Leo Ornstein
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Leo Ornstein (born ''Лев Орнштейн'', ''Lev Ornshteyn''; – February 24, 2002) was an American experimental composer and pianist of the early twentieth century. His performances of works by
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
composers and his own innovative and even shocking pieces made him a
cause célèbre A cause célèbre (,''Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged'', 12th Edition, 2014. S.v. "cause célèbre". Retrieved November 30, 2018 from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/cause+c%c3%a9l%c3%a8bre ,''Random House Kernerman Webs ...
on both sides of the Atlantic. The bulk of his experimental works were written for piano. Ornstein was the first important composer to make extensive use of the tone cluster. As a pianist, he was considered a world-class talent. By the mid-1920s, he had walked away from his fame and soon disappeared from popular memory. Though he gave his last public concert before the age of forty, he continued writing music for another half-century and beyond. Largely forgotten for decades, he was rediscovered in the mid-1970s. Ornstein completed his eighth and final piano sonata in September 1990 at the age of ninety-four, making him the oldest published composer in history at the time (a mark since passed by
Elliott Carter Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 – November 5, 2012) was an American modernist composer. One of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century, he combined elements of European modernism and American "ultra- ...
).


Early life

Ornstein was born in
Kremenchuk Kremenchuk (; uk, Кременчу́к, Kremenchuk ) is an industrial city in central Ukraine which stands on the banks of the Dnipro River. The city serves as the administrative center of the Kremenchuk Raion (district) in Poltava Oblast (pr ...
, a large town in the
Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...
province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
of
Poltava Poltava (, ; uk, Полтава ) is a city located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the capital city of the Poltava Oblast (province) and of the surrounding Poltava Raion (district) of the oblast. Poltava is administratively ...
, then under
Imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
n rule. He grew up in a musical environment—his father was a
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
cantor A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...
(
Hazzan A ''hazzan'' (; , lit. Hazan) or ''chazzan'' ( he, חַזָּן , plural ; Yiddish ''khazn''; Ladino ''Hasan'') is a Jewish musician or precentor trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer. In English, this pr ...
), while a violinist uncle encouraged the young boy's studies. Ornstein was recognized early on as a prodigy on the
piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
; in 1902, when the celebrated Polish pianist
Josef Hofmann Josef Casimir Hofmann (originally Józef Kazimierz Hofmann; January 20, 1876February 16, 1957) was a Polish-American pianist, composer, music teacher, and inventor. Biography Josef Hofmann was born in Podgórze (a district of Kraków), in A ...
visited Kremenchuk, he heard the six-year-old Ornstein perform. Hofmann gave him a letter of recommendation to the highly regarded
St. Petersburg Conservatory The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory (russian: Санкт-Петербургская государственная консерватория имени Н. А. Римского-Корсакова) (formerly known as th ...
. Soon after, Ornstein was accepted as a pupil at the Imperial School of Music in
Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
, then headed by Vladimir Puchalsky. A death in the family forced Ornstein's return home. In 1903, Ossip Gabrilovich heard him play and recommended him to the
Moscow Conservatory The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (russian: Московская государственная консерватория им. П. И. Чайковского, link=no) is a musical educational inst ...
. In 1904, the nine-year-old Ornstein auditioned for and was accepted by the St. Petersburg school. There he studied composition with
Alexander Glazunov Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov; ger, Glasunow (, 10 August 1865 – 21 March 1936) was a Russian composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Russian Romantic period. He was director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1905 ...
and piano with
Anna Yesipova Anna Yesipova (born ''Anna Nikolayevna Yesipova'' '' russian:_Анна_Николаевна_Есипова.html" ;"title="/nowiki>russian: Анна Николаевна Есипова">/nowiki>russian: Анна Николаевна Есипов ...
. By the age of eleven, Ornstein was earning his way by coaching opera singers. To escape the
pogroms A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
incited by the nationalist and antisemitic organisation
Union of the Russian People The Union of the Russian People (URP) (russian: Союз русского народа, translit=Soyuz russkogo naroda; СРН/SRN) is a loyalist far-right nationalist political party, the most important among Black-Hundredist monarchist politic ...
, the family emigrated to the United States on February 24, 1906, exactly ninety-six years before his death.Broyles and Von Glahn (2007), p. 3. They settled in New York's
Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...
, and Ornstein enrolled in the Institute of Musical Art—predecessor to the
Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...
—where he studied piano with Bertha Feiring Tapper. In 1911, he made a well-received New York debut with pieces by
Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
,
Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
, Chopin, and
Schumann Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
. Recordings two years later of works by Chopin, Grieg, and Poldini demonstrate, according to music historian Michael Broyles, "a pianist of sensitivity, prodigious technical ability, and artistic maturity."


Fame and "futurism"

Ornstein soon moved in a very different direction. He began composing works containing
dissonant In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive Sound, sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness ...
and startling sounds. Ornstein himself was unsettled by the earliest of these compositions: "I really doubted my sanity at first. I simply said, what is that? It was so completely removed from any experience I ever had."Quoted in Broyles and Von Glahn (2007), p. 4. On March 27, 1914, in London, he gave his first public performance of works then called "futurist", now known as
modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
. In addition to a
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 f ...
arrangement of three Bach choral preludes and several pieces by Schoenberg, Ornstein played a number of his own compositions. The concert caused a major stir. One newspaper described Ornstein's work as "the sum of Schoenberg and Scriabine squared."Quoted in Broyles (2004), p. 78. Others were more analytical: "We have never suffered from such insufferable hideousness, expressed in terms of so-called music." Ornstein's follow-up performance provoked a near-riot: "At my second concert, devoted to my own compositions, I might have played anything. I couldn't hear the piano myself. The crowd whistled and howled and even threw handy missiles on the stage." The reaction, however, was by no means universally negative—the ''Musical Standard'' called him "one of the most remarkable composers of the day ...
ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is immediatel ...
that germ of realism and humanity which is indicative of genius." By the next year, he was the talk of the American music scene for his performances of cutting-edge works by Schoenberg, Scriabin, Bartók,
Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...
, Kodály,
Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...
, and
Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
(many of them U.S. premieres), as well as his own, even more radical compositions. Between 1915 and the early 1920s, when he virtually ceased performing in public, Ornstein was one of the best known (by some lights, notorious) figures in American classical music. In the description of Broyles and Denise Von Glahn, his "draw was immense. He constantly performed before packed halls, often more than two thousand, in many places the 'largest audience of the season. His solo piano pieces such as '' Wild Men's Dance'' (aka ''Danse Sauvage''; ca. 1913–14) and ''Impressions of the Thames'' (ca. 1913–14) pioneered the integrated use of the tone cluster in
classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
composition, which
Henry Cowell Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 202 ...
, three years Ornstein's junior, would do even more to popularize. In the description of scholar Gordon Rumson, ''Wild Men's Dance'' is a "work of vehement, unruly rhythm, compounded of dense chord clusters ... and brutal accents. Complex rhythms and gigantic crashing chords traverse the whole range of the piano. This remains a work for a great virtuoso able to imbue it with a burning, ferocious energy."
Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...
recalled a performance of it as the most controversial moment of his later teen years. In 2002, a ''New York Times'' reviewer declared that it "remains a shocker."Tommasini (2002). According to critic
Kyle Gann Kyle Eugene Gann (born November 21, 1955, in Dallas, Texas) is an American professor of music, critic, analyst, and composer who has worked primarily in the New York City area. As a music critic for ''The Village Voice'' (from 1986 to 2005) and ...
, ''Impressions of the Thames'', "if Debussyan in its textures, used more prickly chords than Debussy ever dared, and also clusters in the treble range and a low pounding that foreshadowed
Charlemagne Palestine Chaim Moshe Tzadik Palestine (born 1947), known professionally as Charlemagne Palestine, is an American visual artist and musician. He has been described as being one of the founders of New York school of minimalist music, first initiated by La ...
, yet modulated ... with a compelling sense of unity."Gann (2000). As an example of what Ornstein described as "abstract music", his Sonata for Violin and Piano (1915; not 1913 as is often erroneously given) went even further; "to the brink", as he put it: "I would say that he sonatahad brought music just to the very edge. ... I just simply drew back and said, 'beyond that lies complete chaos. In 1916, critic Herbert F. Peyser declared that "the world has indeed moved between the epoch of Beethoven and of Leo Ornstein."Quoted in Broyles and Von Glahn (2007), p. 2. That spring, Ornstein gave a series of recitals in the New York home of one of his advocates; these concerts were crucial precedents for the composer societies around which the modern music scene would thrive in the 1920s. Ornstein also traveled to New Orleans in 1916, where he discovered
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
. The following year, critic James Huneker wrote,
I never thought I should live to hear Arnold Schoenberg sound tame, yet tame he sounds—almost timid and halting—after Ornstein who is, most emphatically, the only true-blue, genuine,
Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...
composer alive.Quoted in Anderson (2002a).
In addition to "futurist", Ornstein was also sometimes labeled—along with Cowell and others in their circle—an "ultra-modernist." An article in the ''
Baltimore Evening Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tri ...
'' referred to him as "the intransigent pianist, who has set the entire musical world by the ears and who is probably the most discussed figure on the concert stage." In ''
The Musical Quarterly ''The Musical Quarterly'' is the oldest academic journal on music in America. Originally established in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, the journal was edited by Sonneck until his death in 1928. Sonneck was succeeded by a number of editors, including Car ...
'' he was described as "the most salient musical phenomenon of our time." Swiss-born composer
Ernest Bloch Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959) was a Swiss-born American composer. Bloch was a preeminent artist in his day, and left a lasting legacy. He is recognized as one of the greatest Swiss composers in history. As well as producing music ...
declared him "the single composer in America who displays positive signs of genius." By 1918, Ornstein was sufficiently renowned that a full-length biography of him was published. The book, by Frederick H. Martens, suggests not only the level of Ornstein's fame at age twenty-four, but also his divisive effect on the cultural scene:
Leo Ornstein to many represents an evil musical genius wandering without the utmost pale of tonal orthodoxy, in a weird No-Man's Land haunted with tortuous sound, with wails of futuristic despair, with cubist shrieks and post-impressionist cries and crashes. He is the great anarch, the iconoclast.
Cowell, who had encountered Ornstein while studying in New York, would pursue a similarly radical style as part of a grand intellectual and cultural mission, which also involved ambitious writings on music theory and publishing and promotional efforts in support of the avant-garde. Ornstein, the vanguard iconoclast of American classical music, followed a much more idiosyncratic muse: "I'm guided entirely by just my musical instinct as to what I feel is consequential or inconsequential." Evidence of that is the fact that, even at the height of his ultra-modernist notoriety, he also wrote several lyrical, tonal works, such as the First Sonata for Cello and Piano: " twas written in less than a week under a compulsion that was not to be resisted", Ornstein later said. "Why I should have heard this romantic piece at the same period that I was tumultuously involved in the primitivism of
ther works Ther may refer to: *''Thér.'', taxonomic author abbreviation of Irénée Thériot (1859–1947), French bryologist *Agroha Mound, archaeological site in Agroha, Hisar district, India *Therapy A therapy or medical treatment (often abbreviated ...
is beyond my understanding." Commenting on the piece after Ornstein's death approximately three-quarters of a century later, critic Martin Anderson wrote that it "rivals
Rachmaninov Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of ...
's ello sonatain gorgeous tunes." Before the turn of the decade—probably in 1918 or 1919—Ornstein produced one of his most distinctive works involving tone clusters, ''Suicide in an Airplane''. Its score calls for a high-speed bass
ostinato In music, an ostinato (; derived from Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include ...
pattern meant to simulate the sound of engines and capture the sensation of flight. The piece would serve as an inspiration for the ''Airplane Sonata'' (1923) of
George Antheil George Johann Carl Antheil (; July 8, 1900 – February 12, 1959) was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author, and inventor whose modernist musical compositions explored the modern sounds – musical, industrial, and mechanical – of t ...
, who reflected Ornstein's influence in other works such as ''Sonata Sauvage'' (1923). Writing in 2000, pianist and historian Joseph Smith cited ''Suicide in an Airplane'' among those pieces of Ornstein's that "represented (and may still represent) the ''ne plus ultra'' of pianistic violence."


Transition in the 1920s

Ornstein, burned out, effectively gave up his celebrated performance career in the early 1920s. His "music was soon forgotten", writes scholar Erik Levi, leaving him "an essentially peripheral figure in American musical life." As described by Broyles, "Ornstein had mostly retired by the time the new music organizations of the 1920s appeared. Too early and too independent, Ornstein had little desire to participate in the modernist movement by the time it caught hold in the United States. ... eseemed little bothered by the publicity or the lack of it. He listened only to his own voice."Broyles (2004), p. 81. Ornstein's primary compositional style was changing as well. As described by latter-day critic Gordon Rumson, his
musical language organised itself into a shimmering, luminous gradation between simplicity and harshness. The melodies have a Hebraic tint, and Ornstein does not shy from placing dissonant and tonal music side by side. This shifting of style is just one of Ornstein's creative tools. More importantly, there is a directness of emotion that makes the music genuinely appealing. It should also be noted that his music is ideally written for the piano and is clearly the work of a master pianist.
This transformation contributed to Ornstein's fade into obscurity. Those whom he had inspired now rejected him, almost as vehemently as the critics he had shocked a decade earlier. " had been radical modernism's poster boy throughout the 1910s, and when he abandoned that style for one more expressive the ultramoderns reacted as a lover scorned", according to Broyles. "Not even Cowell, known for his accepting temperament, could forgive Ornstein." Having abandoned not only the concert stage, but also the income that went with it, Ornstein signed an exclusive contract with the Ampico label to make piano rolls. He made over two dozen rolls for Ampico, mostly of a nonmodernist repertoire; the composers he performed most often were Chopin, Schumann, and
Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
. Two rolls contained his own compositions: ''Berceuse (Cradle Song)'' (ca. 1920–21) and ''Prélude tragique'' (1924). Ornstein never recorded, in any format, even a single example of his futurist pieces which had brought him fame. In the mid-1920s, Ornstein left New York to accept a teaching post at the Philadelphia Musical Academy, later part of the University of the Arts. During this period, he wrote some of his most important work, including the Piano Concerto, commissioned by the
Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the " Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription ...
in 1925. Two years later, he produced his Piano Quintet. An epic tonal work marked by an adventurous use of dissonance and complex
rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recu ...
ic arrangements, it is recognized as a masterpiece of the genre.


Later life

In the early 1930s, Ornstein gave his last public performance. A few years later, he and his wife—the former Pauline Cosio Mallet-Prèvost (1892–1985), also a pianist—founded the Ornstein School of Music in Philadelphia. Among the students there,
John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of br ...
and Jimmy Smith would go on to major careers in jazz. The Ornsteins directed and taught at the school until it closed with their retirement in 1953. They essentially disappeared from public view until the mid-1970s, when they were tracked down by music historian
Vivian Perlis Vivian Perlis (April 26, 1928 – July 4, 2019) was an American musicologist and the founder and former director of Yale University's Oral History of American Music. Personal life Vivian Perlis was born in Brooklyn, New York. After growing u ...
: the couple was spending the winter in a Texas trailer park (they also had a home in New Hampshire). Ornstein had continued to compose music; equipped with a powerful memory, he was not diligent about writing it all down and had not sought to publicize it for decades. Though his style had tempered greatly since the 1910s, it retained its unique character, and with his rediscovery came a new burst of productivity. In Gann's description, piano works composed by Ornstein in his eighties, such as ''Solitude'' and ''Rendezvous at the Lake'', featured melodies that "sprang through endless ornate curlicues that brought no other composer to mind." In 1988, the ninety-two-year-old Ornstein wrote his Seventh Piano Sonata. With this composition Ornstein became, by a couple of years, the oldest published composer, until
Elliott Carter Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 – November 5, 2012) was an American modernist composer. One of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century, he combined elements of European modernism and American "ultra- ...
, ever to produce a substantial new work. On September 23, 1990, at the age of ninety-four, Ornstein completed his final work, the Eighth Piano Sonata. The names of the sonata's movements reflect not only the passage of a remarkable span of time, but an undimmed sense of humor and exploratory spirit: I. "Life's Turmoil and a Few Bits of Satire" / II. "A Trip to the Attic—A Tear or Two for a Childhood Forever Gone" (a. "The Bugler" / b. "A Lament for a Lost Toy" / c. "A Half-Mutilated Cradle—Berceuse" / d. "First Carousel Ride and Sounds of a Hurdy-Gurdy") / III. "Disciplines and Improvisations." Reviewing the work's New York debut, critic
Anthony Tommasini Anthony Carl Tommasini (born April 14, 1948) is an American music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Described as "a discerning critic, whose taste, knowledge and judgment have made him a must-read", Tommasini was the chief ...
wrote, "Between the roaring craziness of the first and third movements, the middle movement is a suite of four short musical musings on childhood mementos discovered in an attic. Though completely incongruous, the shift in tone is audacious and the music disarming. The audience listened raptly, then erupted in applause." On February 24, 2002, Ornstein died in
Green Bay, Wisconsin Green Bay is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The county seat of Brown County, it is at the head of Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It is above sea lev ...
. At the age of 106, he was among the longest-lived of composers.Midgette (2002).


See also

* List of solo piano compositions by Leo Ornstein


Notes


Citations


Sources

*Anderson, Martin (2002a). "Obituary: Leo Ornstein", ''The Independent'' (London), February 28. *Anderson, Martin (2002b). Liner notes to ''Leo Ornstein: Piano Music'' (Hyperion 67320) (availabl
online
. * *Broyles, Michael (2004). ''Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music''. New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press. *Broyles, Michael, and Denise Von Glahn (2007). ''Leo Ornstein: Modernist Dilemmas, Personal Choices''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007. *Broyles, Michael, and Denise Von Glahn (2007). Liner notes to ''Leo Ornstein: Complete Works for Cello and Piano'' (New World 80655) (availabl
online
. *Crunden, Robert Morse (2000). ''Body and Soul: The Making of American Modernism.'' New York: Basic Books. *Gann, Kyle (2000). "Tri-Century Man", ''Village Voice'', December 19 (p. 136; availabl
online
. *Levi, Erik (2000). "Futurist Influences upon Early Twentieth-Century Music", in ''International Futurism in Arts and Literature'', ed. Günter Berghaus. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 322–52. *Martens, Frederick H. (1975
918 __NOTOC__ Year 918 ( CMXVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * December 23 – King Conrad I, injured at one of his battles with Arnu ...
. ''Leo Ornstein: The Man, His Ideas, His Work''. New York: Arno (excerpte
online
. *Mathieson, Kenny (2002). ''Cookin': Hard Bop and Soul Jazz, 1954–65''. Edinburgh: Canongate. *Midgette, Anne (2002). "Leo Ornstein, 108, Pianist and Avant-Garde Composer", ''New York Times'', March 5. *Oja, Carol J. (2000). ''Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s''. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. *Ornstein, Severo M. (2002). Liner notes to ''Leo Ornstein: Piano Sonatas'' (Naxos 8.559104). *Perlis, Vivian (1983). "String Quartet No. 3 by Leo Ornstein ecording review, ''American Music'' vol. 1, no. 1, spring (pp. 104–6). *Pollack, Howard (2000
999 999 or triple nine most often refers to: * 999 (emergency telephone number), a telephone number for the emergency services in several countries * 999 (number), an integer * AD 999, a year * 999 BC, a year Books * ''999'' (anthology) or ''999: T ...
. ''Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man''. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. *Porter, Lewis (1999
998 Year 998 ( CMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Spring – Otto III retakes Rome and restores power in the papal city. Crescenti ...
. ''John Coltrane: His Life and Music''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. *Rumson, Gordon (2002). "Leo Ornstein (1892–2002)", in ''Music of the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde: A Biocritical Sourcebook'', ed. Larry Sitsky. New York: Greenwood, pp. 351–57. *Smith, Joseph, ed. (2001 ntroduction dated 2000. ''American Piano Classics: 39 Works by Gottschalk, Griffes, Gershwin, Copland, and Others''. Mineola, N.Y.: Courier Dover. *Stepner, Daniel (1997). Liner notes to ''Leo Ornstein: Piano Quintet and String Quartet No. 3'' (New World 80509) (availabl
online
. *Tommasini, Anthony (2002). "A Russian Rhapsody With the Power to Jolt", ''New York Times'', March 28. * Von Glahn, Denise, and Michael Broyles, eds. (2005).
Leo Ornstein: Quintette for Piano and Strings, Op. 92
'. Music of the United States of America (MUSA) vol. 13. Madison, Wisc.: A-R Editions.


External links

*
Leo Ornstein
at Music of the United States of America (MUSA)
Leo Ornstein
artist's website, including a list of works (many with scores and MP3s on demand), prepared by his son Severo
The Leo Ornstein Papers
at the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University—a register of archived documents spanning his career
"Re: 100 In The Shade"
a more detailed version of Martin Anderson's Ornstein obituary

July 18, 1987 ;Listening
Leo Ornstein Centenary Program, December 1, 1992
the composer, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, visits with
Charles Amirkhanian Charles Benjamin Amirkhanian (born January 19, 1945; Fresno, California) is an American composer. He is a percussionist, sound poet, and radio producer of Armenian origin. He is mostly known for his electroacoustic and text-sound music. Perfor ...

Leo Ornstein: The Last of the Original 20th Century Mavericks
Ornstein and his wife interviewed by Vivian Perlis
Ornstein Piano Music
Marc-André Hamelin's performance of ''Suicide in an Airplane'' from the Hyperion ''Leo Ornstein: Piano Music''

video of 2002 performance of ''A Morning in the Woods'' (Sep 28, 1971) for solo piano {{DEFAULTSORT:Ornstein, Leo 1890s births 2002 deaths 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century classical composers American centenarians American male pianists American classical composers American classical pianists American contemporary classical composers American people of Russian-Jewish descent American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Contemporary classical music performers Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Jews from the Russian Empire Jewish classical composers Jewish American classical composers Jewish Ukrainian musicians Male classical pianists Modernist composers People from Kremenchuk Pupils of Percy Goetschius Ukrainian Jews Men centenarians 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews