Louis Gruenberg

Louis Gruenberg (pronounced [grū'ənbûrg] ) (July 22/August 3, 1884, near Brest-Litovsk, Russia - June 10, 1964, Beverly Hills) was a Russian Lithuania-born American pianist and composer.

Although born in Russia, his family emigrated to the United States months after his birth. His father worked as a violinist in New York City. Young Louis had a talent for the piano, and by the age of eight Gruenberg was taking piano lessons with Adele Margulies at the National Conservatory in New York (then headed by Antonin Dvorak).

Gruenberg played both solo concerts and in ensembles from the beginning, and in his early twenties he went to study in Europe with Ferruccio Busoni at the Vienna Conservatory. Before World War I, Gruenberg taught students and toured, both as an accompanist and soloist.

In 1919, Gruenberg wrote "The Hill of Dreams" for orchestra, which gained him the highly acclaimed Flagler Prize and enabled him to devote himself more completely to composition. As Gruenberg began to make his mark as a composer, he showed his fascination with jazz, composing works with strong jazz and ragtime influences.

In 1933 and 1934 the Metropolitan Opera produced his expressionistic opera "The Emperor Jones", based on a play by Eugene O'Neill. It was performed there for two seasons, and featured on the cover of "Time" Magazine receiving much critical acclaim. Between 1933 and 1936, Gruenberg headed the composition department of Chicago Musical College (now part of Roosevelt University). After Chicago he moved with his family to Beverly Hills, California. There he worked at merging music with visual media and film. Collaborating with Pare Lorentz to create "The Fight for Life" (a documentary about childbirth in Chicago slums), Gruenberg was nominated for the Academy Award for best score.

In 1944, Jascha Heifetz commissioned and premiered the Violin Concerto, Op. 47 with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and recorded it with Pierre Monteux and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. During the last twenty years of his life, Gruenberg became increasingly isolated from the concert music world. He maintained a close friendship with Arnold Schoenberg until Schoenberg's death in 1951.

Louis Gruenberg composed continuously until his death in 1964. Besides other works, he wrote five symphonies, four full length operas ("Volpone", "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Antony and Cleopatra" and "The Dumb Wife") and the lengthy oratorio "A Song of Faith".

Works

Operas

* "The Bride of the Gods", libretto by Busoni, translated by C. H. Meltzer (1913)
* "The Dumb Wife", libretto after "The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife" by Anatole France after Rabelais (1923)
* "Jack and the Beanstalk", libretto by John Erskine, (1931)
* "The Emperor Jones", libretto by the composer and Kathleen de Jaffa, after a play by Eugene O'Neill (1931)
* "Queen Helen" (1936)
* "Green Mansions" (radio opera), libretto after a novel by W. H. Hudson (1937)
* "Helena's Husband", libretto by P. Moeller (1938)
* "Volpone", libretto by the composer after Ben Jonson (1945)
* "One Night of Cleopatra", libretto by the composer after T. Gautier
* "The Delicate King", libretto by the composer after Alexandre Dumas (1955)
* "Antony and Cleopatra", libretto by the composer after Shakespeare (1955)

Orchestral

* "The Hill of Dreams", 1919
* "The Daniel Jazz", 1925
* Concerto for violin & orchestra Op.47, 1944

See also

* Academy Award for Original Music Score
* Lawrence Tibbett
* 1933 in music

External links

* [http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/mus/pdf/musgruen.pdf Louis Gruenberg papers] in the [http://www.nypl.org/musicdiv Music Division] of [http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/lpa.html The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts] .
* http://www.musicweb-international.com//Classpedia/Gruenberg.htm