Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002

Never rich in composers since the Federal period, New Jersey today has a small number representing current differences in style and approach. Dean of the group is Henry Holden Huss (1862- ) of Newark, renowned as teacher and pianist, composer of several concertos in the conservative romantic mold. George Antheil (1900- ), who was born in Trenton, has been called the enfant terrible of modern American music. Although his Ballet Mecanique shows a vigorous and original talent, he has yet to surmount a reputation for the merely spectacular. Midway between these extremes are Philip James (1890- ), a native of Jersey City, composer of several overtures; and Harriet Ware of Plainfield, whose songs, cantatas, and piano pieces have made her one of the Nation's leading women composers.

Other well known New Jersey musicians include Ernest Schelling (1876- ), born in Belvidere, who holds high rank as both a composer and conductor, particularly of music for children; Paul Ambrose (1868- ), organist and composer, of Trenton; Mark Andrews of Montclair, a talented and original director of choral groups throughout the State; and Jerome Kern (1885- ) of Newark, whose gift for melodious composition, displayed in Show Boat and other popular operettas, suggests him as a latter-day Victor Herbert.

Among the State's prominent singers are Richard Crooks, Metropolitan Opera tenor, who was born in Trenton and now lives in Sea Girt, and Paul Robeson (1898- ), the noted Negro concert singer and actor, a native of Princeton, who attended Rutgers College: Crooks made his professional debut at Asbury Park in 1910 with the late Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink.

When American music began to merit detailed record and interpretation, three New Jerseymen assumed the major share of that task. William J. Henderson (1855-1937), born in Newark and educated at Princeton, belonged to the notable group of musical critics in New York whose taste influenced music from Boston to San Francisco. In addition to his work on the New York Sun, he wrote a large number of books that popularized concert and operatic music. Perhaps the greatest of American music scholars was Oscar G. Sonneck (1873-1928) of Jersey City, whose most valuable work was his studies in early American musical history. He was later chief of the music division of the Library of Congress and also pioneered in the study of American Indian music. Yielding little to Sonneck in scholarship, John Tasker Howard (1890- ) of Glen Ridge wrote Our American Music in 1930, the first full-length history of native music, with unusual consideration for the general reader. Howard's work, more essentially American in its critical attitude than Sonneck's, is unquestionably a vital chapter in the unassembled volume of American cultural history.

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