Saminsky's Indians

"This composition is frankly descriptive. I have wanted to capture something of what lies behind the inscrutable Indian visage; capture the whole rainbow, the arc of their savage grief, their martial fire, their craving for sun and space."

Many who heard the world premiere of Lazare Saminsky's Pueblo, a Moon Epic last week agreed that his "orchestral rhapsody'' fell short of the billing. Composer Saminsky had written it for Washington's National Symphony Orchestra, on a special commission from the League of Composers. He divided it into two parts: "Sick of the Snow, the Shia Seed'' and "Call of the Wind; Highward Ho." Into these movements he worked tribal tunes, war cries, corn & moon dances of Indians in the Southwest. Listeners enjoyed its orchestral color and primitive drummings, but disliked its lack of coherence.

Saminsky's interest in the American Indian dates back almost to his birth in 1882 near Odessa. He was raised on Indian folklore and translations of James Fenimore Cooper. Young Saminsky's people were rich Jewish merchants with a bent for theology and the arts.

At 16 Lazare wrote a commentary on Spinoza's Ethics, translated Descartes' Meditations from Latin into Russian. He was still in his teens when he studied abstruse mathematical logic and published attacks on non-Euclidean geometers. Meantime he was playing music on the side, making up little songs and waltzes for his cousins.

When his parents lost their money in 1902, Lazare got a job tutoring Latin and mathematics. He won a scholarship to the Moscow Philharmonic Conservatory in 1905. Next year he lost it because of his revolutionary sympathies. He went to St. Petersburg and studied mathematics and music there, became a popular conductor of the University Chorus.

By 1908 St. Petersburg was beginning to pay attention to the music of this versatile young man. That summer he wrote his first string quartet, heard a chorus sing his Ode to Mendelssohn a few months later. In 1910 he did military service in the Caucasus. When he had served his term he went back to St. Petersburg and Moscow, composed more music, lectured on it, wrote articles about it. After the Revolution his industry won him the directorship of the People's Conservatory at Tiflis.

Lazare Saminsky emigrated to the U. S. in 1920 because he was sick of "people flying at each other's throats." In 1923 he married young Lillian Morgan, a poet proud of her descent from the Colonial Cranes. Composer Saminsky was re-excited about the redskin when he saw The Covered Wagon and read Natalie Curtis' Indian translations. He planned to write Pueblo for several years, did so last summer at Rye, N. Y.

Composer Saminsky is neat, bald, hardly more than five feet high. He helped found the League of Composers, persuaded it to put on modern operas and ballets. Since 1924 he has been music director at Temple Emanu-El, biggest synagog in Manhattan.

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