I saw an obituary the other day for composer and virtuoso pianist Leo
Ornstein.

Here are a few short excerpts, plus the link to the LA Times article.

Leo Ornstein, regarded in the 1920s as a prophet of new music on the order
of a Stravinsky or Schoenberg before he withdrew from public view, died
Feb.  24 in Green Bay, Wis.  He was 109.

He gave many of the first U.S.  performances of works by Debussy.
Ornstein soon began performing programs entirely of new music, including
his own compositions, which made use of polytonality, polyrhythms and
other modernist techniques.  Reactions--pro and con--were extreme.
"Ornstein 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 cubistic shrieks and
post-impressionist cries and crashes," a reviewer wrote in the Globe-London
in 1914.  Influential American critic James Huneker, however, described
Ornstein in 1918 as "the only true-blue, genuine, Futurist composer alive."

After he retired from the concert stage, [he] founded the Ornstein
School of Music in Philadelphia in 1935 and ran it successfully until
selling it in 1958....  Despite his withdrawal from public concerts,
Ornstein never stopped composing.  His 40-minute "Biography in Sonata Form"
received its world premiere in 1977 in Texas by Los Angeles pianist Michael
Sellers.Ornstein's apparent final composition, the Eighth Piano Sonata, was
written in 1990.

I found one recording devoted entirely to Ornstein's compositions,
and ordered it after hearing the samples.  It's a quintet for piano
and strings, plus I believe his 3rd String Quartet.  I found the samples
compelling and powerful.  Here's the link to the article.  Anyone out
there familiar with his music?

   http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-000017001mar07.story?coll=3Dla-news-obituaries

Dave Wolf
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