Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch died on this day in 1959, aged 78.
In 1920, he became the first music director of the Cleveland Institute of Music and later served in a similar position at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He also taught at the Geneva Conservatory.
Bloch's major contributions to the string repertoire include six string quartets, a violin concerto, six violin sonatas, and the "Baal Shem" Suite for Violin and Piano — which, like much of his music, reflects both European post-Romanticism and Jewish cultural themes.
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