Arts and Letters

There was plenty of musical excitement at the MacDowell Colony in Peterboro, New Hampshire, in the summer of 1923. Two board members of the new and advanced League of Composers were in residence. Up to that time the Colony had been the familiar refuge of elderly and predictable composers like Edgar Stillman-Kelly, Arthur Nevin, and Charles F. Gilbert. But this particular summer Louis Gruenberg and Lazare Saminsky were colonists. To a young composer like myself the opportunity of working alongside of two such luminaries was stimulating. Gruenberg was particularly kind and gracious. He looked over my music and suggested I write something the League could produce. He was in the full stride of his success and although he often derided his compeers and seemed at first glance formidable to the young he proved to be a generous and painstaking colleague.

One wonders what could have happened in the years that followed. Shortly after the apex of his career, the production at the Metropolitan in 1933 of The Emperor Jones, generally regarded as the best American opera so far, he left New York and gradually disappeared from programs and from the musical scene. First he taught composition for three years in Chicago and then the waters of Hollywood closed over his head. To be sure he was heard of sporadically from time to time. The Columbia Broadcasting System commissioned an opera: Green Mansions, in 1937; Heifetz commissioned and played a violin concerto, and at least one of his motion picture scores attracted national attention, The Fight For Life. But when the announcement came in 1950 that the Rome Opera planned to produce The Emperor Jones, a great honor for an American composer, the musical world was surprised. Gruenberg had been all but forgotten.

Whatever the reason for this neglect of a composer who had achieved success in a number of his five operas, five symphonies, chamber music, and concertos, Gruenberg himself bitterly resented it. In a recent tribute by Claire Reis, who was for many years chairman of the League of Composers, she quotes a letter from him in reply to suggested plans to honor his eightieth birthday this last August. He wrote:

''I'll have none of this 80 year old stuff. I was forgotten on my 70th, my 60th, my 50th birthdays (where in hell was everybody when I needed this kind of treatment), but now I don't need anybody. If my stuff is to be played, it will be because it is worthy of being played, and not because I am an old dog who is thrown a bone! Basta!"

Gruenberg was born in Brest-Litovsk but was brought by his parents to America when he was two. His education until the age of 19 was in this country but thereafter for sixteen years he lived in Berlin. He studied with Busoni and later had a successful career as concert pianist. Gradual recognition of his gifts as a composer led him to give up concert life and to return to America where his works were played with increasing frequency.

His musical style, which was regarded in the twenties as "advanced," was influenced by the complexity of his teacher, Busoni. Soon he discovered the rich resources of Negro spirituals and jazz. His later works, in addition to clarity of style, have a broad melodic sweep which may lead one day to his rediscovery.

The unhappiness and neglect which came to Gruenberg in his later years is a disturbing indication of the shallowness of the roots of our musical culture. His life brought him rewards which his talent well deserved. But it is sad to realize that the happiness of success should be so perishable.