Earnest Andersson

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Earnest Andersson
Andersson during his early years, c. 1896
Born	Ernest DeNeen Anderson Template:Birth date Burr Oak, Iowa, US
Died	June 23, 1943(1943-06-23) (aged 65) Santa Monica, California, US
Resting place	Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
Occupations	Composer Inventor Entrepreneur
Years active	1895–1943
Spouses	Mary Marguerite Mead ​ ​ (m. 1903; died 1912)​ Dorothy Farnum ​ ​ (m. 1917; div. 1921)​
Partner(s)	Dona Drake c. early 1940sTemplate:Force singular
Children	2
Relatives	James Sample (son-in-law)

Earnest Andersson (born Ernest DeNeen Anderson; February 10, 1878 – June 23, 1943) was an American polymath whose father was a Swedish immigrant. He was born in Iowa. Due to illness during childhood, he was unable to continue formal education past the fifth grade. Despite this limitation, Andersson demonstrated remarkable early talent and developed expertise as a composer, inventor, and painter through self-education and homeschooling.

Initially uncertain about his career path, he ultimately chose inventing and relocated to New York City to pursue employment opportunities. By the late 1920s, Andersson had achieved substantial financial success; the patents he secured for his innovations in packaging machinery had made him a millionaire. Beyond his professional achievements, he excelled as an amateur athlete, race car driver, aviator, photographer, and radio operator. His financial status enabled him to mingle with prominent artists, including those he encountered at the Hotel des Artistes, a building he designed and where he maintained a residence. Although impacted by the effects of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, his prudent financial management allowed him to weather the downturn with minimal harm. After a short period residing in Florida as a professional golfer, he eventually settled in Hollywood, California, where his amateur photography of film celebrities gained recognition.

Throughout his lifetime, Andersson retained a strong passion for music. Upon moving to California, he renewed his dedication to composition and engaged various instructors to refine his abilities. His final mentor was Igor Stravinsky, with whom he studied consistently from 1941 until 1943. Stravinsky and his wife, Vera, appreciated the financial support Andersson provided. In return, Andersson fulfilled multiple roles within their household as handyman, secretary, and companion. He passed away in Santa Monica, California, in 1943.

Following his death, most of Andersson's personal belongings, including his musical scores, were lost in a fire. In the early 2000s, some of his possessions resurfaced in private hands, notably a notebook documenting his lessons with Stravinsky. While Andersson's music received generally favorable reviews during his life, evaluations after his passing—including from Stravinsky himself—have been largely critical. James Sample attributed Stravinsky’s later negative remarks to jealousy over Andersson’s compositional skill and regarded Andersson as a more accomplished composer than Charles Ives.

Early years

Ernest DeNeen Anderson, later known as Andersson, was born on February 10, 1878, in Burr Oak, Iowa, at his family residence famously called "The Red Barn". He was the third child among five siblings of Lavina (née Nichols) and Andrew Edward Anderson (originally Anders Edvard Andersson), an innovator in agricultural machinery who had emigrated from Ödeshög, Sweden. Andersson maintained a lifelong pride in his Swedish roots. The family relocated to Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1882 before finally establishing themselves in Minneapolis, Minnesota, towards the close of the 1880s.

Due to chronic health issues, Andersson's formal schooling ceased after fifth grade. Nonetheless, he was recognized as highly intelligent from an early age. He received occasional home instruction from his parents and was largely self-taught. Among his youthful feats was reportedly memorizing the English dictionary. In his youth, he studied piano and violin and performed on the tenor horn within a children's band in North Dakota. By 1895, he had embarked on composing music, confident that his skills rivaled those of his admired composers. On September 3 of that year, he wrote to his father:

If I ever manage to compose (hoping that time is near), I wish to embody the grandeur of Wagner, the profundity of Beethoven, the fluidity of Chopin, the clarity of Haydn, the spirituality of Handel, to craft melodies as beautiful as those by Mendelssohn, and to possess a soul capable of reigning supreme over all.

He concluded the letter by referencing a statement made by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to his father: "I am almost confident in believing that if I can rise in the world, it must be by the exercise of my talent." Andersson felt this sentiment applied equally to himself and his musical ambitions. Despite this determination, he remained uncertain whether to dedicate himself fully to composing, painting, or inventing.

The earliest documented public presentation of Andersson’s compositions took place in 1899 at Minneapolis Unitarian Church, where his Three Sketches for Opera were performed alongside works by Franz Liszt and Camille Saint-Saëns.

New York

Following the death of his grandfather in 1901, Andersson inherited a modest sum which enabled him to pursue inventing professionally. He relocated to New York City aiming to commercialize his creations. His career flourished; between 1916 and 1924 he secured patents for packaging machinery utilized by various prominent brands throughout much of the twentieth century. His clientele included well-known companies such as the American Chicle Company, Colgate, French's, Life Savers, and Vicks. A list from June 1926 recorded seventy-one corporate clients. By 1929, Andersson had amassed millionaire status and owned multiple real estate holdings.

He served on the board of directors for the Bankers Securities Corporation. Additionally, he was a board member at the Hotel des Artistes, an establishment whose concept he originally devised. He maintained a duplex apartment there as one of his residences and over the following decade acquired several more properties within the building.

During this era, Andersson also excelled as an amateur athlete, race car driver, aviator, photographer, and radio operator. His passion for music endured; at his Hotel des Artistes apartment he installed a Choralcelo—an early form of electric organ with dual keyboards occupying two stories—which cost him Template:US$. In 1921, the New York Evening Telegram noted that Andersson frequently played this instrument at home and found music to be a profound means of self-expression. His musical hobby was humorously depicted in a cartoon by Billy DeBeck published in 1924.

The financial turmoil following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 forced Andersson to sell two factories. Nevertheless, prudent financial choices made for his family's welfare enabled him to retire temporarily in Florida, where he pursued professional golf.

In 1930, his daughter from his first marriage wed conductor James Sample, who would become an influential figure in shaping Andersson’s musical journey.

Hollywood

In April 1933, Andersson relocated to Hollywood, California, settling into a mansion within the Outpost Estates area. Once his financial situation was fully restored, he launched a new enterprise in March 1936 to focus on his passions for cartooning and photography. He quickly earned acclaim for his photographic expertise. His portraits taken with a Leica—including those of Jean Harlow and Johnnie Weissmuller—were featured in prominent national publications. Over time, he also captured images of notable figures such as Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, W. C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, Jeanette MacDonald, Adolphe Menjou, Will Rogers, and Rudy Vallee.

Return to composition

During a visit to San Francisco in April 1936, Andersson’s piano improvisations attracted the attention of Pierre Monteux, who was then the conducting instructor for Sample. Fascinated by the music, Monteux proposed arranging it for orchestra and offered to conduct it in the upcoming season of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Over several weeks, Andersson expanded these improvisations into a symphonic piece lasting approximately 30 minutes. After completing it on May 15, he began orchestrating the work but described the process as an "arduous task" by July. Although Monteux assisted with orchestration alongside Sample, he ultimately withdrew his support. The symphony’s score has since been lost.

In 1938, Andersson became a member of the Composers' Forum of Los Angeles, an organization supported by the Federal Music Project. Around this time, he commenced orchestration studies under Max Donner, a local composer who also served as second violinist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducted the local WPA Federal Symphony Orchestra. As his instruction advanced, Andersson composed a four-movement orchestral suite entitled The Sun Worshipper. Each movement was performed by the Los Angeles WPA Federal Symphony Orchestra between 1937 and 1939, receiving favorable reviews from both audiences and critics, especially for its orchestration.

Sample arrived in Los Angeles in 1938 accompanied by his wife and began his career as a conductor. That year, Andersson acquired a residence in the Beverly Glen district for the couple; he would occupy it during their absences and occasionally lease it to film stars. Another property he purchased in 1940 in what is now known as West Hollywood was rented by actor Robert Mitchum.

By mid-1940, Andersson ended his studies with Donner and opted to learn from Daniele Amfitheatrof, having been impressed by Amfitheatrof’s American Panorama. Shortly thereafter, he resumed lessons with Sample.

Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky with Nadia Boulanger, 1937

As a supporter of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, Andersson may have witnessed or heard about Igor Stravinsky's American debut in 1925. He attended Stravinsky’s initial concert in Los Angeles in 1935 and subsequent performances at the Shrine Auditorium in 1937 and at the Hollywood Bowl in 1940. The latter event featured a production of the suite from The Firebird choreographed by their mutual acquaintance Adolph Bolm, whom Andersson had met at the Hotel des Artistes.

According to Stravinsky’s assistant and close associate Robert Craft, Andersson first approached the composer at the Hotel des Artistes in 1941 with hopes of becoming his pupil. He enlisted promoter Sol Hurok to negotiate private lesson terms at Template:US$ per session. Historian H. Colin Slim records that Andersson met Stravinsky in Hollywood on February 19, 1941, after returning from Palm Springs with his partner. Following an introduction to Stravinsky and his wife Vera, Andersson offered them accommodation at one of his properties—a proposal initially accepted but later declined. Despite Stravinsky’s avowed reluctance toward teaching, he agreed to take on Andersson as a student on February 21. Upon hearing this news, Sample remarked that losing him as a pupil to Stravinsky would be no cause for concern.

Due to disruptions from World War II affecting royalty payments and limited demand for his compositions in America, Stravinsky experienced financial difficulties; Vera documented this as a significant source of anxiety. In 1941, Andersson was Stravinsky’s sole source of income from teaching. Vera noted that these earnings enabled them to acquire furniture and other household essentials by March of that year. Within months, income from instructing Andersson equaled Stravinsky’s entire conducting earnings for 1942. By April 1941, he purchased a residence on North Wetherley Drive above the Sunset Strip. By year’s end, Stravinsky had provided Andersson with 134 lessons; this number rose to 215 in 1942. Their sessions frequently extended beyond their scheduled hour.

Throughout this period, Andersson became one of the most regular visitors—and friends—of the Stravinskys, notably their only American-born companion at that time. He was invited to their inaugural U.S. party. On Andersson’s birthday in 1942, Vera presented him with a linen tea towel she had personally embroidered with a dedication. Vera also taught him Swedish; her mother was Swedish.

Beyond lessons, Andersson produced forty photographic portraits of Stravinsky on July 1, 1941. These images captured Stravinsky making corrections to the score of the second movement of Andersson’s Futurama Symphony, one of few occasions when he allowed observers during his compositional process. Stravinsky gifted Andersson a manuscript copy of his Tango, which he performed for him.

As gestures of goodwill toward the Stravinskys, Andersson provided services as handyman, secretary, and errand runner. When a dispute arose between José Iturbi and Benny Goodman over Goodman’s planned performance of Stravinsky’s Tango in June 1941, Andersson acted as mediator on behalf of Stravinsky. Additionally, he covered property taxes on their home in December that year.

Delayed acknowledgment

Due to scheduling difficulties between Stravinsky and Andersson, no instruction took place in 1943. In March of that year, Andersson traveled to Salt Lake City to attend performances of excerpts from The Sun-Worshipper and Dreams of Solfomby Francinsadit by the Utah State Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Sample. Prior to the event, the Salt Lake Telegram described Andersson as "America's foremost living composer of music". The concert program also featured compositions by Marcel Poot, Eugene Zador, and Edward MacDowell, the latter presented in arrangements by Lionel Barrymore. According to the Deseret News, Andersson's compositions were met with enthusiastic applause, prompting calls for him to appear on stage for acknowledgment.

On May 1, Andersson was awarded an honorary doctorate in music by the New York College of Music.

Passing

On June 23, 1943, Andersson experienced a medical crisis while at the Samples' residence in Beverly Glen. He was rushed to Santa Monica Hospital, where he passed away later that day. An autopsy was not conducted. Funeral services took place on June 30 at W. M. Strothers Funeral Parlors in Hollywood, followed by cremation at Hollywood Memorial Park Crematory. His remains were interred at Lakewood Cemetery located in Minneapolis.

Stravinsky expressed visible sorrow over Andersson’s demise. In correspondence with his son Soulima, he remarked, "All this is very sad" and reflected that it demonstrated his unsuitability as a teacher.

Destruction of personal documents

The majority of Andersson's papers were stored at the residence he acquired for the Samples in Beverly Glen. Several years following his passing, both the property and its contents, which included most of his unpublished musical scores, were lost to a fire.

In the early 2000s, research uncovered an anonymous collector in Pennsylvania who held some of Andersson's private papers. Among these were the manuscript of his Futurama Symphony featuring annotations by his instructor, as well as his notebook from the period studying with Stravinsky—the sole comprehensive record of those lessons.

Personal life

Andersson wed Mary Marguerite Mead, an artist he encountered at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, in 1903. Together they had a daughter named Ernestine Frances. Mead passed away in 1912. In 1917, he entered into marriage with his second spouse, Dorothy Farnum, with whom he fathered another daughter, DeNeen. This marriage ended in divorce around 1921, by which time Farnum had established herself as a prominent screenwriter for silent films.

Reports indicate that Dona Drake was his companion in early 1941. She subsequently became a tenant at one of his properties.

Music

Andersson's work was supported by his son-in-law, James Sample

Reception

Evaluations of Andersson's compositions after his death have generally been unfavorable. In 2013, Craft described the Futurama Symphony as "disappointing." During a 1966 symposium at the Eastman School of Music dedicated to Stravinsky's work, when asked about teaching by Walter Hendl, Stravinsky reiterated his aversion to instructing and recounted his experience with Andersson:

When he asked for lessons in composition, I inquired how long he had been composing. He replied that he had composed all his life. He then showed me his music, which I found very foolish internally. I thought to myself that I must be polite and could not say so directly. It was quite embarrassing. Eventually, I said, "Fine, you call it a symphony. Bring me this symphony [Futurama] and we will compose it together." We did compose it together—that is, I composed it using his themes. He died some years later. His son-in-law [Sample] and daughter [Ernestine], whom I know and who are very nice people, told me they treasured this work because it was my composition.

Stravinsky's assertion that he primarily composed the Futurama Symphony is contradicted by surviving manuscript evidence and Andersson's notebook, both confirming Stravinsky only contributed to its revision. Although Stravinsky expressed a low opinion of Andersson's compositional abilities in 1966, in 1942 he encouraged conductors such as John Barbirolli, Serge Koussevitzky, Dimitri Mitropoulos, and Frederick Stock to perform the Futurama Symphony. To Mitropoulos, he vouched personally for its musical merit. Despite this endorsement, none of these conductors ever programmed Andersson’s works—a situation possibly influenced by Andersson’s premature death.

Both Slim and Sample suggested Stravinsky's disparagement stemmed from envy, especially regarding Andersson's skill with melodic material. In a 1972 interview, Sample remarked that Stravinsky was "almost always jealous of [Andersson's] melodic and rhythmic ideas because they were difficult for him to produce." Sample also recalled an occasion when Stravinsky praised a "marvelous theme" Andersson composed—a melody inspired by the tonal qualities of a word found in a Chinese dictionary.

During Andersson’s lifetime, critical response to his music was more favorable. Richard D. Saunders, music critic for the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, noted that the "Nocturne" movement from the Futurama Symphony received positive reactions and described it as "an impressionistic piece, subtly crafted with an innate sense for orchestral color and mood flexibility." Similarly, Isabel Morse Jones of the Los Angeles Times characterized the same piece as "vague and atmospheric." Bruno David Ussher from the Los Angeles Daily News offered one of the most enthusiastic reviews:

Conductor Sample introduced an unrevised "Nocturne" by Ernest Anderson [sic] from Los Angeles—an astonishing creation achieving a rare blend reminiscent of near visionaries like Debussy and Scriabin, executed with daring seldom seen by this writer... His "Nocturne" demonstrates versatility and a sense of reaching outward.

Following Andersson’s death, Sample remained a devoted advocate for his music. In a 1972 interview, he expressed personal regard for Andersson as a composer superior to Charles Ives.

List of compositions

In addition to several early works from his youth, the following pieces represent the known musical output of Andersson:

• Three Sketches for Opera composed for soprano, tenor, and piano (late 1890s, now lost)
• Symphony (1936, lost)
• Orchestral suite entitled The Sun-Worshipper (1937–1938)
• Orchestral suite Dreams of Solfomby Francinsadit (circa 1940)
• Orchestral suite Child's Suite (circa 1940)
• Futurama Symphony (circa 1940; subsequently revised with Stravinsky's collaboration)
• String Quartet (1943)

The revised manuscript of the Futurama Symphony is preserved within the UCLA Library archives. Additionally, archival recordings capture live performances by the Los Angeles WPA Federal Symphony Orchestra featuring movements from both The Sun-Worshipper and the Futurama Symphony.

Sources

• Craft, Robert (2013). Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories. Naxos Books. ISBN 978-1-84379-753-1.
• Slim, H. Colin (Summer 2009). "Lessons with Stravinsky: The Notebook of Earnest Andersson (1878–1943)". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 62 (2). University of California Press: 323–412. doi:10.1525/jams.2009.62.2.323. JSTOR 10.1525/jams.2009.62.2.323.
• Slim, H. Colin (2019). Stravinsky in the Americas: Transatlantic Tours and Domestic Excursions from Wartime Los Angeles (1925–1945). Oakland, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-29992-4.
• Stravinsky, Vera; Craft, Robert (1978). Stravinsky: In Pictures and Documents. New York City: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-24382-9.
• Walsh, Stephen (2006). Stravinsky – The Second Exile: France and America, 1934–1971. University of California Press. ISBN 0-19-315444-7.