1880 Ernest Bloch 1959 ROVEREDO GENEVA MUNICH FRANKFURT PARIS LONDON BOSTON NEW YORK CLEVELAND CHICAGO SANTA FE BERKELEY SAN FRANCISCO PORTLAND AGATE BEACH Composer Philosopher Humanist Photographer Mycophagist Beachcomber THOMAS BEECHAM CLAUDE DEBUSSY ALBERT EINSTEIN FRIDA KAHLO SERGE KOUSSEVITSKY GUSTAV MAHLER YEHUDI MENUHIN ZARA NELSOVA DIEGO RIVERA LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI IGOR STRAVINSKY The First American Period, comprising Unpublished Student Works (Geneva, The Second European Period New York (1916-20), Cleveland (1920-25), The Second American period, incorporating the “Agate Beach Years” (1941-59) Brussel, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris) (Switzerland, France, Italy) 1880-1903 1916-1930 San Francisco (1925-30) 1930-1938 1939-1959

Ernest Bloch was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1880. Although Bloch moved to New York in In his retreat at Roveredo-Capriasca, Switzerland, he immersed The Stern trust fund for Bloch was administered by the drive from here. The next day she sends a telegram. On the his parents were not particularly artistic, music called to Bloch 1916. Because success had himself in a study of Hebrew in preparation for the composition University of California at Berkeley. Upon his return from his 11th I’ll go and pick her up in Oswego. In the meantime I’ve even as a child. At the age of 9 he began learning to play the violin, eluded him in Europe, he of his Sacred Service (Avodath Hakodesh), which had its debut eight year sabbatical, Bloch was to occupy an endowed chair at discovered a really nice path, flat, which among wild forests quickly proving himself to be a prodigy. By the age of 11, he vowed took a job as the orchestral in Turin, Italy, in 1934, followed the university in fulfillment of the terms surrounding the Stern leads to another beach, huge, empty, on the other side of a to become a composer and then ritualistically burned the written director for a new modern- by performances in Naples, fund. The artist returned to teaching each summer as professor mountain. How she will love that!” vow on a mound of stones. His formal music studies began in dance company founded by New York’s Carnegie Hall, of music at UC Berkeley, a position he retained Geneva in 1894. Canadian-born Maud Allan. and Milan. It was performed until his retirement in 1952. Bloch venerated the masters and never This venture folded soon in Temple Emanu-El, San stopped studying them. He often Bloch moved to Brussels at the age of 16 to study with the noted after he arrived in New York. Francisco, in 1938 . Many further The composer first came to Agate wrote out Bach fugues from Bloch with the Flonzaley Quartet - 1916 violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe. He continued to compose Bloch went to the United States in 1916 with the encouragement of When the tour collapsed, he compositions were created Beach in 1941. In a letter to his memory as a way of getting during his three years of study with Ysaÿe, growing as a musician, Alfred Pochon, second violinist of the Flozaley Quartet, as conductor was appointed to a position during this period: Piano Sonata niece, Evelyn Hirsch, dated inside the composer’s mind, for a tour by Maud Allan’s dance company. conductor and (Photo by Ernest Bloch.) at the newly established (1935), Voice in the Wilderness June 18, 1941, written in and he had his students do composer. After Mannes School of Music in Manhattan. Bloch was welcomed with (1936), Evocations (1937), and Lake Grove, Oregon, he the same, color-coding he finished his open arms and glowing reviews by the musical community in New Violin Concerto (1938). wrote: “While leaving the works’ various musical studies in Brussels, York. He was hailed as a genius and premiered many important works. California or rather elements. He once told he moved to He returned to Switzerland and brought his family back to the U.S. in The honorary officers of the Berkeley on May 26 very Helen Johnston, “I regret Germany, then on 1917. He was delighted to be able to share his adopted country with proposed London Ernest slowly driving 150-200 not to be younger only to to Paris in 1903 and his family, having a “feeling of future and of possibilities.” Bloch Society were named in kilometers per day I went begin studying the masters back to Geneva, 1936. They included Albert through a whole world. Hills, all over again.” While Bloch where he gave his In 1920, Bloch was named the Einstein, Sir Thomas Beecham, Ernest Bloch, the photographer meadows, often empty, terribly was not an observantly religious earliest lectures on first Musical Director of the Serge Koussevitzky, Havelock (Photo by Lucienne Bloch, courtesy of Old Stage Studios.) small winding roads where you can man, many of his works pay homage to aesthetics in 1911. Cleveland Institute of Music. Ellis, Bruno Walter, Sir Arthur Bliss, Mary Tibaldi Chiesa, only drive 20-25 kilometers per hour to get his Jewish heritage. During the Cleveland years Sir Arnold Bax, and Sir John Barbirolli. The London Society to the Pacific Ocean. It is magnificent.” In the Bush House as Ernest Bloch might have first seen it in 1941. Self portrait (w/Beethoven), Brussels, 1897 Bloch composed some of his was finally established in November 1937. Meanwhile, the same letter he wrote: “I had seen a house for sale (Photo couresy Lincoln County Historical Society) While Bloch certainly experimented with most notable chamber music, New York Ernest overlooking the ocean on a high cliff, among advanced techniques, much of his work including the Piano Quintet Bloch Society was pines, with flowers everywhere.” Upon closer inspection, the is magnificently melodic, reminiscent of Wagner, Mahler, No.1 (1923), called by one founded in March house had “five bedrooms, four toilets, which would have Mussorgsky, Franck, Debussy and Richard Strauss. In fact, American critic, Olin Downes 1937, offering his delighted Aunt Marguerite, although you can only use one at a many of Bloch’s Early Mature Works of the First European (1950), as “the greatest work in chamber music time!, and a huge sitting room, a dining room . . . , a high garage best-known Period (Geneva), culminating in the “Jewish its form since the piano quintets in five successive too, with bedrooms, shower, everything in cedar.” works hearken 1903-1916 Cycle” (1911-16) of Brahms and César Franck.” concerts featuring back to the the Gordon By August 7, 1941, in a letter to his sister, Loulette, he wrote: Romantic In 1904, Bloch married Margarethe Augusta Schneider, a piano Bloch also composed his Quartet and the “I arrive at era of lush student he had met at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt in 1900. Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1925) pianist Gertrude Agate Beach melodies and Later, she changed her name to Marguerite. Mrs. Bloch effectively to show his students that “neo- Bonime. Inn on July rich, textured discontinued her musical activities after they were wed. The couple classicism,” i.e., a twentieth- 8. The next instrumentation. Ernest Bloch and sister, Loulette. century interpretation of the Yehudi Menuhin and Ernest Bloch in 1928 In December day I hesitate Jacob had three children: Ivan (1905), Suzanne (1907), and Lucienne (Photo by Ernest Bloch.) (1909). Ernest Bloch’s body of important works was beginning to eighteenth-century Baroque (Photo by Lucienne Bloch, courtesy Old Stage Studios.) 1938, the to go back. I Avshalomov, Ernest, Marguerite, and Lucienne with children, Pencho, George and Sita in 1946 grow. Notable early compositions include his 1903 Symphony in C idiom, was a dynamic, forward looking genre. He also honed his skills composer set sail for the United States, after an almost go down to the composer, (Photo by Stephen Pope Dimitroff, courtesy Old Stage Studios.) sharp minor and his only opera, based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth as a teacher, developing his philosophy of education and speaking unbroken absence of eight years. Upon his return, he stayed in the beach, a and conductor (1909). Subsequently, to groups ranging from music students to civic organizations. It was New York, during which period he conducted two concerts of huge beach of of the Portland Junior Symphony (now the Portland Youth his own works in Boston, made up of two different programs: more than 6 Philharmonic) said of Bloch, “In many senses he was not a he wrote the works of during this time, 1924, that Bloch became a U.S. citizen. He remained in Cleveland until 1925, when he continued his journey west to San the American premiere of Two Symphonic Interludes from km. There is twentieth century composer ... like Strauss, in a way, he was his self-styled “Jewish The Bloch Clan in 1959 Francisco. Macbeth, Three Jewish (Photo by Lucienne Bloch, courtesy Old Stage Studios.) a battle inside a holdover from the nineteenth Cycle,” including the Three Poems, Schelomo, and me . . . the impossibility of going any further. The thought of century. Jewish Poems (1913), Bloch served as the Artistic Director at the fledgling San Francisco America; and Two being stuck in Berkeley is unbearable. I suffocate in this place. Three Psalms (1912-14), Conservatory from 1925 to 1930, during which time he composed Symphonic Interludes from The bitterness poisons me. My spirit is prey to recriminations, In the words of Herbert Elwell, Israel Symphony (1912- three prize-winning works: Macbeth, Three Jewish everything that brings out the worst in me, the opposite of “Bloch’s music will continue 16), String Quartet No. Four Episodes for chamber Poems, Schelomo, and the what artistic creation demands. And then in Portland terrible to live, by virtue of its cosmic 1 (1916), and perhaps his orchestra (1926), America: Boston premiere of Helvetia heat at the moment. And here, next to the ocean, the freshness awareness, its just measurement of best-known work, the An Epic Rhapsody (1927), – each concert resulting in is beneficial. And then Marguerite, who suffers so much from the stature of man, and its positive cello rhapsody Schelomo (a patriotic homage to his a great success. The Second the heat. I pace the beach for hours. Am I staying? Am I going concern with that part which is (1916). These monumental adopted homeland) and World War affected Bloch back? I don’t think anymore of the house I visited, but it is as indestructible.” works, incorporating Helvetia (1929). America, very profoundly, plunging if a hidden force holds me back here, prevents me from going Jewish elements, were – with a closing choral anthem, him into despair. any further. All day long I am fighting within myself. Finally I and are today – hailed as was written for a competition decide to go and call Marguerite and I suggest that she comes Marguerite and Ernest Bloch, Lucienne, Ivan and Suzanne, 1910s masterpieces. sponsored by the magazine Ernest Bloch right, with Ada Clement and Lillian Hodghead at the San here. I’ll go and pick her up in Oswego three and a half hours (Photo by Ernest Bloch.) Francisco Conservatory of Music, 1927. The beachcomber in search of agates. Musical America. (Photo by Ernest Bloch.) (Photo by Lucienne Bloch, courtesy Old Stage Studios.)

If you are interested in obtaining a complimentary copy of the forty-page “Ernest Bloch: Composer in Nature’s Ernest Bloch at the piano in his Agate Beach house. Although he was Jewish, We wish to thank the City of Newport for assistance in preparing the Ernest Bloch Memorial Wayside site. We want to thank the the large crucifix was a prominent fixture in the house, representing for Bloch University,” they are available at Roby’s Furniture & Appliance (located at the north end of the Ernest Bloch the common suffering - and potential for redemption - of humankind. Helen Yaquina Bay Economic Foundation for a grant to create this interpretive sign. The Economic Development Alliance of Lincoln Johnston Kintner remembered that Bloch often stated that “Christ was the Memorial Wayside), or at the Agate Beach Golf Course (located eight blocks south of here at 4100 North Coast only true Christian who ever lived.” “The Story of a Sculpture,” written by County has produced a forty-page booklet on the life and times of Ernest Bloch. The Ernest Bloch Legacy Project wishes to give Ivan and Suzanne Bloch, from Creative Spirit, pp.26-28, can be found at the Highway). For more information, contact the Ernest Bloch Legacy Project by clicking on the “Contact Us” tab on “Sculpture” tab on the Ernest Bloch website thanks to Kelly Barker for realizing our sculptural vision for Ernest Bloch Place. You can learn more about the efforts of The Ernest www.ernestbloch.org the Ernest Bloch website, www.ernestbloch.org or scan the QR code. (Photo by Lucieene Bloch, courtesy Old State Studio.) Bloch Legacy Project by going to www.ernestbloch.org. You can contact us through the website.