Bloch, Ernest (blŏk, Ger. blôkh), 1880–1959, Swiss-American composer. Among his teachers were Jaques-Dalcroze and Ysaÿe. He taught at the Geneva Conservatory, 1911–15, and at the Mannes School, New York, 1917–19; he was director of the Cleveland Institute of Music, 1920–25, and of the San Francisco Conservatory, 1925–30. His music is based in the classical tradition, but it has a peculiarly personal intensity of expression and often a distinct Hebraic quality, as in the Hebrew rhapsody Schelomo and the symphonic poem Israel (both 1916). Other outstanding works are an opera, Macbeth (1909); a concerto grosso, for string orchestra and piano (1925); the symphonic poems America (1926) and Helvetia (1929); a modern setting of the Jewish Sacred Service (1933); and A Voice in the Wilderness, for cello and orchestra (1937).

Bloch, Ernest

(born July 24, 1880, Geneva, Switz.—died July 15, 1959, Portland, Ore., U.S.) Swiss-born U.S. composer. He conducted and lectured at the Geneva Conservatory before moving in 1916 to the U.S., where he served as director of the San Francisco Conservatory (1925–30) and taught at the University of California, Berkeley (1942–52). He worked in tonal, atonal, and serialist idioms (see also tonality; atonality; serialism); his works, many of them inspired by Jewish themes, include the opera Macbeth (1910), Schelomo for cello and orchestra (1916), the large choral works America (1926) and Avodath hakodesh (1933), and a violin concerto (1938).

Bloch, Ernest (1880–1959) composer; born in Geneva, Switzerland. He studied around Europe before his opera Macbeth appeared, to critical grousing over its modernism, in Paris (1910). After teaching in Geneva he emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1917, where he held several teaching posts (his remarkable roster of students included Antheil and Sessions) and gained an international reputation as a composer. He spent most of the 1930s in Switzerland. His works, in a rich late-Romantic vein with touches of modernism and often reflecting his Jewish heritage, include five string quartets and Schelomo for cello and orchestra (1915).