External Resources
Links regarding Ernest Bloch and his worksOn this page you will find links to the websites of libraries and universities that house collections of Bloch material, including manuscripts, letters, teaching materials, personal papers and collections of his photographs. You can also find lists of his recordings and videos on the internet as well as two comprehensive Ernest Bloch websites created in France and Japan, as well as locations of memorial monuments.
Ernest Bloch Memorial Wayside – July 2018
The primary reason for creating this memorial to composer Ernest Bloch is the fact that he lived nearby from 1941 to 1959. He came to this point on a fateful day in 1941 as he was returning from fulfilling his obligations at UC Berkeley, heading back to the Portland area where his son lived. Having discovered Agate Beach and the house here, he and his wife, Marguerite, moved into the only house they would ever own.
Memorial Grove (Dedication) – June 1969
A blazing campfire lit up the surrounding woods and a table piled high with all manner of food and drink added to the convivial atmosphere. By some remarkable chance a radio tuned spontaneously to a San Francisco station gave forth the first powerful theme of Bloch’s SACRED SERVICE! Everyone held their breath in unbelief We all settled in various cars and tuned all the radios on the same wavelength, filling the forest with music. It was as if the Fates had decided to contribute a fitting and significant conclusion to this memorable event.
The collection includes manuscripts (music and lecture material), correspondence (including letters from Ernst Bacon, Harold Bauer, Albert Carré, Elizabeth S. Coolidge, Olin Downes, Carl Engel, the Flonzaley Quartet, Abe Fortas, Sidney Griller, Willem Mengelberg, Yehudi Menuhin, André Messager, Eduard Mörike, Pierre Monteux, Gabriel Pierné, Carlos Salzedo, Max Schillings, Leopold Stokowski, and Stefan Zweig), business papers, photographs, programs, promotional material, writings about Ernest Bloch, personal papers, and printed matter.
Eastman School of Music – Ernest Bloch Collection
Eastman School of Music Link -Bloch Festschrift Collection
Eastman School of Music – Ruth T. Watanabe Special Collections – Sibley Music Library
“The Bloch Collection contains pedagogical material gathered by Bloch in his career as a teacher, and papers pertaining to his own lifelong technical and analytic studies; he hand-copied many of the materials in the latter category for posterity and use. Among his studies are a series of notebooks containing a record of Bloch’s extensive studies of counterpoint, harmony, fugue, form, and what he termed “configuration.” He also made extensive and detailed analyses of pieces by Bach, Beethoven, and others. The series of Bloch’s teaching materials include lecture notes, tests, and student papers from his work at the Cleveland Institute and the University of California at Berkely, including manuscripts of student’s (Roger Sessions, Henry Elwell, and Randall Thompson among them) studies in fugue, in the students’ own hands. Some of Bloch’s correspondence with Elwell, and Elwell’s memoirs of Bloch, may also be found in the collection.”
University of Florida, Gainesville
A fascinating and fact-filled compilation of manuscript material gathered by the noted educator, composer, conductor and musicologist, Dr. Robert Strassburg (1915-2003), focusing on the career and life of one of the most renowned composers of the 20th Century. Robert Strasburg wrote a comprehensive book on Bloch. David Kushner (Bloch Professor of Musicology Emeritus in the University of Florida School of Music, scholar author of The Groves Dictionary section on Bloch, was the beneficiary of Strasburg’s files.)
University of California (On Line Archives)
Inventory of the Ernest Bloch Collection, 1892-1958 (bulk 1919-1958) content.cdlib.org A prominent feature of the University of California collection is a large collection of Bloch’s compositions, donated following his death.
Ernest Bloch Collections University of Rochester
Bloch left his papers to his daughter Suzanne who finally left the collection to the University of Rochester. It includes his pedagogical materials.
Claude Torres of Montpellier, France, has assembled a fine array of references for the Bloch scholar. This includes several sections, including a comprehensive discography with biographical information, a chronology of the works, and an alphabetical listing of works. He can regularly inform you of new offerings if you sign up for his periodic email messages by contacting him at claude.torres1@sfr.fr
Walter Simmons writer and critic
Walter Simmons is an American musicologist and critic who has devoted himself to bringing to the awareness of the music world great works (primarily of the 20th century) that have not yet been recognized. This site offers many of valuable reviews, CD reviews and other articles about Ernest Bloch’s music. You can read a review of his book which includes a section on Bloch ‘Voices in the Wilderness’ here .
A Young Person’s Guide to Ernest Bloch
This is a lovingly constructed site compiled by Mr Akinori Itoh of Japan. It contains a chronological list of Bloch’s life and compositions as well as lists of printed and recorded music and local events in Japan.
Videos of Bloch on the Internet
There is a vast range of filmed clips on Bloch. There are performers from the most distinguished and historic such as Millstein, Menuhin and Zara Nelsova, to newcomers and young students playing Bloch. They cover his major orchestral works in full, to small chamber pieces for all instrument. Included: A Piatigorsky masterclass on ‘Schelomo’; Symphonie Israël (1916); ‘Helvetia, the land of mountains and its people, A Symphonic Fresco for orchestra’; and ‘America, an Epic Rhapsody (1926); and full performances of Eb and C# symphonies conducted by Dalia Atlas with the LPO.
Eric Johnson was encouraged to investigate Bloch’s photography as an undergraduate at the University of Oregon in 1969. He has researched, edited and printed from Ernest Blochs photographic archive. This archive and a set of 40 prints he made from Bloch’s negatives. They are in the collection of the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, AZ. The 40 photographs can be seen on this site.
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
The extensive Bloch archive here contains biographical materials on Ernest Bloch, as well as audio-visual materials and extensive photographic materials. There is a detailed guide available in the Volkerding Study Center (Guide Series Number One, 1979) which provides an itemized list of the glass plate negatives, positive transparencies, small stereo positives and negatives stereo negatives, film-based negatives, and prints. Please contact the archivist for access to this guide.