Ernest Bloch: The man and his music; Episode 13 of 15

Riverside radio presents the 13th in a series of 15 programs. Ernest Bloch the man and his music the commentator for these programs is Suzanne block. The composer's daughter and a member of the faculty at The Juilliard School of Music. On our program today you'll hear a performance of Baal Shem three pictures of Hassidic life for piano and violin and the piano quintet number one with soloist Frank Glazer and now here is Suzanne block after block completed its Jewish cycle in 1916 with the Israel symphony. The ones that followed were composed with absolutely no attempt to express any sort of racial consciousness. He never intended to specialize in a specific idiom. That's when people read he breaks trained in some of his these later works. He strongly dissented the tans and irritated greatly. There was such a difference between these words and the ones who deliberately chose to write in a break style when he did so he let go whole heartedly and with gusto. And that's what he did when he wrote the Basham Surete in 1923 when formulated by the presence

of auditors appear the magnificent through the violin as it engaged to teach of the Cleveland incident music. He began to think of reading sure completely valid if pick pieces and these would be less serious than his violin sonata or his Villa St.. He had started what is i.e. as a young man and people Pierre was also the XY student so they both understood the wonderful feeling of gusto of using a wired large bone expanding completely musically the bomb chancy that ensued with storage is approved by many of Block's followers. They felt he was slipping deteriorating. Doug knew that of course he knew that this was a totally different caliber than his more recent works. He knew well that could be compared to the violin sonata he even enjoyed telling the story of his visit to the office of Col. Fisher who was to publish the St.. Look individual Pierre created the work for Mr. Fischer and when that finished Mr. Fischer got up excitedly flopped block in the back and exclaimed

How now block. You're really improving and getting somewhere. This really became successful eclipsing other works for a time. Two blocks and happiness. But if any one said a word against him he would brag at once. He dedicated this work to the memory of his mother. I've been a simple song with little knowledge of serious music. She used to mostly little operetta chews and she'd been rather bewildered by her son's music and you can imagine. But she would have understood these pieces and like their titles the first video we means in Hebrew contrition has a meditative quality and serves almost of the crowd you would into the following piece. Nigga and improvisation Negron has been the most popular of the Basha pieces. There isn't a valid us that hasn't played it sometimes for it really is a sort of valance tick orgy of pulling out all the stops of emotion and drama that truly come off. Bloch gave himself a wild musical

holiday well aware that this would not be liked by the highbrows or purists. There'd also be the delight of uninhibited violence. And the last piece Senhouse Torah rejoicing for blocking his most expansive mood. This is a bloke who like to tell a good Jewish story eat a good meal looking around his family and friends pouring out his unique warmth and sense of well-being. A new band has inserted a Jewish melody. You must have heard it is you. Says Joyce but rather vulgar. The refried contains in its text and name and the tune is still well known nowadays according to some who should know. What is amusing about this Nima Zinka is that during the period when blood was running the Boston suite he bought his first car which name is inker in honor of the cars manufacturer. This was typical of block sadhana cuma for the manufacturer whose name I shall not mention had publicly expressed his anti-Semitic views. You are not here to and I was and is a king performing the Basham

St.. You're. The litany.

With.

Yeah. Why.

Are you. Going to. You know. The.

Thing and. You have heard a performance of three pictures of Hassidic life for piano and violin with Isaac Stern a soloist accompany at the piano by Alexander and here again in 1920

block lived a hectic double life between New York and Cleveland Ohio. When you Institute of Music was being established with him as director. During your stay in Cleveland he lived in a hotel downtown and a rather noisy section and to counteract a certain ring is there his sketch dog many smaller works including this one out of a cello which he used a few quota towards. But in the fall of 1921 he decided to use the material for Piano Quintet. This is no small matter. He wanted to write a major work and the battle to Congress this was not an easy one. His schedule included was taxing but was incredibly conscientious about his post at the institute. There he spend six days a week from 9:00 to late afternoon deciding the administrator. He also gave courses and conducted both the student orchestra and the chorus. He found time to compose only at night or on Sundays when taking with him his lunch. He went to the empty in-situ to work without being disturbed in this way he managed to read this piano quintet number one which was

finished in 1923. The work had its premiere in 1923 at the first concert of the League of composers. The pianist Harold Bauer and the Knox string quartet performed the work. It's a day dedicated to them. There is a story about a block's relationship with Bauer the pianist as you see the music moving Bob movement and his commentary to block asking about details of interpretation. When it came to the ending of the last movement which is a wow turbulent one and yet which is a comics culminating in an obvious C Major cadence Justin could critics have that. Why brute luck. No really a cadence in C major in that work. Brock wrote back ABM when I me can you give me something outside of you something better than that which will fit in this place. To try and just couldn't subject and sing us the C Major cadence remains as planned. The few quarter tones used by blocking the quintet create a sensation. This was new and

effect just commented on more than the work itself. To blocks disgust he said these were incidental. He had used Michelin before and is a very good story about a block a little later that time. Some women came was going to read an article about my father and interviewed my father and asked Mr. Block If you invented a new new sounds like your quarter tones of the quintet. My father said Yes I have. And she said What is it he said will you what it is it's a crying baby said my father with his French as you see in the orchestra you put it carrying baby a little baby on the lap of a musician and every time it's mocked the musician will pinch the baby Jamaican Khai and they didn't realize she was having a sex prude and went off in a huff. Twenty nine to twenty six the critical and downs what is in the letter full of admiration for the work not answered in that link. It is worth quoting part of this answer. But first to give Downes an ironical report of the amount of royalties received for the quintet first year 90 24 to 25 $7 an 82 cents

second year two dollars and forty nine cents. Stegman just received five copies of the works of which two were sold abroad. Bloch wrote the following. The content has no history no program. It is like my other works a musical vision of life. Life as I see it transmitted in sounds and rhythms. Life is so big that naturally each work represents another side of it by violence not his more devoted in movements 1 and 3 especially to the implacability and indifference of nature towards man. The quintet. I do not know. The music speaks for itself. The first movement is more objective than the second. The third is a kind of exotic dream. I wrote this last part entirely on Sundays in Cleveland at the institute this empty institute an Institute of Music without music is an ideal place amidst the wonderful poetical atmosphere of Cleveland. Well if you cannot create

life within yourself outside of the surroundings then there is no life at all. No imagination in your soul. The young American composer complains about such atmosphere as Cleveland at the age of 20 having not yet accomplished anything. He wants to go abroad to be helped finance etc and spend his life trying to pull the ropes instead of learning honestly his trade studying absorbing life thinking dreaming finding himself. He wants first of all to make a success no matter how. Thus this exotic dream was created amid smoke mediocrity puritanic hypocrisy as a protestation to the office suite and the violin sonata two were created in similar surroundings on 955 Lexington Avenue in a poor small apartment between lessons often two and gifted students. The family around me and the noise of the trolley cars in the street. And almost all of my works you will find this intense desire for an escape and unsophisticated

refuge far away the country mountains exotic Allens away from what we call a civilization which for me is more noise materialism superficiality snobbism semi honesty semi culture semi taste lowered standards in a word mediocracy that very thing flow better for sure and dreaded as well as nature. From these words one would think blocks approach to life was a constant revolt. You see many to express this sort of mood in most of his letters. Yet in life you could be the most genial men enjoying simple everyday activities demanding little letter writing to him as a sort of super disability as one says in French. A safety valve we're let out in attentions and accumulated irritations. But he did have a reason to complain about how you were the quintet. It was written in its really difficult conditions the pressures of his position. This travesty gains values he would not accept a social life he didn't like and his having to be a figurehead which he did very half heartedly at home the

children adolescent which at this time he could not understand. He thought his family was turning against him. As always everything was interpreted in with dramatic weight in all this he played along creating a work of great magnitude. The quintet is in three movements. The opening with the strings playing a turbulent passage with a quarter tone is only incidental. In order to give a blurred effect in the strings. The piano part burst forth with a jacket theme and the violence is there. It is a tense movement. The second following is opposite. Using the same jacket opening theme but in a different mood as a call he uses material from the preceding movement but with a completely different meaning. The finale which had sketched out earlier was discarded as it finished the slow movement which had already a cause of his land of dreams of exotic ideals. 7 He set off to bring back this lead not as a dream but as this past sitting reality and so much at home for Polynesia. There are the barbaric rhythms and though I had not said program in

mind inserted a short primitive theme in his youth which I remember he played to me as a child to the tune itself is not very barbaric but it is a way it comes in and the setting off it. There are loads in this wild movements with themes of the first movement returns again with a different meaning. The frenetic music starts again until a well-coached appears culminating in that scene educators which you will recognise and which seems perfectly logical as it is brought in. Their work ends in peaceful epilogue blocks lassie. As always most of his music his desire for unity and harmony. You are not here in his box. Get acquainted number one performed by Frank plays a pianist with a fine string quartet.