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Ernst Bacon
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About
Ernst Bacon, composer, pianist, and conductor, was born on May 26, 1898. He was the son of Maria von Rosthorn Bacon, a Viennese-trained musician, and Dr. Charles S. Bacon. He studied at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of California, and also privately with Alexander Raab, Glenn Dillard Gunn, Ernest Bloch, and Karl Weigl. Among the numerous awards and grants he received are the Bispham Award, commissions from the Ditson Fund and the League of Composers, a Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship in Music, three Guggenheim Fellowships, and grants from the National Institute of Arts and Letters; the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; and the National Endowment for the Arts.
A multi-faceted musician, Bacon composed and conducted symphonies, operas, piano concertos, musical theater pieces, ensemble and solo instrumental pieces, and vocal works. In addition, he performed as a pianist in Europe and America, and he conducted the WPA orchestra in California from 1935 to 1937. He taught and was an administrator at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester (1926-27), Syracuse University’s music department (1945-47), and Converse College in South Carolina (1938-45).
He distinguished himself as a writer with such works as Notes on the Piano, The Honor of Music, and Words on Music. In Our Musical Idioms, Bacon presented a new theory of scale models derived from diatonic scales. He was also music critic for The Argonaut, the weekly publication of Converse College. Ernst Bacon was respected as a philosopher by a close circle of friends who were fortunate enough to see his unpublished writings, [e.g. Imaginary Dialogues and his many poems]. He was a highly opinionated man, a fact evident from his large volume of letters to the editors of several major and not so major serials.
Ernst Bacon married four times and had six children. He died on March 16, 1990 in Orinda, California.
–Library of Congress Performing Arts Encyclopedia
Related Information
Songs
A Clear Midnight
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song Collection: Six Songs
A Drop Fell on the Apple Tree
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
A Spider
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
A Wind Like a Bugle
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Alabaster Wool (Snowfall)
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Ancient Christmas Carol
Ernst Bacon
Anonymous
Song Collection: Six Songs
As If the Sea Should Part
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Beat! Beat! Drums!
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Billy in the Darbies
Ernst Bacon
Herman Melville
Clover
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Darest Thou Now, O Soul
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song Collection: Songs at Parting
Eden
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Song Collection: Quiet Airs
Epitaph
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Janet Lewis
William Shakespeare
Fond Affection
Ernst Bacon
Anonymous
Song Collection: Quiet Airs
From Blank To Blank
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Gentle Greeting
Ernst Bacon
Emily Brontë
Song Collection: Quiet Airs
Grand is the Seen
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song Collection: Songs at Parting
How Still the Bells
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Is There Such a Thing as Day?
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
It's Coming - the Postponeless Creature
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song Collection: Songs at Parting
Let Down the Bars
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Lingering Last Drops
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
My River Runs to Thee
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Nature, the Gentlest Mother
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
No Dew Upon the Grass
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Song Collection: Six Songs
Of Love
Ernst Bacon
Robert Herrick
Song Collection: Quiet Airs
Omaha
Ernst Bacon
Carl Sandburg
Song Collection: Six Songs
On the Frontiers
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
On this Wondrous Sea
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
One Thought Ever at the Fore
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song Collection: Songs at Parting
Quiet Airs
Song CollectionErnst Bacon
Sara Teasdale
Emily Brontë
Walt Whitman
Robert Herrick
Emily Dickinson
A. E. Housman
William Blake
She Went As Quiet As the Dew
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Songs at Parting
Song CollectionErnst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song of Snow-White Heads
Ernst Bacon
Song Collection: Quiet Airs
The Banks of the Yellow Sea
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Song Collection: Six Songs
The Commonplace
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
The Divine Ship
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song Collection: Quiet Airs
The Grass So Little Has To Do
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
The Heart
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Song Collection: Quiet Airs
The Lamb
Ernst Bacon
William Blake
Song Collection: Quiet Airs
The Last Invocation
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song Collection: Songs at Parting
The Little Stone
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Song Collection: Quiet Airs
The Morns are Meeker
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
The Simple Days
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
The Sun Went Down
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Three Songs from the American Folk
Song CollectionErnst Bacon
The Lord of Ev'rything
Ernst Bacon
Janet Lewis
To Musique, To Becalme His Fever
Ernst Bacon
Robert Herrick
Song Collection: Quiet Airs
The Sobbing of the Bells
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song Collection: Songs at Parting
Twilight
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song Collection: Songs at Parting
O Friend!
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Savior
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Velvet People
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
World, Take Good Notice
Ernst Bacon
Walt Whitman
Song Collection: Six Songs
Wild Nights
Ernst Bacon
Emily Dickinson
Videos
Recordings
Songs from Chicago
(Ernst Bacon, Margaret Bonds, John Alden Carpenter, Louis Campbell-Tipton and Florence Price)
2018
View recording
Between the Bliss and Me. . . Songs to Poems of Emily Dickinson
(Ernst Bacon, Aaron Copland, John Woods Duke, Arthur Farwell, Lee Hoiby, Lori Laitman and Richard Pearson Thomas)
2009
Abraham Lincoln Portraits
(Ernst Bacon, Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Charles Ives and George Frederick McKay)
2008
To The Soul - Poetry Of Walt Whitman
(Ernst Bacon, Leonard Bernstein, Henry T. Burleigh, Gerald Busby, Philip Dalmas, Charles Ives, Charles Naginski, Ned Rorem, Robert Strassburg, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kurt Weill, Elinor Remick Warren and Walt Whitman)
1997
Dwell in Possibility: Dickinson in Song
(Ernst Bacon, Aaron Copland, Celius Dougherty, John Woods Duke, Lee Hoiby, Richard Hundley, Jake Heggie, Lori Laitman, Libby Larsen, Etta Parker, Simon Sargon, Leo Smit and Richard Pearson Thomas)
2004
The Poetess Sings
(Ernst Bacon, Aaron Copland, John Woods Duke, Lee Hoiby, Otto Luening and William Roy)
2002
I Hear America Singing
(Ernst Bacon, Jean Berger, Paul Bowles, Henry T. Burleigh, Stephen Foster, Ernest Gold, Charles Griffes, Richard Hageman, Sergius Kagen, Charles Martin Loeffler, Edward MacDowell, Charles Naginski, John Jacob Niles, Hermann Reutter, Frédéric Louis Ritter, Ned Rorem, William Grant Still, Hugo Weisgall and Tennessee Williams)
2001
View recording
American Masters - Songs of Charles Ives & Ernst Bacon
(Ernst Bacon and Charles Ives)
2001
Carolyn Heafner Sings American Songs
(Ernst Bacon, Hugo Weisgall, Lee Hoiby and Amy Marcy Beach)
2000
The Listeners
(Ernst Bacon, Theodore Chanler, Lee Hoiby, John Jacob Niles and Ned Rorem)
1977
Songs by 20th Century American Composers (Vol. I & II)
(Ernst Bacon, Samuel Barber, Paul Bowles, John Alden Carpenter, Theodore Chanler, Aaron Copland, Charles Griffes, Charles Ives, Otto Luening, Edward MacDowell, Virgil Thomson and Ned Rorem)
1962
Books
Sheet Music
Ernst Bacon Sheet Music
Buy via Classical Vocal ReprintsQuiet Airs
Composer(s): Ernst Bacon
Song(s): 1. Twilight
2. Gentle Greeting
3. The Divine Ship
4. Of Love
5. Eden
6. The Little Stone
7. Fond Affection
8. Stars
9. The Heart
10. Song of Snow-White Heads
11. The Lamb
12. To Musique, To Becalme His Fever
Songs from Emily Dickinson
Composer(s): Ernst Bacon
Song(s): As If the Sea Should Part
Let down the bars
O friend
The grass so little has to do
A threadless way
The postponeless Creature
I'm Nobody
My river runs to thee
How still the bells
The sun went down
The grass so little has to do
Savior
She went as quiet as the dew
Wild nights
Songs from Emily Dickinson: Nature, time and space Vol.2
Composer(s): Ernst Bacon
Song(s): Velvet people
A wind like a bugle
The morns are meeker
Clover
Nature, the gentlest mother
Voice Type: High
Buy via Classical Vocal ReprintsSix Songs
Composer(s): Ernst Bacon
Song(s): 1. The Banks of the Yellow Sea
2. Ancient Christmas Carol
3. Omaha
4. No Dew Upon the Grass
5. A Clear Midnight
6. World, Take Good Notice
Tributaries
Composer(s): Ernst Bacon
Song(s): World, take notice
Lingering last drops
The Spanish armada
The banks of the Yellow Sea
If bees are few
Sunset
Ariel
With the first arbutus
Sleep
Miranda
Summer's lapse
The bat
There's this to say
No more
Farewell to a name
This and my heart
Eden
Alabaster wool
Dusk
Vanity of vanities
Ancient carol
The last invocation
The divine ship
The red rose
Song of snow-white heads
Simple days
Water
The postponeless creature
Eternity
The unquiet grave
The unseen soul
Voice Type: Medium-High
Buy via Classical Vocal Reprints