Creative Spirit a PROGRAM SOURCE BOOK
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ERNEST BLOCH: Creative Spirit A PROGRAM SOURCE BOOK [Originally prepared in 1976 by Suzanne Bloch and Irene Heskes] NOTE TO THIS 2020 COPIED VERSION: This book was produced in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of Ernest Bloch's birth in Geneva, Switzerland. This book is out of print. As time permits sections of this book will be copied and posted here. Anyone using material gleaned from these pages is requested to include this attribution: "Quoted from Suzanne Bloch's Ernest Bloch: Creative Spirit -- A Program Source Book as found at www.ErnestBloch.org." Part Two: Program Notes for Bloch's Compositions, by Suzanne Bloch is over 60 pages in length. If you do not find what you are looking for, let us know. Use the "contact us" feature at www.ernestbloch.org. [COVER] Ernest Bloch: Creative Spirit A PROGRAM SOURCE BOOK Prepared by Suzanne Bloch, in collaboration with Irene Heskes, Published by JEWISH MUSIC COUNCIL of the NATIONAL JEWISH WELFARE BOARD [INSIDE COVER] NATIONAL JEWISH WELFARE BOARD DANIEL ROSE, President ARTHUR ROTMAN, Executive Vice-President HERBERT MILLMAN, Executive Vice-President Emeritus HAROLD ARIAN, Coordinator, Jewish Educational and Cultural Programs JEWISH MUSIC COUNCIL SHALOM ALTMAN, Chairman IRENE HESKES, Director I Ernest Bloch: Creative Spirit A PROGRAM SOURCE BOOK Prepared by Suzanne Bloch In Collaboration With Irene Heskes 1976 Price: $6.00 Published by JEWISH MUSIC COUNCIL of the NATIONAL JEWISH WELFARE BOARD 15 East 26th Street, New York, N.Y. 10010 II ERNEST BLOCH: Creative Spirit Copyright (c) 1976 by JWB Jewish Music Council III [Photo of EB perusing a musical manuscript] IV "There is no progress in art; all beautiful things belong to the same age." (Oscar Wilde) V PREFACE It is my particular pleasure to salute our colleague of the Executive Board of the JWB Jewish Music Council, Suzanne Bloch. A gifted musician, creative intellect and charming personality, Suzanne Bloch has labored with steadfast dedication in the development of this new resource. I am personally privileged to acknowledge the capable leadership of Irene Heskes, Director of the JWB Jewish Music Council, and to particularly note her devoted collaboration and technical guidance in bringing this significant publication to fruition. This opportunity is also taken to thank all associated with JWB for extraordinary support and encouragement of the Council and its work. SHALOM ALTMAN Chairman of the JWB Jewish Music Council Summer 1976 VI [Photocopy in Bloch's handwriting.] "O America, because you build for mankind, I build for you. (Walt Whitman) America an epic Rhapsody in three Parts for Orchestra -------- This Symphony has been written in Love for this Country. In reverence to its Past In faith in its Future It is dedicated to the Memory of Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman whose vision have upheld its inspiration Title Page: Bloch's Handwriting VII ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We wish to express our gratitude to all who have enabled us to prepare this Program Source Book on Ernest Bloch. Special appreciation first is extended to The Ernest Bloch Society for making available inclusion of so many exceptional materials on Bloch and his music, particularly the Society's annotated catalogue listing of his compositions. Our resource publication may encourage many to join the Society in its significant activities, and therefore we note that membership information may be obtained by writing to: [address label affixed here] Ernest Bloch Society 34844 Old Stage Road Gualala, CA 95445 [covering old printing from original in 1976] Ernest Bloch Society Star Route 2 Gualala, CA 95445 For the inclusion of extensive information and of articles, we are please to acknowledge the following: The London Times; Aperture Magazine of Photography; Summy-Birchard, Publishers; E.P. Dutton Company, Publishers; Yehudi Menuhin; Gary P. Letherer; Eric Johnson; Alex Cohen; Mrs. Isadore (Riva) Freed; and, the estates of: Serge Koussevitzky; Ernest Newman; Olin Downes; Jacob Epstein; and, Carl Engel. Of course, a warm "thank you" is extended to Ivan Bloch and to Lucienne Bloch Dimitroff, who have blessed this project with supportive enthusiasm and much kindness. Beyond thanks-giving, we are indebted to JWB and its leadership, with helmsmen Daniel Rose and Herbert Millman. The dedication of the JWB organization and its nation-wide constituency of Jewish Community Centers and YM-YWHAs, to the advancement of the quality of American Jewish life has enabled this publication, as well as many other Jewish Music Council projects, to reach happy fruition. In addition, our warm appreciation for their encouragement goes to our colleagues, the Executive Board membership of the JWB Jewish Music Council and its Chairman, Shalom Altman. Much thanks also to the following JWB staff: Seymour Warsaw, art director; Maria Cubria, varitypist; Elvita Hook and Rose Bresloff, secretaries; and Jack Rosen, archivist. This book is dedicated to music-makers and music-lovers everywhere, and to the living memory of Ernest Bloch, who viewed musical composition as an act of faith. SUZANNE BLOCH IRENE HESKES June 1976 VIII [Photo. Self Portrait: Bloch and his children, Geneva, Switzerland, 1911 (left to right: Lucienne, Suzanne, Ivan and EB] IX FOREWORD In 1956 the JWB Jewish Music Council dedicated the festival theme of Jewish Music Month to "The Music of Ernest Bloch." At that time a program manual was compiled with the purpose of guiding the many organizations that planned lectures and concerts dealing with Bloch. I was asked to assist Leah Jaffa who organized the material. Though at first my father had been skeptical about the project, he warmly approved of it when he saw the results. Over the following years, that program manual was a useful source of information to individuals and groups. After Bloch's death, it became increasingly evident that there were very few practical and up-to- date sources of information on his life and music. Irene Heskes, Director of the JWB Jewish Music Council, broached the subject to me, suggesting that an expanded program manual on Ernest Bloch was very much needed. I agreed wholeheartedly to make a new edition of the old resource book, and thought we would simply add information that had not previously been available. In the process, what was to be a modest brochure grew as we met and planned, while I gathered material. Soon it became imperative that this manual should become the first comprehensive collection of information on Bloch's works including publication sources, a complete discography, and a section of program notes for all the works. I used as much as I could from Bloch's own writings, and also added my own notes. We further decided to augment these materials with articles -- biographical and informative -- thus giving life to this collection. Being the musician in our family, Bloch's music has been my responsibility since his death. He left sketches well-classified on his shelves, with masses of pedagogical notes stemming from the many courses he gave. The total comprises an immense amount of material, such as several booklets with his counterpoint studies. At the age of forty-eight, he decided he needed to do these again. In the studies is to be found a study of basso ostinato in the mixolydian mode whose theme, repeated over and over in different rhythms, is the one he used as a base for his Avodath Hakodesh. Included also are detailed analyses of Bach's fugues from the "Well Tempered Clavichord," the pages of studies of Beethoven sketches used for his courses on Beethoven's "Eroica" and other works. All the musical examples were written out by him in the most beautiful penmanship, as if he cherished every note he put down, and all this with much commentary appended. There are also notes in French outlining the 110 lectures Bloch gave in Geneva between 1911 and 1916. At the time, he was also writing what is generally called his "Jewish Cycle." There are lectures he gave in the United States after he settled here. Thus, besides his compositions, there remains the essence of his deep thinking, and of the constant studies which he continued to the end of his life. It has also been my task to be currently engaged in writing his biography, and emotional as well as arduous load, for facing the myriads of his letters bring back moments of torment and crisis. Bloch was all of many people, true to his many facets, never reticent, wanting to share all he felt with the ones near him. In such close relationship, X one cannot help being subjective at first, and at times it has been difficult to find the right perspective. Yet, already looking back on the many decades, there stands the consistent strength of Bloch's musical integrity, never swerving from the idealized vision of the art he wished to serve and so dramatically expressed already in his own teenage letters. There was also a great family feeling, this Hebraic traditon deeply ingrained, creating conflicts with his artistic temperament, conflicts that tore at him at times, but which in the end were resolved with a family unity that would continue after his death in the sense of the heritage received by his children. An Ernest Bloch Society had originally been founded in England in 1937, with Albert Einstein as Honorary President, and with a roster of such important names as Sir Thomas Beecham, Serge Koussevitzky, Havelock Ellis, Romain Rolland, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Sir Henry Wood and Sir Donal Tovey. For that earlier Society, concerts had been given and articles written, leaving an impact still felt to this day. With the advent of World War II, and its devastation of London, the Bloch Society had to dissolve. In 1967 it was decided, with the encouragement of many musicians, to revive that Society here in this country.