 3, Op. 18, 1905; Symbolistic
Study No. 6, "Mountain Vision," Op, 37, 1912;
March ! March ! symphonic hymn, Op! 49, 1917 ;
The Gods of the Mountain, suite, Op. 52, 1917;
Symphonic Song on Old Black Joe, for orchestra
and audience, Op. 67, 1923; Mountain Song, with
occasional choruses, Op. 90, 1924; Prelude to a
Spiritual Drama, Op 1 . 76, 1927; Rudolph Gott Sym-
phony, Op. 95, 1932.
ABOUT : Upton, W. T. Art Song in America ;
Waters, E.N. A Birthday Offering.
Jacobo Ficher 1896"
JACOBO FICHER, who is a naturalized
Argentine, was born in Odessa, Russia,
on January 14, 1896. He was graduated
from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1917.
Six years later, he emigrated to South Amer-
ica, establishing his home permanently in
Foote 93
Buenos Aires. For a while he combined play-
ing the violin in theatres with composition.
A series of prizes brought him recognition :
first prize in a competition conducted by the
Leningrad Philharmonic, which he won in
1928 with Heroic Poem ; a prize of $500 for
his Second String Quartet given him by the
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation in
1937; and, in 1941, the prize of the National
Culture Committee in Buenos Aires for his
Third Symphony.
Nicolas Slonimsky points out that, apart
from a set of three Argentine dances for
piano, which Ficher composed in 1943, he
has made no attempt to write in a native
South American vein.
Some of Ficher 's best
earlier works were in-
spired by Hebrew
sources. In this cate-
gory belongs the Sec-
ond Symphony, writ-
ten in 1933 as a result
of Hitler's rise to
power. The work is
Hebraic in its melos
wilensM and in its rhapsodic
character. Other significant Hebraic works
include Sulamith, written in 1929, and Three
Symphonic Pieces after the Talmud.
In his later works, Ficher has attempted
to write music that is Russian in character,
a trend which undoubtedly indicates nostalgia
for the land of his birth.
Ficher has been one of the founders of
Grupo Renovation, which has been a mili-
tant force for the spreading of propaganda
for modern music in South America.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballets Colombina de
Hoy, 1933; Los Invitados, 1933. Chamber Music
First String Quartet, 1927; Sonata for Violin and
Piano, 1929; Suite en Estilo Antiguo, for six wind
instruments, 1930; Sonata for Viola, Flute, and
Piano, 1931; Sonatina for FItite and Piano, 1935;
Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano; 1937; Second
String Quartet, 1937; Sonata for Oboe and Piano,
1940; Sonata for 'Cello and Piano, 1943; Third
String Quartet, 1943. Orchestral Mime Heroic
Poem, 1927; Sulamith, 1927; Two Poems, for
chamber orchestra (Tagore) 192&; Ouverture
Pathetique, 1930; Chamber Symphony, 1932; Second
Symphony, 1933; Three Symphonic Pieces after
the Talmud, 1934; Concerto for Violin and Orches-
tra, 1942; Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, 194S;
Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, 1945.
ABOUT: Slonimsky, N, Music of Latin Amer-
Arthor Foote 1853-1937
A RTHUR FOOTE was a senior member
of the notable group of conservative
New England composers which included
George Chadwick,
Horatio Parker,
Henry Gilbert, and
Frederick Converse,
He was a native com-
poser in the complete
meaning of the term,
for he was not only
American-born but
American-trained as
well, and at a time
when such a com- The Etud *
poser was a rara avis in our musical life.
Foote was born in Salem, Massachu-
setts, on March 5, 1853. He studied music
as a boy, and at fifteen entered the harmony
class of Stephen A. Emery. Although Foote
took his degree in music at Harvard Univer-
sity, he did not devote himself seriously
to it until after his graduation in 1874. He
then studied the piano and organ intensively
with B. J. Lang, and fugue with John
Knowles Paine, with whom he had taken
some courses while he was still an under-
graduate. Foote received his Master of
Arts degree in 1875. The degree of Doctor
of Music was conferred upon him by Trinity
College in 1919, and by Dartmouth in 1925.
From 1878 to 1910, he was organist at
the First Unitarian Church in Boston. Dur-
ing this period he began composing, first
chamber-music works, which received some
notable performances, principally by the
Kneisels. Foote's first orchestral work was
the Suite in E Major, Op. 12, which was
introduced by the Boston Symphony Orches-
tra in 1886, The Boston Symphony Orches-
tra introduced other notable Foote works
for orchestra in subsequent years, including
In the Mountains in 1887, the Second Suite
in 1889, and Francesca da Rimini in 1891.
In these early works, Foote's style was
characterized by one writer as "scholarly
expression of thought." It was academic
writing, but marked by clear thinking, high
purpose, and a complete command of tech-
nique. These qualities did not change with
his later works of which the Night Piece,
for flute and orchestra, and the Suite in
E Major, Op. 63, have had frequent recent
94 Foss
performances. Olin Downes summed up
Footers musical style admirably when he
wrote: "Foote cultivated his own garden,
musically as horticulturally. In an astonish-
ing manner, he found things to say com-
pletely, simply, durably his own. His style
did not change, but refined and strengthened.
It was a remarkable demonstration of the
power of sincerity and taste. His scores
were never clogged with notes, nor was he
tempted by a trick of some one else's style,
or an effect of some one else's instrumenta-
tion."
In 1899, Foote was elected a member of
the American Academy of Arts and Sci-
ences, and from 1909 to 1912 he was presi-
dent of the American Guild of Organists,
an organization which he founded.
He lived the closing decades of his life
in a two-story house in Newton Center,
Massachusetts, where he devoted himself to
his music and to flowers. He was, as Downes
described "spare of build, of less than aver-
age height, with rough-hewn, energetic
features. Only with his intimates was he
disposed to many words." He was deeply
religious, and "held strong views on all sub-
jects." He was married, and had one child
a daughter.
Foote, who lived to see American music
undergoing vast changes of style, had this
to say about modern music a few months
before his death: "As one of the older
generation, I should hardly be expected to
feel in the same way about happenings in
the past twenty-five years about polytonal-
ity, linear' counterpoint, etc. Dissonance
and consonance seem to me to be comple-
mentary: while music entirely consonant be-
comes monotonous, that which is constantly
dissonance is not only tiresome, but, worse
than this, unpleasant. Dissonance is not
undesirable in itself, but often becomes so
because of the unskillful way in which it is
used. It is rather 'old hat' to bring logic
into the question, but after all this does exist
in music from Bach to Sibelius,"
On the occasion of his eightieth birthday,
the Boston Symphony Orchestra devoted an
entire program to Foote's works, at which
event the composer was a guest of honor.
Arthur Foote died ol pneumonia in the
Massachusetts General Hospital on April 8,
1937.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Piano
Trio in C Minor, Op. 5, 1884; String Quartet in
G Minor, Op. 4, 1885; Sonata in G Minor for
violin and piano, Op. 20, 1890; Piano Quartet, Op.
23, 1891; String Quartet in E, Op. 32, 1894; Piano
Quartet, Op. 38, 1898; Piano Trio in B, Op. 65,
1909; String Quartet in D, Op. 70; Sonata for
Violoncello and Piano, Op. 76. Choral Music The
Farewell of Hiawatha, ballad for men's chorus,
baritone, and orchestra, Op. 11, 1886; The Wreck
of the Hesperus, ballad for mixed chorus and or-
chestra, Op. 17, 1888; The Skeleton in Armor,
Op. 28, 1893. Orchestral Music Suite in D, for
strings, Op. 21, 1886; Serenade in E, Op. 25, 1886;
In the Mountains, overture, Op. 14, 1887; Francesca
da Rimini, symphonic prologue, Op. 24, 1893; Con-
certo for Violoncello and Orchestra, 1894; Suite in
D Minor, Op. 36, 1896; Suite in E, Op. 63, 1910;
Four Character Pieces after Omar Khayyam, Op
48, 1912; Night Piece, for flute and orchestra, 1914.
Songs The Night Has a Thousand Eyes; I Know
a Little Garden Path.
RECORDINGS: Suite for Strings in E Major,
Op 63, VM-962 (Boston Symphony Orchestra
Koussevitzky).
ABOUT: Foote, A. An Autobiography; Musi-
cal Quarterly January 1937; New York Times
April 18, 1937.
Lukas Foss 1922-
T UKAS FOSS was born in Berlin on Au-
gust 15, 1922. He began composing
when he was seven, and undertook the writ-
ing of two operas
while he was still
in his teens. For a
while the classical
composers Bach and
Haydn particularly
were his models. But
when he was four-
teen, he came into
contact with the mu-
sic of Hindemith,
which influenced him
greatly. This was his introduction to the
modern idiom, which he was henceforth to
utilize in his own composition.
Foss's first teacher was Julius Goldstein-
Herford. From the age of eleven to thir-
teen, he studied with teachers of the Paris
Conservatory : Lazare-Levy, Noel Gallon,
and Felix Wolfes. In 1937, he came to this
country and attended the Curtis Institute,
where he was a pupil of Scalero (composi-
tion), Reiner (conducting), and Vengerova
(P iar *o), graduating with honors three years
later. During the summer months, he at-
tended the Berkshire Music Center, where
he studied conducting with Koussevitzky and
Freed 95
composition with Hindemith. Subsequently,
he continued his studies of composition with
Hindemith at Yale University.
Foss first received attention in 1942 when
the incidental music he wrote for Shake-
speare's Tempest (commissioned by the
King-Coit School for a Theatre Guild pro-
duction) was awarded a Pulitzer Traveling
Scholarship. In the same year, the League
of Composers presented a few of his cham-
ber-music works, and his Allegro Concer-
tante was introduced in Philadelphia and
New York by an orchestral ensemble di-
rected by the composer.
These works all revealed fine creative
talent, independence, and remarkable self-
assurance. Even so, they hardly prepared
the music world for a work so ambitious
and so fully realized as the cantata, The
Prairie, with which Foss emerged as a major
creative figure. Introduced by the Collegiate
Chorale under Robert Shaw at Town Hall,
New York, on May 15, 1944, it was subse-
quently heard at the concerts of the New
York Philharmonic under Artur Rodzinski
Written to a text by Carl Sandburg, this
cantata is a work of "generous emotion"
and "extraordinary wealth of invention."
It is spacious music, American to the core,
suggesting frequently "vast open landscapes
and lots of fresh air." In 1944, the Music
Critics Circle selected The Prairie as the
most important new American choral work
of the season.
Foss's works beginning with The Prairie
showed growth and increasing maturity of
concept, Fritz Reiner and the Pittsburgh
Symphony introduced his Symphony in G
on February 4, 1945; one month later, the
New York Philharmonic under George Szell
gave the premiere of his orchestral Ode,
dedicated "to those who will not return";
that fall, the Ballet Theatre in New York
featured his ballet The Gift of the Magi,
based on the O. Henry story ; and on March
7, 1947, Serge Koussevitzky directed the
premiere of The Song of Songs, which had
been commissioned by the League of Com-
posers, a work which so aroused the conduc-
tor's enthusiasm that he directed it eight
times in nine days.
In 1945, Foss was awarded a Guggen-
heim Fellowship, the youngest composer
ever to receive this honor. Besides com-
posing, he has served as guest conductor of
several major orchestras, particularly in per-
formances of his own works, and he has
been engaged by Serge Koussevitzky as the
official pianist of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, w r ith which organization he has
occasionally appeared as a solist.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballets The Heart Re-
members, 1944; The Gift of the Magi, 1945.
Chamber Music Sonata for Violin and Piano,
1938; Duo for 'Cello and Piano, 1942; Three
Pieces, for violin and piano, 1945; Capriccio, for
'cello and piano, 1946; String Quartet, 1947. Choral
Music The Prairie, cantata (Sandburg) 1943; Tell
This Blood, 1945. Orchestral Music Allegro Con-
certante, 1942; The Prairie, symphonic piece, 1943;
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, 1943; Symphony
in G, 1944; Ode, 1944; Song of Anguish, for bari-
tone and orchestra, 1945; The Song of Songs, for
soprano and orchestra, 1946; Pantomime, 1946.
ABOUT: Modern Music May- June 1945.
Isadora Freed 1900-
TSADORE FREED was born in Brest-
Litovsk, Russia, on March 26, 1900, and
was brought to Philadelphia at the age of
three. He began
piano lessons at seven,
and he started to
compose when he was
nine. At the age of
eighteen he earned a
degree from the Uni-
versity of Pennsyl-
vania, where he ma-
jored in composition.
At the same time, he
studied under D.
Hendrik Ezerman at the Philadelphia Con-
servatory, and won a gold medal in piano-
playing. Subsequent music study included
that of composition with Ernest Bloch (for
a period of three years), piano with Adele
Margulies, George Boyle, and Josef Hof-
mann, and organ with Rollo Maitland,
In 1923, Freed spent a five-month holi-
day in Berlin, studying the piano with Josef
Weiss. Though he had composed a piano
trio and a string quartet by the time he was
fourteen, and a cantata when he was six-
teen, it was not until this Berlin visit that he
became convinced that he wanted to become
a composer, first and foremost. He had al-
ways conceived of composition as a kind of
holy calling, pursued only by the bearded
masters of an age gone by, and in foreign
96 Freed
lands. Aside from his teacher, Ernest Bloch
(whom Freed almost venerated), he had had
almost no contact with composers. But in
Berlin he met many, most of them as young
as he, who had no hesitancy in referring to
themselves as "composers." Contact with
these young men had a profound effect on
Freed; he sometimes speaks of this as the
"turning point" in his career. He now was
able to banish false modesty and to consider
himself a "composer" ; other activities con-
ducting, performing, teaching were hence-
forth to be relegated to secondary roles.
In 1924, he was married to Riva Hoff-
man, the interpretative dancer who had per-
formed with the Duncan Dancers. Soon
after this, Freed was appointed to teach
piano and theory at the Curtis Institute.
In 1926, Freed made his debut as a com-
poser at a concert of the Friends of Chamber
Music in Philadelphia. The program in-
cluded several of his chamber-music works,
including a Rhapsody, for clarinet, string
quartet, and piano, which was given three
additional performances that season by* the
Stringwood Ensemble in New York. These
performances encouraged him to help found
the Philadelphia Society for Contemporary
Music. He acted as secretary for three
years. During this period, he was also a
commentator over the radio for the concerts
of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
In 1928, he left for a five-year stay in
Paris, intending to devote himself entirely to
composition. Except for a year of study
with Vincent dTndy, he worked alone, gain-
ing much from interchange of ideas, opin-
ions, and experiences with the many well-
known composers whom he met there. In
Paris, too, he succeeded in attracting the
interest of several publishers, who issued
some of his works. Besides this, many of
Ms compositions were performed. His first
Parisian appearance as a composer was in a
joint chamber-music concert with Arthur
Honegger, who thought highly of Freed's
talent. Joint concerts with other well-known
composers, notably Roussel and Tansman,
followed, as did performances of some of his
major works by important musical organiza-
tions.
The French awareness of the existence
of contemporary music made a profound
impression on Freed. On his return to the
United States in 1935, he was determined
to help arouse a similar awareness in this
country. The following year, with the aid
of a few public-spirited Philadelphians, he
founded the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra
and Composers' Laboratory, the first organ-
ization of its kind in this country. The pur-
pose of the Composers' Laboratory was to
give the creative artist an opportunity to
hear how his work sounded. Every com-
poser who submitted a work had the right to
a reading of it by the Philadelphia Chamber
Orchestra in a private rehearsal. The best
of these works were publicly performed dur-
ing the regular concert series directed by
Freed.
In 1937, the WPA Music Project in-
stituted a Composers' Forum Laboratory in
five American cities, modeled in many ways
after Freed's organization. Since the board
of the Philadelphia group felt that the
financial resources of the WPA permitted it
to do the work of the Philadelphia Com-
posers' Laboratory, and on a larger scale,
the latter organization was disbanded.
Though Freed devoted himself to many
activities in the years that followed teach-
ing, lecturing, conducting, writing, editing,
and playing the piano his activities as a
creator did not lag. He composed a sym-
phony, a violin concerto, three orchestral
suites, and a number of extended choral
works as well as many chamber-music works
and solo compositions. In 1944, two of his
works won prizes: the Triptych for violin,
viola, 'cello, and piano won the award of the
SPAM, while the choral work, Postscripts,
earned the Eurydice Choral Prize.
Freed's musical style mirrors his esthetic
opinion of the important achievements of
twentieth-century music. He feels that he
reached musical maturity at a period when
great technical innovations had caused an
almost chaotic confusion in the musical hori-
zons of our time. New creative ideas had
come and gone with such speed that the
tonal art was more than ready for some
stabilizing influences and some attempts at
digesting and assimilating these new prac-
tices. And so, Freed's esthetic outlook is one
that tends towards organizing and stabilizing
some of these new trends, rather than dis-
covering further innovations.
. He has been teaching on the music fac-
ulty of Temple University since 1937, and
Fuleihan 97
since 1944 he has been visiting professor of
composition at the Hartt Foundation in
Hartford. From 1933 on, he has served as
organist and choirmaster at Temple Kene-
seth Israel in Philadelphia.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballet Vibrations, 1927.
Chamber Music Three String Quartets, 1925, 1930,
1936; Trio for Flute, Harp, and Viola, -1940; Trip-
tych for Violin, Viola, 'Cello, and Piano, 1943.
Chora! MusicSacred Service, 1937; Psalm 118,
1941 ; Postscripts, 1942; Island Secret, 1943. Operas
Homo Sum, one-act opera, 1930; The Princess
and the Vagabond, 1946. Orchestral Music Teux
de Timbres, 1931 ; Triptych, 1933 ; Rhapsody' for
Viola and Orchestra, 1938; Pastorales, 1938;* First
Symphony, 1941; Appalachian Sketches, 1942; A
Festival Overture, 1944. Piano Music Sonata,
1933; Pastorales, 1933; Intrada and Fugue on the
Name A. C. Fuller, 1945; Prelude, Canzonet and
Caprice, 1945.
ABOUT: Gerson, R. A. Music in Philadelphia ;
Saminsky, L. Music of Our Day; Modern Music
May- June 1938, March-April 1942.
Anis Fuleihaii 1900-
T WAS born in Cyprus on April 2, 1900,"
writes Anis Fuleihan. "My father, a
physician, had settled in this Mediterranean
island towards the
end of the nineteenth
century in response
to a ca ^ ^ o
sent out b y the
r ish government which
had leased the Island
from Turkey.
"I gravitated to
the piano at an early
age. Fortunately, the
lack of good musical
instruction on the island, plus the good sense
of my parents, saved me from the fate of a
child prodigy.
"I came to the United States in 1915 to
continue my academic education, and with
no thought of making music my profession.
But the opinions of friends and relatives
prevailed against my own better judgment,
and I was literally pushed into a musical
career. I studied theory at the (now extinct)
von Ende School of Music in New York,
and piano privately with Alberto Jonas. In
1919, I was considered ready for concert
appearance, and in November of that year I
made my debut as pianist at Aeolian Hall
On the program were some of my own com-
positions, written in the sort of synthetic
orientalism dear to the hearts of some Rus-
sian and French composers of that period.
These took well with the public, but the
thought of them sickened me a few years
later and I persuaded my publishers to de-
stroy the plates. These works, together with
the fact that I came from Cyprus, prompted
one or two reviewers to state that my inter-
pretations of the classics had an oriental
coloring, little realizing that my early musi-
cal contacts and all my inclinations, to say
nothing of my training, were completely
Western. At a later recital during the same
season, and at the same hall, I played more
of my compositions, not pseudo-oriental ones
this time. These were written up as cases
of advanced modernism. I remember one
of the reviews stating that in this music ( a
great atmosphere of the Orient mingled with
the last-minute modernity of the modern
French/ Utter nonsense ! The oriental at-
mosphere was nowhere present, and these
pieces were far from being dernier cri.
Nevertheless, I did, during the twenties,
write a good deal of dissonant music which
gave the semblance of being very 'modern.'
I abandoned this sort of thing later for the
simple reason that I became fed tip with the
idiom and no longer derived any pleasure
from it.
"The pursuit of a concert career at that
time was hazardous and expensive. For the
sake of a regular income, I associated my-
self with a company that made piano rolls
and was then engaged in promoting its wares
through so-called 'comparison concerts/ For
some four years, I went into every naok and
cranny of the New England states exhibiting
myself as a pianist and bowing low to the
reproducing piano which, at some point in
the recital, took a deep electrical breath and
imitated my playing. The perfection of the
imitation depended very much on the elec-
trical current and the condition of the rubber
tubing which made up the innards of the
instrument. As many of our best pianists
occasionally engaged in this sort of enter-
prise, I didn't feel too ashamed of myself.
"In 1925, following the death of my
father, I went to Egypt, to which country
my family had moved. I remained there
nearly three years, giving concerts in the
Near East, and composing. It was during
my stay there that I carne into direct con-
tact with, and made a study of, the music
Fuleffaan: foo-la-han'
98 Gershwin
of the Eastern Mediterranean countries. I
realized then that the synthetic product
which had been fed to the occidental public
over a number of years as "oriental music"
by occidental composers (not excluding my-
self) served only to give an impression of
the weakest and most undesirable character-
istics of the cheap phases of that music.
"I came back to the United States in
1928, went in for lecturing, conducting over
the radio, and for promoting contemporary
symphonic music for a music-publishing
house.
"My first real 'break' as a symphonic
composer came in 1935 when Eugene Goos-
sens performed in Cincinnati my Mediter-
ranean suite, which had been written several
years earlier. Following the performance,
Goossens wrote a strong and generous let-
ter to the publishers which caused them to
exploit the work to the extent of having it
performed all over the country and in Eng-
land. I wrote several other major works
after that, a good many of them on commis-
sion. They were all performed here and in
England. In 1939 I was given a Guggen-
heim Fellowship."
The First Symphony of Anis Fuleihan
was introduced by the New York Phil-
harmonic under John Barbirolli in 1936; the
Second Piano Concerto was first performed
by Eugene List and the New York Phil-
harmonic under Barbirolli in 1938; the Sym-
phonic Concertante, for string quartet and
orchestral, was given its premiere by the New
York Philharmonic under Barbirolli in 1940.
Virtually every major orchestra in America,
and under the most prominent of our con-
ductors, has given performances of his or-
chestral works; and the list of artists who
have featured his music on their programs
include Bartlett and Robertson, Gyorgy San-
dor, William Kapell, Webster Aitken, Car-
roll Glenn, Andor Foldes, and many others.
In the early part of 1939, the BBC Orchestra
of London performed three of his major
works within a period of two months.
Sound workmanship, sincerity, a high degree
of virtuosity, and gracious style make his
music pleasurable listening and explain its
extraordinary success throughout the coun-
try. In whatever form he writes, and for
whatever medium, he writes with consum-
mate technical skill, with great variety in his
use of color.
In his works after 1935, Fuleihan has to
a large extent . abandoned his early experi-
ments in dissonance. He explains : "At the
moment I still labor under the conviction
that music is a pleasurable art rather than a
mathematical science. Musical mathematics
is comparatively easy, and so is design.
Formulae are neither difficult to construct
nor to put into operation, and there is no
trick in compounding complicated rhythms,
counterpoint, or sound combinations."
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Quartet
for Strings, 1940; Sonata for Flute and Piano,
1940; Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1941; Recita-
tive and Sicilienne, for 'cello and piano, 1942;
Divertimento, for string sextet, 1943; Four Prel-
udes, for violin and piano, 1945; Rhapsody for
'Cello and Strings, 1946. Orchestral Music Medi-
terranean, suite, 1930; Preface to a Child's Story-
book, 1932; Symphony, 1936; Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra, No. 1, 1937; Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra, No. 2, 1937; Fantasy for Viola and
Orchestra, 1938; Fiesta, 1940; Symphonic Concer-
tante, for string quartet and orchestra, 19*40;
Epithalamium, variations for piano and string or-
chestra, 1940; Concerto for Two Pianos and Or-
chestra, 1941 ; Invocation, 1941 ; Comedy Overture,
1943; Six Etudes, 1943; Concerto for Piano, Violin
and Orchestra, 1944; Three Cyprus Serenades,
1944; Concerto for Theremin and Orchestra, 1945.
Piano Music Sonata No. 1, 1940; Cypriana, 1943;
Sonata No. 2, 1943; Toccata, for two pianos, 1944;
Sonatine No. 2, 1944; Tributes, 1945; Fifteen Short
Pieces, 1945.
* George Gershwin 1S98-1937
QEORGE GERSHWIN was born in
Brooklyn, New York, on September 25,
1898. He was no child prodigy, but a typical
American boy who
delighted in the
games of the street.
For a long while be
looked with superior
scorn upon any boy
who had even a re-
mote connection with ^
music. At the age of
six, however, he was *.
fascinated by Rubin-
stein's Melody in F,
which he heard in a penny arcade ; and when
he was nine, he fell in love with a girl be-
cause she could sing.
_ * This sketch is condensed from Ewen's Men of
Popular Music. By permission of Ziff-Davis Publishing
Company.
Gershwin 99
He was about ten years old when he be-
came fully awakened to music. He was
attending Public School 25, on the lower
East Side of Manhattan, where one of his
fellow pupils was a talented young violinist
named Maxie Rosenzweig (later to be
known on the concert stage as Max Rosen).
Maxie gave a concert in the public audi-
torium which George still contemptuous of
music refused to attend. Instead he played
ball in the schoolyard. While he was running
around, he heard the strains of Maxie's
violin in Dvorak's Humoresque. In spite of
himself, George stopped playing ball, drew
closer to the window, and listened. That
music made so deep an impression on him
that he was determined to become a friend
of the violinist.
Maxie's influence on the boy was pro-
found. He revealed to the young George the
undreamed-of world of great music. He
played for George from his violin repertoire.
From then on the streets lost their fascina-
tion for George; he had found music, and it
became his only pleasure. One day, on
discovering a piano in the house of a friend,
he immediately started to experiment with
the keys. Thus he picked up some of the
rudiments of piano-playing and with that
knowledge began to compose some frag-
mentary tunes. These he exhibited to his
friend. 'I'm sorry," Maxie told him. "You
haven't got any talent for music. You'd
beter forget all about it."
Gershwin's career from the very first
was marked by a passionate ideal to bring
musical significance to American popular
music. Even as an adolescent he saw his
goal clearly. When, as a boy, he studied the
piano with Charles Hambitzer, his first im-
portant teacher, he would argue tirelessly
about the value of popular music. "I have
a new pupil who will make a mark in music
if anybody will," Hambitzer wrote propheti-
cally to his sister at the time. "The boy is
a genius, without a doubt; he's just crazy
about music and can't wait until it is time to
take his lesson. ... He wants to go in for
this modern stuff, jazz, and wfiat not. But
I'm not going to let him for a while. Ill see
that he gets a firm foundation in the ^tapd-
ard music first/'
It was because, almost from the begin-
ning of his career, Gershwin was fired with
the mission of making the American popular
song artistically valid that he searched rest-
lessly in the music of the masters for direc-
tion. When, during his adolescent years, he
worked as a song-plugger at RemicVs in Tin
Pan Alley, he spent several weeks dissecting
Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Somewhat
later, he joined the harmony class of Rubin
Goldmark.
He achieved material success early in life.
He published his first song when he was
eighteen years old : "When You Want 'Em
You Can't Get 'Em," which was accepted by
Harry von Tilzer. He wrote his first musi-
cal comedy score in 1919, La, La, Lucille.
Soon after this, he produced a smash song-
hit "Swanee" which sold millions of cop-
ies of sheet music and records, largely be-
cause of exploitation by Al Jolson. When
he was a little over twenty-two, he was writ-
ing music for George White's Scandals (one
of the most desirable assignments on Broad-
way), and his songs were interpolated in
numerous other successful Broadway pro-
ductions. Even London ordered a score
from him for one of its major productions.
Despite this early success, Gershwin
never lost sobriety, nor the ability to analyze
himself and his purpose. Because he wanted
to write good jazz music, he brushed aside
his early efforts impatiently, however suc-
cessful they may have been. He wanted an
idiom that would be both popular and
original. And he worked hard, revising
every line and phrase dozens of times. By
1924, he had written several songs which
satisfied him: "111 build a Stairway to
Paradise" from the Scandals of 1922, "Do
It Again" from The French Doll, "Oh, Lady
be Good" from Lady Be Good, "Somebody
Loves Me" from the Scandals of 1924.
With suck songs he was becoming a master
of his tools, arid he was using these tools to
fashion songs that were his personal handi-
work.
A handful of farsighted and discerning
musicians recognized the gleams of genius in
these songs. In Tin Pan Alley, Gershwin's
stoutest advocates included Max Dreyfus,
Irving Berlin, and Jerome Kern and their
praise was unqualified. But even outside of
Tin Pan Alley there were those who took
note of what he was doing. One of these
was the American composer and pianist
Beryl Rubinstein, who startled a newsDaDer
100 Gershwin
interviewer by speaking of Gershwin as a
"great" composer. No one before had ever
dared to attribute "greatness" to a composer
of popular songs.
One year after this interview, which had
taken place in 1922, another serious artist
gave a bow of recognition to Gershwin. The
singer Eva Gauthier included four Gershwin
songs on a program devoted to great vocal
music. This was the first time that jazz
songs had been heard at a dignified recital
In 1923, Gershwin incorporated a somber
one-act opera, Blue Monday (later retitled
135th Street), into Scandals. This was
Gershwin's first experiment in writing jazz
for a form larger than the song. This opera
was dropped from the revue after only one
performance because George White felt it
was too gloomy. But it showed unmistak-
able talent, and it made a profound impres-
sion on the orchestra leader who conducted
the work Paul Whiteman.
When Whiteman planned his historic
concert of jazz music at Aeolian Hall to
draw the attention of the world of music to
the importance of jazz, he hoped to feature
on his program a major jazz work written
expressly for the occasion. Unhesitatingly
his mind went to Gershwin. Gershwin re-
quired a great deal of persuasion, for he
felt that he was not yet ready for a major
assignment. But Whiteman was intransi-
gent and his flow of arguments and en-
treaties was irresistible.
On February 12, 1924, Gershwin's
Rhapsody in Blue was introduced by Paul
Whiteman and his orchestra at Aeolian Hall,
New York, before an audience that consisted
of the great and the near-great of the music
world. Few musical compositions of our
time have enjoyed the instantaneous tri-
umph of this Gershwin work. The editor of
Muskd Courier, Henry O. Osgood, wrote
that it "is a more important contribution to
music than Stravinsky's Rites of Spring."
Deems Taylor and W. J. Henderson sang its
praises in the press. Henry T. Finck claimed
that Gershwin was "far superior to Schoen-
berg, Milhaud, and the rest of the futurist
fellows."
Such critical accolade forecast the great-
er acclaim to come. It soon became the
most famous piece of serious music by an
American, and earned fabulous royalties. It
was performed by jazz bands and symphony
orchestras, by solo pianists, two-piano teams,
and piano ensembles; by solo harmonicas,
harmonica bands, and mandolin orchestras ;
by tap dancers and ballet dancers ; by choral
groups. It was featured in stage shows and
on the talking screen. It lent its principal
theme to a novel, and furnished the signature
for Paul Whiteman's radio shows.
Its success was easily understandable.
Exciting music at first hearing, it proved
even more so with familiarity. It was dra-
matic, emotional, lyric, rhapsodic. It had
the appeal of novelty, and it was American
to the core. It has technical deficiencies
and these have been pointed out time and
again. But the Rhapsody has intrinsic quali-
ties which no deficiencies in technique could
kill; and the most important of these qual-
ities is its vitality. The music is alive,
freshly conceived, put down on paper with
enthusiasm and spontaneity. Its youthful
spirit, its contagious appeal, its cogency and
power assert themselves despite an incompe-
tent structure. They continue to assert them-
selves even after a hundredth hearing- of the
work, and they still magnetize audiences.
After the Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin
consolidated his position as America's lead-
ing and favorite composer. He wrote one
excellent score after another for musical
comedies which generally proved to be
among the leading successes of their re-
spective seasons. In this field he profited no
end from the collaboration with his brother
Ira, who provided the songs with deft, skill-
fully contrived lyrics. Tip Toes (1925), Oh
Kay (1926), Strike Up the Band (1927),
Rosalie (1927), Funny Face (1927), Treas-
ure Girl (1928), Show Girl (1929), Girl
Crazy (1930)- these were but the prelude
to the. crowning success of his theatrical
career, the political satire Of Thee I Sing
(1931) which became the first musical com-
edy ever to win the Pulitzer Prize.
During these same years he was writing
serious^ works as well- works that were also
in the jazz idiom, magnificently proving that
the Rhapsody had been no mere flash in the
pan: Concerto in F, for piano and orchestra,
commissioned by Walter Damrosch, and in-
troduced by the New York Symphony So-
ciety under Damrosch, with Gershwin at the
piano, in 1925; An American in Paris, the
premiere of which took place at the concerts
Gershwin 101
of the New York Philharmonic Symphony
Society under Damrosch in 1928; the Second
Rhapsody, conducted by the Boston Sym-
phony Orchestra under Koussevitzky in
1931 ; and, most important of all, the opera
Porgy and Bess, presented by the Theatre
Guild in New York in 1935.
Gershwin's greatest work was perhaps
his opera Porgy and Bess, his last important
effort, an earnest of his ever-ripening pow-
ers. It took him more than a year to write ;
he worked on it passionately in New York,
and later in Charleston, where he went to
absorb Negro life and authentic Negro music.
The reaction to the opera was, at first,
none too favorable. Most critics dismissed
it as neither fish nor fowl, neither opera nor
musical comedy. Only after Gershwin's
death did it acquire the reputation it de-
served. It won the David Bispham Medal
as the most important American achieve-
ment in the field of opera; it was revived on
Broadway early in 1942 and enjoyed the
longest run ever known by any revival in
America; and it was singled out by the
Music Critics Circle in New York as the
most important musical revival of the year.
Beyond all this, the melodies proved to have
such artistic merit that in 1943 they were
combined by Robert Russell Bennett into
an excellent symphonic suite which has
been performed by most major American
orchestras.
For in Porgy and Bess, Gershwin had
written a folk opera in the vein of Mous-
sorgsky, with broad strokes of realism blend-
ed with touches of poetry. It was a folk
tale, told with directness and in indigenous
American accents. The music projected
Negro humor and pathos, nobility and
savagery, mellow wisdom and naivete, with-
out resorting to caricature. It was a portrait
of a race, drawn with majestic strokes. And
it was a veritable cornucopia of wonderful
Gershwin melodies : "Summertime," "I Got
Plenty of NuttinV "It Ain't Necessarily So."
After completing Porgy and Bess t Gersh-
win went to Hollywood to write music for
the screen his second visit to the movie
capital, and his first since 1931. He now
wrote scores for a Fred Astaire-Ginger
Rogers musical. Shall We Dance; for a
second Astaire film, A Damsel in Distress,
and for a lavish musical produced by Samuel
Goldwyn, The Goldwyn Follies, It was
while he was working on this last film that,
suddenly and without warning, he collapsed
in his studio. It was first believed that he
had been suffering from the strain of over-
work, A few weeks later, symptoms of a
brain tumor developed and a cystic tumor
was removed from the right temporal lobe.
On the morning of July 11, 1937, George
Gershwin died. His brother, Ira, was with
him until the very end.
In spite of his fabulous success, Gersh-
win remained throughout his life a modest
and highly self-critical young man. Simple
and wholesome in all things, he viewed his
music with healthy detachment. If he was
proud of it and he was, with a pride that
led him to perform it at the slightest provo-
cation anywhere and everywhere he was
also critical of it. He was ever conscious of
his technical shortcomings and lamented
them. Up to the end of his life he spoke of
overcoming these shortcomings through in-
tensive study ; indeed, in the closing years of
his life, he did study theory with Joseph
Schillinger.
He was always considerate and fabu-
lously generous. He supported whole
branches of his family up to the end of his
life. He spent several fortunes subsidizing
worthy young composers. Many causes
found him an eager contributor.
He had no major vices; he never gam-
bled, nor drank excessively. He did not
enjoy idleness or soft living. He did not
particularly care for elaborate meals. He
was happiest when he was working hard, and
on more jobs than he could handle. His
two self-indulgences were cigars and staying
up late. He was fond of sports, though
rather as a participant than a spectator. And
his favorite hobby was painting. He had a
natural bent towards this, and devoted many
afternoons of intensive work to his canvases.
Some leading art critics have said that if
Gershwin had applied himself to his painting
he might easily have become a great artist.
In 1945, Warner Brothers released a
successful screen biography of Gershwin,
Rhapsody in Blue.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: O/w* 135th Street, one-
act opera, 1923; Porgy and Bess, 1935. Orchestral
Music Rhapsody in Blue, 1924; Concerto in F, for
piano and orchestra, 1925; An American in Paris,
1928; Second Rhapsody, 1931; Cuban Overture,
1934. Piano Mime Jazz Piano Preludes, 1936.
102 Gianniei
RECORDINGS: An American in Paris, C-X246
(New York Philharmonic Rodzinski) ; Cuban
Overture, D-31 (Paul Whiteman and Orchestra) ;
Concerto in F, VM-690 (Sanroma; Boston Pops
Orchestra Fiedler) ; Piano Preludes, VM-764
(Behrend) ; Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Suite,
transcribed by Bennett, CM-572 (Pittsburgh Sym-
phony Reiner) ; Porgy and Bess, selections, D-145
(Duncan; Brown; Decca Symphony Smallens) ;
Rhapsody in Blue, C-X251 (Levant; Philadelphia
Orchestra Ormandy) .
ABOUT: Armitage, M. (ed) George Gershwin;
Ewen, D. Story of George Gershwin; Goldberg,
I. George Gershwin.
Vlttorio Giannini 1903-
^TITTORIO GIANNINI, brother of the
celebrated opera soprano Dusolina Gian-
nini, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
on October 19, 1903.
Since
were
father
both parents
musical (his
was an opera
tenor well known in
Italy, and his mother
played the violin), he
was brought into con-
tact with music at an
early age, his mother
being his first teacher.
When he was nine
years old, he won a scholarship in violin
at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan, and at
fourteen composed his first opera.
After winning fellowships in violin with
Hans Letz and in composition with Rubin
Goldmark at the Juilliard Graduate School,
Giannini won the grand prize of the Ameri-
can Academy in Rome in 1932. Though this
fellowship was originally for a three-year
period, it was renewed a fourth year be-
cause of his exceptional work.
His early chamber-music works won pub-
lication awards: that of Juilliard in 1930 for
a string quartet, and, in 1932, that of SPAM
for a piano quintet. In 1934, his opera,
Lucedia was successfully introduced in
Munich. Since that time, he has written
several major works for the operatic stage,
all of them receiving important perform-
ances. In 1938, The Scarlet Letter was in-
troduced at the Hamburg State Theatre,
Giannini's sister singing the principal soprano
role. Two radio operas Beauty and the
Beast and Blennerhasset were commis-
sioned by and first performed over the CBS
network in 1939 and 1940 respectively. Both
these works were subsequently given per-
formances on the stage.
Giannini has been the recipient of nu-
merous commissions. In 1935, he was en-
gaged by the trustees of the New York State
Theodore Roosevelt Memorial to write a
symphony for the dedication of the memorial.
In 1939, the International Business Machines
Corporation commissioned him to write an-
other symphony, to inaugurate its exhibit
at the New York World's Fair. The Sara-
toga Festival invited him to compose twe
orchestral works, one for 1939 and the other
for 1946, while the National Association of
Music Schools authorized him in 1945 to
write the Concerto for Trumpet and Or-
chestra.
Giannini has been described as an "un-
ashamed romanticist," in that he strives for
the expression of beauty in, as he puts it,
"the best manner possible, employing what-
ever device seems to bring me closer to this
goal." His forte is writing mobile melodies,
for which he has a genuine gift ; consequently
he is successful in writing for the voice.
To an interviewer Giannini confided:
"There's a tremendous difference between
'writing music' and composing. Any one
who has had the proper amount of technical
writing, which anyone can get if he works
hard enough, is able to write music. But to
compose, one has to wait for inspiration.
The composer's duty is to express what is
in him with the utmost sincerity, with no
thought of whether it is 'original' and no
desire to make an impression by doing
startling things. It may sound trite to say
it, but there's no denying that beauty must
still be the ultimate goal of composition. A
composer can say to himself, 'I'm going to
write a canon,' or 'I'm going to write a
fugue* and do it. But he can't say, 'I'm
going to write a melody' and do that. You
have to wait for a melody it has to come to
you. Those composers who make a point of
avoiding melody are those who, in most in-
stances, couldn't if they wanted to, because
it never conies to them."
Since 1939, Giannini has been teaching
theory, composition and orchestration at the
Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music.
Giannini, who Hves in New York, is
married to Lucia Avella, formerly a concert
Giannini: ja-ne'ne
Gideon 103
pianist. They have no children. Giannini's
interests include reading (poetry, history,
philosophy, and detective stories), electric
trains, and motors ; one of his great pleasures
comes from smoking good Havana cigars.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Quartet
for Strings, 1930; Quintet for Piano and Strings,
1931 ; Madrigal, for vocal quartet and string quar-
tet, 1931 ; Trio for Piano, Violin, and 'Cello, 1931 ;
Quintet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, and
Horn, 1934; Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1940;
Second Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1945. Choral
Music Primavera, cantata, 1933; Requiem, 1937;
Lament for Adonis, 1940; Adeste Fidelis, 1943.
Operas Lucedia, 1934; Flora, 1937; The Scarlet
Letter, 1938; Beauty and the Beast, 1939; Blenner-
hasset, 1940. Orchestral Music Symphony in
Memoriam Theodore Roosevelt, 1935; Concerto for
Piano and Orchestra, 1935; Opera Ballet, 1939;
I. B. M. Symphony, 1939; Triptych, for soprano
and string orchestra, 1939; Prelude, Chorale and
Fugue, 1939 ; Concerto for Two Pianos and Orches-
tra, 1940; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, 1945;
Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra, 1945; Con-
certo Grosso, for string orchestra, 1946.
ABOUT: Howard J, T. Our Contemporary
Composers.
Miriam Gideon 1906-
Jt/flRIAM GIDEON was born on October
23, 1906 in Greeley, Colorado, where
her father taught philosophy and modern
languages at the
State College. When
she was fourteen, she
went to Boston to live
Bleckman
choral director and
lecturer on music.
%jgfc-, H There she studied
I P* ano w **k ^ e ^ x Fox
H and enrolled at the
H College of Liberal
Arts, Boston Univer-
sity, from which she was graduated with a
B. A. degree. She then came to New York,
working in composition with Lazare Samin-
sky and Roger Sessions, and in musicology
at Columbia University, where she received
her M. A. degree.
In 1939, she went to France and Switzer-
land for a projected indefinite stay. The
outbreak of the war aborted these plans.
Since then her home has been in New York
City, where she has taught in several private
schools and where she is now a member of
the music faculty of Brooklyn College.
Several of her major works have re-
ceived important performances. The Lyric
Piece for Strings was introduced by the
London Symphony Orchestra, under Hugo
Weisgall, in April 1944. It is a one move-
ment work with contrasting sections, the
lyric phase flanking the inner sections. In
a string-quartet version, it was broadcast
over WNYC as part of the American Music
Festival in 1945, and on a program of the
Forum Group of the IS CM in May 1946.
Epigrams, a suite for chamber orchestra,
received its premiere on December 7, 1941
by the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. The
Hound of Heaven, a setting of some of the
lines from Francis Thompson's poem, for
baritone, oboe, and string trio, was commis-
sioned for the centenary celebration of the
founding of Temple Emanu-El, and was
introduced there in March 1945; this work
was shortly afterward repeated by the IS CM
at its final concert in May 1945.
In reviewing her String Quartet, per-
formed at the Yaddo Festival in September
1946, Lou Harrison wrote in the Herald
Tribune: "Miss Gideon's technical address
is concise and she emerges as our best fem-
inine composer/*
Miss Gideon feels that for the greatest
expressiveness there must be an expansion
of the tonal system so that tonal bonds be-
come tenuous enough to create the mirage
of atonality. However, in her works, she
does not abandon tonality. Her idiom re-
sembles on the surface that of the twelve-
tone system. "But," she explains, "I can-
not subscribe to a row or any such prede-
termined structure, believing that the world
which the composer creates must come from
an inner necessity which becomes restricted
by any such facilitation or formulation.^
She is a member of the American Com-
posers Alliance, and has served on its board
of governors. She is at present also on the
board of directors of the ISCM.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Three
Cornered Pieces, for flute, clarinet, and piano. 1936 ;
Incantation on an Indian Theme, for viola and
piano, 1940; Sonata for Flute and Piano, 1943;
The Hound of Heaven, for baritone, oboe, and
string trio, 1945; String Quartet, 1946. Choral
Mttsic Two Madrigals, 1940. Orchestral Music
Allegro and Andante, 1939; Epigrams, for chamber
orchestra, 1941; Lyric Pieces, for strings, 1942.
Piano Music Dances, for two pianos, 1933;
Sketches, 1938; Sonata, 1939; Canzona, 1946.
ABOUT: Reis C. Composers in America (rev.
eA>.
104 Gillis
Henry F. Gilbert 1868-1928
(See Composers of Yesterday)
Don Gillis 1912-
TT|ON GILLIS was born in Cameron, Mis-
souri, on June 17, 1912. As a boy, he
was given instruction on the trumpet and
trombone, and he per-
^^. -{ formed in various
bands and in the high
school orchestra.
I ^. While still a student
at high school, he or-
ganized his own dance
^ . band, and arranged
m"km' "' "'
;^p ., and composed some
^J of its musk.
When the family
Bay Lee Jackson moved tO Fort Worth,
Texas, Gillis won a scholarship as trombonist
in the Texas Christian University Band. He
served as assistant director of this band, and
later organized a symphony orchestra at the
Polytechnic Baptist Church. During this
period he wrote the scores for two musical
comedies which were produced at Texas
Christian.
After being graduated from Texas Chris-
tian University in 1936, he attended the
North Texas Teachers College, receiving
a master's degree in music. There followed
a period in which he served on the faculty
of Texas Christian University and the South-
west Baptist Seminary. At the same time,
he was staff trombonist and arranger for
radio station WBAP, Fort Worth, and he
played the trombone in the now-defunct
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra.
For the past half dozen years, Gillis has
been intimately associated with radio, join-
ing the staff of WBAP as staff production
manager in 1942, then joining the staff of
the National Broadcasting Company in Chi-
cago in 1943. In 1944, he was transferred
to New York to become producer of thje
NBC Symphony Orchestra and numerous
famous radio shows, including Vacation
with Music, Music for Tomorrow, Sere-
node to America, and the NBC University
of the Air music programs. "I enjoy radio
tremendously, for there is a thrill in getting
to recommend new music to conductors, to
help plan programs and to be connected
as producer for the NBC Symphony broad-
casts."
Gillis has composed six and a half sym-
phonies (his Sixth symphony is designated
as Symphony No. Sy 2 !) which have had
numerous performances. He has also writ-
ten many works for chamber-music groups.
He is a romanticist in the sense that he be-
lieves thoroughly in the need for melody in
music. "My feeling/' he writes, "is that
music is for people and the composer's final
aim should be to reach them. And since
the people whistle and sing, I should like
them to whistle and sing my music. Sim-
plicity of melodic line has long been the key-
note for successful writing. As corny as
it may sound, I feel that music written in
the effort to create the 'beautiful' is more
lasting and more important than music writ-
ten in an effort to impress the critics and
the academy. I am convinced that it is the
heart which must speak and not the brain
alone/'
A rich vein of humor is found in some of
his best works, as for example in his Sym-
phony No. 5^2, subtitled "A Symphony for
Fun/ 1 which was introduced by the Boston
Pops Orchestra under Arthur Fiedler in
1946, and was subsequently performed by
Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony
Orchestra. "Music can be fun and for fun,"
Gillis explains, "and I tried to write so that
there is a feeling of enjoyment in the fun
of the thing."
Of his personal life, Gillis writes: "I
have a rather incongruous hobby of script-
writing particularly in the comedy field
and have very definite theories about pre-
senting serious music shows as education
through entertainment. My wife and I enjoy
discussing the musical scene. She enjoys
music, but is not a musician, and therefore
is a very good critic for me. My son is also
a good critic, for he is pretty definite in his
likes and dislikes of the products from his
daddy's pen. Over all, the life we lead is
pretty normal my best compositions seem
to come when I am the busiest at NBC,
and when the kids have a good game of
cowboy-Indian going in the room I'm work-
ing in. We hate stuff ed-shirtism in musi-
cians, and phony artistry, and anything but
the fact xhat music is a normal function of
Godowsky 105
people's living. Our house has long been a
place for composers to gather and rehash
our ideas about ourselves. All in all, it's
a pretty good deal. But one day we both
want to go back to Texas to live. . . ."
PRINCIPAL WORKS ; Chamber Music String
Quartet No. 1, 1936; Trumpet Quartet, 1936; String
Quartet No. 2, 1937; String Quartet No. 3, 1937;
Suite for Woodwind Quintet No. 1, Three Sketches,
1938; String Quartet No. 4, 1939; String Quartet
No. 5, 1939; Suite for Woodwind Quintet No. 2,
Campus Caricatures, 1939; Suite for Woodwind
Quintet No. 3, The Tortoise and the Hare, 1939;
Quintet for Piano and Strings, 1940; Sonatina for
B-flat Trumpets, 1942; Sonatina No. 2 for B-flat
Trumpets, 1947; String Quartet No, 6 1947. Choral
Music The Crucifixion, for narrator, soloists,
chorus, and orchestra, 1937. Orchestral Music Four
Moods in Three Keys, for chamber orchestra, 1936;
The Woolyworm, symphonic satire, 1937; The Pan-
handle, symphonic suite, 1937; Thoughts Provoked
on Becoming a Prospective Papa, symphonic suite,
1937; The Raven, symphonic poem, 1938; Symphony
No. 1, An American Symphony, 1939-40; Portrait
of a Frontier Town, symphonic suite, 1940; Sym-
phony No. 2, Symphony of Faith, 1940; Symphony
No. 3, A Symphony of Free Men, 1940-41; The
Night Before Christmas, for narrator and orchestra,
1941; Three Sketches for Strings, 1942; Symphony
No. 4, 1943; Prairie Poem, symphonic poem, 1943;
A Short Overture to an Unwritten Opera, 1944;
The Alamo, symphonic poem, 1944; Symphony
No. 5, 1944-45; To an Unknown Soldier, symphonic
poem, 1945; Symphony No. S l /2 t A Symphony for
Fun, 1946-47; Dude Ranch, symphonic suite, 1947;
Symphony No. 6, 1947; Five Short Pieces for
Strings, 1947; Symphony No. 7, "Saga of a Prairie
School/' 1948. Piano MusicTen Short Pieces
1945; Five Little Pieces for Nephews and Nieces,
1947.
ed.)
ABOUT: Reis, C Composers in America (rev.
Leopold Godowsky 1870-1938
TEOPOLD GODOWSKY was born in
Vilna, Poland, on February 13, 1870,
the son of a physician. An extraordinary
musical talent inevi-
tably brought him to
music at an early age.
At five the untaught
child was able to per-
form the remarkable
feat of composing a
canon correct in every
detail. At seven he
began composing. And
at nine (after only
two years of foraial
instruction) he made his debut as pianist.
He was so successful that he was sent on a
concert tour through Russia and Germany.
Through the generosity of a patron in
Koenigsberg, Godowsky was sent to the Ber-
lin Hochschule, where he studied under
Woldemar Bargiel and Ernst Friedrich Karl
Rudorff. He remained at the Hochschule
three years, then in 18&4 undertook his
first tour of the United States.
In 1887, he was introduced to Saint-
Saens, for whom he performed a number of
the French master's works. Flattered by this
attention, and impressed by the young man's
ability, Saint-Saens took a personal interest
in Godowsky's career, teaching him for three
years. During this period, however, Godow-
sky did not neglect his concert work, his rep-
utation growing to a point where he was
asked to give a command performance at the
British court.
In 1890, Godowsky returned to the
United States. One year later, he married
Frederica Saxe. He now divided his time
between concert work and teaching. In 1894,
he was appointed director of the piano de-
partment of the Chicago Conservatory; his
great gift in encouraging and developing
pupils established him as one of the great
piano teachers of the time. He also appeared
annually with the Chicago Orchestra, whose
conductor Theodore Thomas was among
the first musicians to appreciate fully Godow-
sky's genius.
In 1900, Godowsky set forth on an ex-
tensive world tour as a conceit pianist, mak-
ing an epochal appearance on December 6
in Berlin, where he was given a majestic
reception. This tour brought Godowsky
world prominence. His technique one of
the most consummate the keyboard has
known combined with his extraordinary
scholarship made his performances a model
for an entire generation of pianists to study
and to aspire to emulate.
In 1909, Godowsky became director of
the Klaviermeisterschule of the Akademie
der Tonktinst in Vienna, succeeding Busoni,
During World War I he once again estab-
lished his residence in the United States,
making numerous public appearances, and
giving master classes in various cities. After
1922, he concentrated most of his efforts on
musical composition.
While making a recording in London, in
1930, Godowsky suffered a paralytic stroke
which brought his career as a pianist to a
Godowsky: go-dofske
106 Gould
permanent close. However, he continued
teaching and composing despite frequent
spells of bad health. In November 1938, he
was operated on for an intestinal ailment,
and on the morning of November 21, he died
at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.
For thirty years, Godowsky maintained
his preeminent position among the pianists of
the world. There are some authorities and
one of them was Vladimir de Pachmann
who felt that there never has been a greater
artist than Godowsky. James Gibbons Hun-
eker wrote that Godowsky "is a pianist for
pianists, as Shelley is a poet for poets."
Godowsky composed exclusively for the
piano, and with such an intimate knowledge
of the instrument and with such profound
exploitation of all its resources that there are
many who believe that no one since the days
of Liszt influenced piano-writing more pro-
foundly than he. His best vein was contra-
puntal, in which he wrote with remarkable
clarity and facility. He had, too, exhaustive
melodic and harmonic inventiveness, and a
consummate knowledge of piano dynamics.
He was a gentle and lovable soul, whose
high integrity, expansive musicianship, and
wholesome philosophy influenced innumer-
able musicians of our generations, including
many who did not study under him. To his
wide circle of friends he was "Popsy," a
man of paternal kindness and mellow wis-
dom. His wit was almost as famous as his
musical genius, his countless mots livening
conversations in musical circles for more
than a generation.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Piano Music Sonata in
E Major; 19 Renaissance Pieces; 24 Walzer-
masken; Triakontameron ; Java Suite; Prelude and
Fugue; 30 Moods and Scenes; Symphonic Meta-
morphoses on Strauss waltzes; Concert Paraphrases
of works by Weber, Johann Strauss.
RECORDINGS: Alt Wien from Triakontameron,
transcribed for violin by Heifetz, V-1645 (Heifetz).
Morton Gould 19U~
|^JORTON GOULD was born in Rich-
mond Hill, New York, on December 10,
1913. He first revealed talent for music dur-
ing the celebration of the "false Armistice"
in 1918 when, hearing a band play Sousa's
Stars and Stripes Forever, he went over to
the piano and proceeded to reproduce the
melody accurately. He continued to re-create
the melodies he knew and heard, then began
to compose tunes of his own. His first pub-
lished piece, a waltz for the piano, was writ-
ten when he was only six.
At eight he was awarded a scholarship
for the Institute of Musical Art ; at thirteen,
he became a pupil of Abby Whiteside; and
at fifteen, he completed a two-year courst
in theory and composition with Dr. Vincenl
Jones at New York University. During this
period, he also made frequent appearances as
a piano child prodigy, and received a great
deal of publicity.
Outgrowing his prodigy status, Gould had
to earn his living by accepting whatever job
came along. He played the piano in the
movies and in vaude-
ville houses. He
toured the vaudeville
circuit as a member of
the two-piano team of
Gould and Schafter,
and sometimes as ac-
companist for the
dancers, the De Mar-
cos. He made a few
recordings, and did
some lecturing in col-
leges and conservatories, where his tour de
force was an improvisation of fugues on
given themes.
When he was eighteen, he was heard by
the movie impresario, S. L. Rothafel better
known as "Roxy" who engaged him as staff
pianist for the Radio City Music Hall. Three
years after this, Gould was given his first
radio job to conduct an orchestra on a sus-
taining program for station WOR.
He first acquired national fame on the
radio as conductor and arranger. He com-
bined his energetic and vital performances
with the baton with his own arrangements
of the popular classics, daring in their ex-
ploitation of new effects, brilliant in their
use of sonority, and always soundly musical.
After seven years on WOR he was selected
to direct the Cresta Blanca Carnival over a
national hookup, with which program he be-
came an outstanding radio personality.
Gould has written many major works
for orchestra which have been performed
by practically every important orchestra in
the country and by virtually every great
conductor. In most of his best works, he
has drawn exhaustively from American
Grainger 107
idioms and backgrounds. Occasionally, he
writes in the jazz idiom, in the use of which
he is uniquely adept. When he was eighteen,
he wrote the Chorale and Fugue in Jazz,
which Leopold Stokowski introduced with
the Philadelphia Orchestra. Other, and
later, jazz works include the Swing Sin-
fonietta and the Boogie-Woogie Etude for
piano, which Jose Iturbi has played ex-
tensively.
Some of his successful works have ex-
ploited folklore styles, as the Cowboy Rhap-
sody. Others have drawn upon the popular
songs of the past, as in the Foster Gallery
and An American Salute. Some were in-
spired by American history, as, for example,
A Lincoln Legend, which Arturo Toscanini
introduced with the NBC Symphony Or-
chestra in 1942.
One of the most successful of these
American works leaned heavily on Negro
folk song: the Spirituals, for string choir
and orchestra, a composition which has ac-
quired a permanent place in the modern
American repertoire for orchestra. Intro-
duced under the baton of the composer at
the American Music Festival in 1941, this
work has enjoyed extensive performances.
In this work, Gould tried to translate into
symphonic music the emotional idiom of
Negro spirituals. Striving for the effect
achieved by a congregation and a choir In a
Negro service, he uses a string choir to
voice the principal material of the work,
while the orchestra itself becomes an ac-
companying voice.
Gould does not always borrow his style
or thematic material from outside sources.
He has written large works in which his
own personality is predominant. Of these
works, one of the best is the Concerto for
Orchestra, first introduced by the Cleveland
Orchestra under Golschmann on February
1, 1945. Dimitri Mitropoulos performed
this work in Rome with the La Scala Or-
chestra in the summer of 1946.
Gould's is a polyglot style revealing many
different facets. But he has used that style
with great effect in the writing of music that
is continuously charming and always alive
with American flavors and colors.
Tall and lanky, Gould has an almost per-
petual melancholy expression on his face.
He confesses that he has virtually no hob-
bies outside of his music: "I have never
taken a vacation, and I wouldn't know
what to do with one if I did." However,
when pressed to explain a few of his extra-
musical activities, he revealed that he reads
a great deal, occasionally plays a game of
ping-pong, and dreams of returning to a
childhood pastime long since abandoned
painting. He is fond of railroads, and keeps
a drawer in his desk filled with pictures of
trains.
Morton Gould composed the score for
the 1945 Broadway success, Billion Dollar
Baby.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Choral MusicOf Time
and the River, for a cappella chorus, 1946. Or-
chestral Music Chorale and Fugue in Jazz, 1931 ;
Swing Sinfonietta, 1936; Concerto for Piano and
Orchestra, 1937; Music for the Radio, 1937; Foster
Gallery, 1941; Spirituals, for string choir and
orchestra, 1942; First Symphony, 1942; Cowboy
Rhapsody, 1942; An American Salute, 1942; A
Lincoln Legend, 1942; Second Symphony, 1943;
Concerto for Orchestra, 1944; Latin-American
Symphonette, 1944; Harvest, 1945; Four Ameri-
can Syrnphonettes, 1945; Concerto for Viola and
Orchestra, 1945; Symphony on Marching Songs,
1945; Minstrel Show, 1946; Symphony No. 3,
1946.
RECORDINGS: An American Salute, V- 11 8762
(Boston Pops Orchestra Fiedler) ; Interplay
(American Concertante) C-MX 289 (Robin Hood
Dell OrchestraGould) ;' Minstrel Show, V-l 19654
(Minneapolis Symphony Mitropoulos) ; Music of
Morton Gould, CM-668 (Robin Hood Dell Orches-
tra Gould).
ABOUT: Howard, J. T. Our American Musk;
Thomson, V. Musical Scene; Musical America
December 25, 1943.
Percy Grainger 1882-
pERCY ALDRIDGE GRAINGER was
born in Brighton, Melbourne, Australia,
on July 8 1882. His mother, an excellent
musician, influenced
him profoundly. Dis-
covering unmistak-
able signs of musical
talent in her son, she
left no stone unturned
to bring this talent to
fruition. From his
fifth year to his tenth,
she sat beside him at
the piano for two
hours a day, guiding AatooJ * Morae
his first musical steps with such insight
that by the time he was ten Percy was able
108 Grainger
to begin a public career as a pianist. When
he was twelve, he had earned enough money
as a prodigy to be able to travel with his
mother to Frankfort-on-the-Main in Ger-
many to continue his musical studies with
James Kwast.
It was his mother's influence, too, which
made Grainger more interested in composi-
tion than in a virtuoso's career. He com-
posed music from boyhood days on, and at
sixteen, he had already developed his indi-
vidual style, having made experiments in
1 Meatless" music "music," as he explained
it, "in which the composer freely uses all
intervals, mostly gliding, without being con-
trolled by existing limitations of scale and
tonality, and in which all rhythms are free,
without beat-cohesion between the various
polyphonic parts." A work of his from this
period, Hill Song, he still regards as one of
his important works.
But concert work was not abandoned.
In 1900 Grainger went to London, making
a successful debut, and then proceeded on
an extended tour of Great Britain, New
Zealand, Australia, and South Africa.
In 1906, in London, Grainger met Ed-
vard Grieg, who was so impressed by the
young musician that he invited him to be
his guest at his summer villa in Troldhaugen.
It was there that Grieg played his new piano
concerto, the celebrated A Minor Concerto,
and urged the younger man to introduce
it at the Leeds Festival in England under
his personal baton. Unfortunately, Grieg's
death one month before the Festival de-
prived the concert of its conductor. But, as
the late composer had desired, Grainger in-
troduced the work and scored a great
triumph both for himself and for the master-
piece.
It was Grainger's friendship with Grieg
which encouraged the young composer to
arrange folk music. Grieg had always been
interested in Norwegian folk music, and
his enthusiasm inspired Grainger to turn
his attention to English folk songs. As a
result of this interest, Grainger made a series
of orchestral arrangements which brought
him his greatest success as a composer
among them Molly on the Shore, Shepherd's
Hey, Irish Tunes from County Deny, and
Clog Dance. His fresh harmonizations and
his tasteful readaptations of the melodies
breathed new life into these old tunes. "Even
when he keeps the folk-songs almost within
their original dimensions, wrote Cyril Scott,
"he has a way of dealing with them which
is entirely new, yet at the same time never
lacking in taste/'
The concerts of Balfour Gardiner at
Queen's Hall in London in 1912 first brought
Grainger into the limelight as a composer.
Here his works for orchestra were intro-
duced, and his compositions, including Mock
Morns and English Dance, became very pop-
ular with English concert audiences.
In 1915, Grainger came to the United
States. He made a highly successful debut
as a pianist on February 11 of that year. He
followed it with a performance of the Grieg
Concerto with the New York Philharmonic
Orchestra and was given a tremendous ova-
tion. He has remained a resident of the
United States ever since, having made his
home in White Plains, New York. Besides
extensive concert work, he has taught courses
in music at the Chicago College of Music
and at New York University.
Speaking of his favorite diversions,
Grainger states : "I am passionately fond of
football, wrestling, long walks, trotting,
swimming, tennis, but find little leisure for
any of these pleasures, except trotting, which
I do instead of walking on many occasions.
I used to be called the 'trotting pianist' in
London." Meticulous about his health,
Grainger adheres rigidly to a schedule which
calls for early hours for sleep and waking,
the eating of the most simple foods, and
avoidance of stimulants of any kind. His
love of the outdoors often has led him to
walk from city to city when on a concert
tour. Once, in South Africa, he walked a
distance of sixty-five miles from Pieter-
maritzburg to Durban, where he was sched-
uled to give a concert in a few days. At
another time, he covered alone and on foot
the desert of South Australia that lies be-
tween Adelaide and Melbourne, completing
the eighty-mile distance in three days.
In his concerts, he has always striven to
achieve an engaging informality. He fre-
quently prefaces a performance by making
comments to the audience. At one of his
recitals he arrived by way of the lobby, en-
tered the concert hall, proceeded to walk
down the aisle stopping off here and there
Gretchaninoff 109
to shake the hands of friends and then,
after springing to the stage, went over to the
piano and began his recital.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music Handel
in the Strand, 1913; My Robin Is to the Green-
wood Gone, octet ; Green Bushes, passacaglia, 1921 ;
Shallow Brown, 1924; HilPSong No. 2, 1929; Spoon
River, 1930; Free Music, for strings, 1935. Choral
Music Marching Song of Democracy, 1916; The
Merry Wedding, 1916; Love Verses from the
Song of Solomon, 1931; Tribute to Foster, 1931.
Orchestral Music Mock Morris, 1911; Irish Tunes
from County Dcrry, 1911; Molly on the Shore,
1914; Shepherd's Hey, 1914; In a Nutshell, music
to an imaginary ballet, for three pianos and or-
chestra, 1916; English Dance, for organ and or-
chestra, 1925 ; To a Nordic Princess, for organ
and orchestra, 1928; The Nightingale and Two
Sisters, for chamber orchestra, 1931 ; Ye Banks
and Braes o' Bonnie Boon, 1932; Harvest Hymn,
1933; Danish Folk-Song Suite, 1937; Youthful
Suite, 1947.
RECORDINGS: Country Gardens, V-1666 (Min-
neapolis Symphony Ormandy) ; Molly on the
Shore, V-8734 (Minneapolis Symphony Or-
mandy) ; Shepherd's Hey, V-1666 (Minneapolis
Symphony Ormandy) .
ABOUT : Howard. J. T. Our American Com-
posers (3d ed) ; New Yorker January 31, February
7, 14, 1948.
Alexander Gretchaninoff 1864-
A LEXANDER TIKHONOVICH
*** GRETCHANINOFF has been living
in this country since 1939. The "highest ex-
ponent of Russian
church music/* as Sa-
baneyev has called
him, was born in Mos-
cow on October 25,
1864. His father, who
came from a family
of merchants, did not
believe that music
was an essential part
of a good education.
r * >Bltlkl It was not until Alex-
ander Gretchaninoff was thirteen years old
that he carne into contact with music for the
first time, when a piano was brought into
the Gretchaninoff household for Alexander's
sister. So belated was the boy's musical ed-
ucation that he was sixteen years old before
he became acquainted with the names of
Bach and Mozart. He derived a great deal
of pleasure from the piano, and could be
found for hours improvising melodies of his
own. With his mother as an ally, he finally
was successful In breaking down his father's
resistance- to a musical education. In his
seventeenth year he entered the Moscow
Conservatory, where he studied under Sa-
fonov, Laroche, and Arensky. He was not
a particularly outstanding pupil. Indeed,
Arensky once told him that he had no talent
whatsoever and that he should give up all
thoughts of becoming a professional musi-
cian.
Leaving the Moscow Conservatory, Gret-
chaninoff went to St. Petersburg and was
enrolled in its Conservatory. There, under
the guidance of his teacher, Rimsky-Kor-
sakoff, Gretchaninoff blossomed out as a
composer for the first time. A string quar-
tet won a prize, and was given a perform-
ance. This was followed by an even more
talented work, the First Symphony, per-
formed in 1895 under the direction of
Rimsky-Korsakoff.
His schooling ended, Gretchaninoff lived
for six years in St. Petersburg, earning his
living by teaching music. His intense pov-
erty finally drove him back to his native city.
There he set to work on his most difficult
work up to that time, the opera Dobrynia
Nikitich. He completed it in 1901, and it
was accepted for performance by the Bolshoi
Theatre in Moscow. After innumerable
postponements, which almost broke the spirit
of the composer, the opera was finally pro-
duced on October 14, 1903, with Chaliapin
in the leading role. That premiere was a
major triumph for the composer, who re-
ceived a thunderous ovation. The opera
soon became a great favorite with Russian
audiences and a part of the regular repertory
of every major Russian opera house.
Meanwhile, Gretchaninoff was compos-
ing an entire library of sacred music which
covered all the various services of the Rus-
sian Orthodox Church. "A perfect master
of choral orchestration, if one may use this
expression," wrote Sabaneyey, "knowing
ideally and to perfection the properties of
the human voice, Gretchaninoff can extract
from choral masses utterly unexpected and
frequently overpowering effects." His Lit-
urgies are among the finest examples of Rus-
sian religious music of our time. His Missa
Oecumemca was given its world premiere
by Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Sym-
phony Orchestra on February 25, 1944.
Gretchaninoff: gra-cha'ne-nof
110 Grofe
Almost as Important as his choral music
for the church are his songs, of which there
are more than 250. Here he reveals a great
variety of mood and style, and a most sensi-
tive feeling for poignant melody. "The main
characteristics of GretchaninofFs songs,"
wrote M. D. Calvocoressi, "are refinement,
easy grace and sentiment which at its best
owes little to sentimentality."
GretchaninofT has also composed five
symphonies. The Fourth, written in memory
of Tchaikovsky, was introduced by the New
York Philharmonic under Barbirolli in April
1942. The Fifth was first performed by Leo-
pold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Or-
chestra on April S, 1939. Unlike his choral
music and songs, his symphonies are not
particularly Russian in their idiom, but re-
veal Germanic influences.
Gretchanmof! left Russia in 1925 and
settled in Paris. Between 1929 and 1936 he
made five concert tours of the United States.
When he came again in 1939, he planned to
stay for only a short period. But the out-
break of World War II kept him here in-
definitely; and when France was overrun by
the Nazi forces, Gretchaninoir" decided to
remain in this country permanently.
In an article on Gretchaninoff, Igor
Bazaroff wrote as follows : "GretchaninofFs
personal habits are scrupulous and orderly.
He likes his wife to cook for him and rarely
eats anywhere but home. After his dinner
at 1 o'clock, he takes a walk in Central Park,
and he is so punctual that it is said even the
squirrels set their watches by his entrance.
His walk takes over forty minutes after
which he returns home. At 4 o'clock he has
a cup of tea, then works on his compositions
until 7:30, when he has supper. His eve-
nings are usually devoted to visiting his
many musical friends."
PRINCIPAL WORKS : Chamber Music Four
Quartets, Op. 2, 70. 75, 124; Two Trios, Op. 38,
128; Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 87; Sonata
for 'Cello and Piano, Op. 113. Chord Music
Samson, cantata; Le 19 Fevrier 1861, cantata, 19fl ;
Liturgie de St. Jean Chrysostome, I and II, Op.
13, 29; Liturgia Domestica, oratorio. Op. 79; 84
Choruses ; Missa Festiva ; 14 Vocal Quartets ; Missa
Oecumenica, Op. 142, 1938-43. Operas Dobrynia
Nikitich, Op. 22, 1901; Sister Beatrice (Maeter-
linck) Op. 50, 1912. Orchestral Music Incidental
Music to Snegouretchka, Op. 23, 1902; Elegy in
Memory of Tchaikovsky, Op. 18; Four Sym-
phonies, Op. 6, 27, 100, 102; Fifth Symphony,
1939; Idylle Forestiere, Op. 117. Songs Poeraes
dramatiques ; Tartar Songs; Snowflakes,
RECORDINGS: The Captive, V-15894 (Kipnis)
Cossack Cradle Song, C-7226M (Don Cossacl
Chorus Jaroff) ; Cossack Songs, C-7250M (Do
Cossack Chorus Jarpff) ; The Creed, V-3604
(Pavlenko; Metropolitan Church Chorus Afon
sky); Liturgia Domestica, V-7715 (Chaliapin; Met
ropolitan Church Chorus Afonsky) ; Over th
Steppe, V-4414 (Gorin) ; Responsory XI, C-732
(Don Cossack Chorus Jaroff) ; Two Weddin;
Songs, C-7220M (Don Cossack Chorus Jaroff) '
ABOUT: Montagu-Nathan, M. Contemporar;
Russian Composers; Sabaneyev, L. Modern Rus
sian Composers.
Charles T. Griffes 1884-1920
(See Composers of Yesterday)
Ferde Grofe 1892-
TPERDE GROFfi originally his name wa
Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofe was bon
in New York City on March 27, 1892. Hi;
background was de-
cidedly musical. His
mother had been
graduated from the
Leipzig Conservatory
and was a gifted 'cell-
ist, his father sang in
light operas, and his
grandfather was first
'cellist of the Los An-
geles Symphony Or-
chestra. His mother Acme
taught him to write music even before h
learned to write English, and in his fifth yea
he began formal studies of the piano an<
violin.
At the age of fourteen, Ferde ran awa]
from home because his mother had remarrie<
after his father's death and his stepfathe
did not favor a musical career for Ferde
For the next few years he supported him
self as best he could. He worked as <
pressman in a bookbindery ; he drove a truck
he ushered in a movie theatre; he operate
an elevator; he worked in an iron foundry
and he sold milk. For a while, he joine<
up with a wandering cornet player wh
called himself "Professor" Albert Jerome
"We were in a mining town called Winthro]
in a gulch in Northern California when h
ran out on me, taking all the money an<
leaving me with an unpaid board bill. Th
only job I could get was playing the pian<
Grofe: gro-fa'
Graenberg 111
in a sporting house that's what they were
called then for two dollars a night. I
didn't get corrupted, because I was in love
with my landlady's daughter."
In 1909, a reconciliation took place be-
tween Ferde Grofe and his family; they
promised to encourage his leanings towards
music. Soon after this be became a violinist
in the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra,
holding this position for ten years. At this
time, too, his first published composition ap-
peared, The Elks' Grand Reunion March,
written in honor of an Elks' convention.
Working in a symphony orchestra \vas
not a remunerative profession. Grofe soon
combined this activity with engagements with
jazz bands. He was a ban joist in the first
ragtime band to be heard in San Francisco.
Before long he had a band of his own. It
was with this organization that he began to
introduce his own written arrangements of
the popular pieces of the day.
In 1919, Paul Whiteman heard Ferde
Grofe's band, was attracted by the novel ar-
rangements, and engaged Grofe for his own
orchestra as pianist and arranger. Every
number Whiteman featured with his cele-
brated jazz orchestra was orchestrated by
Grofe, who now became on of the most suc-
cessful arrangers in the business. A com-
plete mastery of instrumentation (he later
joined the faculty of the Juilliard School of
Music in the department of orchestration)
was combined with daring and independence
in the use of unusual timbres and piquant
effects to contribute an altogether new flavor
to the jazz performances of the time. Grofe
scored Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue when it
was introduced by Whiteman in 1924, and
consequently is at least partially responsible
for its phenomenal success.
Grofe left Whiteman in 1924 to become
a free-lance arranger, and to devote himself
to the serious composition of jazz music in
larger forms. His first large work, Broad-
way at Night, composed in 1924, did not at-
tract much notice, but one year later he
produced a work of substantial merit and
one which brought him to the serious atten-
tion of music lovers everywhere the Missis-
sippi Suite , two movements of which have
since then become extraordinarily popular,
"Huckleberry Finn," and "Mardi Gras."
In 1931 Grofe composed the Grand Can-
yon Suite, with which his name is ever iden-
tified. Most leading conductors, including
Toscanini, have performed this w.ork, which
many critics look upon as one of the most
important compositions written by an Amer-
ican. -Though jazz techniques are used in
this work, this is not essentially a jazz com-
position, but rather a work in an obviously
American vein. It is in five sections all of
them vividly graphic in their varied descrip-
tions of the Canyon. The most famous is
the third section, "On the Trail," a cowboy
tune set against a theme describing the jog-
ging of a donkey.
In many of his works, Grofe utilized
unique effects in his pursuit of musical real-
ism. In Tabloid, he used an actual type-
writer; in Symphony in Steel, sirens and
pneumatic drills; in Free Air, a bicycle
pump; and in Hollywood Suite, the banging
of carpenters and the shouting of directors.
In January 1937, Grofe made his debut
as a conductor in Carnegie Hall in a program
devoted to his own works. He has since
then conducted many times not only in the
concert halls but also over the radio. In
1939 and 1940 he was the principal performer
at the Ford Exhibit at the New York
World's Fair. Since 1940 he has been in
Hollywood, writing music for the films.
Some of Grofe's major works were writ-
ten expressly for industry and supported by
it : Symphony in Steel, by the American Roll-
ing Mills Company, and Wheels, by the Ford
Motor Company.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballet Cafe Society*
1938. Chamber Music Table d'Hote, 1945. Chora!
Music- Uncle Sam Stands Up, 1943. Orchestral
Music Mississippi Suite, 1925; Metropolis, 1927;
Three Shades of Blue, 1928; Grand Canyon Suite,
1931; Tabloid, 1932; Symphony in Steel, 1935;
Hollywood Suite, 1935; Metropolis, 1945; Aviation
Suite, 1945.
RECORDINGS : Grand Canyon Suite, VM-1038
(NBC Symphony Toscanini) ; Mississippi Suite,
V-35859 (Paul Whiteman and Orchestra).
ABOUT: Ewen, D. Men of Popular Music;
New Yorker May 25, 1940,
Louis Gruenberg 1884*
TOUIS GRUENBERG was born in Brest-
Litovsk, Russia, on August 3, 1884. He
came to America when he was two years old,
and was educated in New York public schools.
Graenberg: groo'en-berg
112 Gruenberg
At the same time he studied piano with Adele
Margulies. The determination to become a
serious musician brought him back to Europe,
in 1903, where for a long time he studied
under Busoni. In 1912 he became a master
pupil at the Vienna Conservatory, and also
inaugurated his professional life as a musician
by entering the concert field as a pianist. In
this same year he launched his career as a
composer when his first symphonic poem, The
Hill of Dreams, received the Flagler prize of
$1,000. During this period he also wrote two
operas and some chamber music.
In 1919 Gruenberg returned to the United
States, in the company of his teacher, Busoni.
At this time, he wrote an opera, The Dumb
Wife, based on Anatole France's play. Un-
fortunately, he had failed to ask permission
for the use of this play, and when his opera
was completed he was faced with a refusal
by France's executors. Gruenberg made
three special trips to Paris to convince them,
but was unsuccessful.
At about this time, he became vitally in-
terested in the artistic possibilities of the jazz
idiom, and wrote several works in which this
style is prominent. The best of these was
Daniel Jazz, written
in 1923, for tenor and
eight instruments; in
this work Gruenberg
succeeded in bringing
an altogether new
dignity, artistic genu-
ineness, and poign-
ancy to jazz. When
it is recalled that
Daniel Jazz was writ-
Briscaloff ten one year before
the Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin, its signifi-
cance not only as an artistic work but as a
pioneer experiment becomes more evident.
Other jazz compositions in a serious vein
included the Jazz Suite, for orchestra, Jazz-
ettes, for violin and piano, and a variety of
jazz pieces for the piano.
His First Symphony, which was not in a
jazz vein, won the RCA Victor $5,000 prize
in 1930, and emphasized Gruenberg's grow-
ing importance as a composer. He received
nationwide attention two years later on Jan-
uary 7, 1933, when the Metropolitan Opera
House introduced his opera, Emperor Jones,
based on the play by Eugene O'Neill. Gruen-
berg had consulted with O'Neill for two
years in Paris concerning the possibilities of
converting his play into an opera. They met
at midnight and talked for hours, until
Gruenberg persuaded O'Neill not only to per-
mit him to compose the music for it, but also
to allow him to make some necessary changes
in the play. After securing O'Neill's consent,
Gruenberg rented a house in Old Orchard,
Maine, and there spent fourteen months
working on the opera. It remains, up to the
present time, not only Gruenberg's most im-
portant work, but one of the most important
American operas in the repertory. The first
performance was a success, and the event
was received by most of the critics as a major
one in the history of American music.
Marion Bauer has written the following
analysis of Gruenberg's score : "The mood of
Jones, first in his braggadocio, then in his
panic as it increases, is mirrored in the music.
Gruenberg has achieved a new and original
effect in the opera in treating the orchestra
as background to the exciting and moving
drama. Although incidental, the music
played apart from the opera would probably
be one of the most extraordinary scores of
modern times. The composer has lost all
sense of personality in the primitive force of
the music. Short-breathed phrases follow
each other in rapid succession. The deeper-
toned instruments are used to create a som-
ber, sinister web over which the highest
registers of the woodwinds and violins flare
up shriekingly."
Gruenberg, who has edited four volumes
of Negro spirituals, was, indeed, strongly
influenced by Negro music in the writing of
this operatic score: one of the high moments
of the opera is an original "spiritual," Stand-
in' in the Need of Prayer, which Brutus
Jones sings towards the close of the opera.
A much more recent work by Gruenberg
also influenced by Negro music is the Con-
certo for Violin and Orchestra, which he
wrote on a commission by Jascha Heifetz,
and which that violinist introduced with the
Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy
conducting, on December 1, 1945. In the
second movement, Gruenberg uses several
bars of two Negro spirituals. In the third
movement, Gruenberg passes to other bits of
Americana, when he interpolates some bars
Guamieri 113
from the Arkansas Traveler and gives a
musical description of a religious revival
meeting. Olin Downes described the music
of this concerto as "cheerful, melodious,
lively, and externally idiomatic/'
Gruenberg has been active in societies
promoting modern music; he has served as
president of the American division of the
ISCM, and was one of the co-founders of
the League of Composers. For three years,
he was head of the composition department
of the Chicago Musical College. After this,
however, he went to California, and has lived
there since then, writing music for the
movies. Three of his motion-picture scores
have been winners of Academy awards : The
Fight for Life, So Ends Our Night, and
Commandos Strike at Dawn.
Before the war, Gruenberg's favorite pas-
time was travel: he has been to Europe and
back twenty-five times. Of his more seden-
tary hobbies, his major one is chess ; he used
to play a great deal with the late Noguchi,
the Japanese scientist, who was an intimate
friend.
In 1947, Gruenberg was elected a member
of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
PRINCIPAL WOHKS: Chamber MiwicSooata
for Violin and Piano, 1912; Suite for Violin and
Piano, 1920; Indiscretions, for string quartet, 1922;
Daniel Jazz, for tenor and eight Instruments, 1923;
Creation, for Baritone and eight instruments, 1924;
Piano Quintet, 1929; Diversions, for string quartet,
1930; Second Quintet, 1937; Quartet for Strings,
1937; Second String Quartet, 1938. Operas The
Witch of Brocken, 1912; The Bridge of the Gods,
1913; The Dumb Wife, 1921; Jack and the Bean-
stalk, 1930; Emperor Jones, 1932; Queen Helena,
1936; Green Mansions, radio opera, 1937, Or-
chestral Music Tht Hill of Dreams, 1912; The
Enchanted Isle, 1918; Vagabondia, 1920; Jazz Suite,
1925; First Symphony, 1926; Music to an Imagi-
nary Ballet, -1929; Nine Moods, 1929; Second Con-
certo for Piano and Orchestra, 1942; Concerto for
Violin and Orchestra, 1944; Second Symphony,
1944; Third Symphony, 1944; Music to an Imagi-
nary Ballet, second series, 1944; American Suite,
1945; Dance Rhapsody, 1945; Music to an Imagin-
ary Legend, 1946; Fourth Symphony; Variations
on a Pastoral Theme, 1947-48; Fifth Symphony,
1947-48.
RECORDINGS: Concerto for Violin and Or-
chestra, VM-1079 (Heifetz; San Francisco Sym-
phony Monteux) ; Standin* in the Need of Prayer,
from Emperor Jones, V-7959 (Tibbett).
ABOUT- Bauer, M. Twentieth Century Music;
Rosenfeld, P, Discoveries of a Music Critic
"\
Camargo Guamieri 1907'
A MONG Latin-American composers born
since 1900," wrote Gilbert Chase, "the
outstanding figure Is undoubtedly the Brazil-
ian Camargo Guar-
nieri."
Camargo Guarni-
eri was born in Sao
Paulo, Brazil, on Feb-
ruary 1, 1907. His
first music teacher
was his father, a pas-
sionate music lover,
and a musician who
played in theatre or-
chestras and in the
town band. Later, Camargo Guarnieri
studied composition with Antonio de Sa
Pereira and Lamberto Baldi. At the Sao
Paulo Conservatory he was an honor student,
and was subsequently appointed professor
there. He also became conductor of the
Choral Society.
In 1938 Guamieri won a government fel-
lowship enabling him to complete his music
studies In Paris with Koechlin and Ruhl-
mann. The outbreak of World War II
brought him back to his native land when he
learned that he had won first prize in an in-
ternational competition sponsored by Samuel
S. Fels of Philadelphia for a violin concerto.
In 1943 Guamieri paid a six-month visit to
the United States on an Invitation from the
Pan American Union. During this period
and again In the winter of 1946 when he re-
turned to the United States for a second visit
he conducted the Boston Symphony and
other major American orchestras in his own
works.
Though his music is in a modern har-
monic vein, It is Intrinsically national, with-
out ever borrowing directly from folklore
sources. His melodies and they are re-
markably lyrical are his own. He Is also
skillfully adept in writing contrapuntal
music.
His first important work, the Dansa
Brasileira, composed in 1928, gave early in-
dication of his folk music tendencies. In
1944, in a contest for a symphonic work of
Brazilian content, Guarnieri won the Lulz
Alberto Penteado de Rezonde prize for his
Symphony. This work was given its Amen-
114 Hadley
can premiere on November 29, 1946, with
the composer directing the Boston Symphony.
One of Guarnieri's more recent compo-
sitions is also one of his most important,
the Prologo e Fuga, introduced to this coun-
try by the Boston Symphony Orchestra,
under Eleazar de Carvalho, on December
26, 1947.
"He has everything it takes," wrote
Aaron Copland of Guarnieri in Modern
Music, a a personality of his own, a finished
technique and a fecund imagination. His
gift is more orderly than that of Villa-Lobos,
though none the less Brazilian. . . . The
thing I like best about the music is its
healthy emotional expression it is the
honest statement of how one man feels."
Guarnieri is the conductor of the Civic
Orchestra in Sao Paulo, and has held the
chair of harmony, counterpoint, and fugue
and composition at the National Conserva-
tory of Panama at the invitation of the Pan-
ama government.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music -Piano
Trio; String Quartet; 2 Sonatas for Violin and
Piano; Sonata for 'Cello and Piano; Tostao de
Chuva, for voice and twelve solo instruments, 1941.
Chord Music A Morte do Aviador cantata.
Dansa Brasileira, 1928; Curuca; Perereca; Dansa
Operas-Pedro Malazarte, 1932. Orchestral Music
Selvagem; Tres Dansas, for voice and orchestra;
Tres Poemas, for voice and orchestra, 1939; Con-
certo for Violin and Orchestra; Concerto for Piano
and Orchestra; Concerto for 'Cello and Orchestra;
Abertura Concertante; Symphony, 1944; Concerto
No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra, 1945; "Prologo e
Fiiga, 1947. Piano Music Czng&o Sertaneja; 3
Sonatinas; Toccata; Toada Triste. Songs Lera-
branca do Losango Caqui; Trovas de Amor; Treze
Canc.6es de Amor, 1926-37.
ABOUT: Inter- American Monthly September
1942; Modern Music January 1943.
Henry Hadley 1871-1937
JJENRY KIMBALL" HADLEY was born
in Somerville, Massachusetts, on De-
cember 20, 187L His father was the director
of music in several Boston public schools.
Though Henry Hadley early showed signs of
a love for music, his mother opposed formal
training. One day, however, she found him
stretched out on the floor deep at work writ-
ing a set of waltzes. This music revealed
such talent that she withdrew her opposition
and his father taught him the violin and piano.
Hadley was then enrolled at the New England
Conservatory, where his instructors included
Stephen A. Emery and George Chadwick.
At the age of seventeen Hadley composed
an operetta, Happy Jack, which for many
years was popular in schools and colleges.
On December 9, 1889, an entire concert de-
voted to his works was given at the Franklin
Church in Somerville.
In 1891, Walter Dam-
rosch conducted Had-
ley's Hector and An-
dromache. In 1893,
Hadley toured with
the Laura Schirmer-
Mapleson Opera
Company as violinist
and assistant conduc-
tor, but abandoned
that organization Apeda
when he heard that it was on the verge of
bankruptcy. The following year found him in
Vienna, studying counterpoint with Mandy-
czewski.
Back in the United States, Hadley be-
came music instructor at St. Paul's Episcopal
School for Boys in Garden City, Long Is-
land, a post formerly held by Horatio Parker,
Four years later he branched out in still an-
other direction conducting. From 1904 to
1910, Hadley toured Europe, writing a great
deal of music, studying with Thuille in Mu-
nich, and conducting orchestras in Berlin,
Warsaw, and Mainz. Upon his return to
America, he was appointed conductor of the
Seattle Symphony Orchestra. After that,
he conducted many famous orchestras in
America and Europe, including the Boston
Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the
London Symphony, and the Manhattan
Symphony.
Despite his long and active career as a
conductor, Hadley was singularly produc-
tive as a composer. He wrote a whole li-
brary of works in every possible form. His
style was described by Otto Kinkeldey as
"consistent and unified." Kinkeldey wrote:
"He made no violent attempt to borrow new
and startling effects from the representatives
of the revolutionary tendencies in art. Fer-
tile melodic invention, freshness, and manly
straightforward expression in idiom . . .
mark his work from beginning to end."
Hadley composed five operas, of which
the most famous and successful was Cleo-
patra's Night, based on a story by Gautier.
Haieff 115
The premiere took place at the Metropolitan
Opera House on January 31, 1920. Some of
his best writing, however, was found in his
orchestral music, particularly in such tone
poems as Salome, Lucifer, and The Ocean.
It is, however, generally agreed that, pleas-
ing though his music is at its best, it is a bit
too facile. Hadley, unfortunately, wrote too
easily, and his music contains much super-
ficial writing.
In 1918, Hadley was married to the fa-
mous concert singer, Inez Barbour. He was
always a companionable person, described by
one writer as "gay and full of fun . . . and
generous." He was a bohemian in dress and
manner. His favorite diversion was globe-
trotting ; his only exercise, walking.
When he composed ideas came so rapidly
to him that he could not write quickly enough
to put them down. He had such powers of
concentration while composing that he was
able to do his work even while friends talked
to him. When he scored a major symphonic
work, he liked to have his wife read aloud
to him,
Hadley was the recipient of numerous
honors, including the Order of Merit from
the French government. He received an
honorary doctorate from Tufts College in
1925, and was a member of the National In-
stitute of Arts and Letters and the American
Academy of Arts and Letters.
Henry Hadley died in New York on Sep-
tember 6, 1937.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber Music-~~Qumttt
in A Minor, for piano and strings, 1920; Trio,
No. 2, for piano, violin, and 'cello, 1933; Second
String Quartet, 1934. Choral Music Ode-Music,
1917; The New Earth, 1917; Resurgam, 1922;
Mirtil in Arcadia, 1927; Belshazzar, 1932. Operas
Azora, 1915 ; Bianco, erne-act opera, 1916 ; Cleo-
patra's Night, 1918 ; A Night in Old Paris, one-act
opera, 1925. Orchestral Mime Salome, 1907;
Lucifer, 1914; The Ocean, 1916; Aurora Borealis,
overture, 1931; Herod, overture, 1931; Youth
Triumphant, 1931; Streets of Pekin, suite, 1932;
Alma Mater, overture, 1932; Scherzo Diabolique,
1934; Connecticut Tercentenary, 1935; Concertino
for Piano and Orchestra, 1937.
ABOUT: Boardman, H. R. Henry Hadley.
Alexei Haieff 1914*
A LEXEI HAIEFF was bom in Bla-
goveschensk, Russia, in 1914. When fee
was six years old, his family settled in China,
where the boy was educated both musically
and academically. In 1932 he came to the
United States, and, settling permanently in
New York City, turned with seriousness of
purpose to the study of music. After a period
of study with Con-
stantin Shvedoff, he
won a scholarship to
the Juilliard School,
staying three years
to study with Fred-
erick Jacobi a 1
Rubin Goldmark. He
was also a pupil of
Nadia Boulanger in
Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts, and in Paris. Gene Fenn
Recognition came to him in 1942, when
he was awarded both the LiK Boulanger
Memorial Award and a medal from the
American Academy in Rome. Four years
later he received a Guggenheim Fellowship,
and in 1947 he was given a grant of $1,000
by the National Academy of Arts and Let-
ters.
Though HaiefFs works are comparatively
few in number, they are all characterized by
great distinction of style, sound craftsman-
ship, and a capacity to speak with directness
and forceful logic. Among his more im-
portant works to receive successful perform-
ances were his Cantata on a Russian Folk
Text, heard at the Library of Congress in
1939 ; his Serenade, introduced by the League
of Composers- in New York in 1945 ; and his
ballet, Zondilda and Her Entourage, pre-
sented by Merce Cunningham and his group
in New York City in 1946. Characteristic
of the high esteem with which he is held is
the fact that several important commissions
have come his way, notably one from the
Koussevitzky Music Foundation, and an-
other from the Juilliard School of Music.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Ballet Zondilda and Her
Entourage, 1946 ; Beauty and the Beast, 1947.
Chamber Music Serenade, for oboe, clarinet,
bassoon, and piano, 1940; Suite, for violin and
piano, 1941 ; Sonata for Two Pianos, 1945. Choral
Music A. Short Cantata on a Russian Folk Text,
1939. Orchestral Music Symphony, 1942 j Diverti-
mento, for small orchestra, 1944, Piano Music
Five Pieces, 1947.
ABOUT: Rets, C Composers in America (rev.
ed).
116 Hanson
Howard Hanson 1896"
OWARD HAROLD HANSON was
on October 28, 1896 in the town of
Wahoo, Nebraska. Born of Swedish par-
ents, the young com-
poser received his
early training in this
community, which
had been largely set-
tled in earlier days by
Swedish pioneers.
This influence of her-
edity and environ-
ment greatly affected
Hanson's early com-
positions, and is re-
flected in his Nordic Symphony, a work in
which the composer pays homage to the land
of his parents' birth. Beginning the study
of music and making his first attempts at
composition in his seventh year, Hanson
continued his musical studies while pursuing
his academic studies. His musical gods of
those days were Handel and Grieg.
After being graduated from the local
high school and from the School of Music of
Lusher College, Hanson left Wahoo, came to
New York, and was enrolled at the Institute
of Musical Art, where his teachers included
James Friskin (piano) and Percy Goetschius
(composition). From the Institute he went
on to Northwestern University, combining
academic study with that of musical com-
position. He received his degree from the
University in his nineteenth year, and one
year after that he was appointed professor
of theory and composition at the College of
the Pacific in San Jose, California. After
three years Hanson rose to the position of
Dean of the Conservatory of Fine Arts he
was only twenty-two years old at the time
and held that office until 1921. During this
period some of his smaller works for orches-
tra were written, including the score of the
California Forest Play of 1920.
In 1921 Hanson was awarded the Prix
de Rome in the competition for the fellow-
ship at the American Academy in Rome and
thus became the first Music Fellow to enter
the Academy through this contest. He then
took up residence in Rome, where he re-
mained for three years.
When he returned to the United States
in 1924, Hanson was appointed Director of
the Eastman School of Music of the Uni-
versity of Rochester. He still holds this post.
In 1935 he was elected a member of the
National Institute of Arts and Letters, and
in June 1938, he was made a Fellow of the
Royal Academy of Music in Sweden.
Some of Hanson's important works date
from the beginning of his fellowship at the
American Academy in Rome. The first of
these was the Nordic Symphony, composed
in 1922, and introduced by the Augusteo
Orchestra in Rome, the composer conduct-
ing. This is a mature work in which Han-
son's later style is evident: his adherence to
classical form, his spacious writing, his fine
feeling for beauty. "The symphony," ex-
plains the composer, "is cyclical, the first
movement containing the material upon
which the entire symphony is based. This
movement, strongly Nordic in character,
sings of the solemnity, austerity, and gran-
deur of the North, of its restless surging
and strife, of its somberness and melan-
choly/' Both the style of the symphony and
its subject inspired many critics to refer to
Hanson as the "American Sibelius." Han-
son, however, did not have any knowledge of
Sibelius' music at the time he wrote this
work, and the symphony is essentially Anglo-
Saxon in character, springing from the soil
of the American Midwest.
In subsequent works, such as the Lament
for Beowulf, Pan and the Priest, and the
Romantic Symphony, Hanson's style was
further crystallized : its roots cling to classi-
cal soil, but the fruits are essentially ro-
mantic. Hanson, describing his credo as a
composer, says: "I am a 'natural* composer.
I write music because I have to write it.
Though I have a profound interest in theo-
retical problems, my own music comes 'from
the heart* and is a direct expression of my
own emotional reactions."
His Second Symphony, subtitled "Ro-
mantic," is a good example of Hanson's
style at its best. It represents, as the com-
poser explains, "an escape from the rather
bitter. type of modern musical realism," and
it aims to be "young in spirit, lyrical, and
romantic in temperament, and simple and
direct in expression." Commissioned by the
Boston Symphony Orchestra for its fiftieth
anniversary season, it was introduced by that
organization on November 28, 1930.
Harris 117
On February 10, 1934, the Metropolitan
Opera House presented the world premiere
of Hanson's opera, Merry Mount. The book,
set in colonial New England, was by Richard
3L Stokes. Possessing a score of great
musicianship, taste, and feeling, the opera
was at once acclaimed a major contribution.
It was given nine successful performances in
one season, something of a record for a new
opera.
Hanson's major works since 1934 in-
elude two more symphonies. The Third was
introduced by the Boston Symphony Or-
chestra, the composer conducting, on No-
vember 3, 1939. The Fourth, the premiere
of which took place on December 3, 1943 by
the Boston Symphony under Hanson, be-
came, in 1944, the first symphony to win the
Pulitzer Prize. Somewhat ritual in char-
acter, this work has the following subtitles
for its four movements : "Kyrie," "Requies-
cat," "Dies Irae/' and "Lux Aeterna."
Hanson's many years as director of the
Eastman School of Music have placed him
in the very vanguard of music educators in
this country. But his activities in the field
of education do not end here by any means.
He has been, and still is, associated with
numerous organizations that have well
served the cause of music education. Han-
son has been president of the National Asso-
ciation of Schools of Music and chairman of
its Commission on Curricula; president of
the Music Teachers' National Association;
president of the National Music Council;
and chairman of the Commission on Grad-
uate Study of the National Association of
Schools of Music. Hanson is also a member
of the advisory committee on music of the
Department of State.
In addition to his importance as a com-
poser and teacher, Hanson has also dis-
tinguished himself as a conductor particu-
larly of modern American works. For more
than two decades, he has conducted an an-
nual festival of modern American music in
Rochester, which up to 1946 presented al-
most a thousand works by six hundred com-
posers. He has also been a guest conductor
of practically every major orchestra in this
country. In 1933, when he was invited by
the pre-Hitler government in Germany to
conduct some of Germany's leading orches-
tras in concerts of American music, he
scored a great personal success. He also
conducted in Finland, where his interpreta-
tion of Sibelius' music evoked warm praise
from that master.
Hanson has been described as a tall,
lanky, and stoop-shouldered man, who, de-
spite his goatee, gives a youthful appearance.
His is a clear and incisive mind which makes
it possible for .him to perform many duties
at the same time, and to perform them
equally well He thrives on executive work,
and seems particularly happy with his many
pressing duties in Rochester as the head of a
great educational institution.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Chamber AfiwtV String
Quartet, Op. 23, 1923. Chord Music The Lament
for Beowulf, Op. 25, for mixed chorus and or-
chestra, 1925; Heroic Elegy, Op. 28, for mixed
chorus (without words) and orchestra, 1927; Songs
from Drum Taps (Walt Whitman) Op. 32, for
mixed chorus, baritone solo, and orchestra, 1935;
Hymn for Pioneers, for male voices, 1938. Opera
Merry Mount, Op. 31, 1933. Orchestra! Music
Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, "Nordic/* Op. 21,
1922; North and West, symphonic poem with
choral obbligato, Op. 22, 1923; Lux Aeterna, sym-
phonic poem with viola obbligato, Op. 24, ' 1923 ;
Pan and the Priest, symphonic poem with piano
obbligato, Op. 26, 1926; Concerto for Organ and
Orchestra, Op. 27, 1926; Symphony No. 2, "Ro-
mantic," Op. 30, 1930; Suite from Merry Mount,
1938; Fantasy for String Orchestra, based on
String Quartet, Op. 23, 1939; Symphony No. 3,
Op. 33, 1941 ; Concerto for Organ, Strings, and
Harp, 1943; Symphony No. 4, Op. 34, 1943;.
Serenade for Flute, Harp, and Strings, 1946.
RECORDINGS: Lament for Beowulf, VM-8&9
(Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra and East-
man School Choir Hanson) ; Merry Mount : Tis
an earth defiled, V-7959 (Tibbctt) ; Nordic Sym-
phony, VM-973 (Eastman- Rochester Symphony-
Hanson); Romantic Symphony, VM-648 (Eastman-
Rochester Symphony Hanson) ; Symphony No. 3,
VM-1170 (Boston Symphony Koussevitzky) .
ABOUT: Cowell, H. (ed) American Composers
on American Music; Howard, J. T. Our Con-
temporary Composers.
Roy Harris 1898*
HARRIS was born in Lincoln
County, Oklahoma, on February 12,
1898. His parents had staked a claim in the
last of the frontier land rushes, building for
themselves the log cabin in which Roy Harris
was born. When the boy was five years old,
sieges of malaria sent the family from Okla-
homa to California, where they built a farm
in the San Gabriel Valley. It was there that
Harris spent his boyhood years. He showed
an unusual affection for books, reading
everything that came within his reach, from
118 Harris
f
mailing-house catalogs to Shakespeare. He
showed an even greater interest in music.
By himself, he acquired the elements of piano
playing; he also learned something about the
organ and clarinet.
When he was eighteen, Roy Harris ac-
quired a farm of his own. He coupled farm
work with the study of Greek philosophy.
One year later, America entered World War
I, and Harris joined the army as a private.
When the war ended, Harris returned to
California, abandoned
farming permanently,
and registered at the
Southern branch of
the University of
California as a stu-
dent of harmony. At
the same time he
dabbled with Hindu
theology. To earn his
living during this
period, he drove a
truck for a dairy, distributing each day some
three hundred pounds of butter and three
hundred dozen eggs.
His harmony class at the University con-
vinced him that he wished, above everything
else, to become a trained musician. Up to
this time his knowledge of music was little
more than elementary. Those instruments
he played, he played badly. His information
about harmony, theory, and composition was,
at best, perfunctory. But there was his great
love for music. With that as an irresistible
driving force, he approached the well-known
musician, Arthur Farwell, and asked to be
his pupil This was probably the first time
that Farwell took under his wing a pupil
w r ho had no musical background or training
to speak of. Farwell took him on because he
recognized in the young man a deep musical
instinct.
Harris worked with Farwell for two
years. He was as Farwell later wrote, a
serious pupil, eager to absorb all the informa-
tion he could about music, absorbing his les-
sons sponge-like into his memory. "I was
convinced that he would one day challenge
the world." Those two years transformed
an immature student into a composer, Har-
ris' first composition, an Andante for orches-
tra, written under Farwell's watchful eye,
was selected from a mass of manuscripts
submitted to the New York Philharmonic
Orchestra, and was introduced by that or-
ganization, Willem van Hoogstraten conduct-
ing, at the Lewisohn Stadium in the summer
of 1926. In 1926 Harris went to Paris
where he became a pupil of Nadia Boulanger.
He remained in Paris for three years, dur-
ing two of these years holding a Guggenheim
Fellowship.
Harris once confessed that the turning
point in his artistic life came as a result of
an accident that befell him in Paris in 1929
and which confined him to a hospital for
several months. He had already composed
his first major work, the Concerto for Piano,
Clarinet and String Quartet, which, intro-
duced in Paris, was handsomely praised by
the critics. He seemed well on his way
towards achieving recognition as a serious
composer when the misfortune* struck. He
fractured his spine and became a hospital
invalid. Brought back to America for a
major operation, which was successful, he
was confined to a hospital bed for many
months.
That accident, he felt at first, retarded the
advance of his career by many months. It
proved, however, a blessing in disguise. Up
to that time, he had done all his composing
at the piano. His works, therefore, had been
harmonic, because his fingers had instinc-
tively groped for chord combinations on the
keyboard. When, to escape the boredom
of hospital life, he returned to composing, he
had to dispense with the piano and he sud-
denly found himself artistically liberated.
With pencil in hand, and without the pos-
sibility of reaching for a piano keyboard
every few bars, he began to write more
quickly; his music became more lucid, flowed
much more easily. He could permit his
melody to grow and expand. He could
think and write contrapuntally.
In the works which immediately followed
this accident, Harris' contrapuntal style was
formed. Having been awarded the Creative
Fellowship of the Pasadena Music and Arts
Association in 1930 and 1931, Harris com-
posed his String Sextet, his Second String
Quartet, and his Symphony: 1933, in which
he proved himself to be an original and
forceful musical voice and one of the most
important musical discoveries in many years.
Harris 119
His music was performed in the concert
hall and over the radio, and was recorded ;
his Symphony was given a magnificent pre-
miere by the Boston Symphony under Kous-
sevitzky in 1934. Commissions for special
new works came to him in abundance from
the Boston Symphony, the League of Com-
posers, the Westminster Choir, Columbia
Records, Victor Records, Elizabeth Sprague
Coolidge, and the Columbia Broadcasting
System. Harris had arrived, and had arrived
quickly.
With such succeeding w r orks as the Cho-
rale, for string orchestra, the concert over-
ture Johnny Comes Marching Home, the
Piano Quintet, the Third String Quartet,
and the Third Symphony the first American
symphony to be performed by Toscanini and
one of the most frequently performed Amer-
ican symphonies in the repertory Harris
was acclaimed as the white hope of Ameri-
can music. The Italian composer, Alfredo
Casella, put it this way: "In producing a
composer such as this master, America has
placed herself in the front rank amongst
those nations who are concerned with build-
ing a music for the future." Probably no
other American composer has been more
often performed, and so successfully. In-
deed, in a nationwide poll conducted by the
Columbia Broadcasting System for an all-
request program to be performed by the New
York Philharmonic, Roy Harris was placed
at the head of the American composers.
Harris' style is not easy to classify.
He calls himself a "modern classicist." He
often writes in a fluid counterpoint faintly
suggestive of the sixteenth century. The
Harris characteristics, by which his best
works are recognizable, are to be found in
the mobility of his music its graceful and
uninterrupted movement as well as in his
long melodic line that grows and evolves
and matures through many bars, and his
striking harmonic and rhythmic structure, of
a sharpness that gives him modernity. Un-
less the listener is critically attentive to this
music he is likely to lose himself in the
adroit net of Harris 5 counterpoint, or to
lose the trend of Harris' melodic idea long
before it has been completely realized.
Harris'.. best music is abstract, depend-
ing entirely on its musical logic for its ap-
peal. Most important of all, it is intensely
American. It is not easy, however, to put a
finger on precisely what is American in, for
example, the Third or Sixth symphonies, or
chamber-music works like the Piano Quintet
and the Third String Quartet. Only rarely
does Harris call upon folk materials to give
his works native flavor, as he did in the
Folk-Song Symphony or in Folk Rhythms
of Today. And yet, as we listen to his mu-
sic, we feel that we are in personal contact
with American experiences. It has the ex-
panse of the western plains; the energy,
youth, and vitality of a young, growing
country. It is music compounded of strength,
enthusiasm, force, and optimism, such as one
might expect from an American. Even
Modern Music, a journal which prefers the
analytical to the programmatic approach in
discussing modern works, finds it best to
speak of Harris' music in the following
way: "Here is music of the bleak and bar-
ren expanses of western Kansas, of the
brooding prairie night, of the fast darkness
of the American soul, of its despair and its
courage, its defeat and its triumph, its strug-
gling aspirations."
From 1934 to 1938 Roy Harris was head
of the composition department of the West-
minster Choir School in Princeton, New
Jersey. Since that time, Harris has been
Composer-in-Residence at Cornell Universi-
ty. During the World War II, Harris was
gr 
