Ernest Bloch
Encyclopedia
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
-born American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Life
Bloch was born in GenevaGeneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
and began playing the violin at age 9. He began composing soon afterwards. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...
. He then travelled around Europe, moving to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(where he studied composition from 1900-1901 with Iwan Knorr
Iwan Knorr
Iwan Knorr was a German composer and teacher of music. A native of Mewe, he attended the Leipzig Conservatory where he studied with Ignaz Moscheles, Ernst Friedrich Richter and Carl Reinecke. In 1874 he became a teacher and in 1878 director of music theory instruction at the Imperial...
at the Hoch Conservatory
Hoch Conservatory
Dr. Hoch’s Konservatorium - Musikakademie was founded in Frankfurt am Main on September 22, 1878. Through the generosity of Frankfurter Joseph Hoch, who bequeathed the Conservatory one million German gold marks in his testament, a school for music and the arts was established for all age groups. ...
in Frankfurt), on to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1903 and back to Geneva before settling in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1916, taking American citizenship in 1924. He held several teaching appointments in the U.S., with George Antheil
George Antheil
George Antheil was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor. A self-described "Bad Boy of Music", his modernist compositions amazed and appalled listeners in Europe and the US during the 1920s with their cacophonous celebration of mechanical devices.Returning permanently to...
, Frederick Jacobi
Frederick Jacobi
Frederick Jacobi was a prolific American composer and teacher.His works include symphonies, concerti, chamber music, works for solo piano and for solo organ, lieder, and one opera....
, Bernard Rogers
Bernard Rogers
Bernard Rogers was an American composer.Rogers was born in New York City. He studied with Arthur Farwell, Ernest Bloch, Percy Goetschius, and Nadia Boulanger. He taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Hartt School, and the Eastman School of Music...
, and Roger Sessions
Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...
among his pupils. In December 1920 he was appointed the first Musical Director of the newly formed Cleveland Institute of Music
Cleveland Institute of Music
The Cleveland Institute of Music is an independent music conservatory located in the University Circle district of Cleveland, Ohio, United States and is overseen by president Joel Smirnoff and Adrian Daly, dean....
, a post he held until 1925. Following this he was director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, formerly the California Conservatory of Music, founded in 1917, is a music school, with an enrollment of about 400 students. It was launched by Ada Clement and Lillian Hodgehead in the remodeled home of Lillian's parents on Sacramento Street. It was called the...
until 1930.
In 1941, Bloch moved to the small coastal community of Agate Beach, Oregon
Agate Beach, Oregon
Agate Beach is an unincorporated community in Lincoln County, Oregon, United States.Agate Beach is named for the agates that are found on the beaches of the Pacific Ocean between Newport and Yaquina Head. Agate Beach post office was established in 1912 and closed in 1971.Historically, the area's...
and lived there the rest of his life. He died in 1959 in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
at the age of 78. The Bloch Memorial has been moved from near his house in Agate Beach to a more prominent location at the Newport Performing Arts Center in Newport, Oregon
Newport, Oregon
Newport is a city in Lincoln County, Oregon, United States. It was incorporated in 1882, though the name dates back to the establishment of a post office in 1868...
.
Music
Bloch's early works, including his opera MacbethMacbeth (Bloch)
Macbeth is an opera in three acts, with music by Ernest Bloch to a libretto by Edmond Fleg, after the eponymous play of William Shakespeare. Bloch composed the opera between 1904 and 1906, but it did not receive its first performance until November 30, 1910 by the Opéra-Comique Paris...
(1910) show the influence of both the Germanic school of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
and the impressionism
Impressionist music
Impressionism in music was a tendency in European classical music, mainly in France, which appeared in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Similarly to its precursor in the visual arts, musical impressionism focuses on a suggestion and an atmosphere...
of Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
. Mature works, including his best-known pieces, often draw on Jewish liturgical and folk music. These works include Schelomo
Schelomo
Schelomo is a cello concerto written by Ernest Bloch, first published in 1916 and receiving its first premiere on May 3, 1917 in Carnegie Hall, New York City. This Rhapsodie hébraïque pour violoncelle et grand orchestre was completed during Bloch's "Jewish Cycle," which lasted from 1912 to 1926...
(1916) for cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
and orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, which he dedicated to the cellist Alexandre Barjansky (of Barjansky Stradivarius
Barjansky Stradivarius
The Barjansky Stradivarius of c.1690 is an antique cello fabricated by the Italian Cremonese luthier Antonio Stradivari . The Barjansky is named after Russian cellist Alexandre Barjansky, who played the instrument during the first half of the twentieth century...
fame), the Israel Symphony (1916), Baal Shem for violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
(1923, later version for violin and orchestra), the "From Jewish Life" suite for cello and piano, and Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service, 1933) for baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
, choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
and orchestra. Other pieces from this period include a violin concerto
Violin concerto
A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin and instrumental ensemble, customarily orchestra. Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up through the present day...
written for Joseph Szigeti
Joseph Szigeti
Joseph Szigeti was a Hungarian violinist.Born into a musical family, he spent his early childhood in a small town in Transylvania. He quickly proved himself to be a child prodigy on the violin, and moved to Budapest with his father to study with the renowned pedagogue Jenő Hubay...
and the rhapsody America
America, an Epic Rhapsody
America, an Epic Rhapsody is an orchestral work composed between 1926 and 1927 by Swiss-born Ernest Bloch, as a tribute to the country to which he had emigrated in 1916. The work consists of three movements, covering the history of the United States and entitled '1620', '1861-1865' and '1926'...
for chorus and orchestra, which won a 1927 prize (sponsored by Musical America) for the best symphonic work on an American theme by an American composer. (Bloch qualified because he was a naturalized American citizen.)
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
and the Symphony of the Air made the first stereo recording of America for Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
, which included a short speech by Bloch that explained why he wrote the piece; in June 1993, Gerard Schwarz
Gerard Schwarz
Gerard Schwarz is an American conductor. He was music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 2011.In 2007 Schwarz was named music director of the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, having served as principal conductor since 2005...
and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra recorded the work for Delos
Delos
The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece...
.
Pieces written after World War II are a little more varied in style, though Bloch's essentially Romantic
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
idiom remains. Some, such as the Suite hébraïque (1950) continue the Jewish theme; others, such as the second concerto grosso
Concerto grosso
The concerto grosso is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists and full orchestra...
(1952), display an interest in neo-classicism (though here too the harmonic language is basically Romantic, even though the form is Baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
); and others, including the late string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s, include elements of atonality
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
.
Orchestral
- Symphony in C minor (1902)
- Hiver-Printemps (1905 Paris-Geneva)
- Trois Poèmes Juifs for large orchestra (1913 Satigny)
- Israel, Symphony for orchestra (1916 Geneva)
- In the Night: A Love Poem (1922 Cleveland)
- Poems of the Sea (1922 Cleveland)
- Concerto Grosso No. 1 for string orchestra with piano obbligato (1925 Santa Fe - Cleveland)
- Four Episodes for chamber orchestra (1926 San Francisco)
- America: An Epic Rhapsody for Orchestra (1926 San Francisco)
- Helvetia, Symphonic Poem (1929 Frankfurt - San Francisco)
- Evocations, Symphonic Suite (1937 Châtel, Haute Savoie)
- Suite Symphonique (1944 Agate Beach)
- In Memoriam (1952 Agate Beach)
- Concerto Grosso No. 2 for string orchestra (1952 Agate Beach)
- Sinfonia Breve (1953 Agate Beach)
- Symphony in E (1955 Agate Beach)
Concertante
- SchelomoSchelomoSchelomo is a cello concerto written by Ernest Bloch, first published in 1916 and receiving its first premiere on May 3, 1917 in Carnegie Hall, New York City. This Rhapsodie hébraïque pour violoncelle et grand orchestre was completed during Bloch's "Jewish Cycle," which lasted from 1912 to 1926...
, Rhapsodie Hébraïque for cello solo and large orchestra (1916 Geneva-New York) - Suite for viola and orchestra (1919 New York)
- Voice in the Wilderness, Symphonic Poem for orchestra with cello obbligato (1936 Châtel, Haute Savoie)
- Concerto for violin and orchestra (1938 Châtel, Haute Savoie)
- Baal Shem for violin and orchestra (1939)
- Concerto Symphonique for piano and orchestra (1948 Agate Beach)
- Scherzo Fantasque for piano and orchestra (1948 Agate Beach)
- Concertino for flute, viola and string orchestra (1948, 1950 Agate Beach)
- Suite Hébraïque, for viola (or violin) and orchestra (1951 Agate Beach)
- Symphony for trombone and orchestra (1954 Agate Beach)
- Proclamation for trumpet and orchestra (1955 Agate Beach)
- Suite Modale for flute and string orchestra (1956 Agate Beach)
- Two Last Poems for flute solo and orchestra (1958 Agate Beach)
Vocal and choral
- Historiettes au Crépuscule for mezzo-soprano and piano (1904 Paris)
- Poèmes d'Automne for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (1906 Geneva)
- Psaume 22 (1913 Satigny)
- Deux Psaumes pour soprano et orchestre, précédés d'un prélude orchestral (1914 Satigny)
- Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service) (1933 Roveredo-Ticino)
- America: An Epic Rhapsody for chorus and orchestra (1926 San Francisco)
Chamber
- Piano Quintet No. 1 (1923 Cleveland)
- Piano Quintet No. 2 (1957)
- String Quartet
- String Quartet in G (1896)
- String Quartet No. 1 (1916 Geneva - New York)
- String Quartet No. 2 (1945 Agate Beach)
- String Quartet No. 3 (1952 Agate Beach)
- String Quartet No. 4 (1953 Agate Beach)
- String Quartet No. 5 (1956 Agate Beach)
- In the Mountains (1924 Cleveland)
- Night (1923 Cleveland)
- Paysages (1923 Cleveland); the first movement Night was inspired by Robert J. FlahertyRobert J. FlahertyRobert Joseph Flaherty, F.R.G.S. was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature length documentary film, Nanook of the North...
's Nanook of the NorthNanook of the NorthNanook of the North is a 1922 silent documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty. In the tradition of what would later be called salvage ethnography, Flaherty captured the struggles of the Inuk Nanook and his family in the Canadian arctic... - Prelude (1925 Cleveland)
- Two Pieces (1938, 1950 Châtel, Haute Savoie - Agate Beach)
- Three Nocturnes for piano trio (1924 Cleveland)
Instrumental
- Violin
- Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano (1920 Cleveland)
- Baal Shem (1923 Cleveland)
- Poème Mystique, Sonata No. 2 for violin and piano (1924 Cleveland)
- Nuit Exotique (1924 Cleveland)
- Abodah (1929 San Francisco)
- Mélodie (1929 San Francisco)
- Suite Hébraïque for violin and piano (1951 Agate Beach)
- Suite No. 1 for violin solo (1958 Agate Beach)
- Suite No. 2 for violin solo (1958 Agate Beach)
- Viola
- Suite for viola and piano (1919 New York)
- Suite Hébraïque for viola and piano (1951 Agate Beach)
- Meditation and Processional for viola and piano (1951 Agate Beach)
- Suite for viola solo (unfinished) (1958 Agate Beach)
- Cello
- Méditation Hébraïque (1924 Cleveland)
- From Jewish Life (1925 Cleveland)
- Suite No. 1 for cello solo (1956 Agate Beach)
- Suite No. 2 for cello solo (1956 Agate Beach)
- Suite No. 3 for cello solo (1957 Agate Beach)
- Suite Modale for flute and piano (1956 Agate Beach)
Piano
- Ex-voto (1914 Geneva)
- In the Night: A Love Poem (1922 Cleveland)
- Poems of the Sea (1922 Cleveland)
- Four Circus Pieces (1922 Cleveland)
- Danse Sacrée (1923 Cleveland)
- Enfantines, 10 pieces for children (1923 Cleveland)
- Nirvana, Poem (1923 Cleveland)
- Five Sketches in Sepia (1923 Cleveland)
- Sonata (1935 Châtel, Haute Savoie); written for Guido AgostiGuido AgostiGuido Agosti was an Italian pianist and piano teacher.Agosti was born in Forlì in 1901. He studied piano with Ferruccio Busoni, Bruno Mugellini and Filippo Ivaldi, earning his diploma at age 13. He studied counterpoint under Benvenuti and literature at Bologna University. He commenced his...
- Visions et Prophéties (1936 Châtel, Haute Savoie)
Family
Ernest Bloch and his wife Marguerite Schneider had three children: Ivan, Suzanne and Lucienne. Ivan, born in 1905, became an engineer with the Bonneville Power AdministrationBonneville Power Administration
The Bonneville Power Administration is an American federal agency based in the Pacific Northwest. BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 to market electric power from the Bonneville Dam located on the Columbia River and to construct facilities necessary to transmit that power...
in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
. Suzanne Bloch, born in 1907, was a musician particularly interested in Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
music who taught harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
, lute
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
and composition at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Lucienne Bloch
Lucienne Bloch
Lucienne Bloch was born in Geneva, Switzerland, and came to America with her family in 1917. She was the youngest child of internationally famous composer and photographer Ernest Bloch....
, born in 1909, worked as Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
's chief photographer on the Rockefeller Center mural project
Man at the Crossroads
Man at the Crossroads was a mural by Diego Rivera.The Rockefellers wanted to have a mural put on the ground-floor wall of Rockefeller Center. Nelson Rockefeller wanted Henri Matisse or Pablo Picasso to do it because he favored their modern style, but neither was available...
, became friends with Rivera's wife, the artist Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
, and took some key photos of Kahlo and the only photographs of Rivera's mural (which was destroyed because Lenin was depicted in it).
Photography
The Western Jewish History Center, of the Judah L. Magnes Museum, in Berkeley, CaliforniaBerkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
has a small collection of photographs of Ernest Bloch which document his interest in photography.
Many of the photographs Bloch took—over 6,000 negatives and 2,000 prints—are in the Ernest Bloch Archive at the Center for Creative Photography
Center for Creative Photography
The Center for Creative Photography , established in 1975 and located on the University of Arizona campus, is a research facility and archival repository containing the full archives of over sixty of the most famous American photographers including those of Edward Weston, Harry Callahan and Garry...
at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
in Tucson along with photographs by the likes of Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
, Edward Weston
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston was a 20th century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers…" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his forty-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of...
and Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
.http://www.ocean18.net/Ernest%20Bloch/Enest%20Bloch%20Project.htm
Sources
- Ernest Bloch: Composer in Nature's University by Nancy Steinberg. Oregon Coastal Council for the Arts. July, 2006
Bloch's photography was discovered by Eric B. Johnson in 1970. Johnson researched, edited and printed many of Bloch's photographs. 40 of these prints from Bloch's negatives are now in the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson AZ along with the entire collection of his negatives and prints. Johnson is currently Professor of Art and Design at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo Ca. An account of his discovery can be found on his website.
Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers, by Walter Simmons. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004) ISBN 0-8108-5728-6
External links
- Art of the States: Ernest Bloch String Quartet No. 2 (1945)
- Extensive discography (and work list), by Claude Torres
- Ernest Bloch's maximum card from Israel
- Ernest Bloch International Jubilee Concerts 2009
- The Robert Straussburg Collection of Ernest Bloch at the Belknap Collection of Performing Arts, University of FloridaUniversity of FloridaThe University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
. - Images of the Ernest Bloch House from the University of OregonUniversity of Oregon-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
digital archives