“Myron Bloom, one of the most distinguished French horn players of his generation and a force in molding the sound of the Cleveland Orchestra during its golden age under the demanding conductor George Szell, died on Thursday in Bloomington, Ind. He was 93,” writes Michael Cooper in Friday’s (9/27) New York Times. “As Szell’s principal horn in Cleveland for more than two decades, he appeared on many of the orchestra’s celebrated recordings, and was the soloist in its classic account of the Horn Concerto No. 1 by Richard Strauss. He later became principal horn of the Orchestre de Paris under the conductor Daniel Barenboim, and an influential teacher…. He [became] principal horn in the New Orleans Symphony … in 1949. He moved on to the Cleveland Orchestra in 1954 and was appointed principal there soon afterward…. In 1977 … he became a professor at Indiana University’s … Jacobs School of Music…. His horn students have gone on to win positions with great orchestras around the world.… One of his former students, Matthew VanBesien … now president of the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan … said that at heart he always pushed his students ‘to better serve the music.’ ”
Posted October 2, 2019
