Ernest Bloch

File:Ernest Bloch in 1917 at a table (retouched).jpg

Ernest Bloch ({{IPAc-en|b|l|ɒ|k}}; {{IPA|de|blɔx|lang}}; July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959) was a Swiss-born American composer. Bloch was a preeminent artist in his day, and left a lasting legacy. He is recognized as one of the greatest Swiss composers in history.{{cite web|url=https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-composers-from-switzerland/|title=Lists: Rankings About Everything, Voted On By Everyone|website=Ranker.com|access-date=23 June 2018}}{{Dead link|date=March 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Several of his most notable compositions reflect his Jewish heritage. As well as producing musical scores, Bloch had an academic career that culminated in his recognition as Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley in 1952.{{cite web|url=http://music.berkeley.edu/ernest-bloch-honored|title=Ernest Bloch Honored|date=12 October 2009|website=Music.berkeley.edu|access-date=23 June 2018}}

Biography

Bloch was born in Geneva on July 24, 1880, to Jewish parents.{{cite news|url=http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/music/ernest-blochs-jewish-roots-played-out-in-his-music-344090/|title=Pittsburgh Post Gazette|date=June 1, 2009 | work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette}} He began playing the violin at age 9, and began composing soon after. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. He then traveled around Europe, moving to Germany (where he studied composition from 1900 to 1901 with Iwan Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt), on to Paris in 1903 and back to Geneva before settling in the United States in 1916, taking US citizenship in 1924. He held several teaching appointments in the US, where his pupils included George Antheil, Frederick Jacobi, Quincy Porter, Bernard Rogers, and Roger Sessions. {{See LMST|Ernest|Bloch}}

In 1917, Bloch became the first teacher of composition at Mannes School of Music, a post he held for three years. In December 1920 he was appointed the first Musical Director of the newly formed Cleveland Institute of Music, a post he held until 1925. In 1919 the San Francisco Symphony gave two of the earliest performances of his Schelomo, receiving high praise from multiple critics. Ada Clement and Lillian Hodghead of the newly named San Francisco Conservatory of Music visited Bloch in Cleveland in 1923 and invited him to teach at the Conservatory the following summer. He had previously been encouraged to come to San Francisco by Alfred Hertz and Temple Emanu El cantor Reuben Rinder. In 1925 Bloch resigned from the Cleveland Institute, where he had not been happy, and relocated to San Francisco. He was named the director of the Conservatory and remained in that position until 1930, when the school was running low on funds.{{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Leta E. |title=Music and Politics in San Francisco: From the 1906 Quake to the Second World War |date=2011 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520950092 |pages=111–116}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O4Q7DgAAQBAJ&q=ada+clement+&pg=PT142|title=Ernest Bloch Studies|last1=Knapp|first1=Alexander|last2=Solomon|first2=Norman|date=2017-01-05|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781316683996|language=en}} He returned to Switzerland, where he composed his "Avodath Hakodesh" ("Sacred Service") before returning to the US in 1939.{{cite news|url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm--bloch-macbeth-long-beach-opera-20130616,0,5356085.story|title=Los Angeles Times|date=June 17, 2013 | first=Richard S.|last=Ginell}}

Bloch joined the music faculty at Berkeley in 1941 and taught there one semester each year until his retirement in 1952. He and his wife lived primarily in the small coastal community of Agate Beach, Oregon.{{cite web|url=http://www.ocean18.net/Ernest%20Bloch/BlochFestivalProgram.pdf|title=Bloch Festival Program|website=Ocean18.net|access-date=23 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120409221540/http://www.ocean18.net/Ernest%20Bloch/BlochFestivalProgram.pdf|archive-date=9 April 2012|url-status=dead}} In 1947 he was among the founders of the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory.{{cite web|last1=Greenberg|first1=Robert|title=Music History Monday: Lotte Lehmann|url=https://robertgreenbergmusic.com/music-history-monday-lotte-lehmann/|website=robertgreenbergmusic.com|access-date=7 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200207093617/https://robertgreenbergmusic.com/music-history-monday-lotte-lehmann/|archive-date=7 February 2020|language=en-US|date=26 August 2019}}

In 1952 he was named a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, even though he had not been a full-time faculty member. He composed "In Memoriam" that year after the death of Ada Clement.

He died on July 15, 1959, in Portland, Oregon, of cancer at the age of 78.{{cite news |title=Ernest Bloch, 78, Composer, Is Dead. Creator of 'Schelomo' Wrote in Terms of Jewish Spirit. Used Bible Themes. Cited By Music Critics. Won Two Awards in 1953. Conducted Premiere of His 'Sacred Service' Here |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/07/16/archives/ernest-bloch-78-composer-is-dead-creator-of-schelomo-wrote-in-terms.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=16 July 1959 |access-date=2015-11-27 }} In keeping with a special tradition, his daughter, Lucienne Bloch, and her husband, Steve Dimitroff, prepared several death masks of Ernest Bloch. This once-common practice was usually undertaken to create a memento or portrait of the deceased, but it is unusual for an immediate family member to make the death mask. The Center for Creative Photography and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music each have a copy of Bloch's death mask.

Music

Bloch's compositions - in particular the Suite hébraïque for viola and orchestra, Baal Shem for violin and piano (later orchestrated) and Schelomo for cello and orchestra - often reflect his Jewish heritage. Bloch's father had at one stage intended to become a rabbi, and the young Ernest had a strong religious upbringing; as an adult he felt that to write music that expressed his Jewish identity was "the only way in which I can produce music of vitality and significance".Gdal Salesky, Famous Musicians of a Wandering Race (New York, 1927), quoted in Nigel Simeone's notes to Hyperion Records CD CDA68155 (2017) Perhaps what is at the heart of the question is his genius for evocative color in music. If some of his works evoke the atmosphere of the Old Testament, they also operate elsewhere with equally telling and totally different effect; the Gauguinesque South Seas in the slow movement of the first Quintet, and China [in the last of the] Four Episodes are examples. Beside Israel stand Helvetia and America; beside Scenes from Jewish Life stands Nirvana."{{cite web |title=University of California: In Memoriam |url=https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb2t1nb146;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00003&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=oac4 |website=Online Archive of California |access-date=16 February 2022}}

Yet there are many other sources of inspiration, such as the neo-classical influences evident in the

Concerto Grosso No. 1. His music uses a variety of contemporary harmonic devices. Some are enumerated in Vincent Persichetti's book Twentieth Century Harmony.{{cite book|last=Persichetti|first=Vincent|year=1961|title=Twentieth Century Harmony|publisher=W. W. Norton and Co.|isbn=978-0-393-09539-5|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780393095395}} According to Persichetti, these include the use of the Dorian mode and of harmony with extensive alterations in the first Concerto Grosso, tone clusters in his Piano Sonata, the percussive use of harmony, as well as serial harmony, in his Piano Quintet No. 1.

Family

Image:Ernest Bloch.jpg, Ivan and Lucienne]]

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 Administration in Portland, Oregon.

Suzanne Bloch, born in 1907, was a musician particularly interested in Renaissance music who taught harpsichord, lute and composition at the Juilliard School in New York.

Lucienne Bloch, born in 1909, worked as Diego Rivera's chief photographer on the Rockefeller Center mural project, became friends with Rivera's wife, the artist Frida Kahlo, 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,{{cite web|url=http://magnes.org/collections/wjhc.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060614001255/http://magnes.org/collections/wjhc.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 June 2006|title=Western Jewish History Center -- The Magnes|date=14 June 2006|website=Western Jewish History Center, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley|access-date=23 June 2018}} of the Judah L. Magnes Museum, in Berkeley, California, has a small collection of photographs taken by Ernest Bloch which document his interest in photography.

Bloch's photography was discovered by Eric B. Johnson in 1970. With the encouragement of Bloch's children, Johnson edited and printed hundreds of his photographs.{{cite web|url=https://www.ericjohnsonphoto.com/|title=Eric B. Johnson Photography - Fine Art Photography Exploring Cultural Commentary, Internal States of Mind and Poetic Expression.|website=Eric B. Johnson Photography|access-date=23 June 2018|archive-date=24 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180624041621/http://ericjohnsonphoto.com/|url-status=dead}}

Many of the photographs Bloch took—over 6,000 negatives and 2,000 prints, many printed by Eric Johnson from the original negatives—are in the Ernest Bloch Archive at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson along with photographs by the likes of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Richard Avedon.{{cite web|url=http://www.ocean18.net/Ernest+Bloch/Enest+Bloch+Project.htm|title=Ernest Bloch Project - Preserving the Legacy of Composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959)|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070807091546/http://www.ocean18.net/Ernest%20Bloch/Enest%20Bloch%20Project.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=2007-08-07|access-date=2021-11-05}}

Some of the pictures that Bloch took in his Swiss residence are visible online.{{cite web|url=http://www.acvc.ch/it/acvc_archivio_visivo/acvc_autore/23/1/4/60|title=ACVC Autore|website=Acvc.ch|access-date=23 June 2018}} The snapshots have been donated to the Archivio audiovisivo di Capriasca e Val Colla by the Associazione ricerche musicali nella Svizzera italiana.

Legacy

{{Infobox NRHP

| name = Ernest Bloch House

| nrhp_type =

| image =

| caption =

| nearest_city= Agate Beach, Oregon

| locmapin = Oregon

| area =

| architect=

| architecture=

| added = February 9, 2009

| refnum= 09000049

}}

Ernest Bloch's home in Agate Beach was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 9, 2009. The Bloch Memorial, which was dedicated by Oregon Governor Bob Straub with Ernest Bloch's three children at his side on April 10, 1976, was moved from near his house in Agate Beach to a more prominent location in front of the Newport Performing Arts Center in nearby Newport, Oregon.{{cite web|url=http://www.ocean18.net/Ernest%20Bloch/Enest%20Bloch%20Project.htm|title=Ernest Bloch Project|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070807091546/http://www.ocean18.net/Ernest%20Bloch/Enest%20Bloch%20Project.htm|archive-date=2007-08-07}} In 2009, the City of Newport City Council designated the intersection of NW 49th Street, Woody Way and Gilbert Way as Ernest Bloch Place. In 2016, the Oregon Department of Transportation Board of Commissioners officially designated the Ernest Bloch Memorial Wayside in the area of Agate Beach where the original Ernest Bloch Memorial was dedicated in 1976. The Ernest Bloch Memorial Wayside, the 1976 monument and a new Monument were formally dedicated in 2018.{{Cite web|url=https://www.orartswatch.org/singing-composer-ernest-blochs-praises-in-newport/|title=Singing composer Ernest Bloch's praises in Newport|date=18 July 2018}} The informal Ernest Bloch Legacy Project was created by Dr. Frank Jo Maitland Geltner in 2003. The Ernest Bloch Legacy Project affiliated with the Lincoln County Historical Society in 2021.

The composer Robert Strassburg compiled extensive research materials on the career of Ernest Bloch which have been archived for the benefit of researchers at

the University of Florida, Gainsville.[http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/belknap/belknap.html Belknap Collection for the Performing Arts - Special and Area Studies Collections - University of Florida Smathers Libraries]. Accessed December 29, 2022.[https://findingaids.uflib.ufl.edu/repositories/2/resources/1593 University of Florida Special & Area Studies Collection - "Robert Strassburg Collection on Ernest Bloch" Robert Strassburg's archive at the University of Florida Gainsville on ufl.edu]

References

External links

{{Commons category-inline|Ernest Bloch}}
{{Internet Archive author |sname=Ernest Bloch}}
{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20120626142103/http://artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/piece.pl?pid=14 Art of the States: Ernest Bloch]}} String Quartet No. 2 (1945)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20061130111729/http://claudet.club.fr/Bloch/index.html Extensive discography (and work list), by Claude Torres]
[http://www.tapuz.co.il/blog/ViewEntry.asp?EntryId=1130067 Ernest Bloch's maximum card from Israel] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101008045602/http://www.tapuz.co.il/blog/ViewEntry.asp?EntryId=1130067 |date=2010-10-08 }}
[http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/belknap/composers/bloch.htm The Robert Straussburg Collection of Ernest Bloch] at the Belknap Collection of Performing Arts, University of Florida.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120318111940/http://boundless.uoregon.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=exact&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=%2Farchpnw&CISOBOX1=Bloch%2C+Ernest%2C+House++Newport%2C+Oregon+ Images of the Ernest Bloch House] from the University of Oregon digital archives
{{IMSLP|id=Bloch, Ernest}}
[https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu010003 Ernest Bloch Collection], [https://www.loc.gov/collections/ernest-bloch/about-this-collection/ Ernest Bloch Online Collection], and [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu010003 Eric Johnson Collection of Ernest Bloch Photographs] at the Library of Congress
[https://www.esm.rochester.edu/sibley/specialcollections/findingaids/bloch/ Ernest Bloch Collection] and [https://www.esm.rochester.edu/sibley/specialcollections/findingaids/bloch-fest/ Bloch Festschrift Collection] at Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music