Emerson Whithorne (birth surname Whittern) (September 6, 1884 in Cleveland, Ohio - March 25, 1958) [1] was a notable American composer and researcher into the history of music. He had a reputation as an authority on the music of China. He wrote music criticism for Musical America and the Paul Mall Gazette.
In 1907 Whithorne was married to the English musician Ethel Leginska. They met whilst studying music in Vienna. Sometimes they performed duets together, with Whithorne playing the second part in two-piano pieces during her recitals. Whithorne acted as her concert manager for the first two years of their marriage. , and as a composer. [2] Emerson Whithorne had one son with her, Cedric Whithorne, born in September 1908 [3] after the couple returned to England after visiting the United States. They travelled to Cleveland, Ohio where Leginska made her unofficial American debut at Cleveland's Hippodrome, a vaudeville theater. [4] The couple separated in 1910 and divorced in 1916. [5] Ethel mounted an unsuccessful custody fight for her son Cedric, [3]
Whithorne served on the Council of the International Composers' Guild (ICG). His composition Greek Impressions was the opening piece for the very first of the concerts the ICG organised, held at Greenwich Village Theatre on 19 February 1922. A year later two of his compositions, Tears and Invocations received their world premiere at the Klaw Theatre, a Broadway theatre on 4 March 1923, also under the auspices of the ICG. [6] However his piece was performed immediately prior to Edgard Varèse's Hyperprism which led to a riot. [6] Following this there was a dispute between Claire Reis and Varèse about programming, and Whithorne left the ICG to join Reis's new organisation, the League of Composers. [7]
Whithorne lived for a period in London, staying until 1915. The Times reported that Whithorne was prosecuted for playing the pianoforte at unsocial hours. In November 1913 he won the case brought by the landlord of his South Kensington flat.
A nocturne is a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night.
Dame Ethel Mary Smyth was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas.
Efrem Zimbalist was a Russian and American concert violinist, composer, conductor and director of the Curtis Institute of Music.
Frederick Shepherd Converse, was an American composer of classical music, whose works include four operas and five symphonies.
Erkki Gustaf Melartin was a Finnish composer, conductor, and teacher of the late-Romantic and early-modern periods. Melartin is generally considered to be one of Finland's most significant national Romantic composers, although his music—then and now—largely has been overshadowed by that of his exact contemporary, Jean Sibelius, the country's most famous composer. The core of Melartin's oeuvre consists of a set of six (completed) symphonies, as well as is his opera, Aino, based on a story from the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, but nevertheless in the style of Richard Wagner.
Henri Benjamin Rabaud was a French conductor, composer and pedagogue, who held important posts in the French musical establishment and upheld mainly conservative trends in French music in the first half of the twentieth century.
Antonia Louisa Brico was a Dutch-born conductor and pianist.
Paul Alexandre Camille Chevillard was a French composer and conductor.
Louis Gruenberg 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.
Claire Raphael Reis was a music promoter and the founder of the People's Music League in New York City. The League was intended to provide free concerts for immigrants and public schools.
Harry Farjeon was a British composer and an influential teacher of harmony and composition at the Royal Academy of Music for more than 45 years.
Gwendolen Avril Coleridge-Taylor was an English pianist, conductor, and composer. She was the daughter of composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and his wife Jessie.
Julie Rivé-King was an American pianist and composer.
Katharine Mary Adela Maddison, née Tindal, usually known as Adela Maddison, was a British composer of operas, ballets, instrumental music and songs. She was also a concert producer. She composed a number of French songs in the style of mélodies; for some years she lived in Paris, where she was a pupil, friend and possibly lover of Gabriel Fauré. Subsequently, living in Berlin, she composed a German opera which was staged in Leipzig. On returning to England she created works for Rutland Boughton's Glastonbury Festivals.
Ethel Liggins was a British pianist, conductor and composer. A student of Theodor Leschetizky, she became widely known as the ‘Paderewski of woman pianists’ and established herself as one of the first female conductors.
Women in Music was an American newsletter founded in July 1935 by its publisher and editor, Frédérique Petrides, then the conductor of the Orchestrette Classique – an orchestra based in New York made-up of female musicians. The publication ran until December 1940. The thirty-seven extant issues were reprinted in the 1991 book by Jan Bell Groh, Evening the Score: Women in Music and the Legacy of Frédérique Petrides. The newsletter title Women in Music was coined in 1935 by Petrides's husband, journalist, Peter Petrides to encapsulate the gist of its contents.
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse was a French composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; he coined the term "organized sound" in reference to his own musical aesthetic. Varèse's conception of music reflected his vision of "sound as living matter" and of "musical space as open rather than bounded". He conceived the elements of his music in terms of "sound-masses", likening their organization to the natural phenomenon of crystallization. Varèse thought that "to stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise", and he posed the question, "what is music but organized noises?"
The International Composers' Guild was an organization created in 1921 by Edgard Varèse and Carlos Salzedo. It was responsible for performances and premieres of works by Béla Bartók, Alban Berg, Erik Satie, Carlos Chávez, Henry Cowell, Charles Ives, Maurice Ravel, Wallingford Riegger, Francis Poulenc, and Anton von Webern, and others.
Herbert Bedford was a composer, author, miniature painter and inventor. He was married to the soprano and composer Liza Lehmann from 1894 until her death in 1918. His grandsons were the conductor Steuart Bedford and the composer David Bedford.
Franz Kneisel was a violinist and music teacher.