William Schuman
William Howard Schuman (
August 4,
1910â€"
February 15,
1992) was an
American composer and music administrator.
Born in
the Bronx in
New York City to Samuel and Rachel Schuman, Schuman was named after the twenty-seventh U.S. president,
William Howard Taft (although his family preferred to call him Bill). Schuman played the
violin and
banjo as a child, but his overwhelming passion was baseball. While still in high school, he formed a
dance band, "Billy Schuman and his Alamo Society Orchestra", that played local weddings and bar mitzvahs (Schuman played string bass in the band).
In 1928 he entered
New York University's School of Commerce to pursue a business degree, at the same time working for an advertising agency. He also wrote popular songs with E. B. Marks, Jr., a friend he had met long before at summer camp. About then Schuman met lyricist
Frank Loesser and wrote some forty songs with him. (Indeed, Loesser's first published song, "In Love with a Memory of You", credits the music to William H. Schuman.)
Then on the fateful date of
April 4 1930, Schuman went with his older sister, Audrey, to a
Carnegie Hall concert of the
New York Philharmonic, conducted by
Arturo Toscanini. The program included works by
Wagner,
Kodály, and
Schumann. Of this experience, Schuman later said, "I was astounded at seeing the sea of stringed instruments, and everybody bowing together. The visual thing alone was astonishing. But the sound! I was overwhelmed. I had never heard anything like it. The very next day, I decided to become a composer."
Schuman dropped out of school to study
music, finding private tutors in classical composition. One of his teachers was
Roy Harris. Harris brought Schuman to the attention of the
conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who championed many of his works.
In 1943 he won the inaugural
Pulitzer Prize for Music for his
cantata,
A Free Song, adapted from poems by
Walt Whitman. From 1935 to 1945, he taught composition at
Sarah Lawrence College. In 1945, he became president of the
Juilliard School of Music, founding the
Juilliard String Quartet while there. He left in 1961 to take up the directorship of
Lincoln Center.
Schuman left a substantial body of work. His "eight
symphonies, numbered Three through Ten", as he himself put it (the first two were withdrawn), continue to grow in stature. His
concerto for violin (1947 rev. 1959) has been hailed as among his "most powerful works ... it could almost be considered a symphony for violin and orchestra." Other works include the
New England Triptych (1956, based on melodies by
William Billings), the
American Festival Overture (1939), the
ballets Undertow (1945) and
Judith (1949) (the latter written for
Martha Graham), the
Mail Order Madrigals (1972) to texts from the 1897
Sears Roebuck catalog, and two
operas,
The Mighty Casey (1953, based on
Ernest L. Thayer's
Casey at the Bat), which reflected his lifelong love of baseball, and
A Question of Taste (1989, after a short story by
Roald Dahl) . He also
arranged Charles Ives'
organ piece
Variations on "America" for
orchestra in 1963, in which version it is better known. Another popular work by William Schuman is his
George Washington Bridge (1952), for concert band.
William Schuman appeared as the opening guest on the
CBS game show,
What's My Line? on
September 30 1962 (episode #632). Because of his recognizability, panel members
Dorothy Kilgallen,
Martin Gabel,
Arlene Francis, and
Bennett Cerf were blindfolded. Schuman's title card identified him as "Composer and President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (New York City)". Schuman displayed his wit in response to panel questions. After the panel exhausted a few categories, Kilgallen asked, "What about music?" Schuman replied, "What about it?" When asked if he was
Leonard Bernstein, Schuman replied, "He's a friend." When asked if he was
Rudolf Bing, Schuman repeated, "He's a friend," prompting Francis to wonder who was not his friend. When asked if he had ever sang for the
Metropolitan Opera, Schuman said, "Often desired to, never invited" Cerf identified him after host
John Charles Daly had flipped over all the cards. Daly announced that Schuman's Eighth Symphony would be performed at Philharmonic Hall (now
Avery Fisher Hall) the following Thursday. That date,
October 4 1962, marked the première of the work. It was recorded for
Columbia Masterworks Records five days later by its performers, the
New York Philharmonic conducted by Bernstein.
*
The William Schuman Music Trust*
William Schuman page at Presser Music
