BLOCH, ERNEST

BLOCH, ERNEST (1880–1959), composer. Bloch, who was born in Geneva, revealed his musical gifts as a child and was only ten when he wrote down a vow that he would become a composer and then, in ritual fashion, burned the inscribed paper over a mound of stones. In the face of parental opposition, he left home at the age of 16 and studied music for eight years in Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich, and Paris. At that time he composed his first big work, the Symphony in C Sharp Minor. Returning to Geneva in 1904, Bloch entered the family clockmaking business. During the next three years he composed his opera Macbeth. It was first produced in 1910 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and was warmly received. Major works produced during the years immediately following include Trois Poèmes Juifs for orchestra (1913), Schelomo, a "Hebrew rhapsody" for cello and orchestra (1916), and the Israel Symphony for orchestra and five solo voices (1912–16). Bloch first went to America in 1916, as conductor for the dancer Maud Allan, and soon won recognition. Early in 1917, Karl Muck invited him to conduct the Trois Poèmes Juifs in Boston, and a few months later a concert of his orchestral works was given in New York. In 1920, he founded and organized the Cleveland Institute of Music. He left it in 1925 to become director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. During his five years in this post, Bloch composed a number of large-scale works. Best known of these is America, an "epic rhapsody" for chorus and orchestra (1926). A counterpart to this work is Helvetia, a "symphonic fresco" written in tribute to Bloch's native land. One of Bloch's most important works is the Avodath Hakodesh ("Sacred Service") for Sabbath morning for baritone, mixed chorus, and orchestra which he wrote in seclusion in Switzerland during 1930–33 (commissioned by Gerald Warburg). He spent the years 1934–38 in a remote French village. From this period came the piano sonata, Voice in the Wilderness (symphonic poem with cello obbligato), and the violin concerto. Bloch also composed three string quartets (1916, 1945, and 1951–52). In 1938 Bloch returned to America. After a number of tours as conductor, he finally settled in 1941 in Agate Beach, Oregon. There he spent the rest of his life except for annual lecture visits to the University of California. The manuscripts he left when he died are in the university's music library at Berkeley, where an Ernest Bloch Archive was set up. Many honors came to Bloch in his last years. He continued, however, to go his own way without much regard for musical fashion, and ended his career true to the ideals with   which he had begun it. As he once stated: "I do not propose or desire to attempt a reconstruction of the music of the Jews…. It is rather the Hebrew spirit that interests me – the complex, ardent, agitated soul that vibrates for me in the Bible; the vigor and ingenuousness of the Patriarchs, the violence that finds expression in the books of the Prophets, the burning love of justice, the desperation of the preachers of Jerusalem, the sorrow and grandeur of the Book of Job, the sensuality of the Song of Songs. All this is in us, all this is in me, and is the better part of me. This it is which I seek to feel within me and to translate in my music – the sacred race-emotion that lies dormant in our souls." -BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Tibaldi Chiesa, Ernest Bloch (1933), incl. bibl.; D.Z. Kushner, "Ernest Bloch and His Symphonic Works" (unpubl. dissert. 1967); G. Saleski, Famous Musicians of Jewish Origin (1949), 18–27; D. Ewen (ed.), New Book of Modern Composers (1961), 86–97; G.M. Gatti, in: Musical Quarterly, 7 (1921), 20–38; D. Newlin, ibid., 33 (1947), 443–59; California University, Autograph Manuscriptsof Ernest Bloch at the University of California (1962); Sendrey, Music, index; Grove, Dict; Baker, Biog Dict. (Dika Newlin)