Sigma Alpha Iota

sai-national.org • Winter 2025 27 Bk Reviews of each page. A book index would have been helpful in locating information. Three appendices are chock full of interesting details, such as honors, awards, discography, some concert and work schedules, and information about the Herbert Blomstedt Collection in Gothenburg. On the final pages are wonderful black-and-white photos—fifteen of them—taken between 1955 and 2015. The frames of his glasses may have changed in these six decades, but his charming smile has not! The length of this review limits facts presented, but anyone reading the book will be able to answer the following questions: What prompted him to move his residence from Stockholm to Lucerne? Who is the only conductor whose autograph he requested? Why did he change civil service jobs in Sweden? Which composer's statue on his piano does he converse with? Blomstedt is not joking and says, "I often have profound conversations with him." Which former First Lady did he meet on his scholarship trip to the United States in 1952? What was his nickname during his tenure in Norrköping? How did he spend Deutsche Marks he couldn't take out of East Germany? It has been more than a decade since the original German publication of A Great Song. It's now time for a sequel — or should I say encore? Jayne I. Hanlin is an initiate of Alpha Omicron and current member of the St. Louis Alumnae chapter. Mrs. Hanlin, the sister of famed pianist Malcolm Frager, is the co- author of Learning Latin Through Mythology (Cambridge University Press, 1991). LEO SOWERBY By Joseph Sargent University of Illinois Press, 2024 O ne of the latest volumes in the American Composers series published by University of Illinois Press, Leo Sowerby, "offers the first focused study of Sowerby's life and work against the backdrop of the composer's place in American music" (back cover). Although Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) was well-respected and had a significant presence in the musical world during his lifetime, his music experienced a decline in popularity after his death. Author Joseph Sargent explores and cogently identifies some of the reasons this happened by touching on the most significant episodes of the composer's life as well as discussing representative compositions from his oeuvre. His intentions are emphasized in his introduction to the book, where he states his plan to focus on Sowerby's musical style and analyze specific works that illustrate different aspects of his approach to composition. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Sowerby demonstrated at a young age his musical gis at piano, organ, and composition, and subsequently moved to Chicago at the age of 14 for advanced study in music, eventually earning a master's degree at the American Conservatory of Music there. He went on to establish a long-term relationship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Frederick Stock, who was always very supportive of Sowerby's compositional work. ese beginnings and the emergence of the traits that make Sowerby's music distinctly American are discussed in the first chapter of the book. e next span of the composer's life saw him spending time in Europe aer being the first in his field to be awarded a Rome Prize to study at the American Academy in Rome. He then returned aer a few years to Chicago, where he settled in as a teacher of composition at the American Conservatory and embarked on a long-term appointment as music director of St. James Cathedral, only to surrender it in the last few years of his life to move to a position at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Over the years, his gradual transformation to a composer of primarily sacred music is charted. roughout the book Sargent analyzes the characteristics of Sowerby's music in just enough detail to illustrate his points but not to overweight his prose. He explains how Sowerby fits in with contemporary trends and what contributed to the decline of his reputation. He concludes that Sowerby's consistent devotion to "post-Romantic idioms" in contrast with the evolution in a different direction of his musical peers, as well as his reluctance for self-promotion and disinclination to cultivate contacts in areas of major musical activity such as New York, combined with his eventual label as a strictly sacred composer to affect his staying power on the concert stage. However, Sargent provides convincing arguments for a re-examination of the music of Leo Sowerby, and it is hoped that this book will instigate renewed exposure of his uniquely American, quite listenable music. Kathi Bower Peterson is a graduate of Indiana University, where she majored in music history and oboe, and was a member of the Iota Epsilon chapter. She also has an MM (in musicology) from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign and an MLIS from San Jose State University. She has been the librarian at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla, California since 1997 and currently serves as the treasurer of the San Diego Alumnae Chapter, as well as the Coordinator of Scholarships for SAI Philanthropies, Inc.

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