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Creator
Luening, Otto, 1900-1996
Call number
JPB 94-07
Physical description
72.68 linear feet (203 boxes)
Preferred Citation

Otto Luening papers, JPB 94-07. Music Division, The New York Public Library.

Repository
Music Division
Access to materials
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The Otto Luening papers contain the composer's scores, correspondence, writings, subject files, and other professional papers; and family papers of his siblings, parents, extended family, and ancestors, including the scores of his father, Eugene Luening.

Biographical/historical information

Otto Luening (1900-1996) was an American composer, teacher, conductor, and flautist. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he was the youngest of six children of Eugene Luening (1852-1944), a noted conductor, pianist, composer, and professor at the University of Wisconsin, who had studied at the Leipzig Conservatory under Ignaz Moscheles and Carl Reinecke (he had also known Richard Wagner). For many years, he was conductor of the Milwaukee Musical Society, and he founded the Luening Conservatory of Music, a precursor of the Wisconsin Conservatory. Eugene's father, Frederick August Luening, had emigrated from Germany and was one of the first settlers of the town of Cedarburg, north of Milwaukee. Otto Luening's mother, Emma Jacobs Luening (1861-1950), was an amateur singer. Her father, Colonel William Jacobs, was a prominent Milwaukee banker who had emigrated from Germany in 1850.

Otto Luening began composing as a child in 1906. In 1912, his family moved to Munich, where he studied theory at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik with Anton Beer-Walbrunn (1915-1917) and made his debut as a flautist (1916). During the First World War he served as an orderly in the American Red Cross Hospital in Munich. After the United States entered the war in 1917, he moved to Zürich, where he studied at the Konservatorium für Musik and at the University of Zürich (1919-1920). He also studied privately with Philipp Jarnach and Ferrucio Busoni, both of whom deeply influenced Luening's conception of music and teaching methods. In Zürich he played the flute in the Tonhalle Orchestra and at the Municipal Opera, and for a season was an actor and stage manager with James Joyce's English Players Company. He made his debut as composer-conductor in 1917.

In 1920, Luening moved to Chicago, where he studied with Wilhelm Middelschulte, but was able to find work as a flautist only with the Statford Theatre, a vaudeville house. He was able to devote time to composition with the sponsorship of Edith Rockefeller McCormick, who presented concerts of Luening's music and helped him establish the Chicago Musical Arts Studio. Luening went on to conduct the American Grand Opera Company in performances of operas in English (including the 1922 Chicago premiere of Charles Wakefield Cadman's Shanewis).

In 1925, he accepted his first academic post as vocal coach at the Eastman School of Music. He later became executive director of the opera department and conductor of the Rochester Opera Company (and of its later offshoot, the American Opera Company). In 1928, he moved to Cologne for a year before coming to New York in 1929. There, he worked as a freelance composer-conductor until he was awarded two Guggenheim fellowships (1930-1931 and 1931-1932; he was awarded a third in 1974). The fellowships enabled him to write the text and music of his opera Evangeline, based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

In 1932, he began teaching at the University of Arizona, and in 1934 he was appointed head of the music department at Bennington College (which had opened only two years earlier), where he remained until 1944. During his tenure at Bennington, Luening was associate conductor, under Hans Lange, of the New York Philharmonic Chamber Symphony (1935-1937) for a series of concert benefits for the college.

Luening served on the Music Committee of the Yaddo Festival (1936-1938, 1940, 1947), and during the 1930s was involved in Works Progress Administration music projects in Vermont and New York City. From 1941 he was active with Alan Carter in the Vermont Chamber Music Composers' Conferences. Luening was also a co-founder of the American Composers Alliance (1937) and the American Music Center (1939), and from 1936 to 1942, managed the New Music series of recordings founded by Henry Cowell.

In 1944, Luening joined the faculty of Barnard College; five years later he was appointed director of opera productions at Columbia University, where he developed a graduate seminar in composition. During his tenure at Columbia he conducted the world premieres of Gian Carlo Menotti's opera The Medium (1946), Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All (1947), and his own opera Evangeline (1948).

In 1954, Luening co-founded the record label Composers Recordings, Inc. with Oliver Daniel, Douglas Moore, and Avery Claflin to provide American composers with an opportunity to have their work recorded and circulated. Luening served the company as either President, Co-President, or Chairman from 1968 to 1977.

Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky began collaborating to produce electronic music using tape recorders in 1952. Their first works (for flute and tape) were premiered that year at an event sponsored by the American Composers Alliance and Broadcast Music, Inc. Leopold Stokowski conducted the concert, which was held at the Museum of Modern Art. Ussachevsky and Luening continued to work together, and in 1959, assisted by a $175,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, they co-founded the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (now the Computer Music Center); Milton Babbitt and Roger Sessions were named co-directors with Luening and Ussachevsky.

Luening was a trustee of the American Academy in Rome (1953-1970), where he was also composer-in-residence (1958, 1961 and 1965). His other recognitions included honorary doctorates from Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin; an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1946); election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1952); and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (1974, 1977), the National Music Council (1985), and the American Composers Alliance (1970, 1985).

Luening retired from Barnard in 1964, but continued to teach at Columbia until 1968, when he was named professor emeritus and music chairman of the School of the Arts; he retired in 1970. He then taught at the Juilliard School (1971-1973). Among his many students were Charles Wuorinen, Chou Wen-Chung, Charles Dodge, Wendy Carlos, and Ezra Laderman. In 1980 Luening published an autobiography, The Odyssey of an American Composer, documenting all aspects of his career.

Source: Lester Trimble and Severine Neff. "Luening, Otto." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed November 27, 2012, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/17140.

Scope and arrangement

The Otto Luening papers contain Luening's professional files, scores, and family papers dating back to the early 19th century.

His professional papers hold subject files, correspondence, publicity files, concert programs, clippings, photographs, posters, a scrapbook, and school exercise books. They include documentation of his teaching career, particularly his years at Bennington College, Columbia University and Barnard College; his role in the early development of electronic music in the 1950s and the founding of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center; and his writings, including drafts of articles, lectures, and his autobiography. Among the many notable correspondents in his professional files are George Antheil, Ernst Bacon, Henry Cowell, Philipp Jarnach, Severine Neff, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Edgard Varèse, and Frank Wigglesworth.

Luening's scores hold his own music; the compositions of his father, Eugene; and the scores of Luening's students and colleagues. Luening's scores span his entire life and include sketches, rough drafts, finished manuscripts, publishing proofs and some published scores. They include his opera Evangeline; early electronic works in collaboration with Vladimir Ussachvesky; and many pieces for traditional instrumentations, as well as songs and choral works. The scores of Luening's students and colleagues contain music by Ernst Bacon, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison, and Frank Wiggleworth, among many others. Many of them are manuscripts, and most are signed or dedicated to Luening.

Luening's family papers document all his siblings and both sides of his ancestral family (the Luenings and the Jacobs), mostly after their mid-19th century arrival in the United States and their settlement in the Milwaukee area, but also contain pre-immigration papers of both families (as early as 1800). They consist primarily of correspondence between family members, but also include photographs, passports, legal and real estate papers, and birth and baptismal certificates. Among the family correspondence are letters from Otto Luening's uncle Adolf Luening, who fought in the American Civil War, and a letter from an unknown soldier in the Napoleonic Wars.

The Otto Luening papers are arranged in three series:

  • Series I: Professional Files
    1911-1996
    105 boxes

    This series thoroughly documents Otto Luening's career as a composer, pedagogue, performer, and conductor.

    Arranged alphabetically, it holds subject files, correspondence, teaching files, publicity materials, photographs, posters, a scrapbook, and school exercise books. These contents are intermingled in the alphabetical listing. Folder titles denote either a correspondent or a subject file, with the exceptions of format-based titles such as Publicity or Promotional Correspondence.

    Subject files can contain correspondence with or regarding the subject, as well as other papers about or photographs of the subject.

    Certain subjects, especially the Electronic Music and Teaching Files, are voluminous and sub-divided into their own subject/correspondent listings.

    The Publicity files contain clippings, concert programs and posters. They cover Luening's career from 1918 to 1996, and are filed chronologically.

    The Electronic Music files document the early work Luening did with Vladimir Ussachevsky, the establishment of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, and several other projects. They hold correspondence, article manuscripts, and grant correspondence with the Rockefeller Foundation, as well discussion of the Bauer-Mengelberg Project, an early effort to develop a computerized method for printing music.

    The Teaching files mostly cover Luening's time at the University of Arizona, Bennington College, Columbia University and Barnard College, with smaller files for the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. They mostly contain inter-faculty and administrative correspondence, as well as course syllabi and correspondence with former students. The teaching files do not contain student work or transcripts; all files denoting student publications or correspondence contains content shared with Luening by his former students.

    The Foundation files contain correspondence with and grant applications to the Rockefeller Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, among others.

    The Writings files hold unpublished notes, drafts, finished manuscripts, and typescripts for articles, lectures, and Luening's autobiography, The Odyssey of an American Composer. They also contain correspondence regarding the writings. Most of the lectures are unpublished. Some of the lecture files have only notes. Writings, lecture texts, and notes can also be found in the files for the Association of American Colleges, Electronic Music, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, the National Federation of Music Clubs, Phi Beta Kappa, Silver Burdett Books, and in the Teaching files (under both Bennington College and Columbia University/Barnard College). The chapter files for Luening's autobiography contain drafts, notes, and research, including original documentation of events.

    The correspondence with Carol June Bradley discusses her catalog of Luening's songs and poetry settings. Notes by Carol Oja took during an interview she did with Luening regarding Colin McPhee are filed under McPhee's name (box 36, folder 7). The file on the MacDowell Association has a photograph of the 1954 attendees of the MacDowell Colony. The correspondence with Severine Neff concerns research Neff was conducting on the music theorist Bernhard Ziehn, and contain transcriptions of correspondence between Ziehn and Eugene Luening.

    Other significant figures with correspondence are George Antheil, Fritz Reiner, Ned Rorem, Nicolas Roussakis, Carl Sandburg, Halsey Stevens, Leopold Stokowsky, Virgil Thomson, and Stefan Wolpe. The Students file contains correspondence with Luening's pupils, as well as a list of students Luening taught at various schools. The single scrapbook in this series dates from 1917, and contains German newspaper clippings.

    Files without dates hold undated content.

  • Series II: Luening and Jacobs Family Papers
    1800-1984
    27 boxes

    This series contains correspondence, clippings, official papers, writings, and photographs documenting Otto Luening's extended family and ancestors on both his paternal (Luening) and maternal (Jacobs) sides, dating back to the early 19th century. It is arranged alphabetically. Portions of the series, particularly the clippings and older correspondence, are in German. Throughout the series, photographs are mixed with correspondence.

    Otto Luening was the youngest of six children. His siblings were Eugene II (nicknamed "Dix"), Frederick, Robert, John (nicknamed "Hans"), and Helene. Eugene II had two sons, Eugene III (nicknamed "Dixie"), and William.

    On the Jacobs side, Otto's mother, Emma Jacobs Luening, had five sisters (Claire, Gretchen, Tillie, Hermine, and Helene), and her parents were Colonel William H. Jacobs and Caroline Jacobs. Emma's mother Caroline had a sister, Josephine, and Emma's paternal grandfather was Holzen Jacobs.

    On the Luening side, Otto's father, Eugene, had a brother named Adolph. Eugene's father was Frederick August Luening, and Eugene's maternal grandparents were Franz and Xavier Neukirch.

    Otto Luening was the last surviving child of Eugene and Emma Luening, and he inherited papers from both sides of his family, as well as those of his siblings. All the individual family members named above are documented to some extent in this series. The figures with the most content are Eugene and Emma Luening, Helene Luening (Otto's sister, a music teacher), and Otto Luening. As a group, however, the Jacobs side of the family has more documentation than the Luening side.

    The Eugene and Emma Luening papers hold clippings, writings, photographs, and correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues, including Richard Wagner (although the recipient of the letter is unclear), and the music theorist Bernhard Ziehn. (They also include brief letters from Thomas Edison and Eleanor Roosevelt.) The writings hold essays on music and literature by Eugene Luening (some in German), and diaries and notebooks by both Eugene and Emma Luening. Business and official papers include a ledger from the Luening Conservatory in Milwaukee (later the Wisconsin Conservatory); baptism certificates and real estate transactions; and travel documents.

    Helene Luening's papers include correspondence with her family and friends; arrangements and transcriptions of folk and classical songs for voice and piano; programs and clippings; teaching materials; and papers documenting her work with the Works Progress Administration and The New York Public Library.

    Otto Luening's family papers are comprised of family correspondence and photographs. They also include a sketch of Luening by the painter Carl Bohnen who Luening met when his family was living in Munich. Otto Luening's correspondence in this series was originally cataloged under call number Music-Am Letters 85-1.

    The papers of Otto Luening's other siblings contain correspondence and photographs, and include some documentation of their children as well.

    Among the other notable papers in this series are letters from Adolph Luening, the brother of Eugene Luening, which contains discussions of his experieces in the American Civil War; a letter from an unknown soldier to his mother at the end of the German campaign of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814 (found in the Franz and Xavier Neukirch correspondence, with an English translation by Emma Luening); and correspondence between Otto Luening and historians in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, regarding Luening's grandfather Frederick August Luening, one of the town's first settlers.

    Many of the clippings in this series are from German newspapers in Milwaukee, or from the Milwaukee Sentinel. Among Eugene Luening's papers is a log of mentions of the Jacobs and Luening families in the Sentinel in the late 19th century.

    Files without dates hold undated content.

  • Series III: Scores
    1870-1996
    69 boxes

    This series, divided into three sub-series, holds scores by Otto Luening, his father Eugene, and by Otto Luening's students and colleagues. The bulk of the series is comprised of scores for over 300 Luening compositions. They include published and unpublished sketches, scores and parts, dating from his earliest compositional studies as a teenager to his last works in the 1990s. The scores of Luening's students and colleagues contain a mixture of manuscript and published scores, many with notes or dedications to Luening. Composers include Henry Cowell, David Diamond, Lou Harrison, Quincy Porter, and Joan Tower. Eugene Luening's scores, written for various orchestrations, span much of his life and include many educational pieces.

    Folders in this series without dates hold undated content.

Administrative information

Custodial history

As the last surviving member of his family, Otto Luening collected papers from his siblings, his parents, and their extended families. The source and provenance of some content in the family papers is unknown.

Source of acquisition

Donated by Otto Luening in 1987and Catherine B. Luening in 2001.

Processing information

Compiled by Matthew Snyder.

Otto Luening donated most of the collection in 1987 and 1994. These portions were originally processed by the Music Division in 1987 and 1994, but never completed. Catherine Luening donated the rest of the collection in 2001. Final processing took place in the Manuscripts and Archives Division in 2012 and consisted of consolidating, refoldering, and arranging papers, and removing duplicate content. Two portions of the collection were originally cataloged separately. The Otto Luening scores received in 1987 are described under call number JPB 94-07 Series 11, and Otto Luening's family correspondence was cataloged under Music-Am Letters 85-1.

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Location

Music Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor

Conditions Governing Use

For permission to publish, contact the Chief, Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.