Otto Clarence Luening (June 15, 1900 – September 2, 1996) was a German-American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and conductor, and an early pioneer of

tape music Jack Dangers (born John Stephen Corrigan, 11 January 1965) is an English electronic musician, DJ, producer, and remixer best known for his work as the primary member of Meat Beat Manifesto. He lives in San Francisco. Career Prior to founding ...

and

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

. Luening was born in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

to German parents, Eugene, a conductor and composer, and Emma (

nee Nee or NEE may refer to: Names * Née (lit. "born"), a woman's family name at birth before the adoption of another surname usually after marriage **The male equivalent "né" is used to indicate what a man was originally known as before the adopt ...

Jacobs), an amateur singer. When he was 12, his family moved to

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, where he studied music at the State Academy of Music. At age 17, he moved to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

and attended the Municipal Conservatory of Music in Zurich and

University of Zurich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...

, where he studied with

Ferruccio Busoni Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...

and

Philipp Jarnach Philipp Jarnach (26 July 1892 17 December 1982 in Börnsen) was a German composer of modern music ("Neue Musik"), pianist, teacher, and conductor. Jarnach was born in Noisy-le-Sec, France, the son of a Spanish sculptor and a Flemish mother. Besi ...

, and was also an actor and stage manager for

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

's English Players Company. He returned to the United States in 1924, and appeared mainly as a conductor of operas, in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and the

Eastman School of Music The Eastman School of Music is the music school of the University of Rochester, a private research university in Rochester, New York. It was established in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman. It offers Bachelor of Music (B.M ...

.The Oscholars: Otto Luening
/ref> His conducting premieres included

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclass ...

's ''

The Mother of Us All ''The Mother of Us All'' is a two-act opera composed by Virgil Thomson to a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Thomson and Stein met in 1945 to begin the writing process, almost twenty years after their first collaborative project, the opera ''Four Sain ...

'',

Gian Carlo Menotti Gian Carlo Menotti (, ; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept h ...

's ''

The Medium ''The Medium'' is a short (one-hour-long) two-act dramatic opera with words and music by Gian Carlo Menotti. Commissioned by the Alice M. Ditson Fund at Columbia University, its first performance was there on 8 May 1946. The opera's first profes ...

'', and his own ''Evangeline''. Luening's tape music, including ''A Poem in Cycles & Bells'', ''Gargoyles for Violin & Synthesized Sound'', and ''Sounds of New Music'' demonstrated the early potential of synthesizers and special editing techniques for electronic music. An October 28, 1952 concert with

Vladimir Ussachevsky Vladimir Alexeevich Ussachevsky (November 3, 1911 in Hailar, China – January 2, 1990 in New York, New York) was a composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music. Biography Vladimir Ussachevsky was born in the Hailar District ...

at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

introduced ''Fantasy in Space'', flute recordings manipulated on magnetic tape, and led to an appearance on

The Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was ...

with

Dave Garroway David Cunningham Garroway (July 13, 1913 – July 21, 1982) was an American television personality. He was the founding host and anchor of NBC's ''Today'' from 1952 to 1961. His easygoing and relaxing style belied a lifelong battle with depressi ...

. Luening was co-founder, along with Ussachevsky, of the

Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center The Computer Music Center (CMC) at Columbia University is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. It was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Location The CMC is hou ...

in 1958. He also co-founded Composers Recordings, Inc. in 1954, with

Douglas Moore Douglas Stuart Moore (August 10, 1893 – July 25, 1969) was an American composer, songwriter, organist, pianist, Conducting, conductor, educator, actor, and author. A composer who mainly wrote works with an American subject, his music is genera ...

and

Oliver Daniel Oliver Daniel (November 24, 1911 – December 30, 1990) was an American arts administrator, musicologist, and composer. He worked as a music executive for CBS, then took a job at BMI, creating that organization's Concert Music Department in 1954. ...

. He died in

in 1996. His notable students include

Chou Wen-chung Chou Wen-chung (; July 28, 1923 – October 25, 2019) was a Chinese American composer of contemporary classical music. He emigrated in 1946 to the United States and received his music training at the New England Conservatory and Columbia Univer ...

Charles Wuorinen Charles Peter Wuorinen (; June 9, 1938 – March 11, 2020) was an American composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. He performed his works and other 20th-century music as pianist and conductor. He composed more than ...

Joan Tower Joan Tower (born September 6, 1938)http://www.schirmer.com/default.aspx?TabId=2419&State_2872=2&ComposerId_2872=1605 Biography on Schirmer is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by ''The New York ...

, John Corigliano, Harvey Sollberger,

Faye-Ellen Silverman Faye-Ellen Silverman (born October 2, 1947) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. She is also an author and an educator. Life and education Born in New York, New York, Silverman began studying music at the Dalcroze School of ...

Dave Soldier David Sulzer (born November 6, 1956) is an American neuroscientist and musician. He is a professor at Columbia University Medical Center in the departments of psychiatry, neurology, and pharmacology. Sulzer's laboratory investigates the interact ...

, Sol Berkowitz,

Elliott Schwartz Elliott Shelling Schwartz (January 19, 1936 – December 7, 2016) was an American composer. A graduate of Columbia University, he was Beckwith Professor Emeritus of music at Bowdoin College joining the faculty in 1964. In 2006, the Library of ...

, Bernard Garfield, Norma Wendelburg, and

Karl Korte Karl Richard Korte (June 23,1928 – March 27, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was born in Ossining (village), New York, Ossining, New York (state), New York, and grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. He attended th ...

Personal life

He married Ethel Codd on April 19, 1927, and divorced in 1959. He married Catherine Brunson, a music teacher, September 5, 1959, and was with her until his death.

Works

Luening set songs to words by

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massach ...

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among t ...

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achie ...

, Sharpe, Naidu,

Hermann Hesse Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include ''Demian'', ''Steppenwolf (novel), Steppenwolf'', ''Siddhartha (novel), Siddhartha'', and ''The Glass Bead Game'', ...

, and

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...

. A selection of those recorded include "She walks in Beauty", "Farm Picture", "Little Vagabond", "Young Love", "Wake the serpent not", "Requiescat", "Venilia", "Locations and Times", "Noon Silence", "Visor'd", "Infant Joy", "Good-night", "I faint, I perish", "Transience", "At Christmas time/In Weihnachtszeiten", "Ach! wer bringt die schönen Tage", Songs of Emily Dickinson, "Love's Secret", "Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept", and a Joyce Cycle.

References

Bibliography *

External links

* *
Otto Luening papers, 1900-1996
held by the Music Division,

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, is located in Manhattan, New York City, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on the Upper West Side, between the Metro ...

Interviews

Otto Luening interview
July 20, 1985 {{DEFAULTSORT:Luening, Otto 1900 births 1996 deaths 20th-century classical composers 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians American male classical composers American classical composers American electronic musicians Classical musicians from Wisconsin Columbia University faculty