Although he has been in America since childhood, his early life in Russia, in which he suffered the terrors of the pogroms (the massacres of the Jews), is reflected in his work. His training was under the direction of Bertha Tapper and Percy Goetschius.
A gifted young modernist whose orchestral and chamber works are often played by important organizations, is Aaron Copland (1898), pupil of Rubin Goldmark and Nadia Boulanger, of Paris. He received (1925) the first Guggenheim Fellowship in Music.
Experimentalists
Henry Eichheim, of Boston, has had many performances of his colorful Chinese and Japanese impressions. Carl Ruggles is an independent thinker and composer, experimenting in many combinations of harmonies and instruments. Two extremists, who have not yet proven the value of their ideas and whose works must be regarded as experiments are Henry Cowell of California and George Antheil who lives in Paris. Sometimes, however, out of the wildest experiment comes something that may make music grow.
Song Writers
There are many composers who are well known not for symphonies and chamber music but for songs. There are so many that we can list but a few: Alexander Russell, R. Huntington Woodman, Carl Deis, William Arms Fischer, Charles Fonteyn Manney, Clayton Johns, Sidney Homer, Charles Gilbert Spross, Oley Speaks, Louis Campbell-Tipton, Philip James, William C. Hammond, G. Bainbridge Crist, Marshall Kernochan, Eastwood Lane, Richard Hammond, Harry Osgood, Charles B. Hawley, Adolph Martin Foerster, Richard Hageman, Edward Ballantine, Clough Leighter, Victor Harris, Isidore Luckstone, Percy Lee Atherton, John Beach, Paolo Gallico, Arthur Bergh, Morris Class, Walter Morse Rummel, Blair Fairchild, Rudolph Ganz (Swiss-American), Eugen Haile (German-American), Frank La Forge, Harold Vincent Milligan, Timothy Spelman, Edward Horsman, Tom Dobson, Oscar G. Sonneck. Mr. Sonneck (1873–1928) was less known as a musicianly composer, than as a musicologist whose vast knowledge made him invaluable as the first librarian of the music division of the Library of Congress in Washington (1902–1915). His books form an important addition to musical Americana. He was editor of the Musical Quarterly, and secretary of the Beethoven Association.
Foreigners Writing in America
Many who are making music grow in America were born in Europe and while they may not be American composers, they are composers in America, and most of them have become American citizens.
Ernest Bloch, born in Geneva, Switzerland (1880), has been here since 1916, when the Flonzaley Quartet played his String Quartet. Owing to his Jewish descent his work shows an Oriental strain rather than Swiss national feeling. Among his important orchestral works are Jewish Poems, Psalms, a symphony, Israel, Schelomo, for ’cello and orchestra, a prize symphonic rhapsody, America, and a Concerto Grosso for strings. He took the Coolidge prize with his Viola Suite, and has also a violin sonata and a piano quintet. He has taught in New York, Cleveland and San Francisco. A pupil, Ethel Leginska, the English pianist and orchestral conductor, has composed an interesting string quartet, piano pieces and works for orchestra.
Percy Aldridge Grainger, born in Melbourne, Australia (1882), appeared as a pianist at the age of ten and has never stopped since! His mother was his first teacher and later he was a pupil of Busoni and intimate friend of Grieg, whose concerto he played upon his first American appearance (1915). During the World War he became naturalized and served in the American army. As composer he is unique, being self-taught, and although knowing the compositions of all the great masters, he goes to folk music for his themes and ideas, and has become an authority on British and Scandinavian folk music, and is collecting music of the American Indian and the Negro.