Howard Harold Hanson (October 28, 1896 – February 26, 1981) was an American composer, conductor, teacher, and music expert. As director of the Eastman School of Music for forty years, he improved the school's quality and helped create chances for writing and performing American classical music. In 1944, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony Number 4. He also received many other awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award for Excellent Music Entertainment in 1946.

Early life and education

Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, to Swedish immigrant parents, Hans and Hilma (née Eckstrom) Hanson. As a young man, he learned music from his mother. Later, he attended Luther College in Wahoo and received a diploma in 1911. He then studied at the Institute of Musical Art, which was the earlier version of the Juilliard School, in New York City. There, he studied with composer and music theorist Percy Goetschius in 1914.

After that, he went to Northwestern University, where he studied composition with church music specialist Peter C. Lutkin and Arne Oldberg. He also studied piano, cello, and trombone. He earned his BA degree in music from Northwestern in 1916 and began his teaching career as a teacher's assistant.

Career

In 1916, Hanson began his first full-time job as a teacher of music theory and composition at the College of the Pacific in California. Three years later, in 1919, the college named him Dean of the Conservatory of Fine Arts. In 1920, Hanson composed The California Forest Play, his first work to gain national attention. During his time in California, he also wrote many orchestral and chamber pieces, including Concerto da Camera, Symphonic Legend, Symphonic Rhapsody, solo piano works like Two Yuletide Pieces, and the Scandinavian Suite, which honored his Lutheran and Scandinavian background.

In 1921, Hanson became the first winner of the American Academy in Rome’s "Rome Prize" in musical composition. He received the award for The California Forest Play and his symphonic poem Before the Dawn. This allowed him to live in Italy for three years. While there, he wrote a Quartet in One Movement, Lux Aeterna, The Lament for Beowulf (orchestrated by Bernhard Kaun), and his Symphony No. 1, "Nordic." He conducted the premiere of this symphony with the Augusteo Orchestra on May 30, 1923. Hanson believed the three years in Italy were the most important in his life because he could focus entirely on composing and conducting without teaching. Some sources claim he studied orchestration with Ottorino Respighi, but Hanson’s own writings say this is not true. However, other records from 1998 suggest he may have received advice from Respighi and attended his rehearsals and performances. Respighi influenced Hanson’s use of orchestral sounds and instruments. Hanson also cited other composers, such as Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Gustav Holst, Giovanni Palestrina, and Richard Wagner, as important influences during his time in Rome.

After returning from Italy, Hanson’s conducting career grew. He conducted his tone poem North and West with the New York Symphony Orchestra. In 1924, he led a performance of his Symphony No. 1 in Rochester, New York, which caught the attention of George Eastman. Eastman, who invented the Kodak camera and roll film, also supported the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester with his wealth. In 1924, Eastman chose Hanson to be the director of the school.

Hanson remained director for forty years, during which he helped create one of the most respected music schools in America. He improved the curriculum, hired better teachers, and strengthened the school’s orchestras. He also balanced the faculty between American and European teachers, even when it meant not hiring composer Béla Bartók. Bartók declined a teaching position at Eastman because he believed composition could not be taught. Instead, he wanted to teach piano, but Eastman already had enough piano instructors.

In 1925, Hanson started the American Composers Orchestral Concerts. In 1931, he created the annual Festivals of American Music. These free concerts, held in Rochester, featured works by American composers, including orchestral music, chamber music, band pieces, vocal music, opera, and ballet. The festivals were broadcast on national radio and lasted until 1971. Critics said more music was played at these events than anywhere else in the United States during that time.

Hanson’s efforts to educate the public through radio began in 1938. He used student ensembles from Eastman to present Milestones in the History of Music on the radio. This weekly series covered Western music history and was broadcast locally in Rochester and nationally on NBC. In 1946, Hanson, the Eastman School, and WHAM received the Peabody Award for their work. He later created a similar series for CBS called Milestones in American Music, which featured compositions by 82 American composers from the 19th century to modern times.

In 1939, Hanson founded the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, made up of top players from the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Eastman faculty, and students. From 1939 to 1969, he recorded over 100 works with this orchestra for RCA Victor, Mercury Records, and Columbia Records. These recordings included his own compositions and those of other American composers, such as Charles Ives, Wayne Barlow, and William Grant Still. Hanson estimated that more than 2,000 works by over 500 American composers were premiered during his time at Eastman.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Hanson’s Symphony No. 2, "Romantic," which premiered in 1930. This symphony became Hanson’s most famous work. One of its themes, now called the "Interlochen Theme," is played at the end of concerts at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. It is conducted by a student concertmaster after the main conductor leaves the stage, and no applause follows its performance. The theme is also used in the final scene of the 1979 film Alien.

Hanson’s opera Merry Mount (1934) is sometimes called the first fully American opera. It was written by an American composer and librettist, based on an American story, and premiered with an American cast at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The opera received 50 curtain calls, a record that still stands. In 1935, Hanson composed Three Songs from Drum Taps, inspired by poems by Walt Whitman.

Frederick Fennell, conductor of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, described Hanson’s first band composition, the 1954 Chor, as a significant work in American band music.

Marriage

Hanson met Margaret Elizabeth Nelson at her parents' summer home on Lake Chautauqua, which is part of the Chautauqua Institution in New York. Hanson dedicated the Serenade for Flute, Harp, and Strings to her; the piece was a way to propose to her through music, as he could not find the spoken words to express his feelings. They married on July 24, 1946, in the same home where they had first met.

Legacy and honors

• Howard Hanson was a member of two chapters of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity: the Iota chapter at Northwestern University in 1916, and the Alpha Nu chapter at Eastman in 1928. He was recognized as a national honorary member in 1930 and received the Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award at the national convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1954.
• After composing the Hymn of the Pioneers to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the first Swedish settlement in Delaware, Hanson was chosen as a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy in 1938.
• In 1944, Hanson was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Symphony No. 4, subtitled Requiem.
• In 1945, he became the first recipient of the Ditson Conductor's Award for his dedication to American music.
• In 1946, Hanson received the George Foster Peabody Award "for outstanding entertainment programming" for a radio series he presented on the Rochester, New York station WHAM in 1945.
• In 1950, Hanson was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
• In 1953, Hanson helped create the Edward B. Benjamin Prize "for calming and uplifting music" written by Eastman students. Each submitted score was reviewed by Hanson and the Eastman Orchestra. Winners of the Benjamin Prize performed on Hanson's recording Music for Quiet Listening.
• In 1959, Hanson won the first Lancaster Symphony Orchestra Composer's Award, which is the oldest award of its kind in America and is given annually to a contemporary composer by the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, Lancaster, Pennsylvania (founded in 1947). Hanson was a friend and colleague of the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra's founding conductor, Louis Vyner.
• In 1960, Hanson published Harmonic Materials of Modern Music: Resources of the Tempered Scale, a book that helped create the field of musical set theory. Among the ideas discussed was what Hanson called the isomeric relationship, now known as the Z-relationship.
• From 1960 to 1964, Hanson served on the Board of Directors of the Music Educators National Conference.
• In 1961, Hanson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• Hanson's Song of Democracy, based on a text by Walt Whitman, was performed at the inaugural concert for incoming U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1969. Hanson noted that this was the first inaugural concert to feature only American music.
• In recognition of Hanson's achievements, the Eastman Kodak company donated $100,000 worth of stock to the Eastman School of Music in 1976. Hanson required that the gift be used to fund the Institute of American Music.
• In 1976, Hanson received the Distinguished Nebraskans Award.
• During his lifetime, Howard Hanson was awarded thirty-four honorary doctorate degrees.

Popular culture

Excerpts from Hanson's Second Symphony were used in some scenes and the end credits of Ridley Scott's 1979 horror movie Alien without the composer's permission. However, Hanson chose not to take legal action. Instead, 20th Century Fox replaced some parts of Jerry Goldsmith's original music with Hanson's composition. This music can still be found on all DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K versions of Alien. The version used in the film is a 1967 recording by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Gerhardt. Hanson told Gerhardt that, among all the available recordings, he found Gerhardt's to be the most "sympathetic."

Death

Hanson died at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York, at the age of 84. He was survived by his wife, Margaret Elizabeth Nelson.

Compositional style

Hanson's music is part of the Neo-Romantic style, which aimed to carry forward the traditions of the Romantic era into the 20th century. His Symphony No. 2, for example, is often called a statement of the Neo-Romantic movement. Critics have described him as an "American Neoromantic composer par excellence," meaning he was one of the best in this style, and his work was influenced by the grand traditions of composers like Antonin Dvorák. His early symphonies are known for their expressive melodies, rich orchestration, and complex harmonic textures.

Hanson also used modern musical techniques in his compositions. Many parts of his music are based on modal scales, which are similar to the ancient melodies of Gregorian chants. He frequently used extended chords, repetitive rhythmic patterns, and alternating triadic chords. His choral and liturgical works often included themes from Swedish Lutheran hymns. Some listeners have compared his music to that of Jean Sibelius, noting a shared sense of Nordic simplicity and strength.

A key feature of Hanson's music is his use of flowing, almost spontaneous melodic lines that sound natural and distinctly American. Composer and critic David Owens noted that Hanson focused on creating beauty through traditional tonal harmony to express a conservative musical vision. By combining his understanding of tonality with skilled orchestration, Hanson produced compositions that are both memorable and powerful.

In 1981, music critic Donal Henehan wrote in the New York Times that Hanson's work represents the post-Romantic style, similar to Sibelius. Henehan described Hanson as someone who resisted modern trends and experimental styles, instead promoting a focus on craftsmanship and sincerity in music. He also noted that Hanson believed emotional expression was the goal of successful performances. This traditionalist approach influenced a group of composers associated with the Eastman School, including William Bergsma, Robert Moffat Palmer, Burrill Phillips, Gardner Read, and Bernard Rogers.

Hanson once described his music as "springing from the soil of the American midwest," emphasizing its connection to the open plains of Nebraska rather than urban settings. He believed that artists and musicians have a duty to create and share beauty, helping to inspire and sensitize people's souls.

Works

Hanson wrote several musical works, including the following: Harmonic Materials of Modern Music (1960), published by Irvington.

Discography

• A boxed set featuring Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman Philharmonia in his symphonies, piano concerto, and other works is available on the Mercury label. Another set from Mercury, which includes recordings of Hanson conducting less well-known American compositions, is also available.
• Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2 is likely his most often recorded work. In addition to the recording made by the composer himself, versions conducted by Erich Kunzel, Leonard Slatkin, Gerard Schwarz, and Charles Gerhardt are also widely available. The Interlochen Center for the Arts uses a portion of this symphony as its theme music (see the detailed explanation above).
• Naxos Records released a recording of the 1934 world premiere performance of Merry Mount in 1999. Due to copyright reasons, this recording was not available in the United States.

Recordings of Howard Hanson conducting his own compositions with the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra include:

Publications

Howard Hanson wrote the following peer-reviewed articles:

• Hanson, Howard (1934), "Music and American Youth," Music Educators Journal
• Hanson, Howard (1935), "Music In Its Highest Fulfillment," Music Educators Journal
• Hanson, Howard (1937), "American Music for American Youth," Music Educators Journal
• Hanson, Howard (1941), "The Democratization of Music," Music Educators Journal
• Hanosn, Howard (1943), "On Musicians," Music Educators Journal
• Hanson, Howard (1957), "Encouraging the Musically Gifted (continued)," Gifted Child Quarterly
• Hanson, Howard (1948), "The Scope of the Music Education Program," Music Educators Journal
• Hanson, Howard (1957), "The Arts in an Age of Science," Music Educators Journal
• Hanson, Howard (1958), "Music Looks Forward," Music Educators Journal
• Hanson, Howard (1959), "Music Education Faces the Scientific Age," Music Educators Journal
• Hanson, Howard (1960), "Cultivating a Climate for Creativity," Music Educators Journal
• Hanson, Howard (1962), "The Challenge of the Modern Role of Arts," American String Teacher
• Hanosn, Howard (1971), "Wanted: A Music Survival Kit: The Arts Crisis Courts Disaster in the Seventies," Music Educators Journal

Notable students

During his forty years as Director of the Eastman School of Music, Howard Hanson also taught composition. Many of his students received Pulitzer Prizes for Music, such as Dominick Argento, John La Montaine, and Robert Ward. Additionally, several of his students became well-known composers, including Wayne Barlow, Jack Beeson, William Bergsma, Ulysses Kay, Kent Kennan, Peter Mennin, Louis Mennini, W. Francis McBeth, Robert Moffat Palmer, Burrill Phillips, Gardner Read, and Margaret Vardell Sandresky.

Archive

The Howard Hanson Collection at the Eastman School of Music includes stored musical scores, compositions, arrangements, letters, essays, and recordings created by Howard Hanson. These items are kept in the Sibley Music Library's Ruth T. Watanabe Special Collections.