Homegrown: Ernst Bacon (1898-1990)
“I would rather instill in my amateur students love, than knowledge, of music. Left with only knowledge, they will at the end close their books and consign the course to forgetfulness. But if they have learned to love but the smallest part of the art, they are likely to pursue some phase of it the rest of their lives.”
According to distinguished composer and music critic for The New York Times, Virgil Thompson, Ernst Bacon was “one of America’s best composers.” Bacon is often listed with the likes of Aaron Copland and Charles Ives as one of the voices of American music. He received three Guggenheim Fellowships and a Pulitzer Award for his Symphony in D Minor. His vast collection of works includes several symphonies, ballets, piano concertos, chamber music, songs, and books about music. He is most remembered for composing music based on great American poets such as Dickinson, Whitman, Frost, Emerson, and several others. His wife Ellen Bacon once said that, “Ernie searched for the soul of America and found his answers in its jazz, folk songs, dance music and its history and literature.”
Bacon was born on May 26, 1898, in Chicago, Illinois. His mother’s love for music and the piano was passed on to him, and he became interested in the piano at an early age. He briefly attended Northwestern University for Mathematics and finished at the University of Chicago. He earned his masters at the University of California at Berkeley. Although Bacon was a self-taught composer, not including his two years of study with Karl Weigl, he seemed to be a natural. His treatise on all possible harmonies, “Our Musical Idiom” was praised for its artistic approach rather than a highly calculated scientific mentality.
In addition to being an accomplished pianist, he taught at Eastman School, San Francisco Conservatory, Converse College as the dean of the School of Music and Professor of Piano, and Syracuse University as director of the school of music. During his time in Spartanburg, he also conducted what is now the Spartanburg Philharmonic.
Bacon’s featured piece, The Tempest was written based on Shakespeare’s play of the same name. It was originally composed for a production of the play at Converse College, and later at Syracuse University. The Tempest has soloistic features from almost every instrument in an orchestra, so it is often used a guide to the orchestra.
"Bacon, like Copland and Ives, wrote music whose breath smelled American. His output is witty, honest, and always entertaining."
- Syracuse Post Standard