Ernest Bloch Studies 1107039096, 9781107039094

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Frontispiece

Ernest Bloch Studies edited by

Alexander Knapp Norman Solomon

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107039094 © Cambridge University Press 2016 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2016 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow, Cornwall. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Knapp, Alexander, 1945– editor. | Solomon, Norman, 1933– editor. Title: Ernest Bloch studies / edited by Alexander Knapp and Norman Solomon. Description: New York : Cambridge University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Includes an alphabetical list of Bloch’s published and unpublished works, compiled by Alexander Knapp. Identifiers: LCCN 2016001613 | ISBN 9781107039094 (Hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Bloch, Ernest, 1880-1959–Criticism and interpretation. Classification: LCC ML410.B656 E84 2015 | DDC 780.92–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016001613 ISBN 978-1-107-03909-4 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of Figures [page vii] List of Music Examples [viii] Notes on Contributors [xi] Foreword: Reminiscences of My Grandfather by Ernest Bloch II [xiv] Chronology [xxi] Alphabetical List of Bloch’s Published and Unpublished Works, Compiled by Alexander Knapp [xxvi] Bloch Resources: Recordings in the Age of the Internet by Stanley Henig [xlviii] Introduction Norman Solomon

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[1]

1

From Geneva to New York: Radical Changes in Ernest Bloch’s View of Himself as a ‘Jewish Composer’ during his Twenties and Thirties Alexander Knapp [12]

2

The ‘Suffering and Greatness’ of Ernest Bloch: Concepts of the Composer as Genius Klára Móricz [20]

3

Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication Malcolm Miller [37]

4

Sacred Service: the Mass Bloch Never Wrote, the Two That Leonard Bernstein Did Write, and Shulamit Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin David Schiller [61]

5

Oregon Years: the Man and His Music David Z. Kushner [79]

6

‘The Future Alone Will Be the Judge’: Ernest Bloch’s Epic Journeys between Utopia and Dystopia Philip V. Bohlman

7

The Reception of Bloch’s Music in Palestine/Israel to 1948 Jehoash Hirshberg [121]

8

Bloch’s Reception and His Standing in Israel since 1954 Zecharia Plavin [132]

9

A Performance History of Bloch’s Opera Macbeth: Paris 1910–Manhattan 2014 Stanley Henig [150]

[102]

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Contents

10

King Solomon and the Baal Shem Tov: Traditional Elements in Bloch’s Musical Representation of Two Iconic Personalities from Jewish History Alexander Knapp [171]

11

Postscript: the Legacy Norman Solomon [206] Select Bibliography Index [244]

[215]

Figures

3.1a 3.2a

6.1

6.2 6.3

6.4 10.1

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Frontispiece: Ernest Bloch by Valentine Hess, 1949. Permission granted by the heirs of the children of Composer Ernest Bloch [page i] and b Sides three and four of a six-side letter from Bloch to Havelock Ellis, May 1932 (by kind permission of the British Library) [42] and b A postcard to Havelock Ellis from Châtel in Haute-Savoie where the Blochs spent the summer of 1934. Postmarked Thonon-Les-Bains, Haute-Savoie, 31 August 1934 [45] ‘An den kleinen Radioapparat’ – ‘To the Little Radio’ (from the Hollywooder Liederbuch, Eisler 2008: 13, by kind permission of Deutscher Verlag für Musik Leipzig) [111] Opening of Helvetia, p. 1 (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [114] Opening of the third movement, America – ‘1926 . . . The Present – The Future . . .’, p. 114 (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [117] Opening of Anthem at the close of America, pp. 175–6 (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [118] Letter from Ernest Bloch to his mother Sophie, 3 December 1920, p. 2 (by kind permission of Ernest Bloch II) [188]

Music Examples

The authors and publishers acknowledge the following sources of copyright material and are grateful for the permissions granted. While every effort has been made, it has not always been possible to identify the sources of all material used, or to trace all copyright holders. If any omissions are brought to our notice, we will be happy to include the appropriate acknowledgements on reprinting. 3.1 Conclusion of Bloch’s Piano Quintet No. 1, last sixteen bars of Finale, from rehearsal no. 50, pp. 128–9 (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [50] 5.1 Concerto Symphonique: introduction to the first movement, bb. 1–14 (©Copyright 1950 by Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd. Reproduced by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd) [85] 5.2 Scherzo Fantasque, bb. 1–6 (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [86] 5.3 ‘Rhapsodie’ from Suite Hébraïque, upbeat and bb. 1–4 (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [90] 5.4 Concerto Grosso No. 2, fourth movement, bb. 1–7 (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [91] 5.5 In Memoriam, bb. 1–5 (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [93] 5.6 Symphony for Trombone Solo and Orchestra, first movement, bb. 5–13 (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [94] 5.7 Proclamation for Trumpet and Orchestra, rehearsal no. 11, bb. 2–5 (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [95] 5.8 Suite Modale, third movement, rehearsal no. 16, last ten bars (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [99] 7.1 Bloch Simchas Torah, p. 2, bb. 1–4 (by kind permission of Carl Fischer Music) [123] 7.2 Bloch Sacred Service (Avodath Hakodesh) – Ma tovu, p. 3, from rehearsal no. 3 (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [128] 7.3 P. Ben-Haim Liturgical Cantata – Ma tovu, p. 3, from rehearsal sign D (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [129] 7.4 Bloch Sacred Service – Adonay yimloch, pp. 34–5, rehearsal no. 21 (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [130] viii

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Music Examples

7.5 7.6

10.1 10.2a 10.2b 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6a 10.6b 10.7 10.8a 10.8b 10.9a 10.9b 10.10 10.11a 10.11b 10.11c 10.11d

10.12a

P. Ben-Haim Liturgical Cantata – Adonay malach, p. 25, bb. 29–33 (by kind permission of the Israel Music Institute) [131] P. Ben-Haim Liturgical Cantata – Hallelujah, p. 67, bb. 221–5, from rehearsal sign D (by kind permission of the Israel Music Institute) [131] Comparative chart of synthetic ‘scales’ generated by the motifs of the Ashkenazi prayer modes (Steiger) [182] Bloch Sacred Service – Tzur Yisroel, vocal score p. 21, bb. 9–15 (cantor) (by kind permission of Broude Brothers Ltd) [184] Bloch Schelomo, study score p. 60, bb. 4–8 (cello solo) (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [184] Bloch Schelomo: Shofar calls, study score p. 31, b. 2–p. 32, b. 1 (brass) (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [185] Bloch Schelomo: the quartertone, study score p. 60, bb. 8–11 (cello solo) (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [185] Bloch Schelomo: Uv’khein theme, study score p. 34, bb. 12–23 (oboe/bassoon) (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [186] Wohlberg motifs (reproduced from Knapp, 1971: 99–112) [189] Bloch Schelomo: Uv’khein theme, study score p. 34, bb. 12–23 (oboe/bassoon) (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [189] Sulzer Uv’chen ten pacht’cho (sic) (reproduced from Schir Zion (1865) vol. 2, p. 151, no. 233) [193] Bloch Schelomo, study score p. 45, b. 6–p. 46, b. 2 (cello solo) (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [194] Cohon motifs (reproduced from Cohon 1950: 25, 2aj) [194] Bloch Vidui, piano score p. 5, bb. 34–7 (violin) (by kind permission of Carl Fischer Music) [196] Vinaver motifs (reproduced from Vinaver 1955: 229, no. 55, line 5, bb. 2–3) (by kind permission of Carlin America, Inc.) [196] The intervallic relationship between harmonic minor, Mi shebeirach and Ahavoh rabboh [198] Bloch Nigun, piano score p. 2, bb. 5–7 (violin) (by kind permission of Carl Fischer Music) [199] Cohen Cantillation motifs (reproduced from Cohen 1902: 542, line 7, col. 1) [199] Cohon motifs, p. 31, 4fXI–60 [199] Baer motifs (reproduced from Baer 1877: 3, no. 22b) (by kind permission of the Sacred Music Press, Hebrew Union College) [199] Bloch Nigun, piano score p. 2, bb. 5–7 (violin) (by kind permission of Carl Fischer Music) [200]

x Music Examples 10.12b Beregovski Frejlexs (reproduced from Beregovski 1962: 147, no. 87, bb. 1–4) (by kind permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press) [200] 10.13a Bloch Nigun, piano score p. 7, bb. 49–52, 53–6 (violin) (by kind permission of Carl Fischer Music) [200] 10.13b Cohon motifs, p. 25, 2a40-10-20 [200] 10.14a Bloch Nigun, piano score p. 9, bb. 101–6 (violin) (by kind permission of Carl Fischer Music) [201] 10.14b Cohon motifs, p. 25, 2ah-R [201] 10.15a Bloch Simchas Torah, piano score p. 2, bb. 1–6 (violin) (by kind permission of Carl Fischer Music) [202] 10.15b Cohon motifs, p. 21, 1cVI-25-27-28 [202] 10.16a Bloch Simchas Torah, piano score p. 5, bb. 67–9 (piano) (by kind permission of Carl Fischer Music) [203] 10.16b Warshawski, Di Mizinke Oysgegebn (reproduced from Mlotek 1977: 55, bb. 1–6) (by kind permission of the Workmen’s Circle Education Department) [203] 10.17a Bloch Simchas Torah, piano score pp. 6–7, bb. 83–6 (piano) (by kind permission of Carl Fischer Music) [204] 10.17b Bloch Schelomo, study score p. 27, b. 2–p. 29, b. 2 (trumpets) (by kind permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.) [204]

Contributors

ernest bloch ii (‘ernie’), grandson of the composer, after whom he was named, and son of Ivan, was born in 1938, and grew up in Portland, Oregon, close to where his grandparents, with whom he established a close relationship, had settled in 1941. After graduating from Portland State University, he engaged in a business career, directing economic planning and development for the airline industry. He then joined an electric energy corporation managing government and public affairs areas. He describes his mission in life as ‘To have Ernest Bloch’s music heard’; he has created a foundation to channel funding from other foundations, government organizations and individuals to this end. philip v. bohlman is the Mary Werkman Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago and a visiting professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater (Hannover). He has held guest professorships at Berkeley, Freiburg, Vienna, Yale, and elsewhere. His research focuses on Jewish music and modernity. Among his many publications are World Music: A Very Short Introduction (2002), Music and the Racial Imagination: Cultural Topics (2005), Jewish Musical Modernism, Old and New (2009), Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe (2010) and Balkan Epic: Song, History, Modernity (2012). He is Artistic Director of ‘The New Budapest Orpheum Society’ at the University of Chicago; in conjunction with his work with that group, Oxford University bestowed the 2009 Donald Tovey Prize on him and Christine Wilkie Bohlman. Other honours he has received include the Edward J. Dent Medal from the Royal Musical Association, the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin (2003), and the Derek Allen Prize from the British Academy (2007). stanley henig was, prior to retirement, Head of the Department of Politics and European Studies and Professor of European Politics at the University of Central Lancashire. He has written nine books and numerous articles on European politics. At one time a Member of Parliament, he later became Leader of Lancaster City Council. In the musical world he served as Chairman of the Court of the Royal Northern College of Music and as a governor of the British Institute of Recorded Sound. He was for many years Secretary of Historic Masters and of Historic Singers Trust. Co-author of a book about Enrico Caruso, he contributed articles to the twovolume Dictionary of Opera. He has written about Ofelia Nieto in The Record Collector and articles about Nellie Melba, Emmy Destinn, Mahler in Vienna, and the founding of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra as well as CD reviews for Classical Recordings Quarterly and its predecessor magazines. He has also reviewed CDs for Opera and contributed articles to Musical Opinion and Jewish Renaissance. He is editor of the twice-yearly newsletter of the International Ernest Bloch Society. jehoash hirshberg is Hans J. Salter Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. His research projects have covered music in migrant and refugee societies, the music of the fourteenth century in France, the Italian solo concerto, 1700–60, and Opera Seria in Italy 1860–70, on all of which he has published.

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xii Contributors alexander knapp graduated from the University of Cambridge with a PhD thesis on aspects of Bloch’s ‘Jewish Cycle’. Over the past forty-five years, he has lectured in the UK, USA, Western and Eastern Europe, Israel, Russia, and China, specializing in Jewish music – sacred and secular – and on Bloch. In 1998, the Chinese Academy of Arts published his Anthology of Essays on Jewish Music in Chinese (Youtai Yinyue Lunwenji). As well as several dozen articles in journals in the UK and abroad, he has contributed entries on aspects of Jewish art music to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd edn). Having retired from the Joe Loss Lectureship in Jewish Music at SOAS in 2006, he organized the first International Bloch Conference at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, in 2007, and lectured at the first International Bloch Conference in Beijing in 2010. He continues to work as a freelance. david z. kushner is Professor Emeritus of Musicology, School of Music, College of the Arts, University of Florida at Gainesville. He directs graduate seminars in American Music, Twentieth-Century Music, Romantic Music, Nationalism in Music, Opera History, Piano Literature, Chamber Music Literature, and Symphonic Literature; supervises theses and dissertations; and serves as programme coordinator of the annual Musicology Lecture Series. Kushner has lectured throughout the United States, and in Canada, Australia, Israel, Kenya, Italy, England, Scotland, Hungary, and Austria. He has also been recognized for his annual series, ‘Recitals in the Schools,’ which brings classical art music to young people in the elementary, middle, and high schools in an informal environment. malcolm miller is a musicologist and pianist, Associate Lecturer at Goldsmiths’ University of London, Honorary Associate in Arts and Associate Lecturer at the Open University in London, and a tutor at the City Literary Institute. He is currently preparing a book on ‘Wagner and Song’ based on his King’s College, London doctoral study of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder. Recent publications include ‘Spinning the Yarn: Intertextuality in Wagner’s Use and Reuse of his Songs in his Operas’, The Wagner Journal, 8, 2 (July 2014); ‘Music as Memory: Émigré Composers in Britain and their Wartime Experiences’ in The Impact of Nazism in Twentieth Century Music; ‘Peak Experience: High Register and Structure in the Razumovsky Quartets Op 59’ in The String Quartets of Beethoven (ed. W. Kinderman, 2006); and ‘Jewish Influences in the Music of Berthold Goldschmidt’ (forthcoming). He is Editor of Arietta, Journal of the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe, Assistant Editor of Piano Journal (EPTA), and a regular contributor to academic publications including New Grove II and MGG, journals including Music and Letters and Tempo, and magazines such as Musical Opinion and Music and Vision Daily. kla´ ra mo´ ricz is Professor of Music at Amherst College, Massachuetts. She specializes in the music of Béla Bartók, twentieth-century Jewish composers, and Russian music, specifically the music of Arthur Lourié, on whom she jointly edited a volume of essays with Simon Morrison (2013). Her Jewish Identities: Nationalism, Racism, and Utopianism in Twentieth-Century Music appeared in 2008. She is coeditor of two anthologies accompanying Taruskin and Gibbs’s Oxford History of Western Music (2012). Since 2009 she has been co-editor of Journal of Musicology. She has served on the board of the Journal of the American Musicological Society (2004–10), the academic advisory board of Jewish Music Forum (2009–2011), and the advisory board of Studia Musicologica (2006–present). She was awarded the ACLS/ Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship (2003), and the Mabelle McLeod Lewis Dissertation Fellowship (1998), and was honorary recipient of the AMS 50 Award (1998).

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zecharia plavin is an alumnus of the Ciurlionis High School of Arts, Lithuanian Conservatory and Tel Aviv University Academy of Music. In 1984, he studied piano under Louis Kentner. He completed a doctoral dissertation on Ernest Bloch at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1988. He has performed as piano soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra since 1980, and more recently given many recitals throughout the USA and Europe. He has recorded piano music for Meridian, Sound Star-ton labels (Schumann, Scriabin, Liszt, Bloch, Franck, Mendelssohn) and for the Israeli and Lithuanian Broadcasting Authorities classical stations. Since 2000 he has engaged in the cultural and social research of Israeli society and identity, his studies on these topics appearing in Ben Gurion University and Sapir College publications. His large-scale study of Israeli society, The Heeding Heart (Be-Lev Shomea, in Hebrew), was published in 2012. Since 1990 he has served on the faculty of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and of the School of Music of the Ono College. david schiller retired from the University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music in December of 2012. He is the author of Bloch, Schoenberg, and Bernstein: Assimilating Jewish Music (2003), and of the article on Ernest Bloch in the Enzyklopädie jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur vol. 1 (2011). With Christy Desmet, he is coauthor of the chapter on ‘Shakespeare and Music’ in The Shakespearean World (forthcoming). norman solomon was educated at the University of Cambridge, where he read Moral Sciences and Music. After further studies he was ordained as a rabbi, and for twenty-two years served Orthodox Jewish congregations in England in that capacity. This was followed by eleven years of involvement in international inter-religious dialogue as Founder-Director of the Birmingham-based Centre for the Study of Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations. In 1996, he was appointed Fellow of the Centre for Hebrew Studies at Oxford, and until his retirement taught in the faculties of Theology and Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. Books he has authored include Judaism and World Religion (1991), The Analytic Movement (1993), A Very Short Introduction to Judaism (2nd edn 2014), Historical Dictionary of Judaism (3rd edn 2015), and Torah from Heaven (2012). Honours he has received include the Sir Sigmund Sternberg CCJ Award in Christian-Jewish Relations (1993), and the Distinguished Service Medal of the University of San Francisco (2000).

Foreword Reminiscences of My Grandfather My paternal grandfather, Ernest Bloch, was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1880. My grandparents had three children: Ivan (my father, born 1905), Suzanne (born 1907), and Lucienne (born 1909), each of whom produced a ‘first-born’ son in the same year, 1938. My father being the only Bloch son, I was named Ernest Bloch II after my grandfather.

The Background Though his parents were not particularly artistic, my grandfather showed his talent and determination from an early age. When he was six, his mother offered him a flute, and the following year he was already composing. At nine he began serious study of the violin, vowed to become a composer, and ritualistically burned a written vow to that effect in the mountains outside Geneva. He moved to Brussels at the age of 16, studying under the noted violinist Eugène Ysaÿe for three years. After finishing his studies in Brussels he moved to Germany, then to Paris, and back to Geneva (1904), where he married Margarethe (Marguerite) Schneider. Success in Europe eluded him. His long westward journey from Europe began with a move to New York in 1916 to take up an appointment as director for a ‘modern dance’ company founded by Maud Allan. That quickly folded. He then became a member of the faculty at Mannes School of Music in Manhattan. He brought his family over from Europe in 1917, crossing the Atlantic during the time of World War I submarine warfare, and was welcomed back with open arms and glowing reviews by the music community in New York. In 1920, he was invited to serve as the first musical director of the newly founded Cleveland Institute of Music. He remained in Cleveland until 1925, becoming an American citizen in 1924, and continued the journey west to San Francisco, where for the next five years he served as artistic director of the fledgling San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 1930, when his time at the conservatory came to an end, he was offered a unique arrangement proffered by the Rosalie and Jacob Stern family, who were patrons of the arts in San Francisco. The Sterns established a trust fund for him to be administered by the University of California at Berkeley. The terms were that he was xiv

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to occupy an endowed Chair at the university, to dedicate himself exclusively to composition, and should be free to live anywhere he chose! For a time he made his home in Switzerland, but in the late 1930s he was dismayed by the tragedies unfolding throughout Europe, and in late 1938 he and Marguerite returned to the US West Coast. Grandmother relocated to Oregon to be closer to her son, Ivan, my father, who lived with our family near Portland. Grandfather, however, continued to spend most of his time in the Bay Area teaching at Berkeley, living in San Francisco and composing until 1941. It was on one of his drives from Oakland, California to Portland, Oregon via US 101 that he discovered the small village of Agate Beach, Oregon, which became his home. Grandfather may have hoped that reaching the US West Coast at the edge of the vast Pacific Ocean would put the worst of the world behind him. But this was not to be. On December 7, 1941 World War II came to the United States from the other side of the Pacific. Enemy submarines, just offshore, shelled the coast 100 miles north of his new home. Blackouts were imposed, oilcloth curtains were required for all windows, and candles/flashlights outside were forbidden; gas was rationed, and driving was prohibited from dusk to dawn. Incendiary bombs dispatched by balloon from the westerly part of the Pacific to ignite forest fires in groves of fir trees made Oregon the only state in the lower 48 to suffer civilian casualties. Grandfather was deeply distressed by the war, and produced no major work until the Suite Symphonique of 1944. Once the war was over and he felt free again, he was able to create some of his finest works; more than twentyfive manuscripts emanated from his Agate Beach home in the years before his death in Portland in 1959.

Agate Beach My earliest memories of Grandfather are from the mid-1940s, when I was six or seven. He would come to Portland from time to time, primarily to have completed manuscripts copied; the copies were then sent to New York for publication. After the war ended and gas rationing ended, we were able to drive to Agate Beach. Grandfather’s home was on a bluff overlooking the ocean. My first impression was that, overall, the rooms were somewhat dark; blackout curtains were never removed. The house was in the form of a large ‘U’; Grandfather said the large ‘grand room’ could hold 300 people. The living room was more like a great room with a very high ceiling and many windows facing the ocean. It had a large round glass dining table which seated six to eight people. We had many

xvi Foreword enjoyable, sumptuous meals at that table. Grandmother was a great cook. I remember always leaving the table feeling ‘stuffed.’ During dinner there were many stories, mostly of life in Switzerland. When conversation turned to French, I realized something was being discussed ‘not for the children.’ After dinner and stories, Grandfather would leave the dinner table; soon, he would return from his bedroom, smiling, with a luscious choice of European chocolates and liquors. When we became older, Grandmother brought out very small glasses and we would share liquors, cookies, and candy. The rest of the main room contained original wicker furniture left by previous owners. In the middle wall along side windows facing the ocean was a large stone fireplace. A second fireplace existed outside the front door/ patio entrance area to be used in the summer. At the opposite end of the room next to a view of the ocean was a large desk. That was where Grandfather composed, and handled his correspondence. Next to the desk was a large grand piano. On the far wall hung a life-size crucifix Grandfather had brought from Europe. It too was dark and foreboding; our dog was startled by it and started barking until we calmed her down. My father used to say, ‘Father was the most optimistic, pessimistic person I knew.’ My aunt Lucienne commented, ‘Living with father was like living on top of a volcano. We were a close-knit family, but there were periods of quiet and periods of explosion, and every tremor affected us.’ As I grew older, Grandfather’s pessimism became quite evident, but I never did witness the ‘explosions.’ Grandfather often spoke of his admiration for two American heroes: President Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman, poet, essayist and journalist. I recall one day Grandfather was lying on the wicker couch in the living room, with a cigar (Cuban cigars were still legal in the United States). He was reading an airmailed issue of The Wall Street Journal. All of a sudden he spoke out loud: ‘The problem with America; the three s’s: stock, sex and sports!’ The full impact of that statement became clearer as I grew older. There was a separate two-story building, ‘the garage,’ that contained three spaces for parking cars. One parking space became his lapidary area. A staircase led to the upper level, with its own bedroom and full-size bath, a large ‘play room,’ and space for a ping-pong table and an old-fashioned record player. In the late 1940s Grandfather had the upper level modified to become his ‘studio’ complete with a second grand piano. At times he would tend the vegetable garden alongside the garage, separate from the main house. He often spoke with a smile on his face of the enjoyment he had from tending the garden and extracting fresh items from the ground. The vegetables were a real treat of freshness compared to the often wilted, limp produce available from the stores in nearby Newport.

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My father often spoke about the good times in Switzerland, when he and his father would hike in the mountains, bicycle in the countryside, and enjoy picnics and mushroom hunting. Agate Beach provided Grandfather with abundant nature experiences in a dramatic setting. His outside activities apparently provided him with new resolve to continue composing. These experiences led to a closeness; sharing a love of nature. It was obvious to me that Grandfather seemed to get ‘energy’ from the earth, the ocean, and the sense of being with and in touch with nature.

Walks on the Beach Grandfather invited me to join him on walks down the narrow, cliff-edge trail. It descended from the house on the bluff down a large, long staircase to the bottom of the cliff. At the bottom it was necessary to weave in and out and climb over large tree logs washed down the rivers nearby. Grandfather would easily navigate. In my case, having polio at age five, being on crutches offered interesting opportunities. With ‘four legs’ I could get down, over, and on the sand before Grandfather. In those days the number of agates on the beach was impressive. Grandfather would wait for the tide to retreat. He would pick up a freshly uncovered agate and carefully check the exterior features; then he would hold it up to light to make sure it was agate, not just a rock. Most were tossed back. Those worth keeping he put in his pocket. We would retire to one of the many logs and sit down. Often Grandmother would have provided a thermos of ‘real’ hot chocolate (from Europe) which we shared. Then we faced the long, steep climb up to the house. At a couple of resting spots would be benches, where Grandfather would say we should take a rest. He carried with him a large canvas bag which he filled with driftwood; he put the driftwood in the large basement under the house for use later for the fireplace inside. Grandfather emptied the agates onto his desk. Those not up to his standards were tossed outside next to the house. His children gave him a birthday present of a lapidary outfit which he set up in a room built in the back of the garage. Grandfather held absolute opinions. He opposed the popular method of polishing dozens of agates in a tumbler. In an irate tone he would exclaim, ‘Those people using a tumbler are “stealing” these stones. Someday they will be completely gone!’ He was correct. Instead, he would process the individual agates into works of art, one at a time. Some he would polish on one side. A few he would ‘cut’ by the circular diamond saw into two pieces. The times he would invite me to join him in the small room to polish agates were my favorite times with him. He used cigar boxes in two

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ways. He cut the wood box into small sticks, then used melted sealing wax to ‘glue’ onto the agate. Finished, polished agates were then segregated into types and resided in intact cigar boxes. The few remaining cigar boxes still smell of cigars and contain hundreds of agates. At other times, Grandfather would take long walks on his own in the forested area surrounding the Agate Beach home. He would bring back large bags of freshly harvested mushrooms, and Grandmother would find delicious ways to incorporate them in the meal of the evening.

Later Years I will always remember February 21, 1949. I was eleven years old. Grandfather was to conduct the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. Our family was seated in one of the first rows of the main floor. Grandfather came out on stage, and everyone started clapping. I realized the auditorium, which held 4,500, was nearly full. Grandfather was short, and spoke in a high-pitched nasal sounding voice. Without a microphone he asked, ‘I hope you can hear me?’ ‘Yes Grandpa, we can hear you,’ my younger sister called out. Laughter! He spoke of his love for America, of how he felt as an immigrant (‘New York seemed like another planet’), and of how ultimately he became a citizen. He described how he had been moved to compose a work based on his impressions of ‘this magnificent country.’ Before turning to the podium he commented, ‘I hope you like my work.’ He then conducted America: An Epic Rhapsody. The audience gave him a standing ovation. The anthem which accompanies the work was sung by the audience twice. To this day, that anthem stirs my heart. After I turned seventeen and had a driver’s license, my grandparents periodically asked me on Fridays to take the bus from downtown Portland to the village of Agate Beach. Grandfather met me at the small post office. Grandmother usually prepared a filet mignon steak dinner, cooked in butter no less, with garden-fresh vegetables. Next day, after a large breakfast (Grandmother loved toast and eggs fried in butter), I drove Grandfather back to Portland. There was usually not much conversation while I drove, yet he would regale me with his strong opinions regarding the encroaching housing development near the coast. He was particularly outraged by the process of ‘clear-cutting’ from the rain forest. His concern was erosion, damage to plant life, disruption to wild life. For most of the drive, when he was not speaking, he was quietly ‘thinking.’ And when on the beach he would take a small, spiral notepad from his chest pocket. He always had a sharp pencil to jot down a reminder or perhaps a few notes. Before getting to Portland he would say, ‘I think we should have lunch.’ We went to a

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Foreword

marvelous Jewish deli noted for its notoriously large servings: pies, pastry, and outrageously large cinnamon buns. As we walked in he suggested, ‘Let’s look at what we want for dessert, then go have lunch. But don’t tell your mother.’

The Final Years 1956. In the spring Grandfather was showing signs that his illness (rectal cancer) was progressing. My parents asked me to accept on his behalf an honorary degree from the University of Oregon, awarded for Distinguished Service. And as a result, I chose to attend college at the University of Oregon that fall. 27 July. Grandfather was in Portland to be seen by his doctors. Earlier that morning the SS Andrea Doria had sunk in the Atlantic Ocean off the US East Coast; the Andrea Doria was the most famous ocean liner to sink since the Lusitania and the Titanic. Grandfather was fascinated by television. He watched, amazed at camera replays taken from airplanes as the ship slowly tipped over and slid under the ocean. Thinking back, I wonder what was in his mind, having made several transatlantic crossings himself. 1957. He was brought to Portland by ambulance and hospitalized. Diagnosis: cancer had spread to his colon. He needed drastic surgery. I went to visit him. He was furious, and what the surgery doctors recommended disgusted him. He considered not having surgery. ‘Instead’, he told me, ‘we could go to Europe. I know a doctor who would take care of it and me once and for all.’ My first thought was ‘a trip to Europe, that would be interesting.’ Later I realized what he actually had in mind. A day or so later he agreed to have surgery. Recovery took place in Portland over several months. He and Grandmother rented a comfortable penthouse. That enabled me to see him often. It had a view of downtown Portland and a view of a large park of trees that carpeted the hills to the west. Fortunately, many other people wanted to pay their respects and came to visit him. He enjoyed the attention and gestures of appreciation. 1958. I was attending the University of Oregon. Grandfather’s poor health was taking its toll. Visits to the grandparents became sparse. I did manage to get to Agate Beach to see him for what turned out to be the last time. He was weak. When offered the suggestion of a ride in the car, he accepted. Dressed in warm clothing, we drove out to the Yaquina Lighthouse/ Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area next to the house at Agate Beach. The weather was dry, the wind not too strong. Hardly anyone else was around. Grandfather walked out to the very edge of the cliffs, listening to gulls, the wind rustling in the low-lying bushes. Far below, one could

xx Foreword hear the waves were crashing against the cliffs. He did not speak. He seemed to be absorbing the power of the natural setting. After a few minutes he suggested we should return to the house. 1959. This was the 100th anniversary of Oregon becoming the 38th State in the United States. It was early July; I was attending summer classes at Portland State College (now Portland State University) and staffing an exhibit at the State of Oregon 100th Statehood Exhibition. Suddenly, Grandfather was rushed by ambulance from Agate Beach to Portland. He was very sick. A day or two later he fell into a coma. I felt it was necessary to see him. He was unconscious. A nurse came in and pointed to evidence of swelling, indicating his kidneys had failed. I decided just to sit there. Perhaps he would wake up. Maybe it would be possible to say hello. A day later, after class, I called my grandmother to see if it would be OK to visit him. ‘My dear’ she said, ‘father died earlier this morning. It was a release for him and a relief for us all that his long-term suffering is over.’ My parents suggested I go ahead to work, which I did. During the day at the exhibit, national news was played hourly over the loudspeaker system. And every time it reported, ‘Today the well-known composer Ernest Bloch died from cancer in Portland, Oregon.’ Again I appreciated knowing my grandfather, but realized he was much more than that to a lot of people. For me, ‘Grandfather’ was good enough. As I have grown older, I have had the pleasure and honor of traveling to many faraway places to help extend his legacy. While not a musician myself, I have gained a great deal of satisfaction knowing that some of my efforts have resulted in people approaching me saying ‘Your grandfather’s music touches me in ways hard to express.’ My most rewarding purpose in life is to continue to further Grandfather’s legacy for as long as possible. ERNEST BLOCH II

Chronology

Year

Bloch

1880 1882 1883 1884 1886 1887

Born Geneva 24 July

1888 1889 1891 1892 1893 1894

1895

First efforts at composition

Symphonie Funèbre for orchestra

Leaves for Brussels to study violin with Ysaÿe and Schörg and composition with François Rasse

Studies fugue under Iwan Knorr at Frankfurt

1902 1903

xxi

Emile Berliner invents successful recording system R. Strauss Don Juan

Studies violin with Albert Gos Enters Geneva Conservatoire Violin with Louis Rey Composition with JaquesDalcroze Leaves school to concentrate on music

1899 1900

Events

Wagner Parsifal Wagner dies Brahms Symphony 4 Verdi Otello

1896 1897

Other Composers

Completes Symphony in C sharp minor

Tchaikovsky Symphony 6

Dvořák Cello Concerto Mahler Symphony 3 Brahms dies

Accession of Nicolas II (last Tsar) Dreyfus trial in France Discovery of X-rays Marconi demonstrates wireless telegraphy First Zionist Congress (Basel)

Elgar Enigma Variations Puccini Tosca Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande Sibelius Violin Concerto

Peace of Vereeniging ends Boer War Kishinev pogrom Wright brothers achieve first successful powered flight Henry Ford starts motor company

xxii

Chronology

(cont.) Year

Bloch

Other Composers

Events

1904

Meets Debussy Marries Marguerite Schneider

Mahler Symphony 6

1905

Completes HiverPrintemps Finishes Poèmes d’Automne

Debussy La Mer

Russo-Japanese war begins Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life Einstein: Special Theory of Relativity

1906 1907 1908

1909

1910

1911

1913 1914 1916

1917

1918

Finishes Macbeth Appointed conductor of Orchestre de Lausanne for subscription concerts First complete performance of Symphony in C sharp minor World premiere of Macbeth (Opéra Comique) Professor at Geneva Conservatoire (to 1916) Moves to Satigny Father dies Trois Poèmes Juifs Finishes Psalm 22 and Psalm 137 Completes Israel Symphony String Quartet No. 1 To New York as conductor for Maud Allan’s tour ‘Jewish Cycle’ at Carnegie Hall Teaches at Mannes School of Music, New York

Mahler Das Lied von der Erde Bartók String Quartet No. 1 Schoenberg Erwartung

Hague Conference to limit armaments fails Society for Jewish Folk Music founded in St Petersburg

Stravinsky Firebird Berg String Quartet Mahler Symphony 9 Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia

Manchu dynasty overthrown (China) Stravinsky Rite of Spring World War I begins Holst The Planets

Revolutions in Russia Balfour Declaration on Palestine World War I ends November 11 Franchise Act (UK): women over 30 get vote

xxiii

Chronology

(cont.) Year

Bloch

1919

Suite for Viola and Piano awarded Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Chamber Music Prize Founder-Director of Cleveland Institute of Music Violin Sonata No. 1

1920

1921 1922 1923

1928

Helvetia: Symphonic Poem

1929

1935

Abodah for violin and piano Academy of St Cecilia membership (Italy) Returns to Switzerland Settles in Roveredo, Ticino Avodath Hakodesh completed Performances of Avodath Hakodesh Moves to Châtel, HauteSavoie, France Piano Sonata

1936

Voice in the Wilderness

1930 1933 1934

Ravel La Valse

American women get vote Foundation of League of Nations

Berg Wozzeck

1926

1925

Events Treaty of Versailles British mandate in Palestine

Poems of the Sea Piano Quintet Baal Shem Suite for violin and piano Becomes US citizen Violin Sonata No 2 Méditation Hébraïque Three Nocturnes for Piano Trio Concerto Grosso No. 1 Leaves Cleveland to become Director of San Francisco Conservatory America: An Epic Rhapsody

1924

Other Composers

BBC commences regular broadcasts Turkish Republic proclaimed Sibelius Symphony 7 Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue Puccini Turandot

Janáček Sinfonietta Berg Lyric Suite Chiang Kai-shek unifies Chinese Republic Collapse of New York Stock Exchange

Hitler appointed German Chancellor

Berg Violin Concerto Spanish Civil War (to 1939) Inauguration of Palestine Broadcasting Service

xxiv Chronology (cont.) Year

Bloch

1937

Foundation of Ernest Bloch Society (London and New York) Violin Concerto completed Macbeth performed in Italy Szigeti premieres Violin Concerto Returns to USA Professorship at Berkeley Moves to Agate Beach, Oregon

1938

1939 1940 1941 1943

Suite Symphonique String Quartet No. 2

1947

Gold Medal in Music (American Academy of Arts and Letters)

1950

1951 1952 1953 1954 1956

1957 1958

Events

World Centre for Jewish Music in Palestine set up World War II begins USA enters war Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

1944 1945

1948 1949

Other Composers

Britten Peter Grimes

Germany surrenders unconditionally May 8 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan surrenders 14 August

State of Israel proclaimed Visits UK (London, Edinburgh) Bloch 70th birthday festival in Chicago Premiere of Scherzo Fantasque Suite Hébraïque Concerto Grosso No. 2 String Quartet No. 3 String Quartet No. 4 Trombone Symphony Suite Modale String Quartet No 5 Suites 1 and 2 for unaccompanied cello Piano Quintet No 2 Suite 3 for cello Suites 1 and 2 for unaccompanied violin Viola Suite unfinished

Eisenhower elected president of USA Shostakovich Symphony 10

Takemitsu Requiem for Strings

xxv

Chronology

(cont.) Year

Bloch

1959

Dies in Portland, OR July 15 Inauguration of an American Ernest Bloch Society with publication of The Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin Bloch Music Festival inaugurated at Newport, OR International Ernest Bloch Society relaunched (London) Ernest Bloch Foundation formed (Oregon) International Jubilee Festival First International Bloch Competition

1967 1990 2008 2009

Other Composers

Events

Alphabetical List of Bloch’s Published and Unpublished Works Compiled by Alexander Knapp

Introduction I am indebted to Ernest Bloch II and the Bloch family for their kind cooperation in helping me to assemble this alphabetical list of works, which has been drawn from several sources. It provides up-to-date information about Bloch’s published and unpublished music (as of February 2015). It does not, however, include Bloch’s orchestral arrangements of works by other composers (e.g., eight of Chopin’s Preludes for piano, and Debussy’s ballet music Khamma, for the Maud Allan Dance Company in 1916); nor does it include short pieces for tin flute (age six) and for violin (up to the age of eleven), the manuscripts of which have been lost. In the table below, there are five columns. Column 1 states the name and subtitle (if any) pertaining to each composition – sometimes in multiple versions. Where an orchestral work is indicated, the number of instruments within each ‘family’ is given (according to the standard sequence) beneath the title in col. 1: solo instrument(s)/voice(s); flute family (i.e., flutes plus piccolo), oboe family, clarinet family, bassoon family; French horns, trumpets, trombones, tubas; timpani, percussion, celesta, Glockenspiel, harp(s), piano; strings. Below the instrumentation appears the name of the dedicatee(s) (if any) in parentheses. Col. 2 indicates the general performing medium and, beneath that, the descriptive titles (if any) of individual movements within a composite work. Col. 3 lists the date of composition, followed – after a forward slash – by the date of publication if this is different. Col. 4 gives the length of the work, where known. Col. 5 presents information about the publisher (where appropriate); and immediately underneath are details of the year of expiry of copyright (always on the 31st day of December of that year). If no date is given, the work is either in manuscript, or in the public domain; or the information is not available. Most of Bloch’s works are now published by Broude Brothers,1

1 Works by Bloch originally published by A. M. E., C. C. Birchard, Galaxy Music Corp, Mills Music, Summy-Birchard, and Joseph

xxvi

Williams, are now published and available through Broude Brothers.

xxvii

Published and Unpublished Works

Carl Fischer, and G. Schirmer in the USA; a few have been brought out by Boosey and Hawkes in the UK, and the remainder by houses in France, Germany, and Italy. Only the current publication details are listed.2 Following the itemization of Bloch’s works in alphabetical order, there is a broadly chronological list of the locations in Europe and the USA where they were composed. It is hoped that the cross-referencing will be useful. Footnotes at the end of the list offer some extra information. I take full responsibility for any errors or omissions.

Alphabetical List of Works Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) ABODAH (GOD’S WORSHIP) – A YOM KIPPUR MELODY (Yehudi Menuhin) ABODAH – GOD’S WORSHIP Solo violin, 3333, 3031, timp, perc, stgs. ADONAÏ, ELOHIM: FROM FINALE OF ISRAEL SYMPHONYb (Mrs. J. F. D. Lanier) AMERICA – AN EPIC RHAPSODY Unison chorus, 4333, 6331, timp, perc, cel, 2 hps, organ (ad lib), stgs (Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman)

AMERICA: ANTHEMc

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

Violin and piano

1928/29

5’

Fischer 2024

Violin and orchestraa

[1981]

5’

Fischer

Five solo voices and piano

1916/24

11’

Schirmer 2019

Orchestra and chorus I: 1620: The Soil – The Indians – (England) – The Mayflower – The Landing of the Pilgrims. II: 1861–1865: Hours of Joy – Hours of Sorrow. III: 1926: The Present – The Future. Unison voices and organd

1926/28

42’

Broude 2023

1928

1½’

Broude 2023

2 The names and websites of the current publishers of Bloch’s music are shown at the end of this document.

xxviii Published and Unpublished Works (cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s)

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

ANDANTE MODERATO: See CONCERTO GROSSO No. 1, and DIRGE String quartet 1895 ANDANTE SUR UN AIR FOLKLORIQUE SUISSE in G major AVODAD HAKODESC – 1933/34 SERVIZIO SACROe 1933g AVODATH HAKODESHf – SACRED SERVICE FOR BARITONE CANTOR, MIXED CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA Soprano, alto, baritone soloists, four-part mixed chorus, 3333, 4331, timp, perc, cel, 2 hps, stgs (Gerald Warburg) AVODATH HAKODESH Baritone solo, four-part 1933 mixed choir, piano and organ Baritone solo, four-part 1933/66 AVODATH HAKODESH: mixed choir and piano BENEDICTION (YEVORECHECHO ADONOY) Four-part mixed choir and 1933 AVODATH HAKODESH: piano SANCTIFICATION (YIMLOCH ADONOY LEOLOM) Four-part mixed choir and 1933 AVODATH HAKODESH: piano SILENT DEVOTION AND RESPONSE (YIHYU LEROZON) AVODATH HAKODESH: Baritone solo, four-part 1933 SONG OF PEACE (ETZ mixed choir and piano CHAYIM) Violin and piano BAAL SHEM – THREE 1923/24 Vidui (Contrition) – Nigunh PICTURES OF CHASSIDIC LIFE (Improvisation) – Simchas (Sophie Bloch) Torah (Rejoicing) Violin and orchestra 1939/40 BAAL SHEM – THREE PICTURES OF CHASSIDIC LIFE 2222, 4300, timp, perc, cel, hp, stgs

Length

Publisher Expiry of Copyright unpublished

49’ 49’

Carisch 2029 Broude 2029

49’

Broude 2029

1½’

Broude 2061

13/4’

Broude 2061

2½’

Broude 2057

4’

Broude

12’

Fischer 2019

12’

Fischer 2035

xxix

Published and Unpublished Works

(cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) BAAL SHEM –THREE PICTURES OF CHASSIDIC LIFE

Medium Named Movements Cello and piano

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

i

BENEDICTION (YEVORECHECHA ADONOY): See AVODATH HAKODESH BERCEUSE IN D FLAT Piano 1897 MAJOR (Louise Bloch)j C’EST LE TEMPS D’HIVER: See LIED in B flat minor C’EST UN AIR LOINTAIN: See LIED in F major CHANTY: See POEMS OF Brass sextetk 1923/59 3’ THE SEA 3’ CHANTY: See POEMS OF String quartet and guitarl THE SEA Viola and piano 1951 18’ CINQ PIÈCES HÉBRAÏQUES (See SUITE HÉBRAÏQUE and MEDITATION AND PROCESSIONAL) 1950/51 8’ CONCERTINO FOR FLUTE, VIOLA (OR CLARINET) AND STRING ORCHESTRA (with alternative ending for full orchestra: 3222, 4331, timp, perc, stgs) 1950/51 8’ CONCERTINO FOR FLUTE, VIOLA (OR CLARINET) AND PIANO 1925/25 23’ Prelude – Dirge – Pastorale CONCERTO GROSSO and Rustic Dances – NO. 1 FOR STRING Fugue ORCHESTRA AND PIANO OBBLIGATO CONCERTO GROSSO Organ 1950/55 6’ NO. 1: DIRGE (ANDANTE MODERATO)m CONCERTO GROSSO String orchestra and string 1952/53 18½’ NO. 2 quartet 1938/38 34½’ CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA 3333, 4331, timp, perc, cel, hp, stgs

manuscript lost

Schirmer

Schirmer

Schirmer 2046

Schirmer 2046 Broude 2020

Schirmer 2048 Boosey & Hawkes 2033

xxx Published and Unpublished Works (cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s)

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN

with piano accompaniment

1938/38

34½’

1899 CONCERTO POUR VIOLON ET ORCHESTRE Reduction for violin and piano: revised version of POÈME CONCERTANT (q.v.) CONCERTO POUR 1902 VIOLONCELLE ET ORCHESTRE 1948/50 38’ CONCERTO SYMPHONIQUE FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA 3333, 4331, timp, perc, cel, stgs (Mary Tibaldi Chiesa) CONCERTO Two pianos 1948/50 38’ SYMPHONIQUE CONTE BADIN [SADRIE] POUR PIANO DANSES POPULAIRES SUISSES POUR ORCHESTRE (incomplete) DANSE SACRÉEn DEUX PIÈCES POUR QUATUOR À CORDES (See TWO PIECES FOR STRING QUARTET) (Griller String Quartet) DEUX PSAUMES POUR SOPRANO ET ORCHESTRE PRÉCÉDÉS D’UN PRÉLUDE ORCHESTRAL: PSAUMES 137 ET 114 (See PRELUDE AND TWO PSALMS)o (Edmond and Madeleine Fleg)

1897 1899

Piano

Publisher Expiry of Copyright Boosey & Hawkes 2033 unpublished

manuscript lost Boosey & Hawkes 2045

Boosey & Hawkes 2045 manuscript lost unpublished

1923 1938– 1950/52

2’ 7½’

unpublished Broude 2047

1914/21

12’

Schirmer

xxxi

Published and Unpublished Works

(cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) DIRGE: ANDANTE MODERATO from CONCERTO GROSSO NO. 1 ELFES ET SCHERZANDO POUR PIANO ENFANTINES – TEN PIECES FOR CHILDREN (Suzanne Bloch, Mrs. F. B. Kortheuer, Lucienne Bloch, Ruth Edwards, Beryl Rubinstein, Dorothy Price, Eleanor Foster, Nathan Fryer, M. Edith Martin, Anita Frank, respectively. All but Suzanne and Lucienne were professors at the Cleveland Institute of Music.)

Medium Named Movements Organ

p

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

1950/55

6’

1903 Piano Lullaby – The Joyous Party – With Mother – Elves – Joyous March –Melody – Pastorale – Rainy Day – Teasing – Dream

1923/24

12’

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

manuscript lost Fischer 2019

ETZ CHAYIM: See AVODATH HAKODESH Contemplation – Houang Ti EVOCATIONS – (God of War) – SYMPHONIC SUITE Renouveau FOR ORCHESTRA 3222, 4231, timp, perc, cel, hp, piano, stgs EVOCATIONS Two pianos

1937/37

17’

Schirmer 2033

1937/38

17’

EX-VOTO

1903/64

13/4’

1897

Schirmer 2032 Broude 2059 unpublished

1898

unpublished

FANTAISIE POUR VIOLON ET PIANO in C minor (Eugène Ysaÿe) FANTAISIE-LIED POUR VIOLON ET PIANO in E flat major FIVE SKETCHES IN SEPIA (Marguerite Fischel)

Piano

Piano Prélude – Fumées sur la Ville – Lucioles – Incertitude – Epilogue

1923/24

19’

Schirmer 2019

xxxii Published and Unpublished Works (cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) FOUR CIRCUS PIECES (‘The Dialogue. . .’ was dedicated to Teddy Chanler, ‘The Homeliest Woman. . .’ to Carl Engel, and ‘The Clown’ to Charlie Chaplin.) FOUR EPISODES FOR CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 1111, 1000, piano, string quintet FOUR WEDDING MARCHES FROM JEWISH LIFE – THREE SKETCHES (Hans Kindler) HELVETIA – THE LAND OF MOUNTAINS AND ITS PEOPLE – A SYMPHONIC FRESCO FOR ORCHESTRA [Unison chorus: manuscript only] 4444, 6431, timp, perc, cel, 2 hps, stgs (To all the Lovers of Mountains and Freedom, and to the memory of Ferdinand Hodler) HELVETIA – SYMPHONIC FRESCO HELVETIA – SYMPHONIC FRESCO HELVETIA – HYMNE FINAL: RÉDUCTION POUR PIANO ET VOIX HELVETIA: See also LA MONTAGNE HISTORIETTES AU CRÉPUSCULEt (Jan Reder, Nina FalieroDalcroze, Jean d’Udine, Louise Blochu)

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

Piano The Two ‘Burlingham’ Brothers – Dialogue and Dance of the Heavyweight and the Dwarf – The Homeliest Woman (ou L’Invitation à la Valse) – The Clown Humoresque Macabre – Obsession – Calm – Chinese

1922

10’

unpublishedq

1926/29

12’

Broude 2024

Organ

1950/51

14’

Cello and piano Prayerr – Supplication – Jewish Song [Choruss and] Orchestra

1924/25

7’

Schirmer 2046 Fischer 2020

1929/31

23’

Two pianos/four hands

No date

Medium Named Movements

Simplified four-hand arrangement Unison middle voices and piano

Mezzo-soprano and piano Légende – Les Fleurs – Ronde – Complainte

Broude 2026

unpublished unpublished

1956

1903/04

unpublished

10’

Eschig

xxxiii

Published and Unpublished Works

(cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) HIVER–PRINTEMPS (WINTER–SPRING) – TWO SYMPHONIC POEMS 3333, 4331, timp, perc, 2 hps, stgs (orchestration revised by Bloch in 1934) (Marguerite Bloch) IN MEMORIAM 2222, 2000, timp, stgs IN MEMORIAM IN THE MOUNTAINS (HAUTE-SAVOIE): TWO SKETCHES FOR STRING QUARTET (Léon Goetschel) IN THE NIGHT – A LOVE POEM IN THE NIGHT – A LOVE POEM 3333, 4331, timp, cel, glsp, hp, stgs INVENTION POUR QUATRE VOIX POUR ORGUE OU PIANO INVENTIONS À DEUX, TROIS ET QUATRE VOIX POUR PIANO OU ORGUE ISRAEL – SYMPHONY FOR ORCHESTRA AND FIVE SOLO VOICES (See ADONAÏ, ELOHIM)w Two sopranos, two contraltos, and one bass soloist, 4444, 6431, timp, perc, cel, 2 hps, stgs (Mrs. J. F. D. Lanier) JEREMIAH – A POEM FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA unfinished, partially orchestrated, based on JÉZABEL sketches

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

1905/18

13’

Schirmer

Orchestra

1952/61

3½’

Organv Dusk – Rustic Dance

1962/78 1924/26

3½’ 5’

Broude 2056 Broude Fischer 2020

Piano

1922/23

6’

Orchestra

1922/23

6’

Medium Named Movements

G.Schirmer 2018 G.Schirmer 2018

1897

unpublished

1896–7

unpublished

1916/24

1921x

23½’

Schirmer 2020

unpublished

xxxiv Published and Unpublished Works (cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) y

JÉZABEL Four acts, six tableaux LÀ-BAS: MÉLODIE POUR PIANO ET CHANTaa in A flat major LA MONTAGNE – SYMPHONIE Nr. 2: precursor of HELVETIA LANDSCAPES: See PAYSAGES LARMES D’AUTOMNE POUR PIANO ET CHANTab in E flat minor (Mlle. L. Wisard) LE SAULE POUR PIANO ET CHANTac in G minor LES SATANIQUES POUR ORCHESTRE LIED: C’EST LE TEMPS D’HIVERad in B flat minor LIED: C’EST UN AIR LOINTAINae in F major LIED POUR PIANO in A minor LIED PRINTANIER MACBETH – LYRIC DRAMA IN SEVEN SCENESaf 3333, 4331, timp, perc, hp, stgs MACBETH MACBETH: DEUX INTERLUDES SYMPHONIQUES – INTERLUDES FROM FIRST AND THIRD ACTS 3333, 4331, timp, perc, hp, stgs

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length z

Publisher Expiry of Copyright unpublished

Biblical Opera (unfinished)

c.1911–18

(Mezzo-soprano)

1898

unpublished

(Contralto)

1897

unpublished

(Tenor)

1897

unpublished

1903 Mezzo-soprano and piano

1900

manuscript lost unpublished

Mezzo-soprano and piano

1900

unpublished

1898

unpublished

Voice and piano Solo voices, mixed choir, orchestra

1900 1909/10

Vocal score

1909/10

Orchestra

1938/39

134’– 150’

134’– 150’ 11½’

unpublished 2040ag

2046ah 2040ai

xxxv

Published and Unpublished Works

(cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) MEDITATION AND PROCESSIONAL FOR VIOLA AND PIANO: See TWO PIECES FOR VIOLA AND PIANO (Milton Preves) MÉDITATION [ARIA]aj POUR VIOLON ET ORGUE in A flat major MÉDITATION HÉBRAÏQUE (Pablo Casals) MÉLODIE/MELODY (André de Ribaupierre) MENUET POUR PIANO in G minor MUSETTE POUR PIANO ET CHANTal in F major (Mme. Eugène Ysaÿe) NIGHT FOR STRING QUARTET (Roger Sessions) NIGUN FOR CELLO AND PIANO: See BAAL SHEMam NIRVANA: POEM FOR PIANO (Povla Frijsh) NUIT EXOTIQUE (Joseph Szigeti) O FATIGUE DE VIVRE ORIENTALE POUR GRANDE ORCHESTRE in G minor 3322, 4231, timp, perc, hp, stgs PASTORALE POUR PIANO PAYSAGES: THREE PIECES FOR STRING QUARTET: See LANDSCAPES (Carl Engel)

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

1951/54

6’

1897

Publisher Expiry of Copyright Schirmer 2049

unpublished

Cello and pianoak

1924/25

5’

Fischer 2020

Violin and piano

1923/24

5’

1899

Fischer 2019 unpublished

1897

unpublished

(Soprano)

1923/25

2’

Fischer 2020

1947

5’

Fischer 2042

1923/24

6’

Schirmer 2019

Violin and piano

1924/25

6’

Voice and piano

1904 1898

Fischer 2020 unpublished unpublished

North – Alpestre – Tongataboo

1896 1923/25

6’

unpublished Fischer 2020

xxxvi Published and Unpublished Works (cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s)

Medium Named Movements

PIANO QUINTET (QUINTETTE POUR CORDES ET PIANO) PIANO QUINTET NO. 1 (Harold Bauer and Lenox Quartet) PIANO QUINTET NO. 2 PIANO SONATA (SONATA PER PIANOFORTE) (Guido Agosti) POÈME CONCERTANT POUR VIOLON ET ORCHESTRE in C minor (forerunner of CONCERTO POUR VIOLON ET ORCHESTRE 1899) POÈME EXOTIQUE POÈME MYSTIQUE POUR VIOLON ET PIANO: See SONATA NO. 2 FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO and UTOPIA (André de Ribaupierre and Beryl Rubinstein) POÈMES D’AUTOMNE FOR MEZZO-SOPRANO AND PIANOao POÈMES D’AUTOMNE FOR MEZZO-SOPRANO AND ORCHESTRA Mezzo-soprano solo, 2322, 4231, timp, perc, hp, stgs POEMS OF THE SEA POEMS OF THE SEA 3333, 4331, timp, perc, cel, glsp, hp, stgs

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

1903

Publisher Expiry of Copyright manuscript lost

1923/24

32’

Schirmer

1957/62

19½’

1935/36

22’

Broude 2057 Carisch 2031

Reduction for violin and piano

1898

Orchestra

1900 1924/25

20’

unpublished Leuckartan 2020

1906/18

20½

Schirmer

1917/18

20½’

Schirmer

1922/23

11’

1923/23

11’

Schirmer 2018 Schirmer

La Vagabonde – L’Abri (The Shelter) – Le Déclin (The Waning)ap – Invocation

Piano Waves – Chanty – At Sea Orchestra

unpublished

xxxvii

Published and Unpublished Works

(cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) POEMS OF THE SEA: CHANTYaq PRAYER (See FROM JEWISH LIFE)ar PRELUDE AND MARCHas from SIX PRELUDES FOR ORGAN and FOUR WEDDING MARCHESat (Prelude No. 3 is dedicated to Alexander Schreiner) PRELUDE AND PROCESSIONAL transcribed for Clarinet choir PRELUDE AND TWO PSALMS (137 and 114) FOR SOPRANO AND ORCHESTRA: See DEUX PSAUMESau Soprano soloist, 4444, 6431, timp, perc, cel, 2 hps, stgs (Edmond and Madeleine Fleg) PRÉLUDE POUR ORCHESTRE PRÉLUDE (RECUEILLEMENT) FOR STRING QUARTET PRÉLUDE (RECUEILLEMENT) PRÈS DE LA MER: MÉLODIE POUR MEZZO-SOPRANOaw in E flat minor PROCLAMATION FOR TRUMPET AND PIANO (Samuel Laderman) PROCLAMATION FOR TRUMPET AND ORCHESTRA 2222, 4200, timp, perc, stgs

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

Brass sextet

1923/59

3’

Schirmer

Cello and orchestra

1924/65

3’

Woodwind choir

1950/51

5’

Fischer 2060 Schirmer

1968

1914/21

Schirmer

12’

1899

Schirmer

manuscript lost Fischer 2024

1925/29

3’

Organav

1946/48

3’

Voice and piano

1898

Fischer 2043 unpublished

1955/59

6’

Broude 2054

1955/56

6’

Broude 2051

xxxviii

Published and Unpublished Works

(cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) PSALM 22 FOR BARITONE OR ALTO AND ORCHESTRAax 4444, 6431, timp, perc, cel, 2 hps, stgs (Romain Rolland) PSALM 22 FOR BARITONE OR ALTO AND PIANO PSALM 114 FOR SOPRANO AND PIANO PSALM 137 FOR SOPRANO AND PIANO REGRETS POUR PIANO in E flat minor SACRED SERVICE: See AVODATH HAKODESH (Gerald Warburg) SANCTIFICATION (YIMLOCH ADONOY LEOLOM): See AVODATH HAKODESH SCHELOMO – HEBREW RHAPSODY FOR CELLO AND ORCHESTRA Cello solo, 3333, 4331, timp, perc, cel, 2 hps, stgs (Alexandre and Catherine Barjansky) SCHELOMO – HEBREW RHAPSODY SCHERZO FANTASQUE FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA Piano solo, 3333, 4331, timp, perc, hp, stgs (A. E. and Corinne Lacomblé)

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

1914/21

7’

Schirmer

1914/19

7’

Schirmer

1912/19

3’

Schirmer

1914/19

6’

Schirmer

1897

Cello and piano

unpublished

1916/18

18’

Schirmer

1916/18

18’

Schirmer

1948/50

9’

Schirmer 2045

xxxix

Published and Unpublished Works

(cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s)

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

SCHERZO FANTASQUE

Two pianos

1948/50

9’

Schirmer 2045 unpublished

1952/55

18’

Schirmer 2050

1950/50

13’

Schirmer 2045

1920/22

30’

Schirmer

1924/25

20’

Leuckart

SÉRÉNADE: MORCEAU POUR VIOLON ET PIANO in E flat major SILENT DEVOTION AND RESPONSE (YIHYU LEROZON): See AVODATH HAKODESH SINFONIA BREVE 3333, 4331, timp, perc, cel, hp, stgs (Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky) SIX PRELUDES FOR ORGAN:ay (John Stark Evans, Tracy Cannon, Alexander Schreiner, Charles Marsh, Frank Asper, Marcel Tyrrel) SONATA NO. 1 FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO (Paul Rosenfeld) SONATA NO. 2 FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO – POÈME MYSTIQUE: See also UTOPIA (André de Ribaupierre) SONATA PER PIANOFORTE: See PIANO SONATA (Guido Agosti) SONATE POUR PIANO ET VIOLONCELLE SONG OF PEACE (ETZ CHAYIM): See AVODATH HAKODESH STRING QUARTET (QUATUOR À CORDES)

1898

Orchestra

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

1897

unpublished

1896

unpublished

xl

Published and Unpublished Works

(cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s)

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

STRING QUARTET NO. 1 IN B MINOR (HEBREW QUARTET) (Flonzaley String Quartet) STRING QUARTET NO. 2 (Alex Cohen)

1916/19

50’

Schirmer

1945/47

33’

STRING QUARTET NO. 3 (Griller String Quartet) STRING QUARTET NO. 4 (Ernest Chapman) STRING QUARTET NO. 5 (Suzanne Bloch) SUITE FOR VIOLA AND PIANO (Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge) SUITE FOR VIOLA AND ORCHESTRA 3333, 4331, timp, perc, cel, glsp, 2 hps, stgs SUITE FOR VIOLA

1952/53

23’

1953/56

26’

1956/61

30’

1919/20

32’

Boosey & Hawkes 2042 Schirmer 2048 Schirmer 2051 Broude 2056 Schirmer

1920

32’

Schirmer

Cello and pianoaz

1920

32’

Rapsodie – Processional – Affirmation

1951/53

11½’

Schirmer 2067 Schirmer 2048

1951/53

11½’

Schirmer

1957/57

12’

Broude 2054

1956/58

12’

1956/57

10’

Broude 2053 Broude 2052

1956/57

16’

SUITE HÉBRAÏQUE FOR VIOLA OR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA 2222, 4300, timp, perc, hp, stgs (Covenant Club of Illinois) SUITE HÉBRAÏQUE FOR VIOLA OR VIOLIN AND PIANO SUITE MODALE FOR FLUTE AND STRINGS (Elaine Shaffer Kurtz) SUITE MODALE FOR FLUTE AND PIANO SUITE NO. 1 FOR SOLO UNACCOMPANIED CELLO (Zara Nelsova) SUITE NO. 2 FOR SOLO UNACCOMPANIED CELLO (Zara Nelsova)

Medium Named Movements

Broude 2052

xli

Published and Unpublished Works

(cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) SUITE NO. 3 FOR SOLO UNACCOMPANIED CELLO SUITE FOR SOLO UNACCOMPANIED VIOLAaaa Broude 2057 SUITE NO. 1 FOR SOLO UNACCOMPANIED VIOLIN (Yehudi Menuhin) SUITE NO. 2 FOR SOLO UNACCOMPANIED VIOLIN (Yehudi Menuhin) SUITE SYMPHONIQUE 3333, 4331, timp, perc, stgs SYMPHONIE FUNÈBRE in D minor SYMPHONIE ORIENTALE

SYMPHONY FOR TROMBONE OR CELLO AND ORCHESTRA Solo trombone or cello, 3333, 4331, timp, perc, cel, hp, stgs (Davis Shuman) SYMPHONY FOR TROMBONE OR CELLO with piano SYMPHONY IN C SHARP MINOR for Large Orchestra 4333, 4432, timp, perc, 2 hps, piano, stgs (Robert Godet)

Medium Named Movements

Orchestra Overture – Passacaglia – Finale Orchestra (piano reduction) Orchestra Part 1: Prière – Caravane en Marche Intermezzo: L’Oasis – Cérémonie Funèbre Part 2: manuscript lost

Date Comp./ Publ.

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

Length

1957/58

11’

Broude 2053

1958/62

9’/

11’aab

1958/59

10’

Broude 2054

1958/59

10½’

Broude 2054

1944/45

20’

1895

Boosey & Hawkes 2042 unpublished

1896

unpublished

1954/56

16½’

Broude 2051

1954/61

16½’

Broude 2056

1903/25

50’

Leuckart Eulenburg

xlii Published and Unpublished Works (cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) SYMPHONY IN E FLAT MAJOR 3333, 4331, timp, perc, stgs SYMPHONY NO. 2 – LA MONTAGNE: See HELVETIA TES GUÊTRES, TON BÂTON, TON SAC THREE NOCTURNES FOR VIOLIN, CELLO AND PIANO (The New York Trio) TROIS POÈMES JUIFS (THREE JEWISH POEMS) 3323, 4331, timp, perc, cel, hp, stgs TWO LAST POEMS (MAYBE. . .) FOR FLUTE AND ORCHESTRA Flute solo, 2322, 4200, timp, perc, hp, stgs (Elaine Shaffer Kurtz) TWO LAST POEMS (MAYBE. . .) FOR FLUTE AND PIANO TWO PIECES (See DEUX PIÈCES) FOR STRING QUARTET (Griller String Quartet) TWO PIECES FOR VIOLA AND PIANO: See MEDITATION AND PROCESSIONAL (Milton Preves) UTOPIA: A POEM FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO: earlier title for POÈME MYSTIQUE (SONATA NO. 2)

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

Orchestra

1955/56

24’

Schirmer

Voice and piano

1899

unpublished

1904

unpublished

1924/25

7’

Fischer 2020

POUR GRAND ORCHESTRE Danse – Rite – Cortège Funèbre

1913/18

23’

Schirmer

Funeral Music – ‘Life again?. . .’

1958/75

13’

Broude 2070

1958/61

13’

Broude 2056

1938 and 1950/52

7½’

Broude 2047

1951/54

6’

Schirmer

Meditation – Processional

1924

unpublished

xliii

Published and Unpublished Works

(cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s) VARIATIONS ON AN ORIGINAL THEME BY EUGÈNE GOOSSENS BY TEN AMERICAN COMPOSERS: VARIATION 10: SOLENNE 3333, 4331, timp, perc, stgs (‘Schelomo presents his best compliments and wishes to Eugene Goossens and the Cincinnati Symph. Orchestra’) VIVRE-AIMER: POÈME SYMPHONIQUE POUR GRANDE ORCHESTRE in F sharp minor (Émile Jaques-Dalcroze) VISIONS ET PROPHÉTIES (VISIONS AND PROPHECIES, extracted from VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS) (Harriet Cohen) VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS (VOIX DANS LE DÉSERT) – SYMPHONIC POEM WITH CELLO OBBLIGATO 3333, 4331, timp, perc, cel, 2 hps, stgs VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS YEVORECHECHO ADONOY: See AVODATH HAKODESH YIHYU LEROZON: See AVODATH HAKODESH

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

Orchestra

1944

13/4’

unpublished

1900

unpublished

Piano

1936

15’

Schirmer 2035

Orchestra and cello

1936/36

25’

Schirmer 2031

Cello and piano

1935/37

25’

Schirmer 2032

xliv Published and Unpublished Works (cont.) Name of Work, Instrumentation (Orch. Works), Dedicatee(s)

Medium Named Movements

Date Comp./ Publ.

Length

Publisher Expiry of Copyright

YIMLOCH ADONOY LEOLOM: See AVODATH HAKODESH a

Orchestrated by Charles Gerhardt (1927–99). For further information, see Hebrew Melody, Lydia Mordkovitch (violin) and the National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Gerhardt, LP: RCA Red Seal, RL25370, London, 1981. b Text by Bloch (mainly in English, partly in Hebrew). c Text by Bloch. d Birchard published versions for men’s voices in 1929 (copyright expiry: 2024), four-part mixed choir in 1929 (exp. 2024), and women’s voices in 1930. For text and piano score of anthem, see also ‘Triumphant and Onward’, Boston Evening Transcript (22 December 1928), 5. e Text translated into Italian by Mary Tibaldi Chiesa. f The English text by David Stevens is based upon the liturgy for the Sabbath Morning Service published in The Union Prayer Book for Jewish Worship (American Reform). The prayer spoken by the Minister on pp. 72–4, and p. 75 bar 8–p. 78 bar 6 of the vocal score (corresponding to p. 118 bar 3–p. 125 bar 4, and p. 127 bar 4–p. 135 bar 2 of the orchestral score) are Bloch’s own words. g Published by S. A. Carisch 1934, Summy-Birchard 1934, Broude Brothers 1962. h See also under NIGUN. i Published arrangement by Peter Bruns, Opus 111, France, 2000; and unpublished arrangement by Emanuel Feuermann 1935. j Bloch’s sister ‘Loulette’. k Arranged by R. W. Landes. l Further information not available. m Arranged by Charles H. Marsh. Originally published by Summy-Birchard; no publication details currently available. n The only completed movement from DANSES ORIENTALES POUR JÉZABEL. o All the Psalm texts are Edmond Fleg’s French paraphrases of the biblical texts. p Arranged by Ch. H. Marsh. q In preparation: Broude Bros. r See also PRAYER. s The text of the Anthem heard near the conclusion of Helvetia is based on an old folksong in the Genevan dialect: Cé qué lé no (‘The One who is above’). This choral addition does not form part of the published score. t Poems by Camille Mauclair. u Bloch’s sister ‘Loulette’. v Arranged by Suzanne Bloch under her pseudonym W. J. Versuja. w Text by Bloch (mainly in English, partly in Hebrew). x This is probably the most reliable date. However, there is much confusion regarding the time frame of the work: in some sources the date given is as early as 1901, and in others the mid-1950s. Like JÉZABEL, JEREMIAH was an ongoing project that never reached fruition. y Libretto by Edmond Fleg.

xlv z

Published and Unpublished Works

Some sources give anywhere between 1903 and the mid-1920s; but there is evidence to suggest that Bloch gave most of his attention to the opera during his early to late thirties. aa Text by Jacques Madeleine: ‘Là-bas, sur la mer’. ab Text by Franz Foulon: ‘Larmes de feuilles’. ac Text by Louis Avennier: ‘Le saule pleureur a penché’. ad Text by Louis Duchoral. ae Text by Louis Duchoral. af Libretto by Edmond Fleg, Italian translation by Mary Tibaldi Chiesa, English translation by Bloch and Alex Cohen. ag Published by G. Astruc – C. Enoch 1910, Polyphon 1939, Suvini Zerboni 1945, and currently Messaggerie Musicali. ah As for orchestral score. ai Polyphon 1939, Suvini Zerboni 1945. aj ARIA appears to be an alternative title. ak Carl Fischer also publishes a version of MÉDITATION HÉBRAÏQUE for double bass and piano (arranged Sankey). al Text by Louis Avennier: ‘J’allais fouiller les haies’. am Arranged by Joseph Schuster. an Later published by Carl Fischer. ao Poems by Béatrix Rodès. English translations by Sigmund Spaeth and Theodore Baker; German translation by Alice Blau. ap The middle two songs are sometimes sung in reverse order. aq See under CHANTY. Brass sextet version arranged by R. W. Landes. ar Carl Fischer also publishes a version of PRAYER for double bass and piano (arranged Sankey). as Schirmer has also been listed as publishing a PROCESSIONAL FOR ORGAN (1961, expiry date 2056), but no further information is available. at The Prelude is NO. 3 of SIX PRELUDES FOR ORGAN; and the March is NO. 1 of FOUR WEDDING MARCHES. Transcribed for woodwind choir by Frank Ericson. au French paraphrases of PSALMS 22, 114, and 137 by Edmond Fleg; English translations by Waldo Frank. av Arranged by Charles H. Marsh. aw Text by Jean Lahor: ‘Écoute la chanson des flots’. ax Psalm paraphrases in French by Edmond Fleg. ay PRELUDE I appears on the first pages of Gershon Ephros, Cantorial Anthology: Traditional and Modern Synagogue Music, Vol. III: ‘Sholosh R’golim’ (New York: Bloch Publishing Co., 1975, copyright date 1948), pp. 1–2, within the section ‘Evening Service for Shalosh R’golim’ (the ‘Three Pilgrim Festivals’), and receives the subtitle ‘Invocation’. The date given at the end of the piece is November 9, 1946, thus predating the publication by G. Schirmer by some four years. In the same volume, PRELUDE II, subtitled ‘Meditation,’ appears on pp. 320–1 within the section Hazkoras N’homos (‘Memorial Service’), and is dated November 12, 1946. In Vol. VI: ‘The Recitative (for Rosh Hashonoh)’ (1977), pp. 101–2, the melody of ‘Invocation’ has been adapted, by the editor Gershon Ephros, to the High Holy Day text Ovinu Malkenu (‘Our Father, our King’) in the form of a cantorial solo recitative. A footnote on p. 101 indicates that this arrangement had been made by kind permission of G. Schirmer. az Arranged by Gabor Rejto (cello) and Adolph Baller (piano). aaa Finale completed by David L. Sills, published by Broude Brothers in 1989. aab The work lasts 11 minutes with David Sills’s completion.

xlvi Published and Unpublished Works

Locations Bloch’s mature works (abbreviated titles placed in alphabetical order within each category) were composed in the following locations in which he lived (in broadly chronological order of domicile): Munich: Historiettes au Crépuscule (two of four songs), Symphony in C sharp minor. Paris: Ex-Voto, Historiettes au Crépuscule (two of four songs). Geneva/Satigny: Hiver-Printemps, Israel Symphony, Macbeth, Poèmes d’Automne, Prélude et Deux Psaumes (137 et 114), Psaume 22, Schelomo, String Quartet No. 1 (first three movements), Three Jewish Poems. New York: Danse Sacrée, String Quartet No. 1 (Finale), Viola Suite (1919). Cleveland: Baal Shem (violin and piano version), Concerto Grosso No. 1, Enfantines, Five Sketches in Sepia, Four Circus Pieces, In the Night, Mélodie, Night, Nirvana, Paysages (Landscapes), Piano Quintet No. 1, Poems of the Sea, Prélude (Recueillement), Three Nocturnes, Violin Sonata No. 1. Santa Fe: From Jewish Life, In the Mountains, Méditation Hébraïque, Nuit Éxotique, Poème Mystique (Violin Sonata No. 2). San Francisco: Abodah, America, Four Episodes, Helvetia. Roveredo-Capriasca: Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service). Châtel, Haute-Savoie: Evocations, Piano Sonata, first of Two Pieces (Deux Pièces) for String Quartet, Violin Concerto, Visions and Prophecies, Voice in the Wilderness. Rangeley Lakes, Maine: Baal Shem (violin and orchestra version). Agate Beach: Concertino for Flute, Viola and Strings (or Piano), Concerto Grosso No. 2, Concerto Symphonique, Four Wedding Marches, In Memoriam, Meditation and Processional (viola and piano), Piano Quintet No. 2, Scherzo Fantasque, Sinfonia Breve, Six Preludes for Organ, String Quartets 2, 3, 4, 5, Suite Hébraïque, Suite Modale, Suite Symphonique, Symphony in E flat major, Trombone Symphony, Proclamation for Trumpet and Orchestra, Two Last Poems, second of Two Pieces (Deux Pièces) for String Quartet, Unaccompanied Solo Suites for Violin, Viola, Cello.

List of Current Publishers Boosey & Hawkes: www.boosey.com Broude Brothers Ltd: www.broude.us Carl Fischer: www.carlfischer.com

xlvii

Published and Unpublished Works

Ernst Eulenburg: www.eulenburg.de/en_UK Leuckart Musikverlag: www.thomi-berg.de/verlage/leuckart_verlag.php Max Eschig: www.durand-salabert-eschig.com Nuova Carish SRL: www.carisch.com G. Schirmer Inc: www.musicsalesclassical.com, www.sheetmusicplus.com

Bloch Resources: Recordings in the Age of the Internet Stanley Henig

Records and Recording Long gone is the era when the only way to access the work of composers was to listen to actual performances or, for a minority, to study musical scores. During the twentieth century ever-growing access to recordings became for the majority the major resource. In the early years of the gramophone there were few recordings of Bloch’s work. Catalogues of what was available were essentially ephemeral. A work might be recorded, issued on records – initially shellac, subsequently vinyl – and in due course simply withdrawn from the catalogue and thereafter often difficult to obtain. The modern era – compact discs, tape formats, digital downloads – has changed all this. To all intents and purposes every official recording ever made of a musical performance is in practice available. In parallel, recordings made, often unofficially, at live concerts or via broadcasts thereof, and hitherto unknown or forgotten, are regularly unearthed and issued. Where Bloch is concerned, one example will suffice. He dedicated his Violin Concerto to Joseph Szigeti who created the work at its first performance and made a studio recording with Charles Munch conducting. Years later, two further Szigeti recordings made at live concerts conducted respectively by Thomas Beecham and Willem Mengelberg were ‘discovered’ and issued on compact disc, long after the death of the great violinist. When we add to our musical heritage from the past the many much more recent recordings including those from today’s concerts, there is a considerable volume of Bloch’s music now available, usually in competing versions. The earliest discographies of classical music either attempted, like The World’s Encyclopaedia of Recorded Music (WERM), to cover the entire field or in some cases the work of a single composer or artist. In 1976, the Jewish Music Council (USA) published Ernest Bloch: Creative Spirit. Described as A Program Source Book prepared by Suzanne Bloch and Irene Heskes, it offered an exhaustive listing of recordings then available. Forty years on, the Bloch entries in WERM and the Source Book retain considerable historic fascination, but they list only a fraction of what is now available. In the contemporary era, internet websites are a much more flexible tool for issuing discographies. Listings can be kept up to date and readily accessed in various formats. Where Ernest Bloch is concerned, there is one xlviii

xlix

Bloch Resources

particularly outstanding website: http://claude.torres1.perso.sfr.fr/Bloch/ index.html. Whilst this is in French, it is easy to follow and the internet often offers translation facilities. An initial section of the website presents a very brief biography of the composer, a rather larger bibliography and a series of links to other Bloch websites. The discography itself can be accessed alphabetically, chronologically, or by type of work. For each composition, Claude Torres lists all recordings which have been issued, also covering subsequent reissues. As any fresh recording or new discovery of an older recording is issued, it will be listed. In a word which should not often be used, the entirety is indeed as near to being definitive as possible. Presented with the array of recordings listed by Claude Torres, any newcomer to Bloch’s music may well not know how to proceed. Labelling any particular version as the best is always controversial. Determining factors may be the quality of the sound or the quality of the performance. Reference to published musical reviews in magazines, books or online formats may be helpful. Amongst collectors there is always considerable interest in what are termed ‘creator performances’ by the composer – the first person to perform the work or perhaps the artist(s) to whom it was dedicated. Indeed, this may offer a convenient starting point for this brief survey of the Bloch catalogue of recorded music. First, a word of warning and a disclaimer! Given the frequency of reissues usually with different catalogue numbers and sometimes by different companies, I am not giving any specific catalogue numbers in this chapter. They are of course all readily available on Claude Torres’s website. There are relatively few outlets for retailers of classical music especially in the United Kingdom, whilst those that do exist are highly unlikely to stock very much if anything of Ernest Bloch. Leaving aside the odd second-hand or charity shop, the most likely destination for would-be purchasers of CDs will be the internet and this is even more the case for those wishing to purchase downloads in MP3 or any other format. Bloch himself not infrequently conducted first performances of his own works. Had live recording been more in vogue at an early date, these very performances might have been preserved for posterity: they would embody the premiere performance by the person who wrote the music. Sadly, we at present know of no such examples. However, recordings were made by Decca in London in 1949 of Bloch conducting Schelomo and Sacred Service. He is also the piano accompanist in a performance of the three sketches From Jewish Life. There have been various subsequent reissues and it is worth drawing attention to the beautifully packaged production by Jewish Music Heritage Recordings which contains a fine booklet, and also one by Pearl although, curiously, this does not include the first of the three sketches. The cantor in Sacred Service is the great baritone Marko Rothmüller, at the

l Bloch Resources time performing extensively in London. The cello soloist in both Schelomo and the three sketches is Zara Nelsova. In 1955, Nelsova again recorded Schelomo and also Voice in the Wilderness with Ernest Ansermet conducting the London Philharmonic. These cannot claim creator status but it is important to remember that both Nelsova and Ansermet were friends of Bloch and worked with him. There is yet a third version by Zara Nelsova with another great conductor, Maurice Abravanel, and the Utah Symphony Orchestra. It may also be worth mentioning at this stage two considerably earlier and almost legendary recordings of Schelomo by Emanuel Feuermann. There is some evidence that he did not particularly care for the work, but he is generally recognized as one of the greatest cellists of all time. Before leaving Bloch’s own recorded legacy, it is worth mentioning a speech which he delivered on one occasion before himself conducting America: An Epic Rhapsody. There is no known recording of that performance but we do have a short excerpt from this speech included on a Vanguard CD conducted on a different occasion by Leopold Stokowski with the Symphony of the Air. In this connection it is worth noting a recording on Musica Helvetica containing extracts from various works by Bloch; this also includes commentaries by his two daughters, Lucienne and Suzanne. In the history of Bloch on record, two violinists are particularly important: Joseph Szigeti and Yehudi Menuhin each made creator recordings. The Violin Concerto was dedicated to, as well as created by, Joseph Szigeti and he was the first violin soloist to play in the orchestral version of Baal Shem, although his recordings are of the piano version – initially in 1928 the ‘Nigun’ movement and subsequently the complete work. Szigeti made the first studio recording of the concerto and, as already mentioned, there are two live recordings made around the same time. Again there are a good many subsequent reissues. A cost-effective way of acquiring a Szigeti performance of the Bloch concerto is to purchase one of the large boxed CD sets devoted to his wonderful musical legacy. Yehudi Menuhin was dedicatee and creator of Abodah before his thirteenth birthday: he recorded the short work on a shellac record and also around the same time the ‘Nigun’ from Baal Shem. Menuhin would subsequently champion Bloch’s works throughout his life and career. He was the dedicatee for the two unaccompanied violin suites and the first to perform the second of them. He recorded both works for EMI. The Yehudi Menuhin Foundation also sponsored a version of the Suite for Viola adapted for piano and cello. It was recorded by Gábor Rejtö and Adolph Baller. Suite Hébraïque is amongst significant recorded performances by creators of other works for stringed instruments. It was dedicated to Milton Preves and the Chicago Covenant Club. Preves was first to play it in both the

li

Bloch Resources

orchestral and the piano accompanied versions. The pianist in the latter was Helene Braun with whom Milton Preves also made a private recording. It was produced on a long-playing record never generally available, but the fourth and fifth movements are included in volume 3 of The Recorded Viola (Pearl CD). There is another early recording of all five movements as well as the Suite for Viola and Piano by the almost legendary violist William Primrose. Once available on a Capitol LP it has been reissued by Naxos but it may only be available as a digital download. The members of the Griller Quartet were friends and associates of Ernest Bloch. They were first to perform the second, third and fourth string quartets and the Grillers were also the dedicatees for the second. The Grillers recorded all three as well as the first quartet. The set is available on a pair of Decca CDs. Moving from the era of the creators, there are continual additions to the burgeoning Bloch catalogue and the role of smaller companies is particularly important. One such company is the California-based Laurel Records. Its website (www.laurelrecord.com/) emphasizes a commitment to contemporary music. However, Bloch’s music is particularly well represented in its catalogue even though the company began operations around fifteen years after his death. Its Bloch releases are mainly instrumental and chamber music. Amongst featured artists are the Pro Arte Quartet and the Karp family (Howard, Frances, Parry), all based in Wisconsin. Another strong recommendation is a two CD set of Bloch’s complete works for violin and piano played by Latica Honda-Rosenberg and Avner Arad. This is featured on the website of Akinori Itoh (see below) who also highlights the recording of the violin sonatas played by Lydia Mordkovitch and Julian Mordford. Both Claude Torres and Akinori Itoh also recommend the recording by the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of works for chamber orchestra including Four Episodes, the Concerti Grossi and the Concertino for Flute and Viola. Schelomo continues to be the most frequently recorded of all Bloch’s works. Janos Starker recorded it and also Voice in the Wilderness for Decca with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. There is a much more recent and very highly rated recording of both works as well as From Jewish Life by Natalie Clein. Amongst other great cellists there are recordings by Pierre Fournier, André Navarra, Mstislav Rostropovitch and, very much of the present day, Steven Isserlis and Raphael Wallfisch. Bloch recordings emanate from many parts of the world. Halida Dinova and the St Petersburg State Academic Capella Symphony Orchestra recorded the Concerto Symphonique and the Scherzo Fantasque on Chandos, whilst Dalia Atlas has recorded the two Concerti Grossi with the Atlas Camerata and the Symphony in E flat together with other orchestral works with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra both on the ASV label. There is an

lii Bloch Resources interesting section about Atlas’s extensive work on performing and recording Bloch on the Ernest Bloch Legacy website (see below). Ending this survey of Bloch on record, there is a rave review in the Gramophone Classical Music Guide (2012: 232–3) for the two piano quintets performed by Piers Lane and the Goldner Quartet issued on Hyperion – described as ‘easily the best recording of Bloch’s chamber music in years’. Those who want to start collecting Bloch on record might do well to start by purchasing this, the recordings by the Griller Quartet, Szigeti in the Violin Concerto and the composer’s own versions of Schelomo, Sacred Service and From Jewish Life.

The Internet The two worlds of records and recording and the internet are brought together through a useful direct link from Claude Torres’s website to the vast and ever-increasing number of Bloch items available for you to hear and watch on YouTube. Some items are little more than musical snippets, but visiting YouTube is an initial and adventurous way of finding out more about Bloch’s music and its performers. Gradually digital downloading is replacing record and CD ownership as a means of acquisition and collection of music for home listening. It is not and certainly should never be considered as a free service and there are plenty of legitimate sources for purchasing downloads. There are various sites on the internet offering advice on digital downloading and the law. One such is http:// arts.guardian.co.uk/netmusic/page/0,,1127237,00.html. Claude Torres apart, there are also a number of other websites devoted to aspects of the life, work and legacy of Ernest Bloch. Four of these deal with collections of books and documents: • http://findingaids.loc.gov is the route to discovering material of relevance in the vast US Library of Congress. • http://ead.nb.admin.ch/html/bloch.html accesses the holdings of the Swiss national library. • http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/belknap/composers/bloch.htm offers a direct link to the Robert Strassburg collection of Bloch material in the Belknap collection for the Performing Arts. Strassburg is the author of Ernest Bloch: Voice in the Wilderness (1977). • www.esm.rochester.edu/sibley/specialc/findaids/bloch.htm leads to the Ernest Bloch collection which is part of the Ruth T. Watanabe special collections in the Sibley Music Library. There are two websites both operating from the US state of Oregon with a mix of content including a good deal of personal and local material:

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• www.ernestbloch.org entitled the Ernest Bloch Legacy is run by the Oregon-based Ernest Bloch Foundation is the more extensive. • www.ocean18.net/Ernest%20Bloch/Enest%20Bloch%20Project.htm entitled the Ernest Bloch Project is run by the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts. There are also websites based in three other countries with a range of content: • http://homepage3.nifty.com/bloch/ is run by Mr Akinori Itoh (Japan) and entitled A Young Person’s Guide to Ernest Bloch. It is in English and Japanese. Mostly focusing on recordings and offering various recommendations, it should certainly appeal to people of all ages. • www.ernestbloch.ch is the website of the Swiss-based Association BloCH [sic]. It is in English. • www.ernestblochsociety.org is the website of the International Ernest Bloch Society based in London. Most of the above websites share mutual links. From time to time websites seem to disappear and then reappear with a slightly different web address. The content of any individual website is not always up to date. And one final word: the above only covers websites as such; there is much additional information on the internet. Finally, I should like to record my debt to Claude Torres whose help and advice – both from his website and in personal correspondence – have been indispensable in compiling this chapter.

Introduction Norman Solomon

The period from the end of the nineteenth century until after World War II is one of the richest in the history of ‘serious’ music, ranging from Debussy and Ravel to Stravinsky and Bartók, from Elgar, Sibelius and Vaughan Williams to Prokofiev and Szymanowski, from Puccini to Benjamin Britten. And if we focus on music by composers of Jewish origin, we have Mahler and Schoenberg, Gershwin and Copland, Milhaud and Kurt Weill, not to speak of Ḥazzanut (cantorial art) and the more ‘popular’ klezmer. Though the evaluation of Bloch as ‘The fourth “B” after Bach, Beethoven and Brahms’1 seems exaggerated, there is no doubt that the best of his music can hold its own among the masterpieces of his time. It is not easy, therefore, to account for the relative neglect of his music in the second half of the twentieth century. The popular Baal Shem Suite retained its place in the violin repertoire, and the Sacred Service has a special niche, but performances of the quartets, the piano quintets, the Concerti Grossi, the symphonies, the ‘rhapsody’ Schelomo (in effect a cello concerto, and strongly championed by Zara Nelsova), the violin concerto, the opera Macbeth and so many other fine compositions became much less frequent. Bloch’s personal style is readily recognizable across various genres of composition; his inclusion, and sometimes invention, of ‘national’ melodies (Jewish, Swiss, Chinese, Native American) never obscures his powerful, frequently passionate, individuality. To categorize him as a ‘late Romantic’ overlooks his eclectic use of Eastern and Western modalities, his frequent polytonality and less frequent experimentation with microtones, as well as his utilization of Gregorian chant, Renaissance-style polyphony and of classical forms. Recently there have been signs of a revival of interest. Especially noteworthy for performance are the efforts of the Israeli conductor Dalia Atlas to promote his work; she has conducted his compositions internationally and recorded most of the orchestral repertoire. From 1998 Hayuta Dvir, often

1

The origin of this frequently cited evaluation is unknown. Alexander Knapp

1

heard it from the composer’s daughter, Suzanne, as early as 1969.

2 Norman Solomon working with Atlas, introduced and discussed many of Bloch’s works in his Etnakhta series on Israel Radio. Academic study of Bloch, unlike performance, continued steadily throughout the twentieth century and is ongoing, as witness the pioneering studies of David Kushner (1967 onwards), Alexander Knapp (1971 onwards), David Schiller (1996, 2003), Zecharia Plavin (1997), Jacques Tchamkerten (2001), Klára Móricz (2008) and others, and the four-volume anthology of correspondence and other documentation edited by Joseph Lewinski and Emmanuelle Dijon between 1998 and 2005. In 2004, some members of the London-based Jewish Music Institute, noting that the 50th anniversary of Bloch’s death would fall in July 2009, began planning for the occasion, the first fruit of their work being the 2007 Cambridge Conference described below. Following this, in July 2008, the International Ernest Bloch Society, originally founded2 in 1937 with Albert Einstein as its honorary president, was relaunched at the London home of Bob and Elisabeth Boas.3 Sir Charles Mackerras was its first president; following the death of Sir Charles, Steven Isserlis CBE was confirmed as president in 2011. The International Society, which has associates in several countries, produces a regular Newsletter, operates a website, encourages performance of Bloch’s works, and supports the International Bloch Competition (for performance of his works).

The 2007 Cambridge Conference From 29 to 31 July 2007, with the backing of the London-based Jewish Music Institute, the first ever International Academic Conference on Ernest Bloch took place at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge. This brought together many of the leading Bloch scholars from around the world, as well as several performers and a number of members of the Bloch family, including Ernest Bloch II, the composer’s grandson, whose presence and words gave an added sense of purpose to the occasion. Keynote papers were delivered by Philip Bohlman on ‘Journeys between Utopia and Dystopia: Chronotypes of Displacement on Ernest Bloch’s Epic Landscapes’, and by Klára Móricz on Bloch’s self-understanding as a genius. Dalia Atlas drew on her extensive conducting experience to illustrate ‘New Approaches to Interpreting the Multiplicity of Styles exhibited in Selected Compositions by Ernest Bloch’; Stanley Henig reviewed the premiere and performance history of Bloch’s only completed opera, Macbeth; Jehoash 2

Societies were founded in both New York and London.

3

An American-based Ernest Bloch Society was formed in 1967, but did not last.

3

Introduction

Hirshberg’s theme was ‘Bloch as a Model for the First Generation Composers of the Yishuv and Early Israel (1920–1960)’; Alexander Knapp focused on Bloch’s self-understanding in the period 1916–19; Zecharia Plavin spoke on ‘Bloch’s Reception and his Standing in Israel since 1955’; and David Schiller compared and contrasted Bloch and Leonard Bernstein as composers of Jewish religious music. In addition, Joella Werlin offered insights into the ‘Bloch Family Dynamics and Creative Forces’, Frank Geltner outlined the Ernest Bloch Legacy Project (www.ernestblochlegacy.org/) and Akinori Itoh gave an account of his website, ‘A Young Person’s Guide to Ernest Bloch’ (homepage3.nifty.com/bloch/), set up in 1999, and of the reception of Bloch in Japan. The proceedings were further enhanced by a recital consisting of a performance by Miriam Brickman (piano) of Poems of the Sea (1922), a lecture-recital of Bloch’s Poèmes d’Automne (1906) by Andrea Rivers Baron, accompanied by Zecharia Plavin, and a performance by the Russian cellist Yosif Feigelson of the Suite No. 1 for Solo Cello and, accompanied by Malcolm Miller, of other works by Bloch, Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Solomon Senderey. This event stimulated further activity, especially in connection with the International Jubilee Festival already mooted for the 50th anniversary of Bloch’s death in 2009. Work towards the festival was coordinated by the Jewish Music Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, by the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts and by the Ernest Bloch Legacy Foundation. Musical organizations large and small, including opera companies, orchestras, choirs, ensembles, soloists and venues worldwide were invited to include Bloch’s music in their programmes for 2009 and beyond, and some responded positively; there was, for instance, a notable performance of Bloch’s Piano Quintet No. 1 at the Wigmore Hall on 20 April 2009 by the Goldner Quartet with Piers Lane (piano). The same artists had recorded the work for Hyperion in 2007. Also in 2009 the first annual International Bloch Competition, organized independently by the cellist Sagi Hartov but with support from the International Ernest Bloch Society, took place in London. Academic research on Bloch received a further boost at the 15th World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in 2009 when several sessions were devoted to Bloch’s music, some of them by contributors to this volume.

Uniqueness of This Publication A glance at the Select Bibliography will indicate the wide range of existing publications on Bloch and his music. The present volume focuses this

4 Norman Solomon activity by offering key studies by the leading authorities, combined with leads to available resources in print, online and on disk, for scholarship on and performance of Bloch’s work. The chronology and list of works, with full publication and copyright details, are also presented here in easily accessible form for the first time. It is the hope of the editors that this volume will remain an authoritative reference source on Bloch, his work and Bloch scholarship for many years to come.

Summary of Contents Specific compositions are discussed by Bohlman (Israel Symphony, Helvetia and America), Henig (Macbeth), Knapp (Schelomo and the Baal Shem Suite), Kushner (works from 1939) and Schiller (Sacred Service). Periods of Bloch’s life and work are covered by Knapp (early period), Bohlman (1916–30) and Kushner (from 1939). Several articles (Móricz, Miller, Bohlman) touch, from various aspects, on Bloch’s ambivalence about his Jewish identity and the relationship between nationalism and universalism, and the effect (if any) this ambivalence had on his music. Bloch’s equally ambivalent relationship with Palestine/Israel, and the reception of his music there both before and after the foundation of the state, are dealt with by Bohlman, Hirshberg and Plavin, and tangentially by Kushner. Additional sections provide chronology, a list of works, a selective bibliography and a guide to recordings. In the summaries that follow footnotes are kept to a minimum. For sources for the quotations refer to the articles in the main body of the book. In the opening chapter Alexander Knapp addresses one of the most intriguing and confusing issues surrounding Bloch’s musical and personal identity. In 1917, in the context of the set of seven works that he entitled his ‘Jewish Cycle’ (written mainly in Geneva, c.1911–16), he proclaimed his aspiration, as a Jew, to write Jewish music, because he was sure that this was the only way in which he could produce music of vitality and significance. Two years later, he wrote that his Viola Suite (recently completed in New York) did not belong to his ‘so-called Jewish works’, but that it was, instead, a vision of the Far East, of which he had so often dreamed. Knapp examines, first of all, some lesser known facts concerning Bloch’s religious and domestic background and early years; second, his perception of Jewish music and of himself as an evolving ‘Jewish composer’; third, the works of the ‘Jewish Cycle’; and finally, the circumstances that appear to have brought about the end of the cycle itself, and the beginning of new musical directions. Klára Móricz writes on ‘The “suffering and greatness” of Ernest Bloch: concepts of the composer as genius’. She explains aspects of Bloch’s personality, aesthetic and political views by pointing to their origin in his self-conception as

5

Introduction

a genius, a concept formed on models of Beethoven and Wagner. Drawing on Tia DeNora’s 1995 biography of Beethoven, she argues that the concept of genius as distinguished from great talent appeared at the end of the eighteenth century in the context of the North German Sturm und Drang movement, which emphasized and valued creative originality and saw alienation and suffering as indispensable accessories of a genius. Móricz attributes contradictions and inconsistencies in Bloch’s views in part to the untenability of the Romantic role of genius in the twentieth century, when Romantic individualism gave way to social theories inspired by biological determinism. Bloch’s sense of alienation was not merely an acquired pose; born into a Jewish family in Switzerland, nurtured on German and French cultures, and spending most of his adult life in the United States, he declared himself at home nowhere: In Switzerland, they say I am a Swiss renegade—In America: a Swiss expatriate who steals the prizes from our native composers . . . In Germany, I am a ‘Frenchman’ because I fought for Debussy!—in France, I am a ‘German’ because I defended G. Mahler—and now . . . the Jews put me ‘out’, say I am not a ‘Jew’ . . . where must I go to live and to belong! [To] the Moon?!!

Bloch’s biological determinism became a pretext to push aside ‘petit bourgeois’ morality, and he found further ‘justification’ for his ideas on sexual freedom in the writings of Havelock Ellis. He welcomed the category of race as a determining factor in society, history and art. ‘Does any man think he is only himself?’ he asked Olin Downes in an interview. ‘Far from it. He is thousands of his ancestors. If he writes as he feels, no matter how exceptional his point of view, his expression will be basically that of his forefathers.’ Malcolm Miller, in an essay on Bloch, Wagner and creativity, explores the relationship of Bloch and his music to Wagner: ‘Bloch the Jewish composer and Wagner the anti-Semitic composer would appear not to be likely bedfellows. Yet for Bloch, the romantic searcher after Jewish identity at the cusp of musical modernism, Wagner, the forger of a German national identity in music and the romantic prophet of musical modernism, was a natural reference point.’ The crucial work for Bloch’s situation as a Jewish composer was Die Meistersinger. In 1911, the year of the ‘Jewish Cycle’, he articulates how he sees the work not merely as a plea for German nationalism, but as a spur to develop both his own cultural nationalism and his search for a personal identity. Of a Berlin performance in 1911, he wrote to his friend the playwright Edmond Fleg: It was not only Wagner I found there, but also a part of myself . . . our sensibility as Jews is closer to the complete human realisation (fulfilment) which is German music than the pretty forms of French music.

6 Norman Solomon In the 3rd act I was vibrant and sad at the same time – How beautiful it is to belong to a NATION, to feel around one a Harmony, to plunge one’s roots deeply into a sacred soil. Wagner, exiled and alone proclaimed that, what a lesson.

Ernest Bloch, by becoming the ‘Jewish composer’ par excellence, deliberately took over the Wagnerian mantle at the same time as throwing down the gauntlet at Wagner. In his Jewish works, of the ‘Jewish Cycle’ and later, he set Jewish texts, and his choice of Jewish topics and conscious or unconscious musical elements was nurtured from within his Jewish historical community; he seeks to uphold Wagner’s aesthetic while challenging Wagner’s anti-Semitism. Like Móricz, Miller stresses the composer’s sense of alienation. Bloch himself, in a letter from Havelock Ellis in May 1932, published in this volume for the first time, points to the sense of fracture in integrating his identity. He declares that he cannot write ‘abstract’ music, a thought expressed also in his Man and Music: Only that art can live which is an active manifestation of the life of a people. It must be a necessary, an essential portion of that life and not a luxury. It must have its roots deep within the soil that brings it forth.

As Miller observes, Bloch’s words carry resonances of Wagner’s definition of art in The Art Work of the Future (1849) as emanating from the life force of ‘the people’. The opposite of such need is luxury, or superficial art, which Wagner, in the essay ‘Judaism in Music’ published shortly after, connects with the Jews, who lie outside the Volk, therefore out of reach of true creativity. Most critics of Bloch readily accept him into the ‘pantheon of universal composers’. British critics, in particular, have considered Bloch as part of the evolving international zeitgeist for national/racial/ethnic styles, as the creator of a Jewish style and as a composer with a very personal idiom that speaks to a universal audience. As Ernest Chapman wrote: Bloch is essentially a man of his time, speaking to his people in a tongue that is their own and is understandable. By ‘his people’ is meant not only the Jewish race, but all men. He has a deep love for his fellows.

Miller concludes that Bloch knew that only by being true to himself and reaching inward could he speak to everyman; his search for identity may be seen as a modernist reinterpretation of Wagner’s Romantic aesthetics. David M. Schiller explores the relationship among religious works by three Jewish composers, all of whom, commencing with Bloch, are inspired by the notion of the ‘Mass’, a form with no obvious Jewish counterpart. The works are Bloch’s Sacred Service (1933), Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony (1962), Mass: A Theater Piece (1971) and Missa Brevis (1988)

7

Introduction

and Shulamit Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin (2006). ‘In tracing this trajectory,’ he writes, ‘the concept that links these compositions and the family resemblance that they share is clarified and redefined’. On 23 April 1925, Ernest Bloch wrote of his desire to compose a musical setting of the Mass – ‘a catholic, but symbolical, universal Mass!’ He never wrote it; the Sacred Service took its place, without the all-embracing universality Bloch originally envisaged. Even so, Bloch clearly attempted to ‘universalize’ his work by not setting the traditional Kaddish, emphasizing Gustav Gottheil’s proem instead. Bernstein, in his performances, wrote the Kaddish back in, and made great play with it in his own work: ‘Bernstein thus creates [in Mass: A Theater Piece], on a verbal level, his own eclectic mix of “Jewish motives, Protestant Chorales, Gregorian chant!”’ In Schiller’s view, Shulamit Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin, though musically remote from Bloch’s Sacred Service, comes remarkably near to his conception of the Catholic Mass as a text of universal appeal; Ran’s texts include the Nicene Creed and Maimonides’s Thirteen Principles of Faith, as well as ‘testaments’ recalling the Shoah and the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Center. Unlike Bloch, Ran does not see ‘Jewish’ and ‘universal’ as mutually exclusive categories, nor does she conflate Catholicism (a religion) with catholic (as universal). And, unlike Bernstein, she does situate her Credo within a dramatized theatre piece, but allows it to speak for her. Schiller concludes, ‘The Mass Bloch never wrote continues to exist, not as a musical composition, but as a conceptual art work.’ David Kushner takes up the story in 1939, when Bloch settled in Oregon near his son, Ivan. In 1941, Bloch purchased the residence in Agate Beach where he based himself for the rest of his life, with ‘the confluence of mushrooms, agates, and nearby mountains, and the impressive home’. In 1940, he observed to the journalist Daniel L. Schorr, ‘Time alone will tell, I did my best – I never bowed to fads or fashions of the day. I never attempted to be “new,” but to be “true” and to be human, in a general sense, though faithful to my roots.’ Kushner lists the Oregon compositions adding comments on each, liberally sprinkled with anecdotes, notes on performances, criticisms, and details of meetings with musicians such as Zara Nelsova and Menuhin. Philip Bohlman’s chapter, ‘The future alone will be the judge: Ernest Bloch’s epic journeys between utopia and dystopia’, opens with a discussion of Bloch’s relationship, when he was living in Europe in the 1930s, with the World Centre for Jewish Music in Palestine – something he envisaged at the time as a ‘journey to Utopia’, towards the future of Jewish music. The chapter then focuses on three large-scale orchestral works that in different ways chart utopian journeys: the Israel Symphony (1912–16), Helvetia (1900–29), and America (completed 1926).

8 Norman Solomon Utopia (Greek ou topos – ‘no place’) is that which is perfect, unlimited, universal. But the composer lives in ‘dystopia’, and is consequently subject to the limitations of time and place, to ‘chronotopes’ (the music of specific times, places, ethnic groups); he is condemned to be forever on a journey that cannot be completed. Bloch, whether as a Jewish, a Swiss or an American composer, inevitably fails to achieve the universality he craves. The three works therefore represent ‘places that he and those who might join him as co-utopians could never inhabit’. Bohlman takes as his primary theoretical models for utopianism Augustine’s City of God and Thomas More’s Utopia, rather discounting their theological aims. He also invokes more recent Jewish models: Herzl’s Altneuland, Buber’s Pfade in Utopie and the philosopher Ernst Bloch’s utopian writings (e.g., Bloch 1988, 2000). But ‘The cosmopolitanism of the utopian world, however, remains unachievable no less for Bloch than for Augustine and Thomas More . . . the imagined unity of utopia . . . gives way to the difference that dominates dystopia.’ In musical terms, the gathering of fragments as in Bloch’s three symphonic works is the striving for broad, universal values; the locally focused ‘fragments’ of dystopia, seen for instance in the Jewish music of Djerba, are the ‘chronotope’. Bohlman sees Helvetia as aesthetic in concept, Israel as ideological and America as negotiating between these contrasting approaches: ‘The Jewish works, in contrast [to Helvetia and America], demonstrate an urge to treat particular melodies creatively, to penetrate beyond the sound in its traditional forms to an ideological background, more often than not one that bears witness to Bloch’s personal voice. In this sense, the Israel Symphony provided a means for Bloch to turn his personal vision towards a utopian goal particularly well.’ These arguments are supported by an analysis of the musical techniques used in the three works, in particular the ‘experimentation’ in America, the use of ‘programmes’, and the contrasting treatment of folk melodies in each of the three. Bohlman expresses the hope that he might have introduced a new dimension to the understanding of Jewish identity in Ernest Bloch’s work: the place of ou-topia, or ‘no place’, on the vast landscape of utopian thought. Ou-topia ‘might ultimately afford even richer possibilities to chart more clearly the paths that form the landscape of the modern world through which Bloch, as a self-consciously Jewish composer, chose to travel on a journey that he believed ultimately might lead to the very shores of utopia’. Jehoash Hirshberg details the reception of Bloch in the Yishuv (Jewish community of pre-Israel Palestine) and the early years of the state of Israel. In the 1920s, concert life was dominated by emigrant members of the Society for Jewish Folk Music, founded in St Petersburg in 1908; smallscale works by Bloch appear in programmes from 1927.

9

Introduction

The inaugural broadcast of the Palestine Broadcasting Service on 31 March 1936 consisted of a short live performance including vocal compositions by Milhaud, Bloch and Ben-Haim; chamber works by Bloch became frequent in broadcast and public concerts. Later the same year the Palestine Orchestra was formed; its creator, the violinist Bronislaw Huberman, an admirer of Bloch, encouraged performance of the Three Jewish Poems, which met with mixed critical reception. At the inaugural meeting of the World Centre for Jewish Music in Palestine (WCJMP) Jerusalem in 1938, Bloch and Milhaud were elected honorary presidents, and in 1940 the first performance of Avodath Hakodesh (the Sacred Service) took place in Palestine to enthusiastic acclaim. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Palestine Orchestra, renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO), performed Schelomo with cellist Zara Nelsova, the Violin Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin and the Sacred Service; yet Bloch himself never visited the country. Zecharia Plavin continues the story, reviewing Bloch’s reception and his standing in Israel since 1954. This emotionally charged topic is discussed on two levels. How is Bloch rated as a composer? What is the cultural meaning of his music, whether ‘Jewish’, ‘Hebraic’ or even ‘Israeli’? The years 1954–67, writes Plavin, were a period of ‘internal cultural youth’, when performances of Bloch’s music, especially by the IPO and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, along with some thoughtful programme notes, succeeded in shaping the overall cultural significance of Bloch (usually negative) to Israeli culture. Bloch is presented as a contemporary composer with a distinct Jewish cultural orientation, but ‘out of tune’ with the values of the new state. The years 1967–74 began with a short, effective war and ended with a dark and bloody one. Israel gained a new romantic prominence among the world’s Jews, so that practically everything Hebraic and/or biblical became linked to the centrality of what was perceived as a renewed Israel. This was followed by a decline in national mood, further aggravated by constant war in Lebanon in the years 1982–92; the musical public developed a growing passive acceptance of foreign imports. After 1992, a second generation of native Israelis, educated and socialized abroad, returned to work in Israel. The social bifurcation of musical generations began: elders against Bloch, younger musicians with slight ‘pro’-Bloch leanings. Immigration of highly professional musicians from the former Soviet Union transformed Israel’s veteran musicians into a near-minority. Since 2000 there has been an upsurge in broadcast performances of Bloch’s chamber music; this owes much to Hayuta Dvir’s promotion of each composition with a deeply researched discussion; Dalia Atlas’s performances, recordings and advocacy also had great impact. At the same

10 Norman Solomon time, there has been rising attention to Bloch’s work in academic circles; the 15th World Congress of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University (2009) hosted day-long sessions and concerts devoted to Bloch’s music. Plavin concludes by noting that a new generation of Israeli concert-goers, in search of a humanist identity, find a safe haven in Bloch’s music with its outspoken concepts of prophetic humanism and its all-embracing warm openness to all humans of the world, an openness uttered in musical Hebrew: ‘For them, the lines “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7), which are inscribed on the entrance of the synagogue of Lengnau, Bloch’s father’s birthplace – are words of comfort and redemption, like the music of Bloch himself.’ Stanley Henig places Bloch’s only completed opera, Macbeth, in the context of expressionist compositions of the era, such as Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Bloch made the acquaintance of the dramatic soprano Lucienne Bréval in Switzerland and it is probably through her influence at the Opéra Comique that Macbeth (it was dedicated to her) was performed there in 1910, with herself in the role of Lady Macbeth. There were about ten performances that year, but Bréval broke with the company at the beginning of 1911 for reasons unknown and went on tour in Russia, leaving Bloch feeling betrayed. Henig discusses both the situation of opera in Paris in that era and Bloch’s interpretation of Shakespeare. The opera was not performed again until 1938, when it was produced at the San Carlo Opera in Naples in an Italian version, at a time when fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were drawing closer, making the production of a work by an avowedly Jewish composer problematic. Only after the war, in 1953, was Macbeth revived, this time in Rome’s Teatro Costanzi, since when there have been sporadic performances on both sides of the Atlantic, mostly with cuts. Henig ends with a passionate plea to ‘let Macbeth come to us with “full force”’. In a useful supplement Henig lists over ninety performances of Macbeth in English, French and Italian. In a second essay, ‘King Solomon and the Baal Shem Tov: traditional elements in Bloch’s musical representation of two iconic personalities from Jewish history’, Alexander Knapp offers a brief introduction to two of Bloch’s most celebrated works, Schelomo (cello and orchestra) and Baal Shem (violin and piano); he explores the contrast between Bloch’s perceptions of biblical Israel on the one hand, and the Hasidic culture of pre-World War II on the other. These images are focused in his understanding of the personalities of King Solomon and Israel Baal Shem Tov, and are given musical expression in Schelomo and Baal Shem, respectively. Accounts of the inspiration for, and genesis of, these works lead to a commentary and analysis of the relationship between Bloch’s melodic style and traditional Ashkenazi elements drawn from sacred and secular genres, as demonstrated

11

Introduction

in a sample of seventeen illustrations. In conclusion, Knapp offers an assessment of the extent to which Bloch’s personal and musical responses are revealed in the differences and similarities between the two works under discussion. I conclude the volume with ‘Postsript: the legacy’, in which I move from a description of the founding of the original Ernest Bloch Society in London in 1937 to comments on honours conferred on Bloch in his final years in Oregon, and to posthumous tributes and attempts to secure the Bloch legacy. Bloch’s children, Ivan, Suzanne and Lucienne, inaugurated the American-based Ernest Bloch Society with the publication of The Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin in March 1967. The year 1990 saw the inauguration of an Ernest Bloch Music Festival; this took place annually in Newport, Oregon from 1990 to 2006 in association with a Composers’ Symposium. Attempts to secure the composer’s home at Agate Beach as a permanent memorial resulted in the setting up of an Ernest Bloch Legacy Project, and in 2007 to the formal creation of the Legacy Foundation and the launching of a website. Renewed interest east of the Atlantic led to the International Academic Conference on Ernest Bloch in Cambridge (UK) in 2007, the resuscitation of the International Ernest Bloch Society in London in 2009, and the formation of Bloch Societies in Israel and Switzerland.

1

From Geneva to New York: Radical Changes in Ernest Bloch’s View of Himself as a ‘Jewish Composer’ during his Twenties and Thirties Alexander Knapp Ernest Bloch’s compositions fall into five main periods: (i) the unpublished student works written between 1895 and 1900; (ii) the early mature works of the first European period, 1901–16, culminating in the six published scores of his self-styled ‘Jewish Cycle’, 1911–16; (iii) the first American period, 1917–30; (iv) the second European period, 1930–8; and finally (v) the second American period, 1939–59. This chapter focuses mainly upon the years straddling the end of the second period and the beginning of the third. Bloch was a complex and enigmatic figure. He experienced all the vicissitudes of life from profound eclipse to great fame; and controversy was no stranger to him. The investigation which follows attempts to unravel one of the most intriguing and confusing issues surrounding his musical and personal identity. In 1917, Bloch wrote these words about his ‘Jewish Cycle’: ‘I . . . am a Jew, and I aspire to write Jewish music, not for the sake of self-advertisement, but because I am sure that this is the only way in which I can produce music of vitality and significance – if I can do such a thing at all . . . I believe that those pages of my own in which I am at my best are those in which I am most unmistakably racial,1 but the racial quality is not only in folk themes: it is in myself!’2 But two years later, in 1919, Bloch wrote the following about his Viola Suite which he had just completed in New York: My Suite does not belong to my so-called ‘Jewish works’ – though, perhaps, in spite of myself, one may perceive in a very few places a certain Jewish inspiration. It is rather a vision of the Far East . . . that inspired me . . . Java, Sumatra, Borneo, those

An abbreviated version of this chapter appeared in Jewish Quarterly, 215 (Summer 2010), 11–13, under the title ‘From Geneva to New York: radical changes in Bloch’s view of himself as a “Jewish Composer” during the period 1916–1919’. 1 Bloch’s use of the term ‘race’ is discussed in Móricz 2008: 95–115 et passim; also in

12

Knapp, ‘The Emergence of Ernest Bloch as a “Jewish Composer”’, unpublished PhD thesis, 2003: 54, 77, et passim. In present-day parlance, one might substitute ‘cultural identity’ for ‘race’. 2 An oft-quoted statement, published for the first time in Downes 1917: 11.

13

Ernest Bloch’s View of Himself as a ‘Jewish Composer’

wonderful countries I dreamed of so often though I was never fortunate enough to visit them myself in any other way than in my imagination.3

What had transformed the Jew who wrote Jewish music – because this was the only way he could achieve vitality and significance – into a visionary South East Asian pentatonicist?4 Before offering a possible explanation, I shall present some lesser known facts concerning Bloch’s family background, the religious and domestic influences that impinged upon him and his music during his childhood and early adulthood, his perceptions of Jewish music and of himself as a ‘Jewish composer’, the works of the ‘Jewish Cycle’ and, finally, the circumstances that appear to have brought about the end of the cycle itself and the beginning of new musical directions, both Jewish and non-Jewish. The surname Bloch originally indicated a ‘foreigner from the West’. When the Jews of Alsace moved to Germany in the Middle Ages, they were given the name Welsch. This became transformed, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, into Wallach, Wallack, Wloch, Vlach, Block and Bloch, as persecutions drove the Jews back and forth between Eastern and Western Europe.5 Though there are earlier references to Blochs in the region of the South West German and North West Swiss borderland dating back to 1686 (B. Rosenthal 1927: 127–8), the first direct ancestor of Ernest so far discovered was cited in a document found in the German town of Stühlingen in 1732: this was Abraham, Ernest’s great-great-great-grandfather (Rosenthal 1927: 179–80).What seems significant here is that, although much of Bloch’s music may sound exotic and ‘oriental’, his paternal and maternal forebears were Western European Ashkenazim stretching back many generations. Most of the Bloch families in the region in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were merchants who lived simple and modest lives. The first to achieve prominence was Ernest’s grandfather Isaak Josef Bloch (1794–1866) who, in the mid-nineteenth century, became a celebrated ba’al tefillah (lay-cantor) in the synagogue in the Swiss village of Lengnau (Canton Aargau) and president of its Jewish community (E. Dreyfus 1925: 21). Ernest’s father, Meier (1832–1913) – also known as Moritz and, later, Maurice (when the family moved to francophone Geneva) – had been a chorister in the Lengnau Synagogue and, at one time, considered entering the Rabbinate; but he went into business instead. Originally pious, he 3

Bloch, letter to Hugo Kortschak, 8 September 1919, in D. L. Sills, ‘A Catalogue of the Works of Ernest Bloch’, unpublished (no date), p. 47. This volume was made available to me by courtesy of Ernest Bloch II, the composer’s grandson. Hugo Kortschak

(1884–1957) was the leader of the Berkshire String Quartet founded in 1919. 4 See, especially, the Finale of the Viola Suite. 5 For more information about this surname, see Kaganoff 1978: 17, 136; Herlitz and Kirschner 1927: I:1072; and Gottschald 1954: 197.

14 Alexander Knapp became outspokenly agnostic,6 but practised traditional rituals and took his family7 to the Geneva Synagogue from time to time, especially during the High Holy Days. Ernest often wrote and spoke affectionately of his memories of Friday evenings and seder services8 at home, but indignantly of communal behaviour: men reading newspapers in the synagogue on Yom Kippur, and the contemptuous treatment meted out to poor Hasidic Jews from Eastern Europe.9 Bloch learned Hebrew and cantillation for his Bar Mitzvah in 1893, but lost all visible contact with Judaism for a considerable period thereafter. He had few Jewish friends; and his student years in Geneva (1894–6), Brussels (1896–9), Frankfurt-am-Main (1899–1901) and Munich (1901–3), and his early professional life in Paris (1903–4) were spent far away from any Jewish milieu. In 1904, he married Margarethe (later Marguerite) Schneider (1881–1963), a fellow student from Frankfurt days, daughter of prosperous German-Lutheran parents who lived in Hamburg. Ernest and Marguerite had three children: Ivan (1905–80), Suzanne (1907–2002) and Lucienne (1909–99). The year 1906 saw the surfacing of one of many apparently contradictory dualities in Bloch’s life. His then mentor and confidant, the influential French critic Robert Godet, persuaded him to buy a life-size crucifix (which Bloch kept all his life).10 This might seem entirely consistent with his marriage to Marguerite two years earlier. Yet in the very same year, Bloch wrote to his librettist and close friend since 1901, the celebrated Jewish author and playwright Edmond Fleg: My dear friend . . . I have read the Bible – I have read fragments about Moses. And an immense sense of pride has been surging within me! My entire being reverberated. It is a revelation . . . I could not continue reading, for I was afraid. Yes, Fleg, I was afraid of discovering too much of myself, of feeling everything which had gradually accumulated, glued to me, fall away in one sudden blow; of finding myself naked . . . within this entire past which lives inside me, of standing tall as a Jew, proudly Jewish . . . We must see to it that everything which has a Jewish soul is 6 E. Bloch, letter to Ernest Chapman, 31 March 1955 (unpublished). Much information about Bloch’s wider family is contained (i) in fragmentary and unpublished ‘Biographical Notes’ handwritten by the composer partly in English, partly in French, and (ii) in my notes taken during numerous interviews with the composer’s elder daughter, Suzanne, from 1969 onwards. 7 Maurice married Sophie Braunschweig (1849–1921) in 1872. Their three children were Arnold (1873–8), Loulette (1875–1965) and Ernest (1880–1959).

8 First and second nights of Pesach (Passover). 9 E. Bloch, letters to Edmond Fleg, 16 July 1911 and 24 January 1912, in Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:542–3, 561–2. 10 Godet and Bloch first made contact in 1903, following the performance of the middle two movements of Bloch’s Symphony in C sharp minor, which the youthful composer conducted during a festival of Swiss and German music in Basle. Over a period of a decade, they enjoyed regular indepth discussions on music, art, literature, philosophy, religion, etc.

15

Ernest Bloch’s View of Himself as a ‘Jewish Composer’

conscious of the grandeur and destiny of this race . . . While reading certain passages, I almost regretted having only music to speak with; but Jews do listen to music. Yes, Fleg, this idea must enlighten us both; it is perhaps for this reason that we met.11

How are we to reconcile this vigorously expressed awakening of Jewish identity with the purchase of a crucifix? Bloch explained that, though he admired the teachings of Jesus, he regarded Christianity as a ‘failure’,12 and interpreted Jesus on the Cross as the figure of a betrayed Jew13 – a metaphor with which he was personally to identify, not least as a result of his experience with Robert Godet, which he described as ‘the greatest tragedy . . . in my life’, and of whom he wrote: ‘It was Godet who attracted my attention to the unconscious Jewishness in my music. He was the greatest antisemite, who translated [Houston Stuart Chamberlain’s Foundations of the Nineteenth Century] the book that made Hitler . . . and was my best and deepest friend for ten years.’14 So the crucifix made perfect sense to Bloch; he could not understand how and why it caused confusion in the minds of others. Although Bloch wrote copious letters to numerous relatives and friends about the potential for expressing a Jewish ethos in his music during his mid- to late twenties and early thirties, only two out of a total of over a hundred formal lectures on music, given by Bloch at the conservatoires in Lausanne and Geneva, prior to his settling in America, were devoted to Jewish music per se. Neither lecture has ever been published.15 The first, entitled ‘Causerie’,16 is a meditation on the problem of the Jewish arts in general, as experienced through his work with Fleg; but there are few allusions to music per se. The second is a commentary based on copious annotations written in the margins of a slim volume by Emil Breslaur (1898), the German-Jewish scholar and choirmaster, entitled ‘Can the Synagogue and Folk Melodies of the Jews be Proved to be Historically Authentic?’17 11 E. Bloch, letter to Fleg, 30 November 1906, pp. 7–11, in Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:369–70. Italics represent Bloch’s own underlinings in the original French manuscript. (All translations from French into English in this chapter are mine, unless otherwise stated.) 12 E. Bloch, letter to his mother Sophie, 5 April 1918, in Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:145. 13 Suzanne Bloch, Bloch and His Crucifix. At least two unpublished versions of Suzanne Bloch’s essay are extant. A later version was published in Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin, 4, 1971: 1–2. 14 E. Bloch, letters to Ernest Chapman, 24 November 1955 and to Olin Downes,

9 July 1954, in Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:291. Bloch and Godet parted company in 1913 but made sporadic contact with each other in later years. 15 Though Bloch did write two further lectures on Jewish music, these appeared several years after the period under discussion and are therefore beyond the scope of this chapter. 16 There are several versions of this lecture. In the USA, Bloch gave it under the English title ‘The Jewish Mind in Music’. 17 See Select Bibliography for the full title in the original German.

16 Alexander Knapp This book, according to Suzanne Bloch, was the only publication on Jewish music that Bloch read prior to his departure for the USA (Suzanne Bloch, in Weisser 1980: 30). Both lectures are vague in terms of definition. We may summarize their joint contents as follows: Bloch says that he listens to an inner voice; he eschews ‘nationalism’ and what he calls ‘deformed’ folk themes. He denies the authenticity of Jewish melos as it exists in his own time, because of the absorption of foreign elements from host nations; and it is Gregorian Chant that he sees as the direct descendant of Temple Chant. There are references to Jews in music such as Dukas, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Rubinstein and Mahler. Why he adds Bruch, Ravel, Saint-Saëns and Wagner to his list is not made clear.18 What is apparent from these lectures, however, is an emerging pattern of ambivalence towards the wider society around him, the pain of alienation and anti-Semitism, tensions between the internal world of spirituality and the external world of identity, and vacillations between confidence and insecurity. But if his lectures contain no precise definition of Jewish music, Bloch defines himself unambiguously as a ‘Jewish composer’ in the seven works of the ‘Jewish Cycle’ (1911–16), six of which were later published by G. Schirmer: Trois Poèmes Juifs (composed in 1913); Deux Psaumes, 137 et 114, Précédés d’un Prélude Orchestral (1912–14); Psaume 22 (1914); Israel Symphony (1912–16); Schelomo – Rhapsodie Hébraïque (1916); and the String Quartet No. 1 (1916 – sometimes referred to as the ‘Hebrew Quartet’). All are highly charged epics, either in terms of length (the String Quartet lasts fifty minutes), or in terms of the vast orchestral forces required. There are solo roles in Psalms 137 and 114 for soprano, and in Psalm 22 for baritone; two sopranos, two altos and one bass in Israel; and cello in Schelomo. All the published works were composed near Geneva, except for the last movement of the String Quartet, which Bloch completed in New York. In addition, there is an unfinished and unpublished biblical opera entitled Jézabel, which occupied Bloch and Fleg on and off for over twenty years (c.1904 to the mid-1920s) and which, in a sense, generated all the published works of the cycle (see Móricz 2001: 440–91). In my doctoral research, I have scrutinized the six published works of the cycle for a variety of traditional Jewish elements, namely, ta’amei hammiqra (accents of biblical recitation), nus’cha’ot (modal raw materials of the synagogue prayer-chant of the cantor), calls of the shofar, etc., as set down in eighteen carefully selected written sources of liturgical music.19 I have also 18

To be fair, however, that section of the lecture is in sketchy note form, doubtless to be expanded during presentation.

19

Nothing conclusive could be drawn from comparing the cycle with Ashkenazi folk music collections.

17

Ernest Bloch’s View of Himself as a ‘Jewish Composer’

investigated what makes the ‘Jewish Cycle’ cyclic. Bloch admitted to utilizing only one traditional tune in his entire cycle,20 namely, the South West German High Holy Day chant for the text Uv’chen ten pachd’cha21 which appears at the beginning of the middle section of Schelomo, and frequently thereafter.22 This theme is referred to in more detail in my chapter 10 entitled ‘King Solomon and the Baal Shem Tov: traditional elements in Bloch’s musical representation of two iconic personalities from Jewish history’. However, I have found hundreds of more subtly and unconsciously incorporated motifs and their metamorphoses which, presumably, Bloch absorbed from his father’s singing and from the music of the Geneva Synagogue which he attended as a child: not only the melodic and rhythmic contours themselves, but also the distinctive, deep formal structures of cantillation and cantorial recitatives. Some examples of these may even be found in his student compositions (e.g., the Symphonie Orientale, 1896) as well as mature works (e.g., the opera Macbeth, 1904–9) written prior to the ‘Jewish Cycle’. Bloch claimed to be composing Jewish music out of himself: ‘It is not my purpose, not my desire, to attempt a “reconstitution” of Jewish music, or to base my work on melodies more or less authentic,’ he wrote in 1917 – the year of many such pronouncements. He continued: ‘I am not an archaeologist23 . . . It is the Jewish soul that interests me, the complex, glowing, agitated soul, that I feel vibrating throughout the Bible.’24 It is therefore extraordinary to discover that, in the very same year, on the advice of Fleg who wanted to help him make more rapid progress with Jézabel, Bloch was already pursuing serious scholarship: ‘I’ve just come back from the library.25 There I’ve been working hard on some old books about Hebrew chant. I found one on the Jews of Yemen – who lived for centuries separated from their co-religionists in the West; and it contains some astonishing things. That’s yet another source which could provide a very special colour for a “Poem” for string quartet.’26 And within a short time, he had also sifted through all twelve volumes of the Jewish Encyclopedia (Singer 1901–6), copying by hand almost all of Rev. Francis L. Cohen’s transcriptions of traditional religious and semi-religious 20 E. Bloch, letter to Sophie, 3 December 1920, in Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:283–4. 21 ‘Let the fear of Thee, O God, be upon all Thy works.’ This prayer proclaims man’s recognition of God’s sovereignty. See Idelsohn 1932: 206. 22 Schelomo, study score, G. Schirmer, New York, 1918, p. 34, from nine bars after fig.16 to one bar before fig.18. 23 My emphasis.

24 Letter in French, written by Bloch to Philip Hale, translated into English by Hale, and first published in Boston Symphony Orchestra Program Notes, 23–24 March 1917: 1132, 1134. 25 Probably the New York Public Library. 26 Bloch, letter to Alfred Pochon, 3 January 1917, in Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II: 63. The string quartet to which Bloch refers in this letter was never written.

18 Alexander Knapp settings into a manuscript book which bears the title Chants Juifs.27 This document is replete with markings and annotations in French and English, revealing fascinating insights into Bloch’s likes and dislikes at that time regarding Jewish liturgical and paraliturgical musics. This paradox gives rise to many questions: What is musical ‘archaeology’ if not the study of library books and the transcribing of notations? Why did Bloch make a bold and unequivocal statement of principle in his writings – and flatly contradict it in his actions? Was his inward search for Jewish inspiration losing momentum and, if so, why? Had it, by 1918, been largely abandoned? Why was he searching for traditional Jewish materials from external sources and at the same time moving away from Jewish music towards the musical idioms of the wider world, as evidenced in his comments on the Viola Suite, quoted near the beginning of this chapter? Whatever might have been the motives behind these dichotomies, I believe that the ‘Jewish Cycle’ received its coup-de-grâce in April 1918 as a result of what Bloch described, in emotional letters to his mother Sophie and to Fleg, as ‘perhaps the strangest experience in my life’.28 The American Rabbi Dr Judah Magnes, founder of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, had invited him to a Hasidic community29 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for a Sabbath Morning Service at the end of Passover. Bloch paints a vivid picture of the bare room, the fifty to sixty male congregants of all ages from Poland and Galicia, their poverty, their genuine piety, and how moved he is when the Rabbi bestows upon him the Priestly Blessing. ‘And what music’, he exclaims, when describing the impact of what he interprets as a vivid kaleidoscope of Arabic, Spanish, Russian, ancient and modern sounds: Neither organ, nor instruments, nor choir. Everyone his own orchestra . . . Everything was vibrant, living, creating an extraordinary atmosphere. I dissolved with emotion . . . I assure you that my music seems to me a very poor little thing beside that which I heard. . . . You will understand everything that this experience means for me. It’s a great joy. It’s also extreme sorrow; for my life has been split in two. I would have been able, as a single man, to plunge myself into this Truth, even at my age,30 letting it live anew in me, and creating a formidable work, linking this granite past to the present, to the future . . . Alas, alas, I can’t . . . Everything separates me from it, my wife, my children . . . and my whole life. It’s a great tragedy . . . All that will remain is the shadow of what I could have been.

E. Bloch, ‘Chants Juifs’, unpublished, undated, 85 pp. 28 E. Bloch, letters to Sophie Bloch, 5 April 1918, and to Edmond Fleg, 6 April 1918, in Lewinski and Dijon 2001 II: 145–7, 147–8. 27

29 30

Not mentioned by name in either letter. Bloch was thirty-seven years old.

19

Ernest Bloch’s View of Himself as a ‘Jewish Composer’

It was as though Bloch’s many reactions to significant events that had been swirling around in his consciousness for nearly two decades were now being thrust into razor-sharp focus. The Hasidic encounter of 1918 precipitated a traumatic collision between the Bloch who yearned for the intensely observant Jewish life that he had never truly experienced, and the Bloch who lived and participated in the secular world – perhaps with some sense of guilt. Since he could not attain the ‘ideal’, he would have to settle, reluctantly, for the ‘real’; but this produced an unresolved inner conflict that resurfaced periodically throughout his life. Bloch, one could argue, ceased to be a ‘Jewish composer’ in accordance with his own precepts at the very moment he became an ‘archaeologist’. Many of his subsequent Jewish works involved the conscious use of researched ethnic materials.31 Two will suffice to exemplify this point here: first of all, Abodah (God’s Worship): A Yom Kippur Melody for violin and piano (1929), which is an almost note-for-note transcription of the V’hakkohanim chant, sung during the Musaf (Additional) Service on Yom Kippur, and entitled Abodah in the Jewish Encyclopedia (Singer 1901: I:77–8); and second, Suite Hébraïque for violin (or viola) and piano (or orchestra) (1951), which contains five traditional melodies, namely, Shemot from Ne’ilah, Kerobot No. 3, Ahot Ketannah, Geshem (C) and Hazzanut, all from the same encyclopedia, as shown in an information sheet in Bloch’s own handwriting (Singer 1901: IX: 220; VII: 470; I: 295; V: 645; and VI: 291–2, respectively).32 Bloch had now become a ‘composer of Jewish music’ alongside other musics.33 Indeed, the ‘non-Jewish’ works that he wrote after the ‘Jewish Cycle’ saw the lively incorporation of Gregorian Chant; Swiss, American, and Far-Eastern folk melodies and styles; Renaissance, neoClassical, neo-Romantic and, occasionally, Twelve-tone idioms. Despite all these complexities and contradictions, the ethos and essence of the cycle are, in my opinion, the abiding qualities that permeate Bloch’s later works, and represent his unique and perhaps most compelling contribution to twentieth-century music.

31 See Knapp 1971: 99–112, for a representative selection of quotations from sacred and secular Jewish music traditions appearing in both the ‘Jewish Cycle’ and in Bloch’s subsequent self-styled ‘Jewish works’. 32 This document was made available to me by courtesy of Suzanne Bloch.

33 For a discussion of Bloch as – variously – a ‘Jewish composer’, a ‘composer of Jewish music’, and a ‘composer of Jewish birth’, see Knapp 2012, in Móricz and Seter 2012: 565–70.

2

The ‘Suffering and Greatness’ of Ernest Bloch: Concepts of the Composer as Genius Klára Móricz

In a 1911 review of the premiere of Ernest Bloch’s opera Macbeth, Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti expressed ‘affection and gratitude’ for the composer who was, he wrote, ‘a man, a man who sings and suffers, and loves, too, for other men, fraternally’.1 What attracted Pizzetti to Bloch even more than his music was the composer’s personality, which won him over immediately when a few months earlier Bloch had written to him at the suggestion of Romain Rolland. Solely on the basis of Bloch’s persuasive rhetoric, Pizzetti had been converted to Bloch’s music.2 Bloch’s strong personality affected everybody who knew him. His American apologist Olin Downes came under Bloch’s spell just as easily as Pizzetti. ‘[I] found it extraordinary’, Bloch wrote to Downes after reading his article about the composer in the Boston Post, ‘that you were able, without knowing one note of my music, to relate it so exactly and in so striking a manner after our short interview.’3 Pizzetti’s and Downes’s examples demonstrate the extent to which critics regularly relied on Bloch’s earnest self-description rather than on his music in their essays about the composer. The tendency to judge the composer ‘not by the work but by the man and the way he works’,4 as Albert Elkus, head of the Music Department at UC Berkeley during Bloch’s time there (1941–52), noted in a 1937 draft about Bloch, is common enough, but in Bloch’s case it was pushed to extremes. Bloch himself did not seem to mind this approach to music criticism. Like many

‘Suffering and greatness’ in the title is a reference to Thomas Mann’s article, originally published as ‘Leiden und Größe Richard Wagners’, in Die Neue Rundschau, Berlin, Jahrgang 44, Heft 4 (April 1933); reprinted in Mann 1949: 307–52. 1 ‘He may not yet be master of himself, may be prone therefore to fall into error, and though the material he handles may not yet be flawless, he is nevertheless a man, a man who sings and suffers.’ Ildebrando Pizzetti, ‘Ernest Bloch’, Musicisti contemporanei (Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1914), 337, quoted and translated in Cohen 1938: 148.

20

2 ‘It was during this depressing period that I received that admirable letter in which Pizzetti says that after reading my letter he believed in my music even without knowing a note of it.’ Bloch to Romain Rolland, 23 November 1911, original in French, translation mine, in Lewinski and Dijon 1998: 1:551–2. 3 Bloch to Downes, 24 January 1917, quoted in Schiller 2003: 26–7. 4 Elkus’s handwritten notes on a typed page sent to him by Alex Cohen on 12 December 1937. University of California at Berkeley, Bloch Collection, 01027, hereafter UCB.

21

Concepts of the Composer as Genius

others he believed that ‘originality lies not in art but in the personality of the individual artist’.5 Treating life and art in tight symbiosis had a strong precedent in nineteenth-century concepts of the genius, most intensely in Richard Wagner’s self-conscious worshipping of his own creative powers. For Wagner, Gesamtkunstwerk was not only ‘an art form that combined various media within the framework of a drama’,6 but also a supreme sense of wholeness that required the composer’s life to be as perfect as his art, becoming, as Nietzsche advocated, itself a work of art.7 Elkus recognized the Beethovenian and Wagnerian prototype in what he described in the same draft as Bloch’s fanatic, egocentric and sometimes unreasonable personality. Elkus never completed his 1937 essay on Bloch. In 1962, however, when Bloch’s musical manuscripts became part of the Music Library at the University of California at Berkeley, he rewrote the essay as a tribute to the composer. In this speech he exchanged ‘egocentrism’ for ‘dedication’, thus falling back on a more forgiving portrayal of the genius. Elkus’s reformulation of his opinion of Bloch in a public speech is hardly surprising, yet it also demonstrates the deeply ingrained musicological habit of treating composers with reverence born of musicology’s nineteenth-century Germanic origins during the heyday of the Romantic cult of the musical genius. Indeed, musicological hagiography is still prevalent in the public conception of composers. No wonder that Paul Mitchinson, in his article about Richard Taruskin, whom he introduces as ‘one of the most polemically formidable and publicly influential musicologists in the world today’, saves as a punch line Taruskin’s otherwise unremarkable comment to his students, ‘“let me tell you about composers”’, Mitchinson quotes Taruskin saying, ‘leaning over and winking conspiratorially . . . “They’re just . . . plain . . . folks”’ (Mitchinson 2001: 31). In this chapter I explain aspects of Bloch’s personality, aesthetic and political views by pointing to their origin in Bloch’s self-conception as a genius. I show how the concept of genius was formed on the models of Beethoven and Wagner, and how these models inspired composers and critics to measure creative genius by Wagnerian standards. To detach Bloch somewhat from this Romantic paradigm, I locate some of the more contemporaneous sources of his convictions, identifying the resulting contradictions in his artistic, political and social views. 5

Quoted in Freed 1942: 10. Barry Millington’s entry on ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford 6

University Press. Web. 8 Jan. 2013. www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/ article/grove/music/O011027. 7 Michael Tanner, ‘Nietzsche on Genius’, in Murray 1989: 136.

22 Klára Móricz The Wagnerian concept of genius originated in the nineteenth century’s image of Beethoven as a superhuman creator. I quote just one example of the transformative power of the concept. A contemporary of Beethoven described the composer in quite unflattering terms: ‘Whoever sees Beethoven for the first time and knows nothing about him would surely take him for a malicious, ill-natured, quarrelsome drunkard who has no feeling for music.’ But those who know him as a musical genius, he added, ‘will surely see musical talent in every feature on an ugly face’.8 The same perception still resurfaces in more contemporary writings. In his 2002 study The Character of a Genius: Beethoven in Perspective, Peter Davies maintains that ‘ordinary humans, lacking genius, who display a pervasive pattern of grandiosity in fantasy or behavior, a hypersensitivity to criticism, and a lack of empathy for others are sometimes classified as suffering [from] a narcissistic personality disorder’. But Beethoven who, as Davies documents, obviously suffered from such a condition, ‘was entitled to indulge in a reasonable degree of “benign megalomania” related to the grandiosity in fantasy and behavior that was inspired by his genius’ (Davies 2002: 183). In other words, in a genius personality disorder can be viewed as a positive trait. A striking example of this is Thomas Mann’s 1933 celebratory essay about Wagner’s ‘suffering and greatness’, in which Mann uses the concept of genius to exonerate aspects of Wagner’s personality and beliefs that by 1933 had an obviously dark, threatening overtone in Germany. As Tia DeNora demonstrates in her 1995 book on Beethoven, the concept of the genius as distinguished from great talent appeared at the end of the eighteenth century together with the North German literary movement ‘Sturm und Drang’, which emphasized and valued creative originality. The concept was transferred to Vienna in the 1780s and helped build Beethoven’s exceptionally successful career as an autonomous artist with an idiosyncratic, alternative style. In DeNora’s assessment, Beethoven played an active role in articulating a self-conscious ideology of artistic greatness, reconceiving the composer-as-genius ‘as a figure who could command unprecedented autonomy and deference’ (DeNora 1995: 3). After Beethoven, the word ‘genius’ referred, as DeNora suggests, ‘to superiority, to magnitude, or to the extraordinary, superhuman and, increasingly, male ability to be creatively dominant’ (DeNora 1995: 85).9

8 Carl Friedrich, Baron Kübeck von Kubau, 1797, quoted in DeNora 1995: 146. 9 Ironically, despite the popular image of Beethoven as a hero who overthrew eighteenth-century aristocratic patronage in order to address a broader public more directly, ‘the key resource for Beethoven’ in

his creation of his self-image as autonomous artist was ‘the traditional conception of privilege, namely, that some individuals (that is, nobles) were more worthy than others’. Beethoven, DeNora maintains, disconnected ‘the conception of privilege from its traditional content so that it could

23

Concepts of the Composer as Genius

The Beethovenian image of genius was even more emphatically romanticized in the early twentieth century. In his influential biography, Bloch’s friend and supporter Romain Rolland described Beethoven as a giant representing his whole epoch: ‘Each great epoch of humanity has its own, its Son of God, its human archetype, whose glance, whose gestures, and whose Word are the common possession of millions of the living’ (Rolland 1929: xvii). In Rolland’s Romantic vision, Beethoven was also a great sufferer, since his superhuman efforts were rejected, or ignored by the crowd whom he supposedly served.10 The lonely genius alienated from the common people was a well-established Romantic cliché. As Penelope Murray points out, Romantic and even twentieth-century renditions of the Faust legend suggest that in the cult of the genius alienation was the price ‘the genius had to pay, not only for his superhuman powers, but also for the total freedom which it was his duty and privilege to exploit’ (Murray 1989: 6). Alienation and suffering thus came to be seen as indispensable accessories of a genius. By the time Rolland wrote his Beethoven biography, what DeNora described as ‘superiority’ of the genius had become artistic elitism, ‘magnitude’ had been transformed into megalomania, and the artistic ‘superhuman’ had been reinterpreted as the Nietzschean superman. The person whose immense influence prompted such transformation of the concept was Wagner, Nietzsche’s early model for the creative genius. Nietzsche believed that the genius had ‘license to disregard all the rules of the society in which he lives, to be judged by standards quite different from those which are applied to his fellows’.11 It is preposterous, he insisted, to expect ‘the exception (which alone is valuable) to proceed from someone who leads a model bourgeois existence’.12 Nietzsche’s celebration of the superhuman qualities of the genius implied that ‘one way of being great is simply to ignore the moral code of one’s society’.13 Because of his close ties to Wagner, Nietzsche experienced first hand the darker side of genius. Contradicting his own theory of genius, he later revolted against his idol’s irresponsibility, sense of entitlement and ‘mad rage at the attempt to compare him to others, or, indeed, to judge him lower and reveal what is questionable in his work’.14

accommodate or be transferred to other, non-hereditary types of nobility: nobility of spirit, of character, or of talent’. DeNora 1995: 143. 10 Rolland 1929: 11. To create the image of the morally intact artist, Rolland had to go to great lengths to contradict facts of Beethoven’s life. About Beethoven’s excessive drinking, for instance, he wrote: he was ‘no drinker (in the evil sense of the word) as some have wrongfully described him. Like a

good Rheinlander he loved wine, but he never abused it, except’, he added in order to keep at least a modicum of historical accuracy, ‘for a short period (1825–1826) with Holz, when he was badly shaken’. Ibid.: 5. 11 Tanner, in Murray 1989: 134. 12 Ibid.: 6. 13 Ibid.: 137. 14 Quoted by Tanner, in ibid.: 132.

24 Klára Móricz The extent to which the concept of genius was tied to Wagner in music is demonstrated by the painstaking explanations biographers issued when writing about Mozart, whose letters to family members are littered with scatological language and other obscenities (Hildesheimer 1982: 4). As Wolfgang Hildesheimer pointed out in his path-breaking Mozart study in 1982, biographers’ confusion stemmed from their Romantic image of the genius, which was incompatible with Mozart’s language. In his 1913 Mozart biography, Arthur Schurig expressed disappointment over the lack of Romantic greatness in Mozart felt by ‘art lovers nourished on the image of genius created and exemplified by the great wizard of Bayreuth . . . If Richard Wagner lies below Mozart as a pure musician’, Schurig writes, ‘and is equal to him as an artist, he undoubtedly rises above him as a human being.’ Schurig hastily pushed aside disagreement on this issue as irrelevant: ‘He who is unable to admire [Wagner’s power] has absolutely no understanding of the genius’s struggle with the world.’15 The problem with Mozart, of course, was not only that he did not measure up to Wagner, but also that he was blissfully unaware that he should. Nobody expected Wagnerian grandeur from Mozart in his time. He was considered a great composer, nothing more, nothing less. Bloch, whose artistic persona was clearly modelled on Beethoven and Wagner, would not have earned Schurig’s scorn. Like other composers bred in German culture before World War I, Bloch aspired to fulfil the role described so forcefully in Rolland’s famous composer novel Jean Christophe, which shares much with Rolland’s biography of Beethoven. In fact, Bloch undertook the task with such zeal that many believed that Rolland modelled Jean Christophe on Bloch (Taubman 1959: 7), a chronological anomaly since Rolland had completed most of his novel before he met Bloch in 1911. The similarity between Rolland’s hero and Bloch can be explained the other way around. Bloch read Jean Christophe and Rolland’s Beethoven biography several times, and thus absorbed Rolland’s conception of the genius. His public statements seem to have been inspired by Rolland’s presentation of the musical genius and in turn made his critics paraphrase Rolland when they described Bloch. ‘Only a few men of genius’, Rolland writes about his protagonist, can break free from the lies that surround them, ‘through heroic moments of crisis, when they are alone in the free world of their thoughts’ (Rolland 1996: I:367). What these geniuses create, according to Rolland, is the ‘highest art, the only art which is worthy of the name, which is above all temporary laws’ (Rolland 1996: III:340–1). 15 Arthur Schurig, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sein Leben und Werk (Leipzig, 1913), quoted in Hildesheimer 1982: 50.

25

Concepts of the Composer as Genius

In a similar vein, Guido Gatti hailed Bloch as a composer who ‘stands by himself in splendid isolation’, whose music ‘reveals to us the tragic meaning of life’, and whose art ‘appears anachronistic because it is eternal’, to quote only a few phrases from Gatti’s magniloquent 1921 essay on Bloch (Gatti 1921: 20, 34–5). By showing parallels between the personalities of Beethoven, Wagner and Bloch, I do not intend to confirm or deny the assumption that Bloch was a creative genius – the supposed line separating very talented and driven artists from geniuses is impossible to draw, even if we insist that such a distinction exists. My subject here is Bloch’s self-perception as a genius, his conscious assumption of the role and its effects on his aesthetic and political beliefs. Contradictions and inconsistencies prevalent in Bloch’s views can be partially explained by the untenability of this Romantic role of genius in the twentieth century when Romantic individualism gave way to social theories inspired by biological determinism. Bloch’s views reflected both the Romantic belief in the genius’s capability for understanding and representing his time and the influence of contemporaneous ideas, such as Social Darwinism, eugenics and racism, that presented society more as a biologically determined group of people than a collection of individuals capable of spiritual and moral development. DeNora’s categories associated with the genius were even further transformed in Bloch’s case: ‘superiority’ became not only artistic but also social elitism, ‘magnitude’ turned into intensified belief in art’s and the artist’s prophetic mission not only in art but also in human history, and ‘male dominance’ became something similar to Havelock Ellis’s sexual determinism. The most striking contradiction in this jumble of ideas is Bloch’s consistent adherence to certain theories (of Gustave Le Bon and Havelock Ellis, for instance) and his insistent denial of ever believing in theories. Like Wagner, Bloch believed that his life and art constituted an inseparable whole. He agreed with Paul Gauguin that ‘the work of a man is the explanation of that man’.16 The essential aesthetic principles, Bloch argued, are not purely musical, but ‘of a more general order’, guided by men’s ‘psycho-physiological possibilities [and] way of reception’.17 ‘Musical laws or principles’, Bloch instructed, ‘are not entities in themselves, but are similar to most of the other laws which govern the whole Universe!’18 This was organicism on an extreme scale, surpassing even Wagner’s ‘total work of art’: unity of the work itself, of the work and the artist, and of the artist, the work and the universe.

16

Quoted in a letter by Bloch to Elkus, 24 October 1941, UCB. All letters from the UCB collection are in English, unless noted otherwise.

17

Bloch to Ada Clement and Lillian Hodgehead, 8 April 1943, UCB. 18 Bloch to Elkus, 10 October 1942, UCB.

26 Klára Móricz In this total view the artwork gained immense significance. In his music, Bloch wanted to embody ‘questions shaking humanity’.19 After the 1917 October Revolution, for instance, he intended to ‘depict Humanity in Chains, the struggle and the Liberation’ in a piano concerto.20 Like Wagner who, as Mann put it, ‘set up a causal nexus between his sufferings and his art’ (Mann 1933: 325), Bloch believed that human suffering could generate works of art that would communicate prophetic, uplifting and potentially transformational messages to humanity at large. His critics echoed these assumptions. Gatti maintained that ‘Bloch’s period of fruition synchronizes almost exactly with the tremendous conflict whereby the world has been convulsed and overturned as by a terrific earthquake; can this signify’, Gatti asked, ‘that the new epoch is beginning, and that, in matters musical, Bloch is to be a leader?’ (Gatti 1921: 35). It is not surprising that critics reared in genius worship frequently have such megalomaniacal perception of the artist. Even some psychologists share this view. Phyllis Greenacre argues that the genius is ‘gifted with extra “antennae” or sensory receptors’ that ‘broaden the perceptiveness of the external world’ into ‘cosmic emotional conceptions’.21 Bloch would have been a perfect example of Greenacre’s genius. In his letters, he often complained of his oversensitive ‘antennae’ that enabled him to predict the future and understand its relation to the past on a cosmic scale: one must remember always that, no matter how dark the present or certain periods [are], what we call History is a mere slice of a few, 4 or 500 centuries! And in regard to the millions of years back, from the insects, to the reptiles, the mammals, the pithecanthropus erectus—all our ancestry!—what we call ‘history’ is a mere coat of varnish. Thus Humanity [still has] centuries and centuries ahead, till the inevitable end, the cooling off of our small planet happens and destroys all life again! . . . And we . . . we, men, are just atoms . . . and we talk of immortality!22

The run up to World War II came close to measuring up to Bloch’s apocalyptic vision of the future: ‘The world . . . is crumbling’, he wrote. ‘I believe that we are headed very soon (month, or 1, 2, years), toward a gigantic war, which will annihilate what we call “civilization.”’23 Influenced by Bloch’s pronouncements, his critics heard this world struggle in his music. ‘In the most forceful pages’ of Bloch’s scores Gatti 19

Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 7 January 1933, UCB. 20 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 13 February 1932, UCB. Later he formulated the same programme in cosmic terms as the idea of ‘man in regard to the Universe, his smallness, his isolation on this poor little planet’. Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 8 April 1938, UCB.

Phyllis Greenacre, ‘The Childhood of the Artist’ and ‘The Family Romance of the Artist’ in Psychological Study of the Child, quoted in Davies 2002: 274. 22 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 19 November 1931, UCB. 23 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 6 July 1934, UCB. 21

27

Concepts of the Composer as Genius

found echoes of ‘the primordial grandeur of the struggle for the hegemony of the world, the revulsion of mankind to elemental passions goaded to an unheard-of paroxysm’. He heard the lightning ‘of the tempest’, ‘the fierce voices of men hurled one against the other in furious turmoil’.24 One critic argued that Bloch ‘sings of a great faith in the ultimate destiny of mankind’, another that, like Beethoven’s great works, Bloch’s music ‘passionately affirms the majesty of man’s divine inheritance’.25 The comparison with Beethoven was not accidental. Bloch’s magnitude of vision was a perfect replica of Rolland’s presentation of Beethoven. So was Bloch’s emphasis on his isolation and suffering. Bloch’s letters, filled with descriptions of intense spiritual, psychological and physical pain, often read like Wagner’s, another expert in suffering.26 Bloch believed that his suffering was an integral part of being a genius. He loved perusing biographies, correspondence and diaries of great men, looking for similarities between their lives and struggles and his own: ‘when I reread Trotsky’s life’, he wrote to Ada Clement and Lillian Hodgehead, two of his female devotees, ‘or even the terrible loneliness of Lenin’s life, I [realized that I] have no reason to complain!’27 ‘I do not think an artist, save perhaps Gauguin or Baudelaire, ever had such a fate [as mine], and lived in such terrible solitude’, he complained in another letter to Clement and Hodgehead.28 He was a voracious reader with a wide range of interests, yet surveying his readings reveals that his favourite books concerned either the life of geniuses, or bold, comprehensive explanations of the world, be ‘Certain it is, that the immensity of the drama whose final scene has not yet been shown, the primordial grandeur of the struggle for the hegemony of the world, the revulsion of mankind to elemental passions goaded to an unheard-of paroxysm, and, finally, the ostentatious disdain for every acquired habit of a refined and cultivated community, find echoes and utterance in the most forceful pages of the Genevese musician. In them we recognize that musical expression which best succeeds in conveying the impressions of the life unfolding all around us; in them we descry the lightnings of the tempest, we hear the fierce voices of men hurled one against the other in furious turmoil; – and we listen to the voice of God, that reaches us through a rift in the clouds and renews our faith in life.’ Gatti 1921: 35. 25 Wold 1954: 10–11. Composer and critic Herbert Elwell’s statements are cited in ibid. 26 Mann quotes from Wagner’s letters to demonstrate his constant physical and mental suffering: ‘My nerves are by now in 24

complete decline; it is possible that some change in my outward situation will stave off death for some years yet; but cannot stop the process.’ ‘I am nervously very ill, and after several efforts at a radical treatment of the disease have come to the conclusion that there is no hope of recovery’ Mann 1933: 325. ‘I realize now that my whole life has been a failure, or rather a succession of errors, since my youth . . . due mostly, not to external conditions, nor forms of governments, etc. but to my own overconfident nature, and my own weaknesses. I cannot accuse any one but myself. Had I been stronger, perhaps more selfish and less thoughtful of other people, less sensitive too, less preoccupied [with] ultimate Truth, my whole life . . . would have been quite different’. Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 13 July 1931, UCB. 27 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 13 February 1932, UCB. 28 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 4 December 1932, UCB.

28 Klára Móricz they in the fields of history, psychology, medicine, entomology, astronomy, genetics or social studies. Among his heroes one finds composers (Bach, Beethoven and Wagner), painters (Delacroix, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Hodler), writers (Goethe, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Baudelaire and Rilke), social reformers (Lenin and Trotsky), and philosophers (Schopenhauer and Nietzsche). Sending Guy de Pourtalès’s Wagner biography to his friends he declared: ‘You will see, it is a great book, and more than the life of an Artist. A book of Life, and showing human nature, and human misery too.’29 For Bloch, however, alienation was not only an acquired pose of a great man. Having been born into a Jewish family in Switzerland and nurtured on German and French cultures, then spending most of his adult life in the United States, he was at home nowhere.30 In his new country, even after his prizewinning epic rhapsody America, he remained an outsider.31 Disappointed with the Jewish reception of his Sacred Service, he bitterly summed up his situation: In Switzerland, they say I am a Swiss renegade—In America: a Swiss expatriate who steals the prizes from our native composers . . . In Germany, I am a ‘Frenchman’ because I fought for Debussy!—in France, I am a ‘German’ because I defended G. Mahler—and now . . . the Jews put me ‘out’, say I am not a ‘Jew’ . . . where must I go to live and to belong! [To] the Moon?!!32

But geniuses are not alienated only because, as Bloch believed, society rejects them.33 People who perceive themselves as geniuses also feel part of a highly selective, privileged few. Bloch often quoted Debussy’s remark: ‘“On est peu!”’ (We are few).34 The concept of genius, Murray writes, ‘is perforce elitist, not only in that it privileges certain individuals, but also because it 29

Ibid. Bloch refers to Guy de Pourtalès, Wagner, histoire d’un artist (Paris: Gallimard, 1932). 30 Writing from Switzerland to his American friends, he complained: ‘My greatest trouble, intellectually and socially, is to have lost ground in the old culture . . . and absorbed too much of the spirit of youth, in America . . . In Europe, I am a stranger. I lost contact, for 14 years. [I have] many friends in Italy, yes, but they consider me . . . a Swiss! And Switzerland denied me entirely. Here, I am an outsider.’ Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 13 July 1932, UCB. 31 ‘I read lately even a note in Mus[ical] America, as if to get rid of me, as an American’. Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, ibid. 32 Bloch to Samuel Laderman, 30 December 1950, quoted in Schiller 2003: 68. 33 Reading letters by Gauguin, van Gogh and Nietzsche, Bloch reflected: ‘I was once more

struck by the sad fact that very rare are those who can deal with such giants in an objective way. (And it is the same with Wagner, Beethoven, et al.) Practically all of them, the “exegetes”, the commentators, the second or third hand men, fought the giants or disregarded them often during their lifetime, when Gauguin or Nietzsche were struggling, suffering, even starving as Gauguin did!, after their death, glorifying them, but especially falsifying and distorting them, in fact, using them for their own ends, for the glorification of their own ideas or theories!’ Bloch to Elkus, 12 October 1942, UCB. 34 ‘More and more I am convincing myself of that sad truth . . . and yesterday night, when my Violin sonata was played for the 1st time here in Cleveland, and I looked at the faces in the audience, I wondered how many of these people could – I would not say follow me – but only guess “what it was all about!”’ Bloch to Clement, 20 January 1924, UCB.

29

Concepts of the Composer as Genius

elevates certain kinds of activity above others’ (Murray 1989: 6). Bloch believed he belonged to an elite group of a ‘very few superior human beings’, whom he defined as ‘not the rich, not the successful ones . . . but the real Elite . . . the few’ who played a major role in the progress of humanity.35 Artistic elitism often draws on social elitism. ‘If one tries to “equalize” men’ who ‘are naturally unequal physically, mentally, [and] racially’, Bloch maintained, ‘one will produce a colonization like the Termites and it will be the death of all greatness and beauty, the oppression of all superior minds. We shall have then “under men” in plenty, but no “superman”’, which would stop progress since, Bloch believed, ‘all real progress was made by a few, exceptional individuals’. To emphasize his disagreement with his Communist friends he added: Maybe the herd will be more happy! . . . Well, we cannot prevent the trend of History and [maybe] we are all drifting towards this glorification of the Mass[es] . . . Then, if it happens, we shall have dark ages again, centuries of them . . . till, again . . . the shrewdest seize power in [one] way or another . . . and oppress the others again, and here and there a man will [have] leisure and GENIUS will rise again above [the masses] . . . and it will be the same, same old story!!36

This, however, would be a long process since Bloch believed that geniuses could thrive best in strictly hierarchical societies in which their superiority could be recognized and in which the leisured class could provide them with financial support. Great civilizations, Bloch maintained, are not necessarily those that made the masses happy but those that ‘produced the greatest Men and the noblest works’.37 Despite Bloch’s Romantic adherence to this vision of history as a history of great men, he also subscribed to what since the 1940s has commonly been referred to as Social Darwinism because its adherents claim that Darwin’s theory of natural selection can be applied to societies as well (see Hofstadter 1944). ‘The fittest will survive’, Bloch used to say. ‘Biological laws. All is here! In spite of our illusions.’38 He saw the coming war as ‘a biological struggle of hidden forces of nature’, men acting ‘like the frogs or the white

35

Bloch to Winifred Howe, 12 September 1929, UCB. This elite group, which, Bloch assured his friends, always remains a minority, consists of ‘inventors, discoverers, artists, who unselfishly work, day after day and create slowly this human patrimony which gives man a little dignity, this patrimony which politicians dilapidate!’ Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 17 January 1936, UCB. 36 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 17 October 1931, UCB.

37

Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 10 November 1932, UCB. 38 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 19 November 1931, UCB. ‘And at the end, you will see the old order, the biological laws, rule everything, like plants and animals, the eternal struggle for life, the survival of the fittest, the rule of force, cunning, and not intelligence or progress, at least, for a very long while still, I am afraid.’ Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 22 March 1935, UCB.

30 Klára Móricz ants’, ‘blind actors who only believe to master’ the forces that drive them. He thought that the dark ages he predicted were nature’s ‘revenge’ for man’s effort to interfere ‘with the laws of natural selection’.39 ‘Nature intended perhaps to select, from the earliest stages, those who might be fit for survival . . . hence all the diseases of childhood.’ To a certain degree he, like other Social Darwinists, even accepted the necessity of eugenics. He found it perverse that while society cared so much about saving young lives in incubators ‘against nature’s wishes’, the same society would send physically fit grown-ups to war: ‘We select them again’, he protested, ‘to have the best, the fittest, sent to slaughter, for the sake of a few criminals! The unfittest stay back and procreate. That is our “Eugenics!”’40 He did recognize, however, that eugenics contradicted his own beliefs in what made men great. Some great men, he argued, whose life ‘was precious to Humanity’, were also cripples. ‘And thus’, he summed up his contradictory argument about eugenics, ‘saving lives in early childhood might be a fine ideal, if only the same spirit would apply later in life’.41 Bloch’s biological determinism also had a deeply personal aspect. He was one of numerous male artists who constantly needed the stimulation he could receive only from women. He easily pushed aside petit bourgeois morality, arguing that man is biologically determined to satisfy his sexual needs: The more I think about it the more I see that hypocrisy is the cause of the greatest pain. Sex is a function, like breathing, sleeping, eating, but it is more formidable than the rest. If it is not satisfied, everything collapses, brain, nerves, etc. One cannot cheat nature. It takes revenge. Unfortunately we know nothing about this force and our education taught us nothing about this most important thing.42

He hated Puritanism, claiming that what had prevented America from becoming an ideal society was its ‘antiquated laws’ and strong religious morals; to achieve a better society, Bloch wrote, one would need to ‘hang all puritans first!’43 He found justification in the writings of British sexual psychologist and social reformer Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), whom Bloch hailed as the only thinker ‘who could have written a real, honest, impartial “outline of history”’,44 since he alone could grasp reality in its eternal biological

39

Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 15 December 1921, UCB. 40 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 13 September 1942, UCB. 41 ‘I know, [Charles Proteus] Steinmetz was a cripple, physically, many great men were, their lives were precious to Humanity, they gave, they helped.’ Ibid. The famous mathematician and electrical engineer was a

hunchback who suffered from dwarfism and hip dysplasia. 42 Bloch to his wife, Marguerite Bloch, 20 November 1924, in Lewinski and Dijon 2001, 546. 43 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 13 February 1932, UCB. 44 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 10 June 1935, UCB.

31

Concepts of the Composer as Genius

determinism.45 Bloch maintained that Ellis, whom he contacted after reading his path-breaking six volumes of Studies in the Psychology of Sex, was ‘the only living man with whom [he felt] in total agreement’.46 With Ellis’s help Bloch believed he finally achieved what he called ‘the discovery of man’ in its biological reality.47 Sexual liberation was not only a social utopia for Bloch, but also an integral aspect of his creative life. Once when asked about the role of creative artists, he jokingly remarked: ‘to make love and create beautiful works’.48 Rolland formulated the same idea in Jean Christophe: ‘To create in the region of the body, or in the region of the mind, is to issue from the prison of the body: it is to ride upon the storm of life: it is to be He who Is. To create is to triumph over death’ (Rolland 1996: I:364). In Ellis’s philosophy ‘love and art were inextricably involved’. Aesthetic experience, he believed, gives the greatest satisfaction in life since it admits no boundaries and embraces ‘morals, truth and love’ (Brome 1979: 145). For Ellis, ‘emotional and sexual life had to develop powerful aesthetic and spiritual elements before their true potential could be realized’. The licence Ellis allows the artist genius is similar to Nietzsche’s: since ‘morality in love was to be substituted by aesthetics’, ‘codes of conduct imposed from without would be replaced by aesthetic discrimination from within’ (Brome 1979: 154). Both Social Darwinism and racism maintain the existence of essentially homogeneous racial groups characterized not only by common biological features, but also by common ideas, morals, personality and art. The race mania in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art criticism was also related to the preoccupation with the genius. Cultural historian Jacques Barzun argued that theorizing about race in books on painting, music and literature in the early twentieth century was an accepted cover-up of the ignorance about what genius is or how it is transmitted (Barzun 1938: 133). Being Jewish without being religiously observant, Bloch welcomed the flexible category of race as a determining factor in society, history and art.49 His convictions about the possible artistic consequences of race were based on French critic Hippolyte Adolphe Taine’s influential theory about the defining role of what Taine called ‘race, milieu, and moment’ in art. 45

Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 6 September 1934, UCB. 46 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 10 June 1935, UCB. 47 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 13 February 1932, UCB. 48 ‘Ernest Bloch’s Sacred Service American Premiere’, News-Week (21 April 1934): 34. 49 Bloch rejected the possibility of studying the phenomenon of genius scientifically.

‘I remember, as typical example, the “psychology laboratory” for discerning the Musical geniuses, at the Eastman Conservatory! All this seems more and more to me the outcome of an uncultured mind, of simplistic thought, of lack of background.’ Bloch to Hodgehead, 7 March 1932, UCB.

32 Klára Móricz The most lasting influence on Bloch’s ideas about race and its role in society was the work of French sociologist Gustave le Bon (1841–1931), whose theories of crowd psychology affected such diverse personalities as Lenin, Mussolini, Theodore Roosevelt and Sigmund Freud. In Bloch’s lectures, letters and interviews, Le Bon is the most frequently quoted author, although Bloch rarely identifies him as the source of his ideas. Le Bon maintained that ‘a race possesses psychological characteristics almost as fixed as its physical characteristics’ (Widener 1979: 49). Even more important, Le Bon formulated the idea that ‘the mental constitution of a race represents not only the synthesis of the living beings who composed it, but above all, that of the numerous ancestors who contributed toward forming it’ (Widener 1979: 49). This idea strongly reverberated in Bloch’s artistic credo: ‘Does any man think he is only himself?’ he asked Olin Downes in an interview. ‘Far from it. He is thousands of his ancestors. If he writes as he feels, no matter how exceptional his point of view, his expression will be basically that of his forefathers’ (Downes 1917: 11). According to this raceinspired view, the genius represents not only his time, but also the time of his ancestors; in other words, his race. Many of Bloch’s critics shared his convictions. In Bloch’s music Paul Rosenfeld heard a Jewish element, fixed and identifiable in every Jew for thousands of years.50 Gatti identified ‘Bloch’s sadness of heart’ as ‘that of his race, recalling and invoking their native land in the Babylonian captivity’ (Gatti 1921: 27). Criticism of the conservatism of Bloch’s music was fended off by his supporters’ claim that his style was not old-fashioned but timeless. It made Gatti feel ‘as though [Bloch] had lived always’ (Gatti 1921: 35), and Herbert Elwell as if ‘Bloch belong[ed] to the ages’ (Wold 1954: 10–11). Even more significantly, with its pseudo-scientific pretences, the racial discourse surrounding Bloch’s music provided a perfect way station between individualistic Romantic expression and modernist ‘objectivity’ in art. It shielded artists such as Bloch from the charge of outmoded Romanticism, for, as Bloch emphasized repeatedly, since it sprang from the instinctive, his personal expression was at the same time the artistic utterance of what he and his audience conceived as a racial essence. Le Bon also inspired Bloch’s pessimistic vision of history. Bloch agreed with Le Bon that the most important causes for international conflicts are race tensions. In historicist fashion, he predicted that the next war, which ‘will shake the whole world, and destroy all civilization’, would arise from

‘There are moments when [Bloch’s] music makes one feel as though an element that had remained unchanged throughout three thousand years, an element that is in every 50

Jew and by which every Jew must know himself and his descent, were caught up in it and fixed there.’ Rosenfeld 1920: 289.

33

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‘a conflict of two ideas, two opposite conceptions. It may look like a “classwar”’, he argued, but ‘at the bottom, it will be a biological war, between young, growing nations, who have not yet accomplished their cycle of growth and decay, and the other ones’.51 Many of Bloch’s pet convictions – that democratic equalization is incompatible with natural inequalities, that only the elite contributes to progress, that biological logic overrides human will and that nature’s pitiless attitude towards the weak serves humanity – also originated in Le Bon’s theories.52 Bloch, like Le Bon, did not believe in the perfectibility of man. ‘Human nature’, Le Bon declared, ‘must be accepted as it is’ (Widener 1979: 38). Bloch agreed: ‘I came slowly to reconcile myself with the World as it is, as it was, as it will be – for we cannot change human nature, nor cosmic laws, nor biology. Forms may change. Improvements may come, as History shows, but a Paradise on Earth shall never be.’53 Many Social Darwinists shared Le Bon’s pessimistic outlook. They predicted the decline of the white race and the rise of the coloured races that in an apocalyptic fight would overthrow the white man’s domination of the globe. Bloch shared that vision; but he greeted the rise of races that Europeans considered primitive with romantic enthusiasm. ‘Our follies may lead the human race to an abyss from which it may not recover’, he warned. ‘But Nature’s reservoir is huge! And if the whole [white] race kills itself, some day the Yellow or the Black may, after centuries, millions of years, accomplish what the white would have destroyed.’ Then ‘a higher MAN, greater, healthier in mind and body’54 will take over the world. Assuming both that coloured races would need centuries (or even millions of years) to accomplish their task and that eventually they would produce the long awaited ‘higher MAN’ shows the conflict between prevailing theories about racial hierarchies and Bloch’s romantic enthusiasm for the primitive. Despite his enthusiastic embrace of some contemporaneous views such as Le Bon’s, Bloch ultimately shrank back from subscribing to any particular political belief, religion, or artistic trend. He raged against people’s easy beliefs in what he called ‘fetishisms’, or any ‘isms’ in art, science, or 51

Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 20 September 1936, UCB. 52 Widener 1979: 251, 278, 296. In one letter at least Bloch attributed these ideas to another source: ‘In the book of Hindus, there are many things that any intelligent man must rejoice about. The discarding of all the “red tape” in law, organization, marriages, divorce, abortions, stupid laws, narrowminded ideas, etc. All this is splendid. And

many more things, even apparently cruel things, like letting perish the weak, the misadapted, the incurable . . . Nietzsche would have rejoiced at all that!’ Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 19 November 1931, UCB. 53 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 4 December 1932, UCB. 54 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 19 November 1931, UCB.

34 Klára Móricz politics.55 He accused the United States of cultivating beliefs ‘in cure-alls, in methods, in “science”, in “psychology”’, in ‘fads, be [they] “Freudism” or “astrology”’. He was sceptical about science as well as religion, seeing them both as potential ‘fetishes’.56 Although he wrote that he respected ‘all faiths’, he felt that people did not respect his convictions, which he based ‘on [his] own observations and studies, [his] own judgment and sincerity’.57 Because of his unwillingness to join groups, he felt more and more isolated even from his friends, who, he complained, became ‘infatuated with theories, or systems, or preconceived ideas’. Although he granted that these beliefs could ease existential anxieties, he could not share them: ‘I cannot wear such glasses, Zionists, Communists, Racists, Fascists, Monarchists, etc. It is the same in Art.’58 ‘I do not fit in any category . . . I have the most unfortunate thing nowadays, an opinion of my own.’59 This sounded very close to the credo of Rolland’s Jean Christophe who ‘let no opportunity slip of jeering at fetishism in art’ and who ‘declared that there was no need of idols, or classics of any sort, and that he only had the right to call himself the heir of the spirit of Wagner who was capable of trampling Wagner underfoot and so walking on and keeping himself in close communion with life’ (Rolland 1996: I:426). Sometimes he wished he had the comfort only faith could provide. But, as a student of Le Bon, he felt more inclined to position himself among the few with knowledge than among the masses with faith. ‘All men possess beliefs’, Le Bon wrote, but only ‘very few are able to lift themselves up to knowledge’ (Widener 1979: 35). Bloch repeatedly claimed that what blocked his way to faith was his knowledge of history and of man’s nature, which was incompatible with any faith.60 He was also convinced that a man of genius, as Ellis declared, ‘sees the world at a different angle from his fellows, and there is his tragedy’ (Ellis 1919: 222).

‘There is an advantage indeed in “vulgarization” and “simplification”, but a great danger too, and in many ways, it seems to be rather a regression to a primitive type. America, in this regard, has done an uncalculable harm to the world of “Thought”. And its repercussions along all lines. This belief in cure-alls, in methods, in “science”, in “psychology”, a short sighted one, fads, be it “Freudism” or “astrology”, though there is a great deal of truth in both, probably.’ Bloch to Hodgehead, 7 March 1932, UCB. ‘More and more I believe that the big Problem and its possible solution does not lie in a system, or any “ism”. Capitalism or Communism, nor “Socialism”’. Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 9 October 1931, UCB.

55

56 ‘For 20 years, here in the U.S., they applied x-rays for everything, cut the tonsil, appendix, and then they change all their systems, for new fads.’ Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 5 January 1955, UCB. 57 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 13 July 1932, UCB. 58 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 10 June 1935, UCB. 59 Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 20 September 1936, UCB. 60 ‘I wish I had your Faith, or the Faith of the Catholics I see here, in peace. But I have not! My wishes are for it. But my knowledge of history, true history, and of man refutes it, unfortunately. I cannot subscribe to any of the actual experiments.’ Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 6 September 1934, UCB.

35

Concepts of the Composer as Genius

In this individualist spirit, he kept going against the grain. Although he was constantly dissatisfied with what he considered the lack of culture in the United States, he instantly felt American when, visiting France in 1932, he sensed anti-American sentiments.61 Amidst prejudice against Native Americans and African Americans in the United States, Bloch preached their superiority: ‘The Indians and the blacks are the most interesting inhabitants of this country. The so-called inferior races!!’ he wrote to a friend in 1918.62 ‘The Indians are of a wonderful race and spiritually they are infinitely superior to those who subjugated and deprecated them’, he repeated in another letter.63 Demonstrating how abstract his own Social Darwinist convictions were, he once declared in a letter to his sister Loulette: ‘I’ve never made myself a champion of any race. I don’t believe in the superiority of any.’ And ‘I don’t permit that in the name of any hypothesis they attack any race.’ The strangest example of this generous attitude was his proposed resignation from the Cleveland Institute of Music because ‘they wanted to discriminate against somebody because the person was Jewish’. Without explaining his peculiar position in such an affair he added: ‘Of course my attitude cost me the sympathies of our Committee, which does not like Jews at all.’ In more general terms, Bloch reassured his sister that the day all prejudices disappear, ‘I will drop my Jewish title and be simply a man; until then I will claim it, as I would do if I were black.’64 Although sometimes hasty in making declarations, and often inconsistent in his passionate embrace and similarly passionate rejection of ideas, Bloch represented intellectual independence at a time when people frequently threw themselves at what Bloch called ‘cure-all’ ideologies. This independence was in part the Romantic pose of the lonely artist, but Bloch still deserves credit for his stance. For by turning Romantic isolation into modernist alienation, and by replacing the belief in art’s transformative power with a deterministic outlook that turned the artist into a prophet who foresaw but could not

61 ‘I have not lost my faith in America either! You are perhaps too near to judge clearly. But when I see how America is hated here! And how France especially, who begged her, in 1917, and would have been reduced to nothingness without American help, hates her and betrays her, it makes me boil. Americans are fools, stupid fools, France is her greatest enemy. No doubt France backs actually Japan, in all ways, against U.S. and Russia.’ Bloch to Clement and Hodgehead, 13 February 1932, UCB. 62 Bloch to Fleg, 23 January 1918, in Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:153.

‘I read a book by an Indian whose daughter I knew, and who is an admirable artist who died of the influenza. No “American” wrote anything so uplifting and profound.’ Bloch to his sister, January 1922, in Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:351. Bloch probably refers to a book by Charles Eastman (1858–1939), whose daughter Irène Eastman he knew (Indian Boyhood, 1902, The Soul of the Indian, 1911, or From the Deep Woods to Civilization, 1916). 64 Bloch to his sister Loulette, January 1922, in Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:351, 353. 63

36 Klára Móricz influence the future of humanity, Bloch transformed the anachronistic image of the genius into something specifically modern. Bloch’s music reflected the same amalgam of Romanticism and modernism, and, more crucially, in its wilful persuasiveness it displayed the same contradictions as his statements about art and life in general and about the role of the artistic genius in world history in particular. If we ignore the inherent incongruity between the Romantic model and its modernist distortion when studying Bloch’s personality and music, we encounter not Ernest Bloch but a fictitious character such as Jean Christophe, created on the model of the Beethovenian and Wagnerian stereotypes of the creative genius. Yet in spite of media-inspired hero worship, we relate more easily to real human beings, however flawed, than to inflated heroic prototypes, however noble. Notwithstanding their sometimes almost superhuman creative power, geniuses are, as Taruskin controversially announced, not Romantic clichés but human beings like all of us. The mission of today’s critic should not be the cultivation of halos around creative artists, but their liberation from the empty clichés originating in nineteenth-century music historiography. Only in this liberated spirit can we give full credit to an artist such as Bloch whose self-created enigmatic garb of the genius could not in the end conceal his uniquely colourful and stubbornly independent personality.

3

Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication Malcolm Miller

Bloch the Jewish composer and Wagner the anti-Semitic composer would appear not to be likely bedfellows. Yet for Bloch, the Romantic searcher after Jewish identity at the cusp of musical Modernism, Wagner, the forger of a German national identity in music and the Romantic prophet of musical Modernism, was a natural reference point.

Bloch, Wagner, Nationalism Perhaps not surprisingly, the crucial work for Bloch’s situation as a Jewish composer was Die Meistersinger. In 1911, the year he began the ‘Jewish Cycle’, he expresses clearly how the work is not merely a plea for German nationalism, but a spur to develop both his own cultural nationalism and his search for a personal identity. As he wrote of a Berlin performance in March 1911, to his friend the playwright Edmond Fleg: It was not only Wagner I found there, but also, partly, myself . . . our profound sensibility as Jews is closer to the complete human realisation which is German music than the pretty forms of French music. In the 3rd act I was vibrant and sad at the same time – How beautiful it is to belong to a NATION, to feel around one a Harmony, to plunge one’s roots deeply into a sacred soil. Wagner, exiled and alone proclaimed that, what a lesson.1

Then, in a curious and anguished echo of early Zionism, he asks: But we, where are we and where are we going? Where is our nation? Where to find the echoes of our cries, dispersed as we are, and who will understand our laments?

He continues with a curious conflation of his personal life choice with German and Jewish national aspirations: But also I sensed the joy of having taken – I, a musician – a German wife, that is to say from a race that, though different from ours, can understand me through music, a common language. And is that not symbolic? Is there not a common trait between

1

Bloch, E.: Letter to Edmond Fleg, 11 March 1911, in Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:536.

37

Bloch’s phrase ‘la complète réalisation humaine’ is ambiguous.

38 Malcolm Miller us and them? Because a Jewish art must be human, and what we proclaim must be for all; but before proclaiming it we must find ourselves and for that we must go our way and not theirs.2

By ‘going our way’, Bloch necessarily challenged the Wagnerian agenda, whereby Jews could not be creative. That thought was expressed to the composer Pizzetti in a letter on 13 October 1911, from Satigny, near Geneva: Contrary to Wagner who said to the Jews, ‘cease to be Jews to be more fully human with us’, I think, I believe, and I am convinced that it is only in becoming again fully Jewish that the Jews will be fully human.3

Yet the process was above all a quest into his inner self: Only when I will have rediscovered deep inside myself, this cry of the race . . . will I be able to express myself wholly and alone and most humanly.

The Wagnerian statement Bloch quotes is the infamous ending of his essay ‘Judaism in Music’, with which Bloch was evidently familiar. Wagner had written that ‘to become Man at one with us, however, means firstly for the Jew as much as ceasing to be Jew’.4 In that essay, Wagner develops his idea of the ‘Volk’ with respect to the intrinsic foreignness of Jews to the ‘Volk’, which, as David Schiller has shown, reflected in part the context of a yet-to-be-revived living Hebrew language:5 A language, its expression and its evolution are not separate elements but part of an historical community, and only he who has unconsciously matured in this community can take any part in what it creates. But the Jew has stood quite apart 2

Ibid.: 536. Bloch, E.: Letter to the Italian composer lldebrando Pizzetti (1880–1968), in Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:549. 4 Wagner 1892: 100. Here Ellis translates both the 1850 version of ‘Das Judenthum in der Musik’ (pp. 79–100), originally published anonymously in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and the Preface and Appendix added in the revised version of 1869 (pp. 75–8, 101–21), published under the composer’s name, updating Wagner’s views. The citation is from the final paragraph of the essay. There was no hope for a Jew as Jew, the only solution being assimilation or self-destruction. Indeed, in his closing words, Wagner’s language is ambiguous: But bethink ye, that one only thing can redeem you from the burden of your curse: the redemption of Ahasuerus – Going under! In the 1869 Appendix, Wagner closes with an expansion of his idea, that hints to the 3

idea of assimilation – a submerging of identity – yet also raises the possibility of something more ominous, the possibility of ejecting the Jewish element from German society. 5 Schiller 2003: see in particular 16–22. Wagner argued that since the Artist had to respond to instinct and draw spiritual nourishment from his people, the Jew, being alien to German culture and unable to share in that culture or language, was of necessity an imitator. Even synagogue music was an impure imitation and distortion. Wagner specifies two examples: Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer. Mendelssohn is accused of superficiality and not expressing the depths and profundities of emotion; and of needing to copy Bach’s forms. He accuses Meyerbeer of other types of decadence, and the whole group – the Jews – of lacking the possibility of living a life of artistic significance, and of being only imitators.

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Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication

from this community, alone with his Jehovah in a dispersed and barren stock, incapable of real evolution, just as his own Hebraic language has been handed down as something dead. (Osborne 1973: 27–8)

In David Schiller’s framework, it is called the Wagnerian ‘double-bind’: According to Wagner, without recourse to Hebrew, Jews can never express the authentic culture of their own historical continuity in a natural and idiomatic way; yet if they do turn to Hebrew, their discourse will be perceived as incomprehensible and foreign from the standpoint of European culture. (Schiller 2003: 17)

The ‘double-bind’ applies to music, since for Wagner ‘Song’ is language which expresses the highest passion: If these defects in his manner of speaking render the Jew almost incapable of artistic enunciation of his feelings, how much less capable he will be of expressing those feelings in song. Song is, after all, speech heightened by passion: music is the language of passion. (Osborne 1973: 28–9)

Nevertheless there is no doubt that Bloch, by becoming the ‘Jewish composer’ par excellence, deliberately took over the Wagnerian mantle at the same time as throwing down the gauntlet at Wagner. In the works of the ‘Jewish Cycle’ and later overtly ‘Jewish’ works, which set Hebrew texts and deal with Jewish topics, the musical language uses conscious or unconscious musical elements nurtured from within his Jewish historical community. Nadia Boulanger’s review of the French premiere of Schelomo on 27 November 1921, for instance, notes how the work is both resolutely modern, yet also steeped in the Bible, comparing it to a prayer, the lines of which, through purely instrumental themes, are rehearsed and repeated as if not to forget them.6 In this way, Bloch opposed Wagner’s ‘self-annulment’ project7 by proclaiming himself a ‘Jewish composer’. Thus, what is striking is Bloch’s quest to uphold Wagner’s aesthetic while challenging Wagner’s anti-Semitism. Klára Móricz sums it up thus: Bloch’s image of himself as a racially determined Jewish composer, though conceived as a refutation of Wagner’s accusation that Jews are creatively impotent, ultimately remained true to Wagnerian principles. It accepted Wagner’s first premise, namely, that art can be genuine only if based on an indefinable, mysterious racial essence. (Móricz 2008: 154)

In the way Bloch both concurs with the essence of Wagner’s argument and transforms the negation of the possibility of Jewish creativity towards its positive realization, he reflects a broader debate about Jewish identity in the 6

Boulanger 1921, cited in Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:339–40. 7 Wagner’s famous conclusion has been interpreted in widely differing ways by

various commentators, ranging from merely assimilation (for instance, Borchmeyer 1991) to a proposal for physical extinction (Koehler 2000: 66–8).

40 Malcolm Miller face of anti-Semitism. Jewish reception of Wagner’s ideas in the nineteenth century focused on the tension between the need to integrate Jewish cultural difference to European values or to assimilate, yet, as James Loeffler has argued, the twentieth-century Jewish reception strove for a more positive resolution (Loeffler 2009). Just as the ‘Dreyfus Affair’ led to Herzl’s formulation of modern Zionism, so Wagner’s ideas challenged Jewish composers to respond by reinventing a Jewish or Hebrew national musical style. Loeffler demonstrates how Wagner’s ideas formed the starting point for the theories of Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (1882–1938), pioneer of ethnomusicological research into the sacred and secular musics of Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Oriental Jews prior to World War II, and Lazare Saminsky (1882–1959), one of the composers of the St Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music formed in 1908 (see Miller 2003–4). In the preface to his 1914 essay ‘On Jewish Music’, Saminsky predicted that ‘By returning to its pure origins, Jewish composition will add a new, beautiful culture, of previously unknown harmony and colors, to European art’ (Loeffler 2009: 52), whilst Idelsohn’s monumental thesaurus of music of occidental and oriental Jewish communities in Jerusalem and elsewhere laid the basis for a non-European revival of an ‘authentic’ Hebrew song. Tracing in detail the way their own writings accorded extensively with aspects of Wagner’s critical attitudes towards Jewish artistic expression, Loeffler concludes that ‘Saminsky and Idelsohn both believed that Jews could use Wagner to help critique Jewish acculturation and hence carve out a national identity in musical terms that would stand as a cultural middle ground – a distinctively Jewish voice still firmly rooted in the realm of Western civilization’ (Loeffler 2009: 68). Bloch’s allegiance to Wagnerian discourse also extended, as Móricz has shown, to some anti-Semitic ideas, such as the belief that Jewish composers before him were merely imitators. Yet if his exploration of Jewish identity was echoed by his Russian contemporaries, it was aimed less at creating a national style than evolving an individual style. For Bloch, the relationship between the mass of contemporary Jewry and its intellectual elite was equivalent to that of biblical Israel towards the Prophets, a role he assumed personally within a modern context.

The Search for Roots In his music, Bloch extended the early influences of post-Romanticism to produce a Modernist aesthetic in his quest for the new, evident in experimentation with novel approaches to tuning and microtones, the anachronistic construction of modality in combination with tonality and his later neo-Classicism. All his life he remained a searcher, questioning his

41

Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication

relationship with the world, and expressing a sense of alienation from that world that would become a marker of Jewish identity in a Modernist context. One of the main expressions of his searching was his sense of lacking a patrie, a homeland. He was born in Switzerland, studied in Brussels, Frankfurt and Munich, and lived in Paris and Geneva before moving to the United States in 1916; following a further period in the 1930s in France and Switzerland, he returned to the United States in late 1938, settling in Oregon. Though at times he expressed support for the Zionist project,8 for Bloch the search for a true artistic homeland was at the heart of his identity. In this, he epitomized the attitude of the Modern Jew, echoing Mahler’s and Schoenberg’s often quoted dicta regarding their alienation from the societies in which they lived.9 As he wrote in a letter from Roveredo, Switzerland on 6 June 1931 to the philosopher and sexologist Havelock Ellis, one of the figures who most influenced him: What a misery to have been born Jewish, from a Swiss German father, a mother originally Alsatian, in Geneva, educated in Belgium, Germany, Paris, considered French in Germany, German in France because I admire Mahler and the Wagner of Meistersinger, too Jewish in Geneva and totally misunderstood by Jews naturally; America during 15 years. Not European not American, nothing. Citizen of the world, or of this tiny planet which is nothing at all . . . But where are the roots? Even a plant has a need for soil, its own soil, and transplanted, it dies or is transformed. . . . ‘My realm is in the air’ (Empedocles) . . . yes . . . and no . . . I am the Wandering Jew!10

Correspondence with Havelock Ellis A subsequent letter, the contents of which are published here for the first time, was written to Havelock Ellis just under a year later, in May 1932, when Bloch was working on his Sacred Service in Roveredo, Switzerland.11 In this, he points to the sense of fracture in integrating his heritage and

8 ‘Interview with Great Jewish Composer – The tragedy of “Wohin”’ in Jewish Chronicle, 9 February 1934, cited in Lewinski and Dijon 2004, III:322–3. The article appeared days before the London ‘Bloch Week’ and, in Lewinski’s translation, reports that ‘M. Bloch éprouve une grande sympathie pour la création d’un “National Home” pour le peuple juif.’ 9 Mahler’s famous self-description was ‘I am thrice homeless. As a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout all the world.’ Mahler 1969: 109, cited in Schiller 2003: 23.

10

Lewinski and Dijon 2004: III:65, my English translation; see also Bloch’s letter of 22 March 1915 to Romain Rolland, Lewinski and Dijon 2001, II:657. 11 Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), British philosopher and writer. His theories on psychology and sexuality were well known to Bloch by the 1920s; it appears Bloch’s daughters Lucienne and Suzanne knew Ellis personally, as shown by their correspondence dating from the 1930s, as part of the Havelock Ellis Papers at the British Library. Ellis and Bloch were finally introduced in London in 1934.

42 Malcolm Miller (a)

Figures 3.1a and 3.1b Sides three and four of a six-side letter from Bloch to Havelock Ellis, May 1932 (see page 58, ll. 13–40 for transcription; and Appendix A for full transcription)

his life – his identity. Figures 3.1a and b illustrate the third and fourth sides of Bloch’s original six-side letter, starting with the second paragraph of the ensuing extract: The uncertainties of the times weigh on a nature like mine: too nervous, too receptive, too influenced, all have drowned me and for months my physical and mental state are atrocious . . . My heritage, my life, my true equation has difficulty

43

Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication

(b)

Figures 3.1a and 3.1b (cont.) making a ‘modus vivendi’. A painter or scientist would be better, more objective, but as a musician I cannot change my substance and write ‘abstract music’ if such a thing exists! That also explains my silence. To create, I also need a collective life, outside of myself – which I do not have here . . . Fetishism, the adoration of magic formulas, simplistic theories, in Art, morals, science, politics, in everything, is the worst enemy of Humanity, because it distorts a sane vision of things, the world, which is more subtle and complex . . . See how Freud conquered the USA – it was so simple to explain all by a formula! The unfortunate thing is that the moment a new formula replaces this one, it will similarly destroy the vital and brilliant part of Freudism . . . The same goes with Art.

44 Malcolm Miller . . . I often think of you, about when all philosophy, all Weltanschauung, is based on pure freedom rather than on subservience to a formula. And that is the religion to which I aspire also.12

This clearest of statements by Bloch highlights the extent to which freedom from dogmatic systems was essential to his artistic outlook, a view often repeated both in his correspondence and published writing. Art, he frequently observed, was his true religion, often inspired by Nature. Through music he aimed to communicate his sense of the eternal.13 The letter of May 1932 underlines how Bloch, in his fifties and with many successes behind him, was acutely aware of tensions and contradictions in his artistic makeup: his uncertain sense of identity. Bloch was to meet Ellis two years later, after having completed and premiered the Sacred Service, during the 1934 festival of his works in London. A postcard sent shortly afterwards, reproduced in Figures 3.2a and b, with messages from Bloch, his wife Marguerite and daughter Suzanne, highlights the warmth of their rapport, evidenced later by Ellis’s agreeing to become a founding vice-president of the newly formed Ernest Bloch Society in 1937.14 The 1932 letter also expresses Bloch’s scepticism about what he describes as ‘abstract music’. His preface to the 1933 republication of his 1917 article ‘Man and Music’ proposes that art is ‘an ideal graphology’ that reflects the inner essence of the artist; no art – even produced by some theory – is abstract (Bloch 1933). By 1932, it is clear that ‘abstract’ referred to Schoenberg, whose serialism also matched the Freudian ‘formula’ as one of the ‘fetishisms’ of the time, to be deplored. For Bloch, creativity depended not on formulae but freedom, instinct and a need for a ‘collective life’. As he wrote in ‘Man and Music’: Only that art can live which is an active manifestation of the life of a people. It must be a necessary, an essential portion of that life and not a luxury. It must have its roots deep within the soil that brings it forth. (Bloch 1933: 376)

12

Bloch, E.: Unpublished letter to Havelock Ellis, dated 5 May 1932. Havelock Ellis Papers, Vol. XXIX, British Library Add MS 70552: 1921–39; pp. 61–3. The translation is mine. A full version of the original is given in Appendix A. The extensive correspondence includes letters from Ernest Bloch, his wife Marguerite, and their daughters Lucienne and Suzanne. I am grateful to the British Library, to the copyright holder for the Havelock Ellis Papers, Professor Nicholas Deakin, and the heirs of Bloch for permission to reproduce for the first time part of this letter (Figs. 3.1a and b), to quote it in full, and to reproduce a postcard from 1934

(Figs. 3.2a and b). I also am grateful for permission to feature extracts from several letters by Suzanne Bloch here for the first time. 13 See, for instance, Bloch’s letter of 16 January1947 to his sister Loulette, Lewinski and Dijon 2005, 4:257. 14 The postcard message reads: Nous avons pensé a vous, parlé de vous pendant tout le séjour de Suzanne – Affectueusement, Ernest Bloch (We thought of you, spoke about you during Suzanne’s visit. Affectionately, Ernest Bloch.) Much love with a good dose of your special ‘Divisions on a Ground’, Suzanne; Affectueusement, Marga Bloch.

45

Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication

Figure 3.2a A postcard to Havelock Ellis from Châtel in Haute-Savoie where the Blochs spent the summer of 1934

Figure 3.2b The same postcard, postmarked Thonon-Les-Bains, Haute-Savoie, 31 August 1934

Those words are by Bloch but they contain clear resonances of Wagner’s writings of seventy years earlier. Wagner, in The Art Work of the Future (1849), defined art as emanating from the life force of the people, or ‘Volk’, the group which shares a common need. The opposite of such need is

46 Malcolm Miller luxury, or superficial art, which Wagner, in the essay ‘Judaism in Music’ published shortly after, connects with the Jews, who lie outside the ‘Volk’, beyond true creativity. Bloch follows this Wagnerian line of thought, though without its anti-Semitic connotations, when he continues in his essay: A work of art is the soul of a race speaking through the voice of the prophet in whom it has become incarnate. Art is the outlet of the mystical, emotional needs of the human spirit; it is created rather by instinct than by intelligence; rather by intuition than by will. (Bloch 1933: 376)

Bloch’s Infatuation with Wagner Throughout his life, Bloch was strongly attracted to and influenced not only by Wagner’s music but also by his cosmic world view. Moreover, as Klára Móricz has shown, Bloch modelled his self-image on Wagner, as genius and prophet. Thus when, in ‘Man and Music’, Bloch writes that ‘A work of art is the soul of a race speaking through the voice of a prophet in whom it has become incarnate’, he is referring both to Wagner, about whom a few paragraphs later he says ‘in him we find incarnate the future dream and development of his race’ (Bloch 1933: 378), and to himself. By 1917, when he wrote the essay, he had completed his ‘Jewish Cycle’, and was self-consciously shaping himself as the prophet of his ‘race’. Wagner’s music was important to Bloch from early on, as his ecstatic reports to his family and friends show. Though he was only three when Wagner died, he did experience Wagner at nearly first hand, as a teenager, through the baton of a member of Wagner’s Nibelungen Chancellery, Felix Mottl (one of Wagner’s three Bayreuth conductors), about which he wrote to his sister Loulette, on 12 February 1899, from Brussels that ‘It is nevertheless curious that I prefer Bach a thousand times more than Beethoven, Wagner and Co. and Schumann is for me my favourite along with Bach’ (Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:109, my translation). Two years later, however, he could declare (on 26 February 1901) that ‘Wagner, my Messiah, is huge. I revere him as the greatest genius I know’ (Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:143, my translation). He got engaged to Marguerite Schneider during Act II of Siegfried, about which he wrote to Loulette (12 April 1901), ‘sublime is the Master who can engender such feelings . . . transporting one to a higher sphere, the ideal!’ (Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:147, my translation). In September 1901, alone in Munich for Tristan and Die Meistersinger, he writes to Fleg, ‘I am mad with love and enthusiasm, I forget everything, our

47

Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication

filthy life, the people I hate. This enlarged my soul and heart . . . I have faith in the power of Art, I believe in its mission’ (Bloch 1933: 371). The power of Wagner’s music so to inspire him that it obliterated anything negative was again evident forty years later when he wrote to his lover Winifred Howe from Agate Beach (19 April 1943) after listening to recordings by Carl Muck of the Siegfried Idyll and Act III of Parsifal: I forgot the records, the time, the war, the horrible rackets around us led by criminals, I forgot Wagner’s anti-Semitism, I forgot my own miserable life, buried alive here in the USA, slowly and surely, and the years without hope that are left to me . . . I forgot all! The music was there and what music! And more than that, a profound religious feeling. (Lewinski and Dijon 2005: IV:146, my translation)

Such enthusiasm for Wagner’s music thus remained constant throughout Bloch’s life, expressed in countless letters, as well as in his articles and lectures. It is poignant to read his correspondence asking his family to send him Wagner scores, and it also points to Wagner’s musical influence. Though especially marked in his early apprentice phase, as in the Symphony in C sharp minor (1903) and his opera Macbeth (1910), it also colours his later music.15

Reception of Bloch as a Universal Composer Bloch’s search for his Jewish musical identity fermented through a friendship with two friends who were also opposing poles: Edmond Fleg, the Zionist writer and poet, and Robert Godet, the anti-Semitic music critic and racist Chamberlain apologist. To the well-documented accounts by writers such as Kushner, Knapp and Schiller, Móricz adds a significant level of detail and subtlety which highlights the impact of Godet on Bloch’s quest to express his particular racial ‘essence’ as a means to express the universal, and highlights how Godet disappointed Bloch by claiming that the ‘Jewish Cycle’, notably the Three Jewish Poems (1913) and Schelomo (1916), remained in the ghetto, failing to reach what Bloch described to Romain Rolland as the ‘common ground of all people’ (Móricz 2008: 114). A rift developed further between Godet and Bloch when Bloch received a copy of Godet’s translation of Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s proto-Nazi Foundations of the 19th Century (1899), a project about which Bloch had had no idea. Godet’s ideas on race thus appear to have derived from Chamberlain, and as Roger Allen has suggested, there is an ‘uneasy 15

For a discussion of those works, see Miller 2009b and 2007. Bloch was at pains to point

out how far he had moved from the Wagnerian leitmotif.

48 Malcolm Miller synthesis’ between Wagner’s ideas of regeneration and Chamberlain’s Foundations, which forged ‘the link of the ideological chain by which Bayreuth and racist thinking became synonymous’.16 Yet was Godet correct and did Bloch in fact fail to reach the universal through the act of drawing from his roots? Móricz seems to agree, basing her conclusion on the notion that ‘the musical expression of the barbaric, prelinguistic condition that Bloch envisaged as a shared memory of humanity was received by critics not as a universal but as a specifically Hebrew racial expression’, while the Sacred Service, Bloch’s most Jewish work yet intended to be his most universal, failed ‘to bring Judaism out of the perceived ghetto’ (Móricz 2008: 195). While it is correct to point out that Bloch’s Jewish works remain Jewish, one might nevertheless question Móricz’s conclusion that ‘the emphasis of his Jewish voice ultimately prevented him from entering the pantheon of universally acknowledged composers’ (Móricz 2008: 114–15).17 This is a question which requires an inquiry into a broader reception history than has yet been attempted, and one which does not focus solely on the perspective of his universality versus his Jewishness. What is more relevant is his search for inner acceptance of the true value of his creativity. Alexander Knapp wrote in an essay on Bloch’s Jewishness that ‘universality depends upon quality rather than heredity; “Jewishness” and universal appeal are in no way mutually exclusive’ (Knapp 1970–1: 99). From a postmodern vantage-point, Bloch was a trail blazer in the new field of Jewish music, searching for his personal voice within a multilayered identity. As Knapp continues, Bloch’s idiom reflected varying mixtures of ‘the influences of his cultural and ethnic (i.e. Jewish) background [and of] his immediate (i.e. Western) environment’.

Bloch’s Universality Acknowledged in Britain Most critics of Bloch accept him into the ‘pantheon of universal composers’. It is commonplace for Bloch to be included in historical surveys in the 16 See Allen 2005: 273. Allen challenges Chamberlain’s claim that Wagner never used the term ‘race’ until a rather late essay inspired by Count Gobineau (‘Heldentum und Christentum’) by showing that, while the term ‘Rasse’ is indeed absent from ‘Jews and Music’, a different term, ‘Geschlecht’, is used. 17 Móricz highlights how for Bloch, Wagner’s ‘belief in the possibility of reaching the universally human through the racially

particular’ was a constant thread through his life. Móricz claims that for Bloch it was the ‘barbaric’ which aimed to reach the universal condition, yet, unlike Stravinsky’s primitivism then also in vogue, that it was ‘received by critics . . . as a specifically Hebrew racial expression’. Her commentary avoids mentioning other aspects of Bloch’s ‘biblical music’, such as the personal character of the music foregrounded by other commentators.

49

Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication

context of national styles, as for example in Arnold Whittall’s seminal Music since the First World War (Whittall 1983: 89), where Bloch rubs shoulders with another European symphonist, Martinů. Indeed British critics, in particular, have considered Bloch as part of the evolving international zeitgeist for national/racial/ethnic styles, as the creator of a Jewish style and as a composer with a very personal idiom that cannot simplistically be described as Jewish or non-Jewish, yet which speaks to a universal audience. What is significant in the writings of well-known critics such as Ernest Chapman, Ernest Newman, Hugh Ottoway, Joan Chissell and others is the stylistic context in which Bloch’s music is seen, whether as a counterpart to figures such as the neo-Romantic Sibelius, Vaughan Williams or Bartók, or a counterpoise to Schoenberg and other abstract composers, whether as a continuation of a nineteenth-century Beethovenian tradition, post-Wagnerian Romanticism, or Ravelian French Impressionism. Bloch is seen by some as innovative and contemporary, for others reflecting conservative tonal and structural values. Famously Ernest Newman wrote of the final chord of the Piano Quintet that ‘there is no more impressive, more clinching, more conclusive, more authoritative C major in all music’.18 Example 3.1 shows the ending of the Piano Quintet which, as Alexander Knapp has written, resolves the harmonic ambiguities of the whole work in a key which had ‘special spiritual connotations’ for Bloch (Knapp 2008). Bloch reception in the 1930s takes on an almost political power: one of the most important voices was that of Ernest Chapman, a founder in 1937 of the Ernest Bloch Society in London. In his extensive preview to a major 1934 Bloch concert in London – reviewed in The Times by Ernest Newman19 – he noted that the ‘Jewish Cycle’ was ‘one of the most important creations this century has yet seen’ and proclaimed that ‘it was to Ernest Bloch that the task of expressing the voice of Jewry in modern music was given’ (Chapman 1934: 122). Similarly, in a 1935 radio review, W. R. Anderson (1936: 424–5), highlighting that Bloch was ‘one of the most truly poetic and original musicians composing today’, added: All the better too, if a certain nation, that with megalomaniac folly now spurns those who founded so much of its fortune, marks our honouring a Jew who can speak to Everyman’s mind and heart so clearly as Bloch does. (1936: 424) 18

Newman’s description is cited in Chissell 1943, 31. 19 Ironically, obituaries of both Newman and Bloch appeared on the same page in The Musical Times, 100/1399 (Sept. 1959), 481–2. Newman, while noting that ‘his strength is in his Jewish heritage’ (1934: 5), compares Bloch to Sibelius (a comparison echoed by Hugh Ottoway over a decade later), and on

other occasions extends the comparison to Bartók and Vaughan Williams, on account of their renewal of the language of tonality, through modal and polytonal methods. Other critics praised Bloch’s structural symphonic control, his innovative free rhythm and harmony, his newness of sonority.

50 Malcolm Miller Example 3.1 Conclusion of Bloch’s Piano Quintet No. 1, last sixteen bars of Finale, from Rehearsal no. 50, pp. 128–9

Of Bloch’s universality Chapman (1934: 121–3) writes: Bloch is essentially a man of his time, speaking to his people in a tongue that is their own and is understandable. By ‘his people’ is meant not only the Jewish race, but all men. He has a deep love for his fellows. (1934: 123)

In his fascinating 1955 tribute to ‘Bloch at 75’, Chapman underlined the personal nature of Bloch’s style, the product of ‘a mind concerned with real human values and emotions’ and ‘truly contemporary in feeling’ (1955: 7).20 The aim of Joan Chissell’s (1943, 30–3) analytical article on ‘Bloch’s Chamber Music’, published in 1943 in Music and Letters, was overtly to counter the usual ‘uncritical hyperbole’ about Bloch and ‘to save him from the emotional chaos of which he is so often accused’. Underlying the exotic and Jewish aspects explored in her detailed analysis, Chissell found 20

Chapman traced the various strands of Bloch’s achievements, including training some of the best American composers, and creating ‘a vivid pregnant music language

belonging both to the past and present, that evokes recognizable characteristics of his race’ (1955: 7).

51

Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication

Example 3.1 (cont.)

52 Malcolm Miller Example 3.1 (cont.)

a ‘whole-hearted embrace of humanity apparent throughout all of his work’. In the ‘confident serenity’ of Bloch’s codas, Chissell likened the chamber works to the utopianism of the Sacred Service, in that Bloch had claimed that the coda represented ‘the ardent desire that one day men may at last recognize that they are all brothers and may live in harmony and in peace’. The exception, in her view, was the darker coda to the 1935 Piano Sonata, composed while ‘shadows were already darkening the face of Europe’. Turning specifically to the Sacred Service, David Schiller has traced three challenges to its claims to universalism, supporting Móricz’s arguments. Both Saminsky and Kurt List reclaimed it for the synagogue.21 Leonard 21

This correlates with Bloch’s own experience of a synagogue version of the Sacred Service in New York in May 1939, which he confides is one of the four or five highlights (‘experiences’) of his life (Lewinski and Dijon 2004: III:266–7). A treasury of unpublished letters of Suzanne Bloch sheds some new light on the composer’s personality in relation to this premiere, and

her own involvement in its preparation as in this unpublished letter (in the British Library) from Suzanne, by then married to Paul Smith, to Havelock Ellis (1 Feb 1933, from 328 West 108th Street): The worst part of the illness was the day when I was very ill and in great pain and a note came from the Director of

53

Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication

Bernstein’s adaptation appears to render it even more ‘Jewish’ by including the Hebrew Kaddish prayer in place of Bloch’s chosen English text. Schiller himself, however, stressed the radical nature of the work as the first Jewish oratorio, which clearly moved Bernstein and other American Jewish composers to create similar concert-liturgical works. Again British critics, and I suspect other major American ones too, have taken a different line, highlighting the quality of the piece and its ability to communicate beyond the faith group of its source text. For instance, according to Peter J. Pirie in 1963, while it is ‘the most considerable of Bloch’s specifically Jewish works . . . its spirit transcends purely sectarian bounds’ (Pirie 1963: 356). Wilfrid Mellers (1971: 1021) observes that ‘the relationship of this singing lyricism to the liturgical manner – half Hebraic, half Renaissance European – of Bloch’s Sacred Service indicates how Bloch’s elegy . . . implies a tragic resignation to suffering. This quality, too, may affect us as Eastern rather than European.’ Robert Anderson (1980: 565), reviewing in 1980 a newly released recording by the Zemel Choir with Louis Berkman, baritone, and the LSO, conducted by Geoffrey Simon,22 admires the work’s ‘sheer conviction and blazing sincerity’ noting that ‘there is little of the obsessiveness and oriental colouring to be found in Bloch’s specifically Jewish music. Indeed . . . Bloch . . . expounds a theology that should displease none of the present day contenders for the earthly Jerusalem . . . one is left with only admiration that Bloch had the spiritual power to produce so noble a work in the mid-1930s.’ The Musical Times obituary noted that ‘The the Choir which is to sing the Service, saying that the publisher was 3 weeks late in delivering the vocal parts. The situation was desperate as rehearsals were limited. The publisher had just sent me the proofs! It was a matter of utmost importance so with towels wrapped around my head chattering from fever and chills I corrected the proofs all day. It was a nightmare for my ears and eyes were affected, my face was terribly inflated. But I managed to go through it all. Paul came in a taxi to send the music. It saved the day. My associations of ideas with the Service are not very nice. The nasty interviews with Gerald Warburg – much humiliation over the financial side – then proofs and proofs – and the mumps! And the next day, news from the parents with complaints that we children didn’t do enough for the Bloch cause! It upset me for long, I was angry and in state of revolt. Sometimes really it is

unfair. For years we have heard how useless a burden we have been. Then how little we cared. Then how little we did. It seems all this is said and repeated for the sake of the Biographie to be written later – The usual thing is deduced that the family of a great composer is mediocre and can’t see and understand or care. Naturally the friends around all agree. We used ourselves to believe it. Mother does and insists she is utterly inadequate and so are we. Sometimes it goes too far – and I explode – and intend to explode all my life. 22

The Zemel/LSO LP of Bloch’s Sacred Service, recorded 7–9 November 1978 at All Saints’ Church, Tooting, London, was produced by Robert Matthew Walker, and released by Chandos with the catalogue number ABR 1001. It was reissued as a CD in 2005, as CHAN 10288.

54 Malcolm Miller Jewish inspiration of the Sacred Service . . . is expressed in music of broad appeal.’23 Poignantly perhaps, Arthur Jacobs (1972), while criticizing it as a ‘weakly spread out work’, notes that ‘it has achieved repeated concert performances: ironically it is not suitable for most synagogues’. Curiously, Wagner played an important role in the genesis of the Sacred Service. As shown by the letter to Havelock Ellis quoted earlier, Bloch was in a depressed state of mind. Further unpublished letters of Suzanne Bloch shed fascinating light on this aspect of his creative personality, describing how, on one occasion, Bloch spent a day pounding out violently on the piano until he felt better.24 Yet it was the inspiration of the book Wagner – Portrait of an Artist by Guy de Pourtalès (1881–1941) which helped unblock his flow, as recounted in Bloch’s letter to Pourtalès, from Roveredo on 4 November 1932:25 I just finished your Wagner. I read and reread; . . . It plunged me into an intense emotion . . . Like his music, his roots plunged into Life and into these enormous forces, biological and spiritual, which guide everything over and above our flimsy arithmetic, our daring to understand, we who know nothing, nothing of Time, Space, Matter and Spirit; the book gave me back confidence . . . It gave me courage, and so I returned yesterday after months of interruptions, to the final chorus of the major work, also cosmic, almost entirely on a Hebrew text, on which I have been working for 2 years. (Lewinski and Dijon 2004: III:167–71; my translation)26 go to bed and burrow my head in the dark till next day. The result was good. First, Father was upset over it and forgot his miseries. He hasn’t shouted so much lately . . . Now things are quite different. He has been more peaceful and having begun to work at the garden; pulling weeds and transplanting salads has been a lifesaver to him. He sleeps better, laughs more naturally without this sardonic tinge, and for the first time in years there is a better feeling of unity in the house . . . The next thing is to get him to compose and finish the Service.

23 The Musical Times, 100/1399 (Sept. 1959), 481–2. The article emphasizes that ‘the chamber works . . . are remarkable, particularly the First Piano Quintet and the Second String Quartet, for qualities of creative imagination whose originality can be universally recognized’. 24 Bloch, Suzanne: Unpublished letter to Havelock Ellis (Roveredo, 8 July 1932), British Library, Add Ms. 70552. The composer’s daughter relates a colourful anecdote about

a very stormy day for Father. Everything seemed to be worse than usual, he shouted it to the four skies and to me, the sole audience. This lasted all day, ending with a performance of ultramodern works banged on the piano and then his Service, banged, shouted in equal grandeur. I was to be the audience with ear aches that made me wince at every shout and bang. Of course that was unimportant, I stuck to it because, as I was drooping, he was cheering up and enjoying it. But when I left I collapsed into a childish state of torrents of tears and such pains in my head that I had to

25

Guy de Pourtalès, the Swiss author, wrote over twenty books, including works on Liszt, Chopin and Nietzsche. His reply to Bloch (on 7 November 1932) was full of gratitude. 26 The letter continues: I must finish it! Despite all the betrayals and indifference to the Jewish Poems, Israel (misunderstood), America and Helvetia, despite the frightful isolation and constant anguish. I also searched for a Homeland (Patrie) in all these works, but I did not find it. I know

55

Bloch, Wagner and Creativity: Refutation and Vindication

The imagery here recalls the 1917 article Man and Music, where Bloch, musing on the consequences of World War I, concludes optimistically that ‘art will replunge its yearning roots into the good old earth . . . and quite naturally, having found its home, its truth, it will blossom afresh’ (Bloch 1933: 381). At that point, Bloch did ‘replunge’, composing the Violin Sonata No. 1 (1920), a programmatic response to World War I, and a powerful work championed by Bartók amongst others which, far from his overtly Jewish style, is deeply rooted in his own personality. With the approach of World War II, Bloch, back in America, again fell prey to depression. Despite triumphant concerts, such as those with the Boston Symphony in 1939 at which, according to Suzanne Bloch, ‘Father conducted so well and even cold Boston audiences forgot themselves to shout and stamp their feet’,27 Bloch could nevertheless write, on 6 May 1939, to the British Jewish pianist Harriet Cohen: I am lost here and terribly discouraged by the ‘racket’ rising up everywhere and by the horror of the world in which we live and the atrocious catastrophe towards which we are going, due to the cowardice and degeneracy of man – what to do? The forces of evil seem to triumph.28

This extract is from the first of two letters written in 1939 from New York which are cited in her autobiography; it is published here for the first time in full.29 The letters were written shortly after Bloch had dedicated his piano work Visions and Prophecies to Harriet Cohen, who gave the premieres in New York and in London in 1940.30 The letters mention sketches for a Concertante piano and orchestra work and thus may shed important light on the genesis of the Concerto Symphonique. They highlight particularly

however that there is one, that in each there runs through a great spirit, human, passionate, true. No, I do not lack faith in myself . . . but no-one has listened to me . . . they believe in passing theories, and yet your book has given me back this force in rekindling the flame in the embers of my life, because I sense that, despite dry scepticism and cold formulas of contemporary music, one cannot extinguish Life, and that the Great Powers that guide all are eternal, despite changing forms and tastes. 27

Unpublished letter from Suzanne Bloch, the composer’s daughter, to Havelock Ellis, dated 25 March 1939, Havelock Ellis Papers, BL ADD MS 70552. 28 Bloch, E.: Unpublished Letter of 6 May 1939, to Harriet Cohen, British Library, MS Mus. 1369, letter 152. My English translation.

See Appendix B for the letters in full in French original. 29 Cohen 1969: 284–5. The two letters are part of the Harriet Cohen Papers at the British Library, MS Mus. 1369. 30 Harriet Cohen (1895–1967) gave the world premiere of Visions and Prophecies on 17 March 1940 at New York Town Hall. Her autobiography relates how both Bloch and Samuel Barber attended her New York Town Hall concert in spring 1939, leading to a dinner invitation from the Blochs, where the composer offered her his slightly revised piano version of Voice in the Wilderness (this was to become the independent piano work Visions and Prophecies) recalling that ‘the core, the heart of it, is a piano work and now I know that it is for you, this work that I love!’ The composer’s account is given in [Anon], ‘Music in the Making – Ernest Bloch’, Tempo, 5 (Aug. 1941), 6.

56 Malcolm Miller how Bloch’s search for his inner self was a precondition of his creative work. In the second letter, of 20 July 1939, he describes how: as soon as I have my license we will leave . . . for a little adventure in New England, and then – into the unknown. I have a possible offer from California for next Spring. I am tempted to accept, in which case I’ll go on my own by car and try to find a ‘gite’ – peace and work at last – Then, and only then, would I dream of returning to my artistic creation, which is to say my real contact with myself, contact which was broken since my departure from Châtel in November. For years I have sketches for an orchestral work with piano obbligato.31 I can’t decide. I need peace, recovery, more confidence around me, to create. I have none of it in my life now. So I can’t promise, but I keep your letter with me, its warmth, its enthusiasm will help me without doubt, as soon as I find myself again.32

Finding the self was essential to creativity: only such a self-seeker could write, as he did at the end of this letter to Harriet Cohen about the true nature of art: One should not ‘make music’ for then it would be worth nothing! It should be that music is made within us – like a natural force, alive, like the sea, the mountain, love.33

To conclude, the Wagnerian aesthetic was important to Bloch’s artistic selfimage, yet anachronistic racial theories should not cloud our evaluation of his work. In many outward ways Bloch’s life mirrored Wagner’s, not least the divergence between their stated beliefs in the connection of life and art, and the contrast in each case between the noble proclamations of their public art and the turmoil of their private lives. If Wagner strove to seduce his audience by extrovert art, Bloch knew that only by being true to himself and reaching inward could he speak to Everyman. Bloch’s search for identity may be seen as a Modernist reinterpretation of Wagner’s Romantic aesthetics. One might further speculate to what extent his oeuvre is relevant to the aesthetics of postmodernism, an artist in a mixed, global society drawing nurture from an exploration of his multilayered identity, through varying traditions, cultures and ethnicities.

31

Lewinski and Dijon 2005: IV:301–7, gives evidence that Bloch’s Concerto Symphonique for piano and orchestra (1948) was begun in earnest in 1946; but it is possible there were earlier sketches, as the mention of those here suggests. 32 Bloch, E: Unpublished Letter of 20 July 1939 to Harriet Cohen, British Library, MS

Mus. 1369, letter 153. Extract in my English translation. See Appendix B for the French original of the entire letter. 33 Bloch, E: ibid. This extract of the letter is cited in Cohen 1969: 285. My translation. See Appendix B for full French original.

Appendix A

Unpublished Letter from Bloch to Havelock Ellis.34 Roveredo-Capriasca, Ticino, Switzerland, 15 Mai 1932 Cher Monsieur et ami Toutes les apparences sont contre moi. Mais elles me trahissent. Il n’est presque pas de jour où nous n’ayons pensé à vous et parlé de vous, avec une femme, à Roveredo . . . et pourtant j’ai laissé sans réponse votre si amicale lettre du 4 Novembre . . . et j’ai encore attendu après celle du 26 Avril . . . Cela ne serait pas arrivé si, comme vous, j’avais le don d’écrire des lettres courtes et substantielles à la fois . . . alors j’aurais pu vous dire, sans trop tarder, beaucoup de choses en peu de mots – et surtout la grande joie que nous avons à recevoir de vos nouvelles – Mais je suis gauche et tourmenté en ma technique épistolaire, comme en toute ma vie . . . et j’avais peur de vous importuner en vous écrivant tout ce que j’aurais voulu vous dire – L’époque où nous vivons, l’angoisse ambiante, le désavoi, l’incertitude, pèsent atrocement sur une nature comme la mienne, trop nerveuse, trop réceptive, trop influençable . . . la somme de tout cela, soucis divers, accumulation lente des déceptions, mille détails, aggravés chaque jour, m’ont submergé – et, depuis des mois, mon état physique et mental surtout a été atroce. Je suis arrivé, couramment, à vaincre bien des monstres – et votre portrait, devant moi, et tout ce qu’il évoque en moi, votre haute et sereine philosophie, m’y ont aidé – mais hélas, je n’arrive pas à contrôler le subconscient, qui m’assaille la nuit, sans doute, et me donne des réveils épouvantables chaque jour, après 3 ou 4 heures de sommeil seulement. Quelques concerts en Italie – Milan, Naples, Florence – consacrés à mes œuvres, m’ont un peu rasséréné, temporairement au moins. J’y ai trouvé des amis, des admirateurs sincères, des jeunes qui étudiaient mes œuvres et y puisaient de la force . . . et de sentir que mon effort et mes luttes n’avaient pas été vains m’a réconforté . . . Mais bientôt d’autres angoisses viennent vous éteindre . . . Et puis, mes enfants là-bas . . . nous ici . . . les nouvelles quotidiennes, ce monde vacillant, sans boussole, qui semble s’écouler . . . la confusion des langages: la Tour de Babel actuelle . . . il faut une nature forte, solide, magnifiquement équilibrée, comme la vôtre, pour dominer, pour surnager tout cela . . . Mon hérédité, ma vie, mon équation propre, ont bien du mal à établir un ‘modus vivendi’, même 34

I am grateful to the heirs of Ernest Bloch for permission to publish here, for the first

57

time, the contents of the three letters held at the British Library.

58 Malcolm Miller provisoire . . . Si encore j’étais peintre ou homme de science, mon activité principale me sauverait un peu; la vision objective du monde m’arracherait à ce pauvre moi passager; mais le musicien que je suis vit de sa propre substance . . . et je ne puis changer ma nature, faire de la musique ‘abstraite’ – si telle chose existe! – Ceci aussi vous expliquera mon silence. – J’ai aussi besoin, pour créer, de m’orienter, de vivre une vie collective – en dehors de moi-même – et les problèmes de l’heure présente sont si complexes. J’ai lu beaucoup de choses sur la Russie. J’ai même été voir l’Ambassadeur des Soviets à Rome. (Un homme charmant, pas un diplomate; et beaucoup plus pondéré, réticent, pensif . . . que les publications des Soviets!) Et d’Amérique – ou le Communisme semble ‘the last fad’! – on m’envoie aussi quantité de littérature – parfois exaspérante! – Comme toujours, là-bas, ils sont à côté de la substance même des choses et c’est une nouveau ‘fétichisme’ ajouté aux autres . . . Il me semble, plus je vais, que ce fétichisme, cette adoration sans réserve des formules magiques, des mots, des théories simplistes, en Art, en morale, en Science, en Politique, en tout, est le pire ennemi de l’Humanité . . . car il fausse une vision saine des choses, de l’ensemble de monde, qui est bien plus subtil et complexe. De là les systèmes tyranniques, qui ne voient que d’un côté – qu’il s’agisse de thèmes esthétiques, médicales, ou sociales – Voyez comme Freud a conquis les U.S.A. C’était si facile de tout expliquer par une formule! Et le malheur veut [‘est’ crossed out] que, dès qu’une nouvelle formule remplacera celle-ci, on détruira aussi la partie vivante et génial du Freudisme – Il en va de même en Art – C’est peut-être le cours nécessaire des choses . . . tant que l’homme en est à ce degré de développement – Pour me plonger dans du plus ‘réel’ – du moins provisoire, j’ai lu les Conversations de Goethe et Eckermann – et relu le théâtre d’Eschyle – Et c’est vous dire que là encore, j’ai souvent pensé à vous, dont toute la philosophie, toute la ‘Weltanschauung’ est faite de vraie Liberté, et non d’asservissement à une formule – Et c’est la religion à laquelle j’aspire aussi, et dont la force vive seule peut vous donner, je pense, le courage de concevoir sans trop de rébellion le tumulte apparent de l’existence. En lisant le Goethe-Eckermann, je confrontai sans cesse les dates extraordinaires . . . presque les trois siècles (!) ou s’est déroulée cette vie . . . il avait 29 ans à la mort de Voltaire . . . 40 à la Révolution Française, 55 au couronnement de Napoleon, 65 à sa chute . . . etc. Il fallait aussi des nerfs et une tête solide . . . Mais le monde était différent du nôtre, à cette époque, il est vrai – l’échelle a changé, la vitesse aussi – Et puis, il vivait dans sa tour d’ivoire, après tout, en spectateur, indépendant du monde . . . et c’est un avantage que nous n’avons pas Mais, vous le voyez, je m’égare, et je vous prouve, une fois de plus, l’infirmité dont je m’accusais au début de cette lettre. Il est assez possible que nous nous décidons, ma femme et moi, à nous établir à Paris, pour quelques mois, l’automne prochain . . . si le monde ne croule pas complètement jusque là, et si mes finances le permettent . . . Dans ce cas, j’espère que mon désir si longtemps contenu de vous connaître se réalisera enfin et que je pourrai passer la Manche . . . car je ne vous connais en quelques sort, qu’altruistiquement, par Lucienne – Mais je suis profondément heureux, pour elle, du moins, que ce vœu, que je vous exprimai il y a une année, se soit réalisé. Ma femme se joint à moi, pour vous envoyer, ainsi qu’à Madame Cyan, nos vœux les meilleurs, et mes sentiments les plus cordiaux Ernest Bloch

Appendix B

Two Unpublished Letters from Ernest Bloch to Harriet Cohen – British Library Music Collection, MS Mus 1639, Letters 152–3. Hotel Peter Stuyvesant Central Park West at 86 St. Le 6 Mai 1939 Chère amie, Je reçois votre programme de Paris. Je suis très touché de votre fidélité – et, ayant une adresse, je puis aussi vous remercier de votre câble à Boston. Ces choses-là me vont au cœur, plus que jamais. J’ai eu un grand succès là-bas, 15 jours de bonheur, le contact humain avec cet orchestre d’amis, qui m’ont compris, suivi, le public aussi – Mais, depuis, je suis perdu ici et effroyablement découragé, par le ‘racket’ qui sévit, partout, et par l’horreur du monde où nous vivons et la catastrophe atroce où nous allons, due à la lâcheté et la dégénérescence de l’homme . . . Que faire ? Les forces du mal semblent triompher . . . Il faudrait voir tout cela de haut, de loin, contempler ces forces biologiques au regard des siècles, des milliers d’années . . . Hope at long distance ! – (sic) Mais en attendant?? Je vous serre la main bien affectueusement et merci encore de penser à moi Ernest Bloch

Le 20 Juillet 1939 Chère amie J’ai été très touché par votre lettre si vivante, si ardente, si ‘prophétique’ – et je vous aurai répondu tout de suite – mais j’ai été en très mauvais état, physique et mental, depuis ces concerts de Boston – sans lendemain . . . – crises ‘allergiques’, et, pour finir, un ‘nervous breakdown’ – Toute ma vie est désorganisée depuis . . . 6 mois, et ma vie artistique perdue . . . J’essaie d’en sortir. Dès que j’aurai une ‘license’ nous partirons de cette ville décourageante, en auto, pour un petit voyage à l’aventure en ‘New England’ – Ensuite . . . c’est l’inconnu . . . On me fait une offre possible, de Californie – pour le printemps prochain. Je suis tenté de l’accepter, malgré beaucoup de points douteux . . . en ce cas, j’irais seul, en auto, là bas, dès l’automne – tâcherai d’y trouver un gîte – la paix, et le travail enfin – Alors, mais seulement à ce moment, pourrai-je songer à reprendre ma création artistique, c’est à dire ma vrai contact avec . . . moi-même – contact qui a été brisé depuis mon départ

59

60 Malcolm Miller de Châtel en Novembre. Depuis des années, j’ai des esquisses pour une œuvre orchestrale avec Piano obbligato . . . je n’ai pu m’y décider . . . j’ai besoin de paix, de recueillement, d’un peu de confiance autour de moi, pour créer. Je n’ai rien de cela, en ma vie actuelle . . . Alors je ne puis rien vous promettre – mais je garde votre lettre avec moi, et sa chaleur, son enthousiasme m’aideront sans doute, dès que je me . . . retrouverai. Il ne faut pas ‘faire’ de la musique – car, alors, elle ne vaut rien! Il faut que la musique se fasse en nous, comme une force naturelle, vive, comme la mer, la montagne, l’amour – Affectueux souvenirs de nous deux et au plaisir de vous revoir bientôt j’espère Votre Ernest Bloch Addresse permanente c/o Dominick and Dominick, 115 Broadway, New York City

4

Sacred Service: the Mass Bloch Never Wrote, the Two That Leonard Bernstein Did Write, and Shulamit Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin David Schiller A Symbolical, Universal Mass! On 23 April 1925, Ernest Bloch wrote to Lillian Hodgehead and Ada Clement about his desire to compose a musical setting of the Mass: Yes a catholic, but symbolical, universal Mass! . . . This Mass, which would bring my excommunication from among the Jews, the Protestants, the Catholics, would be a tremendous thing. The text of the Mass combines the whole philosophy of Life—The Kyrie would embody all the sufferings of man, since the beginning of the world—The struggles in the Darkness! The appeals to God . . . I would use Jewish motives, Protestant Chorales, Gregorian chant! The Crucifixus will not mean Christ only, but all those who have suffered and been crucified by man’s insanity, stupidity, cruelty. And the Resurrexit! and the Dona Nobis Pacem!1

When Suzanne Bloch published this letter in the Bloch Society Bulletin (in 1972), it appeared under the title ‘The Mass Bloch never wrote.’ But paradoxically, like René Magritte’s famous painting Ceci n’est pas une pipe, the ‘Mass Bloch never wrote’ denotes something more than simple non-existence. In documenting the chronology of Bloch’s life and thought, Joseph Lewinski and Emmanuelle Dijon show clearly that the Mass Bloch never wrote was a conceptual prototype for the Sacred Service. As Bloch contemplated his Mass in 1925, he imagined it as the second part – or completion – of his Israel Symphony. But later, in a letter written to Olin Downes in 1954, he wrote that the Sacred Service had actually fulfilled that very aesthetic and philosophical objective: ‘The second part of Israel was never written, but the Sacred Service is, in a certain way, its direct continuation.’2 Admittedly, Bloch’s characterization of the Sacred Service as a Mass has not been embraced in that work’s recent reception history. In my own Bloch, 1

E.B. to Lillian Hodgehead and Ada Clement, 23 April 1925 (Ernest Bloch Collection, University of California, Berkeley). Published in Móricz 1996: 211.

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2

Lewinski and Dijon 2004: III:243. (Original in English, published in French and retranslated by the author.)

62 David Schiller Schoenberg and Bernstein (2003: 38–9), I argued that the Sacred Service is really an oratorio; and in Jewish Identities, Klára Móricz (2008: 170), while underscoring the importance of the ‘Universal Mass’ idea in Bloch’s thought, suggests that Sacred Service is actually a religious (albeit pagan) music drama, Bloch’s Parsifal. Yet even after the completion of the Sacred Service, the conceptual prototype of Bloch’s Mass retains its own ontological status. It survives as a paradigm for a problematic category in Western art music: a Mass that (while not universal) draws on more than one religion, particularly on Judaism and Roman Catholicism; and a Mass that lives mostly in the concert hall, outside the church or synagogue, while continuing to demand recognition as sacred music. More broadly, the Mass Bloch never wrote belongs to a category of artworks that Ruth HaCohen illuminates in her book The Music Libel against the Jews: ‘musical, literary, and, to a lesser extent, pictorial’ works that are ‘pivotal to the Jews’ struggle for aural inclusion’ in a world that had categorized Jewish music as noise (HaCohen 2011: 1). Because the Mass plays such a central role in the history of Western music, composing a Mass might be a way to secure one’s place in the canon. Part of what makes the Mass Bloch never wrote such a pivotal ‘work’ is its remarkable afterlife. Its initial transmogrification – from an un-composed idea to the Sacred Service that Bloch actually composed – was only the first step in a process of genre-stretching and genre-bending that was taken up after Bloch’s death by Leonard Bernstein, in his Kaddish Symphony (1963), and then in Mass: A Theater Piece (1971). In 1988, Bernstein completed his second Mass, a non-theatrical and liturgically acceptable Missa Brevis. In 2000, Mass: A Theater Piece received an imprimatur of sorts when it was selected for performance at the Vatican as part of the Great Jubilee celebration of the Roman Catholic Church. Finally, Shulamit Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin (2006, recorded 2007), though musically remote from Bloch’s Sacred Service, comes remarkably near to Bloch’s conception of the Catholic Mass as a text of universal appeal. Ran’s texts include the Nicene Creed and Maimonides’s ‘Thirteen Principles of Faith,’ as well as ‘testaments’ recalling the Shoah and the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Center. The long historical span between the Mass Bloch never wrote and the premiere recording of Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin is bridged by increments, as shown in the following chronological summary of primary sources, including documents, scores, and recordings: 1925. Documentary evidence of the Mass Bloch never wrote 1933. Completion and premiere of Bloch’s Sacred Service 1949. Sacred Service recorded under Bloch’s direction 1960. Sacred Service recorded under Bernstein’s direction

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Sacred Service 1962. Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony 1971. Completion and premiere of Bernstein’s Mass: A Theater Piece 1988. Bernstein’s Missa Brevis 2000. Mass: A Theater Piece performed at the Vatican 2006. Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin 2007. Premiere recording of Credo/Ani Ma’amin in an abridged version 2009. First public performance of the original version of Credo/Ani Ma’amin

In tracing this trajectory, the concept that links these compositions and the family resemblance that they share is clarified and redefined. Bloch’s primary source for the Hebrew prayers that form Sacred Service was the ‘Morning Service for the Sabbath,’ in the Reform Jewish Union Prayerbook published in 1922. This service was designed to be conducted primarily in English, but also includes Hebrew prayers and readings from the traditional Orthodox prayer book. Especially noteworthy from a composer’s perspective is the fact that the Hebrew prayers and readings are marked by rubrics that indicate whether they are to be recited or sung by the ‘minister’, choir, and/or congregation. With one exception, to be discussed shortly, Bloch set the Hebrew prayers and omitted the English content of the service. Following the completion and premiere of the Sacred Service, Bloch reaffirmed its Mass-like structure: This work instead of being made up of fragments is written in five parts, which have to be played without interruption, as a unity. The text as a liturgy is very beautiful. It is a whole drama in itself, and like the Mass of the Catholics it must go on without interruption. (Strassburg 1977: 137)3

There is no obvious or direct way in which the five movements that comprise the Ordinary of the Mass can be mapped onto the structure of the Sacred Service or vice versa. Instead of setting five discrete prayer texts – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei – each movement of the Sacred Service sets a number of prayers that, taken together, comprise most of the Hebrew content of the Reform Jewish liturgy of the time. However, as Bloch’s letter to Hodgehead and Clement implies, he seems to have viewed the Mass texts not as a linear sequence of prayers, but as a repository of philosophical and religious topoi to be expanded upon by music: human suffering, appeals to God, ‘and the Resurrexit! And the Dona nobis pacem!’ Still, where there was a point of correspondence, Bloch wanted it to be noticed. For example, he explained, ‘The second part [of the Sacred Service] 3 The primary source, published in its entirety by Strassburg, is a lecture given at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on

September 16, 1933; it was recorded by a stenographer.

64 David Schiller is like the Sanctus of the Catholic Church, which was originally taken from the Hebrew’ (Strassburg 1977: 139). Given Bloch’s emphasis on the phrase ‘Dona nobis pacem,’ and the survival of the Mass idea in Bloch’s mind, his choices concerning what to include and what to omit from Part V of the Sacred Service are intriguing. Dona nobis pacem, the familiar Catholic prayer for peace that concludes the Agnus Dei, would seem to correlate rather neatly with the Kaddish prayer recited near the end of the Jewish Sabbath Service. Traditionally recited by mourners, the Kaddish too ends with an explicit prayer for peace. In the 1922 edition of the Union Prayerbook, the Hebrew is paraphrased as follows: ‘May the Father of peace send peace to all who mourn, and comfort all the bereaved among us’ ([Anon] Union Prayerbook 1922: 126). A more literal translation, from an Orthodox prayer book, reveals that the allusion to comforting the bereaved was a Reform interpolation. The literal translation concludes: ‘He who maketh peace in his high places, may he make peace for us and for all Israel’ (Hertz 1965: 213). Despite these obvious links between the Kaddish and the Agnus Dei, Bloch decided not to set the Kaddish, and nearly excluded it altogether from the Sacred Service. He chose instead to emphasize an English-language proem to the Kaddish written by the prominent Reform rabbi Gustav Gottheil. Reflecting the Reform theology of that era, the proem was intended to impart a somewhat more naturalistic and less mystical colouring of the recitation of the Kaddish. It reads, in part, as follows: ‘In the Divine Order of nature both life and death, joy and sorrow, serve beneficent ends, and in the fullness of time we shall know why we are tried, and why our love brings us sorrow as well as happiness’ ([Anon] Union Prayerbook 1922: 125). Gottheil’s deification of nature supports Móricz’s view that the theology of the Sacred Service is pagan, but this particular deification of nature is also Jewish and liturgical.

‘This “Lenny” Interpretation’ In 1986, Suzanne Bloch wrote: [A] few months after my father’s death, Leonard Bernstein chose to ignore the music written so carefully for this part, giv[ing] the explanation that the sung version written by Bloch would overshadow the ‘marvelous orchestral parts,’ and was ‘too theatrical.’ He had instead a rabbi on the stage, with a microphone! . . . This ‘Lenny’ interpretation set a tradition, by which the work is now regularly desecrated. Narrators read not Bloch’s text, which is intentionally changed from that of the synagogue to emphasize its universal, timeless qualities, but the more sectarian one . . . Bernstein’s interpretation even had the narrator recite the Kaddish in Hebrew, something nowhere suggested in the score. (Bloch 1986–7: 27–8)

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In Suzanne Bloch’s view, Bloch had deliberately modified the traditional synagogue text to make the Sacred Service more universal, but Bernstein changed it back to make the Sacred Service more Jewish. Moreover, as she notes with a certain irony, Leonard Bernstein, himself the most theatrical of composers, and whose own idea of the sacred was ‘a rabbi on stage with a microphone’ actually had the chutzpah to criticize Bloch’s text-setting as ‘too theatrical.’ Suzanne Bloch’s characterization of Bernstein’s re-writing of Bloch’s libretto is valid; he did not treat the score with the kind of respect for the composer’s intentions that conductors are expected to manifest. Furthermore, the fact that Bloch retained the Reform liturgy’s reference to mourning, while excising the Hebrew prayer’s explicit references to Israel, supports Suzanne Bloch’s contention that Bloch wanted to make a universal, non-sectarian statement. At the same time, her specific criticisms of Bernstein – of his sectarian embrace of Judaism and of his theatricality – underscore the importance of the Sacred Service as a creative stimulus for Bernstein. In the late 1950s, when Bernstein was preparing to record the Sacred Service with the New York Philharmonic, he was very much preoccupied with the question of Jewish music. His Kaddish Symphony, which dates from the early 1960s, reveals how central the Kaddish prayer was to Bernstein’s conception of Judaism. The In memoriam or Kaddish section of the Sacred Service is the crux of Bernstein’s interpretation of Bloch’s work. This section occupies some thirty bars of music (from Rehearsal no. 72 to Rehearsal no. 76 of the vocal score). Bloch’s own 1949 recording of the work, and the 1960 Bernstein recording offer a fascinating comparison.4 In Bloch’s version, baritone Marko Rothmüller (1908–93) sings the cantor’s part, a syllabic setting of Gottheil’s proem to the Kaddish, taken directly from the Union Prayerbook: And now ere we part, let us call to mind those who have finished their earthly course, and have been gathered to the eternal home. Though vanished from bodily sight, they have not ceased to be, and it is well with them. They abide in the shadow of the Most High. Let those who mourn for them be comforted. Let them submit their aching hearts to God, for He is just and wise and merciful in all His doings, though no man, no man, can comprehend His ways. In the divine order of nature both life and death, joy and sorrow, serve beneficent ends, and in the fulness of time we shall know why we are tried, and why our love brings us sorrow as well as

4

The Bloch recording of 1949, Ernest Bloch, Sacred Service, conducted by Bloch, with Marko Rothmüller, cantor, was reissued on compact disc by Rockport Records, RR5001–2, © 1999. Bernstein’s 1960

recording, Bloch, Sacred Service, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, with Rabbi Judah Cahn, speaker, was reissued by Sony Classical, Sony SM2K47533, © 1992.

66 David Schiller happiness. Wait patiently all ye that mourn, and be ye of good courage, for surely your longing souls shall be satisfied.5

These words had a personal and specific meaning for Bloch, and he set them accordingly. Bloch associated this prose text with the death of his own father, who died in 1913. In the same year, Bloch commemorated his father’s death in the last movement of his Trois Poèmes Juifs, subtitled Cortège funèbre. In programme notes written for a Boston Symphony performance of the Trois Poèmes Juifs, Bloch described the ending of the piece as follows: My father died and these Poems are dedicated to his memory . . . At the end, sorrow bursts forth, and at the idea of an eternal separation, the soul breaks down. But a very simple and serene melody arises from the orchestral depths as a consolation, a balm, a gentle faith. The memory of our dear departed ones is not effaced; it lives forever in our hearts. (Bloch and Heskes 1976: 47)

Bloch quotes his own simple and serene melody of memory and consolation as a counterpoint to the words of consolation drawn from Union Prayerbook liturgy. By omitting the Kaddish, Bloch created a space for this vernacular Dona nobis pacem, embedded within the fifth and final movement of the Sacred Service. In the Bernstein recording, Gottheil’s proem from the Reform Union Prayerbook is still present, but it is much abridged, and it is spoken not sung. Significantly, it is spoken not by Robert Merrill, who sings the role of the cantor in the recorded performance, but by Judah Cahn (1912–84), founding Rabbi of the Metropolitan Synagogue of New York. The use of ordinary speech reduces the amount of time required to recite the liturgical texts and thus allows the ‘simple and serene’ melody to be heard without vocal counterpoint. As the melody continues, Rabbi Cahn resumes speaking the proem to the Kaddish. Most of this excerpt from the Union Prayerbook is cut, but the concluding injunction to recite the Kaddish is restored, slightly emended to read, ‘let mourners rise and say.’ In the musical space remaining (beginning at Rehearsal no. 74, and overlapping slightly with the choral entrance at Rehearsal no. 76), Rabbi Cahn, apparently joined by Bernstein and Merrill, recites the full Kaddish prayer. Instead of a sung libretto, the sound of spoken Aramaic and Hebrew is heard. In place of Bloch’s universal Dona nobis pacem, the traditional Kaddish prayer is foregrounded.

5 Bloch, Sacred Service, Rehearsal no. 72– Rehearsal no. 76; [Anon] Union Prayerbook, 125.

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Writing the Kaddish back into Bloch’s Sacred Service was neither the beginning nor the end of Leonard Bernstein’s creative engagement with the Kaddish prayer. Of course he grew up with the Kaddish as part of his life, and his Symphony No. 3, Kaddish (1963), appropriates the prayer for its dramatic and musical potential. Some years later, in Mass: A Theater Piece, which dates from 1971, Bernstein would try his hand at a ‘symbolical, universal’ Mass. Viewed from this perspective, both the Kaddish Symphony and the Mass are conceptually indebted to the precedent of the Sacred Service. This is not to suggest that Mass: A Theater Piece is directly influenced by Bloch’s compositional style or by the dramaturgy of the Sacred Service. Rather, I would argue, Bernstein shared Bloch’s profound appreciation of the dramatic and musical potential of the Mass – ‘The struggles in the Darkness! The appeals to God . . . Jewish motives, Protestant Chorales, Gregorian Chant!’ It is in this sense that Bernstein’s Mass represents a concrete embodiment and thus a validation of Bloch’s idea.

Mass: A Theater Piece On 12 December 1970, less than nine months shy of the premiere of Mass, Bernstein wrote to Jack Gottlieb with a progress report: It’s Kaddish time all over again, only now a lot of Latin . . . Lord, could I use your advice and help on some of these ecumenical points. Like, for instance—what’s the Hebrew equivalent of Osanna in excelsis? (Gottlieb 2010: 132)

Bernstein’s question – ‘what’s the Hebrew equivalent of Osanna in excelsis?’ – highlights an aspect of Mass: A Theater Piece that is often overlooked. For audiences and critics alike, its visual spectacle, its musical eclecticism, its radical pop theology, and its political rhetoric tend to overshadow its ecumenical significance.6 Yet, as Gottlieb himself observed, ‘a distinctive Jewishness pervades this Catholic work’ (Gottlieb 2010: 133). The Jewish and ecumenical thrust of Bernstein’s Mass is most overt in its Sanctus movement. Bernstein’s Sanctus has a tri-lingual text: Latin for the Sanctus and Benedictus of the Latin Mass; Hebrew for the traditional Sanctification of the Jewish Sabbath Service; and English for the more personal – and rather Protestant – religious ethos of the Celebrant:

6

For a balanced overview of Mass: A Theater Piece, see Helen Smith 2011: 171–205; Smith shows how Mass: A Theater Piece relates to Bernstein’s symphonies as well as to his other theatrical works. For the political context and

controversies surrounding Mass, see Seldes 2009: 117–28; this section of Seldes’s book is subtitled ‘Daniel Berrigan and Bernstein’s Mass’.

68 David Schiller Celebrant. Holy! Holy! Holy is the Lord God of Hosts! Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory! Boys’ Choir. Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra Gloria tua. Osanna, Osanna. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Osanna in excelsis. Celebrant. Mi, Mi alone, is only me. But mi with sol, Me with soul, mi sol, Means a song is beginning to grow, take wing, And rise up singing from me and my soul. Kadosh, Kadosh! Kadosh! Countertenor Soli. Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh Adonai ts’vaot M’lo chol haaretz k’vodo. Chorus. Baruch ha’ba B’shem Adonai! Sanctus! Sanctus! (Bernstein 1971: 194–206)

Bernstein thus creates, on a verbal level, his own eclectic mix of ‘Jewish motives, Protestant Chorales, Gregorian chant!’ The Latin word Sanctus (Holy) is closely related to the Aramaic word Kaddish (sanctification) and it is also the Latin equivalent of the Hebrew word Kadosh. The biblical source for the Sanctus of the Latin Mass is Isaiah 6.3: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ In the Hebrew Bible it reads: ‘Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh Adonai ts’vaot. M’lo chol haaretz k’vodo.’ In the Vulgate, it is ‘Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus, Deus exercituum; Plena est omnis terra gloria eius.’ And in the Sanctus of the Mass it is modified slightly to become ‘Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra Gloria tua.’ The Benedictus (‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’ / ‘Baruch ha’ba B’shem Adonai’) also comes from the Hebrew Bible, Psalm 118:26; the Psalm is a liturgy for entering the Temple. The verse is quoted in the New Testament, in Mark 11:10, where it is associated with Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. In Bernstein’s setting, the leap from Kaddish to Kadosh, and then from Kadosh to Sanctus, is nimble and dramatically effective. Nevertheless, the textual and doctrinal expanse is vast. The critical response to Mass was mixed, but the reaction from within the Roman Catholic community was rather more positive than Bernstein might have expected, and certainly more positive than Bloch could have imagined. Obviously the Mass did not bring about Bernstein’s ‘excommunication from among the Jews’ (as Bloch had feared), nor did it offend most Catholics. Writing for the Catholic journal Commonweal, Ralph Thibodeau ‘stressed the work’s relevance to contemporary American Catholicism and half-seriously envisioned Bernstein’s imminent conversion’ (Sheppard 1966: 472).

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Thibodeau recognized that a certain ‘antipathy to organized, established religion’ is undeniably present in Bernstein’s Mass; for example, when ‘a young man sings, “How can anybody say Credo?”’ (Thibodeau 1971, 18).7 Indeed, it appears that Bernstein himself was reluctant to state an unequivocal belief ‘in unum Dominum Jesum Christum’. The Credo begins with the Celebrant proclaiming, ‘I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in One Lord.’ At this precise moment, the Celebrant is interrupted by a pre-recorded taped chorus, and the liturgical Latin Credo begins. The ‘et in unum dominum Jesum Christum’ is sung by the taped chorus, but not by any of the singers on stage. Bernstein’s Credo also resembles Bloch’s idea for a Crucifixus meant to evoke not only Christ’s passion, but also all human suffering. The ‘Trope’ that Bernstein introduces between the Et incarnatus and the Crucifixus sections of the Credo suggests that in the absence of faith, human consciousness per se is meaningless suffering: Taped Chorus: Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto, ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est. Solo voices: Et homo factus est. And was made man. And you became a man. You, God, chose to become a man, to pay the earth a small social call. I tell you, sir, you never were a man at all. Why? You had the choice, when to live, when to die, and then become a god again. And then a plaster god like you has the gall to tell me what to do, to become a man, to show my respect on my knees, go genuflect, but don’t expect guarantees. Oh, just play it dumb, play it blind. But when I go, Then will I become a god again? On-stage Chorus: Possibly yes, probably no . . . Solo: Yes, probably no. Give me a choice. I never had a choice or I would have been a simple tree, a barnacle in a silent sea. Anything but what I must be, a man! You knew what you had to do. You knew why you had to die. You chose to die, and then revive again. You chose, you rose, alive again. But I don’t know why I should live if only to die. Well, I’m not gonna buy it! I’ll never say credo. How can anybody say credo? I want to say credo . . . Taped Chorus: Crucifixus etiam pro nobis. (Bernstein 1971: 149–55)

In contrast to the Credo, the Sanctus impressed Thibodeau with its fidelity to the liturgy: when the composer adds to the Latin Sanctus a statement of the Hebrew Kadosh Adonai, meaning the same thing, it is evident that he is affirming, in a great new

7

Thibodeau was a professor of music history and literature at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. He died in 2006.

70 David Schiller testament, the continuity and validity of the Judeo-Christian philosophy which has informed our whole Western civilization. (Thibodeau 1971: 18)

As W. Anthony Sheppard has shown, the post-Vatican II climate in the Catholic Church created a space for Bernstein’s Mass: A Theater Piece (Sheppard 1966: passim). Had Bloch attempted a universal Mass in 1925, it would have been so far beyond the horizon of expectations that Bloch could only imagine it as resulting in his excommunication. In 1970–1, credited with affirming the continuity of Judeo-Christian philosophy and Western civilization itself, Bernstein’s Mass could claim its place in the canon. More surprising than Thibodeau’s endorsement in Commonweal was the response of the Church itself. Even the oft-repeated fact that the work was denounced by Archbishop Paul Francis Leibold of Cincinnati requires qualification. Church historian M. Edmund Hussey relates: the evening after the [Cincinnati] performance [in May 1972], during supper at the seminary where he resided, Leibold learned that one of the priests on the faculty had attended the performance and so asked him what he had thought of it. The professor explained that, although the Bernstein Mass certainly would be offensive if someone focused only on its most dramatic gesture, yet he had found the work, taken as a whole, quite moving. Then Leibold simply remarked: ‘Well, perhaps I made a mistake.’ (Hussey 1999: 98)

The ‘most dramatic gesture’ in Bernstein’s Mass marks the Celebrant’s crisis of faith; to quote the stage direction, ‘On his last note he hurls the raised Sacraments to the floor. The Chalice is shattered; the Monstrance is smashed’ (Bernstein 1971: 234–7). In 1993, Gilbert Levine conducted Bernstein’s Sanctus at the Church’s World Youth Day vigil in Denver, Colorado, with Pope John Paul II presiding. Levine writes: I fought for and finally won approval to use excerpts from one of Bernstein’s most interesting works, his Mass. One portion, the Sanctus, sets a text which comes directly from the Hebrew prayer Kadosh. They are identical except for the language, Latin for the Sanctus and Hebrew for the Kadosh. Even in this World Youth Day Vigil Service, then, I was able to honor the Pope’s belief in the unified wellspring of the Jewish and Christian faiths. (Levine 2010: 147)

And then, in 2000, Mass: A Theater Piece was performed in its entirety as part of the Great Jubilee 2000 celebration of the Roman Catholic Church. This is not to suggest that Mass: A Theater Piece is no longer controversial. For at least one Catholic traditionalist, the Great Jubilee performance of Mass represented one of the lowest points in the 2000-year history of the Church. In Crossing the Threshold of Confusion, Andrew McCauley writes,

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‘It was a disloyal act for the apparently naïve Pope even to allow it to be performed in the Vatican’ (McCauley 2010: 10).8 McCauley had read or been told that ‘[i]n the Vatican performance, the priest gestured throwing [the chalice] with an empty hand,’ but this is incorrect. As captured on film, the Celebrant, Douglas Webster, simply raises both hands in a gesture towards heaven and then collapses to the floor. McCauley wrote Crossing the Threshold to make the case against the canonization of John Paul II. However, even McCauley acknowledged that ‘Pope John Paul II seemed to have a vision. It was that of movement towards a Christian unity, even if not a pan-religious unity, while somehow retaining the doctrines of the Faith’ (McCauley 2010: 107). By canonizing John Paul II, the Church ultimately affirmed that vision, and Bernstein’s Mass was consistent with its spirit. Bernstein’s second Mass, his Missa Brevis, dates from 1988. The Missa Brevis is a reworking of choruses originally composed as incidental music for The Lark, Lillian Hellman’s adaptation of Jean Anouilh’s play about Joan of Arc. The adaptation was made at Robert Shaw’s suggestion, and it was dedicated to him on the occasion of his retirement as music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In the liner notes for the premiere recording, Nick Jones describes the Missa Brevis as follows: ‘As in his 1971 theater piece, Mass, Mr. Bernstein in this work deals once again with Catholic liturgy, but in a less troubled frame of mind. The Latin words of the Missa Brevis are set without modern commentary, to music evocative of ancient, universalized belief.’9 Jones does not enumerate the style traits that evoke ancient universalized belief, but presumably they include declamatory text setting, parallel harmonies, and straight choral tone. The Dona nobis pacem that concludes the Missa Brevis begins with appropriate solemnity, but quickly moves into an insistent hemiola dance rhythm. The music from The Lark that Bernstein recycled here was his own reworking of Claude le Jeune’s Revecy venir le printans; Bernstein’s more famous hemiola chorus, ‘America’ from West Side Story, comes from the same period in his career. Pleasantly eclectic and entirely uncontroversial, Bernstein’s Missa Brevis conforms to all the relevant liturgical conventions. As a Missa Brevis, it of course lacks a Credo, and in Bernstein’s original version, the other long text, the Gloria, was also shortened. However, the published score, which carries the annotation ‘amplified for church performance with the kind assistance of George Steel,’ does contain a full Gloria (Bernstein 1988).

8 McCauley, who died in 2010, was an attorney for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 9 Walton, Belshazzar’s Feast; Bernstein, Chichester Psalms and Missa Brevis, music

CD, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, directed by Robert Shaw; liner notes by Nick Jones. Telarc CD 80181 © 1989.

72 David Schiller

Credo/Ani Ma’amin In returning the Mass to the Church, as he did in the Missa Brevis, Bernstein stepped away from Bloch’s concept of a universal, meta-religious Mass, but the concept has again been successfully realized by another Jewish composer of note, Shulamit Ran. Her Credo/Ani Ma’amin was commissioned by the American vocal ensemble Chanticleer for a composite Mass with each movement of the Ordinary written by a different composer. In the liner notes that accompany the CD, Chanticleer’s music director, Joseph Jennings, reasserts the universality of the Mass: ‘[It] is the greatest vehicle so far created by composers to deploy and display the transcendental power of the human voice in ensemble. Its visceral and universal ability to move and inspire has continued unabated through the centuries.’10 In a preface to the score, Ran explains how this commission for a Credo led ultimately to her Credo/Ani Ma’amin. Ran’s succinct comments underscore Ruth HaCohen’s philosophical exploration of the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Like Bloch and Bernstein, Ran recognizes that her Jewishness makes her a religious outsider in relationship to the Mass, even though the Mass was very much a part of her musical heritage. Where she seems to differ from them is in her grasp of the full range of creative and expressive possibilities that are open to her within her own expansive understanding of Jewish identity. Unlike Bloch, she does not see ‘Jewish’ and ‘Universal’ as mutually exclusive categories, nor does she conflate Catholicism (a religion) with catholic (as universal). And, unlike Bernstein, she does situate her Credo within a dramatized theatre piece, but allows it to speak for her. Ran explains: What does it really mean to say ‘I believe in God’? It was important, I felt, that my Credo/Ani Ma’amin also address the challenges of faith in the face of extreme adversity, and do so from a Jewish perspective [emphasis added].

Ran continues: My work begins with the Latin text, then gives way to its English parallel, followed by a setting in Hebrew of the first five of the thirteen Ani Ma’amin principles. Where the Ani Ma’amin speaks of God being the only one worthy of prayer, other prayers from the Jewish canon are briefly introduced, gradually flowing into the work’s second part, with a series of short Testaments and Reflections using texts written during, and about the Holocaust, and one following 9/11.11

For Ran, the Nicene Creed text is a point of departure; her work goes in a different direction.

10

And on Earth Peace: A Chanticleer Mass, music CD, Chanticleer, directed by Joseph H. Jennings. Warner Classics CD © 2007.

11

Shulamit Ran, Credo/Ani Ma’amin, music score, © 2006, prefatory note.

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In terms of content, there are only two points of agreement between the Nicene Creed and the Ani Ma’amin. First, they begin similarly: Nicene Creed I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

Ani Ma’amin I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be his Name, is the author and guide of everything that has been created, and that He alone has made, does make, and will make all things.

Second, they end similarly: And I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

I believe with a perfect faith that there will be a revival of the dead at the time when it shall please the Creator, blessed be his Name and exalted be his name for ever and ever.

Apart from these points of commonality, the Nicene Creed proceeds to list the principles of faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Catholic Church; the Ani Ma’amin addresses the attributes of God, the prophets, Moses, the Torah, the doctrine of reward and punishment, and the coming of the Messiah. Ms. Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin sets the first five of the thirteen principles, those that have to do with the nature of God. 1. I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be his Name, is the author and guide of everything that has been created, and that He alone has made, does make, and will make all things. 2. I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be his Name, is a unity, and that there is no unity in any manner like unto his. And that he alone is our God, who was, is, and will be. 3. I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be his Name is not a body, and that he is free from all the properties of matter, and that he has not any form whatsoever. 4. I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be his Name, is the first and the last. 5. I believe with perfect faith that to the Creator, blessed be his Name, to him alone it is right to pray, and it is not right to pray to any being besides Him. (Hertz 1965: 249–51)

Because the commission was for a Mass movement, and because the premiere recording of Credo/Ani Ma’amin presented the work in this way, certain cuts were needed, and Ran prepared an abridged version. The cuts, which are further discussed below, do not change the core message or essential form of Credo/Ani Ma’amin. However, one of the cuts does entail the elimination of the fifth Principle of Faith from the abridged version.

74 David Schiller Thus, listeners who hear only the abridged version or read its text in the CD brochure notes need not consider the difficult theological question of whether the fifth principle – that it is not right to pray to any entity other than the Creator – contradicts both the ‘Christe eleison’ of the Kyrie and the Agnus Dei. Nevertheless, the second principle, which insists on God’s unity, is clearly irreconcilable with the Trinitarian theology of the Nicene Creed, and the third principle – which insists on God’s lack of any material form or body – is clearly irreconcilable with the incarnational theology of the Nicene Creed. Indeed, this much is already implicit in Ms. Ran’s statement that her Credo/Ani Ma’amin has a Jewish perspective. In much the same way, the Gloria of the Chanticleer Mass, ‘(Gloria) Everywhere’, by Kamran Ince on a text by Rumi, has a Sufi perspective. Two of the three remaining movements, the Kyrie by Douglas J. Cuomo, and the Agnus Dei by Michael McGlynn, use the traditional Roman Catholic texts; the Sanctus, ‘Ravenna Sanctus’ by Ivan Moody, is sung in Greek and evokes Eastern Orthodox belief. The Chanticleer Mass is a multifaith endeavour, and its internal contradictions are essential to its claim on universality, resulting in no one faith being able to claim ownership of the Chanticleer Mass.

Credo/Ani Ma’amin, Sacred Service, and the Mass Bloch Never Wrote Credo/Ani Ma’amin now exists in two versions: the abridged version beautifully captured on Chanticleer’s recording of 2007, and the original version, which received its first public performance on 10 May 2009, at the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel, conducted by Carmen Helena Tellez with the Indiana University Contemporary Vocal Ensemble. In April 2011, the National Irish Chamber Choir directed by Paul Hillier presented the European premiere of the original version at the International Choral Festival in Cork, Ireland; and in May 2012, Harold Rosenbaum conducted the New York Virtuoso singers in the New York premiere. The original version has earned a secure place in the choral repertoire as an integral and free-standing work. Credo/Ani Ma’amin is linked to Bloch’s Sacred Service by the liturgical content that is common to both. It is also linked to the ‘Mass Bloch never wrote’ by the philosophical and theological questions that both raise. The shared liturgical content consists of three elements that are central to both Credo/Ani Ma’amin and Sacred Service. The most obvious of these elements is the Sh’ma Yisroel, the essential statement of Jewish belief. Another shared element is the phrase ‘hayah, hoveh, v’yih’ye’ (who was, is, and will be). This phrase, which Ran sets in Credo/Ani Ma’amin, is found in the second principle: ‘I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name,

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is One, and that there is no unity in any manner like His, and that He alone is our God, who was, and is, and will be.’ The corresponding passage from the Adon Olam is found in its second quatrain: When this our world shall be no more, In majesty he still shall reign, And he was, and he is, And he will be in glory.

Bloch’s Sacred Service concludes with a setting of the Adon Olam, and Bloch was particularly determined to do justice to this stanza. An important primary source of information about the Sacred Service is Bloch’s own analysis and description of the composition, in a document comprising twenty-one typewritten pages. In Bloch’s ‘Notes,’ open parentheses sometimes function as brackets, used to group several versions of the same phrase in a list. Important Hebrew words are transcribed, and an explanatory note is appended. What emerges is not so much a definitive translation as a series of alternatives; it reads and is spaced on the page as follows: And after

(the total destruction (the total annihilation

He alone (levado) And He was

will rule (Yimloch) and He is in Glory

(the whole (the ALL

(the return to nothingness terrible! (noroh) and He shall be (Sounds like the Primordial Forces, the Cause, the Initial Impulse!!)12

Although Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin is stylistically distant from Bloch’s Sacred Service, its text begins quite literally where Bloch’s Sacred Service ends. Here is the opening of Ran’s text (the English translation to the right of the Hebrew is provided as a convenience, but is not part of the text): Credo in unum Deum. Ani ma’amin be’emuna sh’leyma. Factorem coeli et terrae, Visibilium omnium et invisibilium. I believe in one God Shehaborey, yitbarach sh’mo hu borey umanhig l’chol habruim

Ernest Bloch, ‘Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service), Notes by E. B.,’ unpublished typescript (21 pp.), Olin Downes Papers, Hargrett Rare Books and Manuscript

12

(I believe with perfect faith.)

(That the Creator, Blessed be His Name, is the Maker and Leader of all that has been created) Library, University of Georgia. This excerpt is published with additional context in Schiller 2003: 50. Italics added.

76 David Schiller I believe in one God Haya, hove, v’yiheye. (Who was, is, and ever will be) Maker of heaven and earth . . .

The third shared element, which is less direct, is the liturgical link between Ran’s setting of the phrase Eyl maley rachamim (God of Mercy), and Bloch’s setting of the Reform proem to the Kaddish: ‘[L]et us call to mind those who have finished their earthly course, and have been gathered to the eternal home. Though vanished from bodily sight, they have not ceased to be, and it is well with them. They abide in the shadow of the most high.’ Eyl maley rachamim is a prayer for the repose of the departed, and it is one of the sources for the Reform proem that Bloch set: ‘God full mercy, who dwells on high, grant perfect rest on the wings of your divine presence . . . to the soul of [name of the deceased] who has gone to [his/her] eternal home.’ Shulamit Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin is a Jewish sacred service in breve. Finally, in composing a work that ‘address[es] the challenges of faith in the face of extreme adversity,’ Ran has carried out something that Bloch dreamt of doing in his unwritten Mass: to bear witness to ‘all those who have suffered and been crucified by man’s insanity, stupidity, cruelty.’ This achievement is realized in Credo/Ani Ma’amin through the inclusion of four spoken ‘testaments’ and two sung ‘reflections.’ The abridged version recorded by Chanticleer retains both sung reflections, so that the loss of musical material is minimized, but three of the spoken testaments are absent from the abridged version. In the paragraphs below, I provide a brief explanatory note on each of the prose texts that Ran sets, in the order that they appear in the piece. The progression through the texts and the interaction among the texts provides the full context for understanding the challenges of faith in the midst of extreme suffering. First Testament. The first testament comes from the testimony of Shimon Srebnik (1930–2006) in the Yad Vashem archives. Srebnik escaped from the Chelmo death camp two days before the camp was liberated by the Russian army, after being shot but not killed, on January 18, 1945. As a boy of fifteen, he was assigned to a work detail. In the testament set by Ran, he describes how he was assigned to sort through belongings of murdered victims, including the handbag of his own mother. Second Testament. The second testament comes from a newspaper article, ‘A Name, and finally, a face,’ by Etgar Lefkovits, published in the Jerusalem Post, November 3, 2006. The article describes the work of a forensic artist in Israel who has created portraits of Holocaust victims based on the memories of family members. It begins as follows: ‘More than six decades after Rachel Herczl was parted from her parents on a fine spring day in Auschwitz as a girl of fifteen, never to see them again, she vividly remembers the selection process.’

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Sacred Service Reflection/Confrontation. This reflection is taken from ‘An Account with God,’ by Wladyslaw Szlengel (1914–43), translated by Halina Birenbaum. Szlengel was a poet who died in the Warsaw Ghetto. These lines are from one of his surviving poems: ‘Do you still expect that The day after tomorrow like in the Testament, When going to the Prussian gas I shall still say “Amen” to You?’

Third Testament. The third Testament comes from “‘Work Makes Free”: The Hidden Cultural Meanings of the Holocaust,’ PhD dissertation by Jud Newborn, University of Chicago, 1994. The excerpt begins as follows, with a first-person statement: ‘I have before me, on a shelf, something I brought back from the field – a container with ash I gathered from deep inside Auschwitz . . . I brought it back to insure that I should never forget that irreducible reality.’13 Reflection/Vow. This reflection is taken from The Last Testament of Yossel Rakover during the last hours of the Warsaw Ghetto on April 28, 1943. Written by Zvi Kolitz in 1946, this text is an imagined reconstruction of the thoughts and prayers of a Chassidic Jew who died in the Warsaw Ghetto. Note that it ends with the Sh’ma Yisroel and then with the last line of Adon Olam, also set by Bloch in the Sacred Service. Ran sets the following excerpt: And these are my last words to You, my wrathful God: nothing will avail You in the least. You have done everything to make me renounce You, to make me lose my faith in You, but I die exactly as I have lived, crying: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. Into your hands O Lord I consign my soul.’

Fourth Testament. This testament is from the ‘2996 Project, Remembering the Victims of 9/11,’ quoting from a Ha’aretz article by Kra Baruch, 06/02/02. The excerpt recounts the story of Avreml Zelmanowitz who was killed in the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001. Zelmanowitz had ample time to escape the building, but remained inside to assist his friend, Ed Beyea, who was a paraplegic. Though both men died when the building collapsed, the excerpt portrays Zelmanowitz as affirming the love of God by caring for his friend.14 The Last Testament of Yossel Rakover and the account of Zelmanowitz’s love for his friend crystallize the themes that link all of these texts together.

13

Jud Newborn is the author, with Annette Dumbach, of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose (originally published as Shattering the

German Night: the Story of the White Rose, 1986; rpr. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006). 14 All quotes are from the score of Credo/Ani Ma’amin, © 2006.

78 David Schiller Rakover dies proclaiming his faith in God and fulfilling the great commandment that follows the Sh’ma in Deuteronomy: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might’ (Deut. 6:5). Zalmanowitz embodies the second great commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (Lev. 19:18). These two teachings, faith in the one God and love for one’s neighbour, are recognized in Rabbinic Judaism as the inseparable commandments ‘that overarch and encompass all of Torah’ (Heschel 2005: 73). And, as reiterated by Jesus in Mark’s Gospel (12:29–31), where Jesus begins by reciting the Sh’ma, they are central to Christianity also. While remaining true to her own Jewish perspective, Ran crafted a Credo that feels very much at home in the Chanticleer Mass. With the number of critically acclaimed performances of the original, unabridged version of Credo/Ani Ma’amin continuing to grow, there is every reason to expect that a professional recording will be released in the near future, perhaps by the time this chapter is published. When it is released, its publication date can be added to the chronology I provided in the introduction to this chapter. In the meantime, the Mass Bloch never wrote continues to exist, not as a musical composition, but as a conceptual art work. His own Sacred Service is one partial realization of the concept, and Bernstein’s Mass: A Theater Piece is another. Bernstein’s Missa Brevis was a more modest undertaking, more at home in the Church, and correspondingly less universal in its ambitions. But Chanticleer’s Mass project, and Shulamit Ran’s Credo/Ani Ma’amin in particular, suggest that the concept of a Catholic, but symbolic and universal, Mass still has resonance. The Mass Bloch never wrote has had a surprisingly vital afterlife.

5

Oregon Years: the Man and His Music David Z. Kushner

A Settled Home ‘Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities!’ (Whitman 1973: 229). These words of Walt Whitman (1819–92) summarize well the worldview of Ernest Bloch. But who would have thought that this Swiss-born maestro, who left school at the age of thirteen or fourteen, would one day worship at nature’s shrine in Agate Beach, Oregon, far from his native Geneva? Though he had become a US citizen in 1924, he had subsequently moved back to Switzerland, finally returning to America in December 1938 and settling in Oregon near the Portland home of his son Ivan. He had recently completed his Piano Sonata, Voice in the Wilderness, Avodath Hakodesh, the orchestral Evocations and the Violin Concerto with its Native American motto. In addition, he orchestrated Baal Shem, and prepared for publication Two Symphonic Interludes culled from the first and third acts of his lyric drama, Macbeth, a work dating back to 1910. The wide diversity of these compositions represented but a glimpse of what was to emerge from his reclusive perch in the remote locus of his final years.1 On his sixtieth birthday, 24 July 1940, Bloch penned a typically diffuse letter to his daughter Suzanne from Lake Oswego, Oregon.2 He makes reference to his visits to parts of the state, including Crater Lake and Diamond Lake, speaks of developing some film, and expresses dismay at the direction of the war while averring that spiritual values and the advance of humanity would ultimately prevail. In the same epistle, he reveals that he is staying in a room in the home of a neighbour of his son Ivan, comments on his deep study of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony – ‘one goes into ecstasies over his superb technique (despite Nadia Boulanger) and the infallible

1 Some of these compositions are discussed in detail elsewhere in the book. 2 Suzanne Bloch married Paul Smith, professor of Mathematics at Columbia University, on 5 October 1935. The letter is

79

in the Ernest Bloch Collection (Washington DC: Library of Congress, 1995) along with one to Nicolas Slonimsky dated 31 December 1928 in Norman and Schrifte 1946: 349–53.

80 David Z. Kushner logic that guides him’ – and, as an afterthought, acknowledges his birthday – ‘yes, sixty years old! That’s the way the wheel turns for all of us, and for the world.’ Two days earlier, in response to a series of questions posed to him by Daniel L. Schorr for an article the journalist was preparing on the occasion of the composer’s birthday,3 some of the same themes appear, the centrality of which is that all people must learn to live in peace and not succumb to the notion that one race is superior to others. An added observation is that the arts are not always affected by wars; they take on a life of their own. With regard to his own music, he tells Schorr that ‘Time alone will tell, I did my best – I never bowed to fads or fashions of the day. I never attempted to be “new,” but to be “true” and to be human, in a general sense, though faithful to my roots.’ By this time, Bloch had assumed a teaching position at the University of California at Berkeley. The references to the Eroica Symphony in his letter to his daughter are in the context of a course in which a minute analysis of Beethoven’s work, along with a detailed study of the two books of J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, had been engaging him intensively. Tired of life as a nomad, he settled for a while in the Lake Oswego community. Milo Wold, then professor of Music at Linfield College, McMinnville, Oregon, recounted Bloch’s decision to put down roots in Agate Beach (Wold 1948: 7); more ample accounts are detailed in letters from Bloch to his niece, Evelyn Hirsch (18 June 1941), and his sister, Loulette (7 August 1941).4 On 26 May 1941, while driving from Berkeley to Portland, he was detained by a roadblock due to a high water level and found himself stranded in the coastal community of Agate Beach. While there he explored the beach and took note of a house for sale on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The confluence of mushrooms, agates, and nearby mountains weighed heavily on his perspective, as did the imposing home with its extensive range of amenities. When Bloch brought his wife Marguerite to see the house, she was so taken with it that a very quick sale was pleasantly expedited.5 So, after years of an unsettled and at times unsettling6 life, the Blochs moved into their first and only permanent home.

3

Schorr 1940: sec. 9, 5b. Schorr (1916–2010) was a famed war correspondent, and later a senior news analyst for National Public Radio. 4 Steinberg 2008b: 18–22. The complete letters are in the Ernest Bloch Collection in the Library of Congress. 5 The owner of the home, Asahel Bush, and his family stayed there on vacations; their

primary home in Salem OR was built in 1877–8. The Bushes had built the home in Agate Beach c.1914. 6 Not only on account of musical activities. Suzanne Bloch remarked that her mother, ‘late in her life, said that she had counted at least 23 mistresses’. See Shear 1980: 14.

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World War II and Its Aftermath Pondering the horrors of World War II and dealing with his personal dislocation had stifling effects on the composer’s creative flow, but the world of music had not forgotten him. The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him a Gold Medal on 8 May 1942, the first time it had so honoured a composer. Members of the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Albert Stoessel (1894–1943) performed his Concerto Grosso No. 1. The Academy’s president, Walter Damrosch (1852–1950), offered the following telling remarks: Bloch is certainly one of the most distinguished composers in the United States today. His music is highly idealistic and individual in character and brilliant in development. He is not influenced by any other composer or controlled by any school. Always it is Ernest Bloch who speaks from the pages of his scores. The academy is proud to single him out for the highest honour it has to offer. (Damrosch 1942: 19)7

The award was based on the totality of Bloch’s oeuvre to that time. The choice of the Concerto Grosso for performance on this occasion recalls Bloch’s lifelong interest in older forms, and was a harbinger of the first work he completed after re-establishing himself in the United States, namely, the orchestral Suite Symphonique. The Suite Symphonique comprises three movements: Overture, Passacaglia and Finale. The opening movement begins and ends maestoso with a quicker fugato forming the ‘B’ section. It moves without pause to a Passacaglia, whose eight-bar dorian theme provides the nucleus for a set of twenty-two variations during which several canons are introduced, the principal theme undergoes inversion, and the movement culminates in a powerful lyrical climax in the major key. The final movement, a moto perpetuo, is in traditional sonata form except that the second theme is a fugue with the inscription un peu grotesque. In his own commentary8 to Pierre Monteux, who conducted the premiere of the work with the Philadelphia Orchestra on 26 October 1945, Bloch explained that the fugue theme originated during his stay at Roveredo (Ticino, Switzerland) in the early 1930s when he and his daughter Suzanne were studying fugue themes from the Well-Tempered Clavier. At that time, he wrote out a series of fugue motifs of his own, one of which, of a sardonic nature, did not find favour with Suzanne, but it did resurface – in the Suite Symphonique. In this same movement, because it ‘simply seemed to fit’,9 the Dies Irae makes an appearance. 7

See also Downes, 1942: sect. X, 7. Bloch’s notes, sent to Monteux, are quoted in detail in Bloch and Heskes 1976: 84. 8

9

Ibid.

82 David Z. Kushner That this work harks back to the familiar musical truths of the past is not surprising given the state of the world’s condition at the time of its completion. The forms and styles of the past continue to recur during the Oregon years, although not to the exclusion of other, sometimes surprising, twists and turns. In September 1944, in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, its conductor, Eugene Goossens (1893–1962), commissioned ten American composers to each contribute a variation based on a theme he had created for an orchestral composition generally known as Variations on a Theme by Eugene Goossens or, simply, Jubilee Variations; Goossens himself contributed the finale. Bloch’s variation, Solenne, was the tenth. The other composers involved in this enterprise were Paul Creston, Aaron Copland, Deems Taylor, Howard Hanson, William Schuman, Walter Piston, Roy Harris, Anis Fuleihan10 and Bernard Rogers. Goossens remarked that Bloch’s treatment of his theme resulted in ‘a full-throated, noble presentation’ and that it was inscribed ‘Schelomo presents his best compliments and wishes to Eugene Goossens and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’ (Goossens 1944–5: 615). The work was premiered 23–4 March 1945 by Goossens and the CSO in Cincinnati. Bloch’s String Quartets Nos. 2–5 were all composed during the Agate Beach era; the second, begun in 1940, was completed on 28 October 1945. Devoid of the exotic flavouring of the earlier ‘Jewish’ works, Quartet No. 2 achieves ‘a synthesis of sonata form and cyclical procedures through the agency of thematic metamorphosis’ (Rimmer 1959: 11).11 After the premiere by the Griller Quartet in London on 6 October 1946, Ernest Newman pronounced it ‘the finest work of our time in this genre, one that is worthy to stand beside the late quartets of Beethoven’ (Bloch and Heskes 1976: 85). When the work was performed by the Griller Quartet at a two-day, three-concert Bloch Festival co-hosted by the Juilliard School of Music and the League of Composers, it received the following approbation from Olin Downes: It bears all the earmarks of a late work of a highly musical, ever-developing intelligence. There is the air of profound meditation, the poignant melodic ideas, the long, evolved line, the masterful integration of the whole through use of similar motifs for various sections. All of this is in addition to the composer’s powerful rhythmic urge and musical conviction. (Downes 1947b: 79)

At its first public performance in New York, at Town Hall, on 26 February 1947, with the Griller Quartet serving as the protagonists, Downes stated, in opposition to Bloch’s own view that the work was an impersonal expression: 10

Fuleihan, a Cypriot by birth, was, like Bloch, a naturalized American citizen.

11 Rimmer (1914–98) was Gardiner Professor of Music at the University of Glasgow (1966–80).

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‘We would call it, in the deepest meaning of the word, the most “personal” music that he has produced; for in these pages he has followed only his inner vision, with no thought of pre-established ideas or concepts of form’ (Downes 1947a: 27a). The opening movement, moderato, commences with a melisma in violin I in which a recurring E is emphasized before descending, typically for Bloch, to a fifth below; it recurs later in the movement in an agitated state, again in the third movement, and yet once more as a point of reference in the closing Epilogue. The second movement, presto, is a scherzo with two contrasting trios (shades of Schumann), the first of which is muted. Its opening theme provides the substantial material that forms the basis of the powerful finale. Movement three, a nocturnal andante, begins in the viola with a theme transformed from theme 1 of the scherzo. Later in the movement, violin I recalls the theme it first played at the opening of the work. Movement four, a pulsing allegro molto, is a passacaglia whose theme, presented throughout in each of the strings, can be traced back to the second and third movements. The same theme, rhythmically varied, then serves as the basis of a colossal fugue. The quiescent Epilogue brings the work to a satisfying conclusion. The twenty-first festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music, held in Copenhagen from 29 May to 4 June 1947, included the work on its programme in a performance by the Koppel Quartet. The Juilliard festival, however, offered its hearers an opportunity to hear a wide-ranging array of works by Bloch, including the Piano Quintet No. 1, Suite for Viola and Piano, Four Episodes for Chamber Orchestra, Piano Sonata, Concerto Grosso No. 1, Schelomo and the Israel Symphony; but it was Quartet No. 2 that presented them with their first opportunity to encounter a string quartet by this master since his Quartet No. 1 was premiered in New York on 30 December 1916 by the Flonzaley Quartet. It was indeed an honour for Bloch to receive the New York Music Critics’ Circle Award for this remarkable contribution to the literature. Robert Sabin astutely observed that ‘Not only to the general public but to the many students who were present it must have been heartening to hear the music of so humane and independent a spirit and to see honour brought to an artist who has never tried to be fashionable or popular but simply to produce the best possible work’ (Sabin 1947: 4). Closer to home, Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, bestowed on the composer an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree on 16 September 1948. On occasion, Bloch turned to more mundane matters, and produced down-to-earth pieces such as Six Preludes for Organ (completed in 1950) and Four Wedding Marches for Organ (1950) – these coming at the behest of

84 David Z. Kushner his publisher, G. Schirmer. Organists are advised by Bloch to employ, for the most part, foundation stops – ‘no Vox Humana whatsoever, no research for picturesque color; the real “Organ” tone throughout’.12 Life on the Oregon coast was far from restrictive. In 1949, Bloch conducted his music in Italy, Scotland, England and Switzerland. On 3 September his sole full-scale piano concerto, the Concerto Symphonique, dedicated to Mary Tibaldi Chiesa,13 received its premiere at the Edinburgh festival; Bloch conducted the BBC Scottish Orchestra with Corinne Lacomblé as soloist. The Concerto Symphonique, unlike the previous works composed in Oregon, with their passacaglias and fugues suggesting a tilt towards a neo-Baroque expression, is a grand neo-Romantic tour de force reminiscent of earlier Bloch works. A lengthy seventy-one-bar introduction, pesante, includes six thematic entities of which one, a succession of four ascending notes outlining the perfect fourth (B–E) followed by two ascending notes comprising a minor second (B–C), emerges as a structurally unifying motif throughout the work (Example 5.1). The exposition, moderato, features alternating major and minor seconds in its principal theme, but the battle cry of the trumpet, heard also in the flutes, becomes a pronounced element in each of the three movements. While this motif has reminiscences of the shofar calls in the ‘Jewish Cycle’, it is by now a compositional device associated with Bloch’s works of all styles and, in this instance, has no Judaic implications. The movement, despite a plethora of recurring materials, follows traditional sonata form; the coda includes some of these materials while focusing on the six-note introductory motif. The second movement, allegro vivace, combines the traditional scherzo with a lyrical slow movement in what is essentially a ternary form, while the concluding movement, allegro deciso, like the first, opens with an introduction comprising several themes which are embroidered and developed in the remainder of the movement. Bloch’s masterful contrapuntal technique is amply displayed throughout this virtuosic finale. Shortly after completion of the Concerto Symphonique, a contrasting work for piano and orchestra emerged – the light-hearted, single-movement, tripartite Scherzo Fantasque. Dedicated to A. E. and Corinne Lacomblé, this brief romp, with its sardonic touches, toccata-like pianism, and alternation of staccato triplet figures, chromatic scalar passages and octave-encased chords, reveals Bloch’s more jocular side (Example 5.2). 12

Bloch, Commentary to Six Preludes 1950: 2; Commentary to Four Wedding Marches 1951: 3. 13 Tibaldi Chiesa 1933. The first major study of Bloch, this book, by a staunch friend and

admirer, emphasizes the so-called ‘Jewish’ works, and provides a glimpse into the composer’s childhood.

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Example 5.1 Concerto Symphonique: introduction to the first movement, bb. 1–14

In similar vein is the three-movement Concertino for Flute, Viola, and String Orchestra, a work commissioned by the Juilliard Musical Foundation and intended for the Juilliard School students. The opening Allegro comodo is in binary form; the first part contrasts mildly dissonant chords suggestive of the strumming of guitars with an idyllic melody presented first by the solo viola and then by the solo flute, while the ‘B’ section restates the opening material in a somewhat altered state. The Andante commences with a nine-bar theme in the low strings in 4/2 metre, after which the solo instruments take up the same material. A second theme, poco più lento, retains the 4/2 metre and modal inflections of the first. Both themes, often intertwined between the solo instruments and the string orchestra, are suggestive of a passacaglia. The final movement,

86 David Z. Kushner Example 5.2 Scherzo Fantasque, bb. 1–6

Fugue-humoresque, begins with a three-bar introduction marked allegro, following which the solo viola presents the fugue theme with the flute then entering at the upper fifth. After a brief stretto, the metre changes unexpectedly from 4/4 to 2/4 and the fugue theme emerges as a rowdy polka; the marking is now giocosamente. During the final fourteen bars of the movement, the string orchestra may be replaced by double woodwinds, four French horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba and a full battery of percussion. It is evident that Bloch’s intention was to provide his musicians and his audiences with a touch of levity. The post-war years produced diverse works, significant recognition from the world of music despite the composer’s reclusiveness, and a new modus vivendi. Bloch had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Helen

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McFetridge14 on 20 April 1946. She was, at the time, a student in the music composition programme at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Upon hearing a recording of a Bloch work (she does not recall which one) in a music appreciation class, and learning that the Blochs were now residents of Agate Beach, she arranged to meet him. That encounter resulted in a thirteen-year professional relationship in which Helen became a private student of the composer and, in exchange, he acquired her services as his personal secretary. Despite an age disparity of forty-seven years, they developed a warm friendship and became integral to each other’s personal lives. Helen, indeed, provides insight into Marguerite (Marga) Bloch’s personality and the role to which she was assigned by the force of destiny: I cannot recall one interview or news article wherein Marguerite had ever been consulted or even approached for her opinion on anything while I knew her. (I hope I am mistaken.) As a result of Ernest Bloch’s prominence, she may have become resigned to her fate, actually becoming quite comfortable in her own world, content to remain in the wings and allow him the center of the stage. She never complained about this, and, observing her movements through the years, I made note of the care she took to blend into the shadows of the ‘Bloch experience.’ She chose to cover her ample body with long dresses in dark shades of either blue or black, including long, dark stockings, flat shoes and another dark, vest-type garment that hung loosely over a white chemise, giving her an unremarkable, cloistered appearance. Her dark hair – which never turned grey – was drawn back softly from her face, then swept upward into a loose ‘bird’s nest’ toward the back of the crown. She was not generous with her smiles, preferring to raise her eyebrows as a substitute, but occasionally she allowed an impish little grin to escape, revealing her inner warmth and sense of humor. She had a certain charm and femininity beneath the surface, and a soft musical voice that complemented this image. (Johnston Kintner 2009: 27)

1950–1956: Triumph and Conflict While the 1940s re-established Bloch as a force majeure in American musical life, the 1950s, the final decade of his life, produced a striking array of diverse works and a series of honours and awards. A high point came during 28 November to 1 December 1950 when, to mark the composer’s 70th birthday on 24 July of that year, an impressive festival of his music was mounted, largely through the ministrations of Samuel Laderman,15 the Chicago Federation of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and 14

Helen married Dick Johnston, a building contractor, on 21 June 1953. Five daughters, three during Bloch’s lifetime, were born to them. Two years after her husband’s passing, Helen married Marion Kintner, MD, on 21 June 2001. Helen’s sacred music

compositions, composed during the 1960s and 1970s, are published by Lillenas, Lorenz and Singspiration. 15 Laderman, an uncle of the composer Ezra Laderman, was a leading advocate for Bloch’s music.

88 David Z. Kushner the Covenant Club16 of Chicago. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed in three of the concerts as part of their regular subscription series. Rafael Kubelik conducted the Concerto Grosso No. 1 and the Viola Suite (Milton Preves, soloist) in the first half of the first two concerts; the third concert, conducted by Bloch, featured Two Symphonic Interludes from Macbeth, Three Jewish Poems, the world premiere of the Scherzo Fantasque for piano and orchestra (Ida Krehm, soloist), the Hebrew rhapsody Schelomo for cello and orchestra (Zara Nelsova, soloist) and the Suite Symphonique. By the time of the Chicago festival, Bloch had moved away from overtly Hebraic or Jewish themes, but this did not deter the ‘Jewish composer’ par excellence from engaging in controversies surrounding his ‘Jewish works’. His own conflicting and ambiguous attitudes in this regard were compounded by those of his critics. When Samuel Laderman asked Bloch for his reaction to a recent review of his Sacred Service by Kurt List, the result was explosive. List, prompted to expound upon the work by a recording of it a year earlier on London Records (LLP 123), with Bloch conducting, punctures the composer’s striving for universality via a message he believed would be understood by, and acceptable to, all humankind. According to the critic, ‘It seems rather that, by depicting the spirit of the Scriptures, Bloch has created such a uniquely separatist and Jewish world that it becomes radically unassimilable for the Western world. Yet, if there is such a thing as Jewish music, Bloch’s comes closest to it’ (List 1950: 589). Quite apart from List’s turning the work into an example of Jewish particularity, his labelling the composer a minor master whose works, including Schelomo, lack structural coherence and taste (the anthem of America) must surely have given umbrage as well. Bloch’s antipathy at all periods in his career to assimilated ‘Jewish’ critics of his works, whether or not they converted to Christianity, is well known.17 He issued a harsh rejoinder to List’s assertions, protesting that ‘the best Jews were burned and tortured by Hitler, while some of the worst escaped and now poisoned America!’18 16

The Covenant Club was founded in 1917 to provide a downtown luncheon facility for the substantial number of Eastern European Jews in Chicago. Jews of German origin attended the Standard Club, incorporated in 1869; they were regarded as better educated and more affluent. 17 In a letter to his one-time lover Winifred Howe, 3 January 1933 (Ernest Bloch Collection, University of California, Berkeley), Bloch castigates ‘massacred – converted Jews’, lumping together Otto

Klemperer, Bruno Walter and Arnold Schoenberg – but not Koussevitsky, who had given important performances of Schelomo with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. (Schoenberg ‘reconverted’ to Judaism in 1937.) Bloch continued to revile the twelvetone technique up to the time he himself adopted the melodic elements of serialism. 18 Bloch’s letter to Laderman, dated 30 December 1950, is located in the Ernest Bloch Papers, Hargrett Rare Books and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia.

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The crucifix that hung in Bloch’s places of residence from 1906 only added to the ‘Jewish question’ surrounding the composer.19 Bloch, himself a conflicted assimilationist, reveals much about the ambivalent state of his mind during the composition of his Sacred Service; on the one hand, he sees the work as theologically Jewish, while on the other hand he tries to furbish it with a Christological sheen.20 In the post-festival environment, Bloch, back in compositional mode, returned to a Jewish theme by way of honouring the Covenant Club for its integral role in promoting that fulfilling testament to his artistic stature. The Suite Hébraïque, for viola (or violin) and orchestra (or piano), is in three movements with allusive titles: Rapsodie (sic), Processional and Affirmation. Given the recent founding, in 1948, of the State of Israel, it may not be unreasonable to read something into these movement markings. The thematic material contains some referential allusions, including a motif that derives from Ne‘ilah, the closing service for Yom Kippur. The improvisatory nature of the opening movement is appropriately rhapsodic and establishes such trademark features as the ubiquitous dotted rhythms and augmented seconds; however, the grandeur of the Bible epics that comprise the ‘Jewish Cycle’ is eschewed in favour of the shtetl style21 associated with Baal Shem. This is to replace the Hebrew of antiquity with the Yiddish of Hasidic life, thereby creating a musical offering with which the Jews of Chicago could readily identify. The Processional, with its plodding repetition of two conjunct ascending perfect fourths outlining a minor seventh followed by a descending perfect fourth, provides a march-like backdrop to the striking phrygian melody. The closing movement, maestoso and deciso, with its modal flavour, dotted rhythms, and klezmer-like augmented seconds, builds to a powerful close in which the first flute, six bars before the end, plays a descending A major scale in crotchets. A single-bar allargando, recalling the opening theme, and a two-bar largamente, justify the movement’s title, Affirmation. This is clearly a work of Jewish intentionality, if not profundity, and, as such, achieved a marked success. Bloch composed two additional movements, Meditation and Processional, for viola and piano, but these were not included in Suite Hébraïque; they were published in 1951 with a dedication to Milton Preves.22

19

The statue was purchased in an antique shop in Berne at the suggestion of Robert Godet. See pp. 14–15 above. Their correspondence is located in the Ernest Bloch Collection in the Library of Congress. 20 See a discussion of the Sacred Service in Kushner 2002: 88–95. See also Kushner 2004.

Shtetl (Yiddish) – a small Jewish town or village in Eastern Europe, especially before World War II. 22 Milton Preves (1909–2000), violist and conductor, was principal violist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for fortyseven years. 21

90 David Z. Kushner Example 5.3 ‘Rapsodie’ from Suite Hébraïque, upbeat and bb. 1–4

Not to be confused with the Meditation and Processional are the Deux Pièces (1938 and 1950) for string quartet. Both are in ternary form but with the tempi reversed; the slow–fast–slow of the first (andante moderato, Example 5.3) becomes fast–slow–fast in the second (allegro molto). Notable are the use of sul ponticello and harmonic effects in the first elegy-like expression, while, in the purposeful second piece, the prominent triplets and the 2/4, 6/8 and 9/8 metres in the ‘A’ sections contrast with the softer, slower, briefer and more pensive middle portion. In 1952, the year in which Dwight David Eisenhower was elected president of the United States, Bloch produced three of his most important works: String Quartet No. 3, Concerto Grosso No. 2 and Sinfonia Breve, along with the brief, elegiac In Memoriam. The first three of these works utilize twelve-tone rows, the quartet and the concerto grosso in their fourth movements, the sinfonia in its second movement. Given his oftstated aversion to dodecaphony, this seeming reversal of attitude might appear to be an act of defiance; however, the aim is not to stress technical prowess and obeisance to methodology but, rather, to emphasize the means by which the tone-row can be placed in the service of melodic material, providing a structural unity that Kurt List (1950: 589), erroneously, found wanting in earlier works. In the Quartet No. 3 the opening allegro deciso, with its descending fifths and rhythmic verve, establishes the mood of the work as a whole, although the second movement, adagio non troppo, notable for its haunting viola solo and later elaborations with the cello, serves to offer respite from the sometimes tumultuous activity that appears in the other movements. The third movement, a scherzo, contains typical thematic transformations, a quiet middle section with

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Example 5.4 Concerto Grosso No. 2, fourth movement, bb. 1–7

attention-provoking pizzicati, and a suggestion of the tone-row to come. The final movement, allegro, commences with the fifths that are integral to the quartet, but now arranged so as to become a primary feature of the row – tones 1–2 (A descending to D sharp), tones 3–4 (G descending to C), and tones 11–12 (B flat ascending to F sharp). This material is later inverted, incorporated into a passacaglia, and then into a two-part fugue. A virtuosic coda featuring the ubiquitous fifths brings the quartet to an impressive close. Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1924–5) had been a foray into neo-Classicism, featuring a piano obbligato; its formal design included a Prelude and Fugue as its first and fourth movements, and its middle movements were designated Dirge, and Pastorale and Rustic Dances. However, Concerto Grosso No. 2, premiered by Sir Malcolm Sargent with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on 11 April 1953, adheres more closely to the Baroque model; it is scored for a concertino string quartet with a five-part string orchestra as the ripieno. The first movement, in ABA form, and with a G minor key signature, opens and closes with an assertive maestoso (largamente). It is particularly memorable for its fugal allegro where, as in the ‘A’ section, the alternating E flats and E naturals provide a fascinating aeolian/dorian mix. The bipartite second movement, andante, with the same modal features, conveys a pastoral atmosphere which serves as a foil for the vigorous third movement, allegro; here, the ripieno dominates a three-part gavotte in 2/4 time in E minor, natural and melodic versions continuing a generally modal sense. A touch of sly humour enters in the Trio section (the key signature now has no sharps or flats) by way of rising and falling chromatic triplets, but these lead, un poco più largamente, to a return to the brisk gavotte. A brusque close reaffirms emphatically that E minor is the home key of this dance. The final movement, tranquillo, with its two-sharp key signature suggesting B minor, opens with a chromatically descending twelve-tone row (Example 5.4). This returns four times in the manner of a passacaglia with rhythmic transformations and pointillistic ‘melodic’ treatment. Echoes of the andante and the

92 David Z. Kushner opening themes of the work return and lead to a surprising close, allargando, on a B major tierce de picardie! The Sinfonia Breve, dedicated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky, was completed on 3 December 1952, premiered in the same concert as the Concerto Grosso No. 2, and performed for the first time in America on 26–8 November 1953 by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Szell. According to Bloch’s programme notes,23 he intended to write another Concerto Grosso, but after a few days he came to the view that a full orchestra would be required, and a short symphony began to emerge. The formal design contains many features in common with other creations of this period. The theme of the introductory moderato reappears during the course of the work; in the first movement it is followed, at the allegro, by a vigorous theme that derives from it and then returns by way of a calmo transition to a truncated recapitulatory coda. The second movement, a brief and seemingly slight, single-themed utterance in the strings (with wind interjections), includes references to the work’s opening theme and, at the end, the movement’s initial lyrical melody. So subtle is its usage that the incursion of twelvetone technique is barely noticeable, perhaps intentionally so, as a touch of wry humour. The third movement, allegro molto, is a vigorous scherzo with two trio sections. The rhythmic motif from the first movement, a transitional motif from the second movement, and the opening theme of the first movement are striking; the trio sections, with little contrast between them, employ thematic derivatives from the first movement. The scherzo leads directly to the closing allegro deciso, a veritable storm before the calm. A lengthy quotation from the second movement and the primary theme and transitional fragments from the first movement are presented amid an increasingly tranquil environment; indeed, by the time of the calmo (Rehearsal no. 51) and più calmo (Rehearsal no. 53), the sound and fury of the opening have surrendered to peace and serenity. By the final bars, all that is heard is a pianissimo C major chord. Concision marks the Sinfonia Breve as a whole; however, the twelve-tone theme that appears in each of the slow movement’s two sections, and yet again in truncated form in the finale, proves to be the most memorable feature in this most engaging of the Agate Beach endeavours. A brief personal composition, In Memoriam (Example 5.5), also dates from 1952. Composed in honour of Ada Clement, a co-founder of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and former student as well as one-time lover of the composer,24 this reflective elegy is dominated by its mixolydian 23

See programme notes of the Cleveland Orchestra, thirty-sixth season, 1953–4, 26 and 28 November, 183–5. They are also quoted in Kushner 2002: 129 and in Bloch and Heskes 1976: 91.

24

The other co-founder was Lillian Hodgehead, who was also one of Bloch’s lovers. Both women were, in addition, longtime confidantes of the composer.

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Example 5.5 In Memoriam, bb. 1–5

and phrygian modalities; chromatic and tonally based episodic materials intercede to provide contrast. Clement, who attended Bloch’s counterpoint classes, admired his teaching illustrations, which were often derived from Renaissance masters. One such example, according to Suzanne Bloch, is embedded in this moving meditation (Bloch and Heskes 1976: 93). Two of the 1952 works were recognized the following year, when the New York Music Critics’ Circle bestowed its awards for both chamber music (String Quartet No. 3) and orchestral music (Concerto Grosso No. 2) on Bloch, now at a high point in his career. A four-note motif presented as a pair of falling fifths, including the tritone in the closing Fuga, is the nucleus of the Third Quartet; cyclical elements as well as the once-despised twelvetone system feature here. The second movement, in which placidity reigns, contains two complementary themes which intertwine and undergo tempo changes by way of alternating levels of intensity. In 1953, he completed his String Quartet No. 4, yet another confirmation of his bent towards succinctness of expression. Thematic material derives, as in previous works, from sources that date to earlier times; the third movement, presto, reconfigures a pentatonic melody that, according to Suzanne Bloch, was found by her father amid some lectures on aesthetics he gave at the Geneva Conservatoire in 1911, which he vaguely recalled as having Inuit derivation (Bloch and Heskes 1976: 94). The theme is chromatically embroidered so that its antique lineage is transformed into an example of atonal modernity. Of particular interest is a fragmented version of the melody played sul ponticello by the second violin prior to the vigorous conclusion. The tempo markings of the final movement, calmo–allegro deciso–calmo, differ only slightly from those of the first movement, tranquillo–allegro energico–tranquillo. Materials from earlier portions of the quartet are reprised with textural and tempo changes culminating in a plaintive comment by the viola, a truncated segment of the presto theme. A complex movement, this finale is notable for its use of a twelve-tone row, first introduced in the lower strings, and later appearing as a passacaglia and fugue, a formal approach used previously to good effect in the Second String Quartet. The world premiere of the String Quartet No. 4 on 29 July 1954 was given by the Griller Quartet at the Berkshire Festival in Lenox,

94 David Z. Kushner Example 5.6 Symphony for Trombone Solo and Orchestra, first movement, bb. 5–13

Massachusetts. Commenting on his immediate impression, Olin Downes aptly stated, ‘It is clear now that underneath apparently rhapsodic expression there is the hand of a tonal logician and master of his craft’ (Downes 1954: 19). As a result of Suzanne Bloch’s association with the Juilliard School of Music, Bloch met the trombonist Davis Shuman (1912–66),25 who requested a work for his instrument. Impressed by the trombone’s wide-ranging sonorities, he set to work on what emerged as the three-movement Symphony for Trombone and Orchestra; it was completed on 24 June 1954. The world premiere took place on 4 April 1956 at a rather unusual event – a special concert for children by the Houston Symphony Orchestra in their home city with Leopold Stokowski conducting and Shuman as soloist. On the occasion of the work’s New York premiere on 7 December 1957, Shuman was again the soloist, this time with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Siegfried Landau. The obbligato trombone, fulfilling a similar role to that of the piano in the Concerto Grosso No. 1 and the cello in Voice in the Wilderness, enters (Example 5.6) after an opening orchestral maestoso, in effect a cry of lament, with its augmented fourth, ‘Bloch rhythm’ (i.e. ‘Scotch snap’ or ‘Lombardic’ rhythm) and prominent triplet figure that serve as a unifying motif in each of the movements. The solo instrument immediately recalls the opening ‘Native American’ motif of the Violin Concerto, but in this work the weeping and wailing environment, heightened by celesta, tam-tam and harp, suggests the earlier ‘Jewish Cycle’. The second movement, agitato, introduces several diverse themes; these are presented in an expanded sonata form. The compressed finale, allegro deciso, recalls themes from earlier portions of the symphony; further, the exotic touches found in earlier works, such as the inclusion of the celesta and harp, will elicit a smile of recognition from those steeped in Blochiana. As in other products of the Oregon years, a final calmo, again referring to themes exposed previously, brings the work to a quiescent close.

25

Davis Shuman is credited with presenting the first solo trombone recital at Town Hall, New York City, in 1947. He was principal trombonist in the American Symphony

Orchestra, and editor and publisher of editions of trombone works by RimskyKorsakov, Vladislav Blazhevich (1881–1942), and Domenico Gabrielli.

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Example 5.7 Proclamation for Trumpet and Orchestra, Rehearsal no. 11, bb. 2–5

A lighter work, also featuring a solo brass instrument, the Proclamation for Trumpet and Orchestra, completed in May 1955 and dedicated to Samuel Laderman, makes its declarations directly and without any attempt at nuance; the solo trumpet, indeed, makes it clear that it is the star of the occasion and not to be subordinated to the orchestra. The elements combined here are Bloch staples: augmented fourths, major sevenths, uneven rhythms, and shofar calls (Example 5.7). The latter, in particular, may have had a special meaning for those of Jewish heritage who, like Laderman, had attended the Chicago Blochfest. But as these traits occur in many of the composer’s works, with or without Jewish references, they may be safely assumed to have merged into a uniquely identifying set of markers for what had, by now, become known as the Bloch style. The Symphony in E flat major, completed on 8 March 1955, received its world premiere in London on 15 February 1956 by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Efrem Kurtz conducting. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Thor Johnson gave the American premiere on 9–10 November that year. Originally conceived as a concerto grosso it quickly evolved, as the Sinfonia Breve had done, into a symphony. The opening tranquillo features a four-note motif made up of two pairs of minor seconds, material that lends itself well to contrapuntal treatment; this four-note pattern conjures memories of the B–A–C–H motif found in various permutations from the Baroque era onward. The serious tone of the opening statement brightens at the arrival of the allegro deciso. The second movement, a tri-thematic scherzo with B minor as its tonal centre, in contrast with the E flat of the

96 David Z. Kushner work as a whole, provides striking rhythmic contrasts – off-beat accents in the opening theme of the ‘A’ section are accented on the beat on the theme’s return. A tone row, in which the first four notes derive from the motto, appears as the third theme. The expressive melody that dominates the andante is introduced by viola and flute, with muted strings providing the backdrop. Only nine pages in length, this interlude in G sharp minor serves as a mellow transition to the closing allegro deciso in which a powerful march captures immediate attention. Materials from the first movement along with a quotation from the final movement of the Piano Quintet No. 1 prepare for a more fulsome development of the march. A tranquil return of portions from earlier segments of the symphony including a reconfigured version of the tone row leads to a reflective close in which quiet applause may be envisioned at the final E flat major chord. The composer’s daughter, Suzanne, is the dedicatee of String Quartet No. 5, a highly compressed work, even though over a half hour in performance time, completed 24 February 1956. The opening grave is ostensibly in C minor notwithstanding its lowered second and raised fourth in the three upper strings against a syncopated cello part in which the lowered second is omitted. There are seven thematic elements, all sufficiently chromatic as to appear atonal. The middle portion of the movement, allegro, enlivens the mood, but there then follows a return to the opening slow pace, a reversion to a fast fugal section and a return to the original tempo. Despite the general absence of tonal clarity the movement ends, as it began, with the centrality of C minor established. The second movement, calmo, is in the submediant key of A flat major, but this is not always apparent due to the chromatically flowing lines with accompanying syncopated figures. This pastoral idyll is, in effect, a lull before the stormy presto, a sardonic scherzo featuring powerful accents, rhythmic vitality and well-placed pizzicati. The trio section, a placid period of meditation, serves as a brief respite before the wry scherzo returns. The final allegro deciso recalls earlier materials, including an abbreviated fugal segment with inverted themes, all leading to a closing calmo, in which the D flat and F sharp from the grave return. The key signature, however, serves notice that the turmoil of the past is about to give way to a lasting peace, the confirmation of which is the very soft final C major chord.

Last Years From this time onwards Bloch, a lifelong hypochondriac whose ‘afflictions’ were interwoven with the reality of actual diseases, began to exhibit a serious decline in stamina; eventually, he was diagnosed with cancer of the rectum and submitted to taking oral drugs. Although relief was only temporary, he

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forged forward in terms of creativity and produced some of his most original works. During the period between April 1956 and January 1957, a group of three suites for unaccompanied cello emerged, the first two of them dedicated to Zara Nelsova (1918–2002). The cellist had first met Bloch when, in 1948, she paid him a visit in Agate Beach for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of such works as Schelomo and From Jewish Life. ‘No, no, no, not like that, like this’ (Uscher 1988: 22) she recalls him saying as he went to his piano and their work began. On a visit about a year later, Nelsova asked if he would consider writing a piece for solo cello for her. After hearing her play the solo Cello Sonata Op. 8 by Kodály and one of Reger’s solo suites (Op. 131c), he seemed disinterested. But the long-germinating seed produced musical fruit years later. When Bloch sent the Suite No. 1 to her he wrote, ‘The music will speak for itself and you can yourself talk about what it represents to you . . . You know that my work is always slow and that the finished form emerges only after constant doubt and changes’ (Uscher 1988: 22). In four movements – Prelude, Allegro, Canzona and Gigue – it is the briefest of the cello suites and the closest to its Baroque model. The Suite No. 2, though also in four movements – Prelude, Allegro, Andante Tranquillo and Allegro – which are played without pause, is freer in style, longer, more complex and technically more challenging. The Suite No. 3 is closer to the first in terms of its length and simplicity of style despite its five movements: Allegro deciso, Andante, Allegro, Andante and Finale. Artistic sensitivities may have come into play with respect to the absence of a dedication on the third suite. Nelsova offers her view of the matter: The third suite, like the first two, was sent to me for editing and comments. But something happened to the mail and it was months before I actually received it. Meanwhile, Ernest became vexed with me because he thought I wasn’t bothering to write to him and he was puzzled why I hadn’t sent it back. He possibly misunderstood and thought I didn’t like the work. (Uscher 1988: 22–3)

The composer continued to work at a breathtaking pace, as if racing against time. In July 1957 he completed two important and very different creations: Piano Quintet No. 2 and Suite Modale for flute and strings. The quintet, coming some three-and-a-half decades after the first quintet, with its frenetic pace and striking quartertones, begins with a lively opening Animato by way of introducing the primary dodecaphonic theme. Tritones and dotted rhythms, calling cards of the old master, are ever present, but, as is also customary, they appear to be fresh and newly minted elements. The Andante second movement is essentially a transitory interlude in which a four-note motto, comprising two pairs of minor seconds separated by a diminished fifth, establishes the framework for the final Allegro. The opening tritonally related chords are a continuum of what preceded them;

98 David Z. Kushner however, as in other late works, a closing calmo intrudes with the reintroduction of earlier material, in this instance, the twelve-tone group from the first movement. The quintet ends on a reflective E major chord. The Suite Modale, in the version with piano, was introduced on 10 March 1957; John Wummer and Leonid Hambro were the artists. A gentle piece of music with links both to the French impressionism of the composer’s early years in Paris and to features associated with the Baroque suite, this modally tinged work written for Elaine Shaffer Kurtz (1925–73) is in four movements. Bloch, in his twilight years, seemed intent on bringing congruity to what might appear to be stylistic anomalies. The opening movement, moderato, is based on a single thematic entity which undergoes four metamorphoses; both phrygian and dorian modes emerge with the utmost clarity. The second movement is stylistically a continuum of the first, and it bears the marking l’istesso tempo (the same tempo) as well as a direct thematic reference to it (in the third of its four sections); the other sections comprise the same two motifs. A clear change in mood occurs in the allegro, a lively dance in 6/8 metre in three-part form (Example 5.8). Once again, there are two motifs in the ‘A’ section and two others in the ‘B’ section. The fourth movement is the most varied in the suite, consisting of two contrasting sections, adagio–allegro deciso and adagio–allegro, each of which has contrasting subsections. There are referential materials drawn from previous movements, as well as changes in mode and metre. As one might expect in a Baroque-inspired work, the mordent appears at salient points in the melody.

Recognition Although he often remarked that he felt he was forgotten by the music world at large, Bloch continued to be recognized in a variety of ways. In 1957, the National Association for American Composers and Conductors bestowed upon him the Henry Hadley Medal in recognition of his distinguished service to American music. In the same year, Elaine Shaffer Kurtz sent him a tape of her interpretation of the Suite Modale, an action that spurred him to write another flute work for her – cryptically titled Two Last Poems (Maybe . . . ). What seemed to be digestive problems led to the diagnosis of cancer. In his determination to complete the ‘poems’, he left the hospital in Portland without submitting to the operation recommended by his physicians. The poems were, in fact, completed on 22 January 1958, and given the titles ‘Funeral Music’ and ‘Life Again? . . .’ with a coda, ‘Acceptance’. The music of the first poem is noticeably funereal, the sombre atmosphere seeming to evoke a familiar question ‘Must it be? (Yes)’; however, the melodic ninth shrieks suggest that all is not (yet) lost. In the second poem,

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Example 5.8 Suite Modale, third movement, Rehearsal no. 16, last ten bars

the shrieks occur with more frequency and are placed close to the rhythmic solemnity of a cortège conveyed by the timpani and snare drum. The appearance of the calmo and the coda, più calmo, however, create a sense of both hope and of acceptance – ‘what will be, will be’. A final C major chord, pianississimo, confirms Bloch’s open-ended diagnosis. This powerful work, which fate decreed was not to be his last musical testament, and the less personal exemplar of technical mastery which preceded it, namely the Suite Modale, served to fill a brief, but, as it turned out, significant interlude between the solo cello suites and the solo suites for violin and viola which followed (Stirzaker 1992). Yehudi Menuhin (1916–99) and his wife Diana (1912–2003) visited on 14 January 1958. The violinist, a lifelong advocate of Bloch’s violin works, reminisced with the composer about times past. It was on 5 December 1928 in San Francisco’s Exposition Auditorium that Menuhin, then aged twelve,

100 David Z. Kushner gave the world premiere of Abodah, a melody associated with the Musaf service of Yom Kippur. Now, nearly three decades later, having been shown the unaccompanied cello suites, the master violinist besought the master composer to write him a solo violin suite; despite the ongoing medical treatment and periods when concentrated effort was impossible, this challenge was met by 17 April 1958. Such was Menuhin’s pleasure at receiving the suite that he sent Bloch a cheque for an unusually sizeable sum. For his part, Bloch, in a sincerely emotional response, sallied forth determined to write a second suite, and this one, too, was completed – on 2 July. Although both suites share the inner-directed objectivity of the cello suites, they are structured differently. Suite No. 1 begins with a free-wheeling Prelude suggestive of an improvisation, moves on to a more emotive andante tranquillo, essentially an interlude, and a third movement wherein there are three clearly demarcated sections, allegro–andante–allegro energico. This finale serves as a summary of the essential points of the musical argument, with thematic material drawn from the Prelude, but now presented in a more rhythmically cohesive manner; the closing section is not only energico, but it requires a considerable level of virtuosity that is, nonetheless, controlled in the Baroque manner. The movements are played without pause, a feature that is meant to ensure continuous focus from both the performer and the listener. Suite No. 2 is designed in four continuous movements: Energico deciso–Moderato–Andante–Allegro molto. There is even more of a virtuosic flavour in this work, particularly in the final movement with its perpetual motion manner, but the resemblances to the Baroque gigue in the second movement remind the listener of the overall source of inspiration. Surely the technical and artistic attributes of Nelsova and Menuhin were factors the composer considered when devising the cello and violin suites. The first suite received its world premiere on 2 January 1959 in London. The performer was Menuhin’s only private pupil, Alberto Lysy (1935–2009), a master born in Buenos Aires to Ukrainian parents. Menuhin premiered the second suite on 27 June 1959 at the Aldeburgh Festival and introduced it in New York on 10 December that year. In his review of this recital, Harold C. Schonberg observed of the second suite: ‘Very little dissonance is present, and the music has a strong tonal center. As in much late Bloch, the writing is terse, often complicated, but emotionally direct. It also gives the virtuoso violinist a good workout, ending with a blaze of fast-moving scale passages’ (Schonberg 1959: 40). Menuhin weighed in on both suites after describing the locale in which Bloch created them as ‘a wild, forlorn stretch of coastline looking down upon waves coming all the way from Asia to break on the shore, a place which suited the grandeur and intensity of his character. His suites are beautifully written for the violin, expressive, melodic, classical in a manner

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that calls to mind latter-day Bach, and for that reason probably doomed to be underrated. It is curious that a work of art is not allowed to state its own terms, but must be judged by the canons of fashion’ (Menuhin 1997: 345). It is obvious, from Menuhin’s own evaluation, that what is fashionable at the moment does not dictate the judgement of all time. Bloch’s final suite, for viola, was left unfinished.26 The movements are marked Andante, Moderato, Andante, and the unfinished movement Allegro deciso. Intimations of Baroque formal practices, stylistic references to the solo string music of J. S. Bach, and suggestions of dodecaphonic techniques serve to codify the late Oregon style, a style which successfully merges older and newer approaches to the art and craft which, together, embody Bloch’s conception of music. After ongoing efforts to delay the inevitable, and despite formidable attempts to complete as much creative work as possible, Bloch agreed to his doctors’ urgings to have surgery in the autumn of 1958. Marguerite accompanied him to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland while their home and cats were cared for by his secretary and good friend Helen Johnston. By June 1959 the composer was released, but, as it turned out, this was a temporary respite for, by early July, he was rushed to the local Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport (a urinary tract blockage was ostensibly the problem); however, his physicians there had him transported back to Portland by ambulance after a brief period of observation, and on 15 July he expired. Bloch’s signature work, Schelomo, continued to be the most often performed of his compositions even during the Agate Beach years. Soon after his passing, a transformation ensued, loosening the long-held inhibitions which had placed him into a confining category. His creative achievements, particularly those remarkable final gifts inspired by the natural wonders of the Oregon coast, give the lie to those who made and who, though in smaller numbers, continue to make concerted efforts to place him and his works into a figurative box defined by narrow preconceived notions of ethnicity, nationality and musical milieu.

26

But See note 53 on p. xlv.

6

‘The Future Alone Will Be the Judge’: Ernest Bloch’s Epic Journeys between Utopia and Dystopia Philip V. Bohlman

Locating Bloch on the Eve of World War II During the final years of his nine-year sojourn in Europe during the 1930s, Ernest Bloch began an intensive, but ultimately inchoate, collaboration with the World Centre for Jewish Music in Palestine (WCJMP).1 This bold endeavour was designed by three immigrants to the Yishuv (Heb. ‘settlement’)2 – Salli Levi, Hermann Swet, and Joachim Stutschewsky – the goal of which was to lay the foundations for a Jewish music of the future through the musical realization of an in-gathering of music and musicians from throughout the diaspora. Ernest Bloch’s own contributions to the World Centre for Jewish Music were considerable, despite the growing insecurity in which he was living, making it necessary to shuttle between various domiciles in France and Switzerland. Bloch was the World Centre’s honorary president, and a performance of the Avodath Hakodesh by the Palestine Broadcasting Symphony, predecessor of the Jerusalem Symphony, was to be the centrepiece of the festival of Jewish music that inaugurated a centre that had the potential to open a modern history of Jewish music in the Yishuv. It was the vision of Levi, Swet, and Stutschewsky that Ernest Bloch would symbolically become the founding figure of the World Centre and that his own life’s journey would bring him to Israel to build upon the foundations of a modern history of Jewish music. Bloch’s correspondence with the World Centre was extensive, with several of his letters voluminous in length and substance. For Bloch, the World Centre for Jewish Music represented no less than a future world in and of itself, a musical world with truly utopian dimensions, a world in which he, with other Jewish musicians, might realize, through music, all that had been unrealizable through centuries of diaspora and displacement. Music alone, especially Jewish music, would effectively provide the foundations for the 1 For longer historical discussion of the World Centre for Jewish Music in Palestine, with an inventory of its archive at the National Library of Israel, and extensive translation and analysis of its documentary

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holdings, including the material sent by Ernest Bloch to the WCJMP, see Bohlman (1986, 1992). 2 The Jewish community in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel.

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new utopia, for it would justify no less than a new type of aliyah.3 Writing from Paris on March 14, 1937, Bloch announced: But could not this [festival] be arranged for next year? It would even give more time to organize and prepare everything carefully . . . I think that if such a ‘Festival’ could materialize, I should find no difficulties in absenting myself from America – It would certainly be a great joy for me, a great event, to be able to present myself, the ‘work of my life,’ in such surroundings as yours. (Ernest Bloch to Salli Levi, orig. in French, cited in Bohlman 1992: 58–9)

It will surprise no one familiar with Ernest Bloch’s aspirations to find a home in which he could truly nurture his commitment to creating a modern Jewish art music that a shadow would increasingly fall over the composer’s journey to utopia. In his correspondence with the World Centre, reflecting his travels during the 1930s, when Bloch repeatedly sought to settle as a creative musician connected to a sense of place, we witness a persistent internal conflict, troubled by doubts about a struggle between self and other, between the Jewish identity of music formed within the individual’s experience and that enhanced by the collective identity of utopia. By the end of 1937, Bloch’s doubts about utopia had reached a turning point, and his selfdoubts led him to reroute the journey of Jewish history towards dystopia, the new world formed from the collapse of history, the reality of the unrealizable. Ernest Bloch wrote on December 22, 1937 from Châtel, Haute-Savoie in France: I made myself listen to a voice from within, profound, intimate, urgent, passionate, an instinct, far more than a cut and dry meaning, a voice that appeared to me from a great distance, from a time before me, before my parents . . . a voice that throbbed in the reading of certain passages from the Bible, Job, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms, the Prophets . . . The entire Jewish heritage overwhelmed me, and from it was born the music – At what point is it . . . Jewish – At what point is it only . . . Ernest Bloch? – I don’t know – And the vast majority of Jews simply deny it. The future alone will be the judge –

3 The Hebrew aliyah (lit., ‘rising up,’ referring to the geographical ascent to Jerusalem from the coastal plains of the Mediterranean) describes immigration to the Yishuv and to Israel in several ways. The modern immigrant is said ‘to make aliyah’ when becoming a citizen of Israel. In the Yishuv, the successive historical waves of settlement were called aliyot (pl. of aliyah).

The period that responded to the rise of fascism and Nazism in Germany, within which the WCJMP established its musical and ideological mission, was the Aliyah hamishit, or fifth aliyah, known also as the Aliyah germanit, the German aliyah. The WCJMP’s goal of bringing Jewish musicians to the Yishuv, therefore, grew also from powerful symbolic roots in Jewish history.

104 Philip V. Bohlman There it is, sir, a ‘profession of faith’ that cannot be reconciled with much that has been argued by many of the so-called Jewish thinkers, but all that I can say is – that it is sincere. It is certain, moreover, that I can express through my heart and hope, itself, everything that can somehow contribute to these poor, wandering people of Israel, that can give them a firm foundation, a land where they can submerge themselves in other roots, a physical and spiritual foothold, which nourishes a national existence, which they have never fully had – which explains some of their ‘shortcomings’ – and which finally permits them to develop, to bear fruit, in health, completely, their incomparable gifts – . . . For that . . . one needs centuries – But, above all, it is the effort that is significant – And the results, when even far in the future, will be a reward. (Letter of 22 December 1937 to Salli Levi, orig. in French; cited with punctuation and emphasis as in the original in Bohlman 1992: 234–5)

In the course of this chapter I explore the ways in which Ernest Bloch sought to find a place to realize his vision for a Jewish music of the future, a vision utopian in scope, hence realizable perhaps only in his musical peregrinations. I seek here to chart ways that allow us to join Ernest Bloch in his journeys to the ‘coast of utopia’ (Stoppard 2002). As with all journeys to utopia, Bloch’s mark a departure from the ordinary, and they chart a path towards a future that has not been – and may never be – realized. I shall reflect on three works that in different ways chart utopian journeys: the Israel Symphony, Helvetia, and America, and that together span the years of his first sojourn in the United States between 1916 and 1930. I am particularly concerned with the contradiction and paradox that dissonantly connect Helvetia and America. The utopias in these three works do not so much represent three identities that Bloch wished to project upon himself – the three lands or nations he might claim as his own – as they represent places that, in the true meaning of utopia, he and those who might join him as co-utopians could never inhabit. By exploring the attributes of utopia and its counterpart, dystopia, in relation to these and other works by Ernest Bloch, I am not in any sense attempting to revise or even redress the body of scholarly interpretation that examines the presence of Jewish identity or the mixture of nationalist meanings in Bloch. Rather, I conceive my remarks themselves in the spirit of utopia, which might ultimately encourage us to search for and perceive Jewish identity and nationalist meaning in other places, the displaced islands or coasts that utopian writers, from Thomas More (1516) to Tom Stoppard (2002), might ask us to explore, or the alternative paths criss-crossing the Jewish diaspora during Bloch’s lifetime that Martin Buber (1947) might have urged us to follow as he, unlike Bloch, established the place to realize his vision in Israel itself.

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In Search of Utopia: Theoretical Considerations and Contradictions Themes and metaphors of utopia pervade the compositions and writings of Ernest Bloch, even though their presence seemingly suggests more contradiction and paradox than systematic working-out. I should like to turn briefly to those contradictions and paradoxes, suggesting that it is crucial that we recognize these when considering utopia in Bloch or in the creative life and works of any other utopian. By so doing, I call for consideration of Bloch’s utopianism in ways that more truly reflect traditional utopian thought. On the one hand, my primary theoretical models are those of Saints Augustine and Thomas More, whose aims were theological, albeit in a sociological sense. The theology of Augustine’s and More’s central works might seem at first glance uncomfortably Christian, at least in a discussion of Jewish identity in Bloch’s life and work, but in fact, both Augustine and More concern themselves with the non-Christian aspects of utopian life, and it is precisely here that I find the connection to Bloch. On the other hand, it is Jewish biblical imagery and narrative that lie at the core of most Western attempts to model them in literary works and then to realize them as alternatives to secular societies, especially during moments of spreading dystopia. Theologically and politically, utopias from Thomas More’s island of Utopia to the dwellings for castaways such as Robinson Crusoe (Defoe 1719) make a place for biblical paradise in troubled worlds. That music was critical to sounding such utopias was never lost upon Ernest Bloch. For my theoretical framework of the present chapter, moreover, I draw upon more modern Jewish writing on utopia, Theodor Herzl’s Altneuland (1904), Martin Buber’s Pfade in Utopie (1947), and the philosopher Ernst Bloch’s utopian writings dating from the 1940s (see, e.g., Ernst Bloch 1988, 2000). In these twentieth-century writings, the telos of Jewish history realizes utopia in quite different places, in which Judaism itself possesses quite contradictory meanings. It is by treating the work on utopianism as traditional that I expand my interpretative framework to include dystopia. I therefore treat Thomas More quite literally, even though the island he called Utopia resulted from a flight of literary fancy. Theologically, Thomas More was entering the boundary regions shared by the Abrahamic faiths, for he coined the word outopia (οὐτόπος) to mean ‘no place’ (More 1516). Multiplying the meaning of utopia, however, is its similarity to the word eutopia (εὐτόπος), glossed as ‘good place,’ the most common understanding of the term utopia. Utopia that is ‘real,’ therefore, exists only at another time and place. For Bloch in the 1930s, with the European Jewish tradition increasingly imperilled by fascism, he intensified his search for that other

106 Philip V. Bohlman time and place, especially in a world suspended in the vision of Theodor Herzl between a past that is no longer reachable and a future that has yet to be reached. Utopia is, therefore, displaced, and in Jewish thought it therefore becomes the place to which, for example, Martin Buber’s ‘paths to utopia’ lead after departing from diaspora. The paradox of the real and the imaginary is fundamental to locating the place and meaning of utopia. St Augustine, too, divides his Civitas dei, the ‘City of God,’ between two cities, one of the flesh and one of the soul, ultimately of the self and of God. In Book 14, Chapter 28, of Civitas dei, Augustine clarifies the distinctions within his ‘utopia,’ imagined avant la lettre, thus theoretically resolving what might seem on its surface like a contradiction between the sacred and the secular: Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, ‘Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head’ (Psalm 3, 3). (St. Augustine, Civitas dei, Book 14, Chapter 28)

The contradiction and paradox of utopia create a cosmopolitanism that resonates with the images and imagination of the worlds to which Ernest Bloch would have his listeners journey. The cosmopolitanism of the utopian world, however, remains unachievable no less for Bloch than for Augustine and Thomas More. What happens along Martin Buber’s path towards utopia – what can be achieved – are its states of reality, and the states to which we commonly refer as dystopia. It is in these states that the imagined unity of utopia – all cities on More’s island of Utopia are the same – gives way to the difference that dominates dystopia. Throughout the vast literature on utopia and dystopia music has been crucial to the realization of the biblical paradise and the egalitarian life made possible by communal settlement. Those setting out in search of the shores of utopia bring music with them, instruments as well as songbooks, above all those that make choral performance possible.4 Though a marker of displacement, life in utopia was marked by music. As his correspondence with the World Centre for Jewish Music clearly reveals, Ernest Bloch was acutely aware of the ways in which music expanded the landscape of utopia, not just

4

The settlers of Felsenburg Island in the most widely read German utopian novel of the eighteenth century, J. G. Schnabel’s Insel Felsenburg, brought with them 300 Bibles

(200 in German, 100 in English), but were even more attentive to choral life on the island, bringing with them 400 songbooks (Schnabel 1731).

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for those who populated it, but also for a composer whose creative acts might open an entirely new future.5 It is in his utopian works, notably in Israel, Helvetia, and America, that the two contradictory worlds of utopia and dystopia are presented as if they had the chance to effect resolution. We witness the two worlds of Augustine’s Civitas dei and both the ancient and modern world of Herzl’s Altneuland (1904).6 I am by no means the first to call attention to these binarisms in Bloch’s utopian works. Alexander Knapp eloquently explores what he calls the ‘restlessness’ that is signified by Israel, Helvetia, and America, expressed through Bloch’s ceaseless journeying ‘back and forth’ between Europe and the United States: What is the significance of all this restlessness? I feel that there was a constant struggle between the spiritual and emotional/psychological dimensions of Bloch’s being. (Knapp 1989b: 8)

There are clear resonances between Knapp’s evaluation of struggle in Bloch and that of Augustine, More, and Herzl. This struggle, I might say by way of extending Alexander Knapp’s analysis, results from the need to resolve a tension between Bloch’s Jewish and non-Jewish works. The struggle does not so much lead us away from the ‘Jewish Cycle’ as provide us with a way of returning to it, indeed, of recognizing that the Jewish and the utopian are not separable if we are fully to understand Bloch’s sense of place. The paths towards utopia lead Bloch and those who seek to understand him through dystopia in a compositional and biographical rite of passage, something Bloch himself describes often in his personal writings, in particular the letters that chronicle his response to displacement: Here, I am a ‘Swiss composer’ – In Europe, I am an ‘American composer’ – I have no home, no country . . . I have no place anywhere. I am not wanted anywhere. (Letter to Alfred Pochon, 1928; cited in Knapp 1989b: 5)

Like Thomas More, Bloch creates, through the craft of composition, an ‘outopia,’ a ‘no place,’ whose attributes connect to the entire history of utopian thought (see Jameson 2005).

5 Utopian topoi appear frequently throughout the history of Jewish music, not least in the enjoinders to ‘remember Zion’ (Psalm 137) and return to Zion (in the Passover seder). The musical representation of these topoi becomes especially trenchant in the modern era (see, e.g., Bohlman 2013). 6 ‘Altneuland’ literally means ‘old-new land,’ representing for Theodor Herzl the ancient

modernity of the Zionist vision he espoused at the end of his life. In his utopian novel, thus, the sacred Jewish music flowed together with the technologies of secular music in his 1904 vision of Israel, mutually extending the great age and powerful modernity of Jewish music (see, e.g., Bohlman 2011).

108 Philip V. Bohlman

Chronotopes of Jewish Music History Bloch’s utopian works radically departed from the tropes of time and place, the chronotopes,7 that constitute post-Haskalah Jewish intellectual traditions.8 To help understand the meaning of this, I should like briefly to sketch several prevailing models of Jewish time and place that dominated thought about music and history into the twentieth century, forming the basis, not least, for Abraham Zvi Idelsohn’s Jewish music historiography in the Thesaurus of Hebrew-Oriental Melodies, published in ten volumes from 1914 to 1932 (Idelsohn 1914–1932). For the purposes of this chapter, let me refer to these as ‘chronotopes of timelessness and placelessness.’ Both geography and history intersect to provide templates for mapping Jewish music’s timelessness and placelessness, insistently specifying the conditions for the musical connections between past and present. Accordingly, in seeking to understand why conditions of timelessness have accrued to Jewish music in the worlds Ernest Bloch so restlessly sought, I turn now to the most persistent models used to chart the geography of encounter between Jewish music and modernity. In each case the model has served as a real template, which nevertheless assumes a malleable form that allows it to be adapted to different musics that were variously claimed as Jewish. In each case, Jewish music, whether or not a primary case-in-point, has provided crucial evidence for constructing the model and constructing a sense of identity and belonging to the chronotopes of Jewish modernity.

Journey into Timelessness The first chronotope model takes shape from the journey across the geography of diaspora into timelessness. The journey passes from a world with history to one without history, thus making it both a literal and a metaphorical journey. The origins of this model lie in Greek and biblical Antiquity, but it was with the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 ce that the model stretched across the Mediterranean and the lands north and south of it. It also extended eastward into Asia, opening the lands of the Levant, Central Asia, and South Asia to the settlement of Jewish communities.9 The journey across the diasporic lands into timelessness took on 7 For the concept of chronotope I employ in this chapter, I draw upon Mikhail Bakhtin’s well-known theory of chronotope, in which cultural fields and human action take place at the intersection of time (xρόνος) and place (τόπος); see especially Bakhtin 1981. Quite deliberately, I intend to apply temporality to the sense of space in utopia, thereby opening the possibility that utopia can achieve its

place historically, or in Bloch’s case, biographically. 8 Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, was an ideological and social movement that emerged in Eastern Europe in the early nineteenth century. 9 The expansion of Jewish communities in Mesopotamia and the areas of modern Syria is well known. The Bene Israel first

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Jewish, Muslim, and Christian dimensions, resulting from the distinctive ways in which the three religions articulated their sacred geography. In Judaism, the journey first formed from the historical map of diaspora. The symbolic connections of Jewish ritual and the performance of metaphors of return to Jerusalem invested the journey across the Mediterranean with an everyday presence, while the great difficulty of return intensified the sense of its timelessness. In the Passover seder, year after year, it is always ‘next year’ that enunciates the return to Jerusalem. Jewish liturgy is rich with metaphors of returning to Jerusalem, and many holidays (e.g., the Shalosh Regalim, the three pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot) contain ritual practices through which one symbolically enacts that return. The journey across the diaspora takes place only in ritual time, with historical time and geographical space deferred to the conditions of the future.

Temporal and Geographic Isolation The second metaphor invoked as a chronotope for the timelessness and placelessness in Jewish music history is the island. As a place separated from the rest of the world, an island is imagined to preserve music as it always was, authentic and unchanged, for there is presumably no real chance for contact with other musics or external forces that would render change. An island possesses its own history, which is to say that it exists insulated from the larger forces of global history. Islands also possess a historicized geography that permits discovery, a place to reencounter the Jewish music of the past.10 Islands and isolation appear frequently in the Jewish-music scholarship of the twentieth century. As Ruth Davis and others have shown, Robert Lachmann’s encounter with Jewish music on the island of Djerba (off the coast of Tunisia) has proved nothing short of paradigmatic for the historical modes and chronotopes of modern Jewish-music scholarship (see Davis 1986, 2005, 2013). In 1929, Lachmann conducted fieldwork in two ‘isolated’ communities on Djerba, which he chose because he felt assured that their music and liturgical practices demonstrated a further ‘isolation from foreign influences’ (Lachmann 1976: 28). Important to Lachmann’s own historical

established Jewish communities along the Malabar Coast of India also at the beginning of the first millennium of the Common Era. 10 It is unsurprising that islands contain many of the attributes associated historically

with utopias, not least among them those applied to the island of Utopia itself (More 1516).

110 Philip V. Bohlman image was that the residents of these communities believed themselves that their music demonstrated this ‘great age’ (Lachmann 1976: 27). Travelling to North Africa in search of Jewish and Arabic music, thus, was even more a journey through time: The thing that leaves the most unforgettable impression on the traveller upon first setting foot in North Africa is not simply the Oriental colour, with all its foreignness and variety, which surrounds one after such a relatively short journey by ship – a day and a half from Marseilles, only a few hours from Sicily – but rather it is the sudden realization that one is placed back in surroundings some 700 years old, that is into the Middle Ages. (Lachmann 1974: 11; trans. by PVB)

First published in Jerusalem, albeit posthumously, in 1940, Lachmann’s Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerba revealed the potential of the island to exist outside of history, even to resist history.

The Historical Dynamics of Ceaseless Wandering Historically imagined, diasporic cultural geography lends itself to being crossed and crossed again, perpetually creating the exchange of music between one community and another. Jewish music history becomes a template for multiple diasporas, spreading across a landscape that makes identity possible only when one transports one’s culture – also one’s music culture – with one during the course of journey. Through ceaseless wandering, music itself acquires the multiple layers of meaning that characterize diaspora, the ‘double consciousness’ of past and present that Paul Gilroy identifies in his study of the Black Atlantic (Gilroy 1993). Diaspora depends on processes of exile and return, which in turn create specific goals for the historical movement that characterizes it. The musical practices of the present, therefore, refer to those of the past, but no less do they evoke the musical practices of the future. The chronotopes I sketch above appear at first glance to leave little room for utopia. Musically, they proliferate as fragments and small forms, and in this sense they contrast dramatically with the aesthetics of form employed by Ernest Bloch. His utopian image, instead, requires extended form – the sweep of epic and myth – which realizes the chronotopes of the works I discuss below. Standing in contrast to epic and myth are many songs of exile, such as the Hanns Eisler song in Figure 6.1, whose fragmentary form expresses identity in a localized, dystopian version, in this case one of the miniatures composed by Ernest Bloch’s contemporary and fellow journeyman during the 1930s and 1940s, Hanns Eisler (1898–1962). How different Eisler’s vision is, stripped of utopia and rendering the image of diaspora and exile as a timeless yet timely chronicle of Jewish dystopia (cf., e.g., Bohlman and Bohlman 2012: 83–98). Bertolt Brecht’s poem rests on the temporal

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Figure 6.1 ‘An den kleinen Radioapparat’ – ‘To the Little Radio’ (from the Hollywooder Liederbuch, Eisler 2008: 13)

112 Philip V. Bohlman punctuation of the journey, its dissolution into fragments framed by the voice emanating from the radio. O little box I carried in my flight So carefully your lamps and tubes protecting From house to boat, from boat to train held tight, So that my enemies could still address me, Beside my bed and much to my dismay Last thing each night and first thing every day, About their victories (defeats for me). O please do not fall silent suddenly! (Poem by Bertolt Brecht; trans. by PVB)

Fragments and the Epic Journey to Utopia: America and Helvetia The Ideals of America are imperishable. They embody the future credo of all mankind: a Union, in common purpose and under willingly accepted guidance, of widely diversified races, ultimately to become one race, strong and great. But, as Walt Whitman has said: ‘To hold men together by paper and seal or by compulsion, is of no account. That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle, as the hold of the limbs of the body or the fibres of plants.’ (Ernest Bloch, epigraph of America [1927])

Ernest Bloch’s utopian goals could not be more unequivocally stated than in the opening epigraph of his America of 1927. The Union, the utopia, will gather fragments together, rescuing them from the displacement of dystopia. The epic of the symphonic work, too, will realize union and utopia through the ways in which fragments appear in the score, eventually to congeal and claim their collectivity through thematic and formal wholeness. The epic journey towards utopia in Helvetia, completed soon after America, depends no less on the gathering of fragments, and the utopia that embodies Switzerland will possess a union that is in many ways indistinguishable from that of the United States. With these works, contradiction and paradox will yield to the overwhelming confluence of parts to form the union of utopia. Just why did Ernest Bloch turn to compositional procedures at this stage in his life that permitted him to reconcile so many seemingly contradictory parts? At a certain fundamental level, the treatment of musical materials and ideals in the Swiss, Jewish, and American works differs. In the Swiss works, Bloch seems more concerned and more familiar with musical materials, the fragments from which he would forge Helvetia. His aesthetic intent is more musical, his ideological vision less artificial. In the Jewish works, there can be no question that Bloch privileges ideological intent. In his American works, he negotiates between these contrasting approaches. He uses musical

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materials much as he would in the Swiss works, especially choosing folk melodies not so much because of their social function and meaning as because of the musical colour they might introduce at a given moment. At the same time, Bloch envelops his message in America with several layers of ideology. He repeatedly employs Native American melodies to evoke the sonic foundations of America, and he counterbalances this by punctuating the entire work with the poetry and aphorisms of Walt Whitman. The use of Native American themes at the beginning of the first movement of America is musically colouristic, particularly so because of the stereotyped Native American sound exploited through a layer of pentatonicism. Whereas Bloch draws upon well-documented sources for the Native American melodies, above all Frances Densmore’s collections for the Bureau of American Ethnology and the Smithsonian Institution (e.g., Densmore 1926), the use of fragments here leads too easily to the impression of stereotype.11 The effect on the listener may well be musical, but stereotype renders the fragments ideologically flat, for the Native American themes fail to acquire meaning in the melodic text. It is only the presence of the verbal text in the score that restores meaning, and that in turn signifies the early stages of utopia. Switzerland assumes a different role in the forging of Bloch’s intertextual treatment of fragments to achieve epic form. In the musical works that draw upon Switzerland, Bloch appears most comfortable with the use of folk music.12 We witness this by comparing the several ways in which he uses folk music to evoke the sense of place. When setting an American source, Bloch relies on standard folk song or Native American collections, as well as well-known literature, such as Walt Whitman, which together allow him to shape a canon of Americanisms. His American melos is synthetic and at moments somewhat embarrassingly dependent on stereotypes. The Swiss works, however, treat Swiss folk music more literally. They reveal an awareness not only of a considerable body of folk songs, but also of their social functions and their geographic associations. Helvetia, in effect, is more literal, less abstract (Figure 6.2). This might lead us to the conclusion, however, that Bloch understood the folk music in his Swiss works as folk music, not simply as an abstract way of labelling a work such as Helvetia as

11

Native American music is largely not pentatonic, and the flow of melodic movement has few of the attributes that characterize the sense of anhemitonic pentatonicism in Bloch’s understanding of five-note modal systems. In short, he relies on rather standard practices of orientalist colour.

12

The chronotope of folk music relies on being deeply situated in a specific place, albeit timelessly so, in other words, already before history transforms folk music to literate forms. Bloch was, like many composers using folk songs, acting historically on oral tradition to enhance the sense of place.

114 Philip V. Bohlman

Figure 6.2 Opening of Helvetia, p. 1

nationalist. Bloch claimed to have employed ‘more than thirty’ folk melodies in Helvetia, and for these he designed a programme that was considerably more pedantic than that of either Israel or America. Still, Helvetia is also considerably more restrained in the explicit vision of utopia, almost as if Bloch was distancing himself in this last of the three utopian tone poems. Such realization of growing distance may account for the reasons that Helvetia did not receive its premiere until 1932, three years after Bloch completed it, and that it was seldom heard and rarely recorded thereafter. Bloch’s Jewish works, in contrast, demonstrate an urge to treat particular melodies creatively, to penetrate beyond the sound in its traditional forms to

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an ideological background; more often than not, one that bears witness to Bloch’s personal voice. In this sense, the Israel Symphony provided a means for Bloch to turn his personal vision towards a utopian goal particularly well. Israel, too, was formed from the confluence of fragments and their ultimate envoicement as a collective chorus.

The Narrative Programme as Utopian Realization Ernest Bloch’s utopian vision, however fragmented, inevitably emerges from the compositional techniques he musters for the large tone poems. It is precisely these techniques that remain constant in Israel, America and Helvetia, and that undergird my claim for their common connection to utopia. It is as epic that they provide the chronotope of utopia for Bloch. By combining these techniques and balancing them in different ways, Bloch achieves the multivocality that is so characteristic of a composer who sought to create such different identities. The first of the compositional techniques employed by Bloch is the use of melodic fragments that signified in deliberate and distinctive ways. This technique was, of course, not uncommon in the works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century nationalist composers, particularly those who created monumental symphonic and choral works based on epic texts (e.g., Jean Sibelius’s twelve compositions based on the Finnish national epic, Kalevala). Bloch’s second compositional technique, too, owed much to the era of nationalist composition from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but he turned it to different, more ideological ends. I refer here, of course, to Bloch’s penchant to create programmes for his larger works, and matching the extra-musical to the musical in order to do so. Bloch’s utopian works contain an inordinate number of programmes, an indication that he needed to tie meaning to narrative outside the music itself in order to assign meaning internally to the music. America, for example, uses several programmes, and each of the three movements contains its own programme to narrate the epic of American history. Bloch may even have been aware that he overburdens the music with programmes, for he frontloaded the score with an epigraph that warns the listener that the ‘Symphony is not dependant [sic] on a program,’ but then turned quickly to spinning out America’s programme, fragment after fragment. In so doing, Bloch makes the epic of America his own, which is to say, he diverts the historical narrative from the past to the future, from history in the first two movements to the future – the utopian realization – in the final movement. The use of fragments and programmes as compositional techniques provided for Bloch the musical materials from which he could choose, at

116 Philip V. Bohlman both the thematic and the programmatic levels. His utopian vision, therefore, could be realized through specific musical techniques. The most basic of these was the restatement of musical materials in such ways that they expressed a vision of utopia rather than mere canonic functions. Throughout Bloch’s works, I might suggest, one symbol comes to afford meaning to another, not only through intertextuality – musical and narrative woven into a complex textual fabric – but also through metonymy. Bloch uses semiotic metonymy to bring about juxtapositions, thereby eliminating what would otherwise be musical and narrative contradiction. The palette of compositional devices with metonymic signification, moreover, gave Bloch freedom to experiment. Experimentation was critical for his utopian projects, but it might otherwise seem to contradict the claims that America and Helvetia, and many other Bloch compositions, are consciously conservative in style. When we listen to the closing of America, however, we discover a different Bloch. It is clear that this movement gave Bloch a certain freedom to experiment, which I believe results from the heightened utopian vision in this movement, called, in fact, ‘1926 . . . The Present – The Future . . .,’ and opening with a fully utopian epigraph by Walt Whitman: ‘As he sees the farthest he has the most faith’ (America 1928: 113) (Figure 6.3). Throughout the movement, metric and rhythmic patterns constantly shift, and Bloch is not afraid to urge on the performers with markings such as frenetico. The movement makes consciously modernist gestures, integrating the musique concrète sounds of plates of steel and anvils into the percussion section. Such gestures towards musical modernism are rare in the music of Ernest Bloch, making them even more notable in his choices for the sonic landscape of the United States. The final movement of America closes, first, by returning to the music of the Native American section of the opening movement, symbolizing the ability of the nation to reconstruct itself according to its own designs and at the hands of its own people, in the final movement the ‘new immigrants’ among whom Bloch counted himself. Cultural diversity – the accrual of fragments to the union of the nation – continues to characterize Bloch’s America, and in the end it is only from this diversity that the choral Anthem can grow. In Bloch’s utopian vision, the audience for the Anthem is always present, enjoined to rise and sing the Anthem, whose unifying melody they had previously imbibed from the multitude of fragments provided them in the course of the performance (Figure 6.4). These many voices at the end of the symphony become the single, utopian voice of America. The utopian voices of America and Helvetia are clearly related in a reflexive manner. By representing the United States musically, Bloch drew

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Figure 6.3 Opening of the third movement, America – ‘1926 . . . The Present – The Future . . .’, p. 114

also on an epic geography that he knew from Switzerland, populating it with the melodies of Americanism he could find in collections by Frances Densmore or on the 78 rpm records of the Jazz Age. It is significant that Bloch composed America before he turned back to Helvetia and Switzerland.

118 Philip V. Bohlman

Figure 6.4 Opening of Anthem at the close of America, pp. 175–6

His journey through modernism was short-lived and, as epic, historically specific. The folk melodies of Helvetia may have been more intimately a part of his youth, but the historical narrative grows distinctively from the epic notion of utopia that he forms in America. That the utopian metaphors

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Figure 6.4 (cont.)

shared by Helvetia and America resonated with biblical notions of life and death could not have escaped Bloch’s attention. Epic and utopia dovetail with Torah. Ultimately, as in the Torah, epic reaches its final moment and utopia is once again forestalled so that it can truly be utopian. Moses reaches the frontiers of the Promised Land, but ultimately fails to realize his journey to Zion.

120 Philip V. Bohlman

Diaspora and the Displacement of History: Ernest Bloch and the Utopian Vision Some claim that, both in America and Helvetia, they fail to find me. The fact is that they have never really known me . . . It is evident that Helvetia and America required a style different from that of Israel and Schelomo. (Ernest Bloch’s programme notes for Helvetia)

Quite deliberately, I have allowed contradiction and paradox also to shape the narrative journeys I trace through this chapter, thereby reflecting the very displacement that complicated Ernest Bloch’s utopian vision. At first glance, it might seem as if I was widening a distinction between the Jewish works and the non-Jewish works, as if to resolve paradox by relegating it to the sacred and the secular. My aim, however, has been to argue that displacement actually formed around the spaces opened by paradox, at once calling attention to the similarities and differences between and among the utopian works. Understanding place – Bloch’s, those shared by readers of the present volume devoted to Bloch’s music, and that of the Jewish people in modern history – in the utopian works results from the need to reroute the narratives about Bloch’s life and works. Ultimately, the search for chronotope in the contradictions between utopia and dystopia returns to the Jewish works, also rerouting the aesthetic displacement they have seemingly signified for so many critics who have sought to resolve the paradox in Bloch’s life. Ernest Bloch’s utopian vision offers an alternative to many of the other topoi of identity that have long been associated with him. If they were not Jewish works in the strictest sense, they nonetheless allowed him to create works that fulfil the functions of the dual worlds of utopia and dystopia. We clearly witness the conditions of the two worlds in Augustine’s Civitas dei and in Herzl’s Altneuland. In conclusion, I want to state clearly that it has not been my intent in this chapter to undermine the ways in which we think of Bloch as a Jewish composer, whose works unveil and recontextualize specific aspects of Jewish identity. Rather, I hope I might have introduced what could become a new dimension for understanding Jewish identity in Ernest Bloch’s work, the place of utopia, of outopia and eutopia, of ‘no place’ and ‘good place,’ in all their contradictions, on the vast landscape of utopian thought. Utopia, as a place reached only through displacement, might ultimately afford even richer possibilities to chart more clearly the paths that form the landscape of the modern world through which Bloch, as a selfconsciously Jewish composer, chose to travel on a journey he believed ultimately might lead to the shores of an epic land, where ‘the future alone will be the judge.’

7

The Reception of Bloch’s Music in Palestine/Israel to 1948 Jehoash Hirshberg

Ernest Bloch never visited the Yishuv, that is, the Jewish community in Palestine under British mandate, 1919–48 (Hirshberg 1995). Nor was he interested in visiting the State of Israel, as may easily be seen through the total lack of any mention of Israel in reference to Bloch in Klára Móricz’s comprehensive discussion of Bloch’s spiritual world (as contrasted with Arnold Schoenberg’s deep involvement in Israel) (Móricz 2008). Yet Bloch’s reception in the musical life of the Yishuv and of Israel was widespread and empathic, as will be shown in the present chapter.

The 1920s: Bloch Included in Engel’s Circle By 1924, when a wave of immigration from Poland and Russia, known as the Fourth Aliyah, had reached its culmination, the town of Tel Aviv, cultural centre of the Jewish community of Palestine, numbered only 40,000 Jews. The relatively vibrant concert life was dominated, alongside Western classical music, by entire programmes devoted to song arrangements and art works by the members of the Society for Jewish Folk Music, founded in St Petersburg in 1908. These centred around the prestigious personalities of Yoel Engel (1868–1927), Jacob Weinberg (1879–1958) and Solomon Rosowsky (1878–1962), and featured frequent visits by the violin virtuoso and composer Joseph Achron (1886–1943), as well as works by composers who had remained in Russia, such as Michael Gnessin (1883–1957), Moshe (Moses) Milner (1886–1953) and Alexander Weprick (1899–1958). On 21 July 1927, Menashe Rabinowitz (later known as Ravina, 1899–1975), music critic of the Hebrew daily Davar, sent from Frankfurtam-Main, where he was pursuing advanced studies, an article entitled ‘The Hebrew National School in Music’. His point of departure was a booklet by the musicologist Leonid Sabaneev (1881–1968) (Móricz 2008: 13), entitled

121

122 Jehoash Hirshberg the ‘Jewish National School in Music’,1 in which Sabaneev claimed that each national school in music develops along the same pattern of three stages: A. The conservative preservation of folk or religious songs. B. The realization by intellectuals of the significance of the traditional repertoire. C. The creation of national music. According to Sabaneev, what counted in Jewish folk song was not the kind of scales used nor the augmented second, which he related to Caucasian and Iranian music, but the preference for the recitative, free metre, dynamic expression and ornamented melody. As distinguished representatives of the process, Sabaneev named Krein, Achron, Rosowsky and Weprick from the Society for Jewish Folk Music, but he also included Ernest Bloch among them. Sabaneev ignored Bloch’s deviation from the model, Bloch having bypassed the first two stages, commencing with the third, that of art music. Bloch’s name soon started to appear in programmes of works otherwise still dominated by Engel’s group. Newspaper reviews usually failed to quote the title of the compositions performed, which at that stage were all small-scale instrumental arrangements of Jewish folk songs.

The Onset of Professional Musical Life in the 1930s The overall musical scene totally changed with the intensive immigration of composers and performers from central Europe in 1931. Yet, Engel’s group and especially Engel’s works continued to feature frequently in concert programmes in the 1930s and 1940s. A landmark in the reception of Bloch in the Yishuv was the founding of the Palestine Broadcasting Service on 31 March 1936. Founded by the British administration, the PBS alternated between English, Arabic and Hebrew, and gave a relatively prominent position to music programmes, since they appealed to all three groups of listeners equally. The inaugural broadcast consisted mostly of a short live concert, with vocal compositions by Darius Milhaud, Bloch and Paul Ben-Haim. One of the first broadcasts featured Psalm 114 by Bloch alongside a psalm setting by Milner. Short chamber works by Bloch became frequent in broadcast and public concerts. Most popular was the Baal Shem Suite, included also in a private concert dedicated to Hasidic music at the Jerusalem home of the legendary eye physician Dr Avraham Albert Ticho (1883–1960).2 1

Originally published in Russian in Moscow in 1924; appeared in English translation in The Musical Quarterly in 1929 (see Bibliography).

2

Dr Ticho’s wife was the great painter Anna (1894–1980). Their beautiful home is now preserved as the Anna Ticho Museum, maintained by the Israel Museum.

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Example 7.1 Bloch Simchas Torah, p. 2, bb. 1–4

A central figure in the dissemination of Bloch’s music was the versatile musician Joachim Stutschewsky (1891–1982), a fine cellist, a much-admired cello teacher, a composer and a prolific arranger (Stutschewsky 1977). Having settled in Tel Aviv in 1938, he initiated a pioneer project of chamber concerts of Jewish music. The first series effected a dramatic change in the way the term ‘chamber concert’ was understood. The opening concert was a replay of Engel’s concerts, consisting of arrangements of Jewish folk songs. For the second, Stutschewsky turned exclusively to artworks by contemporary Jewish composers, with music by Erich Walter Sternberg (1891–1974, immigrated to Palestine 1931), Paul Ben-Haim (1897–1984, immigrated 1933) and Bloch. Ravina wrote on 6 January 1939 that the programme opened with Bloch’s Three Nocturnes ‘in which the folk element is not found’, unlike the third movement of the Baal Shem Suite which followed (Example 7.1). It appears as if the performers’ taste rather than the extent of Jewish characteristics determined the selection of items for the programmes. All immigrant composers knew some of Bloch’s music prior to their settlement in Palestine, and they interpreted his personality according to their own ideology at that time. Alexander U. Boskovich (1907–64) became acquainted with Bloch’s music after his return to Cluj, Romania, in 1936 following four years of advanced studies in Paris. He gave a recital of Jewish music, in the broadest sense of the word, with the violinist Alexandru Fejer. The programme consisted of two works on Jewish themes by nonJews – Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei and Maurice Ravel’s Kaddisch – as well as Joseph Achron’s Hebrew Melody, Leopold Auer’s Jewish Melody, Lazar Saminsky’s Jewish Rhapsody, Jewish Dance by Stutschewsky and, as expected, Bloch’s Baal Shem, by then a favourite with violin virtuosi. Boskovich discussed Bloch only briefly in an article he published in 1937 in a compilation in Hungarian by young Jewish students in Cluj, entitled Between East and West. In a section dealing with the problem of

124 Jehoash Hirshberg the proper forms for Jewish art music he referred to Bloch’s Psalm 114, commenting that ‘musical settings of Psalms, such as by Bloch, Milhaud, and others, created a vocal and instrumental form based on free recitative. Yet Jewish vocal art will be able to emerge only through a major and comprehensive reform of choral singing in synagogues’ (Boscovic 1937). Verdina Shlonsky (1905–90), the only woman composer among the first generation composers of art music, was a maverick. Unlike her colleagues, all of whom endeavoured to reach their own syntheses of the vision of the East and the heritage of the West, Shlonsky rejected the vision of the East as shallow Orientalism, and her appreciation of Bloch originated in her European stance. In 1942, while in exile in London, having fled the invasion of Paris, she wrote: Now that a new school of music is being evolved, it is worthwhile considering the composers of genuinely Jewish music. The first category, a product of Jewish dispersion and assimilation, comprises many well-known names: Meyerbeer, Halévy, Mendelssohn, Moscheles, Offenbach, Rubinstein, Mahler, Dukas, Arnold Schoenberg, Darius Milhaud, Gershwin. They, to a greater or lesser degree, have something which may be identified as an element of Jewish music. But on the whole they are part and parcel of the cultures of the countries in which they were brought up. The best instance of a contemporary Jewish composer (as distinct from the composer who happens to be a Jew) is perhaps provided by Ernest Bloch . . . whose works derive much from Jewish religious melodies. (Shlonsky 1943)

Shlonsky did not elaborate, and she must have based her definition on her general impression. A new phase in Bloch’s reception started with the inauguration of the Palestine Orchestra, created single-handedly by violinist Bronislaw Huberman in December 1936. Huberman admired Bloch and he encouraged the performance of the Three Jewish Poems. On 17 June 1937, at the end of the first season of the new orchestra, composer Marc Lavry conducted a programme of Jewish music, which included the third of the Three Jewish Poems. The programme also included Lavry’s own symphonic poem Emek and Karol Rathaus’s Uriel da Costa Suite. The critic David Rozolio curtly concluded that Bloch’s work was ‘very weak’. His extreme reaction may have resulted from the adverse acoustic conditions of an outdoor summer concert in the vast open space of Park Rina in Tel Aviv. In contrast, critic Olya Zilbermann, who was especially dedicated to the cause of new Jewish music, hailed Bloch’s achievement as a major breakthrough in Jewish music; she claimed that the composer ‘returned to Judaism via modern music, with no external influences of Diaspora Judaism’ (Haaretz 24 November 1940). With that final phrase she added another important angle to the distinction between folk and art music. The Yishuv population in the 1920s and 1930s was permeated by the

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Zionist ideology of rejection of the diaspora, which in their minds was associated with the folk songs of Eastern Europe. At the same time, the music critics fought for the case of ‘modern’ Jewish art music. For example, in 1940 Olya Zilbermann admonished the Palestine Orchestra for performing Reger’s Variations on a Theme by Mozart rather than Mahler’s symphonies and Bloch’s Schelomo as well as Bloch’s violin works, thus indicating her awareness of Bloch’s principal works. The inauguration of the World Centre for Jewish Music in Palestine (WCJMP) (Bohlman 1992) marked Bloch’s nearest approach to visiting Palestine as composer and conductor. In his first response to Dr Sali Levi’s letter of invitation, Bloch wrote from Paris with excitement about the plan to perform Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service): ‘what would it be . . . if this work could be produced in Eretz Israel? You may realize what it would mean to me . . . and how glad I should be to conduct it myself’ (Letter of 14 March 1937, cited in Bohlman 1992: 58).3 Bloch suggested one or two orchestral concerts including all his orchestral works ‘which, I think, are not yet known in Palestine’ (he did not know about the ‘failed’ summer concert of one of the Three Jewish Poems) and a few concerts of chamber works. Such a grandiose – and self-centred – programme was far from the reach of the newly founded Palestine Orchestra. Moreover, Bloch was readying himself to return to the United States, and it was clear he was by no means considering immigration to Palestine, unlike the relatively large group of Jewish composers who did just that (Hirshberg 1995: 157–83). Philip Bohlman has indicated that Bloch ‘responded positively to the early WCJMP soliciting of his support with surprising enthusiasm. Evaluated as a whole, the fourteen letters in the exchange between Bloch and the World Centre suggest that his interest in visiting Jerusalem for a festival of his works might well have been an alternative plan for emigration’ (Bohlman 1992: 118). Bohlman indicates that the World Centre reached the height of its organizational activity on 1 March 1938 with the inaugural meeting in Jerusalem during which the delegates elected Ernest Bloch and Darius Milhaud as honorary presidents. Emil Hauser’s Quartet played two movements from quartets by Bloch and by Hanoch Jacobi (1909–1990). The decision was controversial. Soon after the inaugural meeting Dr Peter Emanuel Gradenwitz wrote to Dr Salli Levi, the dedicated initiator of the World Centre:

3

Bloch’s excitement might seem to contradict his indifferent attitude to Israel, as stated at the opening of this chapter. Yet the former had to do with the prospects of a

single concert in 1939, whereas his indifferent attitude was towards the State of Israel in the 1950s.

126 Jehoash Hirshberg If one is to build up a center in the way you desire, only the musical quality alone, and not Zionism, can truly set the standards. Arnold Schoenberg, the greatest living composer – in the purity, the clarity of his striving, and the power of his knowledge – provides a better model to observe than does Ernest Bloch, who surely from the Jewish standpoint has been engaged much longer in an attempt to create a ‘Jewish music’, but he cannot be considered a musical genius, rather as one who follows a more mediocre path. (Letter of 6 April, 1937, cited in Bohlman 1992: 223–4)

Gradenwitz’s reservations left no trace in the circles of the World Centre. Rather, the two initiators of the Centre, Salli Levi and Hermann Swet, asked Bloch for a detailed statement of his aesthetics of Jewish music to which he provided his most penetrating and sincere response. The most crucial statement within his long letter was his rejection of the use of any borrowed material in his works which had been considered Jewish: No! I have but hearkened to an inner voice, deep, secret, insistent, burning, an instinct rather than any cold and dry reasoning process, a voice which seemed to come from far beyond, beyond myself and my parents — a voice which surged up in me on reading certain passages in the Bible, Job, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms, the Prophets . . . It was this Jewish heritage as a whole which stirred me, and music was the result — To what extent such music is . . . Jewish — To what extent it is just . . . Ernest Bloch — Of that I know nothing — The future alone will decide. (Letter of 22 December 1937, originally in French, cited in Bohlman 1992: 233–5)

All this prepared the ground for the climactic first performance of Avodath Hakodesh in Palestine in November 1940, seven years after its completion. It is remarkable that there was not just one performance but two. On 18 June 1940 the WCJM sponsored the first performance. The chairmen of the Jewish Agency and of the National Committee issued a joint statement inviting all Jews of Jerusalem to attend. Karl Salomon (1897–1974), director of the music department of the PBS, conducted the radio orchestra, which was doubled to fifty musicians, with the excellent bass singer Vittorio Weinberg. The concert was broadcast live. Jerusalem was under black-out due to the imminent danger of Nazi air raids, yet the auditorium was full. The seventy-member choir included Christian Arabs and British who performed in Hebrew. Six months later, in December 1940, the Palestine Orchestra, again with Salomon and Weinberg, repeated the work. The previews and reviews were dominated by a rejection of Orthodox Diaspora Judaism, a rejection typical of the intellectual circles of the Yishuv. Salomon introduced the work as a ‘secular Mass which is not intended for synagogue service. Though based on

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prayers and on biblical and traditional verses, it has nothing to do with the ritual. The music is modern in its technique but spiritually Jewish’ (Salomon 1940). The preview also included a broadcast of records of several of Bloch’s chamber works, such as the Piano Quintet No. 1. Ravina wrote that ‘the Sacred Service is permeated with an Israelite religious spirit and shows the damage caused to Jewish music by the rejection of musical instruments in the synagogue and the preference for the solo cantor over the choir’ (Ravina 1940).4 David Rozolio praised the unity and solemn, festive spirit of the work, but also observed that the unity was exaggerated and the long composition was in adagio throughout, lacking contrasts. Bloch’s Sacred Service became the main inspiration for the most important liturgical work in early Israeli music, Paul Ben-Haim’s Liturgical Cantata. The Liturgical Cantata was created in three stages. In 1946, the radio station commissioned Ben-Haim to compose a short Ma tovu for choir and organ, which would open the broadcast every weekday morning. Ben-Haim apparently misunderstood the given time limit of two minutes and wrote a seven-minute movement, which could not be used for the purpose that the radio station intended. He then orchestrated the organ part and the piece was performed as an independent work. In 1948, Ben-Haim was commissioned by the Park Avenue Synagogue, New York, to compose a setting of Psalm 93, The Lord is King, which he completed in January 1949. At that point he decided to add Psalm 92, A Psalm; a Song for the Sabbath Day, which, like Psalm 93, is recited in the Friday night service. The model of Bloch’s Sacred Service then led BenHaim to add Adon Olam and a concluding Hallelujah. The entire Liturgical Cantata was completed in October 1949. The term ‘liturgical’ was deliberate; while the Orthodox synagogue in Israel was out of bounds for any new art music with instruments, this was not the case with the American Reform synagogue which commissioned the Psalm movement, and Ben-Haim was hoping to establish ties with the Reform Movement. Ben-Haim wrote the programme notes for the second performance of the Sacred Service, that of the Palestine Orchestra; presumably he had made a thorough study of the music in preparation for the concert. Both the Sacred Service and the Liturgical Cantata are scored for a baritone who takes the role of the cantor, with a large mixed choir and a full symphony orchestra. The similarities do not involve any musical quotations but rather an overall common conception.

4

Jewish tradition banned the use of musical instruments in the synagogue as a mark of

mourning commemorating the destruction of the Second Temple.

128 Jehoash Hirshberg Example 7.2 Bloch Sacred Service (Avodath Hakodesh) – Ma tovu, p. 3, from rehearsal no. 3

Both works begin with slow movements, setting Ma tovu oholecho Ya’akov in G mixolydian with similar melodic gestures, albeit a different harmonic vocabulary (Example 7.2). The Example 7.3 appears a few bars after the beginning of Ben-Haim’s Ma tovu. Bloch’s powerful outburst in Adonoy yimloch (‘And the Lord shall reign’) clearly (Example 7.4) inspired Ben-Haim’s Psalm 93 Adonay malach (‘The Lord is King’) (Example 7.5) .

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Example 7.3 P. Ben-Haim Liturgical Cantata – Ma tovu, p. 3, from rehearsal sign D

Ya

Ya

Ya

Ya

Yet Bloch’s influence did not last throughout the Liturgical Cantata. The final movement, Hallelujah (Example 7.6), turned to the orientalist sound world of Ben-Haim’s Piano Concerto which was composed in the same year. The joyful movement ends with a lively Israeli Hora dance. Bloch performances in Palestine, nowithstanding the two festive performances of the Sacred Service, remained scarce until 1948. The musical community in Palestine recognized Bloch as a great Jewish composer of art music, quite distinct from the diaspora style of the Russian group. His most popular piece remained the Baal Shem Suite which, paradoxically, was associated precisely with the diaspora Hasidic style; its popularity was enhanced by its being a warhorse for virtuoso violinists

130 Jehoash Hirshberg Example 7.4 Bloch Sacred Service – Adonoy yimloch, pp. 34–5, from rehearsal no. 21

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Example 7.5 P. Ben-Haim Liturgical Cantata – Adonay malach, p. 25, b. 29–33

Example 7.6 P. Ben-Haim Liturgical Cantata – Hallelujah, p. 67, bb. 221–5, rehearsal sign D

and advanced violin students. The Sacred Service was praised as a monumental Jewish composition which, as against the Orthodox domination of synagogue music in Palestine, supported the cause of modern Jewish liturgical music. The demise of the World Centre with the outbreak of World War II in 1939 put a sudden end to communication between Bloch and the directors of the Centre. In the first decade following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Palestine Orchestra, renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, performed Schelomo with cellist Zara Nelsova, the Violin Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin, and the Sacred Service; yet even that did not result in a visit by Ernest Bloch himself.

8

Bloch’s Reception and His Standing in Israel since 1954 Zecharia Plavin

The issue of Ernest Bloch’s standing in Israel is emotionally charged and may be discussed from two different angles. First, the composer’s calibre; is he regarded by the main shapers of Israeli public opinion (music journalists, prominent music teachers) as a leading twentieth-century composer, and if so, then on what basis? Second, what is the cultural significance of his music? Is it to be regarded as ‘Jewish’, ‘Hebraic’ or even ‘Israeli’? This second question engages not only musicians, but also the entire concert-going population of Israel, and even those Israelis who have never heard a single note of Bloch’s music, since Israelis feel especially called upon to express their opinion on matters of Jewish identity. The changes in Bloch’s standing in Israel reflect not only the dialectics of his own reputation and Jewish identity issues among Israel’s concert-goers and shapers of musical opinion, but also the changing public profile of concert-attending society within the population of Israel as a whole. The history of Bloch’s reception in Israel thus touches the very nerve of Israeli society’s own sense of identity. Concert performances of classical music are rarely based on a pure demand-supply matrix; the public is not usually consulted in repertoire decisions. Moreover, concert-goers are not normally asked for their opinions with respect to recently performed compositions. No direct feedback pertaining to specific compositions comes from the listeners; applause, the traditional method of showing appreciation for a musical performance, is a spontaneous reward for the act of performing rather than for the intrinsic quality of the composition. Even personal responses by musicians’ friends to their concerts, on those rare occasions when they are written down or otherwise recorded, cannot serve as a reliable source of opinion, due to their obvious partiality. Matters become even more complicated when we recall that the issue of classical music in our day has been reduced to a minority concern, and that the cumulative social stature of those visiting concert halls and listening to classical music in private has itself changed, in recent generations, from one of cultural leadership to a quasi-defensive posture. Perhaps the most reliable method of checking the prominence of a composer and his or her work comes from compiling lists of performances 132

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of his or her music by socially visible performers (orchestras, solo performers and chamber musicians), reading public comments on them, and especially following discussions among academics and decisions by those responsible for presenting specific works by specific composers. This method of assessment closely follows core aspects of the theory of cultural prominence developed by Nathanael J. Fast, Chip Heath and George Wu of Stanford University and the University of Chicago. They describe cultural prominence as the ‘quality of being discussed and esteemed in a given culture’ (Fast et al. 2009: 904). It involves communication between knowledgeable people, whose opinions then disperse into wider society, thereby influencing the opinions of the public at large. The dissemination of opinion may be better understood with the help of ‘power distance’ dimensions, as formulated by Geert Hofstede (Hofstede 1983). Hofstede states that ‘people in societies exhibiting a large degree of power distance accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification’. Using Hofstede’s concepts, I would paraphrase him claiming that in Israel’s case the more accurate description would be ‘people grudgingly accept that it is not in their power to affect decisions by their superiors’ (the topic of power distance in Israel can be found at: http://geert-hofstede.com/israel.html; http://geert-hofstede.com/dimensions.html). This acceptance of the powerful superiority of entities in authority leads to acceptance that the judgement of those entities is, for all practical purposes, determinative. This is certainly the case in matters of musical assessment, where the field is presided over by professionally insular and socially elevated organizations such as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, which are largely supported by international networks to which the ordinary people of Israel have no access. These considerations should certainly be taken into account in any discussion of Bloch’s reception in Israel. In recent years, there has been a marked upsurge in performances of Bloch’s music in Israel, and there has been a significant increase in respect for his creative works among musical commentators. Bloch’s music and personality have also entered into Israeli academic discourse. Thus, in many musically aware circles in Israel, Bloch now enjoys the status of one of the greatest twentieth-century composers and a significant contributor to Hebraic artistic identity, two aspects perceived as complementing and enhancing each other. The increasing prominence of Bloch and his music in Israeli musical and intellectual circles will be discussed in a later section of this chapter. It coincided with the general growth of serious attention to concert music with a Jewish, Israeli or Hebraic cultural flair, and included the publication

134 Zecharia Plavin of promotional pre-performing information, actual performances, occasional reviews and academic discussions in written papers and in classrooms. The burgeoning academic discourse on Bloch and on music with Jewish–Israeli–Hebraic themes created a background climate which enabled a more serious attitude to be taken to his music in the concert hall as well. But this development only partially explains the phenomenon of Bloch’s growing prominence in Israel. A more profound analysis of this development emerges from an overview of data from performances, public comments and personal interviews collected for the present study. Israel’s history between 1954 and 2013 may be roughly divided into the following periods: • 1954–67. During this period of early international legitimacy and internal cultural self-definition, the small number of performances of Bloch’s music, especially by the Israel Philharmonic and Jerusalem Symphony orchestras, along with some thoughtful programme notes, succeeded in shaping the overall cultural importance of Bloch (usually negative) to Israeli culture. • 1967–74. In this period, which began with a short, effective war and ended with a dark and bloody one, Israel gained a new romantic prominence among the world’s Jews. As a result, practically everything Hebraic and/or biblical became linked to the centrality of what was perceived as a renewed Israel. • 1974–82. As the national mood declined and populism and lower culture gained predominance, while Israel’s international standing improved slightly in the wake of the first Peace Accords, the musical public developed a growing passive acceptance of foreign imports. • 1982–92. Against the background of continuing war in Lebanon and growing populist hegemony, with resultant low morale and stagnation, the general musical public practically lost its role within the nucleus of Israeli culture. • 1992–2000. A second generation of native Israelis, educated and socialized abroad, returned to work in Israel. The country enjoyed a brief period of high international standing and paid a last flourish of public attention to the elder composers and their works. A social bifurcation of musical generations began: elders against Bloch, younger musicians with slight pro-Bloch leanings. Many highly professional musicians from the former Soviet Union – with either a Judaic-religious or, conversely, a totally proSoviet cultural orientation – immigrated to Israel, transforming its veteran musicians into a near minority. • 2000–13. This period saw some deterioration of Israel’s political vista and inner cultural investment, along with increasing prominence for people with foreign connections.

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I will now survey performances of Bloch’s compositions against this background, focusing on the archives of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and the chamber music series of Kol HaMuzika (‘Voice of Music’), the classical music station of Israel Radio. I am deeply indebted to Hayuta Dvir, the eminent music organizer, producer and radio editor, for providing me with crucial information on Israel Radio classical music performances, many of which were recorded in Jerusalem. Let us first look at performances by the Israel Philharmonic. Until the early 1960s, Bloch’s works were presented as music by a contemporary composer with a distinct Jewish cultural orientation. These presentations conveniently fell into two categories: ‘new’ (in the sense of contemporary) and ‘Jewish’. This categorization is clearly evidenced by the space allotted to his music within the overall programme of an evening’s concert, and becomes even clearer when considered in the context of the entire annual season (an aspect of concert-scheduling dictated by the character of the Tel Aviv audience, which consisted almost entirely of annual subscribers). In this category, Bloch stood close to Joseph Kaminsky, Igor Stravinsky, Paul Ben-Haim, Hanoch Jacobi, Béla Bartók and Dmitri Shostakovich. The following Bloch works were performed by the IPO between the years 1954 and 1976.1 Dates

Compositions

Performers

February 1954

Concerto Symphonique

April 1960

Schelomo

October 1962

Suite for Viola (1919)

1969 (recording)

Voice in the Wilderness

April 1976

Violin Concerto

Pnina Salzman (piano), Walter Susskind (conductor) Pierre Fournier (cello), Jean Martinon (conductor) William Primrose (viola), Vladimir Golschmann (conductor) Janos Starker (cello), Zubin Mehta (conductor) Haim Taub (violin), Zubin Mehta (conductor)

In its release of twelve CDs on the occasion of its 70th anniversary (1936–2006), the IPO included works by only two composers of JewishHebraic cultural expression: Ernest Bloch and Paul Ben-Haim. The rest was devoted to the Viennese classics, the Romantics and a few early twentiethcentury modern masters. 1 I am deeply indebted to Liz Fisher and Avivit Hofstadter of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra archives for supplying me with all

the relevant information on Bloch’s IPO performances.

136 Zecharia Plavin The inclusion of Bloch (the Schelomo recording with Starker) is doubly intriguing, given that the IPO actually performed Bloch’s music extremely infrequently. IPO programme notes contain much material that shows the attitude to various compositions which the senior members of the orchestra wished to convey to their listeners. For many years, Uri Toeplitz, the first flautist of the orchestra and member of its management, wrote such texts. His early note (1954) on Bloch presents the composer in the following way: ‘Ernest Bloch, one of the leading composers of our times, has from his early days publicly declared himself to be a “Jewish composer”, who strives to express the greatest and best that has been produced by the Jewish people’ (Toeplitz 1954). This gives the reader a double message: first, Bloch is undeniably one of the greatest living composers; and second, his ambition to express the best of Jewish culture is his own wish, not necessarily shared by other people of Jewish origin. Bloch’s Jewish aspect was even more sharply emphasized in Toeplitz’s later texts: The death in 1959 of Ernest Bloch did not raise any particular attention, though in the past he was counted among the greatest. As a son of a Swiss clock-trader, he was encouraged to pursue a musical career by Romain Rolland . . . In his second creative period, he felt a huge power rising in his soul – the power of his Judaism. That power found its extraordinary expression in his musical compositions that could be surely called prophetic . . . The majority of these compositions have been performed by our orchestra, and our listeners know that Bloch did not use Jewish folklore in his compositions. One can suggest that Idelsohn did not understand Bloch when he wrote that Bloch’s Judaism was (merely) a combination of augmented intervals and bleak melancholy, and that the most one could attribute to Bloch was a certain amount of Orientalism. (Toeplitz 1960)

Toeplitz continues: ‘In fact, a more justified characterization belongs to Alfred Einstein, who said that Bloch tried to build the spirit of the people out of himself.’ He concludes: Bloch was unique among the great composers of our time. He remained nonmodern, Romantic and rhapsodic, prone to emotional extremes that even at its most radical reached only as far as polytonality. Though an outstanding teacher of many composers, he did not shape any school. In Israel too, Bloch did not manage to serve as an artistic example. He remained somehow a stranger to us. One can only be sorry that Bloch never visited us. When Stravinsky recently visited us, it was made clear how important are personal contacts with greatest living composers. It seems that during the last period of his life Bloch distanced himself from us, from his people. Bloch always saw himself as a ‘Jewish composer’ aspiring to express the best and the most elevated that is rooted among the Jews as a nation . . . Perhaps his

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rhapsodic-ecstatic language which to Bloch seemed to be so essentially Jewish, is to this country of taken-for-granted Jewish daily life a somewhat unfamiliar idiom? (Toeplitz 1960)

Toeplitz’s impression reflects opinions expressed by David Rozolio, Israel’s third Civil Service Commissioner (1954–9) and a senior music critic on the Haaretz daily: Indeed, we at least had the honour to hear a work of considerable scope, by a composer who is Jewish – although not Israeli, and one gains the impression that he is deliberately and emphatically not Israeli – in the regular Subscription Concert No. 5. In other words, the work will not just be performed once and vanish away; it will be heard in the three major cities and in several smaller cities, about 15 times in all. Ernest Bloch’s Concerto Symphonique is a long work, about 40 minutes in the playing; it was written for piano and orchestra, but it is not a solo concerto for piano, with the orchestra accompanying it; the two ‘instruments’ combine into a single unit, more complementing than contrasting with each other . . . The musical content of that first movement fully discloses the character of Ernest Bloch himself: heaviness, measured steps, pathos – that pathos of Bloch’s, which rises up and spills over, without even a moment’s respite. Did Bloch never take the simple way? Did he never use uncomplicated, comprehensible musical expressions which speak directly from one heart to another? Why does he have to dress every sound, every measure, every phrase, in Atlas’ mantle, shining, painted with the heavy golden colours of a High Priest? And after all, this pathos which characterizes the entire work, even the faster and lighter movements which follow the first movement, is borrowed from the nineteenth-century concepts of sounds and perception of music: in this Concerto Symphonique, we hear – in succession and in combination – Liszt, Tchaikovsky, César Franck, Arnold Schoenberg. But we can also recognize traces of Bartók, and a bit of Prokofiev (the pulsing rhythm of the second movement). This heavy, dark Romanticism is the background for Bloch’s musical world . . . except that, in his compositions, it becomes less melodic, more dynamic – a dynamism reflected both in alternating rhythms and speeds, and in contrasts between high and low notes, thundering and whispering tones – Bloch’s work, in short, devotes considerable space to moodiness. In his Concerto Symphonique, the Jewish element is less evident than in his other works, where it is prominent and at times even dominant. Only ever so lightly, here and there, does a melody grow which gives a clear indication of its ethnic origin in the sonic world of Diaspora Jewry. (Haaretz, 19 February 1954)2

2 The statistical data appearing in this chapter provide a clear opportunity to compare the standing of classical music in Israel in 1954, when the population of Israel was hardly more than a million inhabitants, with the situation nowadays, when the population is almost seven times larger. In those days, each IPO subscription series concert was repeated fifteen times, with

performances in five or six cities. Nowadays, each subscription series comprises eight or nine performances, which take place in only the three main cities – Tel Aviv (the majority of concerts), and in Jerusalem and Haifa (one performance in each city). In many cases, a series is divided into two groups, and each programme may receive only three or four performances.

138 Zecharia Plavin In December 1960, David Rozolio took part in the Third Convention of Jewish Religious Music in Jerusalem and gave a lecture on Bloch’s artistic work. In that lecture, he expanded on his views on Bloch: [Bloch] quotes [from the books of] Job and Ecclesiastes and from the Song of Songs. In such a situation, Bloch could not but write Jewish music. This is true notwithstanding the fact that he studied [only] the basics of ancient music; nor is it because his attitude towards the non-original sources of Jewish music in the synagogue, to the best of our knowledge, was all wrong, because it remained on the surface without penetrating the depths . . . He wrote, I think, a large number of musical works of merit and weight which are more important than those on Jewish topics . . . Even those [non-Jewish compositions] encompass a prominent Jewish element. Not only could he not ignore the Jewish element – an element which Mendelssohn ignored and Mahler did not want to know about – [the Jewish element] even infiltrates Bloch’s general works. And I do not want to discuss, in this context, the controversial issue of the absolute artistic value of Bloch’s music. Moreover, I confess to you that I am not one of the greatest and most ardent fans of Bloch’s music, nor of its artistic value. (Rozolio 1961: 8)

A slightly milder, but still essentially similar opinion was expressed at about the same time by Maariv’s Olya Zilbermann: We enjoyed, but only to a certain degree – with the discreet and proper support of the orchestra – the central work of the evening, Bloch’s Suite for Viola (written in 1918–1919), in a premiere performance by the renowned English violist William Primrose. This suite, in my opinion, is not one of the better works of the JewishSwiss-American composer Ernest Bloch (1880–1959). However, as there is comparatively little original concertante literature for viola – a stringed instrument whose tone colour is halfway between a violin and a cello – it nonetheless enriches the repertoire available to violists. We have already heard this work in Israel, in a version for viola and piano, in an excellent performance by O. Partos, an Israeli, which was no less good than that of Primrose. Bloch is a Jewish national composer – although he did not write works with Jewish content in all periods of his life – and should have been as popular in Israel as Britten and Elgar are in England. Nonetheless, it seems that, as we are currently striving to create ‘original Israeli’ music, Bloch’s ostensibly ‘Diaspora’ music is not in fashion here. We have no doubt that this perception will change over the years. Even if the suite is not on the list of Bloch’s Jewish works, one can still feel in it, in its melodic pathos, the improvisational element of cantorial prayer, accompanied by the ambience of French Impressionism in harmony and orchestration – as well as a rather European-sounding, banal imitation of the music of the Far East (China, Japan). Indeed, all these were heard in this concert, in a rhapsodic, overly free form, with no close, organic bond between the various elements. Primrose interpreted Bloch with a profound, though rather chilly, musical perception, at the highest instrumental level, and was judged to be a great success by the audience. The orchestra made its best efforts to shine tonight, but the result did not really sound good. (Zilbermann 1962: 9)

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Finally, here are words written by Zmira Lutzki in 1976, regarding the Violin Concerto: Bloch’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra opens with a severe fanfare, introducing within parallel melodic lines a stubborn rhythmic motif that is the ‘moving basis’ of the whole work . . . Section after section the concerto unfolds to our ears, vacillating between dramatic orchestral declarations and quasi-improvisatory violinistic arabesques. Towards the end its severe atmosphere clears up a little and the tense musical texture relaxes and acquires a more optimistic aspect . . . The concerto was written in the thirties, in the period in which Bloch also completed his monumental Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service), and it will not be erroneous to assume that there are meeting-points between the inspirational sources of the two works. Although the melodic motto of the concerto was described by Bloch himself as ‘American-Indian,’ one is persistently reminded, upon listening to it, of Jewish ‘soul music’ from Eastern Europe and old liturgies . . . Bloch was the teacher of important American composers, and though his style was most personal and consistent in all his works, he never identified himself with any musical school, nor founded one . . . ‘If listeners were not moved by what they heard,’ he insisted, ‘the music was without value.’ (Lutzki 1976)

The few IPO performances of Bloch’s symphonic compositions, together with several special presentations of Avodath Hakodesh during the early 1960s, including that performed at the Israel Festival, appear to be the events most responsible for shaping Bloch’s reputation in Israel. A completely different picture appears when one looks at the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra performances and later chamber music concerts for Israel Radio. Here the range and the frequency of the performances are on an incomparably larger scale. Hayuta Dvir has provided the following list of Bloch’s performances/ recordings by the JSO. Dates

Compositions

Performers

1957 Before 1968 1969 1980

Baal Shem Suite Concerto Grosso No. 1 Suite Hébraïque Avodath Hakodesh

1983 1984 1988

Four Episodes Baal Shem Avodath Hakodesh

1990 1995 1999 2002

Concerto Grosso No. 1 Schelomo Schelomo Baal Shem

Nathan Mishori (violin), George Singer (conductor) Frank Peleg (piano), Mendi Rodan (conductor) Arie Israeli (viola), Mendi Rodan (conductor) Peter Savidge (baritone), Tel Aviv Philharmonic Choir, Uri Segal (conductor) Nahum Seidel (conductor) Anna Rasnovsky (violin), Lior Shambadal (conductor) Richard Cohn (baritone), Rinat Choir, Stanley Sperber (conductor) Bruce Levy (piano), Moti Shmit (conductor) Steven Isserlis (cello), David Shallon (conductor) Irit Asayas (cello), Eli Jaffe (conductor) Evgenia Pikovsky (violin), Gábor Hollerung (conductor)

140 Zecharia Plavin Below are undated JSO Bloch performances in approximate chronological order.

Composition

Performers

Remarks

Suite Hébraïque

N. Pintchuk (viola), George Singer (conductor)

George Singer (1906–80): most active collaboration with the Jerusalem SO in 1956–63

Concerto Grosso No. 2 Avodath Hakodesh

George Singer (conductor)

Avodath Hakodesh

Yehoshua Zohar (baritone), Kol Israel Choir, Avraham Kaplan (conductor) Nahum Shoffman (piano), Mendi Rodan (conductor) Rivka Golani (viola), Mendi Rodan (conductor) Raphael Sommer (cello), Lukas Foss (conductor) Misha Maisky (cello), Uri Segal (conductor) Hanoch Tel-Oren (flute), Alan Tchaikov (clarinet), Mendi Rodan (conductor) Misha Maisky (cello), Mendi Rodan (conductor) Ken Shifrin (trombone), Eli Jaffe (conductor)

Concerto Grosso No. 1 Suite for Viola (1919) Schelomo Schelomo Concertino for Flute, Clarinet and Orchestra Schelomo Symphony for Trombone and Orchestra (1954) Schelomo

Violin Concerto Avodath Hakodesh

Avodath Hakodesh

Yehoshua Zohar (baritone), Kol-Zion laGola Choir, Be’erot Yitzhak Choir, Karel Salmon [Karl Salomon] (conductor)

Raphael Sommer (cello), Lukas Foss (conductor)

Zvi Zeitlin (violin), Leif Segestram (conductor) Barry Jerome (baritone), Jerusalem Rubin Academy Choir, Stanley Sperber (conductor) Guenther Reich (baritone), Dan Kanner (narrator), Tritonus Choir, Gary Bertini (conductor)

Karl Salomon (1897–1974) in 1938 founded the Jerusalem SO, was its director until 1948 and conducted until retirement in 1962 Avraham Kaplan’s last conducting season in Israel was in the years 1958–9 Nahum Shoffman (b. 1930), was active as pianist until 1970

Mendi Rodan (1929–2009): in the years 1963–72 was JSO principal conductor and artistic director

Ken Shifrin served as Jerusalem SO principal trombonist until 1982 Lukas Foss (1922–2009) in the years 1972–6 was JSO principal conductor and artistic director

Stanley Sperber immigrated to Israel in 1972 Gary Bertini (1927–2005) was Jerusalem SO artistic director and principal conductor in the years 1978–87

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Bloch’s Reception and His Standing in Israel since 1954

Anyone comparing the meagre performance data from Tel Aviv and the IPO with the rich statistic from Jerusalem could easily conclude that the main cultural energy around Bloch’s reception in Israel should be sought for in Jerusalem and its cultural establishment. My own best judgement, however, using different sources of information, drives me to the opposite conclusion. It is corroborated by the experience of Arik Shapira, one of the most modern, audacious and protest-minded composers of the present generation in Israel. Shapira, who was born in 1943 in Kibbutz Afikim, moved to Tel Aviv at the age of four and studied at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. He writes in his memoir that, from his early youth, he clearly perceived Bloch’s way of representing Hebraic Judaism as unacceptable (Shapira 2007).3 From its early days, the main Israeli press was not local or confined to a certain city, but was national. For many years, musical reviews were typically published in several Hebrew-language newspapers and the Jerusalem Post (Israel’s only English-language daily which, prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, was known as the Palestine Post). The main classical music commentators in all the Israeli press lived and socialized in Tel Aviv and shared common attitudes towards music, Zionism and the State of Israel. It was mainly in Tel Aviv – the new, thoroughly modern and somewhat iconoclastic city founded in 1909 – that the typical attitude towards the new, ‘enlightened’ Israeli identity was shaped; consequently, the discourse of Tel Aviv commentators was principally responsible for forming Israel’s opinion of Bloch and his works. That is why Dalia Atlas’s international activity around Bloch, the Israeli part of which was mainly concentrated in Haifa, could not significantly influence the general attitude towards Bloch in Israel until recently. The presence of an internationally renowned philharmonic orchestra, with its world-class soloists and conductors frequently appearing and even living, for short periods of time, in Tel Aviv, made the city a stimulating venue for musical culture. It was here that the encounter between modern Hebrew-speaking musicians and the Western musical world took place. And it took clearly hierarchical lines: the locals, however educated, clearly felt themselves to be what Hillel Halkin has recently described as participating in a ‘plebeian fulfillment of the national dream’ (Halkin 2007), looking with deep scepticism at the hypocrisy of the Western world. Whereas the bannerholders of general Western culture in music were permitted an elevated posture, this posture was vehemently denied to composers of Jewish or Hebraic orientation; the locals, with their true down-to-earth realism, would 3

Arik Shapira writes about his participation as a chorister in Bloch’s Sacred Service

performances at the Israel Festival in 1964. See also Fleisher 1997.

142 Zecharia Plavin not bear any appeal ‘from above’ to the topics they saw as a domain of their own ultimate spiritual expertise. These attitudes were formed in the early 1950s and persisted well into the 1990s, when those who voiced them began to die out. They were characteristically expressed in a review by the Israeli composer Benjamin Bar-Am of my performance in 1991 of Bloch’s Piano Sonata: ‘Bloch’s post-romantic sonata constitutes a constant but futile effort to achieve significance. The 20or-so minutes of this music seem painfully wasted’ (Bar-Am 1991: 7). Of the several dozen mentions of Bloch’s name in Israeli newspapers in this period, only a handful consisted of more than a passing reference. Here are some of the more extended references. In a promotional article for upcoming cultural events, Evelyn Abel wrote the following in the Jerusalem Post: Reception . . . is the subject of a new play at the Khan Theater . . . One for whom absorption failed was Joseph Achron, the Russian-born composer and violinist, who tried aliya (immigration to Israel) in 1924. A year later he was in New York, and 10 years later in Hollywood. Achron shares billing on the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra’s Jewish and Cantorial Music programme with Paul Ben-Haim, for whom absorption worked. Ben-Haim arrived in 1933 from Germany and, after the establishment of the State, was president of Israel’s Composers’ Association, director of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and winner of the 1957 Israel Prize. Also billed is Ernest Bloch, for whom the land of the Bible was never an issue, although the spirit of the Bible was. ‘It is the Hebrew spirit that interests me,’ he said, ‘the complex, ardent, agitated soul that vibrates for me in the Bible . . . This is what I seek to feel within me and to translate in my music – the sacred race-emotion that lies dormant in our souls.’ For all that, however, he was inspired by Hasidic sources as well. His Baal Shem, subtitled ‘Three Pictures of Chassidic Life,’ consists of three movements: Vidui (Contrition), Nigun (Improvisation) and Simchas Torah (Rejoicing). The suite was first composed for violin and piano in 1923, seven years after the Geneva-born composer had immigrated to the U.S. The orchestral version followed 16 years later. It, as well as his Concerto Grosso No. 1 (piano obbligato), can be heard at 8 p.m. Monday at the Jerusalem Theatre, as part of the orchestra’s traditional holiday concert. Rounding out the program are Achron’s Hebrew Melody for Violin and Orchestra, Ben-Haim’s Psalms and cantorial pieces orchestrated by Jerusalemite Eli Jaffe. Conducted by Jaffe, the concert features Naftali Herstik (cantor), Motti Shmit (violin) and Bruce Levy (piano). Tickets are NIS 40 and NIS 45. (Abel 1990)

Significantly different, but much shorter, was Moshe Saperstein’s reference in the Jerusalem Post (Moshe Saperstein came to live in Israel from New York): Conductor Eli Jaffe will lead the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in Ernest Bloch’s Baal Shem Suite for violin and orchestra, with JSO concertmaster Motti Shmit as

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soloist. Shmit is also a soloist in Joseph Achron’s Jewish Melody for violin and orchestra, and Bruce Levy is a piano soloist in Bloch’s wonderful Concerto Grosso No. 1, one of this listener’s favorite works. (Saperstein 1990)

Finally, here is a comment by Haggai Hittron, a veteran cultural and musical commentator for the Haaretz newspaper (my translation): Personally, I dislike Bloch’s Schelomo, but I have to admit that this piece may serve as a good vehicle to exhibit cellist Hillel Tzori’s refined personality traits. (Hittron 2006)

The early 1990s saw a drastic curtailment of the national Hebrew press, concurrently with the major cutback in classical music reviewing in the surviving three Hebrew newspapers. At around the same time, a huge wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union started to arrive. The new Russian-speaking society, many of whose members were professional musicians, quickly developed its own Russian-language newspaper network, with its own cultural agenda only remotely touching on veteran Israeli cultural topics. A few years later, the emergence of the internet made it possible to maintain virtual global communication, mainly in English and – for Israel’s Russophones and others worldwide – in Russian. By contrast, Hebrew musical culture and its artistic acts remained deeply vulnerable. For a while, the high international political standing of the short-lived Ehud Barak government provided some support to the veteran musical establishment. This situation changed drastically after the new cycle of bloodshed began towards the end of 2000. The political and security deterioration led to growing isolation and curtailment of public investments in culture and music. These developments gave rise to unexpected changes in Bloch’s stature among the musically interested and academic public in Israel. The best way to assess this change would be by surveying Bloch’s non-symphonic performances of the ‘Etnakhta’ series, transmitted nationwide by Israel Radio’s classical music station, Kol Ha-Muzika (data provided by Hayuta Dvir, veteran artistic director of Etnakhta): Etnakhta Series 1988–2013 Dates

Compositions

Performers

December 1988

Viola Suite (1919)

November 1989 March 1991

Piano Sonata (1935) Three Nocturnes Suite for Violoncello solo (1956) Concerto Grosso No. 2 String Quartet No. 1, arranged for string orchestra by Dalia Atlas

Daniela Binyamini (viola), Milka Laks (piano) Allan Sternfield Irit Rob (piano), Ora Shiran (violin) Shmuel Magen (cello) Atlas Camerata Orchestra, Dalia Atlas (conductor)

November 1997

144 Zecharia Plavin (cont.) Dates

Compositions

Performers

January 1998

Raz Cohen (cello), Arnon Erez (piano)

March 1998

Nigun Suite ‘From Jewish Life’ Méditation Hébraïque Suite Modale

May 1998

Baal Shem

December 2002 December 2002

Viola Suite (1919) Suite Hébraïque (1951)

January 2004

Suite ‘From Jewish Life’

March 2004

Abodah Baal Shem Melody Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano Nuit Exotique Sonata No. 2 (Poème Mystique) Nigun

January 2006 April 2008 May 2008 July 2010

Nigun (arranged for mandolin and piano) Avodath Hakodesh Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2, Poème Mystique

Avigail Dolan (flute), David Dolan (piano) Haggai Shaham (violin), Arnon Erez (piano) Atar Arad (viola), Irit Rob (piano) Rivka Golani (viola), Arnon Erez (piano) Inbal Segev (cello), Shlomi Shem-Tov (piano) Haggai Shaham (violin), Arnon Erez (piano)

Semion Gavrikov (violin) Yulia Gurievitch (piano) Avi Avital (mandolin), Zvi Semmel (piano) Jerusalem Academy Choir, Stanley Sperber (conductor) Raimondas Butvila (violin), Zecharia Plavin (piano)

The obvious upsurge in performances of Bloch’s chamber works broadcast throughout Israel at and after the turn of the millennium does not seem accidental: Hayuta Dvir promoted each composition with a deeply researched corresponding discussion from the concert podium, thus fostering ever-growing nationwide understanding of Bloch’s music. This process coincided with rising attention to Bloch’s work in academic circles. The 15th World Congress of Jewish Studies at Hebrew University (2–6 August 2009) held day-long sessions and concerts devoted to Bloch’s music (the First Piano Quintet was performed by pianist Vag Papian with members of the Carmel String Quartet at the festive evening concert; Raimondas Butvila and I performed both of Bloch’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano at the inter-session concert). Several local dissertations on Jewish-Hebraic musical thought followed my own research on Bloch

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Bloch’s Reception and His Standing in Israel since 1954

(Plavin 1998). My monodrama, The Return of Ernest Bloch, for actor and musicians, was presented twice – in 1996 and 2010 – in the Wise Auditorium at Hebrew University, the second time with Emmanuel Halperin in the role of Bloch, and violinist Raimondas Butvila and myself playing Bloch’s music. In 1997, Hayuta Dvir hosted the Atlas-Camerata, resident at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Dalia Atlas, its founding artistic director, conducted an all-Bloch programme, aired nationwide from the Henry Crown Symphony Hall in Jerusalem. This concert brought Atlas’s long-standing promotion of Bloch’s composition to the attention of the majority of Israel’s classical music listeners. At about the same time, Dalia Atlas was successful in organizing an all-Bloch programme at the Haifa Municipality Hall, in the presence of Haifa’s mayor, Amram Mitzna; Haifa is also the only city in Israel which has named a street for Ernest Bloch.4 In 2001, Dalia Atlas organized a Bloch Festival at the Technion. The works performed included music from Bloch’s opera Macbeth (with chorus and vocal soloists), both Concerti Grossi, Suite Hébraïque (with Haggai Shaham), and the Viola Suite of 1919 (with Yuri Gandelsman). The critical mass of Bloch performances in Israel was reached in the first years of the new millennium, with a major boost by new Bloch performances by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra:

Date

Composition

Performers

December 2002 October 2007 November 2007

Schelomo Schelomo Suite for Viola (1919)

March 2008 July 2008

Schelomo Avodath Hakodesh

July 2012

Avodath Hakodesh

Lynn Harrell (cello), David Robertson (conductor) Steven Isserlis (cello), Zubin Mehta (conductor) Tabea Zimmermann (viola), Steven Sloane (conductor) Misha Maisky (cello), Kazushi Ono (conductor) Thomas Hampson (baritone), Raphael Frieder (narrator), Zubin Mehta (conductor) Thomas Hampson (baritone), Carl Hieger (narrator), Zubin Mehta (conductor)

This increase in Bloch activity did not bring about any perceptible change in the attitude shown towards Bloch in the ever-diminishing space for musical review within the shrinking Hebrew-language daily press in Israel. In April 2009, Haggai Hittron, describing the CD, recorded and issued by 4

www.ernestbloch.org/home.cfm?dir_cat= 82471

146 Zecharia Plavin Helicon Classics, of the IPO 2008 Jerusalem Congress Center live performance of Avodath Hakodesh with Thomas Hampson, Raphael Frieder and the Collegiate Chorale under Zubin Mehta, wrote: In July 2008, the country hosted a large-scale choir from New York, ‘Collegiate Chorale’, that joined the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in its liturgical program: Cantata No. 140 by Bach (Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme) and Avodath Hakodesh by Ernest Bloch. The concert was recorded and has now been issued as a CD produced by Helicon. The recording quality is acceptable from the standpoint of the soloists and the orchestra, but the choir (fine) goes a bit mushy. Four soloists appeared at the event, led by Thomas Hampson, the greatest of our generation of Britons, who starred in Bloch’s creation and whose voice filled the hall. Linking Bloch to Bach seems to me somewhat disproportionate, excessive homage paid to a Jewish liturgical composition for being sung in Hebrew. (Hittron 2009)

An even harsher attitude can be found in a CD review by Omer Shomrony, a music reviewer for the Israeli periodical Globes Israel Business Arena and a lecturer at the Mehta-Buchman Music School (the former S. Rubin Academy of Music) of Tel Aviv University: Hyperion is a British label, considered superior even to ASV, which records some of the greatest musicians alive today. The company excels in restrained and balanced recording quality, and usually focuses on exquisite and unusual repertoire. Haggai Shaham and Arnon Erez – both Israelis for all intents and purposes, who even live in this country – record there on an ongoing basis. Their fourth joint CD, this one of Jewish-related music, has now come out. The CD contains four works by Ernest Bloch: the Baal Shem suite, the Suite Hébraïque, and two suites for solo violin. It also contains works by Paul Ben-Haim (who died in 1984), including his Sonata for Solo Violin. Unfortunately, I can hardly recommend this CD. Although it contains excellent performances and its recording is exemplary, the music is of the kind that makes a hole in the head. In part it is whiny, really Eastern European Jewish hardcore. Another part is just irksome. Especially difficult to digest are the suites for solo violin, featuring music which is really not pleasant to hear. Kudos to Shaham and Erez on their recording under the prestigious Hyperion label, but the CD is designed for lovers of this particular genre and for them alone. (Shomrony nd)

In the last decade, however, these and some similar views5 have been too few and far between to outbalance the ever-growing respect for Bloch’s music, realized through serious and prestigious performance and academic debate. Further attention and appreciation have been shown for Bloch’s music in academic courses specifically devoted to his work at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. 5

See the right-wing weekly Internet blog Khadashot Ben-Ezer [Ben-Ezer News; Hebrew]: http://library.osu.edu/projects/ hebrew-lexicon/hbe/hbe00361.php. Ehud

Ben-Ezer signs his musical reviews with the pseudonym ‘S. Nidakh’ (Hebrew for ‘obscure writer’).

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Several Israeli musicians with long-standing careers, who hold Bloch in the highest artistic esteem, have matured into influential cultural personalities and now have the ability to shape Israeli cultural climate far better than in their younger years. Their views, albeit expressed privately for this chapter, are reflected in their increasingly prominent musical and pedagogical activities. Here are some of them, in descending order of the interviewees’ ages: Dr. Nahum Shoffman (retired professor of culture, Ben Gurion University): Yes, I played the piano in Bloch’s Concerto Grosso with Mendi Rodan . . . My opinion is that there is really nothing specifically Jewish about his music. I think it is beautiful, but not because of Jewish patriotism. He obviously thought he was composing something Jewish, and if that helped him to focus, who cares? I am reminded of a quotation attributed to Virgil Thomson: ‘The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish.’

Professor Stanley Sperber (orchestral conductor, Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance; former artistic director, Haifa Symphony Orchestra): In Israel I have performed his Sacred Service, his Baal Shem Suite, his Schelomo and his Concerto Grosso No. 1. However, my introduction to Bloch came much earlier. In my student days at the Juilliard School of Music, I sang in the Juilliard chorus under the Israeli-American conductor Abraham Kaplan in a performance of Bloch’s Sacred Service and even had the opportunity to meet and discuss the work with Bloch’s daughter, Suzanne, who was on the Juilliard faculty. She described to me that after deciding to set the Jewish Service according to the Union Prayer Book, Bloch retreated to a cottage in Switzerland where he taught himself Hebrew, an act which he saw as absolutely necessary before beginning this monumental work in the Hebrew language. A couple of years later I had the opportunity of conducting this work with my Zamir Chorale of New York, together with Cantor Ben Belfer. Although I readily identified with the text of the work, given my traditional Jewish upbringing, I did not, musically speaking, relate to the Sacred Service as ‘Jewish Music,’ since Bloch’s writing is far more in the Western European tradition than in any ethnic Jewish musical mode. I always saw this piece as a masterpiece of twentieth century choral/ orchestral music rather than a parochial work meant chiefly for the synagogue. This is very much in the same way that Schelomo, although having biblical roots, is to be considered a work of genius which deserves a most honorable slot in the cello concerto literature. In this vein of thought concerning the universality of Bloch’s music I am reminded of an amusing anecdote which occurred during a concert tour that I conducted with the National Choir of Israel – Rinat. We performed one of our concerts in a church in Ottobeuren (Germany) as part of a festival of Christian/Jewish Brotherhood. In this concert, one of the pieces I conducted was Bruckner’s incredibly beautiful motet, Ave Maria. After we sat down in the church for the continuation of the concert, I saw the Cardinal summon one of the priests

148 Zecharia Plavin and whisper something in his ear while pointing in my direction. The priest tiptoed off the stage and came over to me and told me that the Cardinal would like to speak with me after the concert. I agreed and went backstage afterwards for the meeting. The Cardinal turned to me and said how astonished he was at the fact that a Jewish choir with a Jewish conductor could perform the Ave Maria so convincingly and asked me if I could explain this to him. I thanked him for the compliment and told him that, since I was Jewish, I would answer his question with a question of my own. I told him that, two months earlier, I had performed Bloch’s Sacred Service in Israel, and my soloist was the great Welsh bass-baritone, Benjamin Luxon, who was a Christian. Following the performance, members of the public had come over to me and marvelled over the fact that Mr. Luxon sang the work with so much devotion despite the fact that he was not Jewish. So I asked the Cardinal what he thought the explanation for this phenomenon was. The Cardinal thought for a moment and said to me: ‘You mean to say that both of these are examples of the universality of great artistic expression?’ I said to him: ‘Exactly so, Father,’ and he replied: ‘Thank you, my son.’ I do not see myself in a position to judge Bloch’s music and compare him to his contemporaries. What I would say is that I was inspired by music that he wrote to such an extent that I wouldn’t hesitate to describe him as an important contributor to twentieth century music. I would most definitely reject placing him in a niche of ethnic Jewish composers whose works are of interest only to Jewish listeners. I would venture to say that his finest works – such as Schelomo, the Concerto Grosso, the Sacred Service and a few others – will pass the test of time and will remain of interest to generations of music lovers in the future.

Doron Salomon (orchestral conductor and former artistic director of the Beersheva Sinfonietta chamber orchestra): I frequently conduct Bloch’s works abroad, mainly the Concerto Grosso No.1 and Avodath Hakodesh. In Israel, I conducted the Baal Shem suite with violinist Haggai Shaham and the Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra in 1998, and Schelomo with cellist Zvi Plesser and the Haifa Symphony Orchestra in 2009. I always knew these to be quality works, but I have only recently overcome my Israeli repulsion towards the JewishHasidic background of his compositions (which I think is common to many Israeli musicians of my generation) and have learned to appreciate his work as universal music, stemming from a background that is common to me as well. Incidentally, I experienced a similar process with the works of Leonard Bernstein (especially the Jeremiah Symphony and the Kaddish). It is important to emphasize that the above does not refer to Schelomo and Concerto Grosso No. 1 (the two Bloch works which are most frequently played!). I have always loved those works and have never had any problem with their cultural identification. Over the years, as familiarity with the material becomes more profound, the eternal journey towards the ‘truth’ by means of musical language becomes more and more important and significant.

Dr Ron Weidberg (composer, head of the School of Music, Levinsky College of Education): I teach a course on Beethoven’s sonatas, and I do not mention the name of Bloch. In my early days as a composer, I was only interested in atonal music; nowadays,

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Bloch’s Reception and His Standing in Israel since 1954

however, I regard works like Schelomo, the Concerto Grosso [No. 1] and the Violin Concerto as great and beautiful pieces. There can be no doubt that Bloch is a universal artist and not just a Jewish [composer]. In this aspect, he is similar to the great composers of National Romanticism. In terms of identification with the national consciousness, the works of Bloch and their nature or purpose do not concern me. The problem of the infrequency of performances of Bloch’s works [in Israel] is not because he was a Jew, or less valued than others. The Classical repertoire in the country is strongly centred on the German-Viennese repertoire, and it is difficult for other music to be heard properly in this framework.

Professor Michael Wolpe (composer, Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance): I frequently mention Bloch at the beginning of my course on Israeli music. I also refer to him often in my courses on twentieth-century music and in composition lessons. I have always liked his music very much. Bloch is a Jewish composer, just as Beethoven is a German composer. Both composers are of great international importance. To see Bloch as a niche composer would be a shame and would reduce his importance. Notwithstanding the Jewish roots of some of his works, I do not recognize national consciousness in him that is more significant than that which I find in Khachaturian, Wagner, Copland or Villa-Lobos.

The last decade has witnessed a new cultural situation in Israel. The generation of those who fought for the independence and cohesion of the State has begun to withdraw from the public arena. Their past flamboyant antagonism to Ernest Bloch as a representative of the diaspora has withered, along with their musical-social activism and their influence at large. Their narrowly perceived idea of the (then) new Jewish-Israeli identity, devoid of world-embracing prophetism and instead replete with either dance-like orientalist populism (typical of the older generation), or – to the contrary – austere, non-emotional asceticism (typical of their younger followers), has lost its appeal as a major identity-defining thought. At the same time, the Israeli concert hall-oriented public, though still shrinking, has been able to recruit from the incoming generations, principally from the globally oriented professional liberal minorities. These people are acutely aware of the crisis of Israel’s national identity, which has succumbed to the religiously nourished passion of territorial possession to the east of its recognized borders, and thereby robbed it of its liberal idealism. For them, a search for bearers of an alternative – humanist – identity has become a vital urge. Ernest Bloch’s music, with its outspoken concepts of prophetic humanism and its all-embracing warm openness to all humans of the world, an openness uttered in musical Hebrew, provides a safer haven. For them, the lines ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples’ (Isaiah 56:7) – which are inscribed on the entrance of the synagogue at Lengnau, Bloch’s father’s birthplace – are words of comfort and redemption, like the music of Bloch himself.

9

A Performance History of Bloch’s Opera Macbeth: Paris 1910–Manhattan 2014 Stanley Henig

Opera’s not a business . . . it’s a disease.1

Plots, counter-plots, intrigue are not unknown in the worlds of theatre and music: but at times they seem integral to the world of opera. In an era when the state had little involvement with education and social policy, local and national governments were not infrequently concerned with the management and politics of the opera house. Throughout most of the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century, more opera was produced in Paris than in any other city in the world. At times, Paris had three functioning houses mounting opera in repertoire. There was an assumption that there would be new works alongside old favourites in any opera season and few composers seemed able, however remote the genre from their normal work, to resist composing an opera at some time in their career. So it was with Ernest Bloch. His varied output – orchestral, chamber, instrumental and varied works for voice – included but one opera. The librettist, Edmond Fleg – like Bloch, Swiss-born and Jewish – was a lifelong friend. After Macbeth, the two did contemplate another opera – Jézabel. Perhaps they saw a natural symmetry between one of the most evil men in the Shakespearean oeuvre and the biblical name symbolic of evil women. Be this as it may, what would have been a second opera exists only in sketches and drafts. During the first decade of the twentieth century, the two permanent opera houses in Paris were, as ever, the Opéra and the Opéra Comique, although a good deal of opera was produced elsewhere. A strict English translation of the name Opéra Comique gives a misleading impression of its repertoire. There had originally been a clear distinction between works produced at the two houses: for the Opéra they had to include a ballet whilst at the Opéra Comique dialogue was used rather than recitative. Rivalry between the two houses emerged from time to time; some singers would appear during their Paris careers at both houses. One such was the great dramatic soprano Lucienne Bréval.

1

This statement is commonly attributed to Oscar Hammerstein II during the

150

construction of his London Opera House in 1911, but cannot be confirmed.

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A Performance History of Bloch’s Opera Macbeth

Premiere in Paris Confusion over place and date of birth is not uncommon with, and often contrived by, great divas. Bréval was born in 1869 apparently either near Berlin or near Zurich. The former seems the more likely but her family may have been Swiss; Lewinski and Dijon suggest that her original name was Bertha-Agnès-Lisette Schilling (Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:385; also, G. Pioch 1908: 7). She spent most of her childhood and undertook her musical training in Switzerland, and when she made her operatic debut in Paris in 1892, it was as a Swiss national. This was of course at a time when being German would hardly be a good selling point for a career in France. Bréval became one of the greatest dramatic sopranos of the age with an international career spanning Covent Garden, the Metropolitan in New York and much of Western Europe. Nonetheless, Paris was always her home base and she remained a mainstay of the Paris Opéra. However, with effect from 1901 she also appeared at the Opéra Comique, then directed by the extraordinarily able and ambitious Albert Carré. Bloch was seemingly acquainted with Bréval when they lived in Switzerland and it was she, as well as the musician and critic Pierre Lalo, who argued the cause of Macbeth with Carré. He certainly had every interest in seeking to procure Bréval for a greater number of performances at his opera house and told Bloch that he had agreed to her suggested fee on the basis that he would mount Macbeth, with herself in the role of Lady Macbeth. She would remain for six months during which time there would be thirty or forty performances of the opera (Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:385). This seems barely credible. Pelléas et Mélisande, easily the most successful of what might be termed the French expressionist operas, notched twenty-two performances in its first eight months. Admittedly, the previous work created by Bréval at the Opéra Comique – Grisélidis – was initially considerably more successful, but Massenet was the greatest living French opera composer and its musical genre was much more familiar to opera-goers of the day than the more complex styles of Debussy or Bloch. In this context, it may be appropriate to mention the most important previous Macbeth opera, unknown to Bloch at the time he composed his. Verdi’s work was first heard in 1847 but did not reach Paris until April 1865 in a revised version which subsequently became standard. Performed at the Théâtre Lyrique – at the time another important opera house – its success was limited and after only fourteen performances it disappeared from the Parisian opera stage. In the face of some hostile reviews, Verdi was particularly outraged by the suggestion that he did not understand Shakespeare (Walsh 1981: 196), then much in vogue in France. In that context, it may be unsurprising that in Shakespeare’s homeland Verdi’s Macbeth had to wait a further seventy-three years before its first production.

152 Stanley Henig This chapter is concerned with performance history rather than musical analysis, but it is worth pointing out that, musically, Bloch’s opera relates closely to other expressionist compositions of the era. Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande is an obvious antecedent, and it has also been suggested that there are likenesses with Moussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. There are indeed interesting similarities between the characterizations of Boris and Macbeth and Bloch seems to have been a strong advocate of Moussorgsky’s compositions. He did see Boris Godunov when it was first performed outside Russia in Paris in May 1908, but by that time Bloch’s composition of Macbeth was nearing completion. Bloch’s approach, characterized in the prologue to the opera, is summarized in a letter Bloch wrote to Carré from Geneva on 17 December 1908: I conceive the prologue in my music and orchestration in a manner very vague and nebulous, drowned in the fog of twilight. There is an atmosphere of emotion and mystery proper to the suggestions of the witches. In writing my music, I have been constantly haunted by lighting. It must play also a role and one of the most important. As much as the settings must be static, crude and barbaric, so the lighting is mobile, alive and expressive. I have also taken notes on the concordance and the music, mainly in the dark cavern of the witches barely lighted, but where some certain harmonies a bit cabalistic come out like a mysterious glow.

That same letter also demonstrates Bloch’s acute understanding of Shakespeare’s play: Macbeth has the superstitions and terrors of a feudal soul – a mixture of lowly instincts, grandeur, courage and cowardice. Lady Macbeth is his opposite: he hesitates, she, never. She is the veritable pivot of the drama, the soul even of the crime: one must constantly feel her presence, which is always decisive. The scene where she is alone, while Macbeth commits the crime, demands a great tragedian. With a Lady Macbeth strong and perfidious, the responsibility of Macbeth will seem to diminish. In spite of all the horrors, the spectators must have pity for him, share his anguish, fears and despair. Macduff demands an actor with energy and of a sympathetic frankness. These three roles are essentially in motion. They evolve constantly. One could say of Macbeth that he is never similar to himself in any moment of the drama. Honest and weak, he becomes at the end terrible. His line is a gigantic crescendo. Contrarily, Lady Macbeth, who seems immobile, experiences also an evolution, but a deeper one. A poisoned ferment weakens her. It is she who falls before Macbeth. Her line is a diminuendo. Macduff evolves: calm gives way to despair and fury at the end of Act 2, awakening the bloodthirsty instincts of the barbarian. But after Macbeth is killed, Macduff finds himself again, containing the mob and designating Malcolm as King. A new life begins . . . Forget the past. Next to these three characters, the others strike one by their immobility. Banquo is fundamentally honest and gentle; Duncan, good elder to whom is bound the sole scene of light in the drama; Malcolm, worthy son of the father, with an energy dictated by events. As for the witches, in the Prologue they are vaporous forms,

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immaterial, hardly visible; whilst in the 3rd Act they are themselves, living and tangible. Macbeth, transformed by his crime, knows where to find them.2

The cast for the first performances of Bloch’s opera was headed by Henri Albers as Macbeth and Lucienne Bréval as Lady Macbeth. The Dutch-born Albers also enjoyed a considerable international career, although not at the level of Bréval. Apart from the Opéra and Opéra Comique, Albers performed at Covent Garden, New York’s Metropolitan and La Scala, Milan. His dark baritone would surely have made him an ideal Macbeth. Of course we lack first-hand evidence. The French gramophone industry was adventurous but somewhat less willing than its Italian counterpart to risk recording extracts from new operas. In any event, Bréval made no commercial recordings. We can with difficulty hear a trace of her voice on cylinders recorded by Henry Mapleson at the Metropolitan Opera in 1901 and can imagine her as ideally suited for the great dramatic roles which made her famous. Albers recorded extensively, but nothing from Macbeth. Quite apart from the two principals, the strength of the Opéra Comique is demonstrated by those entrusted with the supporting roles. In many cases, they were in the early stages of their careers and would in due course leave significant recorded legacies, although again not from Macbeth. Louis Azéma was the murderer in the first group of performances, but graduated to Macduff; on record his is a beautiful basse chantante. Paul Payan was un vieillard, literally old man, in effect a kind of chronicler. Another in an age of great French bass singers, there is a deep richness to his recorded voice. Suzanne Brohly, one of the witches, also left an outstanding recorded legacy. Alice Raveau was an apparition or ghost. A quarter of a century later she was Gluck’s Orphée in a recording which won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1935. There can be no doubt about the level of interest aroused by Macbeth. At the time there were many French periodicals specializing in music and theatre. There are extant reviews, portraits of the singers in their roles, and photos of the stage production. Assessment of the music was mixed but most of the hostile comments reflected the newness of the musical vocabulary and interestingly – given that this was France not Britain – mixed with the notion that perhaps it did not quite do justice to Shakespeare. The singers, above all Bréval, were highly praised.3 By the end of 1910 there had been ten performances with an eleventh on 6 January.4 Bloch felt that the opera was enjoying major success, but the ‘bombshell’ was an 2

Suzanne Bloch’s English translation of this letter was made available to me by the Bloch family. 3 Excerpts from many of the reviews are included in Lewinski and Dijon 1998 I:479–97.

4

Sources differ as to the exact number of performances during 1910 and 1911. I have relied on Soubies 1910 and 1911.

154 Stanley Henig announcement by Bréval that she would leave the company for a tour of Russia. We can only speculate as to when the decision had been made. It clearly ran counter to Carré’s hopes and conceivably Bréval was in breach of some kind of contract. Bloch himself clearly felt betrayed. It has been suggested in some sources that there was friction backstage and seemingly Bréval was describing the work as a four noir – literally ‘a complete fiasco’ (Lewinski and Dijon 1998 I:479–97). Yet looking back more than a century later, there seems to be a slightly false ring to the contretemps. How many performances could either Carré or Bloch reasonably expect, given the initial runs of other contemporary works? If Bréval really thought the work was a fiasco, how was it that she undertook two further performances in June 1911? There is a further mystery. Bréval was indeed expected in St Petersburg by mid-January 1911 for three guest performances in two operas (Carmen and Les Huguenots) but she delayed her arrival on the grounds of having to stay in Paris to cover for other sopranos who were ill at the time. Subsequently, it was announced that her St Petersburg performances were cancelled.5 The mystery remains! Speculation aside, Bloch was clearly deeply bruised by the overall experience and this probably influenced him in determining that opera was not his true métier. After June 1911, Macbeth disappeared from the repertoire for more than a quarter of a century.

Double Italian Renaissance During 1937, Bloch himself had sought to interest Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht, conductor of the relatively new Orchestre Nationale de la Radiodiffusion Française, in broadcasting excerpts from Macbeth. Letters to Fleg mention various meetings in Paris without any positive outcome (Lewinski and Dijon 2004: III:489, 535). However, a revival of the opera would not be far away even if, in a wider international context, the place and time might seem somewhat unlikely. Mary Tibaldi Chiesa was an early Bloch enthusiast. She translated the libretto into Italian, played a key role in persuading the San Carlo Opera in Naples to mount Macbeth in March 1938 and seems to have been present throughout rehearsals and performances. The international context was the Anschluss – the annexation of Austria in March 1938 by Nazi Germany. This had been threatened in the past but 5 Information made available to me in a private communication from Dr Paul Fryer whilst he was preparing Fryer 2009.

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averted by Italian dictator Mussolini presenting himself as Austria’s protector. However, by 1938 Germany and Italy were drawing closer. If overt anti-Semitism had hitherto not been characteristic of the fascist regime as a whole, the Italian press heralded a change with effect from January of that year. The production of a work composed by a Jew with the libretto by another Jew in one of Italy’s most important historic opera houses was not going to pass unnoticed in circles not normally interested in opera. Some implications and repercussions were inevitable. I have found no evidence that the Italian government actually tried to prevent the San Carlo from mounting Macbeth, although there is uncertainty about whether or not the last of the three scheduled performances actually took place.6 However, we do know that the musical director, Antonio Guarnieri, felt unwell and wanted his deputy, Antonio Sabino, to take his place and conduct the opera. He in his turn was judged unsatisfactory and it was suggested that Bloch himself take the baton. There seems little doubt that this was blocked for anti-Semitic reasons, resulting in Guarnieri finally deciding to conduct himself. Equally reflective of the changing atmosphere, a planned broadcast of the opera was abandoned.7 During rehearsals, it seems that Guarnieri and his colleagues proposed various cuts, including the whole of Act II Scene 2, which portrays the murder of Macduff’s family. Bloch himself is said to have ‘sanctioned’ the cuts but, given the external context, it is not totally clear what this means. Bloch certainly felt that removing the scene lessened the horrors of the opera and speeded the action. It may not be inappropriate to comment that some reviewers of the Paris performances had felt the work to be too brutal with one specific favourable comment on the contrast between the early part of that scene portraying Lady Macduff with her children and the rest of the opera.8 It seems curious that the scene is included in Tibaldi Chiesa’s Italian libretto, published on 16 February 1938 – less than three weeks before the first Naples performance. Might the cut actually have been made because no singer was available for the role of Lady Macduff? Censorship would be another possibility. Could the staging of another political murder be considered a little too close to home? Be all this as it may, the ‘Naples cuts’ worked their way into a revised edition of the score which was frequently the basis for later performances. Many years later in 1974 the distinguished British critic Andrew Porter would comment: ‘the episode for Lady Macduff

6

Paul Little on p. 410 of the June 1960 issue of Opera claims that Mussolini issued an edict that the opera should not be performed. I find it hard to believe that such an

unequivocal edict would simply have been ignored. 7 Lewinski and Dijon 2004: III:585. 8 Aspertini (1910) Le Théâtre, 282.

156 Stanley Henig and her prattling son is of great beauty, and a brief and necessary idyll amid the terrors; besides, the scene as a whole is the only one in the opera not dominated by Macbeth’ (Porter 1974: 269).9 The two lead roles were undertaken by Antenore Reali and Anny HelmSbisa. The former sang extensively in Italian opera houses as well as elsewhere in Europe. The Viennese-born Helm-Sbisa had an important career in Austria and Germany and in leading houses in Italy. In 1935, she appeared as Brünnhilde in a Ring cycle at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. As with the 1910 and 1911 singers, we have no direct recorded mementos of their performances of Macbeth. However, we do have commercial recordings of Reali, Helm-Sbisa and two tenors in the cast – Alexander Veselovsky (Duncan) and Alessandro Dolci (Banquo). Once again performances of Macbeth occasioned widespread interest with reviews, almost invariably favourable, in the Italian and international press. The American Musical Courier (15 April 1938) may have been somewhat extravagant in its bold statement that there was no other work which adhered so completely to Shakespeare as Bloch’s Macbeth (Lewinski and Dijon 2004: III:597). In this context it is again worth pointing out that Verdi’s opera of the same title had seemingly disappeared from the repertoire – it had not been performed in Naples since the 1863/4 season. Under other circumstances, success in Naples might have been a prelude to a wider revival of Bloch’s opera: anti-Semitism, the war, the Nazi occupation of much of Europe, immediate post-war recovery would preclude such possibilities until 1953 when there were performances in Rome and Trieste. These formed something of a turning point and undoubtedly owed much to those inspiring, or inspired by, the Naples performances. More generally, it seems likely that in Italian musical circles there was a feeling that something was owed to Bloch! Thus it was that phase two of the renaissance of Macbeth was again in Italy – in February 1953 in Rome’s Teatro Costanzi. Bloch himself was present, presumably the final occasion on which he heard his opera, as was the ever-enthusiastic Tibaldi Chiesa. The title role was undertaken by Nicolai Rossi-Lemeni. Born in Istanbul of mixed Russo-Italian parentage, he would enjoy a widespread international career and has left a huge legacy of recordings, including complete operas with Maria Callas whom he also partnered on stage. In contrast to his predecessors in the role – Albers and Reali – Rossi-Lemeni was considered a bass rather than a baritone and his repertoire included the title role in Boris Godunov and the King in Don Carlos. After Rome he would sing the role of Macbeth in Milan and Geneva. 9

The review originally appeared in The New Yorker.

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A Performance History of Bloch’s Opera Macbeth

He did not chalk up as many performances as the creator Albers, but it can reasonably be argued that the opera was part of his repertoire. Equally significant, there is a live recording of the Geneva production. Gianna Pederzini – Lady Macbeth in Rome and later in Trieste – was of an older generation than Rossi-Lemeni. A mezzo-soprano with a dark-hued voice, her wide repertoire ranged from major Rossini roles to works by Poulenc and Menotti. Gianandrea Gavazzeni was throughout most of his career based at La Scala as principal conductor and finally as artistic director; it seems curious that he did not conduct Macbeth when it reached that house. He gained unstinting praise from Bloch. The significant Naples cuts were retained but two symphonic bridging passages composed by Bloch and first performed separately in concert in 1939 were included. Reviews were in general highly favourable both in the Italian press and further afield (see Lewinski and Dijon 2005: IV:513–15). Guido Pannain in Il Tempo described the performances as ‘a victory for art’; Robert Mann in Musical America commented on its musical accessibility and dramatic unity. The same reviewer considered that Rossi-Lemeni’s ‘characterization, large in size yet accurate in detail, manifested intelligence and training’. Of the ‘famed but now ageing’ Pederzini, although her voice was rough, she demonstrated ‘immense authority and acting dexterity’. Conductor Gavazzeni was assessed as ‘far above the routine pit worker, so often a part of Italian opera performances . . . giving relief to the fragmentary style of the musical fabric without losing refinement’. There is a lengthy review by Cynthia Jolly in the May 1953 issue of the then relatively new British monthly Opera, founded and at the time still edited by Lord Harewood: The work is magnificently constructed, and each set is rounded off in a masterly manner . . . but within this framework it suffers from its own consistency both of purpose and texture. The thematic material is overworked, and the leitmotifs become artificial . . . The chief protagonists . . . were a well-chosen pair, well able to grapple with their enormous, unrelenting parts. (Jolly 1953: 299)

There is also a fascinating tailpiece to this review. It is worth bearing in mind that 1953 was before what we sometimes call the age of the producer; opera production tended to be along traditional lines. However, in Rome in 1953, ‘Visually the opera departed from hallowed custom and indulged in semiabstract sets by Silvano Tintori . . . but never quite succeeded in catching the rugged grey of Scotland’ (pp. 299–300). Jolly further pointed out that the producer Livio Luzzato (who had also produced the work at the San Carlo) had a calm canvas sky for the night during which Duncan is killed, ‘thus making nonsense of the “rough night” described by Lennox and the old man’ (p. 300).

158 Stanley Henig For Macbeth, the Rome performances marked the start of a new era. Over its first forty years to 1950, Macbeth received only fifteen or sixteen performances in Paris and Naples. During the subsequent sixty, there would be around a further seventy in some twenty locations – just about enough to put it on the outer fringes of the repertoire. There are other aspects which mark 1953 as a turning point. The professional artists from that time onwards are of the modern operatic world with studio recordings regularly and easily obtainable. In no cases do they include excerpts from Macbeth, but as the years have gone by, live recordings of the performances have become available and have in some cases been published commercially.

1953–1975: New Frontiers and Crossing the Atlantic That Italy had not completed the process of making amends may be demonstrated by two further sets of performances, although since 1960 Macbeth seems to have been completely forgotten in that country. After Rome, the next performances of Macbeth were at the Teatro Communale in Trieste. Pederzini was once again Lady Macbeth whilst the title role was sung by the baritone Ugo Savarese. In his widespread European career the operas of Verdi were particularly important. The conductor in Trieste was Francesco Molinari-Pradelli. There was a gap of seven years after Rome and Trieste before Macbeth reached the ultimate citadel of Italian opera – La Scala, Milan – in 1960. Nino Sanzogno conducted with Rossi-Lemeni again in the title role. Lady Macbeth was sung by Christel Goltz, a dramatic soprano with a wide repertoire including a good many twentieth-century works. This time the review in Opera by Claudio Sartori was a good deal less favourable to both the interpreters and the opera itself: ‘Originally hailed as a revolutionary work, it now seems an eclectic end of an epoch – an attempt to insert an impressionistic aesthetic into a traditional melodrama . . . though the writing is rich and intelligent’. Goltz was criticized for ‘inaccurate intonation and an unsubtle dramatic interpretation’ (Sartori 1960: 350–1). Prior to Milan, Macbeth had enjoyed two other revivals – a first hearing in the United States in the shape of a truncated, piano-accompanied presentation in Cleveland and a run of no fewer than ten performances at the Théâtre Royale de la Monnaie (Brussels), long established as one of the leading opera houses in Western Europe – during the nineteenth century it had hosted world premieres of works by French composers. The decision to mount Macbeth was strongly influenced by Queen Elisabeth of Belgium,

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A Performance History of Bloch’s Opera Macbeth

who attended the opening Gala performance promoted by the Belgian Friends of Youth Aliyah (Lewinski and Dijon 2005: IV:705 f.).10 Librettist Edmond Fleg was also present at one or more of the performances. The two lead singers – Jean Laffont and Huberte Vécray, respectively French and Belgian – are less well known to opera enthusiasts than their predecessors in the role, but both enjoyed considerable careers at the Monnaie. The review in Libre Belgique praised Laffont’s identification with Macbeth and the vocal timbre of Vécray as well as the conducting of René Defossez. The review in Opera was in the hands of the seasoned and knowledgeable Leo Riemens. He commented that ‘Macbeth himself emerges better defined than in Verdi . . . (but) his Lady remains too pale, and in the beginning certainly too insignificant musically’ (Riemens 1958: 172). Of the singers, Vécray failed to bring Lady Macbeth to life whilst Laffont was ‘an impressive Macbeth histrionically, but his voice is beginning to show wear and tear’ (172). However, Riemens did feel that the minor roles were well cast. His harshest criticism was of the production with a single set working in his view against the opera, the music and the singers! The scene of the murder of Macduff’s family had been restored for the first time since 1911, but it appeared in effect this was happening inside Macbeth’s castle: ‘Certainly Macduff was not such a fool as to send his wife and two children to Macbeth in order to have them killed off there’ (172). Perhaps the most significant foreign comments came from the Journal de Genève in Bloch’s home city: ‘It is unbelievable that Macbeth has not been given in Switzerland. Is it not time for it to be mounted in Geneva . . . [to] render homage to Ernest Bloch, our citizen, who is profoundly attached to this city’ (Lewinski and Dijon 2005: IV:722). Bloch died in 1959. He had never lost faith in his opera,11 but there would be no performance in the city or indeed the country of his birth during his lifetime. Ironically, following Bloch’s death there would be no fewer than three presentations of Macbeth in three different countries in the first months of 1960. Apart from La Scala, it was given in concert in Geneva and there were staged performances in English at the Alfred Herz Memorial Hall of Music in the University of California at Berkeley. Given the nature of the earlier Cleveland presentation, the performances in Berkeley could lay claim to being the US premiere. The English text was a

10

Youth Aliyah supported orphaned or impoverished Jewish children en route to, and settling in, Israel. 11 Lewinski and Dijon 2005: IV:375 cite a 1950 letter in which Bloch asked the great baritone Marko Rothmüller if the ‘awesome’ role of Macbeth might be suitable for his

voice. There is no record of any reply. Rothmüller was a close friend, and an important interpreter of the solo role in Bloch’s Sacred Service. In 1952, Rothmüller would sing the title role in Verdi’s Macbeth at Glyndebourne.

160 Stanley Henig translation of Fleg’s original by Alex Cohen and approved by the composer, with language much closer to Shakespeare’s original. As with other university opera performances, it was essentially student-based with faculty involvement. It earned what could be considered a ‘rave review’ in Opera by Paul Little: ‘The vocal line is constantly fortified by subtle orchestral commentary; yet the impression throughout is that Bloch has succeeded in matching lyrics to dramatic action’ (1960: 411). And there is a daring contrast with Verdi whose opera of the same title was at last coming into fashion. In regard to the three witches, ‘surely here Bloch captures the irony and grim Fatum theme which inspired Shakespeare where Verdi only hinted at it’. Little goes on to describe Rayna Edwards’ Lady Macbeth as a tour de force whilst Macbeth was ‘brilliantly sung’ by Leonard Graves. The production, design and costumes were all highly praised, but it is the conclusion to the review which is most striking: The fine university student orchestra mastered a difficult and taxing score in little less than a month; and conducting them, Dr (Jan) Popper gave a penetrating, affectionate interpretation of an opera which, I am convinced, will be recognized as a masterpiece of twentieth-century repertoire. (Little 1960: 411)

It is not clear just how much of Macbeth was included in the Geneva concert presentation which featured Ernest Ansermet, the Suisse Romande Orchestra and Heinz Rehfuss and Lucienne Devallier in the leading roles; but perhaps the greatest significance of the concert is that it was broadcast and a recording of excerpts from the opera – the first such – subsequently appeared. The sound quality is not up to the most modern standards but Ansermet is a superb conductor – perhaps the most important to have essayed the work – and Rehfuss’s dark timbre makes him a striking Macbeth. Eight years elapsed before, at long last, the opera was presented in what seems to have been a remarkably full version at the Geneva opera. Meanwhile, there had also been a performance and broadcast of the opera by Radio France, but no trace seems to have survived. The chief singers were Julien Haas and Geneviève Moizan, whilst the conductor was Pierre Colombo, who would also be on the podium in Geneva. The Macbeth in Geneva was once again RossiLemeni and he was partnered by the dramatic soprano Inge Borkh, who enjoyed a huge international career including Verdi’s Lady Macbeth and many twentieth-century operas. There is a lengthy and lucid review by the seasoned critic Desmond Shawe-Taylor who attended the third performance: At this period in his career Bloch possessed a strong vein of thematic invention, and he showed remarkable skill in the manipulation and combination of his themes in accordance with the psychological demands of the developing action. He had also a powerful sense of atmosphere and dramatic climax, well displayed in the brilliant scenes of Macbeth with the witches and in the big ensemble after the murder . . .

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A Performance History of Bloch’s Opera Macbeth

Fleg’s intelligent and well constructed libretto gave the composer a chance, which he gratefully seized, to lighten the sombre mood of the work with glimpses of simplicity and innocence. (Shawe-Taylor 1969: 66–7)

Shawe-Taylor particularly praised the ‘idyllic scene’ for Lady Macduff and her sons in the restored Act II Scene 2. He was rather less enthusiastic about the lead role, arguing that Macbeth should ideally have a ringing upper register rather than Rossi-Lemeni’s bass-baritone. Happily there are extant recordings of the Geneva performance. Notwithstanding all the encomiums, there are long gaps in the performance history. Rome, Trieste, Milan, Brussels, Geneva were followed by some three decades of silence where continental Europe is concerned. Between 1968 and 1997 Macbeth received just two sets of US college-based performances – Baylor and Juilliard – and a single concert in London’s Festival Hall. There were five performances – one of which was a special matinee for local schools – at Baylor University in the heart of Texas mounted by the School of Music. Conductor Daniel Steinberg was like Bloch himself a European émigré. Nancy Swenson Olson made a considerable impact as Lady Macbeth. The Juilliard production attracted a short notice in Opera by George Movshon (1973: 799) who commended the production and singers, but criticized the work itself. He suggested that the music for the scene between the Macbeths immediately after Duncan’s murder was no more than ‘a slow recitation for two voices, losing the thrust entirely’. He continued: ‘Similar lapses happen throughout the score: it all seems ineptly paced from the viewpoint of the needs of the stage.’ This is in sharp contrast to Andrew Porter’s lengthy review of the Juilliard production to which reference has already been made: ‘His (Bloch’s) drama is an exploration of motives, in both senses of that word. The musical images for ambition (the “imperial theme”), remorse, innate nobility, evil . . . weave through the numerous monologues’ (Porter 1974: 268). Perhaps the most significant portions of Andrew Porter’s review concerned the various cuts in the work as presented at Juilliard and his final strong encomium for Bloch’s opera: Abridgement of long works is common enough in the full-time professional houses; of a school performance one expects integrity that puts such expedient surgery to shame – especially when an unfamiliar piece is being introduced . . . All the same the production was a signal achievement. If Bloch’s Macbeth did not come at us with full force, we could easily deduce what that full force might be. (Porter 1974: 269–71)

Nonetheless, cuts continued to be made as was certainly the case with the significantly abridged first British performance in a concert version presented by the enterprising Denny Davies and broadcast live on Radio 3.

162 Stanley Henig It was given in the original French, welcomed as such by Max Loppert in the Financial Times (1975a) who considered the English translation as uneasy. He defined the work as a ‘private musical drama’ rather than grand opera digging ‘under the skin of psychological motivation, reaching the dark, knotted veins of desire, guilt and remorse in the principal characters’. Loppert felt that Helga Dernesch’s voice was too round, warm and lovely for the part of Lady Macbeth whilst Ryan Edwards in the title role was short in characterization. Martin Cooper in the Daily Telegraph (1975) went somewhat further, describing the characters themselves as colourless and arguing that there was a lack of musical development in the opera. From a slightly different perspective, Edward Greenfield in the Guardian (1975) felt that the libretto by ‘cutting the story to the bare bones’ gave opportunities for characterization of the Macbeths. By way of contrast, Elizabeth Forbes in Opera (1975) was much more enthusiastic: Edwards creating an authentic frisson with the dagger soliloquy whilst Dernesch was particularly impressive in the exchanges between the Macbeths before and after Duncan’s murder. Forbes’s review actually ends on a perhaps controversial note. Given that Verdi’s Macbeth had completed the move from total obscurity to being a standard part of the repertoire, critics could make comparisons. Forbes felt that Bloch’s sleepwalking scene was nothing like as powerful as Verdi’s, but ‘Bloch’s ending to his opera, with graphically dramatic music for chorus and orchestra, depicting the defeat of Macbeth by Macduff, triumphantly banishes all thought of Verdi’ (Forbes 1975: 904). Perhaps not for opera house managers and impresarios – more than twenty years would pass before the opera was again performed anywhere.

The Modern Era: Staged Premieres in Germany and Austria and a Concert in Israel In a sense, the modern era of performance was ushered in by another concert recorded by Radio France. Part of the 1997 Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, this was followed by the first German performances at Dortmund two years later. There is a brief report on Montpellier in Opera.12 Jean-Philippe Lafont (not the same as the Laffont who years before sang at Brussels) ‘in the exhausting title role made his way through to the end in remarkable shape, his voice expressing the character’s anguish’ (Kasow 1997: 80). The Greek soprano Markella Hatziano, a finalist in the 1983 Cardiff ‘Singer of the World’ competition, was ‘evil incarnate [as Lady 12

For some years there was an extra issue of Opera covering festivals.

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A Performance History of Bloch’s Opera Macbeth

Macbeth], her voice easily encompassing the wide range of the writing, with high notes popping out of nowhere but a solid low register also in evidence’ (Kasow 1997: 80). Yet again Act II Scene 2 was omitted. At the time, the Dortmund Opera seemed to be making something of a speciality in reviving early twentieth-century neglected French operas – Roussel’s Padmavati and Chausson’s Le Roi Arthus. By way of contrast with Montpellier, the performances in Dortmund of Macbeth did include the frequently omitted scene but there were various cuts elsewhere. An interesting online review13 by Margaret Leins focused on production and staging. The director and designer ‘did not try to focus on the action in the foreground preferring to confront the audience with spaces or images that reflect the mental state of the actor’ with imaginative use of colour resulting in a visual impact which was both ‘exhausting and fascinating’. The short review by Thomas Luys in Opera (1999) was more critical of production and staging, but praised the singers – Hannu Niemelä and Sonya BorowskaTudor were in the leading roles – and the conducting of Alexander Rumpf as ‘passionate, precise and full of dramatic vigour’ (Luys 1999: 583). The wider significance of Montepellier and Dortmund is that in both cases there are commercially issued recordings. The Montpellier CDs are particularly well packaged with the original French libretto included; the Dortmund set seems to be more readily obtainable. As has been increasingly the case over the years, the critical reception for Bloch’s opera occasioned by performances and recordings has been extremely positive with prevalent bemoaning that it is not performed more often. Chronologically the next Macbeth and the first of the new century was a concert in the Israeli city of Haifa in June 2001 – part of a Bloch festival directed by Dalia Atlas. With two orchestras and two singing groups involved, there were more than 200 participants in an abridged version of the opera. On this occasion, the role of Macbeth was divided between two singers – a bass, Yoram Haiter, and a bass baritone, Or Ben-Natan – opposite a contralto Lady Macbeth, Shiri Yosifon. Subsequent staged performances were given at the 2003 Vienna Klangbogen Festival in a co-production with Frankfurt Opera. Given the somewhat eclectic nature of the festival, it is perhaps unsurprising that Keith Warner’s staging, the production and set were rather abstract, a modern metaphor – a printing press served as the witches’ cauldron! In what is almost a tradition for Macbeth performances, the singing was better received than the production. For the first time outside the United States, the 13 There are now many online digital reviews. The extent to which they will remain publicly available is uncertain.

164 Stanley Henig performance was sung in English. The scene of the murder of the Macduff family was included. In terms of vocal timbre, Susan Bullock, singing Lady Macbeth, can be considered as very much in the tradition of Lucienne Bréval and Inge Borkh: a soprano capable of meeting the challenge of the most dramatic roles and well partnered by Donnie Ray Albert. Perhaps it was the presence in the two leading roles of British and American singers which inspired Erica Jeal in Opera (2003: 1359) to conclude: ‘To hear [Macbeth] sung by an entirely English-speaking cast in Shakespeare’s own country would be quite something.’ Evidently a video exists, so it is just possible that this may one day be made available. The Vienna production was mounted in Frankfurt in 2005 with different singers. Yet again there were comments that the work had been undeservedly neglected. John McCann in Opera (2005: 445) felt that it stood ‘comparison with any of the works written before World War I in the fascinating style that is still tonally rooted but reaches out into the atonal Expressionism which was about to become common parlance’. The singers and orchestra were praised, especially Louise Winter – ‘an utterly convincing Lady Macbeth dramatically and vocally, not least in her shattering Sleepwalking Scene’ (McCann 2005: 445). Daniel Sumegi’s stamina and range of voice met all the challenges needed for title role. Further praise for Act II Scene 2 offered a perhaps vain hope that perhaps the 1938 excision might finally be laid to rest. Seven packed houses suggest some popular agreement with McCann’s verdict. Indeed, two years later there was a further Frankfurt revival with Sumegi again in the title role but a different conductor and Lady Macbeth. There is an interesting online review by Bettina Mara (2007) in Seen and Heard International. She disliked Keith Warner’s staging but described the music as astonishing whilst raising doubts about its appropriateness for opera: ‘outstanding singers didn’t exactly have very inspiring parts to sing – indeed most of the time it felt like their voices were somehow in the way of the often striking music’. Whilst applauding Sumegi and Taina Piira in the main roles, she also praised tenor Michael McCown, who as a result of illness of another member of the cast sang King Duncan, Lennox and the First Apparition in at least one of the performances. In conclusion, although the reviewer expressed no particular regrets that Bloch only composed one opera, she urged anybody near Frankfurt not to miss the final performance.

Into Macbeth’s Second Century: Staged Premieres in Britain and the United States And so finally to another coming of age when in 2009, fifty years after the death of the composer and almost a century after the premiere, the opera

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was at last staged in full in Shakespeare’s own country! Once again it was a college-based production – the annual performance given by University College, London with an all English-speaking cast including visiting professionals. Conductor Charles Peebles earned praise for his work with the student orchestra. This time the setting was expressionist rather than abstract and placed in a more recent historic period. Rob Witts in Opera praised the performance, particularly George van Bergen’s ‘magnificent’ (2009: 721) Macbeth, but described the score as ‘an odd but not uneffective hybrid: Boris Godunov as the love-child of Debussy and Richard Strauss’ (2009: 720). A review in the online Opera Today by Ruth Elleson (2009) also commended van Bergen – ‘dominating his every scene with a strong stage presence and full, finely nuanced baritone’ – whilst Katherine Rohrer showed ‘a lightish, agile voice with an excellent top; her Lady Macbeth was elegant and fiery; the progress of her self-destruction visible in her face’. All the reviews welcomed the cameo appearance of Ryland Davies as Duncan. He had been singing major roles for some forty-five years – and had appeared also as Duncan in the 1975 Festival Hall performance. It was a mere four years later – nothing in the long history of Macbeth – when Long Beach Opera gave the first professional fully staged performances in the United States. A relatively new company without a permanent home, it specializes in what might be termed arch modernity. The three performances actually took place in the World Cruise Terminal, staged on a central aisle between two rows of seats – presumably the operatic equivalent of theatre in the round. The opera was quite severely cut: Act II Scene 2 omitted and cuts elsewhere meant that more than 25 per cent of the opera was removed. What remained was a taut production, presented without an interval, and clearly making a considerable impact on all who saw it. The stage director was Alexander Mitisek with Benjamin Makino conducting. Chorus aside, the cast was whittled down in numbers – Doug Jones sang Banquo, Duncan, Malcolm, a servant and a murderer and also some lines belonging to Lennox and Lady Macbeth’s assistants: all told, something of a record. In such a slimmed-down version even more attention than normal was focused on the two principals – Nmon Ford and Suzan Hanson. There was an enthusiastic review in the Los Angeles Times by Richard Ginell (2013) for whom ‘Nmon Ford made an overwhelming impression whilst Suzan Hanson had some grandly Wagnerian moments’. However, Ginell also commented that ‘whilst balances between voices and instruments were surprisingly good . . . Bloch’s more grandiose orchestrations seemed to cry out for a bigger band’.14

14

Review also available on the internet.

166 Stanley Henig Perhaps inevitably, given the geographic location, there were indeed a plethora of internet reviews. The production was generally commended, but the staging and setting were more controversial. Ford and Hanson received plaudits for both singing and acting, although some critics clearly felt the more intimate scenes between them to be over-realistic! Ford, a baritone in the early stages of his career, was particularly commended for the richness and power of his voice. Of Hanson, a regular with the company, it was commented that she perhaps deserved the opportunity to shine with a higher profile company. And yet again, Bloch’s music was praised with the associated and almost inevitable comments about the rarity of performances. However, a review in Opera struck a somewhat different tone. Whilst also praising the principal singers, James Taylor was less enthusiastic about the work as such and particularly scathing about the staging which ‘ignored the realities of the score and tried to shoehorn it into an abstract, “modern” production that drained both drama and colour from the opera’ (2013: 1452). Alexander Mitisek is director of both Long Beach Opera and the Chicago Opera Theater, which is based at the Harris Theater. This facilitated a transfer of the Long Beach production to Chicago for Macbeth’s first outing in America’s mid-West – four performances in September 2014. Again there has been no shortage of internet reviews under different headings. Lawrence Johnson (2014) in Chicago Classical Review, whilst welcoming the ‘visually striking staging’, nonetheless felt that the production was ‘undone by distracting video and unkind cuts’. Adam Dahlgren also commented adversely on the staging and technology with the witches spending too much time mugging for the video cameras on which they were recording their actions for a large screen behind them. He was far more enthusiastic about the two principals, commenting that Hanson was a mainstay of the company and predicting a big future for Ford – ‘one of the most authoritative voices I’ve heard in a while’. Nancy Malitz (2014) in the online Chicago on the aisle was equally complimentary: the ‘diamond standard aria’ for Macbeth (as sung by Ford) ‘was ringing in my ears long after the curtain fell’. In her view Macbeth was amongst Bloch’s ‘neglected jewels’. Prior to Long Beach, US productions of Macbeth (Cleveland, Berkeley, Baylor and Juilliard) had all been undertaken by universities and music conservatoires. Perhaps it is, therefore, unsurprising that after Chicago the next presentation was in New York by the Manhattan School of Music. The three performances at the end of 2014 could yet again be considered a kind of US premiere: the opera fully staged with only very minor cuts and sung in Fleg’s original French language version. The two principal roles were undertaken by Robert Mellon and Maria Natale with Alaysha Fox taking on Lady Macbeth in the second of the three performances. The opera was conducted by Laurent Pillot. An online review by Susan Hall (2014) is subtitled ‘Bloch,

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Full-Blooded and Uninhibited’. Photos of the artists in action reinforce this view. On this occasion, the three witches are commended: ‘Vital hand gestures punctuated their message.’ And away with abstraction? Simple sets enabled the creation of ‘multiple scenes with a minimum of manoeuvring’. Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times (2014) particularly commended Maria Natale: the sleepwalking scene became ‘an unearthly soliloquy, in which the guilty queen seems in a trance, performed here with glossy-eyed abandon’. All the cast were ‘impressive’ whilst ‘the chorus excelled in the scenes in which Bloch gives in to the grand opera impulse’. For Paul Pelkonen (2014) in the online Superconductor, Mellon was helped by a ‘handsome stage presence’, fighting for ‘vocal grandeur in his final death scene’. In the banquet scene, ‘the royal couple went gleefully over the top . . . all in all a perfect illustration of the barren and unnatural nature of the Macbeths’ home life’. The so-called Voche di meche – a website devoted to encouraging the development of gifted young singers – commended the ‘superb’ singing: ‘French diction so accurate that we were actually able to understand the words’ (Kroop 2014). The reviewer would have been at the second performance when Fox was the Lady Macbeth – commended for her seductiveness in the first act and her final aria in the third.

A Final Note It has been the destiny of many operas to be completely forgotten after their initial presentation. The favourable impact of its first performances and its championing by successive musicians and musicologists ensured that Macbeth would avoid this fate. The expressionist style of music does not make for an obvious opera box office hit. In what would seem a striking contrast to the first Paris production, modern producers and stage designers have frequently favoured an abstract approach as a way of harmonizing with the expressionist nature of the music. Whilst this has occasioned controversy, critical reaction to successive productions and concert presentations has been largely positive. In America, Britain and Israel, student and college performances with involvement of, and guidance from, expert professionals have been particularly important in keeping the opera alive. Slightly short of one hundred performances over slightly more than a century may not seem a lot, but it has ensured for Macbeth a place which is now surely permanent on the outer fringes of the wider operatic repertoire. And perhaps a final plea: the opera is not over-long; the Lady Macduff scene is important textually and vocally; it was originally cut under dubious circumstances. Surely the time has come to accept Andrew Porter’s view and let Macbeth come to us with ‘full force’.

Appendix

168

169

Date

Venue

Type

Conductor

Macbeth

Lady Macbeth

Language

No. of Performances

Nov. 1910 June 1911 March 1938

Paris Opéra Comique Paris Opéra Comique Naples San Carlo

Opera Opera Opera

Ruhlmann Ruhlmann Guarnieri

Albers Albers Reali

Bréval Bréval Helm-Sbisa

French French Italian

11 2 2 or 3

Feb. 1953 Dec. 1953

Rome Trieste

Opera Opera

Rossi-Lemeni Savarese

Pederzini Pederzini

Italian Italian

3 4

March 1957

Cleveland

Not known

Gavazzeni MolinariPradelli Wolfes (piano)

Premiere on Nov 30 Revival Bloch present – not allowed to conduct. II.2 omitted Bloch present. II.2 omitted II.2 omitted

Dietz/Parker

Carson/ Harrison

Not known

Nov. 1957 Jan. 1960 March 1960 April 1960 Sept. 1966 Oct. 1968

Brussels Milan La Scala Berkeley CA

Opera Opera Opera

Defossez Sanzogno Popper

Vecray Goltz Edwards

French Italian English

10 4 3

Geneva

Concert

Ansermet

Jean Laffont Rossi-Lemeni Graves/ Guittard Rehfuss

Truncated. Piano accompaniment Fleg present II.2 omitted First English language

Devallier

French

3+

Radio France Geneva

Concert Opera

Colombo Colombo

Haas Rossi-Lemeni

Moizan Borkh

French French

1

Baylor Uni, USA

Opera

Steinberg

Pratt

English

5

Juilliard

Opera

Adler

English

3

Royal Festival Hall, London

Concert

Serebrier

Carlson/ Corrado Edwards

Swenson Olson Barnsley Dernesch

French

1

April 1970 May 1973 July 1975

Comments

Highlights only. LP recording published First Swiss performance. Excerpts from Act I on CD College production College production. II.2 omitted Abridged. Private tape exists

(cont.)

170 Date

Venue

Type

Conductor

Macbeth

Lady Macbeth

Language

July 1997

Montpellier

Opera

Layer

Jean P. Lafont

Hatziano

French

March 1999 June 2001

Dortmund

Opera

Rumpf

Niemela

French

Haifa

Concert

Atlas

Italian

1

July 2003

Vienna (An der Wien)

Opera

Shio-Chia Lu

Haiter/Ben Natan Donnie Albert

BorowskiTudor Yosifon Bullock

English

7

Nov. 2005 Jan. 2007 March 2009 June 2013

Frankfurt Frankfurt London University College Long Beach, Los Angeles Harris Opera Theater, Chicago Manhattan School of Music

Opera Opera Opera

Sian Edwards Brabbins Peebles

Sumegi Sumegi von Bergen

Winter Piira Rohrer

English English English

7 4 3

Opera

Makino

Ford

Hanson

English

3

Opera

Milioto

Ford

Hanson

English

4

Opera

Pillot

Mellon

Aimeé/Fox

French

3

Sept. 2014 Dec. 2014

No. of Performances

Comments II.2 omitted. Commercial recording available Commercial recording available Student performance – abridged Klangbogen festival – performance exists on DVD Klangbogen production Klangbogen production Complete recording exists II.2 omitted and further abridged Long Beach production First US performance in original language

10

King Solomon and the Baal Shem Tov: Traditional Elements in Bloch’s Musical Representation of Two Iconic Personalities from Jewish History Alexander Knapp Introduction Several compositions by Ernest Bloch have carved a distinct niche in the Western art music repertoire of today. Among his ‘Jewish’ works are Abodah, the Sacred Service, From Jewish Life and Suite Hébraïque; and those outside the Jewish category include the Concerto Grosso No. 1 for Strings and Piano, Four Episodes, the first Piano Quintet, Poems of the Sea, Suite Modale, Three Nocturnes, and the Viola Suite. But of all his works, there are two – both Jewishly inspired – whose popularity has been pre-eminent and perennial, namely, Schelomo: Hebraic Rhapsody for Violoncello Solo and Full Orchestra1 (completed in 1916) and Baal Shem (Three Pictures of Chassidic Life)2 for violin and piano (1923).3 It is hardly surprising that the one should feature the cello and the other the violin since, throughout Bloch’s life, stringed instruments were to find a special place in his heart and psyche. Bloch started learning the violin as a child with teachers in his native Geneva and subsequently, as a teenager, with Eugène Ysaÿe in Brussels. His talent was such that he looked destined to become a professional performer; but it was Ysaÿe who encouraged him in the direction of composition. Of the six epic works of his self-styled ‘Jewish Cycle’, completed between 1912 and 1916 (plus the unfinished opera Jézabel, dating from c.1904 till the mid-1920s), Schelomo (1916) was almost the last to be finished. The Baal Shem Suite (1923) was the first of more than a dozen ‘Jewish’ works – not part of the ‘Cycle’ – that Bloch wrote from time to time during the period 1923–55. Despite their Jewish ethos and relative proximity in years, Schelomo and Baal Shem represent remarkably different phases in his life. Schelomo, a single-movement work requiring enormous orchestral forces, was written in Geneva when Bloch was struggling to make a career 1 Schelomo is Bloch’s own German-language transliteration of the Hebrew word for ‘Solomon’, more usually rendered Sh’lomo. 2 Chassidic is one of the popular transliterations of this Hebrew and Yiddish word, and it is the one Bloch used. In this chapter, it is retained only as part of the

171

subtitle of Bloch’s Baal Shem. Elsewhere, the more correct spelling ‘Hasidic’ is preferred. 3 Schelomo was first published as No. 30 in G. Schirmer’s Edition of Study Scores of Orchestral Works and Chamber Music, New York, 1918; and Baal Shem by Carl Fischer, Inc. in 1924.

172 Alexander Knapp for himself as composer, conductor and lecturer, whereas the three movements of Baal Shem were composed in Cleveland, Ohio, during a period of financial security and professional success for Bloch as director of (and professor at) the Cleveland Institute of Music,4 where he devoted his attention, as composer, primarily to chamber music. In this chapter, I shall explore the contrast between Bloch’s image of biblical Israel and its culture on the one hand, and the Hasidic culture of pre-World War II on the other. These images are focused in his understanding of the personalities of King Solomon and Israel Baal Shem Tov, and are given musical expression in Schelomo and Baal Shem respectively. Brief accounts of the genesis of these works lead to a commentary on, and analysis of, the relationship between Bloch’s melodic style and traditional Ashkenazi elements.

Ancient Israel and King Solomon Bloch’s image of King Solomon has, in fact, little connection with any king of that name who might have ruled Israel and Judah in the tenth century bce (Solomon 2015: 432–3). Rather it is a combination of his conception of a dynamic ‘prophetic Judaism’ with a very personal reading of the book of Ecclesiastes (Heb. Kohelet), traditionally but erroneously attributed to Solomon. This biblical book depicted the thoughts and feelings of an elderly, disillusioned and embittered king, far-removed in age, spirit and ethos from the same poet, who had – again, according to tradition – much earlier in his life, composed The Song of Songs (Shir Hashirim). Extended extracts taken from the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes will serve to set the scene and atmosphere for Bloch’s vivid musical interpretation of Solomon’s world: The words of Koheleth, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, saith Koheleth; Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit hath man of all his labour wherein he laboureth under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; and the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he ariseth. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it turneth about continually in its circuit, and the wind returneth again to its circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place whither the rivers go, thither they go again. All things toil to weariness; man cannot utter it, the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. That which hath been is that which shall be, and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun . . . 4 Bloch had founded the C.I.M. in 1920, and remained its director until his move to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in

1925, where he served as director and professor until 1930.

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I Koheleth have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven; it is a sore task that God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind . . . And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly – I perceived that this also was a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. I said in my heart: ‘Come now, I will try thee with mirth, and enjoy pleasure’; and, behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter: ‘It is mad’; and of mirth: ‘What does it accomplish?’ I searched in my heart how to pamper my flesh with wine, and, my heart conducting itself with wisdom, how yet to lay hold on folly, till I might see which it was best for the sons of men that they should do under the heaven the few days of their life. I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and parks, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit; I made me pools of water, to water therefrom the wood springing up with trees; I acquired men-servants and maid-servants, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of herds and flocks, above all that were before me in Jerusalem; I gathered me also silver and gold, and treasure such as kings and the provinces have as their own; I got me men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, women very many. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom stood me in stead. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart had joy of all my labour; and this was my portion from all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do; and, behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was no profit under the sun . . . So I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun was grievous unto me; for all is vanity and a striving after wind. (Anon, The Holy Scriptures 1957: Ecclesiastes 1:1–9, 12–14,17–18; 2:1–11, 17)

The mood in all twelve chapters of Ecclesiastes is reflective of Solomon’s fatigue and his sense of the pointlessness of everything (even in the rare flashes of sunlight that penetrate the dark and heavy clouds of gloom) – despite the material wealth that surrounds him. Situated at the diametrically opposite end of the emotional and psychological spectrum are Israel Baal Shem Tov (Solomon 2015: 67–8) and his co-religionists, whose external environment – and their response to it – could not have been more different from that of Kohelet.

Hasidism and the Baal Shem Tov Bloch neither hailed from a Hasidic family nor experienced the Hasidic lifestyle at first hand; in his early years he would have observed how his fellow Jews in the ‘enlightened’ West looked down on those whom they perceived to be their ignorant and superstitious co-religionists to the East. Yet he lived at a time when Western Jewish thinkers such as Martin Buber

174 Alexander Knapp (1858–1965) and scholars such as Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) were discovering that behind the ‘facade’ of Hasidism was a life of deep spirituality and intellectual achievement, set in a rich popular culture of music, literature and dance, with the vitality to overcome the limitations posed by ‘host’ nations who usually treated their Jews as a despised minority and subjected them to discrimination and harassment. Hebrew was the language of liturgy and study, but the vernacular of the shtetl5 was Yiddish – a development of medieval Judeo-German. The music of the shtetl, both sacred (synagogal) and secular (Klezmer and folksong), was a blend of Western and Oriental elements. This is the world that Bloch portrays in his Baal Shem Suite. But just who was the Baal Shem, widely regarded as the founder of Hasidism, and what form of Judaism did he teach? Israel ben Eliezer was born in Okopy, Podolia in c.1700 and died in Medzhybizh in c.1760; both towns, now in Podolia, Ukraine, were then under the Polish crown. He became known as the ‘Baal Shem Tov’ (abbreviated to Besht) from his profession as a charismatic healer.6 He seems to have been a remarkable and radiant personality, who brought a message of faith, confidence and vitality that was to transform the lives of his followers. He spoke in easy parables that could be understood by even the least educated people. His teaching emphasized that all were equal before God and that God was accessible to everyone, to be loved not feared. He asserted that learning and study were lesser virtues than purity of heart and piety (indeed, the Hebrew word hasid – or Yiddish chosid – itself means ‘pious’), that emotion was superior to intellectuality, that ecstasy was an obligation in religious observance, and that song (nigun or nign) and dance (rikud)7 were a more direct means of communication with the Almighty than formal prayer.8 No documentary evidence has so far come to light as to Bloch’s sources of information regarding Hasidism. However, he knew The Jewish Encyclopedia (Singer 1901–6) (henceforth, JE) from having copied out almost all the musical transcriptions of sacred music9 included therein, into an unpublished manuscript book entitled Chants Juifs.10 And it may have been during Yiddish word for ‘village’, from German Städtchen: ‘small town’. 6 Baal Shem (Heb.) means, literally, ‘Master of the Name [of God]’; Baal Shem Tov means ‘Good Master of the Name [of God]’). However, the deeper implications of this honorific title are ‘He who works miracles by invoking the Name of God’. 7 These are transliterations of Yiddish words taken from the original Hebrew. 5

8 For recent studies, see the works of BenAmos and Mintz (1970), Etkes (2005) and Rosman (1996). 9 These had been assembled by Rev Francis L. Cohen and dispersed throughout the twelve volumes of the encyclopedia. 10 No place or date, but probably New York, c.1916–19.

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this process that he came across Louis Ginzberg’s account (1902) which, though not endorsed by contemporary scholarship, is probably close to Bloch’s understanding of the Besht and his teachings: The foundation-stone of Hasidism as laid by Besht is a strongly marked pantheistic conception of God. He declared the whole universe, mind and matter, to be a manifestation of the Divine Being; that this manifestation is not an emanation from God, as is the conception of the Cabala, for nothing can be separated from God: all things are rather forms in which He reveals Himself . . . Whoever does not believe that God resides in all things, but separates Him and them in his thoughts, has not the right conception of God . . . The first consequence of this philosophy is optimism. Since God is immanent in all things, all things must possess something good in which God manifests Himself as the source of good. For this reason, Besht taught, every man must be considered good, and his sins must be explained, not condemned. One of his favorite sayings was that no man has sunk too low to be able to raise himself to God. Naturally, then, it was his chief endeavour to convince sinners that God stood as near to them as to the righteous, and that their misdeeds were chiefly the consequences of their folly. Another consequence of his doctrines is the denial that asceticism is pleasing to God. ‘Whoever maintains that this life (olam hazzeh) is worthless is in error: it is worth a great deal; only one must know how to use it properly.’ In contrast to the prevailing Jewish teaching he valued prayer above study: ‘All that I have achieved,’ he once remarked, ‘I have achieved not through study, but through prayer.’ Prayer is essentially Dvekut (‘cleaving’) – the feeling of oneness with God, the state of the soul when man gives up the consciousness of his separate existence, and joins himself to the eternal being of God. Such a state produces a species of indescribable joy (simchah), which is a necessary ingredient of the true worship of God; weeping and feelings of sorrow are wholly objectionable. The sinner who repents of his sin should not sorrow over the past, but should rejoice over the Heavenly Voice, over the Divine Power, working within him. Joy in prayer is paralleled by glowing enthusiasm and ecstasy (hitlahavut = ‘to become inflamed’) in every act of worship. (Ginzberg 1902: 384–5)11

The Models and the Music Where Kohelet is sorrowful and pessimistic, the Besht is joyful and optimistic; where Kohelet sees only ‘vanity of vanities’ and the ultimate worthlessness of life, Besht experiences ecstasy in prayer; where Kohelet is acutely aware of his ‘separate’ existence, Besht loses himself in union with God. Maybe the only common ground that these two diametrically opposed characters share is that ‘knowledge’ is not the answer to the problems of humanity. How might these values be represented by Bloch in his music? 11

Extracts abbreviated and partially paraphrased.

176 Alexander Knapp Whereas the ethos of Bloch’s Schelomo is essentially secular, but with hints at religious practice, the titles and musical content of the three movements of Baal Shem reveal a primarily mystical ethos, as expressed through religious ritual – though not without the occasional introduction of popular elements. The Israelites as represented in the ‘Jewish Cycle’ were different from the Jews depicted in Baal Shem. The pomp and ceremony, magnificence and glitter, opulence and grandeur of Schelomo is in marked contrast to the depiction of pain and anguish and the unceasing desire to rise above degradation that infuses Baal Shem. But there are also remarkable parallels between these works in terms of the musical means with which Bloch has expressed his dichotomous perspectives on Israelite and Jewish temperament, religion, society, culture and history. All these factors will be explored in the commentaries on and analyses of traditional melodic elements that follow a closer investigation into the genesis of Bloch’s compositions.

The Genesis of Bloch’s Compositions Schelomo This rhapsody was written in the space of six weeks during January and February 1916. It lasts approximately eighteen minutes. According to his extensive programme note for the all-Bloch concert at the Augusteo in Rome on 22 January 1933,12 Bloch had, over a number of years, noted down thematic ideas for a vocal setting of selected verses from Ecclesiastes for baritone and orchestra; but he had felt that, for various reasons, French, German and English were unsuitable languages for the purpose, and that his grasp of Hebrew was inadequate. Coming into contact with the celebrated Russian cellist Alexandre Barjansky (1883–1961) and his wife Katja13 (1890–1965) in Geneva towards the end of 1915, after a hiatus of some six years,14 Bloch was keen to share with them the works of his ‘Jewish Cycle’ in general, and this new work in particular, upon which he had been actively engaged; and Barjansky was greatly moved by what he heard. Realising that the cello was the solution to the language problem, 12

The programme notes by Bloch were translated into Italian by Mary Tibaldi Chiesa, who also wrote the general introduction. The section on Schelomo appeared on pp. 7–8. The English version was published in Morgenstern 1959: 413–14. The other works in the concert were HiverPrintemps (1905), Trois Poèmes Juifs (1913) and Helvetia (1929).

13 Katja also used ‘Katia’ and ‘Catherine’ as alternative forms of her name. 14 They had first collaborated on 29 October 1909 during the second of a series of concerts that Bloch conducted in Lausanne, when Barjansky was soloist in the Lalo Concerto. By 1915, Barjansky was at the height of his career.

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Bloch reformulated his sketches for Ecclesiastes and passed them to Barjansky for scrutiny, while Katja at the same time made a small sculpture of King Solomon, which Bloch describes in a letter to Madeleine Fleg (wife of Bloch’s close friend and librettist, Edmond), dated 26 January 1916: The king is sitting on a black velvet throne; he is dressed in an ample, black and golden gown; the head, the hands, the feet are painted wax, golden sandals, rings, gems, oriental sumptuousness [. . .] sober and severe. The hands and feet are admirably expressive. The head is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, with a complexity of expression rarely achieved. The forehead is enormous, the eyes searching and profound; the lips sensual, bitter, dominating and at the same time resigned. (Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I: 695; translated with minor alterations in Móricz 2001: 477–8)

In gratitude, Bloch dedicated Schelomo to Alexandre and Katia Barjansky.15 The premiere took place during an all-Bloch concert, given under the auspices of the Society of The Friends of Music, on 3 May 1917 at the Carnegie Hall, New York. The soloist was the Dutch-American cellist Hans Kindler16 (1892–1949), with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Artur Bodanzky (1877–1939).17 The first performance of Bloch’s own version for cello and piano was given at the Aeolian Hall, London, by the English musicians May and Anne Mukle on 4 July 1919. Equally as charismatic and revered for his wisdom as Kohelet, but the victim of privation in almost every other aspect of human existence, was the reputed founder of Hasidism – the inspiration for Bloch’s Baal Shem.

Baal Shem Bloch’s paternal genealogy can be traced back almost continuously to the end of the seventeenth century in south-west Germany and northern Switzerland (Rosenthal 1927: 127–8 et passim); and at no time in his life (except as a child, prior to his Bar Mitzvah at the age of thirteen) was he an observant practitioner of the Jewish faith. So how was it that he felt so deep an attraction to Hasidism – an Eastern Ashkenazi phenomenon in origin, and one of the most intense, mystical manifestations of Judaism? Three reflections by Bloch, relating to separate experiences in his life, will be a useful point of departure: 15

For further biographical information about Alexandre Barjansky, see Barjansky 1948. Although he was one of the dedicatees of Schelomo, he did not play the work in public until the Bloch Concert at the Augusteo on 22 January 1933. 16 Bloch would later dedicate his set of three pieces for cello and piano, entitled From Jewish Life (1924), to Kindler.

17

It is not clear why Barjansky did not give the first performance. Pablo Casals, to whom Bloch later dedicated his Méditation Hébraïque (1924), studied and discussed the score of Schelomo enthusiastically with Bloch, but in the end circumstances obliged him to decline giving the premiere (Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:699).

178 Alexander Knapp The first dates from his early childhood. Ernest was greatly affected by the starkly contrasting personalities of his parents. Whereas his father Maurice (1832–1913) – forty-eight years his senior – had a pessimistic and tormented nature, his much younger mother, Sophie (1849–1921), was sunnier, more optimistic, serene and spiritual in outlook. The combination of these conflicting temperaments – the one perhaps symbolizing Solomon, and the other the Besht – became central to his character. Complementary to tantrums were wistful moods, during which Ernest would become absorbed in his own thoughts and meditations: From my early youth I have asked questions of my mother, ‘Who is God?’ ‘Where is God?’ ‘Has God a shape?’ To which she answered, ‘Yes, but God has no shape, no form. We cannot see Him just as we do not see air.’ She told me He was in everything, everywhere, in the stars, in the trees, within me and I would dream and wonder. You can imagine how I got along with my comrades in school!’ (Bloch E. 1933b: 12 in Bloch and Heskes 1976: 12)

Thus, the seeds of pantheism were sown at an early age and remained a significant element in Bloch’s Weltanschauung throughout his life. Therefore, he would have felt an immediate affinity for the teachings of the Besht when he encountered the Hasidic world subsequently. Later in his youth, Bloch encountered Hasidim wandering through the streets of Geneva, having travelled in a state of destitution from various parts of Eastern Europe. One of the reasons why he distanced himself from the indigenous Jewish community of Geneva after his Bar Mitzvah was his disgust at the disrespect – sometimes amounting to cruelty – that he perceived being meted out to the poverty-stricken refugees by certain middle-class Jews.18 The third experience occurred some three decades later when, in 1918, he was invited to attend a Hasidic Sabbath Service on New York’s Lower East Side. The emotional impact of this event was to have a decisive and farreaching effect on his future direction as a composer.19 Bloch composed his Baal Shem: Three Pictures of Chassidic Life between May and October 1923. Just as the inspiration to compose Schelomo had come to Bloch not only from the biblical King Solomon but also from the great contemporary Russian cellist Alexandre Barjansky, so the motivation to write Baal Shem came not only from the historical figure of the Besht but also from the celebrated Swiss violinist André de Ribaupierre (1893–1955), 18

Unpublished extracts from Bloch’s letters to Edmond Fleg, written from Satigny, 16 July 1911 and 24 January 1912. (Photocopies of letters in the original French

given to Alexander Knapp by Suzanne Bloch.) 19 See pp. 18–19 and 208–9.

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who visited Bloch at the Cleveland Institute of Music and taught there for a short period during the gestation period of the suite. Ribaupierre, with Bloch at the piano, gave the first performance of the first movement Vidui (under the earlier title Jewish Moods No. 1: Méditation) at the Cleveland Institute of Music during a public concert presented by the professorial staff on 24 May 1923. He gave the first public performance of the complete suite at a concert organized by the Council of Jewish Women at Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Cleveland, Ohio, on 6 February 1924.20 Within two years, the work had been played on both sides of the Atlantic by internationally renowned violinists such as Bronislaw Huberman, Carl Flesch, Joseph Szigeti, and the duo Zoltán Székely/Béla Bartók. An orchestral version of Baal Shem was produced by the composer in the autumn of 1939 and published by Carl Fischer the following year.21 The orchestral forces were similar to, but slightly less extensive than, those required for Schelomo (see Alphabetical List of Works). The first performance was given by Joseph Szigeti and the New York City Symphony Orchestra conducted by Reginald Stewart at the Carnegie Hall on 19 October 1941.

Commentaries on, and Analyses of, Traditional Jewish Elements Since the purpose of the analyses that follow is to focus specifically upon identifying and evaluating traditional melodic – and to a limited extent rhythmical and structural – elements in Schelomo and Baal Shem, no attempt will be made here to conduct a detailed and comprehensive examination of all the other parameters that are usually included in standard methods of musical analysis. However, occasional reference will be made to phenomena beyond melody, rhythm and form, when appropriate. One particularly complex area is the question of ‘Jewish harmony’. Composers and scholars have been grappling with this concept ever since Jewish music moved beyond the framework of strict monody into the sound world of homophony and polyphony (see, for example, Freed 1958; Idelsohn 1929: 478–91). The conflict between ‘modal’ and ‘tonal’ harmony is the subject of ongoing discussion and debate, and beyond the scope of this chapter. Most of the seventeen representative musical examples that follow comprise extracts from the two compositions under discussion. They are 20

The name of the pianist was not given in the programme. 21 Arrangements for cello and piano were made by Emanuel Feuermann

(unpublished, 1935), Joseph Schuster (Nigun only, published by Carl Fischer, 1947), and Peter Bruns (published in France by Opus 111 in 2000).

180 Alexander Knapp presented in their original key, whereas quotations from various compendia of Jewish liturgical and folk melodies have, in all cases but one, been transposed for easy comparison with Bloch’s themes. The one exception is Uv’khein – as notated by Salomon Sulzer (Example 10.7), covering four consecutive staves. Where a Jewish tune has been transposed, it is the final note (‘finalis’) of the original version that is given at the end of the stave, since ‘keys’ are not always possible to define. Texts, expression marks, phrasing, etc. are included if shown in the original notations.

Synagogal Chant Traditional Ashkenazi modes, scales and motifs found in both Schelomo and Baal Shem will shortly be compared with the phrases and modes that characterize liturgical chant (nusach), biblical chant (ta’amei hammikro) and folk tunes.22 But a few preliminary words of explanation may be useful. Whereas ‘Sephardic-Israeli’ has, in recent times, become accepted as the ‘standard’ pronunciation and transliteration of Hebrew (indeed, the method of choice in this volume), it is the ‘Ashkenazi’ pronunciation and transliteration that are utilized in this chapter. The reasons are as follows: most of the liturgical texts and musical technical terms that appear in the analyses are rendered according to the Ashkenazi tradition as presented in their original sources; furthermore, this is the manner in which Bloch himself was brought up as a child and with which he remained familiar as an adult. The Jewish modal system used in liturgy and prayer is known as nusach. This structure is common to all Jewish ethnicities and denominations.23 When the motifs characteristic of each of the Ashkenazi modes are rationalized into ascending and descending patterns of adjacent steps, the resulting synthetic scale is called shtayger (Yiddish, from the German Steiger: ‘scale’, ‘ladder’) (Avenari 1972).24 However, it must be emphasized that, in this context, the motifs came first; scales were a later invention. Therefore, the modes are defined by motifs and their configurations, rather than by scales. In this respect, they differ from Western Classical music, where major and minor ‘keys’ are usually thought of in relation to scales. Therefore, to describe Jewish music – and indeed Bloch’s ‘Jewish’ works – as ‘sounding Jewish’ on the basis of the presence of, for example, patterns incorporating augmented seconds (with a semitone on either side) and augmented 22

Though Eastern European and Western European branches of cantorial chant have much in common, there are also important differences in terms of content, ornamentation, interpretation, voice production, etc. Special attention is given here to the Eastern Ashkenazi tradition.

23

Although deriving from liturgical usage, Jewish modes are frequently heard in folk song and popular music too. 24 There are several different systems used by various commentators to define the various shtaygers.

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fourths – is simplistic, since these intervals exist in the musics of many cultures around the world. It is the finer detail of their motivic structure and combination that determine their ‘Jewishness’. When the basic Jewish motifs are clothed in the distinctive performance practice (improvisation, modulation, ornamentation, voice production, etc.) of the traditional cantor, this style is referred to as chazzonus (Heb.) or chazones (Yiddish). As shown in Baruch Joseph Cohon’s masterful article entitled ‘The Structure of the Synagogue Prayer-Chant’ (Cohon 1950), the modes – like those of the Arabic maqam – carry clear connotations of mood and ethos, season, time of day, etc.25 Cantorial motifs function specifically as beginning, intermediate or closing phrases in a liturgical recitative. Unlike Western scales, which replicate exactly in each octave, the intervals of the main octave of the shtayger may be different from those below the lower tonic or above the upper tonic. These differences do not represent modulation; they are integral to the mode.26 The five most frequently heard modal ‘families’ comprising Eastern Ashkenazi cantorial music are presented in the ‘Comparative Chart of Synthetic ‘Scales’ generated by the motifs of the Ashkenazi Prayer Modes (Steiger) (Example 10.1).27 They are (a) Adoshem moloch; (b) Mogen ovos; (c) S’lichoh/Psalm; (d) Ahavoh rabboh; and (e) Av horachamim/Mi shebeirach (Knapp 1982: ii; see also www.geoffreyshisler.com/music-of-the-syna gogue).28 The notes of the main octave appear as semibreves between the two bar-lines, whereas those outside the main octave are shown as stemless crotchets. All the scales begin on tonic E for the purposes of easy comparison, but can be transposed. Where relevant, references to the analogous modal scales of Gregorian Chant and Arabic maqam are given. Although Hasidic Jews prefer the more informal style of the ‘lay-cantor’ (ba’al t’filloh) over that of the professionally trained cantor (chazzon), the

25

In this respect they have a kinship with many other modal systems such as the Turkish makam and Indian raga. 26 For example, in Adoshem moloch (see Example 10.1), the seventh degree is a semitone below the lower tonic, but a whole tone below the upper tonic; the third degree in the main octave is major, but it is minor above the upper tonic. 27 Based in part on B. J. Cohon 1950: 20, 25, 26, 30. 28 These modes are also known as Hashem moloch or Adonoy moloch or Adonay malach, Magen avot, S’lichah, Ahava rabba and Av harachamim/Mi shebeirach, respectively.

Forward-slash separators indicate alternative names for the same mode. Ahavoh rabboh is frequently referred to as Freigish – especially by performers of klezmer music. This term may be interpreted either as a Yiddish form of phrygian (since the Gregorian mode, too, begins with a semitone step between the tonic and supertonic); or it may, because of its particular association with penitential texts, derive from the German fragen: ‘to ask’. The ‘Ukrainian-Dorian’ scale (equivalent to Av horachamim and Mi shebeirach modes) is an especially popular vehicle for Gypsy/ Roma and other non-Jewish Eastern European musical repertoires.

182 Alexander Knapp Example 10.1 Comparative chart of synthetic ‘scales’ generated by the motifs of the Ashkenazi prayer modes (Steiger)

nusach and chazzonus of the latter has permeated many aspects of Hasidic song and dance, just as Hasidic song and dance have profoundly influenced cantorial music.

Schelomo Analysing Schelomo in his 1933 notes, Bloch writes: ‘It is possible to imagine . . . that the solo cello . . . is the incarnation of King Solomon, and that the orchestra . . . represents his internal world and his experience of Life, though sometimes it is the orchestra that seems to reflect Solomon’s thoughts, while the solo instrument voices his words . . . “All is vanity”.’ Bloch places much emphasis on the king’s pessimism, despite ‘the royal pomp, the treasure, the wealth, the power, the women, all that a man might desire in this world’ and ‘the barbaric coloration of an Oriental world’ that surrounds him (Bloch, E. Program Note 1933a: 7; Morgenstern 1959: 413). After an extended series of colourful descriptions of the king’s lyrical and dramatic mood swings, Bloch concludes: ‘Almost all my works, even the darkest ones, still end optimistically, or at least with some hope. This is the only one that concludes . . . in complete negation. But the subject demanded it’ (Bloch, E. Program Note 1933a: 8; Morgenstern 1959: 414). Bloch wrote these notes some seventeen years after having composed the work. Much of the material is factual; but there are long passages of what Bloch himself describes as a ‘psychoanalysis’ of Schelomo, where his literary

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style is more like an emotional and Romantic stream of consciousness. Furthermore, some of the questions he poses are left unanswered, and their rhetorical nature can cause uncertainty in the mind of the reader. For example, at one point, he asks in relation to snatches of melody that his father often sang: ‘Is it the Muezzin’s call? . . . Is it the priests? . . . I do not know.’ Shortly thereafter, he states: ‘There is another Tutti. Is it Schelomo? Or is it the crowd, the crazed people, now, conscious of their misery, and who, confused, hurl cries of despair, imprecations against the Universe, blasphemies against God?’ Does this vivid language reveal more about Bloch’s personality and his state of mind in 1916, or in 1933? Schelomo is a single-movement work in ternary form, plus an introduction and a coda. There are numerous motifs throughout Schelomo that are the composer’s subconscious transformations of biblical and cantorial chant. One, for example, is the heroic melody that appears four times in the work, prior to, and during, the great orchestral climaxes occurring towards the end of the first and third sections of this work.29 This melody is in two parts, the first of which is built upon motifs (Example 10.2b)30 that bear a remarkable resemblance to some of those that comprise Tzur Yisroel (Example 10.2a),31 a traditional liturgical chant in the Ahavoh rabboh mode that Bloch was to receive from Reuben Rinder (1887–1966) – cantor at the Temple Emanu-El, San Francisco – in the late 1920s while preparing his Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service: 1930–3).32 It would be interesting to speculate as to how and why this apparent anachronism came about. Might the melody have been implanted in Bloch’s consciousness from childhood memories of his father’s chanting – or that of the cantor in the Geneva Synagogue – only to be recognized and reawakened first in Schelomo, and a decade-and-a-half later in the Sacred Service?33 The Hebrew text and its English translation, as shown in Bloch’s score, are as follows: Tzur Yisroel, kumo be’ezras Yisroel, Go’alenu Adonoy, tzevo’os shemo. (‘Rock of Israel, arise to the help of Israel! Our deliv’rer Adonoy, O bless and praise his Name.’) The second part of this melody, too, is significant from a Jewish perspective: first of all, the most arresting evocations of the shofar (ram’s horn) in Schelomo are the teru’oh calls (trills and rapidly repeated notes mainly on a

29

Version 1: solo cello: p. 21, bars 2 ff. Version 2: full orchestra: p. 29, bars 2 ff. Version 3: solo cello: p. 60, bars 4 ff;. Version 4: full orchestra: p. 71, bars 2 ff. 30 Schelomo p. 60, bars 4–8: solo cello. 31 Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service), vocal score p. 21 bars 9–15, orchestral score p. 41 bar 1–p. 42 bar 2: baritone solo.

32 Tzur Yisroel appears at the end of Part I of this work, and again before Adon Olam in Part V. 33 Other aspects of the special relationship between Avodath Hakodesh and Schelomo are compelling, but beyond the scope of this chapter.

Example 10.2 (a) Bloch Sacred Service – Tzur Yisroel, vocal score p. 21, bb. 9–15 (cantor); (b) Bloch Schelomo, study score p. 60, bb. 4–8 (cello solo)34

34 Bar numbers in vocal and orchestral scores represent the bar numbers on the designated page.

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Example 10.3 Bloch Schelomo: Shofar calls, study score p. 31, b. 2–p. 32, b. 1 (brass)

Example 10.4 Bloch Schelomo: the quartertone, study score p. 60, bb. 8–11 (cello solo)

monotone) that conclude the orchestral tuttis in the second and fourth statements (Example 10.3).35 And in the third of its four appearances, the solo cello plays a markedly different variant (Example 10.4)36 that contains the only quartertone in Schelomo – indeed, the only such interval in the ‘Jewish Cycle’ as a whole. The direction ‘+ ¼ del tuono’ appears above the sixth note in the middle of bar 10 on page 60, and extends beyond that semiquaver to the minim C natural that follows it immediately. For nearly a century, cellists and conductors have been pondering the ambiguity created by the ‘+’ sign. Did Bloch intend that the C sharp should be a quartertone sharper than the D flat that precedes it (i.e., D ‘minus’),37 or a quartertone sharper than the C natural that follows it (i.e. C ‘plus’)? The score offers no clarification. However, the answer is clear from the 1949 performance recorded by the great cellist Zara Nelsova, with Bloch himself conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Knapp 1997: 3).38 Here, a clearly descending 35

Schelomo, p. 31, bar 2–p. 32, bar 1: trumpets; also p. 73, bar 3–p. 74, bar 3: horns–trumpets. 36 Schelomo, p. 60, bars 8–11: solo cello. 37 Ethnomusicologists who employ Western notation as part of their fieldwork analysis use a variety of ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ symbols to indicate an interval that is usually midway between a note in its ‘natural’ position and one in its ‘sharp’ or ‘flat’ position, respectively. This applies especially to the notation of Arabic Classical music in which modal scales are nowadays rationalised into an artificial 24-note equally tempered

quartertone scale: C, C+, C#/D♭, D-, D, D+, D#/E♭, E-, E, etc. But for Bloch, the use of the quartertone in this work, and others outside the Cycle, was not the basis for a new system of tuning, but rather an intensification by way of inflection of the existing tonal/modal sound world of Western music. 38 Bloch gave Nelsova the affectionate nickname ‘Madame Schelomo’. See ‘Zara Nelsova: Reflections on Ernest Bloch’, based on a telephone conversation with Alexander Knapp, September 1996, published in insert notes, p. 3.

186 Alexander Knapp Example 10.5 Bloch Schelomo: Uv’khein theme, study score p. 34, bb. 12–23 (oboe/bassoon)

sequence of notes is heard: F, E natural, D flat, C ‘sharp’ (actually C ‘plus’), C natural.39 It is to be regretted that, in many performances and recordings of Schelomo, the soloist will inflect the penultimate note in this group upwards by a quartertone instead of downwards. In only one instance did Bloch acknowledge that he had consciously taken a melody from a traditional Jewish source and incorporated it in any of the works of the ‘Cycle’; and this is the melody that appears for the first time at the beginning of the middle section of Schelomo – and frequently throughout the remainder of the work. For reasons that will become clear, this is referred to, in this chapter, as the Uv’khein theme (Example 10.5).40 Bloch refers to this melody in an interview with Henry Krehbiel: ‘I do not remember the words or their meaning, because I never learned the Hebrew language . . . It was not easy to write, but I am sure it is very exact. I hear the voice of my father as if he were here’ (Krehbiel 1917: sec. 4, 2). Before investigating the melody itself, we must question Bloch’s frequent protestations in regard to his ignorance of the Hebrew language. These are not consistent with the fact that he had learned the language as a child up to the time of his Bar Mitzvah, and that he was still able, for example, to read and understand parts of his mother’s Hebrew prayer book, according to a 39

Confirmed in a letter from Suzanne Bloch to me, New York, 15 July 1973: ‘About the passage with microtones . . . before no. 36. D flat – C sharp. It’s obvious really that it should be downward in all logic! I have the recording of Nelsova with EB conducting

and re-checked and of course it goes downward.’ 40 Schelomo, p. 34, bars 12–23: oboe, joined by bassoon in bar 19, accompanied throughout by violins tremolando.

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letter he wrote to Edmond Fleg on 24 January 1912 (Lewinski and Dijon : I:561). In the same letter he also demonstrated how capable he was of writing Hebrew in block letters. Bloch’s statement to Krehbiel in 1917 is all the more inexplicable since, three years later, he actually wrote the Hebrew words (even if he did not know their meaning) in a letter sent to his mother Sophie from New York on 3 December 1920 (Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:284). He informs her that she must not miss the forthcoming performance of Schelomo to be given in Geneva:41 ‘You’ll be moved when, in the middle of the work, you hear the small voice of the oboe reciting the Jewish chant which my father used to sing so often in the morning.’ Bloch’s letter continues immediately with his own transliteration of the chant text in Hebrew, which he places within parentheses and quotation marks: Thembartero adonoï elaneicho, acol ma-a-a cero! fenuscho acol maché borosso, feréoucho acol amïsim, urie stache vou echo acol agoudim, vayoséchoulo, agoudoecho! Qui saphir mam chéler sodom . . . min..ò fóooorert, [ . . . ]-o-fe-che-eïnn!

Figure 10.142 is a facsimile of the second page of this letter; and the passage under discussion appears in the lower half of the page. Various commentators have highlighted the significance of this melody, but without indicating its exact origin. Robert Strassburg, for example, describes it as a non-specific gemora nigun (Strassburg 1977: 37).43 Could its source not be more precisely pinpointed if the text were located first? The words in Bloch’s letter to his mother are, at first sight, difficult to identify. There are two interlinked problems: (i) the words have been rendered, not always consistently, according to a Western Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew, and with a French accent; and (ii) they have fallen prey to numerous distortions. Maurice Bloch’s pronunciation might not have been clear to Ernest who, as a child, may not have been listening carefully to the words; or he may not have remembered them accurately as an adult. A tentative start was made to unravel the mystery of its origin when, in my paper entitled ‘The Jewishness of Bloch: Subconscious or Conscious?’ (Knapp 1971: 104), I demonstrated certain musical affinities between the 41

André Hekking (1866–1925), the DutchFrench cellist, was soloist with Ernest Ansermet (1883–1969) conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande at ‘Victoria Hall’ on 5 February 1921. 42 This letter is quoted in part in Lewinski and Dijon; but the section containing the Hebrew transliteration is omitted.

A photocopy of the complete letter forms part of the Bloch Collection Alexander Knapp, London. 43 A gemora nigun is a genre of teaching melody declaimed – often responsorially – by students of the Talmud (the rabbinical commentaries on the Bible written in the early centuries of the Common Era).

188 Alexander Knapp

Figure 10.1 Letter from Ernest Bloch to his mother Sophie, 3 December 1920, p. 2

Uv’khein theme (Example 10.6b) and two separate traditional cantorial motifs in the Mogen ovos mode,44 appearing in Max Wohlberg’s unpublished Illustrations for Lectures on Modes and Melodies of the Synagogue

44

For further details about this mode, see ‘Chart 3: Modes in the Mogen ovos Scale’ and commentary in Cohon 1950: 26–9.

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Example 10.6 (a) Wohlberg motifs (reproduced from Knapp, 1971: 99–112); (b) Bloch Schelomo: Uv’khein theme, study score p. 34, bb. 12–23 (oboe/bassoon)

190 Alexander Knapp (Example 10.6a):45 first, Asher kidshonu b’mitsvosov (‘who blesses us with his commandments’), from the High Holy Day Blessing over hearing the shofar; and second, Ki El Melech godol v’kodosh oto (‘for you are a great and holy God and King’) from the prayer L’dor vodor (‘From generation to generation’) in the ‘Amidoh (see below) for the High Festivals: Although the above two comparisons were a useful point of departure, they were not helpful in linking Bloch’s theme to his transliteration of the text. However, the evidence that proved conclusive in the search for a convincing liturgical, as well as musical, source was found by the late Rev. Leo Bryll (1906–85)46 at the beginning of the ‘Amidoh section (‘Standing Prayer’) for every High Holy Day Service. He transliterated that text as follows: [Uv’khein] tein pachd’kho Adonoi Eloheinu ‘al kol-ma’asekho, v’eimos’kho al kolmah-shebboro’so, v’yiro’ukho kol-hamma’asim, v’yishtachavu l’fonekho kolhabbru’im, v’ye’osu khullom aguddo echos . . . Ki sa’avir memsheles zodon minho’oretz. Uv’khein . . .

This passage about the Divine Kingdom, attributed to the great BabylonianJewish teacher Abba Areka (c.160-c.247 CE), has the following meaning: ‘[Now, therefore,] O Lord our God, impose thine awe upon all thy works, and thy dread upon all that thou hast created, that all works may revere thee and all creatures prostrate themselves before thee, that they may all form a single band . . . when thou makest the dominion of arrogance to pass away from the earth. Now, therefore . . .’ (Hertz 1965: 846–7, 849). When comparing this Hebrew text with Bloch’s, the basic similarities are manifest, but when it is compared with the liturgy, there is a textual truncation that is problematical: no explanation has emerged as to why the first sentence of the prayer breaks off half way through a clause, that is, after the words aguddo echos (‘single band’), only to continue with the clause beginning Ki sa’avir (‘when thou makest’) that appears some twoand-a-half paragraphs later in the liturgy. This may, again, be a consequence of Bloch’s memory, or his father’s rendering, or a combination of both. As this truncation posed no serious obstacle to recognizing the transliterations of Bloch and Bryll as demonstrably one and the same Hebrew text, the next step was to determine whether there were any musical connections between the Schelomo melody and the traditional chant for Uv’khein tein pachd’kho that Bloch’s father might have heard, either as a 45

Max Wohlberg, Illustrations for Lectures on Modes and Melodies of the Synagogue (unpublished), after Ogutsch 1930 and Wodak 1898.

46 Bryll taught numerous students at ‘Jews College’ (now renamed ‘London School of Jewish Studies’) during the period of his fulltime lectureship in Chazzonus from 1963 until shortly before his death.

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young man while growing up in the village of Lengnau in the far north of the northern Swiss, German-speaking, Canton Aargau, or as an adult in the far south-western, francophone city of Geneva. It would, therefore, be necessary to sift through any published anthologies that might have functioned either (a) prescriptively as materials to be used by cantors, congregations and choirs in the Ashkenazi synagogues of Switzerland in the mid- to late nineteenth century, or (b) descriptively as transcriptions of oral tradition current during this period. On the front cover of a small manuscript book appears a title in faded handwriting: Hebräische Deutsche Chorale Gesänge: M. I. B. And on the first inside page appear the words Gesangheft für Meier I. Bloch. Further information inscribed on the same page indicates that this was indeed the ‘Songbook’ that Bloch’s father Meier47 used when he was an alto chorister in the Lengnau Synagogue at the age of fifteen (1847). From the alto line, I have been able to identify no fewer than nine Sabbath and Festival choral settings by Salomon Sulzer (1804–90) in this songbook; and this suggests that the celebrated Viennese cantor and composer exerted considerable influence upon the Jewish community of Lengnau in the mid-nineteenth century. Unfortunately, Meier’s songbook concentrates mainly upon choral pieces and contains very few cantorial transcriptions: Uv’khein is not among them. However, the second volume of Sulzer’s Schir Zion, published in 1865, does contain Uv’chen (Sulzer’s transliteration).48 Was this traditional melody – in one form or another – already well known in Lengnau prior to 1865? As Sulzer was Viennese, it would be expedient to check his cantorial transcription against one that was more specifically south German. A comparison with the very similar setting in the encyclopedic compilation published by Abraham Baer in 1877 under the title Baal T’fillah49 fulfilled this purpose convincingly. And if the Jewish music traditions of Lengnau were now adequately covered, what of those of Geneva? Enquiries made to the Jewish Community Centre in Geneva in June 2002 led me to the musicologist and choirmaster Henri Milstein (1924–2011) – an expert on Jewish music in Geneva. He indicated, in 47

Meier was his Hebrew name; his everyday German name was Moritz. When he later settled in Geneva, he changed his name to Maurice. 48 Sulzer, S., Uv’chen ten pacht’cho, in Schir Zion, vol. 2 (1865), p. 151, no. 233. Schir Zion – ‘Song of Zion’ – was published in two volumes by Artaria and Co. in Vienna in 1838–40 and 1865, respectively, and quickly became popular in Orthodox and Reform

congregations throughout Ashkenazi Europe, East and West. The transliteration of the third Hebrew word should be pachd’cho or pachdecho. Nevertheless, the incorrect published spelling has been retained. 49 Baer (1877), Uw’chen ten pachd’cho, no. 1115: D[eutsche] W[eise] (upper of each pair of staves: p. 240) leading into the first bar of no. 1116 (p. 241).

192 Alexander Knapp conversation (19 June 2002), that there was only one Ashkenazi synagogue in existence in central Geneva at the end of the nineteenth century. The ‘Grande Synagogue’ – renamed Beit Ya’akov (House of Jacob) at the end of the twentieth century – had been erected in the Place de la Synagogue in 1859 by the then 200-strong community (granted official recognition in 1853) upon land donated by the city. The majority of the congregation had arrived from Alsace in the 1870s; and by 1900 the number of Jews in Geneva had grown to 1076, out of a total population of c.80,000. According to Milstein, the synagogue ritual was nominally Orthodox for Sabbaths and Festivals, religious services being led by the cantor with the assistance of a boys’ choir. However, the presence of women choristers at wedding ceremonies indicates the influence of the Reform Movement, established in Western Europe in the early nineteenth century. The musical ethos to which the worshippers at the ‘Grande Synagogue’ would have been exposed at this time was a complex mixture of Eastern and Western European cantorial styles, German cantillation of the Bible, and a ‘modern’ style of choral singing based on the Paris model of composers such as Samuel David, Jules Franck and Israel Lovy, and the celebrated cantor Samuel Naumbourg (appointed chief cantor of the synagogue in the Rue Notre-Dame, Paris, in 1845 on the recommendation of the prominent opera composer Halévy). Naumbourg was to Paris what Sulzer was to Vienna and Lewandowski to Berlin. And yet he was descended from a family of cantors, stretching back some three centuries, who had lived and practised their art in south Germany. Thus, he too was an exponent of the southern branch of the Deutsche Weise which, through his influence, would have reached Geneva – somewhat circuitously – via Paris. Having perused numerous musical transcriptions of the Uv’khein text, I found that the three which seemed to approach most closely to the Schelomo melody were those appearing in Naumbourg’s Chants Liturgiques des Grandes Fêtes (Vol. 2 of Semiroth Israel),50 Baer’s Baal T’fillah,51 and Sulzer’s Schir Zion, Vol. 2 (Example 10.7).52 I have chosen to illustrate this relationship here by selecting the version by Sulzer53 because of his strong musical links with Lengnau. Although not identical, there are close affinities between the overall character of Bloch’s melody and the abovementioned transcriptions of oral tradition – especially as concerns the latter part of the theme where, in 50 Naumbourg (1847), Uvechen ten pachtecho, no. 222 (p. 252), leading into the first two bars of no. 223 (p. 253). 51 See footnote 62. 52 See footnote 61.

53 Unlike the shortened text in Bloch’s letter to his mother Sophie, that found in Sulzer’s version extends to the beginning of the succeeding paragraph of the liturgy.

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Example 10.7 Sulzer Uv’chen ten pacht’cho (sic) (reproduced from Schir Zion (1865) vol. 2, p. 151, no. 233)

Bloch’s version, the bassoon joins the oboe. Many motifs hover around a reciting tone which functions as a pivot. Apart from a small number of leaps that create a dramatic effect, most of the intervals move by step, or by a third at the most. Numerous repeated notes function as upbeats preceding an emphasized note or syllable. Since it is not clear when or where Meier first heard this tune, it has not been possible so far to determine (i) its original source, (ii) the extent to which Meier may have made any changes to it, or (iii) if it was rather Bloch himself who, consciously or unconsciously, transformed the melody into that which appears in Schelomo. There are several more instances, in this work, of likenesses between cantorial motifs and phrases of Bloch’s own making. Compare, for example, a frequently heard sequential phrase from the middle section (Example 10.8a)54 and a traditional motif in the Ahavoh rabboh mode (Example 10.8b).55 In conclusion we may observe that the rhapsodic manner and glittering instrumentation gives Schelomo an apparently improvised air; however, although melismatic in manner, the underlying structure is a sturdy ternary form. Despite the demanding technique required of the soloist and orchestra 54

Schelomo, p. 45, bar 6–p. 46, bar 2: cello solo

55

Cohon, 1950: 25, Chart 2: modes in the Ahavoh rabboh scale: a. Sabbath, motif j (modulatory phrase).

194 Alexander Knapp Example 10.8 (a) Bloch Schelomo, study score p. 45, b. 6–p. 46, b. 2 (cello solo); (b) Cohon motifs (reproduced from Cohon 1950: 25, 2aj)

alike, virtuosity is always the servant of that expressiveness in which the spiritual and sensual are fused. To what extent are the traditional Jewish music elements in Schelomo paralleled in the Three Pictures of Chassidic Life?

Baal Shem Several composers in the Western art music mainstream have evoked aspects of the Hasidic world in their works; for example, Aaron Copland’s piano trio entitled Vitebsk (named after the town in Belarus, where the main theme – a nigun56 – was often sung) and Joseph Achron’s Hebrew Melody. But of those that carry the name of the founder of Hasidism, Bloch’s set of three pieces, together twelve minutes in duration, is probably the most familiar to concert audiences. Like Schelomo, Baal Shem is tripartite; but in this case the movements are separate from each other, and there is no cyclic element. In a letter to Edmond Fleg, dated 30 May 1923 (Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:462), Bloch referred to the suite upon which he was currently engaged as Jewish Moods; and on 31 October of the same year (Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:462), he wrote to his sister Loulette full of enthusiasm for the ‘3 Jewish pieces, for violin, in a simple style, and which sound wonderful on the instrument. I’ll dedicate them to the memory of mother57 who would have loved them.’ In the context of the easily accessible style of the suite as a whole, Suzanne Bloch relates, in her typically lively manner, a bitter-sweet anecdote that gives a telling insight into its reception: The Baal Shem pieces . . . were disapproved of by many of Bloch’s friends. They felt that he was slipping. Bloch himself knew that this Suite was of a totally different caliber than his other works. He knew well that this couldn’t be compared with his

56

For a full explanation of the term, see Nigun (Improvisation) below.

57

Sophie had died two years earlier.

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Violin Sonata.58 He enjoyed telling the story of his visit to the office of Carl Fischer who was to be the publisher of the music. After he and Ribaupierre had finished playing the Suite, Carl Fischer got up excitedly, slapped Bloch on the back and exclaimed, ‘Now, Bloch, you are improving and really getting somewhere.’ The Suite became successful, eclipsing his other works for a time. He was unhappy about that. But if anyone said a word of criticism about the Baal Shem pieces, he would bridle at once. (Bloch and Heskes 1976: 61)

The three movements are Vidui (Contrition), Nigun (Improvisation), and Simchas Torah (Rejoicing). In addition to quotations from pre-existing Yiddish songs, there are numerous motifs and modal structures derived from Ashkenazi sacred music that can be found in each movement.

Vidui (Contrition) The first movement – the shortest of the three, lasting just two minutes – was originally entitled Méditation. The Hebrew word vidui literally means ‘confession’. The form is ternary, with the large falling and rising intervals of the opening theme recurring (bars 23 ff.) after the middle section (bars 11–22). The piano creates a harmonic backdrop to the upward and downward soaring melodies of the violin; but the sustained chords of the first and third sections are in marked contrast to the intensifying effect of the oscillating triplets in the middle section. The key is E minor, though there is much chromaticism and shifting of tonal centres. At the close of the movement, the motif that begins with an extended melisma on the violin, and ends with a perfect cadence (Example 10.9a)59 in the Ahavoh rabboh mode on tonic E,60 closely resembles a concluding motif in the same mode (Example 10.9b)61 from M’nuchoh V’simchoh (‘Rest and Joy’), a hymn for the Sabbath table, within the category of Religious Folk Song. The text is b’vias goeyl l’chayey ho’olom habo (‘And the redeemer who cometh in the world to come’).62 This liturgical setting has been attributed to Cantor Yoel David Levinsohn of Vilna (1816–50), who was better known by the title Vilner Balbessel (‘The Young Master from Vilna’). Nigun (Improvisaton) The second movement is probably the best known among Bloch’s compositions for violin and piano, and it has retained an assured place in the 58

Of Bloch’s six dozen compositions, the Violin Sonata No. 1, a relatively early work dating from 1920, is one of the most challenging – both for performer and for listener. 59 Vidui, piano score p. 5, bars 34–7: solo violin.

The two final chords in the piano part are VII7–I, namely, D minor seventh–E major. To Western Classical ears, this sounds more like an imperfect cadence in A minor. 61 Vinaver (1955: 229, no. 55, line 5, bars 2–3). 62 Transliteration and translation by Chemjo Vinaver, 1955: 229 and 231, respectively. 60

196 Alexander Knapp Example 10.9 (a) Bloch Vidui, piano score p. 5, bb. 34–7 (violin); (b) Vinaver motifs (reproduced from Vinaver 1955: 229, no. 55, line 5, bb. 2–3)63

standard repertoire as a self-standing solo work – both in recitals and in recordings. The composer originally called this five-minute-long movement ‘Rhapsody’, but changed its name to Nigun. But what is a Hasidic Nigun, and why did Bloch choose this term as the title for the centrepiece of his suite? Nigun or Nign (as it is sometimes transliterated from the Yiddish, with the stress on the first syllable)64 means, literally, ‘tune’; but in the specifically Hasidic context, it refers to a highly distinctive genre of songs, usually composed by tzadikim (Heb. and Yidd. pl.: Hasidic ‘holy men’, ‘saints’), the purpose of which is to transport both performer and listener to transcendental realms of spirituality. Nigunim (pl.) can be either metrical or in free rhythm, instrumental or vocal. Set texts are sometimes provided – usually in Yiddish or Hebrew or a combination of the two. But more often than not, words are regarded as too limiting – they might even cause an interruption in the stream of religious emotion; and so, 63

Bar numbers in piano scores refer to the bar numbers counted from the beginning of the relevant movement.

64

Derived from the Hebrew niggun, a word of the same meaning, but with the stress on the last syllable.

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most vocal nigunim are sung to certain non-semantic syllables that best suit the mood of the singer and the tempo of the melody; for example, biribiri-bim-bom for fast and jolly tunes, or yai-yai for slower and more contemplative ones. The melodies themselves are derived in part from local Jewish liturgical and folk traditions, but also from Slavic, Balkan and Cossack marches and dances, shepherd and peasant songs, and even from opera, operetta and the popular classical repertoire. The principle is that of ‘saving secular tunes from the Devil’, following the Kabbalistic theory that there are Divine sparks inherent in every melody, which could, and should, be lifted up from the sphere of impurity to which they have sunk from the sphere of holiness. In Hasidic music, there are no separate categories of ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’, since nothing in Hasidic life is considered profane. Thousands of nigunim have been composed by tzadikim over the centuries. Some have been handed down orally, others have been written down in Western notation. Each one usually grows out of small phrases that frequently revolve around a fixed tone, expanding through a highly developed technique of repetition, variation and embellishment. There are sometimes sudden changes of speed and dynamics; and these produce dramatic effects. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Hasidic song developed in two directions, each aspiring towards the same goal of attaining Divine bliss. The first was the original system of the Besht, favoured in Poland, south Russia, Ukraine, Galicia, Romania and Hungary. This music was vigorous, syncopated, lively, expressive of extreme, joyous moods. The second was a musical manifestation of the Chabad65 movement founded by Rabbi Shneor Zalman of Lyady (1745–1812), centred in Liubawitz, and becoming especially popular in Lithuania and Byelorus. The Chabad Hasidim felt that it was impossible to leap from extreme melancholy to extreme joy, so a scale of intermediate soul-states was introduced. It was important to be in deep meditation as the soul developed through each stage. The lowest level was hishtapchuth hannefesh – the outpouring of the soul and its effort to rise out of the mire of sin; the second level was hithoreruth – spiritual awakening; the third was hithpaaluth – possession by thought; the fourth, dveikuth – communion with God; the fifth, hithlahavuth – the flame of ecstasy; and at the sixth and highest level, hithpashtuth hagashmiyuth, the soul would cast off the garments of flesh and become a disembodied spirit (Idelsohn 1929: 419).66

65

Chabad was formed from the initials of the three Hebrew words meaning ‘wisdom’ (chochmoh), ‘insight’ (binoh) and ‘knowledge’ (da’as).

66

The Hebrew words are all reproduced exactly as Idelsohn transliterated them.

198 Alexander Knapp Example 10.10 The intervallic relationship between harmonic minor, Mi shebeirach and Ahavoh rabboh

Current research appears not yet to have established whether Bloch was familiar with the six dimensions of the traditional Chabad Nigun. It would, in any case, be fanciful to try to straitjacket the patently ternary form of Bloch’s Nigun in this way; for there is no trajectory of ever-increasing intensity of emotion from beginning to end; rather, a constant ebb and flow in mood and atmosphere. The two-flat key signature of this movement indicates G minor. However, this Western key (in its ‘harmonic’ form, with sharpened leading note F sharp) comprises the same intervals as the Mi shebeirach modal scale on tonic C and Ahavoh rabboh (in its main octave) on tonic D. The relationship between the respective upper and lower tetrachords of these three scalic patterns is shown in Example 10.10. It is a relatively simple matter to modulate from one modal framework to another; and this phenomenon is well known in Eastern Ashkenazi cantorial and folk idioms. Although Bloch appears not to have quoted consciously from traditional Jewish sources in Nigun, this movement is nevertheless replete with motifs, melodies, scales and arpeggios based not only in G melodic and harmonic minor (with brief excursions into B flat and C major), but also Ahavoh rabboh on G, D, A and E; and Mi shebeirach on G and D.67 We can surmise that he would have absorbed the latter Jewish elements from his father’s day-to-day singing at home – as well as from the cantorial recitatives that he heard in the Geneva synagogue as a child. The form of this movement is ternary, with an introduction (piano solo) and a coda. The A section comprises two main themes (bars 5 ff and 24 ff, respectively), as does the B section (bars 38 ff and 49 ff, respectively). The recapitulation features only the first of the two themes of the A section 67

There are also several cadenza-like passages reminiscent of the Gypsy style of

violin playing (e.g., bars 12–14, 20–3, 36–7, 95–100).

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Example 10.11 (a) Bloch Nigun, piano score p. 2, bb. 5–7 (violin); (b) Cohen Cantillation motifs (reproduced from Cohen 1902: 542, line 7, col. 1); (c) Cohon motifs, p. 31, 4fXI–60; (d) Baer motifs (reproduced from Baer 1877: 3, no. 22b)

(bars 89 ff). None of the motifs generated in the introduction or in the coda is heard elsewhere in the movement. Four examples – one from the A section, two from the B section and one (comprising two distinct themes) from the coda – will represent the numerous Ashkenazi elements in this movement. The opening bars played on the violin (Example 10.11a)68 are identical in contour to a motif found in Ashkenazi biblical cantillation (Example 10.11b)69 and two motifs from the cantorial repertoire (Examples 11c70 and 11d,71 respectively). The words in Example 11d are from the opening of Psalm 30: Mismor schir chanukkas habbajis l’dowid (‘A Psalm; a Song at the Dedication of the House; of David’).72

68

Nigun, piano score p. 2, bars 5–7, solo violin. 69 Cohen 1902: 542, line 7, col. 1: ‘2. Pentateuch (Penitential), A. Ashkenazim: Pashta katon’. 70 Cohon, 1950: 31, Chart 4: Modes in the Psalm-mode Scale: f. K’rovoh mode for High Holy Days, motif XI (beginning phrase) and

motif 60 (pausal phrase). The ‘Psalm mode’ in Cohon’s usage has no connection with the cantillation of the biblical Book of Psalms – a tradition no longer observed by Ashkenazi Jews. An alternative designation for this family of modes is S’lichoh. 71 Baer 1877: 3, no. 22b. 72 [Anon] The Holy Scriptures 1957.

200 Alexander Knapp Example 10.12 (a) Bloch Nigun, piano score p. 2, bb. 5–7 (violin); (b) Beregovski Frejlexs (reproduced from Beregovski 1962: 147, no. 87, bb. 1–4)

Example 10.13 (a) Bloch Nigun, piano score p. 7, bb. 49–52, 53–6; (b) Cohon motifs, p. 25, 2a40-10-20

One of the prominent melodies in the middle section of Nigun (Example 10.12a)73 bears a remarkable resemblance to Vos ost du mir opgeton (‘What have you done to me?’), a traditional Frejlexs74 transcribed in 1937 from the repertoire of G. Gershfeld, a fiddler and composer in the Moldovan city of Tiraspol, and quoted in a book of ‘Jewish Folk Songs’ collected by the SovietJewish ethnomusicologist Moshe Beregovski (Example 10.12b).75 Both are in the Ahavoh rabboh mode. Following on immediately from the Frejlexs is another prominent theme in the Ahavoh rabboh mode (Example 10.13a),76 which shows a close relationship with three traditional cantorial motifs (Example 10.13b).77 And finally, a comparison between two consecutive phrases (each of which undergoes repetition) in the Ahavoh rabboh mode that occur in the

73 Nigun, piano score, bars 38–43: piano; and bars 42–6: violin. 74 Pronounced Freylekhs, a genre of joyful klezmer dance. 75 Beregovski 1962: 147, no. 87, bars 1–4. See also Slobin 1982: 439, no. 87, bars 1–4 and pp. 501–2; and Knapp 1971: 107–8.

76

Nigun, piano score, bars 49–52 and 53–6. Cohon 1950: 25, Chart 2: modes in the Ahavoh rabboh scale: a. Sabbath, motifs 40, 10, 20 (pausal phrases). 77

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Example 10.14 (a) Bloch Nigun, piano score p. 9, bb. 101–6; (b) Cohon motifs, p. 25, 2ah-R

coda of this movement (Example 10.14a),78 and two motifs from the cantorial repertoire (Example 10.14b).79 Whereas the first two movements of Baal Shem emphasize anguish, even in their quieter moments, as expressed through modalities most of which sound ‘minor’ to the Western ear, the mood undergoes a fundamental transformation into a state of joyfulness in the Finale, as represented by themes in mainly ‘major’ modalities.

Simchas Torah The last movement, also of five minutes’ duration, was named after the Festival of Simchas Torah (‘Rejoicing in the Law’). However, Bloch had earlier given it the Yiddish title Yontef (from the Hebrew Yom Tov: ‘Good Day’, i.e. religious festival) (Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:462). It comes at the end of Sukkos (eight-day Feast of Tabernacles) that follows the High Holy Days (New Year and Day of Atonement) every autumn; and it commemorates God’s handing of the Torah (Pentateuch) to Moses on Mount Sinai. In the Jewish calendar, it is the occasion on which the cantillating of the last portion of Deuteronomy is immediately succeeded by that of the first 78

Nigun, piano score, bars 101–6, violin.

79

Cohon, 1950: 25, Chart 2a: motif h (modulatory phrase), followed by motif R (concluding phrase).

202 Alexander Knapp Example 10.15 (a) Bloch Simchas Torah, piano score p. 2, bb. 1–6 (violin); (b) Cohon motifs, p. 21, 1cVI-25-27-28

portion of Genesis, so perpetuating the continuous cycle of Torah chant. This is one of the happiest events in the Jewish liturgical calendar; and congregants, regardless of ethnicity or denomination, are encouraged to celebrate by singing and dancing uninhibitedly, with eyes closed, while holding a Torah scroll close to their heart. This movement can be conceived as a modified rondo form consisting of a main theme ‘A’ (bar 1 ff, 48 ff, 61 ff, 77 ff and 98 ff) and three interspersed episodes: ‘B’ (37 ff, 88 ff and 117 ff), ‘C’ (55 ff and 83 ff) and ‘D’ (67 ff). The opening is based on tonic E; but the major third, major sixth and minor seventh – as indicated by the key signature of three sharps – bring to mind not only the Gregorian mixolydian mode, but also the Jewish Adoshem moloch Shtayger. There are affinities between Bloch’s theme (Example 10.15a)80 and four motifs taken from this traditional mode (Example 10.15b).81 In the middle of this exuberant finale, Bloch has deliberately introduced the opening motifs (episode ‘D’) of the popular Yiddish song Di Mizinke82 80

Simchas Torah, piano score, bars 1–6, violin. 81 Cohon 1950: 21, Chart 1: modes in the Adonoy moloch scale: c. Sabbath morning Y’kum purkon and Chazoras hashatz, motif

VI (beginning phrase), motifs 25, 27, 28 (pausal). 82 Mizinke can also be spelled Mazinka, Mezinka, Mezinke, Mezhinka, etc. Suzanne Bloch shares an anecdote that sheds light on another aspect of her father’s multifaceted

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Example 10.16 (a) Bloch Simchas Torah, piano score p. 5, bb. 67–9 (piano); (b) Warshawski, Di Mizinke Oysgegebn (reproduced from Mlotek 1977: 55, bb. 1–6)

Oisgegebn (‘The Youngest Daughter Married Off’) (Example 16b)83 by the Polish composer Mark Warshawsky (1848–1907),84 which he had heard in his youth (Lewinski and Dijon 2001: 464; Bloch and Heskes, 1976: 61). The opening motifs of this melody (Example 10.16a)85 are tossed back and forth canonically between violin and piano. The symbolism behind the inclusion of this song in Bloch’s finale is significant, since this Festival is a ‘wedding’, where the Torah is traditionally represented as the bride, and the Jewish people as the bridegroom. The final musical illustration offers an example of the kinship between Simchas Torah (Example 10.17a)86 and Schelomo (Example 10.17b).87 These fanfares, each of which heralds a fiery climax, share much in common in terms of rhythmical character and melodic contour.

Conclusions A study on this scale cannot do justice to the plethora of material available. Nevertheless, we may now be in a position to assess in what respects Schelomo and Baal Shem are similar to each other, and to what extent dissimilar; and to what extent they have absorbed Jewish elements. character: ‘During the epoch he was writing these pieces, Bloch bought his first car, a Ford, whose particular manufacturer had then openly professed anti-semitic views. Bloch, with his usual sense of sardonic humor, at once named his car Mezinka’ (Bloch and Heskes 1976: 61). 83 Published in Mlotek 1977: 55, bars 1–6. See also Knapp 1971: 104–5. 84 There are several variants of this surname (e.g., Warshawsky, Warschawski,

Warshavsky); and the composer’s date of birth is given variously as 1840, 1845 and 1848. 85 Simchas Torah, piano score, bars 67–9, piano. 86 Simchas Torah, bars 83–6, piano (treble stave). 87 Schelomo, pp. 27, bar 2–29, bar 2, trumpets.

204 Alexander Knapp Example 10.17 (a) Bloch Simchas Torah, piano score pp. 6–7, bb. 83–6 (piano); (b) Bloch Schelomo, study score p. 27, b. 2–p. 29, b. 2 (trumpets)

Differences Schelomo is an orchestral work with cello solo that was written towards the end of the ‘Jewish Cycle’, whereas Baal Shem is a Jewish work for violin and piano composed outside the concept and time frame of the ‘Cycle’. Bloch produced an additional version of Schelomo for cello and piano, as well as a version of Baal Shem for violin and orchestra; but each of these alternatives is rarely performed. There is one quartertone inflection in Schelomo; yet despite all the intensity of emotion, there is not a single one in Baal Shem.88 Whereas ‘scotch snap’ rhythms and shofar calls appear frequently in Schelomo, there is not a single example of either of these character traits in Baal Shem. Although sacred and secular messages emanate from both works, there is a strong philosophical bias towards the intellectual struggle in the search for knowledge in Schelomo, contrasting with the intuitive feeling for the reception of wisdom through prayer in Baal Shem. Whereas Schelomo is a reflection on the sumptuousness of life in Ancient Israel, with the seeming spiritual bankruptcy that can attend materialism, sophistication, selfindulgence and ego – and King Solomon’s nihilistic reaction against his environment, Baal Shem focuses upon the vital emotions that can be experienced by everyone no matter how simple or uneducated – and the Besht’s exhortations to his flock to see the blessings of life in even the most adverse of conditions affecting Ashkenazi Jews in recent centuries. However, in Bloch’s ‘sister’ suite From Jewish Life for cello and piano (1924), completed in Cleveland just over one year after Baal Shem, there are quartertones in the first and last movements, namely, ‘Prayer’ and ‘Jewish Song’. Here, the indications at

88

the beginning of each piece are much clearer than in Schelomo: a forward slash before a note requires the cellist to play one quartertone above, a backslash one quartertone below.

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Similarities Schelomo and Baal Shem were inspired by great musicians known personally to Bloch, as well as by iconic figures in Jewish history who, despite the apparent gulf between their perceptions of the world, seem, according to Bloch’s musical interpretations, to share an overarching compassion for humanity. These works were completed within seven years of each other, and they share the same overall stylistic language: an enormous range of pitch and dynamic levels; extended themes built up from the accumulation of short motifs;89 a high level of melodic ornamentation; melodic, harmonic and contrapuntal fusions of Western tonality and Ashkenazi modality; powerful metrical rhythms contrasting with non-metrical, quasi-improvised recitatives in the cantorial style of Jewish Eastern Europe and the Doina90 style of Gypsy/Roma music; passages that are technically demanding, yet without lapsing into empty virtuosity; alternations (either gradual or abrupt) between acute intensity – either melancholic or ecstatic – and deep serenity.91 The key relationships in Schelomo and Baal Shem are fascinating. Even at the risk of oversimplification, we may state that the basic tonality of Schelomo is G minor: it is the key that opens the first section, gives expression to the climax at the end of the third section, and brings the work to its conclusion. And yet the climax at the end of the first section and the Uv’khein theme at the beginning of the middle section into which it leads are in E minor. In Baal Shem, Vidui is mainly in E minor, but ends in E Ahavoh rabboh. Nigun is based in G minor (and D Ahavoh rabboh). Simchas Torah is largely in E major (though it opens in Adoshem moloch, the equivalent of mixolydian). We can only speculate as to what Bloch might have felt about the special flavour of the keys of G minor and E minor/major (i) in themselves, (ii) in relation to each other within a single movement or work, and (iii) in their relationship across these two seemingly separate works in which they play so prominent a role. In other words, are there much deeper layers of affinity between Schelomo and Baal Shem that are yet to be discovered?

89 The Greek term rhapsodia means, literally, ‘stitching songs together’. 90 Doina is a Rumanian genre with connections throughout Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East. It takes the form of a passionate and highly embellished improvisation in free rhythm. 91 These traits are also typical of Bloch’s other ‘Jewish works’ of the 1920s, namely,

From Jewish Life and Méditation Hébraïque (cello and piano, 1924) and Abodah: God’s Worship (violin and piano, 1929). Incidentally, it is clear, from letters that Bloch wrote to Ada Clement on 12 May 1925 and to Albert Elkus on 2 June 1945, that he included his Prélude (Recueillement) for string quartet (1925) within this category (Lewinski and Dijon 2001: II:609).

11

Postscript: the Legacy Norman Solomon

This brief account of efforts to ensure Bloch’s legacy reworks material generously supplied by Prof. David Z. Kushner and Dr Frank Jo Maitland Geltner, to whom the editors’ thanks are due. The story begins in Bloch’s own lifetime, with the foundation of the original Ernest Bloch Society in London in 1937 under the honorary presidency of Albert Einstein; the vice-presidents were Sir Thomas Beecham, Serge Koussevitzky, Havelock Ellis, Sir Henry Wood, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Bruno Walter, Romain Rolland, Mrs I. M. Sieff, Sir Arthur Bliss, Ernest Makower, Mary Tibaldi Chiesa, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Donald Tovey, Leslie Heward, Dame Ethel Smyth, Prof. Edward J. Dent, Clarence Raybould, Sir Arnold Bax, and Walter Legge. Ernest Chapman was honorary secretary, while Rebecca Clarke, Alan Frank, Boyd Neel and I. J. Perkoff (honorary treasurer) served as Advisory Committee members. After an auspicious start with three concerts of Bloch’s works on 10 and 16 December 1937 and 27 January 1938 (Kushner 2002: 104–5), the society fell victim to the onset of World War II.

The Ernest Bloch Society (USA) Bloch settled in Oregon in 1941, and among the honours showered upon him in his last years were several in that state. He was granted an honorary doctorate by Linfield College in 1948, and in 1956, three years before his death, the Jewish Welfare Board of Jewish Music Council dedicated the festival theme of Jewish Music Month to ‘The Music of Ernest Bloch’. It was in Oregon that Bloch’s children, Ivan, Suzanne and Lucienne, inaugurated the American-based Ernest Bloch Society with the publication of The Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin in March 1967. The Society’s aims were: To develop among musicians and the music-loving public a greater interest and appreciation of the music of Bloch by encouraging performances of his work and by making available commercial recordings of all his published compositions. To establish a library of Bloch’s complete works for the use of members of the Society and to serve as a center of information about Bloch and his music.

206

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To bring out a bulletin informing members of performances and recordings of Bloch’s music. A section devoted to Bloch memorabilia containing unpublished material taken from the immense collection of Bloch’s notes, letters, and pedagogical material will give members a vivid picture of the composer’s remarkable intellect and personality. (Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin March 1967: 2)

Honorary board members are listed as Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians (with a cross indicating that she was deceased), Nadia Boulanger, Georgia O’Keeffe, Mary Tibaldi Chiesa, Leonard Bernstein, Pablo Casals, Yehudi Menuhin, Lewis Mumford, William Schuman and Robert Gordon Sproul; the advisory board consisted of Helen Coates, Mrs Walter A. Haas, Herbert Elwell, Justice Abe Fortas, Nicholas Slonimsky, Paul A. Smith, Harold Spivacke and Roger Sessions; Iola F. McIntyre, of Portland, Oregon, was secretary. This inaugural issue contains an extraordinary ‘Exchange Between Bloch and Koussevitzky on “Schelomo”’. Boaz Piller, bassoonist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, initiates the exchange on Koussevitzky’s behalf, by asking Bloch’s opinion on the conductor’s intent to perform Schelomo with four cellos (20 February 1930). Bloch replies the following day by stating: ‘It is as senseless to give this part to four cellos as to play Hamlet with four actors talking at the same time.’ Koussevitzky then personally enters the exchange with a telegram dated 22 February; he reaffirms his request by commenting that he tried four cellists in rehearsal and that ‘Results are remarkable. The greatest cellist could never obtain the same effect for the sonority of four cellos give a powerful and imposing impression of King Solomon’s voice. Greetings. Answer collect.’ Bloch, apparently willing to concede the point, responds on 24 February: ‘Replying to your telegram of February 22nd, if it pleases you, use your own discretion. Cordial greetings.’ Then, after a much longer interval, a lengthy response from the conductor, dated 15 March, negates his earlier thesis: The rehearsals with the four celli without the orchestra gave the happiest result; but from the first rehearsal with orchestra, I understood at once how right you were! En effet, the distant voice, arising from the depth of the orchestra, the voice of Schelomo, disappeared, melted, lost itself in the ensemble of the orchestra; it was no longer a solo, but simply an orchestral work. And even more, what is strange, the sonority of the four instruments seemed no stronger than that of the sonority of a single cello. (Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin March 1967: 6)

The result was a return to the original version with Jean Bedetti1 as soloist.

1 Jean Bedetti (1883–1973) was principal cellist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1919 to 1948.

208 Norman Solomon The second issue of the Bulletin appeared in 1969. It is dedicated to Bloch’s Macbeth, and features a letter from Bloch to Albert Carré, director of the Opéra Comique in Paris.2 The letter sheds light on Bloch’s conception of the characters in his work, and addresses matters of stagecraft: In writing my music I have been constantly haunted by lighting. It must play a role, one of the most important. Just as the stage sets must be static, crude and barbaric, so must the lighting be mobile, movemented [sic], expressive. I have annotated the relationship of this with the music, notable in the sombre cavern of the Witches, barely visible, where on certain harmonies—slightly cabbalistic!—mysterious rays of light glow. (Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin Spring 1969: 6)

Also mentioned are the dedication of the Marguerite and Ernest Bloch Memorial Grove, scheduled to take place on 28 June 1969 in Redwoods State Park, and several television programmes and published articles relating to Bloch. The 1974 issue carries news of exhibits of Bloch’s photos to be held on 9 and 10 October 1974 at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and from 25 November to 27 December 1974 at the University of Florida, Gainesville (Kushner 2002: 159–66; Johnson 1972; Denton 1979). The pièce de résistance, however, is a letter from Bloch to his mother, dated 5 April 1918. It concerns a visit he made, in the company of Dr and Mrs Judah Magnes,3 to a Hasidic synagogue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Here, the guests partook of a three-hour service during the last days of Passover. Bloch describes the fervid singing of the many chants, the sincerity and genuine piety of the congregants, and the gemütlich atmosphere which prevailed at the meal at the rebbe’s home to which he and the Magneses were invited following the service: a Jewish setting of bygone days, with warmth, sympathy, friendliness, humor; a Jewish dinner too, with wine from Palestine, drunk in goblets . . . We drank this strong wine, exchanging ‘l’chaim’ – and everything disappeared: the horror of the present hour, the bankruptcy of Humanity, the failure of Christianity after 18 centuries of hypocrisy – This little community still persisting – in spite of all wanderings, persecutions, exiles. I was overwhelmed. Happy and at the same time sad. It was too much all at one time for a sensitive person. I would have preferred not to think, to forget all my past,

2 Albert Carré (1852–1938) directed the premiere of Macbeth on 30 November 1930 at the Opéra Comique. Bloch’s letter, written from Geneva on 17 December 1908, is located in the Ernest Bloch Collection in the Library of Congress.

3

Judah Leon Magnes (1877–1948), who had arranged for Bloch’s visit to the synagogue, was an esteemed Reform Rabbi at Congregation Emanu-El. He was also an ardent Zionist and a founder of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. See pp. 18–19 and 178.

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all the false trumped up and ignoble existence that we call civilization—to plunge into this true well-being which is ours . . . Like Dr. Magnes, I hope to go often, to submerge myself there, if they are willing to accept me. It is another world, which can help me to support the one in which we have to live every day. (Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin 1974: 2)

In 1980, Dr Greg A. Steinke, then at Linfield College, aware of the presence in the college library of Bloch’s personal book collection, decided it was the perfect location for a Bloch centenary festival and symposium; this was held in the spring of that year on the college’s campus with Bloch’s daughter Lucienne, her husband Stephen Dimitroff, Ernest Bloch II, Helen Johnston (Bloch’s personal secretary) and Milo Wold as guest presenters and commentators. Dr Steinke himself conducted the Linfield Orchestra, and several of Bloch’s chamber works were also presented. The double-length Bulletin No. 21–22 (1989–90) announces the inauguration of an Ernest Bloch Music Festival, scheduled in Newport Oregon from 2 to 15 June 1990; the establishment of an Ernest Bloch Archive at the Geneva Conservatoire (copies of holdings to be available in Lausanne) to include scores, correspondence, recordings and various other Bloch-related materials, among them a complete run of the Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin; and the founding of a Bloch Quartet in New York, comprising RussianJewish émigrés. The same issue reproduces, from the Cleveland Plain Dealer (9 April 1989), Robert Finn’s article, ‘At Long Last, It’s Time to Honor Ernest Bloch’. Finn, music critic of the Plain Dealer, urges ‘a long-overdue effort to do something serious in this town in honor of the greatest composer who ever lived and worked here’ (1989–90: 40). He adds that the composer’s years at the helm of the institute were controversial, and that he ‘left in the midst of a storm of somewhat juicy scandal, and the bitterness of the experience lingered’ (1989–90: 40). No. 23, the final issue of the Bulletin, appeared in 1991. It contains a short address by Jacob Avshalomov, who conducted the Concerto Grosso No. 1 on 9 June 1990 as part of the festival; the closing lines read: ‘Careers have a way of dipping and leaping again. Bloch’s music has for the past thirty or more years been just below the surface of public attention, but I predict that soon, well within our time, it will again leap – and this Festival is a step in that direction.’ Of greater historical interest are Bloch’s own comments on the Vanguard LP recording of America: An Epic Rhapsody (now available on a Vanguard Classics CD: OVC 8014), in which he states that the idea for this work emerged at the time of his landing in America in 1916. With reference to the closing choral anthem, a culmination of the various folk themes which permeate this award-winning homage to his adopted land, he addresses the public:

210 Norman Solomon ‘The whole symphony is built upon these themes, and my idea was that the audience, the American people, you – all of you – would sing this song.’4

Bloch Music Festival, Newport An Ernest Bloch Music Festival was inaugurated at Newport, Oregon in 1990 and held annually until 2006; focused on performance of works by Bloch, it embraced a wide selection of other art music. A unique feature of the festivals was a Composers’ Symposium with a master composer-in-residence: The Ernest Bloch Music Festival Composers’ Symposium exists to promote composers from the Western United States in the performance of their music. It is centered upon the interaction with a Master Composer who is from the West and has spent most of his creative life’s efforts here in the West.5

The symposium included a Young Musicians’ Program in which music students of high school age attended the scheduled events, including workshops and master classes in music theory and composition techniques. Their culminating project was to create an original work within the week and to have it performed by their fellow-students in a closing concert. The Composers’ Symposium was directed Dr Greg A. Steinke, then chair, Departments of Art and Music, Marylhurst University, Marylhurst, Oregon; he also served as associate director of the festival (1993–7). The opening festival featured a concert at the former Bloch home at Agate Beach, at which the composer’s daughters, Suzanne and Lucienne, presented personal reminiscences of life there. Over time, the festival changed character, losing something of its focus on Bloch. In 2003, for instance, it incorporated a series of programmes by the Two-Piano Institute, with such items as a workshop by Anita King entitled Exploring the Means to Freedom and Ease at the Piano and a seminar by Diane Baxter on Is There Life After A Performance? But Bloch was not forgotten; the concluding concert included not only Dukas’s Fanfare pour précéder La Péri and Richard Strauss’s Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier (second sequence), but also Bloch’s grand, late Romantic Symphony in C sharp minor. The sixteen years of the Ernest Bloch Music Festival made a significant contribution to the cultural life of the Oregon coast. While important works by Bloch gained added exposure, the festival drew attention to significant works by other composers and provided a platform for numerous talented 4

On America in the context of the Musical America competition see Kushner 1993.

5

Information from The Ernest Bloch Music Festival at Newport 1991.

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performers; it ensured that the public would remain aware that a great composer had lived and worked among them, and that in this environment he had been inspired to create some of his finest compositions.

The International Ernest Bloch Society As the Oregon Festival was nearing its end, new interest in Bloch’s heritage surfaced on the opposite side of the Atlantic. I have already described, in the Introduction to this volume, the International Academic Conference on Ernest Bloch that took place at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, in July 2007, with the backing of the London-based Jewish Music Institute; many of the chapters in this volume were prompted in connection with this conference. The conference was conceived as a precursor to worldwide commemorations of the fiftieth anniversary of Bloch’s death in 2009, and even more immediately led to the revival in London, on 8 July 2008, of the dormant International Ernest Bloch Society (IEBS), with Sir Charles Mackerras (1925–2010) as president; further details may be found in the Introduction. Switzerland is not only Bloch’s birthplace, but also the country in which, between 1998 and 2005, the Lewinski and Dijon volumes, our major resource for Bloch and his correspondence, were published. The society in Switzerland, known as ‘Association BloCH 09/10’ and based in Zurich, was intended to be short lived; indeed, its bylaws stated that the association was to exist for three years, focusing on the promotion, coordination, and organization of Bloch-related events in Switzerland during 2009 and 2010, and that it was to cease function at the end of 2010. Its co-founder and honorary secretary, Oliver Margolies, nevertheless remains fully committed and continues to collaborate with IEBS. The Israel Ernest Bloch Society emerged in November 2007 in Tel Aviv largely through the untiring efforts of the distinguished conductor Dalia Atlas, who had championed Bloch’s music for many years previously. Professor Atlas, the society’s president, has taken the lead by recording many works by the composer, by performing them in concerts and at festivals throughout the world, and by presenting talks at numerous conferences. The society spearheads symposia, colloquia and radio broadcasts of Bloch’s music.

The Legacy Foundation Back in the United States, on 5 December 2005, the Oregon Arts Commission (OAC) announced that the Ernest Bloch Legacy Project would receive an Arts Builds Communities grant. In announcing the grant, the OAC wrote:

212 Norman Solomon The Oregon Coast Council for the Arts will highlight the life of Ernest Bloch, a major 20th century composer who spent the last part of his life in Newport. Partnering with community groups, OCCA will produce a publication documenting Bloch’s contributions. Work will include hiring a writer and videographer to memorialize the Bloch house and develop presentations to help strengthen the arts and education in the community. Arts Commission funds will support fees to the writer, videographer and graphic artist as well as printing and costs associated with moving an existing memorial to Bloch to a more prominent site.

Nancy Steinberg, a writer for regional publications and active supporter of the Newport Symphony Orchestra, was commissioned to write the narrative for the first publication (July 2006), of which to date there have been five revisions. The booklet, Ernest Bloch Legacy Project: Composer in Nature’s University, contains biographical information about Bloch, photographs of the composer, his family, his home and scenes from Agate Beach, and a list of Bloch resources. The grant also allowed for the relocation of the Bloch Memorial from a lonely spot in a Highway 101 wayside, not far from the Bloch house, where it had been fixed in 1976, to its current location at the entrance to the Newport Performing Arts Center; it was re-dedicated by members of the Bloch family on 8 July 2006. The Ernest Bloch Legacy Foundation was formed in 2007; since its inception, Ernest Bloch II, an honorary vice-president of the IEBS, has been president of the EBLF, and Dr Frank Geltner, also an honorary vice-president of the IEBS, has been vice-president of the EBLF. Its chief arm is the Ernest Bloch Legacy Project, which has as its goal the raising of funds for the purchase and refurbishing of the Bloch home at Agate Beach, with a view to creating a cultural and conference centre to house important writings by and about Bloch, and for the promotion of the composer’s music. Meanwhile, its activities include development of the foundation’s website. Since 1979, Agate Beach has been part of the greater Newport area. The house itself has become a retreat centre, Sea Krest Lodge, for the First Baptist Church of Salem, which now owns it; the detached building where Bloch had his studio has been converted to a dormitory. Both home and studio are fairly well preserved, though some modifications have been made, and the church has agreed to make the house available to those who wish to preserve the legacy of the composer. In 2009, the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts sponsored a special event in the Bloch House on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death. Members of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department paid a visit to the house to consider whether it might be purchased and converted into a state heritage park. While the department did not purchase the house, it did provide considerable staff support in securing a place for it

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on the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of the nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. In the same summer, the City of Newport Council approved a resolution naming NW 49 Street ‘Ernest Bloch Place’. A sign was created to acknowledge a similar sign found in Bloch’s birthplace, Geneva, Switzerland – ‘Rue Ernest-Bloch (1880–1959), Compositeur et chef d’orchestre’. In Newport, the signs read ‘Ernest Bloch Place’ and ‘Composer 1880–1959’. Any account of Bloch’s time at Agate Beach must make mention of his interest in mushrooms and agates. All his life he was a keen mushroom hunter; one of his most admired photos – he was also a talented amateur photographer – is of a black-clad ‘mushroom lady’ taken early in his photographic career. Though it became harder and harder to discover agates of good quality on the beach, he loved to collect and polish those he could find. Long after Bloch’s death, his grandson Ernest Bloch II would use agates once handled by his grandfather as special tokens of appreciation to individuals who have demonstrated their interest in the composer. Anyone who has received one of these polished agates nestled in a handcrafted myrtlewood box must treasure it as part of the Ernest Bloch legacy. The last person to have received one was Andreas Mitisek, the artistic director of the Long Beach Opera on the occasion of his production of Bloch’s Macbeth in June 2013.

In Conclusion Bloch and his music are on a rising trajectory propelled by an increasing recognition of his singular contributions to the art of music. This state of affairs has been brought about by the confluence of several significant factors, not the least of which is the ready availability of exceptional archival resources. Further, there are the publications in the form of books, articles in journals, dictionaries and encyclopedias (musical and general), pamphlets and newsletters, as well as internet sources that allow for frequent additions and updating. Recordings of the lesser known early and late works have been produced by an array of record companies, and performers ranging from international artists to talented students are including works by Bloch on their programmes with increasing frequency. The Long Beach Opera Company, for example, mounted a revival of Bloch’s Macbeth during June 2013 under Andreas Mitisek; the Chicago Opera Theater followed suit in September 2014 (see Chapter 9 for other performances). The academic world has also contributed to the provision of a fuller and more richly textured understanding of the man and artist by including insightful scholarly papers on conference programmes

214 Norman Solomon and by providing lectures and lecture-recitals at colleges, universities, and conservatories as well as religious institutions. It appears safe to say that Ernest Bloch has found a secure place in the history of Western art music. A desideratum to make that place even more secure is a critical edition of his compositions; but even J. S. Bach had to wait for more than two centuries after his death for the Bachgesellschaft to complete its work!

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Compiled by Alexander Knapp Although there are relatively few books (or chapters within books) devoted exclusively to the life and works of Ernest Bloch, dozens of Master’s dissertations and Doctoral theses have been written by university and conservatoire students, primarily in the United States and in Western Europe. Furthermore, hundreds of sets of programme notes and liner notes and thousands of articles have been published in journals, magazines, newspapers, recordings, etc., over the past hundred years. It would be impossible to include them all here. Therefore, in addition to incorporating all the works referred to in this book, emphasis has been placed upon listing further relevant writings by all the authors whose contributions form the substance of this volume. Among the most comprehensive bibliographies on Bloch are the following: Griffel, M. (1968) ‘Bibliography of Writings on Ernest Bloch’, Current Musicology, 6 (Spring), 142–6: 68 items. Kushner, D. Z. (1988) Ernest Bloch: A Guide to Research (New York and London: Garland Publishing). After a short preface and a brief biography, Kushner’s Guide comprises 579 publications (covering nearly 200 pages), with a brief description of the content of each item. The latter part of the book consists of catalogues of unpublished and published works, and a discography; lists of archives, repositories, festivals, retrospectives, programme notes, awards and honours received by Bloch; and commentaries on the Ernest Bloch Award Competition and the Ernest Bloch Professorship (University of California at Berkeley). A series of eleven photographs is followed by an author index, index of proper names, index of compositions, and a subject index. The Ernest Bloch Companion (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press, 2002). Near the end of this book, Kushner provides a more upto-date eleven-page bibliography, divided into the following categories: pamphlets, book chapters and articles by Ernest Bloch; programme notes by Bloch; books, dissertations, theses, booklets, pamphlets and catalogues by other authors; articles and reviews. 215

216 Select Bibliography Lewinski, J. and Dijon, E. (1998–2005) Ernest Bloch: Sa vie et sa pensée, 4 vols. (Geneva: Editions Slatkine). Near the end of Volume 4 of this remarkable four-volume anthology of correspondence and other documentation, extending to over 3500 pages, there is a 23-page Bibliographie Générale which begins with a short introduction and continues with entries under the following categories: theses and treatises, books and pamphlets, articles in weekly reviews, in the Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin, and in daily newspapers. The section that follows the general bibliography is entitled Catalogue Générale des Oeuvres Publiées avec Bibliographie Selective, in which a specialised list of publications pertaining to each of Bloch’s published compositions is presented immediately after information concerning date of composition, location of manuscript, dedicatee, description of work, duration, first performances, press reviews, etc. Móricz, K. (2008) Jewish Identities: Nationalism, Racism, and Utopianism in Twentieth-Century Music (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press). Móricz’s fifteen-page bibliography is presented in strictly alphabetical order of author, and covers the music of the Society for Jewish Folk Music and Schoenberg, as well as that of Bloch. RILM (1992–2002) Abstracts of Music Literature, OCLC First Search: List of Records (76 entries) http://FirstSearch.oclc.org Sendrey, A. (1951) Bibliography of Jewish Music (New York: Columbia University Press) Thompson, K. (1973) A Dictionary of Twentieth Century Composers 1911–1971 (London: Faber & Faber), 53–62. Short bibliographies are interspersed among many of the listed works. The bibliography that covers the succeeding pages comprises some 500 entries listed in the following categories: 1. Published materials: • Ernest Bloch: articles, pamphlets, book chapters, programme notes, etc. 1 • Writings by other authors: compositions, books, chapters in books, journal articles, dictionary entries, programme notes, etc. 2. Unpublished materials: • Theses and dissertations • Books, lectures, articles, letters, notes, musical notations 3. List of archives and collections

1 Compositions by Bloch may be found in the Alphabetical List of Works presented separately.

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Published Materials Ernest Bloch: Articles, Pamphlets, Book Chapters, Programme Notes, Etc. America: An Epic Rhapsody, Boston Symphony Orchestra (21 December 1928) Baal Shem Suite, Boston Symphony Orchestra (2 February 1951) Commentary to Six Preludes for Organ (New York: G. Schirmer, Inc., 1950), 2 Commentary to Four Wedding Marches (New York: G. Schirmer, Inc., 1951), 3 Concerto Grosso [No. 1] for string orchestra with piano obbligato, Boston Symphony Orchestra (24 December 1925) Deux Psaumes for soprano and orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra (14 November 1919) ‘Ernest Bloch’, in Morgenstern, S. (ed.), Composers on Music (New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1959), 413–14 ‘Ernest Bloch’s Memorable Experience at an Eastside Synagogue Service [1918]: The Remarkable Vidui of the Famous Musician’, translated from the French by Charles Cushing, Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin No. 7 (Mill Valley, CA, 1974), 2; reprinted in Macy Nulman (ed.), Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy, 2/1, 1977–8 (New York: The Cantorial Council of America), 63–5 ‘Ernest Bloch Surveys the Problem of Music Education’, Musical America, 28/4 (21 May 1921), 3, 40 Evocations, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (11 February 1938) ‘Excerpts from an Introductory Lecture – University of California, Berkeley, August 1947’, Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin No. 9 (1976), 1–2 Four Episodes for chamber orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra (29 December 1927) ‘Gustave Mahler et la Deuxième Symphonie’, Courrier Musical, Paris, 7th year, 13 (1 July 1904), 408–11 Helvetia (premiere) (Boston, 20 March 1939) Hiver-Printemps, Boston Symphony Orchestra (29 April 1921) ‘How and When to Begin Musical Training’, Musician, 29 (April 1924), 29 Israel Symphony, New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra (28–31 December 1944) ‘Les grands concerts’, in Courrier Musical (Paris, 15 March 1904), 189–91 Letter to Philip Hale, Boston Symphony Orchestra Program Notes (23–24 March 1917), 1132–6 Letter to Disciples of Alfred Steiglitz, Manuscripts, 4 (1922), 74

218 Select Bibliography Letter to Lillian Hodgehead and Ada Clement, Ernest Bloch Collection, University of California, Berkeley (23 April 1925) (published in Móricz 1996, 211) Letter to Nicolas Slonimsky, 31 December 1928 (see Gertrude Norman and Miriam Schrifte below) Letter to Artur Rodzinsky (1892–1958), conductor of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, quoted by Olin Downes in ‘Mahler and Bloch’, New York Times (28 November 1943) II: 5 Letter to Olin Downes, 9 July 1954 (reproduced in Lewinski and Dijon 1998: I:77) Letter to Olin Downes, reproduced in Olin Downes, ‘A Great Composer at 75’, in The Music of Ernest Bloch: A Program Manual. New York: National Jewish Music Council, 1956 (also New York Times, 24 July 1955) Macbeth: Two Symphonic Interludes, Three Jewish Poems, America, Boston Symphony Orchestra (17 March 1939), 887–932 ‘Man and Music’ (trans. W. Frank), The Seven Arts (March 1917), 493–502; reprinted in Musical Quarterly, 19/4 (October 1933), 374–81 ‘Music II’, in A School in Action: A Symposium (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1922), 145–234 ‘Musical Education’, in Women’s City Club Magazine (San Francisco, November 1927), 7–8 ‘My Sacred Service’ (transcript of lecture: San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 16 September 1933), (1933b), in Bloch, S. and Heskes, I., Ernest Bloch: Creative Spirit (1976), 11–16 ‘On the Interpretation of his music – Bloch to Szigeti’, in Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin No. 13 (1981), 2 ‘Pensieri sulla vita e sull’arte’, in Rassegna Musicale (January 1932), 48–52 Program Note for the All Bloch Concert, 22 January 1933 (1933a), Rome: Augusteo; translated into Italian by Mary Tibaldi Chiesa; translated into English as quoted in Birch, J. N. (1939) Boston Symphony Orchestra Program Notes (17–18 March 1939), 890–3 Program Notes, Cleveland Orchestra, thirty-sixth season, 1953–4 (26 and 28 November 1953), 183–5 ‘Proper Music Education’, in Women’s Forum (Akron, Ohio, 15 October 1922), 11 ‘Quatrième Concert d’Abonnement’, in La Musique en Suisse (Neuchâtel, 1 January 1902), 106–7 ‘Réponse à un siffleur’, in La Musique en Suisse (Neuchâtel, 1 November 1902), 53–6 2

See Trois Poèmes Juifs below.

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Sacred Service (Avodath Hakodesh), Schola Cantorum, New York (11 April 1934), 6–13 Schelomo, Boston Symphony Orchestra (13 April 1923) ‘Securing the Best Results from Piano Study’, The Etude, 41/9 (September 1923), 591 Sinfonia Breve, BBC Symphony Orchestra (11 April 1953) Sleeve note: Israel Symphony, Fritz Litschauer conducting the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Soloists of the Akademie Choir, Vanguard Recording Society, Inc. New York, VRS 423 Sleeve note: Viola Suite [1919], Composers Recordings, Inc., CRI SD450 (1981) ‘Symphony in C Sharp Minor’, New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society (8 March 1918), 1–2 ‘The Pitfalls of Memorizing’, The Musician, 28 (April 1923), 11–12 ‘Thoughts at 70’, The Etude, 69/2 (February 1951), 9–10, 57 Trois Poèmes Juifs, Boston Symphony Orchestra (23 March 1917) [Untitled manifesto in French, English and German] Musica Hebraica, 1–2 (Jerusalem, 1938), 12 ‘Viola Suite’ [1919] Boston Symphony Orchestra (11 December 1925) ‘Violin Concerto’, Cleveland Orchestra (15 December 1938) Voice in the Wilderness, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (21 January 1937), 13–15 ‘What Is Modern Music?’ Music Supervisors’ Journal (The National Association for Music Education), 10/4 (March 1924), 46–51

Writings by Other Authors: Compositions, Books, Chapters in Books, Journal Articles, Dictionary Entries, Programme Notes, Sleeve/Insert Notes, Etc. Abel, E. (1990) ‘Receiving Mixed Signals’, Jerusalem Post, 12 October Abramsky, S., Rothkoff, A., Hirschberg, H. Z., Roth, C. and Bayer, B. (1972) ‘Solomon’, in C. Roth (ed.), Encyclopedia Judaica, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House), XV, cols. 96–111 Allen, R. (2005) ‘H. S. Chamberlain and the Early Reception of Parsifal’, in W. Kinderman and K. Syer (eds.), A Companion to Wagner’s Parsifal (Rochester, NY: Camden House, Boydell & Brewer) Anderson, R. (1980) ‘Record Reviews’, The Musical Times, 121/1651, 565 Anderson, W. R. (1936) ‘Wireless Notes’, The Musical Times, 77/1119, 424–5 Anon (nd) ‘Ernest Bloch Society: Israel’, Ernest Bloch Legacy, www.ernestbloch.org/home.cfm?dir_cat=82471 (1910) ‘Real Estate Transfers in County’, Newport Journal, 10 September

220 Select Bibliography (1922) The Union Prayerbook for Jewish Worship (Cincinnati: The Central Conference of American Rabbis) (1925) Ernest Bloch: Biography and Comment (San Francisco: The Margaret Mary Morgan Co.) (1928) ‘Triumphant and Onward’,3 Boston Evening Transcript, 22 December, 5 (1934) ‘Interview with Great Jewish Composer – the Tragedy of “Wohin”’, The Jewish Chronicle, 9 February, 44–5 (1934) ‘Ernest Bloch’s Sacred Service American Premiere’, News-Week, 21 April, 34 (1941) ‘Music in the Making – Ernest Bloch’, Tempo, 5 August, 6 (1942) ‘American Academy Cites Ernest Bloch’, The New York Times, 27 April, 19 (1947) ‘Agate Beach Club Plans New Clubhouse’, Yaquina Bay News, 30 January (1947) ‘Ernest Bloch is Honored for His Chamber Music’, Yaquina Bay News, 26 June (1949) ‘Famed Sculptor Does Bloch Bust’, Newport News, 27 October (1957) The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text: A New Translation with the Aid of Previous Versions and with Constant Consultation of Jewish Authorities (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America) (1959) ‘Obituary’, The Musical Times, 100/1399, 481–2 (1980) The Spiritual and Artistic Odyssey of Ernest Bloch: A Centenary Retrospective (Charleston: Piccolo Spoleto Festival) (1990–2004 and 2006) Ernest Bloch Music Festival Programs (Newport, OR) (1992–2002) RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, OCLC First Search: List of Records (76 entries) http://FirstSearch.oclc.org (2009) The Fifteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Program, 2–6 August http://issuu.com/avush96/docs/programuni (2012) Gramophone Classical Music Guide (London: Gramophone Magazine), 232–3 Arlen, W. (1966) ‘Research may give Bloch new image’, Los Angeles Times, 14 December Aspertini (1910) Le Théâtre, no. 282 (Paris: Manzi, Joyant et Cie.), 6–12 Augustine (1950) Civitas dei. The City of God (New York: The Modern Library)

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Includes text and piano score of closing Anthem of America: An Epic Rhapsody

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Avenari, H. (1972) ‘Shtayger’, in C. Roth (ed.), Encyclopedia Judaica, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House), XIV, cols. 1463–6 Avidov, Z. (1972) ‘Geneva’, in C. Roth (ed.), Encyclopedia Judaica, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House), VII, cols. 402–4 Baer, A. (1877) Ba’al T’fillah, oder Der Practische Vorbeter (Gothenburg: self-published)4 Bakhtin, M. M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed. M. Holquist, trans. C. Emerson and M. Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press) Bar-Am, B. (1991) ‘Zecharia Plavin’s Wasted Talents’, Jerusalem Post, 19 December, 7 Barjansky, C. (1948) Portraits with Backgrounds (London: Geoffrey Bles) Baruch, K (2002) ‘2996 Project, Remembering the Victims of 9/11’, Haaretz, 6 February Barzun, J. (1938) Race: A Study in Modern Superstition (London: Methuen) Bauer, M. (1941) ‘Ernest Bloch’, in O. Thompson (ed.), Great Modern Composers (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Co.), 10–26 Baylinson, D. (1980) ‘The Problem of Jewish Art’, The Spiritual and Artistic Odyssey of Ernest Bloch: A Centenary Retrospective (Charleston: Piccolo Spoleto Festival), 28–30 Ben-Amos, D. and Mintz, J. K. (1970) In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov (Bloomington: Indiana University Press) Ben-Ezer, E. (also known as S. Nidakh) (nd) ‘Khadashot Ben-Ezer’ (‘Ben-Ezer News’) http://library.osu.edu/projects/hebrew-lexicon/hbe/hbe00361.php Ben-Haim, P. (1958) Liturgical Cantata 1949 (Tel Aviv: Israel Music) Ben-Sasson, H. H., ‘Israel Ben Eliezer Ba’al Shem Tov’, in C. Roth (ed.) Encyclopedia Judaica, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House), IX, cols. 1049–52 Beregovski, M. (1962) Yevreiskiye Narodniye Pesny (Moscow: Sovietskii Kompozitor) Bernstein, L. (1963) Kaddish Symphony 1962 (New York: Independent Music) (1971) Mass, A Theater Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers (New York: Amberson Enterprises) (1988) Missa Brevis (New York: Jalni Publications) (1992) Bloch: Sacred Service, Sony Classical, Sony SM2K47533 Binder, A.W. (1952) ‘A Review of the Recording of Ernest Bloch’s “Israel Symphony”: An Analysis of the Jewish Thematic Material Employed’, The Musical Quarterly, 38/4, 647–51; reprinted in The Music of Ernest 4

See Werner, E. (ed.) (1953) Out of Print Classics Series of Synagogue Music, 25 vols.

(New York: Sacred Music Press of the Hebrew Union College), I.

222 Select Bibliography Bloch: A Program Manual (New York: National Jewish Music Council of the National Jewish Welfare Board, 1976), 36–40 (1959) Biblical Chant (New York: Sacred Music Press, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion) Bloch Dimitroff, L. (1990) ‘Impressions of Ernest Bloch’, Ernest Bloch Music Festival Program, 14 Bloch, E[rnst], (1988) The Spirit of Utopia, trans. Anthony Nassar (Stanford University Press) (2000) The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays, trans. Jack Zipes and Frank Mecklenburg (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Bloch, I. (1990) ‘Pater Familias’, Ernest Bloch Music Festival Program, 14–15 Bloch, S. (1969) Program Notes: Avodath Hakodesh at the Lincoln Center, 4 December, 1 (1969) Program Notes: Avodath Hakodesh, 7 December (1971) ‘Bloch and His Crucifix: The Story’, Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin, No. 4 (Mill Valley, CA), 1–2 (1986–7) ‘Portland’s Avodath Hakodesh’, Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin, Nos. 18–19 (Gualala), 26–8 (1990) ‘The Jewish Cemetery at Langnau’, Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin, Nos. 21–22 (Gualala), 6–8 Bloch, S. and Heskes, I. (1976) Ernest Bloch: Creative Spirit: A Program Source Book (New York: Jewish Music Council of the National Jewish Welfare Board) Bloch Smith, S. (1990) ‘Student and Teacher’, Ernest Bloch Music Festival Program (Newport, OR), 16 Bohlman, A. F. and Bohlman, P. V. (2012) Hanns Eisler – ‘In der Musik ist es anders’ (Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich) Bohlman, P. V. (1986) ‘The Archives of the World Centre for Jewish Music in Palestine, 1936–40, in the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem’, Yuval, 5, 238–64 (1990) ‘Ernest Bloch’s America (1926): Aesthetic Dimensions of a SwissAmerican Auswandererbericht’, Yearbook of German-American Studies, 35–54 (1992) The World Centre for Jewish Music in Palestine 1936–1940: Jewish Musical Life on the Eve of World War II (Oxford: Clarendon Press) (2003) ‘Sacred Popular Music of the Mediterranean and the Journey to Jerusalem’, in G. Plastino (ed.) Mediterranean Mosaic: Popular Music and Global Sounds (New York: Routledge), 287–306 (2011) ‘Rückkehr in die Zukunft – Die antike Moderne der jüdischen Musik’, in F. Celestini, G. Kokorz and J. Johnson (eds.), Musik in der Moderne (Vienna: Böhlau), 105–22 (2013) ‘Altneuland, Pfade in Utopia und Reise nach Jerusalem – musikalische Wegweiser zur Kanonisierung der jüdischen Geschichte’, in M.

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Wald-Fuhrmann and K. Pietschmann (eds.), Der Kanon in der Musik (Munich: Edition Text und Kritik), 657–75 Borchmeyer, D. (1991) Richard Wagner: Theory and Theatre, trans. S. Spencer (Oxford: Clarendon Press) Boscovic,5 A. U. (1937) ‘Kelet és Nyugat Között’ (‘Between East and West’),6 (Cluj: A Zsidó Diáksegélyzö Kiadása [Association of Jewish Youth]) Boulanger, N. (1921) ‘Concerts Colonne’, Le Monde Musical (Paris), 28 November Breslaur, E. (1898) Sind originale Synagogen- und Volks-Melodien bei den Juden geschichtlich nachweisbar? Vortrag gehalten im Verein für jüdische Geschichte und Litteratur in Berlin (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel) Brody, E. (1982) ‘Romain Rolland and Ernest Bloch’, The Musical Quarterly, 68/1, 60–79 Brome, V. (1979) Havelock Ellis: Philosopher of Sex: A Biography (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul) Brotman, C. (1998) ‘The Winner Loses: Ernest Bloch and His America’, American Music, 16/4, 417–47 Brott, D. (1994) ‘The Message of King Solomon’, The Strad, 105/1249, 460–3 Buber, M. (1947/1985) Pfade in Utopia: Über Gemeinschaft und der Verwirklichung (Heidelberg: Verlag Lambert Schneider) Buckle, R. (1963) Jacob Epstein Sculptor (London: Faber & Faber) Calvocoressi, M. D (1933) ‘Ernest Bloch by Mary Tibaldi Chiesa’, The Musical Times, 74/1085, 610–11 Camner, J. (ed.) (1981) Great Composers in Historic Photographs: 244 Portraits from the 1860s to the 1960s (New York: Dover Publications) Cantrell, B. (1980–1) ‘Book and Music reviews: Robert Strassburg, “Ernest Bloch: Voice in the Wilderness”’, Musica Judaica, III/1 (New York: American Society for Jewish Music) Chamberlain, H. S. (1913) The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century [La Genèse du XIXme siècle], trans. into French by R. Godet, 2 vols. (Paris: Librairie Payot) Chapman, E. (1934) ‘Ernest Bloch’, The Musical Times, 75/1092, 121–3 (1955) ‘Ernest Bloch at 75’, Tempo, 1/35, 6–12 Chissell, J. (1943) ‘Style in Bloch’s Chamber Music’, Music & Letters, 24/1, 30–5 Clough, F. F. and Cuming, G. J. (eds.) (1952) The World’s Encyclopaedia of Recorded Music (London: Sidgwick and Jackson) Cohen, A. (1937a) ‘Ernest Bloch’, Jewish Chronicle, November, 3–4

5 Boscovic spelled his name also as Boscovich, Boskovitch, etc.

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224 Select Bibliography (1937b) ‘A Note on the String Quartet of Ernest Bloch’, Musical Times, 78 (November,) 945–6 (1938) ‘Ernest Bloch’s Macbeth’, Music & Letters, 19/2, 143–8 Cohen, F. L. (1902) ‘Cantillation’, in I. Singer (ed.), The Jewish Encyclopedia Vol. III (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls Company), 537–49 Cohen, H. (1969) A Bundle of Time – The Memoirs of Harriet Cohen (London: Faber & Faber) Cohon, B. J. (1950) ‘The Structure of the Synagogue Prayer-Chant’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 3/1, 17–32 Cooper, M. (1975) ‘Bloch’s Macbeth has Colourless Characters’, Daily Telegraph, 10 July, 13 Dahlgren, A. (2014) ‘Macbeth at Chicago Opera Theater Review: Bloch’s “Macbeth” yet another novelty found by COT’. Splash magazines. www .lasplash.com/publish/Music_107/macbeth-at-chicago-opera-theaterreview.php Damrosch, W. (1942) ‘American Academy Cites Ernest Bloch’, New York Times, 27 April, 19 Davies, P. (2002) The Character of a Genius: Beethoven in Perspective (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press) Davis, R. (1985) ‘Songs of the Jews on the Island of Djerba: A Comparison between Two Surveys’, Musica Judaica, 7, 23–33 (2005) ‘Robert Lachmann’s Oriental Music: A Broadcasting Initiative in 1930s Palestine’, in D. Cooper and K. Dawe (eds.), Music of the Mediterranean: Critical Perspectives, Common Concerns, Cultural Differences (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press), 79–96 (2013) Robert Lachmann’s Oriental Music Broadcasts, 1936–1937: A Musical Ethnography of Mandatory Palestine (Middleton, WI: A-R Editions) Defoe, D. (1719) The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (London: W. Taylor) DeNora, T. (1995) Beethoven and the Construction of Genius: Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792–1803 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press) Densmore, F. (1926) The American Indians and Their Music (New York: Woman’s Press) Denton, S. (compiler) (1979) Ernest Bloch Archive (Tucson: University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography) Downes, O. (1917) ‘Ernest Bloch, the Swiss Composer, on the Influence of Race in Composition’, The Musical Observer, 14/3, 11 (1942) ‘Ernest Bloch in the Academy’, New York Times, 3 May, section X, 7

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(1947a) ‘Griller Quartet Plays Bloch Work’, New York Times, 27 February, 27 (1947b) ‘2nd Quartet Given in Bloch Festival’, New York Times, 16 November, 79 (1954) ‘World Première for Bloch Work’, New York Times, 29 July, 19 (1955) ‘A Great Composer at 75’, New York Times, 24 July, II: 7; reprinted in The Music of Ernest Bloch: A Program Manual (New York: National Jewish Music Council, 1956), 41–3 Dreyfus, E. (1925) ‘Erinnerung aus der Memoiren Eines Alten Endingers’, Section XVII: ‘Yom Kippur in den Altgemeinden – Die Alten Bräuche – Ein Musiktalent und seine Vererbung’, Israelitisches Wochenblatt für Die Schweiz, 2 (Zurich: Verlag Weinbaum Genossenschaft.) Eisler, H. (2008) Hollywooder Liederbuch (correct reprint of the first edition; Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik) Elkus, A. I. et al. (1962) Autograph Manuscripts of Ernest Bloch at the University of California (Berkeley: University of California) Elleson, R. (2009) ‘Bloch’s Macbeth by UC Opera, London’, Opera Today, 30 March, www.operatoday.com/content/2009/03/blochs_macbeth_.php Ellis, H. (1919) ‘Leonardo da Vinci’, The Living Age, 15/745, 222 Ephros, G. (1975) Cantorial Anthology: Traditional and Modern Synagogue Music. Vol. III: Sholosh R’golim (New York: Bloch Publishing Co., copyright date 1948) (1977) Cantorial Anthology: Traditional and Modern Synagogue Music. Vol. VI: The Recitative (for Rosh Hashonoh) (New York: Bloch Publishing Co.) Ernest Bloch Society Bulletins (1967–91) Nos. 1–23 (Portland, OR; Mill Valley and Gualala, California; Flint, Michigan; New York)7 Etkes, I. (2005) The Besht. Magician, Mystic, and Leader, trans. S. Sternberg (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press) Ewen, D. (1936) Composers of Today (New York: H. W. Wilson) Fast, N. J., Heath, C. and Wu, G. (2009) ‘Common Ground and Cultural Prominence’, Psychological Science, 20/7, 904–11 Finkelstein, S. (1960) Composer and Nation: The Folk Heritage of Music (New York: International Publishers)

7 Each of the twenty-three issues of the Bulletin contains numerous articles about Bloch; many include correspondence between Bloch and his family, friends, and professional associates; and all are illustrated. The majority appear throughout the Bibliographie Générale: III – Revues,

hebdomadaires et bulletins de l’Ernest Bloch Society, pp. 880–92, in Lewinski, J. and Dijon, E., Ernest Bloch (1880–1959): Sa Vie et sa Pensée (Geneva: Éditions Slatkine, 2005), Tome IV: ‘Le havre de paix en Oregon (1939–1959)’; and they are concentrated especially on pp. 882–3.

226 Select Bibliography Finn, R. (1989) ‘At Long Last, It’s Time to Honor Ernest Bloch’, Cleveland Plain Dealer, 9 April Fleg, E. (1928) Pourquoi je suis juif (Paris: Édition de France) (1929) Why I am a Jew [Pourquoi je suis juif], trans. from the French by L. W. Wise (New York: Bloch Publishing) Fleisher, R. J. (1997) Twenty Israeli Composers: Voices of a Culture (Detroit: Wayne State University Press) Forbes, E. (1975) ‘In Concert: Macbeth’, Opera, 26/9 (September), 902, 904 Frank, A. (1952) ‘The Chamber Music of Ernest Bloch’, The Listener, 11 September Frank, W. (1933) ‘Man and Music’, The Musical Quarterly, 19/4 (October) Franzblau, A. N. (ed.) (1953–4) Out of Print Classics Series of Synagogue Music (New York: Sacred Music Press of the Hebrew Union College), vols. VII and XIV8 Freed, I. (1942) ‘Ernest Bloch’, Jewish Music Forum, 21 December, 8–11 (1958) Harmonizing the Jewish Modes (New York: Sacred Music Press, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion) Fryer, P. (2009) A Chronology of Opera Performances at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, 1860–1917 (New York: Edward Mellen Press) Gatti, G. M. (1921) ‘Ernest Bloch’, trans. T. Baker, The Musical Quarterly, 7/1, 20–38 Gilroy, P. (1993) The Black Atlantic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) Ginell, R. (2013) ‘Review: Ernest Bloch’s “Macbeth” a welcome treat by Long Beach Opera’, Los Angeles Times, 17 June Ginzberg, L. (1902) ‘Ba’al Shem-Tob, Israel b. Eliezer’, in I. Singer (ed.), The Jewish Encyclopedia Vol. II (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls Company), 383–6 Goossens, E. (1944–5) ‘Variations on a Theme by Goossens’, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Yearbook, 615 Gottlieb, J. (2010) Working with Bernstein: A Memoir (Milwaukee: Amadeus Press) Gottschald, M. (1954) Deutsche Namenkunde (Berlin: D. Gruyter) Green, E. (1956) The Music of Ernest Bloch: A Program Manual (New York: National Jewish Music Council of the National Jewish Welfare Board) Greenfield, E. (1975) ‘N.P.O.’, The Guardian, 10 July, 10 Griffiths, P. (1975) ‘Macbeth’, Musical Times, 116/1591, 812 Guggenheim-Grünberg, F. (1961) Geschichte der Juden in der Schweiz (Zurich) 8

See also Naumbourg, S., Sulzer, S., Werner, E.

227

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HaCohen, R. (2011) The Music Libel Against the Jews (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press) Halkin, H. (2007) ‘If Israel Ceased to Exist’, Commentary, June Hall, S. (2014) ‘Macbeth at the Manhattan School of Music: Bloch, FullBlooded and Uninhibited’, Berkshire Fine Arts, www.berkshirefinearts .com/12-11-2014_macbeth-at-the-manhattan-school-of-music.htm Harkavy, A. (1928) The Pentateuch with Haftaroth and Five Megiloth; Music Notes arranged by M. Nathanson (New York: Hebrew Publishing) Herlitz, G. and Kirshner, B. (eds.) (1927) Jüdisches Lexikon, 5 vols. (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag) Hertz, J. H. (ed.) (1965) The Authorised Daily Prayer Book: Revised Edition. Hebrew Text. English Translation with Commentary and Notes (New York: Bloch Publishing) Herzl, T. (1904/1935) Altneuland, in Zionistische Schriften (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag) Heschel, A. J. (2005) Heavenly Torah As Refracted through the Generations, trans. and ed. Tucker, G. and Levin, L. (New York: Continuum) Hildesheimer, W. (1982) Mozart, trans. M. Faber (New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux) Hirshberg, J. (1993) ‘Alexander U. Boskovitch and the Quest for an Israeli National Musical Style’, in Mendelsohn, E. (ed.), Modern Jews and their Musical Agendas: Studies in Contemporary Jewry, vol. IX (New York: Oxford University Press), 92–109 (1995a) Music in the Jewish Community of Palestine 1880–1948 (Oxford: Clarendon Press) (1995b) ‘The World Centre for Jewish Music – Bloch and the New Image of Jewish Music’, Music in the Jewish Community of Palestine 1880–1948 – A Social History (Oxford: Clarendon Press) Hittron, H. (2006) ‘Tzlilim Ume’ever Lahem’ (‘What lies beyond the Notes’), Haaretz, 14 March (2009) ‘Sodot she-megalim li-fsanter’ (‘Piano Secrets’), Haaretz, 13 April Hofstadter, R. (1944) Social Darwinism in American Thought (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press) Hofstede, G. (1983) ‘National Cultures in Four Dimensions: A ResearchBased Theory of Cultural Differences among Nations’, International Studies in Management and Organizations, 30/1–2, 46–74 http://geert-hofstede.com/israel.html; http://geert-hofstede.com/ dimensions.html Hussey, M. E. (1999) ‘Two Archbishops of Cincinnati and the Second Vatican Council’, U.S. Catholic Historian, 17/4, 83–98 Hyams, B. (1980) ‘Ernest Bloch’s Life of Musical Controversy’, Music Magazine, 3/6, 6–11

228 Select Bibliography Idelsohn, A. Z. (1914–32) Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, 10 vols. (Berlin: Benjamin Harz, and elsewhere; reprinted New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1973) (1929) Jewish Music in Its Historical Development (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston; reprinted New York: Schocken Books, 1967) (1932) Jewish Liturgy and Its Development (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston; reprinted New York: Schocken Books, 1967) International Ernest Bloch Society (2009–) Newsletters Nos. 1– (London) Jacobs, A. (1972) A Short History of Western Music (London: Penguin) Jameson, F. (2005) Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (London: Verso) Jeal, E. (2003) ‘Opera around the World: Austria: Vienna’, Opera 54/11 (November), 1358–9 Jennings, J. (2007) Liner Notes for CD: And on Earth Peace: A Chanticleer Mass, Chanticleer, dir. Joseph Jennings (Warner Classics CD) Johnson, E. B. (1972) ‘A Composer’s Vision: Photographs by Ernest Bloch’, Aperture, 16/3, 22–37; expanded version published as ‘Ernest Bloch 1880–1959: Vision d’un Compositeur’ (in French), Camera (55e année) (Lucerne: C.-J. Bucher, 1976), 2; text and photographs 6–17, 27, 37–8 (2010) A Composer’s Vision: The Photographs of Ernest Bloch (San Francisco: Blurb) Johnson, L. (2014) ‘COT’s Worthy Revival of Bloch’s “Macbeth” Undone by Distracting Video and Unkind Cuts’, Chicago Classical Review, http://chicagoclassicalreview.com/2014/09/cots-worthy-revival-of-blochsmacbeth-undone-by-distracting-video-and-unkind-cuts/ Johnston Kintner, H. (2009) The Ernest Bloch I Knew: The Agate Beach Years, ed. George Dimitroff (Eugene, OR: published privately by HJK; Heirloom Edition) Jolly, C. (1953) ‘News: Italy: Rome’, Opera 4/5 (May), 297–300 Jones, N. (1989) Liner Notes for CD: Walton, Belshazzar’s Feast; Bernstein, Chichester Psalms and Missa Brevis; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, dir. Robert Shaw (Telarc CD 80181) Kaganoff, B. C. (1978) A Dictionary of Jewish Names and their History (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul) Kasow, J. (1997) ‘Montpellier – Bloch and Straus(s)’, Opera Annual Festival Issue 48, 80–1 Knapp. A. (1971) ‘The Jewishness of Bloch: Subconscious or Conscious?’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 1970–71, 97, 99–112. Trans. into Hebrew: ‘Mahuto hayehudit shel Ernest Bloch’, in Tatzlil (ed. M. Gorali) (Haifa Music Museum and AMLI Library), 8/14 (1974), 23–30. Trans. into Chinese by Wu Mei: ‘Buluohe de Youtaixing:

229

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Qianyishi hai shixianyishi?’ and published in Musicology in China, 4 (1995), 128–141; and in Knapp, A. Youtai Yinyue Lunwenji (Anthology of Essays on Jewish Music) (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Arts, 1998), 81–92 (1978) ‘Bloch: A Reassessment’, Royal College of Music Magazine, 74/2, 85–91 (1979) Review of Bloch, S., and Heskes, I., ‘Ernest Bloch: Creative Spirit’; and of Strassburg, R., ‘Ernest Bloch: Voice in the Wilderness’, Music and Letters, 60/4, 461–3 (1980) ‘The Life and Music of Ernest Bloch’, The Jewish Quarterly, 28/2–3, 26–30 (1981–82) ‘The Ashkenazic Prayer-Modes: a Commentary on their Development and Practice’ (in three parts), Cantors’ Review, 26/3–7; 27/7–13, i–viii; 28/6–13 (1989a) ‘Ernest Bloch’, in G. Abramson (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Jewish Culture: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), 96–7 (1989b) ‘Helvetia-Israel-America: Identity in Bloch’s Life and Music’, Journal of Synagogue Music, 19/2, 5–16. Trans. into Chinese by Wu Mei and published in Journal of the Central Conservatory of Music, 64/3 (Beijing, 1996), 58–61 (1989–90) Recording Review of ‘A Tribute to Ernest Bloch (1989)’, Musica Judaica, 11/1, 111–14 (1990) ‘The Solo Songs of Ernest Bloch’, Royal College of Music Magazine, 87/2, 20–32 (1995) C-Sharp Minor Symphony: Preface/Vorwort, Miniature score no. 8030 (London: Edition Ernst Eulenburg), iii–viii (1997) Insert notes, Bloch Performs Bloch, JMHR CD 015 (London: Jewish Music Heritage Recordings; transfer of LP originally recorded in London in 1949 and issued under licence from The Decca Record Company Ltd) (2001) ‘Jewish Music V, 2: Art and Popular Music in Surrounding Cultures: Christian: (iii) Emancipation to World War II; and (v) After World War II’, in S. Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn, 29 vols. (London: Macmillan), XIII: 92–6, 97–8, 98–9 (2006) ‘The Life and Music of Ernest Bloch: Problems and Paradoxes’, in J. Dorfman, W. Birtel and C.-H. Mahling (eds.), Jüdische Musik und ihre Musiker im 20. Jahrhundert (Mainz: Are Edition), 287–301 (2008) Insert Notes to CD of Bloch’s Piano Quintets (London: Hyperion CDA67638)

230 Select Bibliography (2010) ‘From Geneva to New York: Radical Changes in Ernest Bloch’s View of Himself as a “Jewish Composer” During the Period 1916–1919’, Jewish Quarterly, 215, 11–13 (2012) ‘Conceptualizing Jewish Art Music While Standing on One Leg: a Scholar’s Dilemma’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 65/ 2, 565–70 Koehler, J. (2000) Wagner’s Hitler (Cambridge: Polity Press) Kolitz, Z. (1946) The Last Testament of Yossel Rakover during the Last Hours of the Warsaw Ghetto on April 28, 1943 Krehbiel, H. E. (1917) ‘Ernest Bloch’s Experiment in the Music of Jewry’, New York Tribune, 29 April, section 4, 2 Kroop, M. (2014) ‘A Macbeth of Another Colour’, Voce di meche, 13 December. www.vocedimeche.reviews/2014/12/a-macbeth-of-anothercolor.html Kushner, D. Z. (1967) ‘A Commentary on Ernest Bloch’s Symphonic Works’, The Radford Review, Faculty Research Issue, 21/3, 99–137 (1968) ‘Ernest Bloch: Teacher-Thinker’, American Music Teacher, 18/1, 29–30 (1970) ‘A Singular Ernest Bloch’, Music Journal, 28/1, 40, 51, 53 (1971) ‘The Revivals of Bloch’s Macbeth’, The Opera Journal, 4/2, 9–12 (1973) Ernest Bloch and His Music (Glasgow: William MacLellan) (1974) ‘Ernest Bloch’, in Dictionary of Contemporary Music (New York: E. P. Dutton), 86–88 (1980) ‘Ernest Bloch: A Retrospective on the Centenary of His Birth’, College Music Symposium, 20/2, 77–86 (1981) ‘The “Jewish” Works of Ernest Bloch’, Journal of Musicological Research, 3/3–4, 259–73 (1983) ‘Ernest Bloch’s Enfantines’, College Music Symposium, 23/2, 103–12 (1984) ‘Ernest Bloch: Music Educator’, International Journal of Music Education, 4, 37–40 (1985) ‘The “Jewish” Works of Ernest Bloch’, Journal of Synagogue Music, 14/1, 28–41 (1988) Ernest Bloch: A Guide to Research (New York and London: Garland) (1989) ‘Ernest Bloch, Daniel Gregory Mason, and the Jewish Question’, American Music Teacher, 38/6, 16–19 (1993) ‘Ernest Bloch’s America’, Currents in Musical Thought, 2, 125–41 (2000) ‘Bloch, Ernest’, in S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (eds.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan), II: 705–8 (2002) The Ernest Bloch Companion (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press)

231

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(2004) ‘Religious Ambiguity in the Life and Works of Ernest Bloch’, MinAd, 3, 1–15; see also www.biu.ac.il/HU/mu/min-ad04/BLOCH-1.pdf (2010) ‘Ernest Bloch: The Cleveland Years (1920–1925)’, Min-Ad, 8/2, 175–200 Lachmann, R. (1940) Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerba (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Archives of Oriental Music) (1974) Die Musik im Volksleben Nordafrikas, und Orientalische Musik und Antike (Jerusalem: Magnes Press of the Hebrew University) (1976) Gesänge der Juden auf der Insel Djerba (Jerusalem: Magnes Press of the Hebrew University)9 Le Bon, G. (1979) ‘Psychological Laws of the Evolution of Peoples’, in Alice Widener (ed.) Gustave Le Bon, The Man and His Works (Indianapolis: Liberty Press; orig. pub. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1894) Lefkovits, E. (2006) ‘A Name, and Finally, a Face’ Jerusalem Post, 3 November Levine, G. (2010) The Pope’s Maestro (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass) Lewinski, J. and Dijon, E. (1998) Ernest Bloch (1880–1959): Sa Vie et sa Pensée. Tome I: Les années de galères (1880–1916) (Geneva: Éditions Slatkine) (2001) Ernest Bloch (1880–1959): Sa Vie et sa Pensée. Tome II: La consécration américaine (1916–1930) (Geneva: Éditions Slatkine) (2004) Ernest Bloch (1880–1959): Sa Vie et sa Pensée. Tome III: Le retour en Europe (1930–1938) (Geneva: Éditions Slatkine) (2005) Ernest Bloch (1880–1959): Sa Vie et sa Pensée. Tome IV: Le havre de paix en Oregon (1939–1959) (Geneva: Éditions Slatkine) Lewis, T. P. (ed.) (1990) ‘Ernest Bloch: Special Feature [on the Five String Quartets]’ in Something about the Music: Anthology of Critical Opinions (White Plains, NY: Pro/Am Music Resources; also London: Kahn & Averill) List, K. (1950) ‘On the Horizon: Ernest Bloch’s Sacred Service’, Commentary, 1 December, 589 Little, P. (1960) ‘News: America: Berkeley’, Opera 11/6 (June) 410–11 Loeffler, James (2009) ‘Richard Wagner’s “Jewish Music”: Antisemitism and Aesthetics in Modern Jewish Culture’, Jewish Social Studies 15/2, 2–36 Loppert, M. (1975a) ‘Bloch’s “Macbeth”’, Financial Times, 10 July (1975b) ‘Music’, Jewish Chronicle (18 July), 13 Lutzki, Z. (1976) Program Notes: Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Subscription Concerts, Tel Aviv 9 First publication of the original Germanlanguage manuscript of Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerba.

232 Select Bibliography Luys, T. (1999) ‘Opera around the World: Germany: Dortmund’, Opera 50/5 (May), 583–4 Mahler, A. (1969) Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters, trans. Basil Creighton, ed. Donald Mitchell (New York: Viking Press) Malitz, N., ‘Chicago Opera Theater buffs up neglected jewel in high-tech staging of Bloch’s grand “Macbeth”, 17 September 2014’, Chicago on the aisle (online) Mann, T. (1933) ‘Leiden und Grösse Richard Wagners’ (‘Suffering and Greatness of Richard Wagner’), Die Neue Rundschau, Jahrgang 44 Heft 4 (April) (1949) Essays on Three Decades, trans. Helen T. Lowe-Porter (New York: Alfred A. Knopf) Mara, B. (2007) ‘Ernest Bloch, Macbeth’, Seen and Heard International Opera Review, 4 January (online) Martens, F.H. (1916) ‘Ernest Bloch Describes His Quartet which Flonzaleys are to Introduce’, Musical America, 25 November, 9 Mason, D. G. (1931) Tune in America: A Study of Our Coming Musical Independence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf) McCann, J. (2005) ‘Opera around the World: Germany: Frankfurt’, Opera 56/4 (April), 444–5 McCauley, A. J. (2010) Crossing the Threshold of Confusion (Bloomington, IN: Universe) Mellers, W. (1971) ‘Europe Today’, Man and his Music (London: Barrie and Jenkins) Mendelsohn, E. (ed.) (1993) Modern Jews and their Musical Agendas, Studies in Contemporary Jewry, vol. IX (New York: Oxford University Press) Menuhin, Y. (1977) Unfinished Journey (New York: Alfred A. Knopf) (1997) Unfinished Journey: Twenty Years Later (New York: Fromm International) Miller, M. (2003–2004) ‘A Conference on the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music (1908–1938) held at the University of Potsdam, Germany (May, 2004)’, Musica Judaica, 17/5764, 155–64 (2009a) ‘Absorption of Influences: A Revival of Bloch’s Early C Sharp Minor Symphony’, Music and Vision Daily, www.mvdaily.com/articles/ 2007/07/bloch1.htm (2009b) ‘Opera Premières in London: Bloomsbury Theatre: Bloch’s “Macbeth”’, Tempo, 63/249, 62–3 Millington, B. (2013) ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, in S. Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online (Oxford University Press) Mitchinson, P. (2001) ‘Settling Scores: Richard Taruskin Explores’, Lingua Franca, 11/5, 34–43

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Mlotek, E. G. (1977) Mir Trogn A Gezang (New York: Workmen’s Circle Education Department) More, T. (1516; 1965) Utopia (London: Penguin) Morgenstern, S (ed.) (1959) Composers on Music (New York: Pantheon) Móricz, K. (1996) ‘The Confines of Judaism and the Illusiveness of Universality in Ernest Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service)’, Repercussions, 5/1–2, 184–241 (2001) ‘Sensuous Pagans and Righteous Jews: Changing Concepts of Jewish Identity in Ernest Bloch’s Jézabel and Schelomo’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 54/3, 440–94 (2005) ‘Sealed Documents and Open Lives: Ernest Bloch’s Private Correspondence’, Notes, 62/1, 74–86 (2007) ‘Ancestral Voices: Anti-Semitism and Ernest Bloch’s Racial Conception of Art’, in J. Brown (ed.), Western Music and Race (Cambridge University Press), 102–14 (2008) Jewish Identities: Nationalism, Racism, and Utopianism in Twentieth-Century Music (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press) Móricz, K. and Seter, R. (2012) ‘Colloquy: Jewish Studies and Music’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 65/2, 557–93 Movshon, G. (1973) ‘Our Critics Abroad: New York’, Opera 24/9 (September), 799–800 Murray, D. (1975) ‘French Macbeth’, The Sunday Telegraph, 13 July, 15 Murray, P. (ed.) (1989) Genius: The History of an Idea (Hoboken, NJ: WileyBlackwell) Naumbourg, S. (1847) Semiroth Israel: Chants Liturgiques des Grandes Fêtes (Paris)10 Newborn, J. and Dumbach, A. (2006) Sophie Scholl and the White Rose (Oxford: Oneworld; originally: Shattering the German Night: the Story of the White Rose, 1986) Newlin, D. (1947) ‘The Later Works of Ernest Bloch’, The Musical Quarterly, 33/4, 443–59 Newman, E. (1934) ‘The Week’s Music – Ernest Bloch’, Sunday Times, London, 18 February, 5 (1946) ‘Ernest Bloch’s Second Quartet’, Sunday Times, 9 October; reprinted in Bloch and Heskes (1976), 85–6 Nidakh, S. (see Ben-Ezer, E.) Norman, G., and Schrifte, M. (eds.) (1946) Letters of Composers: An Anthology, 1603–1945 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf) 10

See Franzblau, A. N., Out of Print Classics Series of Synagogue Music (New York: Sacred

Music Press of the Hebrew Union College, 1954), vol. XIV.

234 Select Bibliography Ogutsch, F. (1930) Der Frankfurter Kantor (Frankfurt: Kaufmann Verlag) Osborne, C. (ed.) (1973) Richard Wagner: Stories and Essays (London: Peter Owen) Ottaway, D. H. (1950) ‘Looking Again at Ernest Bloch’, The Musical Times, 91/1288, 234–5 Pelkonen, P. ‘MSM Opera unearths Ernest Bloch’s Macbeth, 12 December 2014’, Superconductor (online) Persichetti, V. (1959) ‘Bloch: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra; Baal Shem: by Joseph Szigeti; Charles Munch; Andor Farkas; Ernest Bloch’, The Musical Times, 100/1399, 481–2 Peyser, H. F. (1917) ‘Quartet by Bloch Proves a Master Work’, Musical America, 6 January, 25 Pioch, G. (1908) ‘Lucienne Bréval’, L’Album Comique Dramatique et Musical, 9, November Pirie, P. J. (1963) ‘A Mixed Modern Group’, in The Penguin History of Choral Music (London: Penguin Books), 356 Pizzetti, I. (1914) ‘Ernest Bloch’, in Musicisti contemporanei (Milan: Fratelli Treves), 193–210 Plavin, Z. (1997) ‘Comparative Stylistic Analysis of Bloch’s “Jewish” and “non-Jewish” Works’, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Jewish Music at City University, London, 1994, 95–101 Porter, A. (1973) ‘Musical Events: Bold and Resolute’, The New Yorker, 19 May, 115–16 (1974) A Musical Season: an English Critic in New York (London: Gollancz) Pourtalès, G. de (1932) Wagner, histoire d’un artiste (Paris: Gallimard) Prausnitz, F. (2002) Roger Sessions: How a ‘Difficult’ Composer Got That Way (Oxford University Press) Price, I. M., Hirsch, E. G., Seligsohn, M. and Montgomery, M. W. (1905) ‘Solomon’, in I. Singer (ed.), The Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. XI (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls Company), 436–48 Ran, S. (2006) Credo/Ani Ma’amin (Available from the composer, pending publication.) Ravina [Rabinowitz], M. (1939) ‘The Fifth Concert of Jewish Music’, Davar, 6 January (1940) ‘The Sacred Service’, Omer, 20 December Richards, D. (1975a) ‘Bloch’s Macbeth’, Music and Musicians, 23/275, 12, 14, 16 (1975b) ‘Bloch’s Macbeth’, Music and Musicians, 24/277, 45–6 Riemens, L. (1958) ‘News: Belgium: Brussels’, Opera 9/3 (March), 168–9 and 172 Rimmer, F. (1959) ‘Ernest Bloch’s Second String Quartet’, Tempo, 52, 11

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Rinder, R. (1958) ‘Discourse on Works by Bloch, Milhaud and Lavry’, Proceedings of the 5th Annual Convention of the American Conference of Cantors, Monticello, New York, 16–19 June, 39–40 Rogers, B. (1916) ‘Swiss Composer’s Aim: To Sing Himself’, Musical America, 12 August Rolland, R. (1929) Beethoven the Creator (New York: Harper and Brothers) (1996) Jean-Christophe, Books I and III (New York: Caroll & Graf) Rosenfeld, P. (1920) Musical Portraits: Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, 1922) Rosenthal, B. (1927) Heimatgeschichte der Badischen Juden – seit ihrem Geschichtlichen Auftreten bis zur Gegenwart (Bühl/Baden: Konkordia A-G für Druck und Verlag) Rosman, M. (1996) Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Ba’al Shem Tov (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press) Roth, C. (ed.) (1972) Encyclopedia Judaica, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House) Rothmüller, A. M. (1953) The Music of the Jews: An Historical Appreciation (London: Vallentine Mitchell; first published in German: Die Musik der Juden. Zurich: Pan Verlag, 1951) Rozolio, D. (1954) ‘Ernest Bloch – Kontsherto Simfoni’, Haaretz, 19 February, Culture and Literature Section, 2 (1961) ‘Ernest Bloch u-mif’alo’ (‘Ernest Bloch and his Work’), Dukhan, 5, 5–12 Rubinstein, A. (1972) ‘Israel Ben Eliezer Ba’al Shem Tov’, in C. Roth (ed.), Encyclopedia Judaica, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House), IX, cols. 1052–8 Sabaneev, L. (1929) ‘The Jewish National School in Music’, The Musical Quarterly 15/3, 448–68 Sabin, R. (1947) ‘Bloch Festival Acclaimed at Juilliard’, Musical America, 67/15, 4 Sadie, S. (1975) ‘Macbeth’, The Times, 10 July, 9 Salazar, A. (1948) Music in Our Time: Trends in Music since the Romantic Era, English trans. Isabel Pope (London: Bodley Head) Salomon, K. (1940) Program Notes: Ha’aretz, 18 June Saminsky, L. (1932 ) Music of Our Day: Essentials and Prophecies (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell) Saperstein, M. (1990) ‘Sounds of Succot’, Jerusalem Post, 3 October Sartori, C. (1960) ‘News: Italy: Milan’, Opera 11/5 (May), 350–2 Schiller, D. M. (2003) Bloch, Schoenberg, and Bernstein: Assimilating Jewish Music (Oxford University Press)

236 Select Bibliography Schnabel, J. G. (1731) Wunderliche Fata einiger See-Fahrer, absonderlich Alberti Julii (Nordhausen: Johann Heinrich Gross) Schonberg, H. (1959) ‘Menuhin Performs a New Bloch Work’, The New York Times, 11 December, 40 Schorr, D. L. (1940) ‘Ernest Bloch at 60’, The New York Times, 11 August, section 9, 5b Schurig, A. (1913) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sein Leben und Werk (Leipzig) Searchinger, C. (1918) ‘America, the Land of Promise and Fulfillment for One of Switzerland’s Most Gifted Sons, Ernest Bloch’, Musical America, 28/19, 5–6 Seldes, B. (2009) Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician (Berkeley: University of California Press) Sendrey, A. (1951) Bibliography of Jewish Music (New York: Columbia University Press) Shapira, A. (2007) Kakhoakh bein Hashoshanim (‘[Like a] Thorn among Roses’), ed. B.-S. Shapira (Haifa: Oryan Publishers) Shawe-Taylor, D. (1969) ‘Switzerland: Geneva: Ernest Bloch’s “Macbeth”’, Opera 20/1 (January), 66–8 Shear, N. (1980) ‘Naturalist, Sensualist, Rabelaisian: Ernest Bloch’, Music Magazine, 3/6, 12–15 Sheppard, W. A. (1996) ‘Bitter Rituals for a Lost Nation: Partch’s “Revelation in the Courthouse Park” and Bernstein’s “Mass”’, The Musical Quarterly, 80/3, 461–99 Shlonsky, V. (1943) Mishmar, 17 December Shomrony, O. (nd) Globes Israel Business Arena http://omershomrony.com/ 2007/12/04/%D7%94%D7%A7%D7%9C%D7%98%D7%95%D7%AA Sills, D. L. (1985) ‘Bloch’s Sketches’, Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin, No. 17, 8–11 Simmons, W. (2004) Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers (Lanham, MD, and Oxford: Scarecrow Press) Singer, I. (ed.) (1901–6) Jewish Encyclopedia, 12 vols. (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls) Slobin, M. (ed.) (1982) Old Jewish Folk Music: The Collections and Writings of Moshe Beregovski (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press) Slonimsky, N. (1969) Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers since Beethoven’s Time (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press) Smith, H. (2011) There’s a Place for Us: The Musical Theatre Works of Leonard Bernstein (Farnham, UK: Ashgate) Solomon, N. (2015) Historical Dictionary of Judaism, 3rd edn (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield) Soubies, A. (1910) Almanach des Spectacles (Paris: Flammarion) (1911) Almanach des Spectacles (Paris: Flammarion)

237

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Steinberg, N. (2006) Ernest Bloch: Composer in Nature’s University, 1st edn ([Newport, OR:] Oregon Coast Council for the Arts) (2008a) Ernest Bloch Legacy Project: Composer in Nature’s University, 2nd edn, revised by Frank Geltner and members of the Bloch Family (Ernest Bloch Legacy Foundation) (2008b) Ernest Bloch: Legacy Foundation: Composer in Nature’s University, 3rd edn, revised by Frank Geltner and members of the Bloch Family (Ernest Bloch Legacy Foundation) (2013) Ernest Bloch: Composer in Nature’s University, 4th edn, revised by Frank Geltner, Alex Knapp, and members of the Bloch Family (Ernest Bloch Foundation) Stoppard, T. (2002) The Coast of Utopia, Part II: Shipwreck (New York: Grove Press) Strassburg, R. (1977) Ernest Bloch: Voice in the Wilderness: A Biographical Study (Los Angeles: The Trident Shop, California State University Press) Stutschewsky, J. (1977) Memoirs of a Jewish Musician – Life without Compromise (Tel Aviv: Po’alim)11 Sulzer, S. (1838–40 and 1865) Schir Zion: Gesänge für den Israelitischen Gottesdienst, 2 vols. (Vienna: Artaria and Co.)12 Szigeti, J. (1949) With Strings Attached (London: Cassell and Co.); 2nd edn, Reminiscences and Reflections (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1967) Szlengel, W. (1987) An Account with God, trans. H. Birenbaum, www.zchor.org/szlengel/account.htm Tanner, M. (1898) ‘Nietzsche on Genius’, in P. Murray (ed.), Genius: The History of an Idea (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), 128–40 Tappolet, C. (1972) La Vie Musicale à Genève au Dix-Neuvième Siècle (1814–1918), Tome 45 of Mémoires et Documents publiés par la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève (Geneva: Jullien Libraire) Tappy, J.-F. (ed.) (1984) Ernest Bloch Romain Rolland Lettres (1911–1933) (Lausanne: Éditions Payot) Taubman, H. (1959) ‘Ernest Bloch’, New York Times, Sunday 26 July, Section 2, 7 Taylor, J. (2013) ‘Opera around the World: United States: Long Beach’, Opera 64/11 (November), 1452–3 Taylor, P. (1975) ‘Bloch’s “Macbeth” at the Royal Festival Hall’, Musical Opinion, 98/1175, 602 Tchamkerten, J. (2001) Ernest Bloch, ou Un prophète en son temps (Geneva: Éditions Papillon – mélophiles) 11

In Hebrew, translated from the German Republished in Out of Print Classics Series of Synagogue Music (New York: Sacred

12

Music Press of the Hebrew Union College, 1954), vols. 6 (Werner, E. ed.) and 7 (Franzblau, A. N. ed.)

238 Select Bibliography Thibodeau, R. (1971) ‘The Media is the Mass’, Commonweal, 95/1, 17–18 Thompson, K. (1973) A Dictionary of Twentieth Century Composers 1911–1971 (London: Faber & Faber) Thompson, O. (ed.) (1941) Great Modern Composers (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Co.) Tibaldi Chiesa, M. (1932) Ernest Bloch (Città di Castello: Tipografia dell’ ‘Unione Arti Grafiche’) (1933) Ernest Bloch (Turin: G. B. Paravia) (1938) ‘Ernest Bloch – The Jewish Composer’, in H. Swet (ed.), Musica Hebraica (Jerusalem) vol. I–II, 13–16 Toeplitz, U. (1954) Program Notes, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra subscription concerts, Tel Aviv (April) (1960) Program Notes, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra subscription concerts, Tel Aviv (April) Tommasini, A. (2014) ‘Dark and deep desires’, New York Times, 11 December Uscher, N. (1988) ‘Zara Nelsova and Ernest Bloch: The Story of a Friendship and a Musical Partnership’, Strings, 2/4, 21–5 Vinaver, C. (1955) Anthology of Jewish Music (New York: Edward B. Marks Music Corporation) Wagner, R. (1849) The Art Work of the Future (Leipzig) (1850) ‘Das Judenthum in der Musik’, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (Leipzig; expanded version: privately published 1869) (1892) ‘Judaism in Music’, Richard Wagner’s Prose Works, Volume 3, The Theatre, trans. William Ashton Ellis (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co.), 75–122 Walden, J. (2012) ‘“An Essential Expression of the People”: Interpretations of Hasidic Song in the Composition and Performance History of Ernest Bloch’s Baal Shem’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 65/3, 777–820 Walsh, S. (1975) ‘Rescuing Bloch’s opera’, Observer Review, 13 July, 22 Walsh, T. J. (1981) The Théâtre Lyrique Paris (1851–70) (London: John Calder) Weisgall, H. (1954) ‘Jewish Music in America’, Judaism: a Quarterly Journal, 3/4, 427–36 Werlin, J. (2007) Suzanne Bloch: Recollections (Portland, OR: J. Werlin private publication) Werner, E. (ed.) (1953–4) Out of Print Classics Series of Synagogue Music (New York: Sacred Music Press of the Hebrew Union College) vols. I and VI13 13

See also Baer, A., Franzblau, A. N., Sulzer, S.

239

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Whitman, W. (1973) ‘Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun’, in The Portable Walt Whitman (New York: Viking Press) Whittall, A. (1983) Music since the First World War (New York: St Martin’s Press) Widener, A. (ed.) (1979) Gustav Le Bon, The Man and His Works (Indianapolis: Liberty Press) Wilson, C. (1922) Shakespeare and Music (London: ‘The Stage’ Office) Witts, R. (2009) ‘Opera in Britain: Macbeth’, Opera 60/6 (June), 720–1 Wodak, M. (1898) Hanmazeach (Vienna) Wold, M. (1948) ‘Ernest Bloch: Music from Oregon Sands’, Sunday Oregonian, 3 October, 7 (1954) ‘Music from Stones’, Northwest Roto Magazine, 21 November, 10–11 Zabel, G. (1990) ‘Ernst [sic] Bloch and the Utopian Dimension in Music’, The Musical Times, 131/1764, 82–4 Zilbermann, O. (1940) Haaretz, 24 November (1962) ‘Peticha Chagigit – Beruach Shigra’ (‘Festive Opening in Routine Spirit’), Maariv, 3 October, 9

Unpublished Materials Theses and Dissertations Adams, F. C. (1955) ‘Structural Form and Analysis of Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo’, Master’s thesis, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester Bals, K. E. (1982) ‘The American Piano Concerto in the Mid-twentieth Century’, DMA, University of Kansas Blizzard, J. T. (1988) ‘A Performer’s Study of Selected Psalm Settings for Solo Voice with Piano or Organ Accompaniment by Howard Hanson, Carlisle Floyd, Ned Rorem, Leo Sowerby, Ernest Bloch (Psaume 22) and Edmund Rubbra’, DMA, DOC, Music, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Borthwick, S. J. (1994) ‘A Study of the Influence of Traditional Jewish Music on the Composer Ernest Bloch’, MA, City University, London Defin, M. (1988) ‘La musique pour violoncelle d’Ernest Bloch’, Mémoire de maîtrise, Université de Paris IV Sorbonne, UER de Musicologie Dijon, E. (1997) ‘La tradition dans la musique d’Ernest Bloch (1880-1959): aspects historiques, esthétiques et stylistiques de l’oeuvre du compositeur’, Thèse de Doctorat de Musicologie, Paris IV Fulton, A. (1953) ‘Ernest Bloch’s Sacred Service’, Master’s thesis, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester Garlick, G. J. (1943) ‘The Viola Suite of Ernest Bloch’, Master’s thesis, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester

240 Select Bibliography Grove, G. A. (1976) ‘The Life and Music of Ernest Bloch’, Master’s thesis, San José State University, California Guibbory, Y. E. (1970) ‘Thematic Treatment in the String Quartets of Ernest Bloch’, PhD, West Virginia University Heinrichs, W. L. (1953) ‘The Music of Ernest Bloch: A Critical Survey’, Master’s thesis, Texas Christian University Hermann, H. A. (1963) ‘A Structural Analysis of the Sonata for Piano by Ernest Bloch’, DM document, Indiana University Hwu, A. S. (1994) ‘A Stylistic Analysis of Selected Solo Piano Music of Ernest Bloch’, DMA Document, University of South Carolina Jones, A. P. (1981) ‘A Historical Perspective and Survey of Performance-Practice Problems of Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo’, MMus, Brigham Young University Jones, W. M. (1963) ‘The Music of Ernest Bloch’, PhD, Indiana University Knapp, A. (2003) ‘The Emergence of Ernest Bloch as a “Jewish Composer”: Traditional Elements in the Published Works of the “Jewish Cycle”’, PhD, University of Cambridge Kushner, D. Z. (1967) ‘Ernest Bloch and his Symphonic Works’, PhD, University of Michigan Levy, R. (1979) ‘Avodath Hakodesh (Service Sacré): A Conductor’s Analysis for Performance’, DM, Indiana University Minski, H. S. (1945) ‘Ernest Bloch and His Music’, PhD, George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, TN Móricz, K. (1999) ‘Jewish Nationalism in Twentieth-Century Art Music’, PhD, University of California at Berkeley Newborn, J. (1994) ‘“Work Makes Free”: The Hidden Cultural Meanings of the Holocaust’, PhD, University of Chicago Nott, M. D. (1985) ‘Ernest Bloch’s Pedagogical Writings: A Didactic Legacy of Twentieth-Century America’, PhD, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester Page, A. (1940) ‘The Style of Ernest Bloch as Approached Through a Study of Piano and Chamber Works’, MMus, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester Plavin, Z. (1998) ‘Ha-Malkhin Ernest Blokh (1880–1959) ve-ha-hashvaah ben yetsirotav benot ha-kotar ha-yehudi le-ven eleh she-enan nos’ot kotar yehudi (kelaliyot), (‘Ernest Bloch [1880–1959] and a Comparative Analysis of his Jewish-titled and General Compositions’), PhD, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Raditz, E. (1975) ‘The Analysis and Interpretation of the Violin and Piano Works of Ernest Bloch (1880–1959)’, PhD, New York University Ross, S. L. (1956) ‘An Analysis of Ernest Bloch’s Treatment of Psalm 22, Psalm 114 and Psalm 137’, Master of Sacred Music, Union Theological Seminary, New York

241

Select Bibliography

Schiller, D. M. (1996) ‘Assimilating Jewish Music: Sacred Service, A Survivor from Warsaw, Kaddish’, PhD, University of Georgia Sills, D. L. (1983) ‘The Viola Suite of Ernest Bloch’, DMA, Manhattan School of Music Sorani, D. (1979) ‘Incontro con Ernest Bloch – Considerazioni su alcuni aspetti dell’opera cameristica’, Music History thesis, Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, Florence Stirzaker (McCormick), K. E. (1992) ‘Structure and Form in Two Late Works for Flute and Orchestra by Ernest Bloch (1880–1959): Suite Modale (1956) and Two Last Poems (Maybe . . . ) (1958)’, DMA, University of North Texas Weisser, A. (1980) ‘Jewish Music in Twentieth Century United States: Four Representative Figures’, DSM, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York Wheeler, C. L. (1976) ‘The Solo Piano Music of Ernest Bloch’, DMA, University of Oregon

Books, Lectures, Articles, Letters, Notes, Musical Notations Bloch, E., ‘Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service): Notes by E. B.’, Olin Downes Papers, Hargrett Rare Books and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia (no date) ‘Biographical Notes’, Bloch Archive, Library of Congress, Washington, DC (no date) ‘Causerie’, [lecture also known as ‘The Jewish Mind in Music’] Bloch Archive, Library of Congress (no date) Chants Juifs (85-page music manuscript book (no date) comprising transcriptions of most of the musical examples included in the Jewish Encyclopedia, Vols. 1–12) Letter to Albert Carré, trans. S. Bloch, 12 December 2008 Letter to Ernest Chapman, 31 March 1955, Bloch Collection Alexander Knapp Letters to Edmond Fleg, Satigny, 16 July 1911 and 24 January 1912, Bloch Collection Alexander Knapp Letter to Hugo Kortschak, 8 September 1919, in Sills, D. L., ‘A Catalogue of the Works of Ernest Bloch’, (no date), 47 Numerous letters from Alex Cohen to Albert Elkus, from Bloch to Elkus, from Bloch to Ada Clement and Lillian Hodgehead, from Bloch to Winifred Howe Bloch, M. I., Hebräische Deutsche Chorale Gesänge: M. I. B: Gesangheft für Meier I. Bloch, manuscript book (1847), photocopy in Bloch Collection Alexander Knapp Bloch, S., About Schelomo (single-page typescript: version 1, no date)

242 Select Bibliography About Schelomo (single-page typescript: version 2, no date) Letter to Alexander Knapp, New York, 15 July 1973 Bloch-Smith, S., Ernest Bloch: A Biography by his Daughter (unfinished typescript, no date) Bryll, L., Transliteration of Hebrew prayer: Uv’khein ten pachdecha Pinchback, L. A. (1995) Guide to Special Collections in the Music Division of the Library of Congress: Ernest Bloch Collection (Washington DC: Library of Congress) Plavin, Z., Shuvo shel Ernest Bloch (‘The Return of Ernest Bloch’),14 monodrama for actor and musicians (Tel Aviv, no date) Rinder, R., Manuscript of Hebrew Chant: Tzur Jisroel (1929?) Sills, D. L., Ernest Bloch: The Forging of a Composer’s Style (lecture given at the Ernest Bloch Festival at Newport, Oregon, typescript, 3 July 1990) An Artistic Nexus: Gustav Mahler and Ernest Bloch, Shippensburg University (typescript, no date) A Catalogue of the Works of Ernest Bloch (typescript, no date) A Comprehensive Catalog of the Works of Ernest Bloch (typescript, no date) Printed Catalogue (typescript, no date) Wohlberg, M., Illustrations for Lectures on Modes and Melodies of the Synagogue (manuscript: no place, no date)

Archives (Selected) Alfren Pochon Collection, Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire, Lausanne Archives Evelyn Hirsch, Geneva Archives Littéraires Suisses, Bibliothèque Nationale Suisse, Berne Archives Romain Rolland, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris Bibliothèque publique et universitaire, Geneva Bloch Collection Alexander Knapp, London Cleveland Institute of Music, Ohio Eastman School of Music, Sibley Music Library, University of Rochester, New York Ernest Bloch Archive, Library of Congress, Washington DC Ernest Bloch Archive, Geneva Conservatoire Ernest Bloch Archive, Lausanne Conservatoire Ernest Bloch Archive, University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona 14

Hebrew version: with Y. Seidmann; English version: with T. Shany.

243

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Ernest Bloch Papers, Hargrett Rare Books and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia, Athens Harriet Cohen Papers, British Library, MS Mus. 1369, London Havelock Ellis Papers, Vol. XXIX, British Library Add MS 70552: 1921–39, London Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Tel Aviv Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Jerusalem Kol Ha-Muzika (‘Voice of Music’), Israel Radio Linfield College, McMinnville, Oregon Moldenhauer Archives, Northwestern University Library, Evanston Olin Downes Papers, Hargrett Rare Books and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia, Athens The Robert Strassburg Collection of Ernest Bloch, Belknap Collection for the Performing Arts, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida at Gainesville, Florida The Swiss National Library, Berne University of California at Berkeley, Bloch Collection, 01027 Verdina Shlonsky Archive, The National Library, Jerusalem

Index

Abba Areka (Rav), 190 Abravanel, Maurice, l abstract music, 44 Academy of St Cecilia, xxiii Achron, Joseph, 121, 123, 142–3, 194 Hebrew Melody, 142 Adon Olam, 77 Agate Beach, xv, xvii–xx, xxiv, xlvi, 7, 11, 47, 79–80, 82, 87, 92, 97, 101, 210, 212–13 Bloch settles at, 80 agates, xvii, 7 Albers, Henri, 153, 156, 169 Albert, Donnie Ray, 164, 170 Aldeburgh Festival, 100 aliyah, 103, 142 defined, 103 Fourth Aliyah, 121 Allan, Maud, xiv, xxii Maud Allan Dance Company, xxvi Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, li American Academy of Arts and Letters, 81 American Symphony Orchestra, 94 Anderson, W. R., 49 Andrea Doria, sinking of the, xix Ani Ma’amin, 73 Anouilh, Jean, 71 Ansermet, Ernest, l, 160, 169, 187 anti-Semitism, 16, see also Godet; Wagner in fascist Italy, 155 Arad, Atar, 144 Arad, Avner, li Asayas, Irit, 139 Ashkenazi, ix, 10, 16, 172, 177, 180–2, 187, 191–2, 195, 198–9, 204–5 Prayer Modes, 181 Association BloCH 09/10, 211 Atlanta Symphony, 71 Atlas Camerata, li, 143, 145 Atlas, Dalia, li, 1–2, 9, 141, 143, 145, 163, 170, 211 atonality, 93 Augustine of Hippo, 105–6 City of God, 8 Civitas dei (City of God), 106–7, 120

244

Avital, Avi, 144 Avshalomov, Jacob, 209 Azéma, Louis, 153 Baal Shem Tov, Israel, 10, 172–6, 178, 197, 204 Bach, J. S., 1, 28, 38 Cantata No. 140, 146 Well-Tempered Clavier, 80–1 Baer, Abraham, 191–2 Bakhtin, M. M. on chronotopes, 108 Balfour Declaration, xxii Baller, Adolph, xlv, l Barak, Ehud, 143 Bar-Am, Benjamin, 142 Barbirolli, Sir John, 206 Barjansky, Alexandre, 176–8 Barjansky, Katja, 176 Baroque, 84, 91, 95, 97–8, 100–1 Bartók, Béla, xii, xxii, xxiv, 1, 49, 55, 135, 137, 179 Concerto for Orchestra, xxiv String Quartet No. 1, xxii Barzun, Jacques, 31 Baudelaire, Charles, 27–8 Bax, Sir Arnold, 206 Baxter, Diane, 210 BBC Scottish Orchestra, 84 BBC Symphony Orchestra, 91 Bedetti, Jean, 207 Beecham, Thomas, xlviii Beersheva Sinfonietta, 148 Beethoven, L. van, 1, 5, 27–8, 46, 149 as genius, 22–3 Eroica Symphony, 79 Belfer, Ben, 147 Bene Israel, 108 Ben-Haim, Paul, viii, 9, 122–3, 127–8, 135, 142, 146 liturgical works influenced by Bloch, 127 Ben-Natan, Or, 163 Beregovski, Moshe, x, 200

245

Index

Berg, Alban Lyric Suite, xxiii String Quartet, xxii Violin Concerto, xxiii Wozzeck, xxiii Berkman, Louis, 53 Berkshire Festival, 93 Berkshire String Quartet, 13 Berliner, Emile, xxi Bernstein, Leonard, xiii, 3, 6–7, 53, 61–72, 78, 148, 207, 235 Chichester Psalms, 71 conception of Judaism, 65 Kaddish Symphony, 6, 62–3, 65, 67 Mass: A Theater Piece, 6, 62–3, 67–72, 78 Catholic reaction to, 68–9 Missa Brevis, 6, 62–3, 71, 78 West Side Story, 71 Bertini, Gary, 140 Besht. See Baal Shem Tov, Israel Beyea, Ed, 77 Bible, 103 Deuteronomy 6:5, 78 Ecclesiastes excerpts, 172–3 Isaiah 56:7, 10, 149 6:3, 68 Leviticus 19:18, 78 Psalms 118:26, 68 137, 107 30, 199 Bible, Christian. See New Testament Binyamini, Daniela, 143 biological determinism, 5, 25, 30 Blazhevich, Vladislav, 94 Bliss, Sir Arthur, 206 Bloch origin of the name, 13 Bloch House National Register of Historic Places, 212 Bloch Memorial, 212 Bloch Music Festival, xxv Bloch Quartet (ensemble), 209 Bloch rhythm, 94 Bloch Society Bulletin, 15, 61, 75, 206–7, 209, 217 Bloch, Abraham, 13 Bloch, Arnold, 14

Bloch, Ernest 60th birthday, 80 70th birthday, 87 academic study of, 2–3, 134 aesthetics, 25, 39, 126 American citizenship, xiv, 79 as universal composer, 6, 8, 48–56, 65, 149 awards and honours, 11 Gold Medal AAAL, xxiv, 81 Henry Hadley Medal, 98 Linfield College DHL, 83 naming of street, 213 New York Music Critics’ Circle Award, 83, 93 Bar Mitzvah, 14, 186 death, 101, 136 exchange with Koussevitsky, 207 family background, 12–19, 177–8 impact of Hasidic Service on, 18–19 infatuation with Wagner, 46–7 interpretation of Shakespeare, 10 Jewish identity, 4–5, 8, 12–19, 28, 35, 37, 39–40, 89, 103–5, 120, 132 last years, xviii–xx, 96–8 Lectures and Writings ‘Causerie’, 15 ‘Man and Music’, 6, 44, 46, 55 ‘The Jewish Mind in Music’, 15 letters, unpublished to Harriet Cohen, 59–60 to Havelock Ellis, 57–8 love of nature, xvii, 79 lovers, 47, 80, 88, 92 move to Agate Beach, 80 on his suffering, 27 prophetic humanism, 10, 103, 172 reception in Israel, 9, 132–49 reception in the Yishuv, 8, 121–31 reception of his music in Japan, 3 religion, 44 self-conception as genius, 36 sense of alienation, 5 Works Abodah, xxiii, xxvii, xlvi, l, 19, 100, 144, 171, 205 Abodah, source of, 19 America: An Epic Rhapsody, xviii, xxiii, xxvii, xlvi, l, 7, 28, 54, 104, 112–13, 209 Andante sur un air folklorique Suisse, xxviii

246 Index Bloch, Ernest (cont.) Avodath Hakodesh, viii, xxiii, xxviii, xliii, xlvi, xlix, lii, 1, 4, 6–7, 9, 28, 31, 41, 44, 48, 52–3, 61–7, 74–5, 77–9, 88–9, 102, 125–7, 129, 131, 139–40, 144–5, 147–8, 159, 171, 183 Bernstein’s interpretation, 64–7 Baal Shem Suite, xxiii, xxviii–xxix, xxxv, xlvi, l, 1, 4, 10, 79, 89, 122–3, 129, 139, 142, 144, 146–8, 171, 174, 176, 179, 204 analysis, 194–204 origins, 178–9 Concertino, xxix, xlvi, 85 Concerto Grosso No. 1, xxiii, xxix, xlvi, 81, 83, 88, 91, 94, 139, 142–3, 147–8, 209 Concerto Grosso No. 2, viii, xxiv, xlvi, 90–3, 140, 143, See Concerto Symphonique, viii, xxx, xlvi, li, 55–6, 84, 135, 137 analysis, 84 Enfantines, xxxi, xlvi Evocations, xxxi, xlvi, 79 Ex-Voto, xlvi Five Sketches in Sepia, xxxi, xlvi Four Episodes, xxxii, xlvi, li, 83, 139, 171 Four Wedding Marches, xxxii, xlvi, 83 From Jewish Life, xxxii, xxxvii, xlvi, xlix, li–lii, 97, 144, 171, 177, 204–5 Helvetia: Symphonic Poem, vii, xxiii, xxxii, xlii, xlvi, 4, 7–8, 54, 104, 107, 112–13, 115–16, 119, 176 Historiettes au Crépuscule, xxxii, xlvi Hiver-Printemps, xxii, xxxiii, xlvi In Memoriam, xxxiii, xlvi, 90, 92 In the Mountains, xxxiii, xlvi In the Night: A Love Poem, xxxiii, xlvi Israel Symphony, xxii, xxvii, xxxiii, xlvi, 4, 7–8, 16, 54, 61, 83, 104, 107, 115 Jewish Cycle, xii, xxii, 4, 6, 12–13, 16–19, 39, 46–7, 49, 84, 89, 94, 107, 171, 176, 185–6, 204, 240 Macbeth, xxii, xxiv, xxxiv, xlvi, 1–2, 10, 17, 20, 47, 79, 88, 145, 208, 213 British premiere, 161 performance history, 150–67 US premiere, 159

Meditation and Processional, xlii, xlvi Méditation Hébraïque, xxiii, xxxv, xlvi, 144, 177, 205 Mélodie for violin and piano, xxxv Night for string quartet, xxxv Nirvana: Poem for piano, xxxv Nuit Exotique, xxxv, xlvi, 144 orchestral arrangements, xxvi Paysages for string quartet, xxxv, xlvi Piano Quintet No. 1, xxiii, xxxvi, xlvi, 3, 49, 83, 96, 127, 144 Piano Quintet No. 2, xxiv, xxxvi, xlvi, 97 Piano Sonata, xxiii, xxxvi, xlvi, 52, 79, 83, 142–3 Poème Mystique. See Violin Sonata No. 2 Poèmes d’Automne, xxii, xxxvi, xlvi, 3 Poems of the Sea, xxiii, xxxvi, xlvi, 3 Prelude and March. See Six Preludes Prelude and Processional, xxxvii Proclamation for trumpet, xxxvii, xlvi Psalm 114, xxxvii–xxxviii, xlvi, 16, 122 Psalm 137, xxii, xxxvii–xxxviii, xlvi, 16 Psalm 22, xxii, xxxviii, xlvi, 16 Sacred Service. See Avodath Hakodesh Schelomo, xxxviii, xlvi, xlix, li, 1, 9–10, 16–17, 39, 83, 88, 97, 101, 125, 131, 135, 139–40, 143, 145, 147–8, 176–8 analysis, 182–94 Scherzo Fantasque, viii, xxiv, xxxviii, xlvi, li, 84, 88 Sinfonia Breve, xxxix, xlvi, 90, 92, 95 Six Preludes for Organ, xxxix, xlvi, 83 String Quartet No. 1, xxii, xl, xlvi, 16, 143 String Quartet No. 2, xxiv, xl, xlvi analysis, 82–3 String Quartet No. 3, xxiv, xl, xlvi, 90, 93 String Quartet No. 4, xxiv, xl, xlvi, 93 String Quartet No. 5, xxiv, xl, xlvi, 96 Suite 1 for unaccompanied cello, xxiv, xl, 3, 97 Suite 1 for unaccompanied violin, xxiv, xli, 100 Suite 2 for unaccompanied cello, xxiv, xl, 97

247

Index

Suite 2 for unaccompanied violin, xxiv, xli, 100 Suite 3 for unaccompanied cello, xxiv, xli, 97 Suite for unaccompanied viola (unfinished), xxiv, xli, 101 Suite for viola, xxiii, xl, xlvi, l, 4, 12, 18, 83, 88, 135, 138, 140, 143, 145, 171 cello arrangement, xl Suite Hébraïque, viii, xxiv, xl, xlvi, l, 89, 139, 144–6, 171 sources of, 19 Suite Modale, viii, xxiv, xl, xlvi, 97–8, 144, 171 Suite Symphonique, xv, xxiv, xli, xlvi analysis, 81–2 Symphonie Funèbre, xxi Symphony in C sharp minor, xxi, xxii, xli, xlvi, 14, 47, 210 Symphony in E flat major, xlii, xlvi Three Nocturnes, xxiii, xlii, xlvi, 123, 143 Trois Poèmes Juifs, xxii, xlii, xlvi, 9, 16, 47, 54, 66, 88, 124–5 Trombone Symphony, xxiv, xli, xlvi, 94, 140 Two Last Poems, xlii, 98 Two Pieces for string quartet, xlii, xlvi, 90 Violin Concerto, xxiv, xxix, xlvi, xlviii, 1, 9, 79, 131, 135, 140, 149 Violin Sonata No. 1, xxiii, xxxix, xlvi, 55, 144 Violin Sonata No. 2, xxiii, xxxix, xlii, xlvi, 28, 144 Visions and Prophecies. See Voice in the Wilderness Voice in the Wilderness, xxiii, xliii, xlvi, l–lii, 55, 79, 94, 135 Works, lost Berceuse in D flat major, xxix Concerto pour Violoncelle et Orchestre, xxx Conte Badin, xxx Elfes et Scherzando pour Piano, xxxi Les Sataniques pour Orchestre, xxxiv Piano Quintet (1903), xxxvi Prélude pour Orchestre (1899), xxxvii Works, unpublished, 12 Cello Sonata (1897), xxxix Concerto pour violin et orchestre (1899), xxx

Danse Sacrée, xxx Danses Populaires Suisses, xxx Fantaisie pour violon et piano, xxxi Fantaisie-lied pour violon et piano, xxxi Four Circus Pieces, xxxii Inventions, xxxiii Jeremiah – A Poem for Piano and Orchestra, xxxiii Jézabel, xxxiv, xliv, 16–17, 150, 171 Là-Bas: Mélodie pour piano et chant, xxxiv Larmes d’Automne pour piano et chant, xxxiv Le Saule pour piano et chant, xxxiv Lieder (various), xxxiv Méditation [Aria] pour violon et orgue, xxxv Menuet pour piano, xxxv Musette pour piano et chant, xxxv O Fatigue de Vivre, xxxv Orientale, xxxv Pastorale pour piano, xxxv Poème Concertant pour violon et orchestre, xxxvi Poème Exotique, xxxvi Près de la Mer, xxxvii Regrets pour piano, xxxviii Sérénade: Morceau pour violon et piano, xxxix String Quartet (1896), xxxix Symphonie Funèbre (1895), xli Symphonie Orientale (1896), xli, 17 Tes Guêtres, Ton Bâton, Ton Sac, xlii Variation on a theme by Goossens, xliii, 82 Vivre-Aimer: Poème Symphonique, xliii Bloch, Ernest II (‘Ernie’), vii, xi, xiv, xxvi, 2, 13, 212–13 Bloch, Ernst Utopian writings, 8 Bloch, Isaak Josef, 13 Bloch, Ivan, xiv, 7, 11, 14, 79, 206 Bloch, Loulette (Louise), xx, xliv, 14, 35, 44, 46, 80, 194 Bloch, Lucienne, xiv, xliv, l, 11, 14, 44, 206, 209–10 Bloch, Marguerite (née Margarethe Schneider), xiv–xv, xxii, xxxiii, 14, 30, 44, 80, 101 engagement, 46 in the shadow of Ernest, 87

248 Index Bloch, Maurice (Meier), 13, 178, 187, 191, 193 Bloch, S. and Heskes, I. Ernest Bloch: Creative Spirit, 66, 81–2, 92–3, 178, 195, 203 Bloch, Sophie, xxviii, 14–15, 17–18, 178, 187–8 Bloch, Suzanne, xiv, xxxi, xl, xliv, xlviii, l, 1, 11, 14–15, 19, 44, 52, 54–5, 61, 64–5, 79–81, 93, 96, 147, 153, 178, 186, 194, 202, 206, 210 Bloch and His Crucifix, 15 Boas, Bob and Elisabeth, 2 Bodanzky, Artur, 177 Boer War, end of, xxi Bohlman, Philip V., xi, 2, 4, 7–8, 102–4, 107, 110, 125–6 Borchmeyer, D., 39 Borkh, Inge, 160, 164, 169 Borowska-Tudor, Sonya, 163 Boskovich, Alexander U., 123–4 Boston Symphony, 55 Boulanger, Nadia, 39, 79, 207 Brahms, Johannes, xxi, 1 Symphony 4, xxi Brecht, Bertolt, 112 Breslaur, Emil, 15 Bréval, Lucienne, vii, 10, 150–1, 153–4, 164, 169 Brickman, Miriam, 3 British mandate in Palestine, xxiii Britten, Benjamin, xxiv, 1, 138 Peter Grimes, xxiv Brohly, Suzanne, 153 Brooklyn Philharmonic, 94 Bruch, Max, 16 Kol Nidrei, 123 Bruns, Peter, 179 Bryll, Leo, 190 Buber, Martin, 104–6, 173 Pfade in Utopie, 8, 105 Buchman Music School, 146 Bullock, Susan, 164, 170 Bush, Asahel, 80 Butvila, Raimondas, 144 Cahn, Judah, 65–6 Callas, Maria, 156 cantillation, 14, 17, 110, 192, 199, 201 Cantorial Anthology, xlv Cantorial Art, 1, 17, 19, 142, 180 Carmel String Quartet, 144 Carnegie Hall, xxii, 177, 179

Carré, Albert, 151–2, 154, 208 Casals, Pablo, xxxv, 207 Catholic Mass, 63 Catholicism, American, 68 Chabad, 197–8 Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 15 Chanticleer (vocal ensemble), 72 Chanticleer Mass, 72, 74, 78 Chants Juifs, 18, 174 Chapman, Ernest, xl, 6, 14–15, 49–50, 206 Châtel (Haute-Savoie, France), xxiii Chausson, Ernest Le Roi Arthus, 163 chazzonus. See Cantorial Art Chicago Classical Review, 166, 228 Chicago festival, 88 Chicago Opera Theater, 166 Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 88–9 Chissell, Joan, 49 on Bloch’s chamber music, 50 Christ, See Jesus Christianity, 15 chronotopes of Jewish music history, 108 Cincinnati Symphony, 82, 95 Clarke, Rebecca, 206 Clement, Ada, 26–31, 33–5, 61, 63, 92, 205 Cleveland Institute of Music, xiv, xxiii, xxxi, 35, 172, 179 Cleveland Orchestra, 92 Coates, Helen, 207 Cohen, Alex, xl, 20, 160 Cohen, Francis L., 17, 174, 199 Cohen, Harriet, xliii, 55–6, 59, 224 Cohen, Raz, 144 Cohn, Richard, 139 Cohon, B. J., ix–x, 181, 188, 193, 199–200, 202, 224 Colombo, Pierre, 160, 169 Composers’ Symposium, 11 contrapuntal technique, 84 Coolidge, Elizabeth Sprague, xl Chamber Music Prize, xxiii Cooper, Martin, 162 Copland, Aaron, 1, 82, 194 Vitebsk, 194 Council of Jewish Women, 179 Covenant Club, l, 88–9 Covent Garden, 151, 153 Creston, Paul, 82 crucifix, xvi, 14–15, 89 Cuomo, Douglas J., 74

249

Index

Daily Telegraph, 162 Damrosch, Walter, 81 Davar, 121 David, Samuel, 192 Davies, Denny, 161 Davies, P., 22, 26 Davies, Ryland, 165 Davis, Ruth, 109 de Pourtalès, Guy, 28 Wagner – Portrait of an Artist, 54 de Ribaupierre, André, xxxvi, xxxix Deakin, Nicholas, 44 Debussy, Claude, xxi, xxvi, 1, 5, 10, 28, 151–2, 165 La Mer, xxii Pelléas et Mélisande, xxi, 10, 151–2 Defoe, Daniel, 105, 224 Robinson Crusoe, 105 Defossez, René, 159, 169 Delacroix, Eugène, 28 DeNora, Tia, 5, 22, 25 Densmore, Frances, 113 Dent, Edward J., 206 Dernesch, Helga, 162, 169 Devallier, Lucienne, 160, 169 diaspora, 102, 104, 106, 108–10, 120, 124, 126, 129, 137–8, 149 Dijon, Emmanuelle, 15, see also Lewinski and Dijon Dimitroff, Stephen, 209 Djerba, Jewish music of, 8 dodecaphony. See serialism Doina, 205 Dolan, Avigail, 144 Dolan, David, 144 Dolci, Alessandro, 156 Dona nobis pacem, 64 Dortmund Opera, 163 Dostoyevsky, F., 28 dotted rhythms, 89, 97 Downes, Olin, 5, 12, 15, 20, 32, 61, 75, 81–2, 94 Dreyfus Affair, 40 Duchoral, Louis, xlv Dukas, Paul, 16, 124 Dumbach, Annette, 77 Dvir, Hayuta, 1, 9, 135, 139, 143–4 Dvořák, Antonín Cello Concerto, xxi early life, xiv Eastern Orthodox belief, 74 Eastman, Charles, 35

Eastman, Irène, 35 Edinburgh festival, 84 Edwards, Rayna, 160, 169 Edwards, Ryan, 162, 169 Einstein, Albert, xxii, 2, 206 Einstein, Alfred, 136 Eisenhower, Dwight David, 90 Eisler, Hanns An den kleinen Radioapparat, 111 Elgar, Edward, xxi, 1, 138 Enigma Variations, xxi elitism, 29 Elisabeth, Queen of the Belgians, 158, 207 Elkus, Albert, 20–1, 25, 28 Ellis, Havelock, vii, 5–6, 25, 30, 41–2, 44–5, 52, 54–5, 57, 206 Studies in the Psychology of Sex, 31 Elwell, Herbert, 27, 207 Emil Hauser Quartet, 125 Empedocles, 41 Engel, Yoel, 121–2 Ephros, Gershon, xlv Erez, Arnon, 144, 146 Ernest Bloch Archive (Geneva), 209 Ernest Bloch Collection, 61, 79–80, 88–9, 208 Ernest Bloch Legacy Foundation, 212, 237 Ernest Bloch Legacy Project, lii, 3, 11, 211–12 Ernest Bloch Music Festival, 11, 209–10, 222 Composers’ Symposium, 210 Ernest Bloch Society, xxv, 11, 44, 206, See International Ernest Bloch Society Ernest Bloch Society Bulletin, xxv, 11 Etnakhta Series, 143 eugenics, 25, 30 expressionism, 10, 151–2, 164–5, 167 faith, religious, 34 fascism, 10, 155 Fast, Nathanael J., 133 Feigelson, Yosif, 3 Fejer, Alexandru, 123 Feuermann, Emanuel, l, 179 Finn, Robert, 209 Fisher, Liz, 135 Fleg, Edmond, xxx, xxxvii, 5, 14–18, 35, 37, 46–7, 150, 154, 159–61, 166, 169, 177–8, 187, 194 Fleg, Madeleine, xxxvii Fleisher, R. J., 141, 226

250 Index Flesch, Carl, 179 Flonzaley Quartet, 83 folk melodies, 8, 16, 19, 113, 122–3, 180 Forbes, Elizabeth, 162 Ford, Nmon, 165–6, 170 form, classical form, 1 Fortas, Justice Abe, 207 Fournier, Pierre, li, 135 Fox, Alaysha, 166, 170 Franck, Jules, 192 Frank, Alan, 206 Frankfurt Opera, 163 Freed, I., 179 Freud, Sigmund, xxii, 32, 43 Frieder, Raphael, 145 fugue, xxi, 81, 83, 86, 91, 93 Fuleihan, Anis, 82 Gabrielli, Domenico, 94 Gandelsman, Yuri, 145 Gatti, Guido, 25–7 Gauguin, Paul, 25, 27–8 Gavazzeni, Gianandrea, 157, 169 Gavrikov, Semion, 144 Geltner, Frank Jo Maitland, 3, 206, 212 Geneva Conservatoire, xxii, 93, 209 Geneva Synagogue, 14, 17, 183, 198 genius, conceptions of, 4 Gerhardt, Charles, xliv Gershwin, George, xxiii, 1, 124 Rhapsody in Blue, xxiii Gilroy, Paul, 110, 226 Ginell, Richard, 165 Ginzberg, Louis, 175 Glyndebourne, 159 Gnessin, Michael, 121 Godet, Robert, xli, 14–15 anti-Semitism, 15 Goethe, J. W., 28 Goetschel, Léon, xxxiii Golani, Rivka, 140, 144 Goldner Quartet, lii, 3 Golschmann, Vladimir, 135 Goltz, Christel, 158, 169 Goossens, Eugene, xliii Gos, Albert, xxi Gottheil, Gustav, 7, 64 Gottlieb, Jack, 67 Gradenwitz, Peter Emanuel, 125 Graves, Leonard, 160, 169 Greenacre, Phyllis, 26 Greenfield, Edward, 162 Gregorian chant, 1, 7, 16, 19, 61, 67–8, 181

Griller Quartet, xl, xlii, li–lii, 82, 93 Guardian newspaper, 162 Guarnieri, Antonio, 155, 169 Gurievitch, Yulia, 144 Haaretz, 124, 137, 143, 146 Haas, Julien, 160, 169 Haas, Mrs Walter A., 207 Haifa Symphony, 147–8 Haiter, Yoram, 163, 170 Halévy, Jacques Fromental, 124, 192 Halkin, Hillel, 141 Hall, Susan, 166 Halperin, Emmanuel, 145 Hambro, Leonid, 98 Hammerstein, Oscar II, 150 Hampson, Thomas, 145–6 Hanson, Howard, 82 Hanson, Suzan, 165, 170 Harrell, Lynn, 145 Harewood, Lord, 157 Harris, Roy, 82 Hasidism, 10, 14, 18–19, 89, 122, 129, 142, 148, 171–4, 177–8, 181, 194, 196–7, 208 Hatziano, Markella, 162, 170 Ḥazzanut. See Cantorial Art Heath, Chip, 133 Hebrew language, 39, 63, 67, 147, 174 pronunciation, 180 transliterations, 190 Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 18 Hellman, Lillian, 71 Helm-Sbisa, Anny, 156, 169 Henig, Stanley, xi, 2, 10 Herczl, Rachel, 76 Herstik, Naftali, 142 Hertz, J. H., 190 Herzl, Theodor, 40 Altneuland, 8, 105, 107, 120 Heskes, Irene, xlviii Heward, Leslie, 206 Hieger, Carl, 145 Hildesheimer, Wolfgang, 24 Hindus, 33 Hirsch, Evelyn, 80 Hirshberg, Jehoash, xi, 3–4, 8, 121, 125 Hitler, Adolf, xxiii, 15, 88 Hittron, Haggai, 143, 145 Hodgehead, Lillian, 25–7, 29–31, 33–5, 61, 63, 92 Hodler, Ferdinand, xxxii, 28

251

Index

Hofstadter, Avivit, 135 Hofstadter, Richard, 29 Hofstede, Geert, 133, 227 Hollerung, Gabor, 139 Holst, Gustav The Planets, xxii homophony, 179 Honda-Rosenberg, Latica, li Houston Symphony Orchestra, 94 Howe, Winifred, 29, 47, 88 Huberman, Bronislaw, 9, 124, 179 Idelsohn, Abraham Zvi, 17, 40, 108, 179, 197 Thesaurus of Hebrew-Oriental Melodies, 108 Impressionism, 49, 98, 138 Ince, Kamran, 74 Inghelbrecht, Désiré-Émile, 154 International Academic Conference on Ernest Bloch, 2–3, 11, 211 International Bloch Competition, xxv, 3 International Ernest Bloch Society, xi, xxiv–xxv, liii, 2–3, 11, 49, 206, 211, 228 International Jubilee Festival, xxv, 3 International Society for Contemporary Music, 83 Internet resources, lii–liii Israel Camp David Peace Accords (1978), 134 Proclamation of State, xxiv, 89, 131 Soviet immigration, 134 war in Lebanon (1982), 134 Israel ben Eliezer. See Baal Shem Tov, Israel Israel Composers’ Association, 142 Israel Ernest Bloch Society, 211 Israel Festival, 141 Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, xi, xiii, li, 9, 131, 133–5, 141, 145, 231, 238 Israel Prize, 142 Israel Radio, 2, 135, 139, 143 Israeli, Arie, 139 Isserlis, Steven, li, 2, 139, 145 Itoh, Akinori, li, 3 Jacobi, Hanoch, 125, 135 Jacobs, Arthur, 54 Jaffe, Eli, 142 Janáček, Leoš Eugen Sinfonietta, xxiii

Jaques-Dalcroze, Émile, xliii Jennings, Joseph, 72 Jerome, Barry, 140 Jerusalem Academy Choir, 144 Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, xiii, 146–7, 149 Jerusalem Post, 76, 141–3 Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, 9, 102, 134–5, 139–40, 142 Jesus, 15, 73, 78 Jewish Agency, 126 Jewish Encyclopedia, 174, 199 Jewish Music Council, xlviii Jewish Music Institute, 2–3, 211 Jews’ College, London, 190 Joan Chissell, 49–50 John Paul II, Pope, 71 Johnson, Lawrence, 166 Johnston, Dick, 87 Johnston, Helen, 209 See also McFetriclge Jones, Doug, 165 Jones, Nick, 71 Journal de Genève, 159 Juilliard Musical Foundation, 85 Juilliard School of Music, 82, 94, 147 Kabbalah, 175, 197 kaddish, 7, 53, 64–5 Kaminsky, Joseph, 135 Kanner, Dan, 140 Kaplan, Avraham, 140, 147 Khachaturian, Aram, 149 Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra, 148 Kindler, Hans, 177 King, Anita, 210 Kintner, Marion, 87 Kishinev pogrom, xxi klezmer, 1, 89, 174, 181, 200 Knapp, Alexander, ix, xii, xxvi, 1–4, 10, 12, 19, 48–9, 107, 171, 178, 181, 185, 187 Knorr, Iwan, xxi Kodály, Zoltán Cello Sonata Op. 8, 97 Koehler, J., 39 Kol Israel Choir, 140 Kolitz, Zvi, 77 Kol-Zion laGola Choir, 140 Koppel Quartet, 83 Kortschak, Hugo, 13 Koussevitzky, Natalie, 92 Koussevitzky, Serge, xxxix, 206–7 Krehbiel, Henry, 186

252 Index Krehm, Ida, 88 Kubelik, Rafael, 88 Kushner, David Z., xii, 2, 4, 7, 47, 79, 89, 92, 206, 208–10 La Scala, Milan, 153, 157–9, 169 Lachmann, Robert, 109–10, 231 Lacomblé, Corinne, 84 Laderman, Ezra, 87 Laderman, Samuel, xxxvii, 28, 87–8 Laffont, Jean, 159, 169 Lafont, Jean-Philippe, 162 Lake Oswego, 80 Laks, Milka, 143 Lalo, Pierre, 151 Landau, Siegfried, 94 Lane, Piers, li, 3 Last Testament of Yossel Rakover, 77 Lavry, Marc, 124 le Bon, Gustave, 25, 32–3 League of Composers, 82 Lefkovits, Etgar, 76 Legacy Foundation. See Ernest Bloch Legacy Project Legge, Walter, 206 Leibold, Archbishop Paul Francis, 70 Leins, Margaret, 163 Lengnau Synagogue, 10, 13, 191 Lenin, Vladimir, 27–8, 32 Levi, Salli, 102–4, 125–6 Levine, Gilbert, 70 Levinsohn, David, 195 Levy, Bruce, 142 Lewandowski, Louis, 192 Lewinski and Dijon Bloch, 14–15, 17–18, 20, 30, 35, 37, 41, 46, 52, 54, 56, 61, 151, 153–7, 159, 177, 187, 194, 201, 203, 211 Lewinski, Joseph, 2, 15 Libre Belgique, 159 Lincoln, Abraham, xvi, xxvii Linfield College, 80, 83, 206, 209 List, Kurt, 53 Little, Paul, 155, 160 Loeffler, James, 40 London Philharmonic Orchestra, l, 185 Long Beach Opera, 165–6, 213 Loppert, Max, 162 Los Angeles Times, 165 Lovy, Israel, 192 Lutzki, Zmira on Bloch’s Violin Concerto, 139 Luxon, Benjamin, 148

Luzzato, Livio, 157 Lysy, Alberto, 100 Maariv, 138 Mackerras, Sir Charles, 2, 211 Magen, Shmuel, 143 Magnes, Judah Leon, 18, 208, 231 Magritte, René Ceci n’est pas une pipe, 61 Mahler, Gustav, xi, xxi–xxii, 1, 5, 16, 28, 41, 124–5, 138 Symphony No. 3, xxi Symphony No. 6, xxii Symphony No. 9, xxii Maimonides, Moses Thirteen Principles of Faith, 7, 62, 73 Maisky, Misha, 140, 145 Makino, Benjamin, 165, 170 Malitz, Nancy, 166 Manhattan School of Music, 166, 170, 241 Mann, Robert, 157 Mann, Thomas, 20, 22, 26 Mannes School of Music, Manhattan, xiv Mapleson, Henry, 153 Marguerite and Ernest Bloch Memorial Grove, 208 Martinon, Jean, 135 Martinů, B., 49 Massenet, Jules Grisélidis, 151 Mauclair, Camille, xliv McCann, John, 164 McCauley, Andrew, 70–1, 232 McFetridge, Helen, 87 See also Johnston McIntyre, Iola F., 207 Mehta, Zubin, li, 135, 145–6 Mellers, Wilfrid, 53 Mellon, Robert, 166, 170 Mendelssohn, Felix, 16, 38, 124, 138 Mengelberg, Willem, xlviii Menuhin, Diana, 99 Menuhin, Yehudi, xxvii, xli, l, 7, 9, 99–100, 131, 207, 232 on Bloch’s unaccompanied violin suites, 100 Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, l Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 16, 38, 124 microtones, 1 Milhaud, Darius, 1, 9, 122, 124–5 Miller, Malcolm, xii, 3, 5–6, 41 Millington, Barry, 21 Milner, Moshe, 121–2 Milstein, Henri, 191

253

Index

Mishori, Nathan, 139 Mitchinson, Paul, 21 Mitisek, Alexander, 165–6, 213 Mitzna, Amram, 145 modernism, 6, 32, 35, 37, 40, 116 modes, 1, 40, 179 aeolian, 91 Ashkenazi, 180 distinguished from scales, 180 dorian, 81, 181 mixolydian, 92, 128, 202, 205 phrygian, 89, 93, 98 traditional, 181 Adoshem moloch, 181, 202, 205 Ahavoh rabboh, 181, 183, 193, 198, 200, 205 Av horachamim, 181 Freigish, 181 Mi shebeirach, 181, 198 Mogen ovos, 181, 188 S’lichoh, 181, 199 Moizan, Geneviève, 160, 169 Molinari-Pradelli, Francesco, 158, 169 Monteux, Pierre, 81 Moody, Ivan, 74 Mordford, Julian, li Mordkovitch, Lydia, li More, Thomas, 8, 104–7 Utopia, 8 Morgenstern, S., 176, 182 Móricz, Klára, xii, 2, 4, 6, 12, 19–20, 39–40, 46–8, 52, 61–2, 64, 121, 177, 216 Moscheles, Ignaz, 124 Mottl, Felix, 46 Moussorgsky, Modest Boris Godunov, 152, 156, 165 Movshon, George, 161 Mozart, W. A., 24 Muck, Carl, 47 Mukle, Anne, 177 Mukle, May, 177 Mumford, Lewis, 207 Munch, Charles, xlviii Murray, Penelope, 23, 29 Musical Courier, 156 Mussolini, B., 32, 155 Natale, Maria, 166 national melodies, use of, 1, 79, 113 nationalism, xi–xii, 16, 37, 104, 114–15, 138, 141, 149, 216, 233, 240 Naumbourg, Samuel, 192 Navarra, André, li

Nazi, 10, 47, 126, 154, 156 Neel, Boyd, 206 Nelsova, Zara, xl, l, 1, 7, 9, 88, 97, 100, 131, 185 views on Bloch’s cello suites, 97 neo-classicism, 40, 91 New Testament Mark 11:10, 68 12:29–31, 78 New York Collegiate Chorale, 146 New York Metropolitan Synagogue, 66, 151, 153 New York Philharmonic Orchestra, 65, 81, 177 New York Times, 81, 167 New York Trio, xlii Newborn, Jud, 77 Newman, Ernest, 49, 82 Nicene Creed, 62, 73–4 Nicholas II, Czar, xxi Niemelä, Hannu, 163 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 21, 28 on genius, 23–4 nigun, 174, 187, 194 nusach, 16, 180–1 O’Keeffe, Georgia, 207 Offenbach, Jacques, 124 Ono, Kazushi, 145 Opera (journal), 160–6 Opéra (Paris), 10, 150–1, 153, 169, 208 Opéra Comique (Paris), xxii, 10, 150–1, 153, 169, 208 Opera Today, 165 Orchestre de Lausanne, xxii Orchestre Nationale de la Radiodiffusion Française, 154 Oregon Coast Council for the Arts, 3 Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, 212 Oregon Symphony Orchestra, xviii Orientalism, 124, 136 Osborne, C., 39 Ottoway, Hugh, 49 Palestine Broadcasting Service, xxiii, 9, 122 Palestine Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, 102 Palestine Orchestra, 9, 124–7, 131 Palestine Post. See Jerusalem Post Pannain, Guido, 157 pantheism, 175, 178 Papian, Vag, 144

254 Index Passover, 18 Payan, Paul, 153 Pederzini, Gianna, 157–8, 169 Peebles, Charles, 165 Peleg, Frank, 139 Pelkonen, Paul, 167 pentatonic, 13, 113 Perkoff, I. J., 206 Piira, Taina, 164, 170 Pikovsky, Evgenia, 139 Piller, Boaz, 207 Pillot, Laurent, 166, 170 Pirie, Peter J., 53 Piston, Walter, 82 Pizzetti, Ildebrando, 20, 38, 229 Plavin, Zecharia, xiii, 2–4, 9–10, 132, 144–5 The Return of Ernest Bloch, 145 Plesser, Zvi, 148 Pochon, Alfred, 17, 107 polyphony, 1, 179 polytonality, 1, 136 Popper, Jan, 160, 169 Porter, Andrew, 155, 161, 167 post-Romanticism. See Romanticism Preves, Milton, xxxv, xlii, l, 88–9 Priestly Blessing, 18 Primrose, William, li, 135, 138 Prokofiev, Sergei S., 1 prophetic humanism, 149 Puccini, Giacomo, 1 Tosca, xxi Turandot, xxiii quartertone, ix, 97, 185, 204 race, 12, 25, 31, 34, 39, 46, 80, 142 American Indian, 35 Rabinowitz, Menashe. See Ravina Ran, Shulamit, 7, 61–2, 72, 76, 78 Credo/Ani Ma’amin, 7, 61–3, 72–4, 76–8 Jewish identity, 72 Rasnovsky, Anna, 139 Rasse, François, xxi Rathaus, Karol, 124 Raveau, Alice, 153 Ravel, Maurice, 1, 16 Kaddisch, 123 La Valse, xxiii Ravina, Menashe 121, 123, 127 Raybould, Sir Clarence, 206 Reali, Antenore, 156 records and recording, xlviii–lii

Reform Jewish Union Prayerbook, 63–6 Reger, Max, 125 Suite for unaccompanied cello Op. 131c, 97 Rehfuss, Heinz, 160, 169 Reich, Guenther, 140 Rejto, Gabor, xlv, l Rey, Louis, xxi rhapsodia, 205 Ribaupierre, André de, 178 Riemens, Leo, 159 Rilke, R. M., 28 Rimsky-Korsakov, N. A., 94 Rinat Choir, 139, 147 Rinder, Reuben, 183 Rivers Baron, Andrea, 3 Rob, Irit, 143 Robertson, David, 145 Rodan, Mendi, 139–40, 147 Rodès, Béatrix, xlv Rogers, Bernard, 82 Rohrer, Katherine, 165, 170 Rolland, Romain, xxxviii, 20, 23, 27, 41, 47, 136, 206 Jean Christophe, 24, 31, 34 Romanticism, 5, 25, 29, 36–7, 40, 49, 84, 136, 149 cult of genius, 21 Roosevelt, Theodore, 32 Rosowsky, Solomon, 121–2 Rossi-Lemeni, Nicolai, 156–8, 160–1, 169 Rostropovitch, Mstislav, li Rothmüller, Marko, xlix Roussel, Albert Padmavati, 163 Roveredo, xxiii, xlvi, 41, 54, 57, 81 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, li Rozolio, David, 124, 127, 137–8 on Concerto Symphonique, 137–8 Rubin Academy Choir, 140 Rubin Academy of Music, 141 see also Buchman Music School Rubinstein, Arthur, 16, 124 International Piano Master Competition, 133 Rubinstein, Beryl, xxxvi Ruhlmann, François, 169 Rumpf, Alexander, 163, 170 Russian Revolution, xxii, 26 Sabaneev, Leonid, 121 Sabbath Morning Service, 18

255

Index

Sabin, Robert, 83 Sabino, Antonio, 155 Sadie, Stanley, 21 Saint-Saëns, Camille, 16 Salomon, Doron, 148 Salomon, Karl, 126 Salzman, Pnina, 135 Saminsky, Lazar, 40, 52, 123 San Carlo Opera, 10, 154–5, 157, 169 San Francisco Conservatory of Music, xiv, xxiii, 92 Sanzogno, Nino, 158, 169 Saperstein, Moshe, 142 Sargent, Sir Malcolm, 91 Satigny, xxii, xlvi, 38 Savarese, Ugo, 158, 169 Savidge, Peter, 139 scales distinguished from modes, 180 Schiller, David M., xiii, 2–3, 6, 20, 28, 38–9, 52–3, 61 Schilling, Bertha-Agnès-Lisette. See Bréval, Lucienne Schnabel, J. G. Insel Felsenburg, 106 Schneider, Margarethe. See Bloch, Marguerite Schoenberg, Arnold, xiii, xxii, 1, 41, 44, 49, 61, 88, 121, 124, 126, 137 Erwartung, xxii Scholem, Gershom, 174 Schonberg, Harold C., 100 School of Music, Levinsky College of Education, 148 School of Oriental and African Studies, 3 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 28 Schorr, Daniel L., 7, 80 Schreiner, Alexander, xxxvii Schuman, William, 82, 207 Schumann, Robert, 46, 83 Schurig, Arthur, 24 Schuster, Joseph, 179 seder service, 14, 109 Segal, Uri, 139 Segestram, Leif, 140 Segev, Inbal, 144 Seidel, Nahum, 139 Semmel, Zvi, 144 serialism, 19, 88, 90–3, 96–7 Sessions, Roger, 207 sexual freedom, 5, 30–1 Sh’ma Yisroel, 77

Shaffer Kurtz, Elaine, xl, xlii, 98 Shaham, Haggai, 144–6, 148 Shakespeare, William, xiii, 151, 153, 156, 160, 164–5 Shallon, David, 139 Shambadal, Lior, 139 Shapira, Arik, 141 Shaw, Robert, 71 Shawe-Taylor, Desmond, 160–1 Shem-Tov, Shlomi, 144 Shifrin, Ken, 140 Shiran, Ora, 143 Shlonsky, Verdina, 124 Shmit, Motti, 142 Shneor Zalman of Lyady, 197 Shoah (Holocaust), 7, 62, 72, 76–7, 240 shofar, 16, 84, 95, 183, 190, 204 Shoffman, Nahum, 140, 147 Shomrony, Omer, 146 Shostakovich, Dmitri, xxiv, 135 shtayger. See scales shtetl style, 89 Shuman, Davis, xli, 94 Sibelius, Jan, 1, 49 Symphony No. 7, xxiii Violin Concerto, xxi Sieff, Mrs I. M., 206 Silbermann, Olya. See Zilbermann Sills, David L., xlv Simon, Geoffrey, 53 Singer, George, 139 Sloane, Steven, 145 Slonimsky, Nicolas, 79, 207 Smith, Paul A., 52, 79, 207 Smyth, Dame Ethel, 206 Social Darwinism, 29, 31, 33, 35 social elitism, 25 Society for Jewish Folk Music, xxii, 8, 40, 41, 121–2 Solomon, King, 10, 17, 171–3, 177–8, 182, 204, 207, 234 Solomon, Norman, xiii, 1, 172–3, 206 Sommer, Raphael, 140 sonata form, 84 Spanish Civil War, xxiii Sperber, Stanley, 139–40, 144, 147 Spivacke, Harold, 207 Sproul, Robert Gordon, 207 Srebnik, Shimon, 76 Starker, Janos, li, 135 Steel, George, 71 Steiger. See scales Steinberg, Daniel, 161

256 Index Steinberg, Nancy, 212 Steinke, Greg A., 209–10 Steinmetz, Charles Proteus, 30 Stern, Rosalie and Jacob, xiv Sternberg, Erich Walter, 123 Sternfield, Allan, 143 Stoessel, Albert, 81 Stokowski, Leopold, l, 94 Stoppard, Tom, 104 Strauss, Richard, 165, 210 Don Juan, xxi Stravinsky, Igor, xxii, 1, 48, 135–6 The Firebird, xxii The Rite of Spring, xxii Sturm und Drang, 5 Stutschewsky, Joachim, 123 suffering, xx, 5, 22–3, 26–8, 53, 63, 69, 76 Suisse Romande orchestra, 160, 187 Sulzer, Salomon, ix, 180, 191–2 Sumegi, Daniel, 164, 170 Superconductor, 167, 234 Susskind, Walter, 135 Swenson Olson, Nancy, 161, 169 Swet, Hermann, 102, 126 Székely, Zoltán, 179 Szell, George, 92 Szigeti, Joseph, xxiv, xxxv, xlviii, l, lii, 179 Szlengel, Wladyslaw, 77 Szymanowski, Karol, 1 ta’amei hammiqra, 16 Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe, 31 Takemitsu, Toru Requiem for Strings, xxiv Talmud, 187 Tanner, Michael, 21 Taruskin, Richard, 21, 36 Taub, Haim, 135 Taylor, Deems, 82 Tchaikovsky, P. I. Symphony No. 6, xxi Tchamkerten, Jacques, 2 Teatro Communale, Trieste, 158 Teatro Costanzi, 10 Tel Aviv Philharmonic Choir, 139 Tel-Oren, Hanoch, 140 Temple B’nai Jeshurun, Cleveland, 179 Temple chant, 16 Temple Emanu-El, San Francisco, 183 The New Yorker, 156 Théatre Lyrique, 151 Théâtre Royale de la Monnaie (Brussels), 158

Thibodeau, Ralph, 68 Thomson, Virgil, 147 Tibaldi Chiesa, Mary, xxx, 84, 154, 156, 176, 206–7 Ticho, Anna, 122 Ticho, Avraham Albert, 122 Tintori, Silvano, 157 Toeplitz, Uri, 136, 238 Tolstoy, Leo, 28 Tommasini, Anthony, 167 Torres, Claude, xlix, li–liii Tovey, Sir Donald, 206 Treaty of Versailles, xxiii tritone, 93, 97 Tritonus Choir, 140 Trotsky, Leon, 27–8 twelve-tone technique. See serialism Two-Piano Institute, 210 Tzori, Hillel, 143 Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 87 Union Prayer Book, xliv, 147 universality of artistic expression, 148 University of California at Berkeley, xiv University of Oregon, xix, 87 Utah Symphony Orchestra, l utopia, 31 meaning, 105 utopianism, 52 utopia and dystopia, 102–20 Uv’chen ten pachd’cha, 17 Uv’khein, 186, 205 van Bergen, George, 165 Van Gogh, Vincent, 28 Vaughan Williams, Ralph, xxii, 1, 49, 206 Tallis Fantasia, xxii Vécray, Huberte, 159 Verdi, Giuseppe, xxi, 151, 156, 158–60, 162 Macbeth, 151 Otello, xxi Veselovsky, Alexander, 156 Vidui. See Bloch, Ernest: Works: Baal Shem Suite Villa-Lobos, H., 149 Vilner Balbessel. See Levinsohn, David Vinaver, C., ix, 195 Voce di meche, 167 Wagner, Richard, xxi, 5, 16, 25, 28, 34, 149 anti-Semitism, 6, 37–40, 47

257

Index

Die Meistersinger, 5, 37, 41, 46 ‘Judaism in Music’, 6, 38 Parsifal, xxi, 47 Siegfried, 46 Siegfried Idyll, 47 The Art Work of the Future, 6, 45 Tristan, 46 worship of his own creative powers, 21 Walter, Bruno, 206 Walton, William Belshazzar’s Feast, 71 Warburg, Gerald, xxxviii, 53 Warner, Keith, 163–4 Warsaw Ghetto, 77 Warshawsky, Mark, 203 Weidberg, Ron, 148 Weill, Kurt, 1 Weinberg, Jacob, 121 Weinberg, Mieczyslaw, 3 Weinberg, Vittorio, 126 Weisser, Albert, 15 Weprick, Alexander, 122 Werlin, Joella, 3 Whitman, Walt, xvi, xxvii, 79, 112–13, 116 Whittall, Arnold Music since the First World War, 49 Widener, A., 33 Wigmore Hall, 3 Winter, Louise, 164, 170 Witts, Rob, 165 Wohlberg, Max, 188 Wold, Milo, 27, 32, 80, 209

Wolpe, Michael, 149 Wood, Sir Henry, 206 World Centre for Jewish Music, xxiv, 7, 9, 102, 106, 125 World Congress of Jewish Studies, 3, 10, 144 World’s Encyclopaedia of Recorded Music, The, xlviii World Trade Center attacks, 7, 62, 77 World War I, xxii, 49, 164 World War II, xv, xxiv, 1, 10, 26, 55, 79, 81, 89, 102, 131, 172, 206 Wu, George, 133 Wummer, John, 98 Yad Vashem, 76 Yishuv, 3, 102–3, 121–2, 124, 126 defined, 102 Yom Kippur, 14, 19, 89, 100 Yosifon, Shiri, 163, 170 Youth Aliyah, 159 YouTube sources for Bloch recordings, lii Ysaÿe, Eugène, xiv, xxi, xxxi Zamir Chorale, 147 Zeitlin, Zvi, 140 Zelmanowitz, Avreml, 77 Zemel Choir, 53 Zilbermann, Olya, 124, 125, 138 Zimmermann, Tabea, 145 Zionism, 34, 37, 40–1, 125–6, 141 Zionist Congress, First, xxi Zohar, Yehoshua, 140