Howard Hanson

Artist: Howard Hanson

Period: Modern (1910-1949)
Country: USA
Born: October 28, 1896 in Wahoo, NE
Died: February 26, 1981 in Rochester, NY
Genres: Ballet, Chamber Music, Choral Music, Concerto, Miscellaneous Music, Opera, Orchestral Music, Symphony

Biography

Howard Hanson was among the first twentieth century American composers to achieve widespread prominence. In contrast to the angular Stravinskian and Americana-influenced sounds that dominated American concert music prior to World War II, Hanson wrote in an unabashedly Romantic idiom influenced by his Nordic roots. Of particular importance to the composer was the music of Sibelius; however, he also acknowledged the influence of composers such as Palestrina and Bach.

After boyhood studies on the piano, Hanson studied music at the Institute of Musical Art in New York City and Northwestern University, where he earned a degree in 1916. In 1921, he became the first American to win the Prix de Rome, which provided him the opportunity to study with Ottorino Respighi, whose colorful orchestral language was clearly an influence on Hanson's own. Upon his return to the United States, Hanson was appointed head of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester at the age of 28. Under the composer's guidance over the course of more than four decades, Eastman became one of the world's preeminent educational institutions. During his tenure there Hanson continued to compose prolifically; he also embarked on a career as a conductor, in which capacity he proved himself one of the great champions of American music. At Eastman, it has been calculated, he presented some 1,500 works by 700 composers. Hanson also commercially recorded a number of modern works in a series for the Mercury label in the 1950s, drawing much attention to otherwise neglected repertoire.

Hanson's most characteristic works are undoubtedly his seven symphonies. The first of these, the "Nordic" Symphony (1922), dates from the composer's studies in Rome. The Second Symphony ("Romantic"), remains Hanson's best-known work, a characteristic realization of the lush, lyric aesthetic with which he is closely associated. Further notable among Hanson's symphonies are the Symphony No. 4 (1943), awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and the Symphony No. 7 (1977), one of a series of works inspired by the poetry of Walt Whitman. Other important works in Hanson's catalogue include The Lament for Beowulf (1925) for chorus and orchestra; the opera Merry Mount (1933), well received at its premiere and in subsequent productions, but now rarely performed; and a variety of other chamber, vocal, and orchestral works.

~ Michael Rodman, All Music Guide

Discography

Gould: Spirituals; Fall River Legend Suite; Barber: Medea Suite Buy this CD	The Composer and His Orchestra Buy this CD	Moore: Pageant of P.T. Barnum; Carpenter: Adventures in a Perambulater Buy this CD	Howard Hanson Conducts Barber, Piston, Griffes, McCauley, Kennan, Bergsma Buy this CD	Howard Hanson Conducts Barber, Piston, Griffes, McCauley, Kennan, Bergsma Buy this CD
Fiesta in Hi-Fi Buy this CD	Fiesta in Hi-Fi Buy this CD	Howard Hanson Conducts McPhee, Sessions, Thomson Buy this CD	Howard Hanson Conducts McPhee, Sessions, Thomson Buy this CD	Howard Hanson Conducts Bloch Buy this CD

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Hanson Conducts Hanson

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Howard Hanson Conducts Hanson

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Howard Hanson Conducts American Masterworks

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Howard Hanson Conducts Howard Hanson

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Actor: Howard Hanson

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Active: '70s
Major Genres: Science Fiction
Career Highlights: Alien
First Major Screen Credit: Alien (1979)

Biography

Composer/conductor Howard Hanson never made a career in Hollywood or scored a movie, but during the final two years of his life, he found one of his works exposed to a vast new public, all thanks to the movie Alien (1979). The event was little more than a footnote to a very busy career of more than 50 years as a musician and educator, but it raised his profile dramatically. Born in Wahoo, NE (also the birthplace of Darryl F. Zanuck) in 1896 to a Swedish-American family, Hanson studied at Luther College in Wahoo before attending the Institute of Musical Art in New York City, and finally at Northwestern University. He taught at the College (later University) of the Pacific and began emerging as a composer at the start of the 1920s, with his prize-winning piece "The California Forest Play." By the mid-'20s he'd also begun making a name for himself as a conductor, and in 1924 was appointed director of the Eastman-Rochester School of Music, in Rochester, NY. He held the post for four decades, and was a major influence on the education of several generations of musicians, as well as founding the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra and writing a huge amount of concert music. Hanson had a kind of split personality where music was concerned -- as a teacher and conductor, he did his best to encourage, perform, and (when possible) record modern, distinctly 20th century works; but as a composer, he wrote in a very clearly romantic style that recalled the late 19th century. During the late '20s and the 1930s, he was regarded as America's most important native-born composer and conductor, with invitations to conduct from the Berlin Philharmonic, among other European orchestras.

Hanson was busy enough throughout his life, between teaching, composing, conducting, and recording, and also so rooted on the East Coast that movie-related work never entered into his career. In 1979, however, his name recognition and music received a big boost from one film -- coincidentally, from a movie produced by 20th Century Fox, the studio co-founded 45 years earlier by his fellow Wahoo native Darryl F. Zanuck. The makers of the sci-fi thriller Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, were unhappy with part of the score authored by Jerry Goldsmith -- specifically, they didn't like the music he'd written for the finale and the end credits, after the title creature has been dispatched, which was also the most peaceful part of the movie. In its place in the finished film (but not on the soundtrack LP), they used the slow movement from Hanson's "Symphony No. 2," subtitled "Romantic" -- it was a hauntingly beautiful piece of music, lyrical and melodic, and luckily for Hanson, difficult to forget. Officially, in the opening credits, the score for Alien was the work of Goldsmith; there was a credit to Hanson for "incidental music" that was much smaller and less prominent. When people bought the soundtrack LP, many were disappointed that Hanson's music wasn't represented on it (the LP and subsequent CD contained the original Goldsmith music) and started to ask around about what it was and where they could get it. The answer got out, first through the music and cineaste communities and later by way of classical radio stations (there were a fair number of them in those days). And suddenly, in 1979 and 1980, there was a spike -- even a boom -- in sales of Hanson's own Mercury recording of the symphony, which remained in high demand for years after. That, in turn, boosted interest in all of Hanson's music, which sold in higher numbers than it had since the 1950s.

The composer passed away in 1981, even as his audience was growing as a result of the movie; ironically enough, all of this took place at a time when his romantic style of composition had largely been relegated to the past by the same academic community that he served. Right into the first decade of the 21st century, people who knew little about contemporary classical music or Howard Hanson, or the Eastman-Rochester School, continued to find their way to his work through Alien, in its many incarnations on television and home video. It was also no accident in 2004 that the Hanson "Symphony No. 2" was among the first wave of Mercury classical recordings to find their way onto the audiophile Super-Audio CD format. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Filmography: Howard Hanson

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Alien

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Music Encyclopedia: Howard (Harold) Hanson

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(b Wahoo, ne, 28 Oct 1896; d Rochester, ny, 26 Feb 1981). American composer and conductor. He studied with Goetschius in New York and became director of the Eastman School (1924-64), where he was an influential teacher and founded the Institute of American music; he also promoted modern American music through his work as a conductor. His own music shows the influence of Sibelius, Grieg and Respighi (his teacher in Rome in the early 1920s). Among his works are seven symphonies, symphonic poems, choral pieces, chamber and piano music and songs.

Biography: Howard Hanson

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Pulitzer Prize winner Howard Hanson (1896-1981), a major American composer and educator, founded the annual American Music Festival and directed the Eastman School of Music for 40 years.

Howard Hanson was born in October 1896 in Wahoo, Nebraska. He graduated from the Luther Academy and College in Nebraska in 1912, then studied under Percy Goetschius at the Institute of Musical Arts (later the Juilliard School) in New York City and under Arne Oldberg at Northwestern University in Evanston, IIIinois. In 1916 Hanson became an instructor at the College of the Pacific in California. His teaching and administrative talents soon became evident, and in 1919 he was made dean of the College of Music at the age of 23.

Hanson received an American Prix de Rome in 1921 and spent the next two years in Rome. His most important compositions in this period were the Nordic Symphony and The Song of Beowulf for chorus and orchestra, works which show his sober and highly expressive musical personality. Throughout his career, Hanson's compositions reflected the strong influence of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

Among Hanson's significant compositions are an opera, Merry Mount, commissioned in 1934 by the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and seven Symphonies, of which the Third, the Romantic Symphony is perhaps the best known. In 1943 he received a Pulitzer Prize for his Fourth Symphony, Requiem. His Seventh Symphony was first performed in 1977. Other works include a Piano Concerto, Three Songs from Drum Taps and The Song of Democracy for chorus and orchestra, Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Harp, and the New Land, New Covenant, an oratorio for chorus, two soloists, orchestra, and narrator, commissioned for the 1976 Bicentennial.

In 1924, the founder of Eastman Kodak Company, George Eastman, asked Hanson to became director of the new Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. Hanson accepted and held the post until his retirement in 1964. His energy and administrative skill made the Eastman School one of the most important conservatories in America.

Hanson became active in several national musical organizations. He was one of the founders, and later the president, of the National Association of Schools of Music, whose main purpose was to raise the standards of university and conservatory musical training. He also served as president of the Music Teachers' National Association, as a director of the Music Educators' National Conference, and as musical consultant to the U.S. State Department. One of Hanson's most significant achievements was the 1925 founding of the annual Festival of American Music, which featured the works of many American composers of all styles. In an era when European composers still dominated the music world, these festivals established the important fact that America had produced a large group of talented composers. In 1976, Hanson himself donated $100,000 to support the program.

Life and work

Early life and education

Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska to Swedish parents, Hans and Hilma (Eckstrom) Hanson. In his youth he studied music with his mother. Later, he studied at Luther College in Wahoo, receiving a diploma in 1911, then at the Institute of Musical Art in New York City, where he studied with the composer and music theorist Percy Goetschius in 1914. Afterwards he attended Northwestern University, where he studied composition with church music expert Peter Lutkin and Arne Oldberg in Chicago. Throughout his education, Hanson studied piano, cello and trombone. Hanson earned his BA degree in music from Northwestern University in 1916, where he began his teaching career as a teacher's assistant.

Career

In 1916, Hanson was hired for his first full-time position as a music theory and composition teacher at the College of the Pacific in California. Only three years later, the college appointed him Dean of the Conservatory of Fine Arts in 1919. In 1920, Hanson composed The California Forest Play, his earliest work to receive national attention. Hanson also wrote a number of orchestral and chamber works during his years in California, including Concerto da Camera, Symphonic Legend, Symphonic Rhapsody, various solo piano works, such as Two Yuletide Pieces, and the Scandinavian Suite, which celebrated his Lutheran and Scandinavian heritage.

In 1921 Hanson was the first recipient (along with Leo Sowerby) of the American Academy's Rome Prize, awarded for both The California Forest Play and his symphonic poem Before the Dawn. Thanks to the award, Hanson lived in Italy for three years. During his time in Italy, Hanson wrote a Quartet in One Movement, Lux aeterna, The Lament for Beowulf (orchestration Bernhard Kaun), and his Symphony No. 1, "Nordic", the premiere of which he conducted with the Augusteo Orchestra on May 30, 1923.

(It has been incorrectly stated that Hanson studied composition and/or orchestration with Ottorino Respighi, who studied orchestration with Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. Hanson's unpublished autobiography refutes the statement, attributed to Ruth Watanabe, that he had studied with Respighi.)

Upon returning from Rome, Hanson's conducting career took off. He made his premiere conducting the New York Symphony Orchestra in his tone poem North and West. In Rochester, New York in 1924, he conducted his Symphony No. 1. This performance brought him to the attention of George Eastman.

Eastman chose Hanson to be director of the Eastman School of Music. Inventor of the Kodak camera and roll film, and business master, Eastman had become a major philanthropist. He used some of his great wealth to endow the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.

Hanson held the position of director for forty years, during which he created one of the most prestigious music schools in America. He accomplished this by improving the curriculum, bringing in better teachers, and refining the school's orchestras. Also, he balanced the school's faculty between American and European teachers, even when this meant passing up composer Béla Bartók. Hanson offered a position to Bartók teaching composition at Eastman, but Bartók declined as he did not believe that one could teach composition. Instead, Bartók wanted to teach piano at the Eastman School, but Hanson already had a full staff of piano instructors.

In 1925, Hanson established the American Composers Orchestral Concerts. Later, he founded the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra, which consisted of first chair players from the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and selected students from the Eastman School. He followed that by establishing the Festivals of American Music. Hanson made many recordings with the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra, not only of his own works, but also those of other American composers such as John Alden Carpenter, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, John Knowles Paine, Walter Piston, and William Grant Still. Hanson estimated that more than 2000 works by over 500 American composers were premiered during his tenure at the Eastman School.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Hanson's Symphony No. 2, the "Romantic", and premiered it on November 28, 1930. This work was to become Hanson's best known. One of its themes is performed at the conclusion of all concerts at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Now known as the "Interlochen Theme", it is conducted by a student concertmaster after the featured conductor has left the stage. Traditionally no applause follows its performance. It is also best known for its use in the end credits of the 1979 Ridley Scott film Alien.

In some ways Hanson's opera Merry Mount (1934) may be considered the first fully American opera. It was written by an American composer and an American librettist on an American story, and was premiered with a mostly American cast at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1934. The Opera received fifty curtain calls at its Met premiere, a record that still stands. In 1935 Hanson wrote "Three Songs from Drum Taps", based on the poem by Walt Whitman.

The opening theme of his Third Symphony's second movement is one of the most haunting and memorable passages in American music. The Third was written 1936-38 and first played by the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

Hanson was elected as a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1935, President of the Music Teachers' National Association from 1929 to 1930, and President of the National Association of Schools of Music from 1935 to 1939.

From 1946 to 1962 Hanson was active in United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). UNESCO commissioned Hanson's Pastorale for Oboe and Piano, and Pastorale for Oboe, Strings, and Harp, for the 1949 Paris conference of the world body.

Frederick Fennell, conductor of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, described Hanson's first band composition, the 1954 Chorale and Alleluia as "the most awaited piece of music to be written for the wind band in my twenty years as a conductor in this field". Chorale and Alleluia is still a required competition piece for high school bands in the New York State School Music Association's repertoire list. It is one of Hanson's most frequently recorded works.

From 1961-1962 Hanson took the Eastman Philharmonia, a student ensemble, on a European tour which passed through Paris, Cairo, Moscow, and Vienna, among other cities. The tour showcased the growth of serious American music for Europe and the Middle East.

Marriage

Hanson met Margaret Elizabeth Nelson at her parents' summer home on Lake Chautauqua in the Chautauqua Institution in New York. Hanson dedicated the Serenade for Flute, Harp, and Strings, to her; the piece was his musical marriage proposal, as he could not find the spoken words to propose to her. They married on July 24, 1946 at her parents' summer home in Chautauqua Institution.

Legacy and honors

After he composed the Hymn of the Pioneers to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the first Swedish settlement in Delaware, Hanson was selected as a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy in 1938.

In 1944, Hanson was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Symphony No. 4, subtitled Requiem.

In 1945, he became the first recipient of the Ditson Conductor's Award for his commitment to American music.

In 1946, Hanson was awarded the George Foster Peabody Award "for outstanding entertainment programming" for a series he presented on the Rochester, New York radio station WHAM in 1945.

In 1953, Hanson helped to establish the Edward B. Benjamin Prize "for calming and uplifting music" written by Eastman students. Each submitted score was read by Hanson and the Eastman Orchestra. Winners of the Benjamin Prize appeared on Hanson's recording Music for Quiet Listening.

In 1960, Hanson published Harmonic Materials of Modern Music: Resources of the Tempered Scale, a book that would lay the foundation for musical set theory. Among the many notions considered was what Hanson called the isomeric relationship, now usually termed Z-relationship.

Hanson was on the Board of Directors of the Music Educators National Conference from 1960 to 1964.

Even after his retirement from Eastman in 1964, Hanson continued his association with the School.

Hanson's Song of Democracy, on a Walt Whitman text, was performed at the inaugural concert for incoming U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1969. Hanson proudly noted this was the first inaugural concert to feature only American music.

In recognition of Hanson's achievements, the Eastman Kodak company donated $100,000 worth of stock to the Eastman School of Music in 1976. Hanson stipulated that the gift be used to fund the Institute of American Music.

Hanson's students include John Davison, John La Montaine, Samuel Jones, H. Owen Reed, Kenneth Gaburo, Donald O. Johnston, Martin Mailman, Gloria Wilson Swisher, Robert Washburn, Homer Keller, John White, and David Borden.

Death

Hanson continued conducting, composing and writing in his eighties, up to his death in Rochester, New York. Hanson was cremated and his ashes were scattered on Bold Island; it lies off the coast of Stonington, Maine. It was on this island that Hanson composed the "Bold Island Suite" and many other compositions.

Popular culture

Excerpts from his Symphony #2 were used to accompany several exterior sequences and the end credits in the original 1979 release of the movie Alien. They were removed from the DVD versions published later.

Works

Opera

Merry Mount (1933)

Orchestral

Symphony No. 1, "Nordic" (1922)
Lux aeterna, Symphonic Poem for Orchestra with Viola Obligato, Op.24 (1923–1926)
Symphony No. 2, "Romantic" (1930)
Suite from the Opera "Merry Mount" (1938)
Symphony No. 3 (1941)
Symphony No. 4, "Requiem" (1943; won Pulitzer Prize)
Fantasy-Variations On A Theme Of Youth " (1951)
Symphony No. 5, "Sinfonia Sacra" (1955)
Elegy in Memory of Serge Koussevitzky (1956)
Mosaics (1957)
Bold Island Suite (1961)
Symphony No. 6 (1967)
Symphony No. 7, "A Sea Symphony" (1977)

Choral

The Lament for Beowulf (1925)
Three Songs from Drum Taps (1935)
Song of Democracy (1957) for wind ensemble, string orchestra and SATB Choir

Band

Centennial March (1966)
Chorale and Alleluia (1954)
Dies Natalis (1967)
Laude
Variations on an Ancient Hymn

Concertante

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 36
Organ Concerto
Summer Seascape No.2 for Viola and String Orchestra (1965)

Chamber

Serenade for Flute, Harp and Strings (1946), Op. 35
Pastorale for Oboe and Piano (1949), reorchestrated as alternative Pastorale for Harp and Strings (1950), both Op. 38
Fantasy Variations on a Theme of Youth (1951)

Keyboard

Poèmes Érotiques, Op. 9
Sonata in A Major, Op. 11 (unfinished)
Three Miniatures for Piano, Op. 12
Three Etudes, Op. 18
Two Yuletide Pieces, Op. 19

Music theory

Harmonic Materials of Modern Music (1960), Irvington.

Discography

A boxed set of Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman Philharmonia in his symphonies, piano concerto, etc., is available on the Mercury label. A companion set from Mercury, a compilation of Hanson conducting lesser known American works, is also available.
His Symphony No. 2 is probably his most recorded work. In addition to the composer's own recording, those by Erich Kunzel and Gerard Schwarz are also popular. Also, the Interlochen Center for the Arts uses part of this symphony as its theme (see detailed explanation above).
Naxos Records released a recording of the 1934 world premiere performance of Merry Mount in 1999. For copyright reasons it was not made available in the USA.

Bibliography

Cohen, Allen. Howard Hanson in Theory and Practice, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004
Perone, James. Howard Hanson: A Bio-Bibliography, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993
Simmons, Walter. Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2006
Williams, David Russell. Conversations with Howard Hanson, Arkadelphia, Arkansas: Delta Publications, 1988

External links

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Howard Hanson

Biography

Discography

Biography

Contents

Life and work

Early life and education

Career

Marriage

Legacy and honors

Death

Popular culture

Works

Opera

Orchestral

Choral

Band

Concertante

Chamber

Keyboard

Music theory

Discography

Bibliography

External links