Jewish Theological Seminary
Columbia University
Juilliard School of Music (1966-72)

Principal teachers: Isador Saslav, Harrold Laudenslager, Miriam Gideon, Elliott Carter, Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky.

Louis Weingarden studied violin with Isador Saslav and composition with Harrold Laudenslager at Cass Technical High School in Detroit. He came to New York in 1960 with plans to enter the Jewish rabbinate, and studied at Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University while studying composition with Miriam Gideon. In 1963 Weingarden left the Seminary. He founded a chorus called the Tudor Singers, and became assistant conductor of the Columbia University Chorus. His music was performed at Columbia, and in 1965 he was featured as composer, conductor and violist on Channel 13 in the series New Voices in the Creative Arts.

In 1966 Weingarden entered the Juilliard School of Music to study composition with Elliott Carter, and over the next few years was accorded tremendous recognition as a composer. He received the Rome Prize (1968), a Tanglewood Festival commission (1971), the Charles Ives Award from the National Institute of Arts & Letters (1972) (the first composer to receive an award from the estate of Charles Ives), two National Endowment Grants, two Guggenheim Fellowships (1973 and 1984) and the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Chamber Music Award. In 1971 the National Public Broadcasting Network series Composers Forum devoted a one-hour segment to Weingarden's music. When the New York State Council on the Arts started its Commissioning Grant program for American composers in 1973, he was among the first to be awarded such a grant. Oxford University Press and Boosey & Hawkes became his publishers.

At that time Weingarden was composing in a highly complex, dissonant idiom and his works were being performed by distinguished musicians. Things Heard and Seen in Summer (1965) was premiered by Ursula Oppens, Hiroko Yajima and Fred Sherry, and Garrick Ohlsson toured America and Poland with Triptych, a 1969 piano work. As Weingarden later told the New York Times writer Will Crutchfield, "Back then, I thought the only way to insure the performers' attention was to make the piece so hard that I knew they weren't sight reading."

The Times article continues:

"A turning point came in 1977, when the Denver Symphony and Mr. Ohlsson gave the premiere of Mr. Weingarden's piano concerto. The piece was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Boosey & Hawkes, which has published several Weingarden scores, still has it in the catalogue. But the experience was frustrating for the composer.

"'It was a difficult piece,' he said. 'I had the orchestra divided, the piano was surrounded by percussion. They gave it five hours' rehearsal and it was a shambles.' That led to four years of compositional silence and a reconsideration of almost everything about musical modernism. 'I relized it was kind of pointless,' Mr. Weingarden said. 'With Carter's music, the players are so intimidated they can't possibly let themselves go. I still have the highest respect for him and what he stands for, but I don't think that's any way to write music. I have decided to adopt the other approach, which is to have good performers who don't need all their rubato written out for them.'

"He started back with what he describes as 'some simple songs' in 1981. His current projects, he said, include '...a solo piece for Joel Smirnoff, the new member of the Juilliard String Quartet...'"

(Excerpt from "AIDS Brings Composer's Inspiration" by Will Crutchfield, New York Times, June 11, 1988).

Weingarden's intelligence and courage also found expression in the early gay activist movement. In the 1970s he opened Stompers, a boot store and homoerotic art gallery, on West 4th Street. Stompers is remembered as one of the first gay art galleries in New York. There he exhibited works by Robert Mapplethorpe, Tom of Finland, Andrew J. Epstein and other important gay artists. In the summer of 1978, in response to the growing violence against gay men in his Chelsea neighboorhood and the inaction of the police, Weingarden organized a group of leather men, SMASH (Society to Make America Safe for Homosexuals), to patrol the streets of the West Village and Chelsea. And two years before his death he became involved in a Human Rights Commission case against his landlord for AIDS discrimination and harassment. It was the first such case to reach the hearing stage.

His Inquiries of Hope: Ten Poems of Kirby Congdon (1984) and Evening Liturgy of Consolation (1985) may be the earliest musical compositions to address the AIDS epidemic.

Louis Weingarden died of AIDS in New York at the age of 45 on June 8, 1989.

—Nurit Tilles

WORKS:

ORCHESTRA

Clarinet Concerto
for: clarinet solo, winds, brass, percussion
date: 1966
note: "For Al Renino, musician & teacher ... to have found something of value in the world, and the means and will to tell of it ..."
source: Juilliard (score, no parts)

Piano Concerto
for: piano and orchestra
date: 1974
published: Boosey & Hawkes (rental)
note: Nominated for Pulitzer Prize 1977. "This concerto is dedicated with respect and fondness to Garrick Ohlsson. It was at his suggestion that I began it, and through his encouragement and attention that I was able to complete it. Great performers are like great teachers, both have found something of value to the world, and both have the powers and the will to communicate that treasure."
premiere: Garrick Ohlsson, piano, Denver Symphony, Brian Priestman, conductor, 1975
source: Juilliard (score only)

Threnodies for String Orchestra
for: violin solo, cello solo, strings
date: 1963
note: "In memoriam Rudolf Thomas"
performed: Columbia University, New York 5/24/65

Triple Concerto for Violin, Violoncello and Piano
for: violin, cello, piano solo; 1,1,1,Eb,Bb,Bs-0;2-1-1; mand-hp-gtr-vib-xyl-perc; 2 Cb
date: 1965
source: Juilliard (full score of first movement only)

CHAMBER

All & Some: Variations for Brass Quintet
for: 2 trumpets, horn, 2 trombones
date: unknown (early)
source: Juilliard (scores and parts)

Canzona a Quattro
for: flute, 2 cellos, piano
date: 1988
note: written for and premiered at wedding of Tamzen Flanders and Karl Kirchwey, 6/5/88
source: Juilliard

Concertino for Violin and Six Instruments
for: violin solo, flute, oboe, clarinet, viola, cello, piano
date: 1964
performed: Columbia University 5/24/65

Dance Movements
for: piano and percussion
date: 1976
source: Juilliard

Epitaphs: Music for Fifteen Poems from E.L. Masters' "Spoon River Anthology"
for: reader, piano, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, bass viol, percussion
date: 1966
    Prelude - "The Hill"
    I - "Birth Pains"
    II - A Theme with Four Variations
    III - "Several ways of looking at the thing"
note: "For Jonathan Slater
    '...My Kite is above the wind,
    Though now and then it wobbles,
    Like a man shaking his shoulders;'"
source: Juilliard (score and parts)

Fantasy & Funeral Music (Fantasy for Two Pianos & Percussion, and Funeral Music with Cello Obbligato)
for: 2 pianos, timpani, percussion (3 players), cello
date: 1967
published: Oxford University Press (out of print)
note: In memoriam Edgar Varèse
performed: Garrick Ohlsson and Emanuel Ax, pianos, with percussion ensemble, Juilliard 1967 Group for Contemporary Music, New York 3/31/75
source: Juilliard (score and parts)

Homilia: Vox Clamans in Deserto
for: brass quintet (2 trumpets, horn, 2 trombones) and organ
date: 1971
note: "For the Rev. Robt. L. Griesse and his Family ... this is the record of John ... (John I, 19-29)"
source: Juilliard

Quartet for Flute and Strings
for: flute, violin, viola, cello
date: 1965 (?)
performed: Channel 13 (PBS), 2/18/65 and 2/21/65

Sketches for the Italian Comedy
for: Bb clarinet, cello, piano
date: 1975
    Nocturne - Pierrot, Harlequin
    Mercury, messenger of the gods - Harlequin
    Tale of Military Triumph - Scaramouche
    Balances Defy Gravity - Pierrot, Scaramouche, Harlequin
    Another duet to the death - Scaramouche,
    Harlequin
    Posing for M. Watteau - Pierrot
    Somersaults - Pierrot, Scaramouche, Harlequin
note: composed for Paul Posnak, David Sella and Ethan Sloane
source: Juilliard

Sonata for Violoncello and Pianoforte
for: cello and piano
date: 1972, revised 1973
premiere: James Kreger, cello, Garrick Ohlsson, piano, Alice Tully Hall, New York 11/25/72
performed: Fred Sherry, cello, Garrick Ohlsson, piano, Alice Tully Hall, New York 1976
source: Juilliard

Sonata: "Les Violons du Bal" for Joel Smirnoff
for: violin and piano
date: 1989
    I - Largo. (For Peter and Rickie Flanders)
    II - Tempo di Siciliano. (For Robert Phillips)
note: final work, mostly written during hospitalizations
premiere: Joel Smirnoff, violin, Christopher Oldfather, piano, Town Hall, New York 2/22/89

Theatre Pieces (collection of three pieces)
date: 1966

Songs of Love and Sorrow: A musical background for ten Elizabethan poems of Love and Death.
for: clarinet, piano, chimes
    Songs of Love
    Songs of Death

Music for Two poems of Lewis Carroll
for: Eb saxophone, trombone, piano
    The Walrus and the Carpenter
    Father William

Five Interpretive Pieces for John Dryden's A Song for St. Cecilia's Day/ for A. Renino & the White Plains High School Wind Ensemble
for: wind ensemble: 2, 1-1-3-1; 1-1
note: Each piece consists of small sections with indications of where the music fits within a recitation of the poems. "For the Slater Family. '...from harmony/ from heav'nly harmony,/ this universal frame began.'/ John Dryden."
source: Juilliard

Things Heard and Seen in Summer
for: violin, cello, piano
date: 1965
duration: ca. 7:00
note: Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Award in Chamber Music, Juilliard School of Music
published: Oxford University Press (out of print)
premiere: Ursula Oppens, piano, Hiroko Yajima, violin, Fred Sherry, cello, 1966
source: Juilliard; New York Public Library; Mimi Stern-Wolfe

Two Rhapsodies for Flute and String Trio
for: flute, violin, viola, cello
date: unknown
source: Juilliard (added to collection in 2002)

INSTRUMENTAL SOLO

Dance Movement
for: piano
date: 1986
note: "for George and Charles who left us this June"
source: Juilliard

Five Piano Pieces
for: piano
date: 1966
source: Juilliard

Five Short Pieces
for: piano
date: 1965
performed: Columbia University, 5/24/65

Fuga Chromatica
for: organ
date: 1964
note: commissioned by and performed at North Shore Unitarian Church, Plandome NY, 11/6/64

Holiday (A Holiday Card)
for: piano
date: 1976
note: single page score with eight line citation from Colette ("The roses bloom regardless of weather, words, sun ...")
source: Juilliard

Partita for Violin Alone
for: violin
date: 1959
source: Juilliard (one original score)

Piano Sonata
for: piano
date: 1962-64
performed: Columbia University, 5/24/65

Prelude: Was Gott thut ist wohlgetan
for: organ
date: 1964
note: commissioned by and performed at North Shore Unitarian Church, Plandome NY, 11/8/64

Suite for Violin Alone
for: violin
date: 1973
    Praeludio I "...per ego haec loco plena timoris,
    Praeludio II "...per chaos hoc ingens vastque silentia regni,
    Praeludio III "Eurydice oro properata retexite fata."
    Fantasia "Talia dicentem nervosque ad verba moventem exsangues flebant animae ... Eurydicenque vocant."
source: Juilliard

Triptych: Three Pieces for Pianoforte
for: piano
date: 1969
note: in memory of Danny Mendelsson
published: Boosey & Hawkes (out of print)
source: Juilliard (original master score)
premiered: Garrick Ohlsson, piano, New York 12/13/69; numerous subsequent performances by Ohlsson in New York, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Rome, Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz 1969-70
source: Juilliard; New York Public Library

VOCAL

Celestial Mechanics
for: soprano and piano (3-page song)
date: 1983
text: Kirby Congdon
source: Juilliard

Ghirlande
for: soprano, trumpet, piano, celesta, percussion (5), solo string trio, solos string sextet (2,2,2), violins (divisi), violas, cellos (divisi), bass
date: 1969 (Rome)
text: "Chi non vuol delle foglie," Michelangelo
published: Oxford University Press (out of print)
performed: M. Wright, soprano, RAI Orchestra of Rome, F. Scaglia, conductor, Rome 1970
source: Juilliard (score and parts)

Die Hälfte des Lebens
for: tenor and piano
date: 1964
text: Hölderlin
note: commissioned by and performed at North Shore Unitarian Church, Plandome NY, 11/8/64

I Walk On Sand
for: soprano and piano
date: 1983
text: Kirby Congdon
note: encompassed in Inquiries of Hope (final movement)

Inquiries of Hope: Ten Poems of Kirby Congdon
for: baritone, narrator, piano, percussion, strings (piano vocal score exists for movements III, V, VII, IX)
date: 1984
    I - Dialogue I
    II - Recit - When we got tired of calling
    III - Song - Rubato
    IV - Recit - The Orgy
    V - Song - New Lovers Walk
    VI - Dialogue II
    VII - Song - Suns
    VIII - Recit - For Generations Past
    IX - Song - Ego
    X - Song - Ritornello
text: Kirby Congdon
note: "Commissioned by Claude Duvall of San Francisco. '...all of us accepted it as a possibility with such equanimity, our own survival, suicide, or death was all one to each member of the group, for each death was our own death, as each survivor represented the survival of those who were dead.' Kirby Congdon – The Orgy – 1940."
[Ed.: This work and Evening Liturgy of Consolation may be the first musical compositions addressing the AIDS epidemic].
performed: Noh Oratorio Society, San Francisco 1985
sources: Juilliard (score and parts); American Music Center

Learn It Alone
for: soprano with guitar chording
date: unknown
note: single sheet
source: Juilliard

The Orphic Hymns
for: 2 sopranos, 1 alto a cappella
date: 1970
I – To the moon: prologue
text: original (?) ode to the goddess Diana
source: Juilliard

Poetry and Music: Two Grounds for a Wedding
for: soprano, piano, volin, flute, 2 cellos (or piano vocal score)
date: 1988
text: Richard Barnfield (1598)
note: written for and premiered at wedding of Tamzen Flanders and Karl Kirchwey, 6/5/88

The Record of John
for: mezzo-soprano and piano
date: 1982
text: ?
    I - John my eyes
    II - This is the record of John
    III - This skin was made of too fragile bone for flying
    IV - Although I speak the tongues of men
performed: Linda Hardwick, mezzo-soprano, Bennett Lerner, piano, 1981
source: Juilliard

Sarabanda: El mar
for: soprano and piano
date: 1986 (?)
text: poem by Pablo Neruda
performed: The Melanie Slater Company, 1988
source: New York Public Library (video recording)

Seven Poems of Constantine Cavafy
for: narrator, high soprano, harp, piano, violin, viola, cello, bass, 2 percussionists
date: 1971
note: "For Lawrence Durham/ 'Fantasy has built for her songster a strong house of the spirit that desiring cannot shake.' C. Cavafy."
premiere: Poppy Holden, soprano, Stephen Kline, narrator, John Mauceri, conductor, Tanglewood, 8/11/71 and 8/16/71
performed: Speculum Musicae, Louis Weingarden, conductor, New York 1972
source: Juilliard (score, no parts)

Three Short Sacred Songs
for: 2 sopranos, 1 alto (a cappella)
date: 1966
    I - "Summer is passed"
    II - "Quemadmodum desiderat cervus"
    III - "The beauty of Israel"
published: Oxford University Press (out of print)
note: "In Memoriam Morris Adler"
source: Juilliard

CHORAL

The Beginning (Part I "Creation")
for: 4-part spoken chorus (nontraditional notation), strings, percussion, piano
date: 1968
note: nontraditional score with unmetered events and unpitched chorus
source: Juilliard

Evening Liturgy of Consolation
for: contralto, baritone, SATB chorus, orchestra (or piano vocal score)
date: 1985
    I - As you do not know (Ecclesiastes 11, 5-8)
    II - God full of mercy (Hebrew Prayer Book, Service for the Dead)
    III - The fear of death (Psalm 55: 4-7)
    IV - Cause us Lord (Hebrew Prayer Book, Evening Service)
    V - Dost thou work wonders (R. Daniel ibn Judah after Maimonides)
    VI - Psalm 23
note: "Commissioned by William Schaffner of Denver, Colorado and dedicated to his memory. 'So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom.'"
[Ed.: William Schaffner (1955-1986) died of AIDS. This work and Inquiries of Hope may be the first musical compositions addressing the AIDS epidemic].
performed: The Stonewall Chorale, William Pflugradt, conductor, New York 1988
source: Juilliard (piano vocal score, full score, no parts)

Hashkivenu
date: 1984
for: cantor solo, SSA chorus, organ (or piano?)
text: in Hebrew (?)
source: Juilliard

Herr, nun lässt du deine Diener (Motet)
for: SATB chorus and organ
date: 1964
text: Song of Simeon (Luke 2:29-32)
note: commissioned by and performed at North Shore Unitarian Church, Plandome NY, 11/8/64

Madrigal: Come Not Near My Songs
for: SATB chorus a cappella
date: 1977
note: "For David Arner/ Musician & Teacher"
source: Juilliard

Motet: Magnified and Sanctified (Kaddish)
for: SATB chorus a cappella
date: 1961
note: "For the Columbia University Chorus and its Director, P. Flanders"

The Seven Last Words of Christ
for: soprano, tenor, chorus, 2-2-0-2, 0-2-2, timpani, harp, organ
date: 1962
note: usually performed with piano only
perfomed: Channel 13 (PBS), 2/18/65 and 2/21/65
source: Juilliard (added to collection in 2002)

A Song of Ascents
for: chorus, solo cello
date: 1964
text: Psalm 121
performed:
Channel 13 (PBS), 2/18/65 and 2/21/65
Columbia University, 5/24/65

Songs of Degrees: Eleven Motets
for: soprano and baritone solos, SSAATTBB chorus, strings, piano, percussion
date: 1971
texts: Psalms 120, 121, 126, 123, 122, 124, 128, 130, 131, 133, 134
note: "for Beth Abraham Synagogue, Dayton, Ohio/ Jerome Kopmar, Hazzan"
source: Juilliard (score, no parts)

The Sorrows of David
for: vocal quartet, SATB chorus, orchestra: 3333,3431, solo string sextet, harp, piano, celesta, tymp, perc., violins (4 part divisi), viola (2 divisi), cellos (2 divisi), bass (2 divisi)
date: 1967
    I - David Laments Saul + Jonathan
    II - David Laments His Son, Absalom
    III - Of the 127th psalm, a song of Ascents
published: Oxford University Press (out of print)
note: "In Memoriam, Rabbi Morris Adler, 1966, written in sad memory of his passing by his sorrowful student, L.W. 1967"
performed: Oak Park Symphony and Kenneth Jewel Chorale, Louis Weingarden, conductor, Detroit 1968
source: Juilliard (scores and parts)

Willow Song (Othello; Act IV, Scene III)
for: SATB and piano
date: 1977
source: Juilliard

Xerxes' Lament, from Aeschylus' Persians
for: men's chorus, piano, percussion
date: 1965
performed: Louis Weingarden, cnductor, Columbia University, 5/8/65

THEATRE

Come Sweet Death (incidental music)
for: oboe, violin I & II, viola, cello, bass, 2 trumpets, trombone, percussion (2 players)
date: unknown
note: archive includes a script (no date or author), and a book of poetry, Come Sweet Death, by B.D.Napier (1967, United Church Press), with a note on the inside cover saying "The author is a friend of Bob's."
source: Juilliard (score and parts)

Huck Finn (incidental music)
for: flute, Bb tenor saxophone, violin, viola, cello, bass, piano
date: 1967
source: Juilliard (parts, no score)

War of the Poets (incidental music)
for: flute/picc, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, percussion, harp, piano
date: 1970
note: short pieces interspersed into collection of poems by various poets.
source: Juilliard (score and parts)

TRANSCRIPTIONS

La Settima Toccata nel Primo Tono del Michelangelo Rossi, Roma MDCLVII
for: transcription for piano
date: 1971
note: "alla Signora Olga Barabini"
premiere: Garrick Ohlsson, piano, Caramoor Festival, New York 7/4/71. Subsequent performances in Ann Arbor, New Orleans and Boston, 1972.
source: Juilliard

UNCOMPLETED WORKS:
Unknown

WRITINGS:
Unknown

DISCOGRAPHY:
No professionally released recordings

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• "Weingarden 'Makes Pretty' in Work" by Glenn Griffin, Denver Post, February 17, 1975 (preview of premiere of Piano Concerto).
• "AIDS Brings Composer's Inspiration" by Will Crutchfield, New York Times, June 11, 1988.
• "Gay Tenant Says Landlord Was Waiting For Him To Die" by David Seifman, New York Post, June 23, 1988.
• "Early Gay Activism in Chelsea: Building a Queer Neighborhood" by Michael Shernoff, LGNY, Issue 57, July 6, 1997. (www.gaypsychotherapy.com/history.htm)
• Description of 1978 Mapplethorpe/Tom of Finland/Epstein show and other Stompers Gallery exhibitions: www.ajepstein.com/artgallerystuff/body.html

PERFORMING RIGHTS AFFILIATION:
ASCAP

RESOURCES:
American Music Center
30 West 26th Street
Suite 1001
New York, NY 10010
Tel: (212) 366-5260
Fax: (212) 366-5265
www.amc.net

American Music Center Collection
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
40 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023-7498
www.nypl.org

Boosey & Hawkes
35 East 21st Street
New York NY 10010
Tel: (212) 358-5300
Fax: (212) 358-5303
bhsales@ny.boosey.com
www.boosey.com

Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue
New York NY 10016
(212) 726-6000
www.oup.com

Mimi Stern-Wolfe
Downtown Music Productions
310 East 12th Street Apt. 2H
New York, NY 10003
(212) 477-1594
dmpmimi@msn.com
www.downtownmusicproductions.org

MUSICAL EXECUTOR:
Elaine Walden (sister)
74 Bogart Avenue
Port Washington, NY 11050
(516) 767-1720
ewalden@optonline.com

OTHER CONTACTS:
Peter Flanders (friend, musician)

ARCHIVES:
Lila Acheson Wallace Library
The Juilliard School
60 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023-6588
Tel: (212) 799-5000, ext. 265
Fax: (212) 769-6421
library@juilliard.edu
Jane Gottlieb, Associate Vice President for Library and Information Resources
gottlieb@juilliard.edu

OTHER INFORMATION: