Talk:Robert Bloom

independence of some of the sources

Some of these are unpublished letters; others are edited or authored by kinfolk.

solved

...foremost... In 1930 Bloom successfully auditioned to become the assistant to principal oboist Philip Kirschner in the Cleveland Orchestra under Nicholai Sokolof. It was this offer that prompted Leopold Stokowski to hire Bloom for the Philadelphia Orchestra without a formal audition by directing his personnel manager, "You tell that young man that it is closer to the Academy of Music from Curtis than it is to Cleveland." During this final period of orchestral activities in New York, Stokowski remained a close collaborator, writing personal letters to Bloom frequently with invitations to perform with him and asking Bloom to recommend other players. Stokowski also sent messages complimenting him on his playing as he did in a letter dated April 13, 1943: "Dear Mr. Bloom, You played so wonderfully in the Bach, I feel I must write to tell you what deep musical satisfaction I had from listening to your solos, and to making music with you. You always play on such a high level of artistic quality, and it seemed to me you reached even higher levels in the Bach. Always your friend." Many of Bloom's New York, Bennington, and Yale colleagues composed works for him, among them Otto Luening (Legend for oboe and strings (1950), Three Nocturnes for oboe and piano (1951), and Divertimento for oboe and string trio (1988)); Tibor Serly (Oboe Solo); Lionel Nowak (Sonata (1949) and Quartet for oboe and strings); Richard Donavan (Music for Six (1961) and Serenade for oboe and string quartet (1965)); Roger Goeb (Wind Quintet); Jean Berger (Sonata da Camera (1949) later transcribed for oboe and string quartet); Hunter Johnson (Trio for Flute, Oboe, and Piano); Quincy Porter (Quintet for oboe and string quartet (1966)); and Fredrick Kaufman (A Bud for Bloom for flute, oboe, and piano (1988)). Bloom played the premiere of other chamber works, including Bohuslav Martinu's Rhapsody for theremin, oboe, string quartet, and piano commissioned in 1946 by Lucy Rosen, and the famous transcription of J.S. Bach's "Es ist vollbracht" that Bloom (English horn) and Walter Goetter (bassoon) recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra strings with Stokowski conducting. Another favorite work was Wayne Barlow's The Winter's Passed (1938) that Bloom performed with the NBC Symphony strings for a radio broadcast conducted by Toscanini in 1940. Although the score is not dedicated to Bloom, Barlow, who was completing his PhD as a pupil of Howard Hanson during Bloom's one year on the faculty at Eastman, 1936-1937, might have composed it for him. Remaining connected to his Eastman colleagues, Bloom often programmed Hanson's Pastorale for oboe and strings (1949), which was commissioned by UNESCO for the Chopin Centennial in Paris. Bloom relished the opportunity to spread this sunny optimism, as he did projecting Bach's sense of fortitude through his performances with the Bach Aria Group, exuberantly celebrating life's joys even as the depth of sorrow and despair that befell humanity was also expressed through tender performances. Samuel Baron, a colleague in the Bach Aria Group, wrote of a concert performed in the late 1960s at the Weizman Institute in Rehovoth, "The hush that came over the hall when Bob began to play was awesome. They had plenty of death to think about, that audience--and Bach's particular mixture of longing for death, and dreading it and fearing it at the same time--it was almost too much for the audience to take. The music was not greeted by applause and smiles. It was received in silent tears and deep contemplation. On the stage we could hardly go on with the concert." In 1968 Yale Reports, a weekly broadcast, taped two sessions of conversations with Bloom and Walfredo Toscanini in celebration of Walfredo's grandfather's centennial. Earnest Harrison wrote "A Brief Interlude at Yale with Robert Bloom" for Woodwind World in 1975, the same year that Eugene Cook broadcast "Robert Bloom Talks with Eugene Cook" for WYBC. An article entitled "Robert Bloom, Eminent American Oboist," by Richard Woodhams, Principal Oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, was published in the December 1989 issue of The Instrumentalist. In 1990, Robert Stumpf II taped an interview with Bloom for Maestrino, the Newsletter for the Leopold Stokowski Society of America. Transcriptions of these and other taped interviews conducted by Julius Baker, Samuel Baron, David McGill, and Susan Eischeid can be found in Robert Bloom: The Story of a Working Musician. In the spring of 1988, friends, colleagues, and former pupils gathered in Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York for an 80th Birthday Tribute. Nine segments from this concert are available, released in 2013 on YouTube. Philip Nelson, Dean of the School of Music at Yale University from 1970 through1980, lauded Bloom as a "consummate musician, oboist (and one-time cellist), cabinet maker, exceptional chef, lively pedagogue, raconteur extraordinaire, world traveler, and a 'gentleman for all seasons.'" Schuller wrote, "Bloom was not only a great artist on his instrument but an important scholar and researcher in his field of expertise. He belongs to a period in music when players, especially wind and brass players, were individualist artists who, without distorting the music in some arbitrary, willful way, developed a personal style which was instantly recognizable and memorable. There were others like that in those bygone years, but, alas, instrumental playing has become almost totally homogenized in the last three or four decades. That is why The Robert Bloom Collection is of such historical relevance and an invaluable representation of one aspect of our great American musical heritage." The Collection, including Mrs. Bloom's prefaces, earned accolades around the world, including the comment, "The service that Mrs. Bloom has rendered to our art, and by extension, to our culture (world wide) is beyond measure." Mrs. Bloom, an oboist and former pupil of her husband's at the Yale School of Music where she earned her M. Mus. degree in performance, published in 2009 Robert Bloom: The Story of a Working Musician, a compendium of Bloom's oboe pedagogy, preferred curriculum, published and unpublished essays, discography, selected correspondence and reviews, transcriptions of interviews in which some of America's most prominent musicians discuss with him the art, the politics of the art, as well as anecdotes from milestone events, career highlights... Bloom was one of the most recorded oboists of the 20th century, but could not be persuaded to record repertoire for solo oboe and chamber works for major labels. Adding to his commercial recordings that remained mostly of orchestral works, then, The Art of Robert Bloom, a 7-CD set of live performances of concertos, chamber music, and Bach arias performed by Bloom over his 60-year career was released in 2001 on Boston Records label, a project directed by Mrs Bloom, who wrote extensive liner notes. References These seem unencumbered by any concerns of independence, and also seemingly published, but in all cases but the NYT, need to be verified by non-COI-encumbered eyeballs, please, to make sure what the sources said is being cold-hard-boring-facts-with-an-eye-to-wiki-neutrally summarized: "Robert Bloom Is Dead; Oboist and Teacher, 85" in New York Times. February 16, 1994 Amy M. Galbraith. The American School of Oboe Playing: Robert Bloom, John de Lancie, John Mack, and the Influence of Marcel Tabuteau. WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY, 2011 Janna Leigh Ryon. The Legacy of Oboist and Master Teacher, Robert Bloom. UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, 2014 References Also, I'm not sure all of them are WP:SOURCES as opposed to WP:BLOGS ... is the Ryon cite, for instance, *published* by University of Maryland Press, or equivalent? Or is it just on her personal-university-homepage? Since no URL is provided, I cannot tell.

Collapsing, I missed most of the work, my thanks, wow. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 16:45, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I have marked some of the sources with {{primary-source-inline}}. The "Sources" section is a distraction. The sources need to be within the references themselves. There is much work to do ripping away the paean of praise and eulogy. Fiddle Faddle 17:13, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Re. "The "Sources" section is a distraction. The sources need to be within the references themselves." – WP:CITEVAR, I have no preference one way or another. In a first step I would avoid changing the style of a ref provided by someone else. In a second step I would avoid the numerous repeats of Robert Bloom: The Story of a Working Musician in the references section: "in Bloom 2009" conveys the same information, with the full ref & links in the "Sources" section. Now, a key issue that probably can't be resolved fully without someone seeing that source is whether all its components are self-published and/or primary: that source may partially be a republication of sources that have been published before and/or are not really primary sources. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

So basically, my thanks to Francis Schonken and Timtrent for their excellent work. Two URLs,

References

Although the edit-history is somewhat confused, I believe that both the rdgwoodwinds.com and the yale.edu contents are written by Bloom (one or the other or both). They are probably fine per WP:SELFPUB, but probably not more. p.s. Also mentioning here, for much the same talkpage-posterity-reasons, Bloom is already in List of oboists, and has the asterisk for his New Grove entry, but the ref is List_of_oboists#cite_note-38 aka http://www.cranberryisles.com/photos/robert_bloom.html which seems to fall afoul of WP:SPIP perhaps. Should that cranberryIsles.com citation, be changed to the Geoffrey Burgess Grove Music Online (or perhaps to the Geoffrey Burgess Macmillan)? 75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:10, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

philadelphia orchestra job-title , plus Stokowski questions

Not sure how to disentangle these bits:

• "...and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Stokowski, where he was the assistant principal oboist and also played English horn."[1]
• "...says Richard Woodhams, the Philadelphia Orchestra's solo oboist... "He [Bloom] was the oboist on all those records made by ... Leopold Stokowski's orchestra. When... Stokowski [etc] recorded, Bloom was their oboist."[2]
• "While at Curtis, he was named assistant principal oboe in the Philadelphia Orchestra and, later, English hornist. After six years, he left Philadelphia..."[3]

We currently just say 'English horn in the 1930s' but I believe we can use WP:CALC to pinpoint the timespan under Stokowski (elsewhere we are informed by philly.com that Bloom was a student at Curtis for 3 years prior to his job offerings). Once the dates are figured out from the WP:SOURCES, we can confirm we got them right using the available WP:SELFPUB materials. Part of the trouble is that apparently, Bloom worked at the Philly Orchestra for six years, then spent one year with Rochester, then the NBC Orchestra through 1943 when he co-founded the Bach Aria Group... but simultaneous with his chamber music work, he also did recordings for orchestras in the 1940s and later, including from what I can gather Leopold Stokowski. According to wikipedia, Stokowski was the conductor of the Philly Orchestra 1912-1940, and then was the NBC Orchestra conductor-slash-co-conductor with Toscanini 1941-1944, which means per WP:SYNTH Bloom was under Stokowski at Curtis/PhillyO/NbcO, although of course such would need to be properly sourced. Stokowski conducted at a *bunch* of places 1945-1975ish, and may have used Bloom in those places (or recordings) later, as well. Anyways, if somebody could look into the job-title, and perhaps, into the longer-term relationship with Stokowski, I would appreciate it. I'm having trouble figuring out if there is a difference between first oboe, principle oboe, solo oboist, and recording oboist.  :-)     I'm guessing that the answer is "it depends"? 75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:02, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

professor

Also noticed, we mention Yale and Julliard per NYT, but fail to mention University of Cincinnati, nor his ensemble-teaching at Curtis. "He long held a professorship at the University of Cincinnati... He also taught at Curtis as a visiting artist."[4] Earlier in same URL: "From 1975 to 1985, Mr. Bloom was a visiting professor at the Eastman School, the Juilliard School, Yale University, the Manhattan School and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia." (Same cite also makes former-student-and-widow Sara Lambert Bloom WP:NOTEWORTHY for the list-o-students methinks.) No precise years given, unfortunately, for most of the professorship stuff, but I bet we can source the timespans from WP:ABOUTSELF materials. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:02, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

The Grove Dictionary of American Music, second edition (2013), which may be regarded as an even more reliable source, verifies some of his teaching positions: "Bloom composed a number of short works for oboe, and taught at several of America’s leading educational institutions, including Yale University (1957–76), the Hartt (1967–75) and Juilliard Schools (1973–81), and the Philadelphia University of the Arts (1978–85)", as well as Sara L. Bloom's noteworthiness: "His pupils included Bert Lucarelli, RAY STILL, and Allan Vogel. Bloom trained his wife Sara Lambert Bloom, who has edited a complete collection of her husband’s compositions, recordings, and editions of oboe music as well as a biography and a set of writings, including his book The Oboe, a Musical Instrument."—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:18, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Infobox

Robert Bloom
Bloom as a young man in Pittsburgh Bloom as a young man in Pittsburgh
Background information
Birth name	Royal Israel Bloom (Robert Irving Bloom)
Born	(1908-05-03)May 3, 1908 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died	February 13, 1994(1994-02-13) (aged 85) Cincinnati, Ohio
Genres	Orchestral, chamber music, solo; 18th, 19th, and 20th century repertoire
Occupation(s)	Oboist (and English hornist), composer, teacher, recording artist, conductor, editor of 18th-century works
Instrument(s)	Oboe, English horn
Years active	1930–1993

Is there a reason why there is no {{Infobox person}} here any more? I am aware some Wikiprojsects eschew these. Fiddle Faddle 10:27, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I removed it when it was unclear what info to retain in it, at a moment we weren't even sure what would be retained (and referenced) in the article. I propose an infobox is first presented here, and when there's agreement on its content it can go back to the article.

Also, the previous' infoboxes image is up for deletion at WikiMedia, so there's a factor to be reckoned with too. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:55, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Copied last version here →

This one however overshoots the mark by far imho (meaning: too much detail). --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:09, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

References

Also, not positive we actually have copyright-license for the imagefile, properly worked out. Fuhgehtaboutit removed some textual-copyvio from the draft, earlier. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:00, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

My inclination would be to rebuild the infobox with information that is sourced (though one need not actually cite items within it if one chooses not to provided they are cited or otherwise referenced elsewhere, or are not susceptible to challenge), and leave anything speculative out. The picture is suspect, but will either be retained or deleted at Commons. If it is deleted then there is a bot which will delete it cleanly from the article anyway. I suggest the box be re-created with basic information. Fiddle Faddle 05:11, 10 September 2015 (UTC)