The Swiss-born American composer and teacher Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) was noted for orchestral and chamber music of highly individual style. He directed two music conservatories in the United States.

Ernest Bloch was born in Geneva on July 24, 1880. Showing musical gifts at an early age, he studied violin with Louis Rey and theory with Émile Jacques-Dalcroze. In 1897 Bloch went to Brussels, where he studied violin with Eugène Ysaye, and then to Frankfurt, studying composition with Iwan Knorr.

Bloch composed his first important work, the Symphony in C-sharp Minor, at the age of 21. In 1904, after having written some songs and a symphonic work, Hiver Printemps, he began to work on his opera, Macbeth, with a libretto by Edmond Fleg, and it was premiered in Paris in 1910. Bloch became a professor at the Geneva Conservatory in 1911. Among his pupils was the conductor Ernest Ansermet.

The compositions Bloch wrote...