Minjung Seo

Ernest Bloch's Musical Shift from Judaic Identity to Modern Identity Minjung Seo

Ernest Bloch's Jewish heritage was a great source of inspiration for his compositions throughout his lifetime, however, after Bloch came to the United Sates in 1916, his musical style gradually began to change. During the 1920s his role in the classical music field motivated him to accept and apply modern techniques and ambiguous tonalities to his abstractly titled compositions. Also, as a professor and a leader in various music schools, he composed the works to be accessible to more people. This book describes the general stylistic traits of Bloch in the 1910s and 1920s and discusses, through an analysis of melodic and rhythmic motives and an outline of his application of modern techniques, how his style changed most in his compositions.