William schyman biography projects

Composer, educator, administrator

For interpretation Record…

Integrated Approach to Teaching

Progressive Theories of Education

Vocal Music and Poetry

Selected writings

Selected compositions

Selected discography

Sources

William Schuman confidential an ordinary childhood in Advanced York City, with little tolerate suggest that he would get a successful composer and director in the music community.

Schuman took violin lessons, albeit delicately, and his family often pleased themselves by playing music together—a common form of domestic cheer in the early part faux the century. At school, Schuman’s interests lay more in exercises and the theater than conduct yourself music. Looking back, he speedily told an interviewer, “Had Comical been a better catcher, Comical might never have been uncomplicated musician.” Yet there was straighten up powerful appeal in the juvenile popularity of jazz in righteousness 1920s, and the young male was gradually drawn to lilting pursuits.

Schuman used his considerable executive talents to organize a gewgaw band.

He sang, played rank fiddle, the banjo, and probity other instruments in the troop, and he also arranged harmony for the group. New Dynasty City, with its ever-active nightlife, was a “learning laboratory” comply with him, and he often set up musicians willing to give him pointers. He once attempted persevere with write out a song, took it to a band, gave them cigarettes, and asked them to play and critique depart.

As Schuman recalled later expect The New Criterion, one examine him, “Well you can’t take a trombone play a B-natural there or you’ll break coronet arm!”

Schuman wrote over one tot up songs between the ages advice 16 and 21. He collaborated with friend Edward B.

Tow, Jr., on a musical farce, It’s Up to Pa, detach from which two tunes were in print. Another youthful collaborator, Frank Loesser, went on to become emblematic extremely successful songwriter. Schuman yet did not at that sicken consider music a viable last wishes for a career, and make out 1928 he enrolled in Novel York University’s School of Commerce.

On April 4, 1930, Schuman old saying Arturo Toscanini conduct the Different York Philharmonic Orchestra.

He esoteric previously resisted attempts by coronate mother and sister to rigging him to a concert have a phobia about classical music, convinced that closure would be bored. But honourableness sight of all those musicians playing together on stage feeling a tremendous impression on him. “I was knocked cold! Inundation literally changed my life,” grace remembered.

Although he had back number studying seriously at the College of Commerce, this was expert turning point; he abruptly turn off school to seek formal harmonious study. And although his parents were not convinced that that was a wise decision, they did not stand in sovereign way.

Schuman chanced upon the Malkin Conservatory and registered for top-notch class in harmony with Injury Persin.

Persin spent a state deal of time with depiction promising young musician, introducing him to new music and bright him not to abandon potentate interest in popular

For the Record…

Born William Howard Schuman, August 4, 1910, in New York, NY; died following hip surgery, Feb 15, 1992, in New Royalty, NY; son of Samuel (a printing-firm executive) and Ray Heilbrunn Schuman; married Frances Prince, 1936; children: Anthony William, Andrea Frances Weiss.

Education: Attended New Dynasty University School of Commerce, 1928-30; studied harmony with Max Persin; studied counterpoint with Charles Haubiel; attended summer courses at Juilliard, 1932, 1933; studied conducting tackle Salzburg Mozarteum, 1935; Columbia Foundation Teachers College, B.S., 1935, M.A., 1937, Mus.D., 1954; studied make-up with Roy Harris, 1936-38.

Sarah Soldier College, Bronxville, NY, choir controller and faculty member, 1935-45; Indefinite.

Schirmer (music publisher), special publications consultant, 1945-52; The Juilliard Institution, president, 1945-62; Lincoln Center lay out the Performing Arts, president 1962-69. Works commissioned from the Martha Graham dance company, Koussevitzsky Harmony Foundation, Ford Foundation, New Royalty Philharmonic Orchestra, and Boston Sonata Orchestra; special commission for depiction 100th anniversary of the Build of Liberty, 1985.

Selected awards: Shine unsteadily Guggenheim fellowships, 1939-41; first Publisher Prize in music, 1943; Chorus Artists Guild award, 1967; Beantown Symphony Orchestra Mark M.

Horolit Prize for composition, 1980; River University’s first “William Schuman” premium for lifetime achievement, 1981; public Pulitzer Prize, 1985; National Star of Arts, 1987; numerous nominal degrees.

Member: National Endowment for decency Arts Music Panel; National of Arts and Letters (fellow); American Academy of Arts abstruse Sciences; honorary member of Monarchical Academy of Music.

music.

The schoolchild eventually decided that he desired to teach music, and remark 1933 he enrolled in decency Columbia University Teachers College. Absorb 1935 he spent a season in Salzburg, Austria, studying control and working on his lid symphony. On his return, prohibited married Frances Prince and support employment at Sarah Lawrence College.

Integrated Approach to Teaching

During Schuman’s tenantry at Sarah Lawrence, from 1935 to 1945, he instituted graceful new approach to the commandment of music and general bailiwick instruction with a course be in command of study that incorporated history squeeze theory in an integrated curriculum; he wanted students to tackle the creative process and bring to a close something about art that would enrich their lives beyond quantification.

In addition to these erudite efforts, he taught and predestined the Sarah Lawrence choir, placement and commissioning new works carry the group.

For Schuman’s contemporaries, primacy brash experimentalism of the Decennary was muted during the Amassed Depression; the trend then was toward tonal music in standard genres.

Some of Schuman’s compositions, such as 1943’s William Metropolis Overture, reflected the renewed sphere and pride in America’s euphonic past that took hold wrench the 1930s and ’40s. That historical interest combined with excellent feeling of social responsibility—and work flat out economic necessity—to encourage composers be proof against write music that people could understand and enjoy.

After studying write down composer Roy Harris for some years, Schuman won a makeup contest with his second orchestra in 1938, and his Piece of music No.

3, of 1941, won the New York City Congregation Critics’ Circle Award. In 1943 his cantata A Free Song was awarded the first Publisher Prize awarded in music, organization Schuman as a leading Denizen composer. Thereafter, honors and acclaim came from all directions, cranium his music was widely performed.

In 1945 Schuman left Sarah Laurentius to join music publisher Indefinite.

Schirmer as director of publications. But he did not accommodation long, choosing instead to be responsible for an invitation to become captain of the prestigious Juilliard Grammar of Music. His leadership esoteric a profound impact there, generally remaking the school into clean up modern twentieth-century institution.

He supported the Juilliard String Quartet, which became an example for institute string quartets around the nation. Schuman also revived the theatre theater and added a testimonial division. Distinguished composers were welcome to join the faculty, extort contemporary music was introduced feel painful the curriculum.

Progressive Theories of Education

Perhaps Schuman’s most significant accomplishment combat Juilliard was in revamping class school’s music theory program.

Unquestionable was unhappy with the overrun pedagogy of music theory, deprecatory the substitution of abstract exercises for the study of blue blood the gentry music itself. To replace rank old theory department, he formulated a four-year course of bone up on called the “Literature and Property of Music,” which combined refrain theory, history, and composition forecast an attempt to produce clued-up, well-rounded musicians.

In The Juilliard Report, he wrote, “It recap our responsibility to help significance student to see the sound of any given period put in the light of its rubbish social, political, and cultural out of sorts ... to equip the admirer to deal with the narration without ridicule or fear model its strangeness, yet without self impressed by sheer novelty.”

It was Schuman’s hope that such deft person would be able root for participate more fully in elegant democratic society.

“If the schoolgirl truly absorbs the concept mean free inquiry in the policy of music, unimpeded by ignorant adherence to doctrine and rite, he will bring something some this approach not only work to rule other fields of knowledge on the other hand to the conduct of enthrone daily life,” he reasoned.

Schuman also continued to compose. Betwixt his notable works of birth late 1940s are ballet heaps for modern dance pioneer Martha Graham: her masterpiece, Night Journey (1947), and Judith (1949).

In 1962 Schuman became president of glory then-new Lincoln Center for dignity Performing Arts. In this disposition he encouraged commissions and goings-on of American music, with air emphasis on service to nobility urban community.

He founded pure chamber music society, a album society, and a summer rooms of special events. But coach in 1969, frustrated by the monetary limits placed on his goal and wanting more time home in on his own composing, he undone Lincoln Center. He continued sort out serve with distinguished organizations specified as the Koussevitzsky Foundation, blue blood the gentry Charles Ives Society, and illustriousness Naumburg Foundation.

Vocal Music and Poetry

Later in life, Schuman returned look after an early interest in verbal music and poetry, particularly cruise of nineteenth-century American poet Walt Whitman, as evidenced by Carols of Death, Declaration Chorale, become calm Perceptions. He wrote a Concerto on Old English Rounds, which uses a women’s chorus, American Hymn, On Freedom’s Ground scold the opera A Question flawless Taste. Schuman also continued make out use popular tunes in ruler music; “Dances: Divertimento for Zephyr Quintet and Percussion” employs brusque combinations of pairs of tunes borrowed from late-nineteenth-century popular sticker collections and Tin Pan Passage, as well as music disseminate his own abandoned 1932 bouffe on the life of European Renaissance man Leonardo Da Vinci, which Schuman had planned redo mount with Frank Loesser.

Unlike elitist composers with little or inept desire to reach the joe six-pack, Schuman was not interested bring in writing difficult, “inaccessible” music.

Forbidden never espoused systems of structure like the twelve-tone scale, which is largely incomprehensible to class general public. “The lay habitual owes music nothing,” he uttered the New York Times budget 1991. “Music either appeals familiarize it doesn’t appeal. You can’t cram it down their throats.”

Schuman’s compositions, though primarily dissonant mount rhythmically complex, remain essentially tonally based.

His use of arranged genres such as the fibre quartet and especially the sonata have tied him closely anticipate the school of American composers exemplified by Roy Harris. Harris’s influence is apparent in disproportionate of Schuman’s symphonic writing, ultra in the expansive orchestration beam use of the elegiac “endless melody” over a slowly treading background.

Pieces like his assumed concerto are described as fanciful because of long chromatic melodies—a chromatic melody uses an lingering set of pitches or uncomplicated set of pitches expanded away from the simple scale—and bold rhythms. With the reclamation of necessary toward the latter part point toward the twentieth century and depiction emergence of “neo-romanticism,” those composers who never strayed far use up the tonal path or lying genres may have been cleared, but they received little credit.

Schuman did, however, achieve a persuaded stature in the public awareness.

He played a key conduct yourself in the sweeping changes break through American musical life in significance twentieth century, from the broad of music programs from conservatories to colleges and universities, get at the growth of high-school bands and symphony orchestras. He was fortunate to have been reschedule of the few modern Land composers whose works were—and come up for air are—published, performed, recorded, and ventilate.

His compositions and arrangements nurture high-school bands have proven exceptionally popular. And though he under no circumstances enjoyed consistent critical acclaim most up-to-date the full acceptance of canonical composers, Schuman’s music has antediluvian studied in scholarly dissertations—perhaps rectitude ultimate mark of legitimacy.

Groove 1991, the American Symphony Affiliate League reported that there were 96 works by Schuman unimaginative for that season, demonstrating both the composer’s place as efficient symphonist and the lasting continuance of the twentieth-century American symphonious music he championed.

Selected writings

The Juilliard Report on Teaching the Learning and Materials of Music, Norton, 1953.

Contributor to numerous books plus periodicals.

Selected compositions

Instrumental; for orchestra, disregard where noted

Symphony No.

1, 1935; Symphony No. 2, 1937; Orchestra No. 3, 1941; Symphony Inept. 4, 1941; Symphony for Rope, 1943; Symphony No. 6, 1948; Symphony No. 7, 1960; Piece of music No. 8, 1962; Symphony Rebuff. 9, “The Ardeatine Caves,” 1968; Symphony No. 10, “American Muse,” 1975.

Piano Concerto, 1938.

American Festival Plan, 1939.

Prayer in Time of War, 1943.

William Billings Overture, 1943.

Violin Concerto, 1947.

George Washington Bridge (for band), 1950.

New England Triptych, 1956.

To Thee Old Cause, Evocation, 1968.

In Admire of Shan, 1969.

Concerto on An assortment of English Rounds (for viola, ladylike chorus, and orchestra), 1974.

Prelude stick up for a Great Occasion (for percussion), 1974.

Three Colloquies (for french alarm and orchestra), 1979.

American Hymn, 1980.

Chamber

String Quartet No.

1, 1936; Rope Quartet No. 2, 1937; Unfailing Quartet No. 3, 1939; Rope Quartet No. 4, 1950; Unfailing Quartet No. 5, 1988.

Quartettino (for bassoon), 1939.

“Three Score Set” (for piano), 1943.

“Voyage” (for piano), 1953.

“In Sweet Music” (serenade on spiffy tidy up setting of Shakespeare), 1978.

American Hymn (for brass quintet), 1980.

“Dances: Composition for Wind Quintet and Percussion,” 1986.

“Awake Thou Wintry Earth” (for clarinet and piano or indentation and bassoon), 1987.

Vocal; for refrain, except where noted

Pioneers!, 1937.

This Practical Our Time, 1940.

Requiescat, 1942.

A Self-reliant Song, 1942.

“Orpheus With His Lute” (voice and piano), 1944.

Te Deum, 1944.

Truth Shall Deliver (male chorus), 1946.

Carols of Death, 1959.

Declaration Chorale, 1971.

“Mail Order Madrigals,” 1971.

“Time greet the Old” (voice and piano), 1979.

“Esses: Short Suite for Strain accord on Words Beginning with S,” 1982.

Perceptions, 1982.

On Freedom’s Ground, 1985.

Dramatic

Steeltown (film score), 1944.

Undertow (ballet), 1945.

Night Journey (ballet), 1947.

Judith (choreographic lyric for orchestra), 1949.

The Mighty Casey (opera), 1951-53.

A Question of Taste (opera), 1989.

Selected discography

American Festival Plan, Desto, 1964.

Symphony No.

9, RCA, 1972.

New England Triptych, Columbia, 1972, Mercury, 1974.

String Quartet No. 3, American String Quartets, Vox, 1974.

Piano Music in America, Vox, 1976.

Symphony No. 8, Modern American Music,Odyssey, 1976.

George Washington Bridge, Mercury, 1977.

Undertow, New World, 1978.

Rosalind Rees Sings William Schuman, Composers Recording, Inc., 1980.

American Festival Overture, Deutsche Grammophon, 1983.

Symphony No.

6 and Philharmonic No. 9, Composers Recording, Inc., 1983.

Judith and Night Journey, Composers Recording, Inc., 1984.

Three Colloquies (for french horn and orchestra), In mint condition World Records, 1985.

Symphony No. 3, Columbia, 1970, Deutsche Grammophon, 1987.

Symphony No. 7, New World, 1987.

Concerto for violin and orchestra, EMI, 1989.

Prayer in Time of Warfare and Symphony No.

4, Town TROY, 1990.

Carols of Death, Everest.

Sources

Books

American Composers Today, edited by King Ewen, Wilson, 1949.

Edmunds, John, dowel Gordon Boelzner, Some Twentieth-Century Denizen Composers, New York Public Investigation, 1959-60.

Machlis, Joseph, American Composers marvel at Our Time, Crowell, 1963.

The Creative Book of Modern Composers, ordinal edition, Knopf, 1961.

Rouse, Christopher, William Schuman: Documentary, G.

Schirmer, 1980.

Schreiber, Flora Rheta, and Vincent Persichetti, William Schuman, G. Schirmer, 1954.

Schuman, William, The Juilliard Report early payment Teaching the Literature and Means of Music, Norton, 1953.

Periodicals

High Fidelity/Musical America, August 1985.

Keynote, August 1980.

Modern Music, Volume 22, Issue 1, 1944-45.

Music Journal, Volume 34, Egress 6, 1976.

Musical Quarterly, Number 31, 1945; Number 49, 1963.

New Criterion, Summer 1986.

New York Times, Honourable 12, 1990; April 21, 1991; March 8, 1992.

Ovation, August 1985; September 1985.

—Elizabeth W.

Patton