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Collection Ernest Bloch Collection

About this Collection

This site features nineteen early manuscript compositions by composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959), spanning the period from 1896 to 1916, and comprising a portion of the Ernest Bloch Collection at the Library of Congress. 

The Swiss-born composer attracted international attention in 1919 by winning the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge prize for his Suite for Viola and Piano. He became a well-known conductor and teacher, serving as director of the Cleveland Institute of Music, director of the San Francisco Conservatory, and, in his later years, professor of music at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1925, Bloch deposited at the Library a large number of music holographs, correspondence, clippings, scrapbooks, and other personal papers. The early holographs include sketches and finished scores for symphonic works, chamber music, piano compositions, songs, and the opera Macbeth. After the composer's death, his children donated additional material. Eight recordings of lectures delivered by Bloch at the University of California in 1951 under the title "The Language of Music," recordings of a special lecture given in 1952, and a broadcast recording of a memorial tribute aired on Swiss radio in 1959 may be found in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. The Library's Bloch music manuscript holdings are described in Ernest Bloch, 1880-1959: Music Manuscripts in the Library of Congress, available online at http://www.loc.gov/item/94197011/.