© 2010. State University of New York at Buffalo. All rights reserved.
[Specified item], Livingston Gearhart Collection of Photographs, 1896-1941, Music Library, The State University of New York at Buffalo.
Acquisition InformationGift of Livingston Gearhart.
Terms of AccessMaterials can be examined by qualified researchers in the Music Library during hours of operation during which Music Librarians are present. In order to insure access, researchers are advised to contact the Music Library in advance of visits.
CopyrightCopyright for the materials in the collection does not reside with the Music Library. Therefore, patrons wishing to publish any item, or part of an item from this collection for any purpose, are responsible for securing requisite permissions.
Alternate FormsEntire collection digitized and available in University at Buffalo Libraries Digital Collections .
Processing InformationProcessed by Kathryn M. Blough.
Accruals and AdditionsNo further accruals are expected to this collection.
Livingston Gearhart was born in Buffalo, New York December 31, 1916. His mother was Lillian Hawley Gearhart, a pianist who had studied for a year under Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. As a child Gearhart studied piano, oboe, violoncello, and sang in church choirs in Buffalo and New York City. He graduated from high school in East Orange, New Jersey in 1935. He entered Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1935 as an oboe student of Marcel Tabuteau. In his second year he switched his major to study composition with Rosario Scalero and piano with Nadia Reisenberg.
Gearhart sailed to Paris aboard the Normandie in 1937. With generous support from a wealthy American expatriate, he was able to enroll at the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau where he studied music theory and composition with Nadia Boulanger. He was awarded the school's 2nd prize (no first prize was awarded that year) in the Prix Stovall composition competition in 1937. While in Paris he also met Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Robert Casadesus, pianist Isodor Philipp, and his future wife and duo-piano partner, Virginia Clotfelter. He and Virginia performed their debut in Paris February 1, 1939 at the Salle Chopin. They received good reviews and were then able to give concerts in other French and Swiss locations until the conditions of World War II caused them to return to the United States.
Virginia Clotfelter adopted the professional name Morley and married Gearhart February 28, 1940 in New York City. They worked at numerous venues, including the Hotel Brevoort and the club, Ruban Bleu, both operated by Herbert Jacoby. The pair spent the summers of 1942 and 1943 as Artists-in-Residence at Morley's alma mater, Mills College in Oakland, California. While there Gearhart was able to study composition with Darius Milhaud. The Budapest String Quartet was also in residence at Mills College during those years and Gearhart and Morley formed friendships with quartet members Alexander and Mischa Schneider. The Morley Gearhart duo was very successful, performing works by Milhaud, Norman Dello Joio, David Diamond, and Stravinsky's Concerto per due pianoforte soli.
The duo received contracts with Columbia Concerts and the Fred Waring Show that extended from 1943-1954. During 1941 to 1954, the two-piano team of Morley and Gearhart performed over 2000 concerts throughout the US and Canada in addition to recording for Columbia Masterworks and Decca Records. Among the many concert dates, the duo performed at the White House for President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. During this period Gearhart also worked as a staff arranger for the Fred Waring Show.
A two-CD retrospective released in 2001, Morley and Gearhart Rediscovered by Ivory Classics, features 22 of Gearhart's two-piano arrangements. Some of these arrangements survive at Penn State in their collection, Fred Waring's America. In many cases Gearhart never fully wrote out his part of a duo so no written arrangement survives.
Livingston Gearhart's output contains several collections written for pedagogical purposes. The first of Gearhart's these works to be published was Clarinet Sessions in 1945. That was followed by similar collections for trumpet, violin, flute, and duos. Gearhart's entire compositional and arranging output includes 400-500 works (counting individual works within the collections).
Gearhart returned to Buffalo in 1955 and was appointed to the faculty of the music department at the University of Buffalo. After a divorce from Virginia Morley, he married violinist and conductor Pamela Gerhart (not a misspelling) in 1955. He taught various courses in keyboard, theory, and orchestration until his retirement in 1985.
Livingston Gearhart had four children: Paul, born to Virginia Morley Gearhart; Kim, Martha, and Fritz, born to Pamela Gearhart. Gearhart died in Buffalo at the age of 79 on July 14, 1996.
The collection contains 26 photographs from the personal collection of composer, arranger, and pianist, Livingston Gearhart. They include photographs of Gearhart in Paris between 1937 and 1939, Nadia Boulanger and her summer class of 1938 at the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau, Gearhart and his first wife, Virginia Morley at Mills College in California, with composer Darius Milhaud and his family, and the Budapest String Quartet. The collection also includes photographs of oboist Marcel Tabuteau, conductor Walter Damrosch, and choral director, Fred Waring. A unique component of the collection is the group of four photographs of composer Johannes Brahms taken while he was visiting friends in Krefeld, Germany the weekend after Clara Schumann's funeral in May 1896.
The collection is organized by size of the print and grouped by subject.
| Box | Item | Contents |
| 1 | lg01 | Livingston Gearhart and unidentified male onboard the
ship, The Normandie,
1937  View a digital version of this item1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg02 | Livingston Gearhart sitting outdoors,
circa 1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg03 | Livingston Gearhart and group of Nadia Boulanger students
sitting at an outdoor caf. Virginia Morley is seated across from Gearhart,
Nadia Boulanger visible at end of table,
circa 1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg04 | Livingston Gearhart walking across a street in Paris,
circa 1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg05 | Livingston Gearhart, Virginia Morley, and three
unidentified males, in the dining pavilion at the Conservatoire Américain de
Fontainebleau,
1937
View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg06 | Livingston Gearhart standing on a bridge in Paris,
circa 1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg07 | Livingston Gearhart on board the Normandie,
1937 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg08 | Livingston Gearhart sitting next to Nadia Boulanger at an
outdoor caf in Paris,
circa 1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg09 | Livingston Gearhart sitting next to Nadia Boulanger at an
outdoor caf in Paris,
circa 1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg10 | Nadia Boulanger with her group of singers and others.
Livingston Gearhart in the back row, head turned,
circa 1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg11 | Nadia Boulanger standing next to a car,
circa 1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg12 | Nadia Boulanger standing with conductor Walter Damrosch in
the garden of the restaurant at the American Conservatory, Fontainbleu,
July 1937 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg13 | Nadia Boulanger portrait photograph,
undated View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Esparcieux, G. |
| 1 | lg14 | Nadia Boulanger (at piano) with her class of summer 1938,
1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg15 | Marcel Tabuteau standing outside the Drake Hotel in
Philadelphia,
1935 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg16 | Livingston Gearhart, Fred Waring, and Virginia Morley at the Gearhart's farm in Pennsylvania,
circa 1948 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg17 | Livingston Gearhart and Virginia Morley at Mills College,
1941 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg18 | Livingston Gearhart sitting on couch with unidentified
male in Igor Stravinsky's parlor,
circa 1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg19 | Livingston Gearhart walking across street in Paris,
circa 1938 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg20 | Livingston Gearhart and Virginia Morley with Daniel,
Madeleine, and Darius Milhaud, at Mills College,
1941 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg21 | Madeleine, Daniel, and Darius Milhaud,
1941 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg22 | Budapest String Quartet members with koala bears at Mills
College: Josef Roismann, Boris Kroyt, Alexander Schneider, and Mischa
Schneider,
1940 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Unidentified |
| 1 | lg23 | Johannes Brahms tending to a bird dropping on the jacket
of Alwin von Beckerath, as Karl Piening, Bram Eldering, Rudolf von der Leyen,
and Gustav Ophüls stand nearby,
1896 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Beckerath, Heinz von, 1876-1940 |
| 1 | lg24 | Johannes Brahms with Alwin von Beckerath, Gustav Ophüls,
and Bram Eldering in Bad Honnef,
1896 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Beckerath, Heinz von, 1876-1940 |
| 1 | lg25 | Johannes Brahms with Alwin von Beckerath, Gustav Ophüls,
and Bram Eldering walking down a path in Bad Honnef,
1896 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Beckerath, Heinz von, 1876-1940 |
| 1 | lg26 | Johannes Brahms with Emmie Weyermann, wife of Walther
Weyermann, at the Weyermann estate, Hagerhof, in Bad Honnef,
1896 View a digital version of this item 1 photograph, Photographer Beckerath, Heinz von, 1876-1940 |
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog.
For information about Nadia Boulanger's classes, refer to: Rosenstiel, Léonie.
Nadia Boulanger: A Life in Music, W. W.
Norton, 1982
For an English translation of the events regarding the weekend spent
by Brahms in Krefeld, refer to:
Heinz von Beckerath's memoir in
Brahms and his world,Rev. ed., Princeton University
Press, 2009
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