Arts and Letters

Ernest Bloch was trapped in a generation which he described as "chiefly concerned with childish harmonic, instrumental, and rhythmic games," games which throughout his long life he resolutely declined to play.

I remember at our first meeting, when I had come to ask if I might be a pupil, he looked at me sternly and led me over to a framed Beethoven manuscript hanging on the wall. He reverently pointed out the erasures and substitutions, the evidences of painstaking care. Aspiring to be a composer meant to him to undertake a high moral responsibility, to fight shoulder to shoulder with the prophets, with Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and Bach.

For a brief period in his long career he and his generation were seeing eye to eye and he enjoyed considerable vogue. This was in the time right after the First World War when the public, eager for new musical thrills, discovered the Jewishness of his music. It is curious that in the nineteenth century, when folk and racial color was in great demand, Jewish composers such as Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, Raff, and Bruch made little effort to add any flavor of their racial heritage to their music. From 1915 on for some years Bloch's music was largely Jewish in subject matter and in sound, something he described as "an expression of the complex glowing agitated soul that I feel vibrating through the Bible… the freshness and naïveté of the Patriarchs, the violence of the prophetic books; the Jew's savage love of justice; the despair of the Ecclesiastes; the sorrow and immensity of the Book of Job; the sensuality of the Song of Songs."

The compositions which came out of this period, the Israel Symphony, Schelomo, the Jewish Poems, and some distinguished chamber music were at first shocking and then became widely popular. Bloch became a sort of musical prophet to his race. This pleased him at the beginning, for he had been through many discouragements since coming to America in 1916, but he wearied of the furore, and in 1924 announced dramatically that subsequently his music would be devoted to the glory of God and the universality of mankind.

Since that time, with the exception of the commissioned Sacred Service, one of his most admired works, and an occasional short piece, Bloch strove for a more universal music, grounded in the classic tradition. In the later works he showed little interest in the revolutionary and experimental ideas which appeared to be hemming him in on all sides. This less spectacular music has been widely played but attracted much less critical attention. In later years the composer became bitter at what he considered his neglect. The remarkable thing about his career, however, is that there has always been a steady place for him in the symphonic repertory, and he has often been rediscovered, with an important award here and a festival of his works there. Best of all is that he never lost faith in himself and that, unlike his earlier contemporaries Strauss and Sibelius, who spent the last years of their lives in savoring past successes, he was producing up to the very end, confidently and successfully.

Bloch had a great zest for living. Everything that happened to him was dramatically enhanced by his vivid personality. His discouragements and antagonisms were paralleled by militant loyalties and explosive enthusiasms. Since the latter were readily communicable he was a remarkable teacher.

He came to Cleveland as Director of the Institute of Music at the height of his fame. The impact of his personality upon that sober civilization was considerable. He attracted a brilliant group of pupils, among them Roger Sessions, Quincy Porter, Bernard Rogers, Theodore Chanler, and Beryl Rubenstein. The Institute became a center of new ideas, warring happily against anything that was regarded as stuffy or spurious. As a public figure Bloch caused not a little uneasiness. There was an impish irreverence about him which made for unpredictability in public. I remember when a reporter, meeting him at the boat upon his return from Europe, asked him whether in his latest work he had used any new or unusual instruments. "Yes," he replied, "the crying child. We have a child in the orchestra and when we come to the place in the score, we pinch him." Another time, when asked by the inquiring reporter what was Cleveland's greatest need, he said: "Jesus Christ to drive the money changers out of the temple."

If he disturbed the city fathers he delighted his students. Class meetings were a heady experience. One rare thing about his teaching was that he wanted the young composer to be himself and not imitate him. This was difficult for us because we were all caught up in his colorful idiom. Upon one occasion Quincy Porter, New England to the bone but unable to shake off the Bloch influence, was called upon; "Come on, Mr. Porter, let us see some of this good Jewish music of yours."

After 1925 Bloch left Cleveland and went out to the west where he eventually found an agreeable refuge on the coast of Oregon. For many years he lived there, teaching intermittently but devoting himself chiefly to his composition. We in the Academy and Institute have missed the companionship which we might have had with him, and it is a pity, because things would have been more lively with him around. To be with him was to feel not only the responsibility and high purpose but also the glory and excitement of a life devoted to the arts.