Gutchë, Gene, 1907-

Gene Gutchë was born Romeo Maximilian Eugene Ludwig Gutsche on July 3, 1907 in Berlin, Germany (he dropped the “s” from his last name when he began composing because he thought it would be easier for Americans to pronounce). His father, a fruit importer, was French and his mother was Polish. As a boy, Gutchë took piano lessons in Zurich with Marie Magniani and Ferruccio Busoni. His father did not encourage him to pursue his passion for music, however, and instead urged him to study business and economics, which Gutchë did at universities in Heidelberg (Germany), Lausanne (Switzerland), and Padua (Italy). In 1925, at the age of eighteen, Gutchë decided to break all ties with Europe and his family and move to the United States. He arrived in Galveston, Texas with five hundred dollars and without knowing a word of English. He traveled north as a migrant worker, and eventually landed in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In 1935, Gutchë met seventeen-year old Marion Buchan and the two were married six weeks later. The couple immediately moved to New York City, where Gutchë’s knowledge of five European languages helped to get him work in the business world. After eight years in New York, Gutchë’s lack of success in the business world, along with the outbreak of World War II, led the Gutchës back to Minnesota, where Gene hoped to pursue his musical aspirations. Marion took a job as a medical secretary in order to support herself and Gene. Her employer, Dr. Frederic Foley, took an interest in Gene’s musical potential, and along with his friend C.O. Kalman, agreed to subsidize Gene’s musical education. A special scholarship was set up at the University of Minnesota, and Gutchë entered a Master’s Program there. He studied under Dr. Donald Ferguson and Dr. James Aliferis and earned his degree in 1950. He went on to the State University of Iowa seeking a Ph.D., which he was awarded in 1953, at the age of 46.

Unlike the majority of his colleagues, Gutchë was not interested in conducting or teaching and devoted all of his time and energy to composing. He probably enjoyed his greatest success in the 1960s and 1970s; during this span there would be as many as 60 performances of his works per year around the country. Much of Gutchë’s music was programmatic, in that it told a story or depicted a character, a practice that had fallen out of fashion among modernist composers. His programmatic pieces, such as Genghis Khan, Icarus, Akhenaten, Holofernes, and Perseus and Andromeda, often dealt with heroic or tragic figures drawn from history or mythology. All told, he composed thirteen programmatic works, along with six symphonies, five concertos, and numerous pieces for chorus and chamber ensemble. He received two Guggenheim Fellowships and four National Endowment for the Arts grants and won the City of Trieste Prize in 1967 and 1972, the Oscar Espla Composition Prize in 1962, and the Luria Award in 1959. He also wrote a number of articles for music journals and published a book of essays entitled Come Prima in 1970. Gutchë died of natural causes in 2000 at the age of 93.

Note: contains information from the obituary “Gene Gutchë, 93, music composer,” by Michael Anthony, which appeared in the Star Tribune Tuesday, November 21, 2000.