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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 1970
Ernest Bloch is one of the enigmatic figures in twentieth-century music. He neither joined nor founded any school of composition (though a number of important composers in the United States today were his pupils); he was much acclaimed during periods of his life, especially in the 1920s and 30s; but since the last World War his popularity has suffered a steady decline, with but rare flashes of resuscitation. Though born in Switzerland in 1880, and spending much of his creative life (until his death in 1959) in the USA, it is as the ‘Jewish composer’ that he is most often acknowledged. This has in turn caused a reaction in the minds of those who feel that Bloch's appeal, so far from circumscribed, is universal. But universality depends upon quality rather than heredity; ‘Jewishness’ and universal appeal are in no way mutually exclusive.
1 Information on Ernest Bloch by courtesy of Miss Suzanne Bloch, the composer's daughter; information on Jewish music by courtesy of Professor Johanna Spector, Director of the Department of Ethnomusicology, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York.Google Scholar
2 Fleg, E., Why I am a Jew, New York, 1929.Google Scholar
3 Translated from French by Suzanne Bloch, programme notes to Avodath Hakodesh, Philharmonic Hall, New York, 7 December 1969.Google Scholar
4 Cesar Searchinger, ‘America, the Land of Promise and Fulfilment for One of Switzerland's most Gifted Sons, Ernest Bloch’, Musical America, xxviii/19 (7 September 1918), 5–6.Google Scholar
5 Quoted in Gdal Salesky, Famous Musicians of a Wandering Race, New York, 1927. p. 5.Google Scholar
6 From Max Wohlberg, Illustrations for Lectures on Modes and Melodies of the Synagogue (unpublished), after F. Ogutsch, Der Frankfurter Kantor, Frankfurt, 1930, and M. Wodak, Hamnazeach, Vienna, 1898. Where examples have been transposed for clearer comparison, the original key or mode is given in brackets. Hebrew words already transliterated in the original sources have throughout been reproduced without alteration; all others have been transliterated by the author according to Berg-straesser's system.Google Scholar
7 From Nathan Ausubel, A Treasury of Jewish Folklore, New York, 1956, p. 690.Google Scholar
8 See The Jewish Encylopedia, New York & London, 1901–6, i. 77–78.Google Scholar
9 Letters to Rinder of 8 September 1930 (Griesalp) and 26 November 1930 (Roveredo), now in the possession of Miss Suzanne Bloch.Google Scholar
10 After a page in the composer's handwriting (by kind permission of Miss Suzanne Bloch). Details in square brackets, missing in the original, have been supplied by the author. Page references are to the published score of the piano version (Schirmer, New York, 1953).Google Scholar
11 Anthropology, London, 1923, p. 245.Google Scholar
12 From A. Harkavy, Pentateuch, New York, 1928, p. 5 (of the music section).Google Scholar
13 Three motifs—mahpak, qadmā', w'azā'; from A. W. Binder, Biblical Chant, New York, 1959, pp. 34 and 36.Google Scholar
14 Pašṭa', sōp happārāšāh; from Max Wohlberg, Analysis of the Minor Modes (unpublished).Google Scholar
15 From M. Beregovsky, Yevreiskiye Narodnie Pesny, Moscow, 1062, p. 147, No. 87 (‘Frejlexs’).Google Scholar
16 From Wohlberg, Illustrations far Lectures (unpublished), after Wodak, Hamnazeach, N'ginoth Baruch Schorr, ed. I. Schorr, New York, 1906, and M. Deutsch, Vorbetersckule, Breslau, 1871.Google Scholar
17 Letter to Jonathan Percal of 19 January 1938 (Châtel)—by kind permission.Google Scholar
18 Olin Downes, ‘Ernest Bloch, the Swiss Composer, on the Influence of Race in Composition’, Musical Observer, xv/3 (1917), 11.Google Scholar