Ryterband, Roman, 1914-1979

Roman Ryterband (born 1914, Łódź, Poland – died 1979, Palm Springs, California), came from a family of lawyers and musicians. He studied law at the University of Warsaw and piano performance at the Music Academy in Łódź. Composing music already at the age of 12, Ryterband was strongly encouraged by Alexander Glazunov to pursue a musical career, which he did by performing as pianist and composer in Łódź and Warsaw during the mid-1930s.

Touring Western Europe on the eve of World War II, Ryterband was able to take refuge in Switzerland, where he worked as a manual laborer alongside other wartime foreigners interned on Swiss territory. He also completed his PhD studies of musicology at the University of Berne, indulging his passion for studying different languages and cultures, and conducting an extensive research of Slavic, Swiss, Italian, Brazilian, Indian, and Negro folk music traditions. They inspired Ryterband to write a number of works utilizing various native idioms as well as author and deliver numerous lectures and articles on indigenous music traditions throughout his life.

Having married Italian-born Clarissa de Lazzari in 1950, Ryterband continued to reside in Berne where he appeared as pianist, composer, conductor and lecturer, earning accolades from such artists as Ernest Ansermet and Artur Rubinstein. His two daughters, Astrid and Diana, were born in Switzerland but, by the mid-1950s, Ryterband set his sights on North America. He moved his family to Montreal, where he assumed the post of music director for the classical radio station, CKVL. Just as in Switzerland, Ryterband’s years in Canada were marked by his intensive participation in the local musical life, producing concerts, appearing as pianist and conductor, composing a variety of works from classical to popular vein, lecturing at McGill University, and founding his own chamber orchestra.

Ryterband’s next move was to Chicago, where he joined the faculty of the Chicago Conservatory College in 1960. Active as composer and conductor, Ryterband led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, participated in concerts and conferences of the Chicago chapter of International Society of Contemporary Music, and organized numerous events for the local Polish-American community. Ryterband’s cultural contributions were recognized with a 1965 Chicago City Council Outstanding New Citizen of the Year Award.

Eager to explore new horizons and meet new challenges, Ryterband moved his family from Chicago to Palm Springs in 1967, where he spent the remaining twelve years of his life. In addition to composing and performing at various local venues, Ryterband also lectured at California State University in Los Angeles, and served as chairman of the Piano Teachers of the Desert association as well as music director for the Presbyterian Community Church of Palm Desert and Temple Sinai of the Desert in Cathedral City. He also founded and directed the annual Palm Springs Festival of Music and Art, bringing many operatic, ballet and orchestral performances for the local audiences. Diagnosed with cancer, Roman Ryterband died in Palm Springs on 17 November 1979.

Almost forty years after his death, Roman Ryterband’s music remains largely unknown, especially in his native Poland, perhaps because he spent most of his creative life abroad. Ryterband’s musical language represents a cross-pollination of early twentieth century modernists like Debussy and Britten with a robust admixture of folk elements present in the works of Bartok, Copland, or Kodaly. Although his career as a composer began with a few short piano works and some popular songs in Poland in the late 1930s, Ryterband came into his own during the World War II years spent in Switzerland. There he completed several large-scale solo piano cycles (24 Variations on a Folk Song, Suite Polonaise, and Three Preludes) and a number of solo and chamber works for harp (Two Images, Sonata for Harp and Two Flutes, Sonata breve and Trois Ballades Hébraïques), as well as many vocal works, choral cantatas and compositions for saxophone and piano.

Although most of his catalog is represented by chamber music (often in interesting combinations of instruments), Ryterband also penned a few large-scale orchestral works, including Jubilate Deo for soloists, orchestra, organ and men’s and boys’ choirs (1949), symphonic poems Vida Heroica (1953) and Russian Rhapsody (1962), as well as orchestral ballet music Tableaux of Laguna (1976) and Heracles and the Argonauts (1978). Folk and religious music add further diversity to Roman Ryterband’s opus with such entries as Three Hebrew Songs for voice and piano (1938), Song of the Slavonic Plains for violin and piano (1944), Rhapsodia helvetica for trombone and piano (1948), and several songs based on Negro spirituals (The Gospel’s Mah Religion, Yo’ Serbant, So Sing—So Play, Trusty Jim), as well as a number of psalm settings (Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, Raise Your Heads, O Gates) and settings of traditional texts and poetry in Hebrew, Polish, French and German.

Ryterban won several awards, including the First Prize at ISCM Chicago in 1961 for Piece sans titre for two flutes, Ryterband also received the Kosciuszko Foundation 1977 Award and a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities for a work celebrating American Bicentennial celebrations in 1976.