Ernest Bloch

Swiss-born American composer whose music reflects Jewish cultural and liturgical themes as well as European post-Romantic traditions. Bloch studied with the noted Swiss composer Émile Jaques-Dalcroze and in Belgium with the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. From 1911 to 1915 he taught at the Geneva Conservatory. He toured the United States in 1916 with the dancer Maud Allen, and after the tour company went bankrupt he settled in New York. He was director of the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1920 to 1925 and of the San Francisco Conservatory from 1925 to 1930. In 1930 he went to Switzerland, but he returned to the United States in 1939, settling in Oregon in 1943. He taught composition for several summers at the University of California at Berkeley.

Bloch’s music reflects many post-Romantic influences, among them the styles of Claude Debussy, Gustav Mahler, and Richard Strauss. His interest in the chromatic sonorities of Debussy and Maurice Ravel is evident in the tone poem Hiver-Printemps (1905; Winter-Spring). Bloch composed a significant group of works on Jewish themes, among them the Israel Symphony (1916), Trois poèmes juifs for orchestra (1913; Three Jewish Poems), the tone poem Schelomo for cello and orchestra (1916; Solomon), and the suite Baal Shem for violin and piano(1923). His sacred service Avodath Hakodesh for baritone, chorus, and orchestra (1930–33) represents the full maturity of his use of music appropriate to Jewish themes and liturgy. Many of Bloch’s works show a strong neoclassical trend, combining musical forms of the past with 20th-century techniques.

He died on 15 July 1959 in Portland, Oregon, of cancer at the age of 78.