In this episode, Dave and Andrew explore the fourth opera to win the Pulitzer Prize in the 1950s, Samuel Barber's Vanessa. In the mid-20th century United States, Samuel Barber was one of the most performed American composers, known especially for his beautiful vocal music that closely mirrored European models. But with the Pulitzer traditionally awarding works that are more "American" in sound, does Vanessa represent a departure from convention for Barber or the Pulitzer board?

If you'd like more information about Samuel Barber or Vanessa we recommend:

1. This fascinating background article in Pasatiempo by James M. Keller

Norman Dello Joio is one of those composers you might know depending on your background. Sing choral music? You might know him from A Jubilant Song. Play in band? You might have performed his Fantasies on a Theme by Haydn. He was accomplished and prolific composer, but we did not know his Pulitzer winning Meditations on Ecclesiastes before this episode. Join Dave and Andrew as they explore if it fits into the list of winners in the 1950s or is an outlier.

If you want to know more about Dello Joio, we recommend:

1. Dello Joio's website (which was last updated in 2009, but still has useful documentation on his life and career)

Like Gian Carlo Menotti before him, Ernst Toch was a European composer who won an American prize. Unlike Menotti, Toch did not have the same success in the United States that he had in Europe and never fully identified as an "American" composer. Join us as we find out how his third symphony, inspired by his experience as a Jew fleeing the Nazis in the 1930s, might tell us something about Toch's place in American musical history.

If you'd like to learn more about Ernst Toch, we recommend:

1. This fascinating article about Toch's experience fleeing the Nazis written by his grandson.

In this episode, Dave and Andrew explore the first repeat winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Music. We covered Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul in Episode 8 and now he's back again with The Saint of Bleecker Street. We were generally favorable toward The Consul, finding it an effective, if derivative opera. Will Menotti score another hit with this story of a young woman who displays the stigmata?

If you're interested in The Saint of Bleecker Street, we recommend:

1. The original Broadway cast recording from 1954

We also recommend exploring the Spoleto festival a bit more, both the Festival of Two Worlds held in Spoleto, Italy and the Spoleto Festival hosted in Charleston, South Carolina, USA.

Quincy Porter bridges many of the themes we've seen so far in the podcast: he was the last student of nineteenth-century American composer Horatio Parker (who also taught 1947 prize  winner Charles Ives), he taught composition at an Ivy League school (Yale, in this case) for many years, and he was celebrated for his orchestral music during his lifetime, but is virtually forgotten today.

From that list, and from our previous episodes on Howard Hanson, Walter Piston, and Douglas Moore, you might think you have a good sense of what Porter's Ivy League New England musical style might be, but are you right? Join us to find out.

For more about Quincy Porter:

1) https://composers.com/composers/quincy-porter

2) https://necmusic.edu/archives/quincy-porter

It might surprise you to learn that over the past 80 years, there have been a few years when the Pulitzer Board has elected not to award a prize, even when the music committee had a recommendation. In this episode we explore the first of these "no prize" years, discuss what pieces were considered, and make a guess as to why the Pulitzer Board chose to not award a winner.

As we move further into the 1950s, we're entering the doldrums of the Pulitzer Prizes, where few winners have entered the repertoire. Gail Kubik was a phenomenon in his day, writing equally well for the concert hall and the movie theatre. His Symphony Concertante began life as a film score before he extracted themes to craft this work featuring viola, trumpet, and piano. So why have you never heard of the work or, most likely its creator?

If you'd like to learn more about Kubik, we recommend:

1. His delightful score for the Academy Award-winning cartoon Gerald McBoing-Boing.

Douglas Moore is a name we've encountered before on Hearing the Pulitzers because he was instrumental in helping establish the Pulitzer Prizes. A decade later, he finally won his own Pulitzer for an opera based on Ole Edvart Rølvaag's novel Giants in the Earth. The opera follows the triumphs and tragedies of Norwegian settlers in the Dakota Territories of 1873, but there isn't even a recording today and the score is hard to find. Is its obscurity warranted?

If you'd like to learn more about Moore, we recommend:

1. Jerry L. McBride's Douglas Moore: A Bio-bibliography

In this episode, Dave and Andrew explore the winner of the eighth Pulitzer Prize in Music, Gian Carlo Menotti for his opera The Consul.

In the middle part of the 20th century, Menotti was one of the most famous composers in America, particularly after his perennial Christmas favorite Amahl and the Night Visitors premiered on December 24, 1951, as the first opera composed for television. The Consul was one of his most celebrated operas during his lifetime and the first opera to receive the Pulitzer, but does it still resonate today?

If you'd like to learn more about Menotti, we recommend:

1. Donald Hixon's Bio-Bibliography on Menotti (Greenwood Press, 2000)

In this episode, Dave and Andrew explore the winner of the seventh Pulitzer Prize in Music, Virgil Thomson for his score to the film Louisiana Story.

Virgil Thomson is perhaps best known for his operas like Four Saints in Three Acts or his precise and incisive music criticism at the New York Herald Tribune. But he was also a pioneer in film scoring, particularly documentary film scoring during the Great Depression. In 1936, he wrote his first film score for Pare Lorentz's The Plow that Broke the Plains, and he followed it up with The River two years later for the same director. A decade later, the father of the narrative documentary film, Robert Flaherty, hired Thomson to score what would be his last film. As the only piece of movie music to ever win the Pulitzer, Louisiana Story is at least a curiosity in the prize's history, but does it stand up today?

If you'd like more information about Virgil Thomson we recommend:

1. Anthony Tommasini's magisterial biography Virgil Thomson: Composer on the Aisle (New York City: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999).