|
Louis Gruenberg (; June 9, 1964) was a Russian-born American pianist and prolific composer, especially of operas. An early champion of Schoenberg and other contemporary composers, he was also a highly respected Oscar-nominated film composer in Hollywood in the 1940s. ==Life and career== He was born near Brest-Litovsk (now in Belarus but then in Russia), to Abe Gruenberg and Klara Kantarovitch. His family emigrated to the United States when he was a few months old. 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 Antonín Dvořák). 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. On February 4, 1923, Gruenberg conducted the American premiere of ''Pierrot Lunaire'' by Arnold Schoenberg as a member of the International Composers' Guild (founded by Edgard Varèse and Carlos Salzedo in 1921). Shortly after this performance, he and other members of the league left over disagreements with Varèse and formed the League of Composers.〔 In its 1933 season, the Metropolitan Opera premiered his expressionistic opera ''The Emperor Jones'', based on the major experimental the play by Eugene O'Neill which had already triumphed on Broadway with Paul Robeson playing the title role of an African-American who declares himself emperor on a Caribbean island. In the opera, the title role was created by baritone Lawrence Tibbett, performing in blackface. It was performed at the Met for the 1934 season as well, and featured on the cover of Time Magazine receiving much critical acclaim. Paul Robeson's 1936 film ''Song of Freedom'' also features a scene from the opera with Robeson singing the role of Jones. (This has sometimes resulted in a confusion that the 1933 film of O'Neill's play is a film of the opera.) Between 1933 and 1936, Gruenberg headed the composition department of Chicago Musical College (now part of Roosevelt University). He collaborated with a man nicknamed "Roosevelt's filmmaker," Pare Lorentz to create '"The Fight for Life," a semi-documentary film about childbirth in Chicago slums, on which John Steinbeck also collaborated. In 1937, he moved with his family to Beverly Hills, California, where fellow League members Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky also now lived (though they never spoke). There he worked at merging music with visual media and film, and also composed for Hollywood films. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Louis Gruenberg」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|