Download Ernest Bloch (1880–1959) Ernest Bloch was born in Geneva on 24

Ernest Bloch (1880–1959)
Ernest Bloch was born in Geneva on 24 July 1880, the son of a Jewish horologist.
He was quick to show musical talent and at first concentrated his artistic
endeavours on playing the violin, on which he became so adept that he was
accepted as a pupil of Eugène Ysaÿe at Brussels Conservatoire from 1897 to 1899.
Ysaÿe, sensing that behind his pupil’s virtuoso brilliance lay a great creative
potential, recommended him to continue the training in composition that he had
already begun in Switzerland with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. In 1900, therefore, he
enrolled at the Conservatoire in Frankfurt/Main with Iwan Knorr, subsequently
becoming a student of Ludwig Thuille, who reputedly possessed such technical
know-how that his friend Richard Strauss, even when already established as a
composer, still used to consult him on questions of counterpoint.
Ernest Bloch was 24 when he returned to Geneva, where at first a lack of musical
activity found him having to earn his living as a bookkeeper in his father’s business.
Slowly his career began to gather momentum: he conducted the orchestras of
Lausanne and Neuchâtel, was present in Paris in October 1910 for the première of
his opera Macbeth (which so fascinated the critic Romain Rolland), taught at the
Geneva Conservatoire until 1915, and in the following year went to the USA as
conductor for the Maud Allan Dance Troupe. When this enterprise collapsed, Bloch
soon found his feet again: before long he was teaching at New York’s Mannes Music
School, he taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1920 to 1925 and spent a
further five years as director of the San Francisco Conservatoire.
Here the Jewish community commissioned him to compose a “Sacred Service” which
was so well received that Bloch’s financial future was assured without the need for
further teaching commitments and he was able to devote himself entirely to his own
music. This he did both prolifically and successfully. Over the years, early
distinctions were augmented by further generous prizes and honorary memberships.
His musical oeuvre became widely appreciated, particularly in the USA: his 70th
birthday was celebrated in Chicago with a week-long festival, arranged by the most
influential circles. Ernest Bloch died in Portland on 15 July 1959, nine days before
his 79th birthday.
With never a doubt about his own capabilities or about the future, and with the
knowledge that he had a potential circle of friends waiting everywhere who would
help him out of any difficult situation; add to that an unshakeable belief in the
relevant holy scriptures which resonated in his blood, as he said, “deeply,
mysteriously, persistently, glowingly” – and Ernest Bloch must indeed have been a
truly fortunate man.
Another point to note is that his oeuvre actually shows no trace of development.
Even the repeated attempts to categorise it into various stylistic periods only
succeed up to a point. It might appear convenient to see the Israel Symphony
(1912 – 16), the Three Jewish Poems (1913) and the grandiose rhapsody Schelomo
for cello and orchestra (1916) as the expression of his “Jewish” period, but in reality
this phase lasted till the end of this life, with Jewish themes occurring constantly,
even in works whose titles do not necessarily suggest a Jewish content. An example
is the Concerto Symphonique for piano and orchestra, premièred by Corinne
Lacomblé on 3 September 1949 at the Edinburgh International Festival and
conducted by the composer himself. Here, particularly in the outer movements, the
dominant feel is of a massive, static, selfcontained power in the music which comes
across to the unprepared listener rather like background music for a scene in The
Ten Commandments or Ben Hur.
Nor is Bloch’s neo-classicism confined to any particular period. Shortly after the
Hebraic Rhapsody Schelomo already mentioned he wrote the second Concerto
grosso for string orchestra (1952) whose pendant (with obbligato piano), composed
thirty years earlier, is not far removed from the “epic rhapsody” called America with
which the composer saluted his new homeland – a piece which even his greatest
admirers admit is somewhat loud.
The Concerto grosso No. 1, given its first performance by the composer at Cleveland
Music Institute on 29 May 1925, has nothing in common with such brash, “in-yourface” formats. This was the director of the Cleveland Music Institute writing
academic music in disguise whose most striking features are the second movement,
an intense Dirge, and the fugue, notable for its didactic rigour. “This is how to write
a fugue” is what Bloch seems to be saying here, and rightly so. The movement
radiates his self-assurance and conviction that everything is right, and leaves no
doubt about its composer’s technical expertise.
Finally the Scherzo Fantasque saw the.light of day in December 1950 in the context
of the festivities that marked Bloch’s 70th birthday. Bloch himself conducted the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ida Krehm played the entertaining yet powerful
virtuoso solo part, and once again, as with America, the audience could revel in the
encyclopaedic knowledge of a composer who, while striking his own distinctive note,
also revealed himself to be a connoisseur of Ravel and Gershwin and added a
further dimension to his truly fantastic scherzo with a brief nod towards Musorgsky’s
Pictures from an Exhibition. Eckardt van den Hoogen