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Marion Eugénie Bauer (15 August 1882 – 9 August 1955) was an American composer, teacher, writer, and music critic. She played an active role in shaping American musical identity in the early half of the twentieth century.
As a composer, Bauer wrote for piano, chamber ensembles, symphonic orchestra, solo voice, and vocal ensembles. She gained prominence as a teacher, serving on the faculty of Washington Square College of New York University, where she taught music history and composition from 1926 to 1951. In addition to her position at NYU, Bauer was affiliated with the Juilliard School as a guest lecturer from 1940 until her death in 1955. Bauer also wrote extensively about music: she was the editor for the Chicago-based Musical Leader and authored and co-authored several books including her 1933 text Twentieth Century Music.
Throughout her life, Bauer promoted not only her own work but new music in general. Bauer helped found the American Music Guild, the American Music Center, and the American Composers Alliance, serving as a board member of the latter. Bauer also held leadership roles in both the League of Composers and the Society for the Publication of American Music as a board member and secretary, respectively. With Claire Raphael Reis, Minna Lederman, and others, she was regularly in a leadership position in these organizations.
Bauer's music includes dissonance and extended tertian, quartal, and quintal harmonies, though it rarely goes outside the bounds of extended tonality, save for her brief experimentation with serialism in the 1940s. During her lifetime, she enjoyed many performances of her works, most notably the New York Philharmonic premiere of Sun Splendor in 1947 under the baton of Leopold Stokowski and a 1951 New York Town Hall concert devoted solely to her music.
Later in Bauer's childhood, Jacques Bauer, an amateur musician himself, recognized his youngest daughter's musical aptitude,Nicholas E. Tawa, Mainstream Music of Early Twentieth Century America: The Composers, Their Times, and Their Works (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992), 155. and Bauer began studying piano with Emilie.Ellie Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 4. When Jacques Bauer died in 1890, the Bauers moved to Portland, Oregon, where Bauer graduated from St. Helen's Hall in 1898.Hisama, liner notes to Music of Marion Bauer. Upon completion of secondary school, Bauer joined her sister Emilie in New York City in order to begin focusing on a career in composition.
When she returned to New York in 1907, Bauer continued her studies with Heffley and Walter Henry Rothwell,Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 5. additionally teaching piano and music theory on her own.Christine Ammer, Unsung: A History of Women in American Music, Century ed. (Portland: Amadeus Press, 2001), 146. After another year of study in Europe from 1910 to 1911, this time focusing on form and counterpoint with Paul Ertel in Berlin, Bauer began to establish herself as a serious composer; it was after this period of study in 1912 that she signed a seven-year contract with music Arthur P. Schmidt.
Although active as a composer and private instructor in the years following 1912, Bauer ultimately undertook two more periods of study in Europe, partially facilitated by financial upon the deaths her mother and older brother.Pickett, "From the Wild West to New York Modernism," 37. In 1914, she once again returned to Berlin to study with Ertel, but her time there was curtailed by the outbreak of World War I. Almost ten years later, Bauer decided once again to undertake an extended period of study in Europe, this time at the Paris Conservatory with André Gedalge, who had also taught composers such as Maurice Ravel, Darius Milhaud, and Arthur Honegger. At the time, she was 40 years old and offered the following reason for continuing her studies comparatively late in life: "As a member of the American Music Guild, I had the opportunity to measure my powers and my limitations with those of my colleagues....The result was a period of study in Europe. This time I decided in Paris I would find the kind of work and musical environment for which I was seeking." Bauer's studies at the Paris Conservatory, however, were cut short in 1926 when she received the news that her sister Emilie had been hit by a car.Pickett, "From the Wild West to New York Modernism," 40. Bauer returned to New York, but Emilie's injuries ultimately proved fatal.
In addition to teaching at NYU, Bauer lectured at Juilliard School and Columbia University. She also lectured annually at the Chautauqua Summer Music Institute in Chautauqua, New York, putting on lecture-recitals of twentieth-century music with pianist Harrison Potter throughout her career. Potter performed Bauer's piano music in other settings as well, including concerts put on by the League of Composers, the WPA Federal Music Project, the MacDowell Club, and Phi Beta. During the Great Depression years, Bauer also spent summers teaching at Mills College, the Carnegie Institute, and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music as well as Juilliard.Pickett, "From the Wild West to New York Modernism," 42.
Even with her teaching and lecturing responsibilities, Bauer remained active as a composer. Between 1919 and 1944, she spent a total of twelve summers in residence at the MacDowell Colony, where she met composers such as Ruth Crawford Seeger and Amy Beach and focused on composition.Edwards, New Grove, 924. Bauer also helped found the American Music Guild, the American Music Center, and the American Composers Alliance, serving on the board of the latter. In 1937, Aaron Copland founded the League of Composers, and asked Bauer to serve on the executive board of that organization as well.Diana Ambache, liner notes to Marion Bauer: American Youth Concerto, performed by the Ambache Chamber Orchestra and Ensemble, Naxos 8.559253, 2005, compact disc. Bauer additionally served as secretary for the Society for the Publication of American Music, and helped co-found the Society of American Women Composers in 1925 along with Amy Beach and eighteen others.Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 123.
As a writer and music criticism, Bauer was respected for "her intellectual approach to new music," yet she also maintained a level of accessibility in her writings.Edwards, New Grove, 924. For instance, she was published in various journals, was editor of the highly regarded Chicago-based Musical Leader, and most famously published her book Twentieth Century Music, all of which garnered her respect in the music world.Ammer, 148. Prior to her death in 1926, Emilie Bauer had held the post at the Musical Leader. (Pickett, "From the Wild West to New York Modernism," 40). At the same time, though, Bauer made new music accessible to newcomers with her books such as How Music Grew: From Prehistoric Times to the Present Day.Susan Pickett, "Chapter 15: Marion in Paris, 1923-1926," The Bauer Sisters, unpublished, used with special permission of the author. Bauer also had a highly inclusive view of what constituted "serious" music, as demonstrated in the content of Twentieth Century Music. Besides being one of the first textbooks to discuss serialism, Twentieth Century Music also mentioned numerous women composers in contrast to other contemporary music textbooks such as Paul Rosenfeld's Musical Portraits, An Hour with American Music and John Tasker Howard's Our Contemporary Composers, which only briefly mentioned women composers, if they were mentioned at all. Bauer's book also discussed modernist works by African American composers and included jazz in its discussion of twentieth-century music.Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 124.
During her Tenure at New York University, Bauer worked on many manuscripts, now archived at the institution. Such works include, “notes for a proposed book on “Titans of Music” with chapters on Monteverdi (ch. I), Beethoven (ch. IV), and Brahms and the Schumanns (ch. VI); a book on "Modern Creators of Music: A Survey of Contemporary Music and Its Makers" with chapters on Berlioz (ch. II) and Liszt and Wagner (ch. III); and a book on "Some Social Aspects of Music: Its Purpose and Place" with chapters on “The Functions of Music” (pt. I, ch. I), “Music as a Common Language” (pt. I, ch. II), “Music in Therapy and Industry” (pt. I, ch. III) and “Music’s Place in Religion” (pt. I, ch. IV) (Shewbert, 2008). Articles, speeches, and “Contemporary Piano Music: Grade II and III” and “American Piano Music” are also found in these archives. In 1951, Ethel Peyser, an American journalist (1887-1961), wrote of Bauer, “At present, besides her jobs as critic, editor, lecturer, teacher, composer, adviser, she is writing… is it one, two or three books? Who knows!” (“Marion” 7) (Shewbert, 2008, p. 48).
Although she had never earned a formal college degree, Marion Bauer received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Whitman College in 1932 and an honorary Doctor of Music degree from New York University’s College of Music in 1951 (Nyu.edu, 14 Nov. 2024) “for distinguished professional services and outstanding achievement in Music Education” (Shewbert, 2008 p. 58).
In 1952, Marion Bauer received the Henry Hadley citation for “Distinguished Service to American Music,” along with three other recipients. This award was presented to Bauer at the annual meeting of the National Association for American Composers and Conductors. The same year, Bauer gave her last lecture at Chautauqua, a social and educational convention held in Chautauqua, New York. Featuring many writers, musicians, teachers, and other influential figures, Bauer delivered a speech on “The Meaning of Music.” The year after, “Bauer was honored for contributing ‘the best in children’s music during 1953’ for her pedagogical piano collection, Summertime Suite.”
WNYC, a New York media company, presented a program of Bauer’s compositions in 1954, with support from the American Composers’ Alliance. This program, performed by pianist Dorothy Eustis, included Bauer’s works, “Sun Splendor,” “Dance Sonata,” “Here Alone,” “Dreams in the Dusk,” and “From the Shore.” Vocal pieces were sung by tenor Carey Sparks.
Marion Bauer’s last remaining sibling, Flora, passed away on February 9, 1954, at age 80 (Shewbert, 2014, p.217). Following the loss of her sister, Bauer stepped down as the New York Editor of the periodical, The Musical Leader, only a few months later. In the summer of 1955, only a few days before her tragic death, Marion attended a celebration at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and wrote to Mrs. MacDowell regarding her enjoyment of the event and grief for her sister, Flora. Bauer wrote, “In spite of the enjoyment I got out of the entire experience, it made me feel sad too. My thoughts of Flora and the many happy years we had there with you and Nina Maud were quite overwhelming. But I have had to learn to make the happy moments outweigh the sorrowful ones…. I did so appreciate your last sweet letter. How well you understand what Flora’s going meant to me. But I have been busy and have gone ahead as well as I know how.”
The discrepancy between the relative conservatism of Bauer's work versus the more experimental works she advocated in her writings such as Twentieth Century Music is partially explained by her publisher Arthur P. Schmidt's hesitation to support her early modernist inclinations in composition. Schmidt and Bauer, although maintaining a close relationship, notably disagreed on style.Adrienne Fried Block, "Arthur P. Schmidt, Music Publisher and Champion of American Women Composers" in The Musical Woman: An International Perspective, v. 2, eds. Judith Lang Zaimont, Catherine Overhauser, and Jane Gottlieb (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 167. It is inferred that when Bauer's seven-year contract was about to expire, Schmidt requested that Bauer simplify her compositional style, as indicated by Bauer's response to his correspondence: "It is not stubbornness on my part not to write simple things. I can only write what I feel–and someday (soon I hope) I shall learn to do the big simple thing. I must do my work in steps–evolutionary, not revolutionary. I have so little time to write that naturally change of style is slow."Block, 167-168. It is also possible that the experience of having her Violin Sonata (later published under the title Fantasia Quasi Una Sonata) demoted from first to second place in the 1928 Society for the Publication of American Music competition expressly for its "modernist tendencies" led Bauer to adopt a comparatively conservative style of composition.
Bauer did, however, play a significant role in the development of non-tertian harmony in American music. Along with Ernest Bloch, Bauer was one of the first American composers to experiment with quintal harmony, or harmony based on stacked fifths, as demonstrated in her 1926 solo piano version of Sun Splendor and her writings about it.Susan Pickett, Chapter 19: "Sun Splendor, Fantasia Quasi Una Sonata: A New Twist, String Quartet, 1926–1930," The Bauer Sisters, unpublished, used with special permission of the author. In this chapter, Pickett includes an excerpt from a June 23, 1927 letter to H.R. Austin, where Bauer describes her newfound technique of stacking fifths on the piano. The development of this harmonic technique in turn influenced the music of Aaron Copland.Pickett, Chapter 19.
By virtue of her activities in various composition circles, particularly the League of Composers and the New York Composer's Forum, Bauer was well-situated to have even her larger-scale, more resource-intensive works performed.For further discussion on the process of getting a large-scale work premiered, including the time, money, and manpower required, as well as the politics involved in deciding whose work even gets to that point, see pp. 288-289 in Ethel Smyth's essay "Female Pipings in Eden" in Women in Music: An Anthology of Source Readings from the Middle Ages to the Present, Revised Edition, ed. Carol Neuls-Bates (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996), 278-296. Notably, Bauer was the second woman to have her work performed by the New York Philharmonic: Leopold Stokowski conducted the premiere of her Sun Splendor at Carnegie Hall in 1947. Despite this high-profile exposure, though, Sun Splendor was never published in any of its forms–as a piano solo, duet, or orchestral piece–and the only recording currently available is that of the original performance, housed in the New York Philharmonic Archives.
An event Bauer herself considered one of the highlights of her entire career was the May 8, 1951 New York Town Hall concert devoted exclusively to her music. Sponsored by the Phi Beta fraternity at the time of Bauer's retirement from NYU, the works performed that day spanned her entire career and included two previously unperformed works: the Dance Sonata, Op. 24 (1932) for dancer and piano (later expanded and revised as Moods for solo piano) and Trio Sonata II for flute, cello, and piano. Marion Bauer is noted as “one of the fraternity’s most illustrious and honored members” and National Music Advisor. The concert was reviewed by Olin Downes of the New York Times, who wrote positively of the event : "The music is prevailingly contrapuntal and dissonance is not absent. Yet the fundamental concept is melodic, the thinking clear and logical, the sentiment sincere and direct."Ammer, 148 This feature was also described as “one of the great events of her professional career” by author Madeleine Goss, who mentioned it in her book, Modern Music-Makers: Contemporary American Composers, in 1952 (Goss, Modern Music-Makers, 136).
Bauer was devoted to promoting the work of her pupils. She would write letters to music publishers and editors, and would even send her pupils directly to them until they were given a chance. Her commitment to championing new composers often occured at the expense of her own compositional output.
Although unconfirmed, Ruth Crawford Seeger's writings, when considered along with remarks by Martin Bernstein (a longtime friend of Bauer's and a former chair of NYU music dept.) and Milton Babbitt, imply that Bauer may have been a lesbian.Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 102. Crawford and Bauer met at the MacDowell Colony in 1929, where Bauer quickly became a mentor and close friend to the much younger Crawford.Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 99. Although Crawford preferred to characterize their relationship as one of "sisterly-motherly love,"Ruth Crawford Seeger, as quoted in Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 101. she also acknowledged that, at one time, their relationship had bordered on becoming sexual, particularly on Bauer's part when she reserved a single hotel room for the two of them at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Liège in September 1930, which made Crawford "uncomfortable."Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 101. In illustrating the potential romantic undertones in the Bauer-Crawford relationship, Hisama quotes the following passage from Crawford's diary, August 16, 1929: "I go to the chair beside Marion Bauer. She draws me very close to her and kisses me...my head is on Marion Bauer's shoulder and her arm is about me and her hand on my arm, and my hand in hers. I have found a beautiful, a sincere, a warm friend. I am deeply stirred" (100). Crawford eventually went on to marry fellow composer Charles Seeger. Along with Crawford's perceptions of her relationship with Bauer, Martin Bernstein stated: "As a female, Bauer had very little interest in men emphasis...At least if she had any romantic liaisons with men, we don't know about it."Martin Bernstein, as quoted in Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 101. Babbitt further substantiated Bernstein's thoughts during an interview about Bauer when he remarked, "And she was very much a...let's simply say unmarried. But she was an absolute dear."Milton Babbitt as quoted in Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 101-102. Conclusive evidence as to Bauer's sexual orientation has not yet been established.
Bauer also played a significant role in Babbitt's career development. Babbitt decided to study with her at NYU in February 1934 after reading her 1933 edition of Twentieth Century Music. In the introduction to the later edition, Babbitt recollected his thoughts upon reading the work for the first time: "Here was a book...which concerned itself interestedly, admiringly, enthusiastically, even affectionately with works of music which, in most academic environments, were unmentionables, untouchables, and unspeakables, and anywhere else were unknowns."Babbitt, 367. Babbitt specifically mentions his appreciation for her discussion of the serialism composers with accompanying musical examples; during the Great Depression years, sheet music (especially of new music) were prohibitively expensive to own personally, and only a few libraries had copies.Babbitt, 367-368. Babbitt greatly respected Bauer, saying in 1983 that Bauer was "a wonderful lady...whose name I'm going to do everything in the world to immortalize."
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