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drplaceboIt's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
Or, shall we say... Bloch Friday?
Appropriately for Thanksgiving weekend, Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) was an immigrant to the United States, where he was the founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music and was instrumental in developing the San Francisco Conservatory of Music into a leading music school. He is widely considered to be his native Switzerland's greatest composer, and is especially noted for his many pieces that draw from his Jewish heritage.
Surprisingly, though his own primary instrument was the violin, Bloch only ever composed one violin concerto, a remarkable piece that has somehow remained one of his more rarely performed works. Unusually for him, the main musical inspirations for his concerto were not Judaic but Native American; this may have contributed to its obscurity as Bloch has been remembered largely as a Jewish composer.
Bloch began work on his violin concerto in 1930, when he had extensive, underappreciated contacts with Native American tribes. In the 1920s, his daughter Suzanne (later a professor at Juilliard herself) was romantically involved for several years with a Canadian Ojibwe chief named Charlie Potts, which led to a lifelong friendship between Ernest Bloch and Potts. From 1928 to 1930, while living in San Francisco, Bloch attended synagogue with a man named Solomon Bibo who had become a member of the Acoma Pueblo tribe through marriage and subsequently been elected to serve as the tribe's chief for four years. (To this day, Bibo remains the only person without Native American ancestry to lead any Native American tribe.) By the time Bloch met him, Bibo's voice had been one of those recorded by ethnomusicologists seeking to preserve the Southwest's Native American songs. Beyond his friendships with Charlie Potts and Solomon Bibo, Bloch spent a fair amount of time transcribing Native American music during vacations in upstate New York.
In Bloch's concerto, the themes are original rather than Native American, but incorporate elements characteristic to the music of specific tribes. Bloch attempted to construct themes that could have come from Native American musicians, which was the same approach that he took to his Judaic music. Although Bloch never identified any of the source material he used, his imitation of Native American musical styles was comprehensive enough that most of the themes are identifiably inspired by either Ojibwe or Pueblo music. The first movement, alternately heroic and meditative, incorporates melodies that draw from northern Ojibwe singing styles, beginning with its opening orchestral fanfare. This is followed by a serene yet plaintive slow movement that unusually omits the orchestral strings almost entirely. The third movement brings the piece together as the violin reflects on and sometimes dances around themes heard in the first two movements.
Bloch completed his concerto in 1938, and it premiered the same year with Joseph Szigeti as soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra. Szigeti continued to perform the concerto for the rest of his career. But despite the reputations of both Bloch and Szigeti, it did not catch on. It was likely overshadowed by Bloch's fame as a proponent of Jewish music. At the composer's death in 1959, Szigeti remained the only violinist who had ever played it, and performances remained extremely rare until the 1990s.
Movements:
I. Allegro deciso
II. Andante (20:10)
III. Deciso (26:18)
Or, shall we say... Bloch Friday?
Appropriately for Thanksgiving weekend, Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) was an immigrant to the United States, where he was the founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music and was instrumental in developing the San Francisco Conservatory of Music into a leading music school. He is widely considered to be his native Switzerland's greatest composer, and is especially noted for his many pieces that draw from his Jewish heritage.
Surprisingly, though his own primary instrument was the violin, Bloch only ever composed one violin concerto, a remarkable piece that has somehow remained one of his more rarely performed works. Unusually for him, the main musical inspirations for his concerto were not Judaic but Native American; this may have contributed to its obscurity as Bloch has been remembered largely as a Jewish composer.
Bloch began work on his violin concerto in 1930, when he had extensive, underappreciated contacts with Native American tribes. In the 1920s, his daughter Suzanne (later a professor at Juilliard herself) was romantically involved for several years with a Canadian Ojibwe chief named Charlie Potts, which led to a lifelong friendship between Ernest Bloch and Potts. From 1928 to 1930, while living in San Francisco, Bloch attended synagogue with a man named Solomon Bibo who had become a member of the Acoma Pueblo tribe through marriage and subsequently been elected to serve as the tribe's chief for four years. (To this day, Bibo remains the only person without Native American ancestry to lead any Native American tribe.) By the time Bloch met him, Bibo's voice had been one of those recorded by ethnomusicologists seeking to preserve the Southwest's Native American songs. Beyond his friendships with Charlie Potts and Solomon Bibo, Bloch spent a fair amount of time transcribing Native American music during vacations in upstate New York.
In Bloch's concerto, the themes are original rather than Native American, but incorporate elements characteristic to the music of specific tribes. Bloch attempted to construct themes that could have come from Native American musicians, which was the same approach that he took to his Judaic music. Although Bloch never identified any of the source material he used, his imitation of Native American musical styles was comprehensive enough that most of the themes are identifiably inspired by either Ojibwe or Pueblo music. The first movement, alternately heroic and meditative, incorporates melodies that draw from northern Ojibwe singing styles, beginning with its opening orchestral fanfare. This is followed by a serene yet plaintive slow movement that unusually omits the orchestral strings almost entirely. The third movement brings the piece together as the violin reflects on and sometimes dances around themes heard in the first two movements.
Bloch completed his concerto in 1938, and it premiered the same year with Joseph Szigeti as soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra. Szigeti continued to perform the concerto for the rest of his career. But despite the reputations of both Bloch and Szigeti, it did not catch on. It was likely overshadowed by Bloch's fame as a proponent of Jewish music. At the composer's death in 1959, Szigeti remained the only violinist who had ever played it, and performances remained extremely rare until the 1990s.
Movements:
I. Allegro deciso
II. Andante (20:10)
III. Deciso (26:18)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-24 11:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-25 05:36 pm (UTC)