Performed by Joel Krosnick and Gilbert Kalish at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. in a tribute to Louis and Adrienne Krasner on Saturday, February 7, 1998:

"The program was one that the Krasners would have approved of - two Viennese classics, Schubert's Duo Sonata, Op. 162 and Mozart's C-Minor String Quintet, K 106, and a wonderful work by a Syracuse colleague, Ernst Bacon, that was discovered by cellist Joel Krosnick and pianist Gilbert Kalish. Over a period of years Bacon had composed the movements of "A Life" to commemorate moments in the life of his newborn son; when the son was composed in a skiing accident, (*see notes below) Bacon wrote a final movement, "Departure," revised the earlier ones so that the clouds scud over them, and then put the piece away - he never heard it performed until he was in his 80s. It is a wonderful piece, as subtle and elusive as anything by Faure, but as real and functional as a Shaker chair. The performance by Krasner's Tanglewood colleagues Krosnick and Kalish was heart-rending."

-- Richard Dyer, Boston Globe, February 9, 1998

Performed by Joel Krosnick and Gilbert Kalish at the Miller Theater, New York, Monday February 16, 1998:

"[Krosnick and Kalish] were powerful advocates, too, of "A Life" in which composer Ernst Bacon (1898-1990) created a portrait of, and a memorial to, his son, the five movements including a waltz of parental love and a march of young manhood before the sober elegy. Bacon's music as represented here, is graceful and unexpected. This centenary year should be the occasion to explore it."

-- Paul Griffiths, The New York Times, February 17, 1998

* His son Paul was, in fact, killed in 1968 in a construction accident while erecting a radio transmitter tower. He was, like his father a lover of the outdoors and especially the mountains. He was an avid skier and it is not surprising that these details have subsequently become merged.

Performed by Herbert Burtis and Scott Kluksdahl
at the Edward Pickman Concert Hall at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA, May 17, 1998:

"A Life" is a work for cello and piano that is a portrait of another of the composer's children, Paul, who died in an accident at the age of 26. The suite has music written in celebration of his birth as well as music of tribute composed after his death. There was a noble, eloquent, charming, large-hearted, and utterly unsentimental performance to match the plain-spoken qualities of the music from cellist Scott Kluksdahl, with Burtis at the piano; this is one of the great works for cello.

-- Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, May 19, 1998

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Performed by Malan-Sutherland-Miland Trio, February 1, 1987, Burlingame, CA

"His boldness, his rhythmic balance and his harmonic palette call for physical rather than intellectual response. You want to move with the joyous spirit of the music.
...there was no chance of inattention Sunday night, when the capacity audience seemed tautly drawn to every nuance of the trio's playing.
...As the composition drew to an end, the music got playful, bouncy, full of surprise rhythm changes, yet bold and decisive. It evoked for me scenes of dancing bears and harlequins as in a Felini movie.
Bacon wrote equally well for all three instruments, but his melancholy cello voice and elegiac violin passages stayed with me the longest."

-- Barbara Bladen, The Times, San Mateo, CA, February 2, 1987

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Performed by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra with Conductor Emeritus Kazuyoshi Akyama at Crouse-Hinds Concert Theatre, Syracuse, NY on November 17 and 18, 1997.

"The set of 11 miniature movements, totaling about 20 minutes in length, is a cunningly orchestrated work that captures a variety of moods through the use of melodies with modal flavors, and snappy, syncopated rhythmic accompaniments."
" ...Bacon's settings are unpretentious: simplicity dominates, and the result is an uncomplicated, yet refreshing, array of tunes that charm the ear."

-- David Abrams, The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY, November 22, 1997

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"The work presented in concert version, is in 12 short movements and was intended to accompany stage action portraying events leading up to Lincoln's assassination in Ford's Theater. It's in the finest traditions of modern "program" music -- comparable to Prokofieff's score for "Alexander Nevsky," and Walton's score for the Olivier 'Hamlet.'"

-- Harvey Taylor, The Detroit Times, Nov 19, 1948

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Singers who are always complaining about the shortage of good songs in English, would do well to take a look at some of the music of Ernst Bacon; by the same token, listeners would be rewarded by getting to know a treasurable record that has crept onto the market, and on which the soprano Helen Boatwright, with the composer at the piano, sings 22 of Bacon's Emily Dickinson settings (Cambridge). Bacon, now 70, wrote most of these songs, and about as many again, in the late twenties. With their lyricism, the poetic sensibility of the best of them, their economy, their faintly French flavor, they remind a bit of the lovely and better known songs of Bacon's slightly younger contemporary, Theodore Chanler. Very worthwhile, and the performances are exquisite.

-- Micheal Steinberg, The Boston Globe, April 26, 1968

Performed by Janet Brown, accompanied by Herbert Burtis at the Edward Pickman Concert Hall at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA, May 17, 1998:

Bacon composed more than 250 songs, and 22 of them were featured on the program. Bacon's melodic lines have both the flowing inevitability and the durability of folk tunes. The accompaniments are subtle as Faure's; surprising and elegant maneuvers of harmony color the texts and capture their ambiguities. Bacon had a wonderful ear for poetry and for capturing the weight, color, and rhythms of words in music. A formidable pianist himself, his accompaniments are full of specifically pianistic imagination. Occasionally they pay tribute to great songs of the past he had loved - one hears Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, and Tchaikovsky in them as well as the French composers, always with Bacon's own American accent. He was a consummate professional, so the accompaniments are also always transparent; they support the singer but also stay out of his or her way.

Most of the songs went to Janet Brown, who sang 13 of Bacon's Emily Dickinson settings, as well as a group devoted to other poets, including Burns, Bronte, and Lenau (in German). The soprano is an ideal interpreter of these works, singing with intelligence, musicality, interiority, communicative urgency, suppleness of phrase, and ravishing beauty of tone. Brown is not the most publicized contemporary American lyric soprano, but none of the famous ones sings any better than she does, and some of them nowhere near as well. She enjoyed superb collaborative support by pianist Herbert Burtis, who played with an imaginative variety of dynamics and touch.

-- Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, May 19, 1998

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 After hearing a performance last February of "A Life," Ernst Bacon's touching cello and piano tribute to his son who was killed in an accident, Paul Griffiths, a Times critic wrote: "Bacon's music, as represented here, is graceful and unexpected. This centenary year should be the occasion to explore it."...

The disk proves Griffiths's evaluation is more than correct. The music is always interesting, full of energy and melodious even when dissonant. Much of it is steeped in American folk idiom and jazz, as can be heard in "Tumbleweeds," a 1979 piece for violin and piano, and in several of the Collected Short Piano Works (1950-65), here played with great gusto by Emily Corbato. The Cello Sonata, a four-movement work which uses quotes from Walt Whitman to set the tone ("I know the amplitude of time" is written in the score at the beginning of the first movement), is alternately lugubrious and bouncy. Cellist Bernard Greenhouse and pianist Menahem Pressler give it a convincing reading. "Remembering Ansel Adams," an elegy for solo clarinet (here played by the incomparable Richard Stoltzman), string orchestra and timpani, was written for the photographer, a close friend of the composer. It is a plaintive work which uses hymn-like melodies, and incorporates Adams's name (the musical notes A-E-A-D-A) in the more vigorous contrapuntal second section. Perhaps the disk will help spark an interest in Bacon's music, which deserves more attention.

-- Ira Rosenblum, New York Today (New York Times cultural web site), September 2, 1998

Although this release includes only a single orchestral work, it welcomes back to the instrumental recorded catalog a unique figure in American music, a Chicago-born, American-trained composer who, despite his Austrian family background, was borne on the same nativist groundswell that lifted up his better-known contemporaries Copland, Harris, Thomson, and Piston. Even though his forthrightly tonal, accessible language is thoroughly permeated by the cadences and inflections of American folk song, Bacon was capable of creating works that stand on their own as absolute music, as the magnificent Cello Sonata of 1948 confirms. Possibly the finest chamber work for its instrument by any American, this four-movement, 21-minute statement covers a wide expressive compass and makes a forcefully solid impression. This legendary performance by two great soloists from the Beaux Arts Trio was originally issued on Desto and later transferred to vinyl by CRI. Its restoration to the catalog fills an important gap in the recorded American chamber repertoire.

Also reissued here are works originally released in the 1980s on the West Coast label Orion. The eight striking pieces for solo piano here are drawn from Bacon's mature years (1950 65) and incorporate varying moods and lengths, ranging from less than a minute to six. Several are inspired create independent works, however small-scaled. The Lobo Girl of Devil's River, a dissonantly head-long portrait of a Texan wolf-girl, is an astonishing example of musical fauvism, and all eight are brilliantly played by Emily Corbató.

The only premiere recording here is a late (1988) work in memory of Bacon's close friend, the famous photographer Ansel Adams. This appropriately mournful and close-to-monothematic quarter-hour elegy calls for some passages for solo clarinet (and even an occasional cello), but the bulk of the argument is carried by an ensemble of strings and percussion that are handled with consider able character and eloquence.

No one interested in American music can overlook this release, but let's hope that somebody, somewhere is looking into Bacon's several symphonies and piano concertos. They could prove a revelation.

-- Paul A. Snook, Fanfare Magazine, January/February 1999, Vol. 22 #3

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Wayward Revelations of a Loner Reveling in Song

The centenary concert of Ernst Bacon's music at Merkin Concert Hall on Thursday proved the truth for this composer of Thomas Carlyle's saying that "All deep things are song."

Song dominated the program. Amy Burton sang some of Bacon's Emily Dickinson songs and William Sharp some of his Walt Whitman settings. Both singers were scrupulously accompanied by John Musto, and both also offered other songs, to words by Burns, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Housman, Sandburg and the composer himself. Moreover, several of these song melodies turned up again in the two big instrumental items, "A Life," for cello and piano, and the Piano Trio No. 2. The latter was almost a compendium of such tunes.

For Bacon, song evidently had two sources: the great tradition of German-language vocal music from Bach to Brahms and Appalachian folksong. These were his models, but he gave them a twist. A piano waltz, in the Dickinson song "When Roses Cease to Bloom," supports a wayward, asymmetrical line in the voice. Or a hauntingly direct and memorable vocal phrase -- to take the example of another Dickinson song, "It's all I have to bring today" -- is given a much more prickly kind of accompaniment. Or a stout piece of declamation, carrying Whitman's "Divine Ship," is turned by the piano into a chorale prelude.

Curious, too, is how all the music Bacon loved -- with the possible exception of ragtime, which surfaced fleetingly in one or two of the songs -- had been written before he was born. His reverence for Bach seems to have had nothing to do with the Neo-Classicism of such contemporaries as Paul Hindemith or Elliott Carter. Though he was staunchly traditional in his outlook (as evidenced by a recording, played at the concert, of him gruffly dismissing modernism), his music sounds like the work of a loner, almost as much as Ives's does.

The concert could not have made a better case for him. "A Life" will perhaps turn out to be one of his finest pieces; it was nobly played by Joel Krosnick and Gilbert Kalish. Ronald Copes joined these two for the trio, which was one of Bacon's last works, written when he was in his late eighties.

It seems an unwieldy mixture of the composer's diverse modes -- the graceful, the humdrum and the rugged -- though Mr. Kalish's serene discretion kept it largely on course and revealed many appealing moments. Ms. Burton was in sweet, strong voice and Mr. Sharp robust and characterful. Meanwhile, Mr. Musto's pianism was exquisite and exploratory, and showed that, in the end, not all deep things are song. Some of them are accompaniment.

-- Paul Griffiths, The New York Times, September 19, 1998

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... Among the earlier items, Ms. Fleming was superb in Ernst Bacon's song "The Heart Asks Pleasure First," a composition that is barely more than an eightfold repetition of the same cadencing contour, but as sung here, merged with Dickinson's words in telling simplicity.

Dickinson was no fan of virtuosity, as Ms. Harris disclosed in a re-enactment of the poet's attendance at a concert given by Jenny Lind (Ms. Fleming, warbling). Dickinson preferred "the simple pure art of feeling." Bacon, and Ms. Fleming singing his setting, came nearest taking her at her word.

-- Paul Griffiths, The New York Times, February 22, 2000

My Business is to Love
Renee Fleming, soprano; Claire Bloom, reader
Barbican, London EC2, March 1, 2000

... And on the way, we heard the songs. There were composers little known in England, such as Ricky Ian Gordon and his Letter to the World, with its wide sighs of melody. Ernst Bacon, writing in the 1930s and 1940s, was a real discovery: his salon ballad of a setting of It's all I have to bring had a disarming directness the equal of the poem itself.

-- Hilary Finch, The Times, March 3, 2000

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It's hard to pin down Bacon's style. He was a conservative in that he used triadic harmonies and traditional procedures, but he was also a resourceful, independent-minded artist who stamped everything he did with his own strong, pungent personality. There is a tension between delicacy and ruggedness, an interplay of gentle and tough, that's hard to describe but easy to hear. His use of folk tunes can be earthy, but at other times genteel and elegant--endearing in a chaste, sentimental, Victorian way. He was a skilled craftsman who valued economy and could be simple and direct, but he could also be fanciful and poetic. And he could toss off music of surprising rhythmic or contrapuntal intricacy so easily that it sounds much simpler than it really is. His music is somehow both sophisticated and hand-carved.

This new release offers a selection of 21 songs--half sung by soprano, half by baritone, each with piano--all short, sharply drawn, stressing precision and focusing on a single mood or gesture. Many are gems. 'Schilflied' (on a German lyric) is Schubertian, infused with gloomy, ardent longing. Even better are Bacon's Dickinson settings. 'It's Coming--the Postponeless Creature' evokes the remorseless tread of mortality in somber repeated chords, while 'Velvet People', with its evanescent darting piano figures like the scattering of light on water, conjures up the bumble-bees alluded to in the poem's title. A wayward vocal line over fluttering arpeggios in 'The Bat' portrays that tiny monster's eccentric swooping flight.

The bat's unpredictable trajectories return in the almost Conlon Nancarrowish rhythmic dislocations of the half-whimsical, half-menacing--and entirely astonishing--scherzo of Bacon's 1983 Violin Sonata (written when he was in his mid-80s). This is preceded by a dignified and power-accumulating passacaglia-like first movement, and followed by a sweetly singing slow movement shaded by achingly tender harmonic nuances. The sonata ends with a rugged, vigorous, striding allegro that recasts ideas from the first movement.

The performers obviously love this music; they sing and play it with warmth, sensitive musicianship, and tonal beauty. Sopranos Janet Brown and Amy Burton have lovely voices, and baritone William Sharp is commanding and manly. The sound (seven songs given before a politely quiet concert audience, the remainder in the studio) is excellent. This is a wonderful addition to the recorded repertoire of a fascinating and inimitable American composer.

-- Mark L. Lehman, American Record Guide, September 1, 2002

This is a genuinely wonderful recording, yet another candidate for my already over full list of potential Want-List items.

The extremely fine Violin Sonata from 1983, written on a commission in honor of his 85th birthday, is a firmly original work within its own conservative stylistic parameters. His sense of both form and economy is especially striking here; each movement not a moment longer than it needs to be, imbued with passion and a sense of important matters being under discussion. It is a masterly work that is fully worthy of the powerful and quite beautiful performance given here by Ronald Copes, second violin of the Juilliard Quartet, and that great champion of all things American, Alan Feinberg.

Part of the reason the songs come across so well here, of course, is the outstanding performances they receive by all three singers and their partners. Janet Brown and Amy Burton are both lyric sopranos of the silvery sort blessed with almost perfect diction, impeccable legato, and an ability to make Bacon's occasionally awkward word setting scan musically. William Sharp is just as fine in the ten songs he is assigned, ranging from the robust masculinity of Whitman's The Commonplace to the rapt setting of Dickinson's How Still the Bells.

The recordings, from three separate venues, are all very fine and very well integrated, including the in-concert recording of the seven songs sung by Janet Brown. ...an outstanding issue. ...A definite find and firmly recommended.

-- John Story, Fanfare Magazine, September/October 2002

Not many modern composers would necessarily share Bacon's perspective, but he must be commended for remaining true to what he believed to be his calling as a composer.

Bacon demonstrates time and time again a truly exceptional sensitivity to texts and also a certain daring about setting complicated poems that might not seem to lend themselves to such treatment.

The disk opens with seven songs sung with breathtaking beauty by soprano Janet Brown. Especially lovely is "Schilfled," which shows Bacon could set German poetry quite well. His setting of Robert Burns's famous poem "The Red Rose" is challenging, and Ms. Brown effortlessly encompasses its soaring upper reaches. She also captures the exquisite sense of mystery of the disk's title track, set to an anonymous poem.

It should be noted that this disk features not only two dozen Ernst Bacon songs but also his violin sonata, played beautifully by Ronald Copes, the second violinist for the Juilliard String Quartet. Not incidentally, the slow movement features a quotation from the disk's title song, "Fond Affection." It's fascinating to hear on one disk how Bacon wrote so effectively both for voices and instruments, and also how lovingly and sensitively he crafted his accompaniments, played impressively here by John Musto, Herbert Burtis, and Alan Feinberg.

-- Gregory Berg, Journal of Singing, November/December 2002

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Words on Music (See Works)

"By far the sanest book by a composer that I have read recently. Bacon ought to be read by everybody who is concerned about the condition of musical culture in this country."

-- Winthrop Sargeant, The New Yorker

"One of the best books on music that has come to my attention in a long time. It is sound, constructive, scholarly, and with all this it has a lively style and charm that made it no chore to read on a rainy and dreary Sunday."

-- J.R. Cominsky, Saturday Review

"You've written it splendidly. ...a fine piece of exposition"

--Thornton Wilder

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"If Bacon is able to give out in discussion with his students any reasonable part of the wisdom he has written into "Notes On the Piano, not to mention its recent forerunner, Words on Music, he is a teacher to be sought out for penetration, for relevance and for a keen humanity."

-- Christian Science Monitor

"Ernst Bacon speaks with the voice of a philosopher and the spirit of an artist. His generosity of spirit, his acute perception of human genius, and his passionate respect for that true gesture of the heart which makes every act of art an act of love make his book a perfectly fresh experience. It is beautifully written and nobly purposed."

-- Paul Horgan

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