CIM's First Artistic Director Was Ernest Bloch, a Swiss Composer and Teacher Who Came to Cleveland from New York City

BLOCH, ERNEST (24 July 1880-15 July 1959), was an internationally known composer, conductor, and teacher recruited to found and direct the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF MUSIC in 1920. Bloch was born in Geneva, Switzerland. The son of Sophie (Brunschwig) and Maurice (Meyer) Bloch, a Jewish merchant, Bloch showed musical talent early and determined that he would become a composer. His teen years were marked by important study with violin and composition masters in various European cities. Between 1904 and 1916, he juggled business responsibilities with composing and conducting. In 1916 Bloch accepted a job as conductor for dancer Maud Allen's American tour. The tour collapsed after 6 weeks, but performances of his works in New York and Boston led to teaching positions in New York City. During the Cleveland years (1920-25), Bloch completed 21 works, among them the popular Concerto Grosso, which was composed for the students' orchestra at the Cleveland Institute of Music. His contributions included an institute chorus at the CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART, attention to pedagogy especially in composition and theory, and a concern that every student should have a direct and high-quality aesthetic experience. He taught several classes himself. After disagreements with Cleveland Institute of Music policymakers, he moved to the directorship of the San Francisco Conservatory. Following some years studying in Europe, Bloch returned to the U.S. in 1939 to teach at the Univ. of Calif.-Berkeley. He retired in 1941. His students over the years included composers Roger Sessions and HERBERT ELWELL. Bloch composed over 100 works for a variety of individual instruments and ensemble sizes and won over a dozen prestigious awards. In 1955 a bronze sculpture of Bloch was dedicated in the Hebrew Cultural Garden in ROCKEFELLER PARK. Bloch married Margaethe Schneider on 13 Aug. 1904. They had 3 children: Suzanne, Lucienne, and Ivan. Bloch spent the later years of his life in Agate Beach, Oregon; he died in Portland, Oregon. CIM's first artistic director was Ernest Bloch, a Swiss composer and teacher who came to Cleveland from New York City. Bloch began teaching Dalcroze Eurhythmics, a holistic method of music education focusing on the expression of both musical and physical rhythms that is still taught to students today. The institute offers a comprehensive liberal arts education in conjunction with Case Western Reserve University and also provides a preparatory program for younger students. Since its founding, CIM continues to have a close relationship with the Cleveland Orchestra. The number of enrolled students has grown greatly from the initial 5 in 1920 to almost 2000 in the mid-1990s. Composed 1925. First performance: 29 May 1925, Hotel Statler, Cleveland. Walter Scott, piano. Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra conducted by Ernest Bloch. What do you do when your students openly question your curriculum? If you’re Ernest Bloch, you put your money where your mouth is. The founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music encountered skepticism from his students regarding the usefulness of “old” techniques (such as tonality and classical form) when writing music in the 20th century. Rather than merely debate the issue academically, the composer chose to prove his point by composing a new work using these techniques in a modern way. At the first rehearsal, the school orchestra played through this new piece with evident enthusiasm, leading Bloch to shout triumphantly, “What do you think now? This is tonal! It just has old-fashioned notes!” In the first decades of the 20th century, music was undergoing changes every bit as revolutionary as those occurring in European politics. Composers seeking new methods of expression had stretched tonality to a breaking point. Aesthetics ranging from the atonal serialism of Arnold Schoenberg to the ascetic neoclassicism of Igor Stravinsky battled for artistic legitimacy, and it was fashionable to dismiss traditional harmony and classical forms as obsolete. In such an environment, young composers no doubt found the study of 17th- and 18th-century musical techniques a quaint notion. The composer structured his new piece as a concerto grosso, a musical form which had not been in regular use for over 150 years. Bloch infused this baroque structure with the rhythmic and melodic sensibility of the romantics and the polytonal harmonies of the early 20th century, filtered through the Jewish identity which had characterized so much of his own music to this point. Though, as Bloch enthused, it was just “old-fashioned notes”, the result was something entirely new. The Concerto Grosso begins with a prelude of grand, dramatic statements reminiscent of Handel’s contributions to the genre, though the harmonies have been expanded with hints of Strauss and the Russian romantics. A dirge follows, suffused with ethereal textures that wouldn’t seem out of place in the world of Debussy or Ravel. The Swiss folk dance melody of the third movement brings a new perspective to the baroque fondness for including dance music in concert suites. In the final movement, Bloch out-Bachs Bach, presenting a five-voice fugue updated for 20th- century ears. As in the third Brandenburg Concerto, Bloch juxtaposes solo strings against the rest of the orchestra, allowing him to juggle musical textures between three groups: solo strings, section strings, and piano (an update to Bach’s harpsichord). Once he’s off and running, Bloch manipulates the initial theme with all the contrapuntal techniques popular with Bach and his friends—sequences (repeating small gestures on different pitches), inversion (“flipping” a theme upside down), augmentation (drawing the theme out with longer notes), and stretto (“interrupting” one voice with another entrance before it has finished its line. .

Load more