Kubik was born inSouth Coffeyville, Oklahoma, the second of three sons to Henry and Evalyn O. Kubik, a singer who had studied withSchumann-Heink.[2] In the 1930s his mother and her sons formed the Kubik Ensemble (Gail on violin, Howard on piano, and Henry Jr. on cello) and toured the midwest. All three brothers studied at theEastman School of Music, where Kubik studied composition withHoward Hanson and violin with Samuel Belov andScott Willits.[3][4][5] It is likely that Kubik played violin in Eastman's orchestra, taking part in the American Composers' Concerts and getting nationally broadcast on NBC. Kubik graduated with distinction in 1934 in a class that includedWayne Barlow andKent Kennan.[6]
He was a prodigy; at the time becoming Eastman's youngest graduate (in both violin and composition), the youngest student admitted to Harvard's doctoral program, and the youngest MacDowell Colony fellow.[7]
In 1940 he joinedNBC Radio in New York as staff composer. In the 17 weeks before his contract expired in 1941, he contributed scores forThe World Is Yours and Great Plays series, and for the NBC 1940 Christmas program Puck. In this year he also composed incidental music for Max Catto's playThey Walk Alone.
In 1941 he composed the score the short documentary filmMen and Ships, which was produced by George Gercke for theUnited States Maritime Commission.[11][8] The score was a success, and Kubik conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the work's radio premiere. This success lead to his 1942 recruitment by theOffice of War Information's Motion Picture Bureau to be their Director of Music, working forLowell Mellett. He moved to Hollywood where he composed and conducted the music for many of the OWI's films, most notablyThe World At War, and supervised other composers in their work for the OWI (includingVirgil Thomson,Morton Gould,Paul Creston,Arthur Kreutz, andGene Forrell).[12]
In 1943 he joined the Army Air Corps, attaining a rank of corporal, and worked in theFirst Motion Picture Unit in Culver City. For the FMPU he scored hundreds of training films, often resorting to stock scores, and recorded by the Air Forces Orchestra from the AAF First Radio Unit. He worked with fellow composers Alexander Steinert andDavid Rose. His best successes in this period were the scores forWilliam Wyler's filmsThe Memphis Belle in 1944 andThunderbolt! in 1945, written during an overseas assignment in England.[12]
In 1943, he was a board member of the Los Angeles-based Musicians' Congress Committee (along withAaron Copland,Darius Milhaud,Lena Horne,William Grant Still and other musical luminaries). This committee was formed and sponsored by Max Silver with a goal of promoting American art music during the war, and was suspected of being a Communist front.[13][14]
During his time in Hollywood during the war, he came to understand that Hollywood studios had an obstinate dependence on or expectation for a conservative musical vocabulary. Summarizing his own experiences, as well as those of his colleagues Copland and Thomson, he concluded that in the absence of creative or understanding Hollywood studio heads, documentaries offered the "serious" composer the only real opportunity to break into the film business.
In 1949 he would compose the two works for which he is ultimately best remembered today. The first was the score for the filmC-Man, produced by Irving Lerner, a former OWI colleague. Kubik later reworked this score into the Pulitzer Prize-winning compositionSymphony Concertante. The second was the score forUPA's Academy-award winning animated shortGerald McBoingBoing, produced byJohn Hubley, a former FMPU colleague.
These successes earned Kubik theRome Prize in 1950, which began a two year residency at theAmerican Academy in Rome. His co-fellows during this time includedUlysses Kay,Harold Shapero,Aaron Copland,Lukas Foss,Leo Smit,George Rochberg, and Frank Wigglesworth Jr. During this period he completed his score for the filmTwo Gals And A Guy, and finished the score for his Symphony Concertante. Upon the completion of his fellowship, Kubik remained in Rome, where he created a concert version of the Gerald McBoingBoing score, and composed the score for Philip Stapp's avant-garde animationTransatlantico. He returned to America in 1954 to again work with Wyler to scoreThe Desperate Hours.[15]
His score forDesperate Hours was drastically cut from the film under studio executive pressure, and he vowed never to work in Hollywood again.[7]
Kubik frequently took material from his documentary and functional music and directly used or reworked it for his concert music. This took the common form of rearranging scores for eponymous concert suites, but also incorporation into otherwise unrelated concert works like symphonies and piano works. This would also be the case for two of his most recognized works, the Symphony Concertante and the score for Gerald McBoingBoing. In 1949 he composed the music for the film.[7]
He was an editor for Mercury Music Corporation, editing their American Music for Piano series.[16] From 1970 until 1980, he was composer-in-residence atScripps College in Claremont, California. He also lectured.
Kubik was one of the few 'serious' American composers who recognized and appreciated the vast audience (and licensing fees) that the field of original radio, TV, and film scores could provide, and the quality of music that he and his classically trained peers could provide. He lamented of the "highway robbery" that broadcast networks perpetrated by limiting composers' fees and copyrights.[17] He was frequently involved in the securing publication and performing rights for himself, often struggling against larger and less compromising entities. In 1945 Kubik had successfully sued the membership organization American Composers' Alliance for selling the license to his music to BMI in 1944 without his consent. The case was decided by the New York Supreme Court.[18]
Where possible, Kubik was careful to structure his contracts with film studios so that he retained the rights to the scores. This was how he was able to rework the score forC-Man into his Pulitzer-winning Symphony Concertante. At times it resulted in retracting completed scores, when the studio refused to grant rights. His score for 1955'sThe Desperate Hours was lauded by peers and audiences, but was drastically cut by Paramount's head Don Hartman. Two years later, in an unprecedented move, Paramount returned the music rights to Kubik, and produced the recording of a new suite derived on the score titledScenario for Orchestra.[7]
In another example, in 1962,Anatole de Grunwald hired Kubik to scoreI Thank A Fool. Kubik refused to sign a contract unless he retained the music rights; however production (and funding) proceeded anyway on the score and recording with the London Symphony Orchestra. With the final mix ready to deliver, MGM still refused to relinquish music rights to Kubik, Kubik pulled his music and involvement from the film, with the studio left with the music production bill. The music was later repurposed into his compositionScenes for Orchestra.[7]
Between his 1952 Pulitzer Prize, and the success of his score forUPA'sGerald McBoing-Boing, his reputation was such that in 1953 he signed a lucrative guaranteed publishing contract withASCAP'sChappell Music. The musical trades positioned this deal as part of an ongoing competition between ASCAP andBMI (also mired in antitrust litigation at the same time) for the prestige of signing contracts with respected composers.[19]
Kubik was married and divorced four times.[5] From 1963 to 1983 he frequently lived inVenasque, France, where he had purchased and renovated several homes. One of these homes is now owned byDarius Brubeck.[20]
He died aged 69 inCovina, California, after a lengthy hospitalization withkala-azar, contracted during a trip to Africa.[21]
He was twice aGuggenheim fellow for composition, in 1944 and 1965.[8] He was aRome Prize winner in 1950, and his subsequent fellowship in Rome lasted two years; he would return as a guest artist in 1965, 1972, and 1975.[15]
He was the dedicatee ofIngolf Dahl's 1944Music for Brass Instruments.[24] The work's final fugue movement's second theme is a notational representation of Kubik's army serial number 32824096.[25]
He was one of the composers interviewed forIrwin Bazelon's bookKnowing the Score: Notes on Film Music.[26]
He was a National Patron of the professional music fraternityDelta Omicron,[27] member of theAmerican Society of University Composers[28] and American Society of Music Arrangers.[clarification needed] The National Association of American Composers and Conductors awarded him a citation in 1943 for "direction of music in important Government films".[29] He was on the national advisory board for theUniversity of Missouri–Kansas City's Institute for Studies in American Music founded in 1967.[30]
A major archive of his works and papers were originally held by the Library of Congress, but have since moved to Kansas State University.[31]
A Woman's Armor, premiered 1939 by Hope Manning at the League of Composers.
Slow Movement for String Quartet (1939)
In Praise of Johnny Appleseed (for bass, chorus, and orchestra), based on theVachel Lindsay poem, entered into the 1942National Federation of Music Clubs' choral composition contest. (Kettering won this contest with a work based on a Vachel Lindsay Johnny Appleseed poem)[33]
Violin Concerto No. 2 (1940/41, dedicated toRuggiero Ricci, winner of the 1941 Heifetz competition for Best Violin Concerto by an American Composer)[34]
Suite for 3 recorders (1941), believed to be the first American composition for recorders, commissioned by accountant and recorder enthusiast Harold Newman (who would publish it under the eponymous Hargail Recorder Music Publishers).[35]
Sonatina for Piano (dedicated to Walter Piston) (1941)
Little Suite for flute and two clarinets (1948)[39]
Celebrations And Epilogue, 10 short pieces for piano (1938–50). One movement entitled "Four Planes, Forty Men: An Elegy", incorporates music from his score toThe Memphis Belle.[7]
Hop up, my ladies, American folk song sketch for men's chorus and solo violin. Traditional arrangement with additional lyrics by Kubik, copyrighted in 1950 bySouthern Music.[40]
Pioneer women, for mixed chorus. Lyrics by Phyllis Merrill, written for an NBC radio broadcast. Copyrighted by Southern Music in 1950.[41][40]
Nine settings ofStephen Vincent BenétBook of Americans, includingGeorge Washington andTheodore Roosevelt. Commissioned in 1948 for the Robert Shaw Chorale radio program, published by Southern Music in 1950.[40][42]
Soliloquy and Dance, for violin and piano, copyrighted by Southern Music in 1950.[40]
Songs About Women, 3 songs for voice and piano (Like a Clear, Deep Pool, She Who Was All Piety, andA Woman's Armor) on poems byAudrey Wurdemann, published by Southern Music in 1950.[29]
Thunderbolt Overture, derived from his score for the FMPU filmThunderbolt[7]
Music for Dancing, for orchestra, incorporating material derived from his 1940 NBC radio scores.[7]
Symphony No. 2 inF major (1954–56), commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Incorporates music from his score toTransatlantico.[7]
Symphony No. 3 (1956), written for the New York Philharmonic, which incorporates music from his WWII-era film scores toDover,The World At War, andAir Pattern Pacific.[7]
Scenario for Orchestra (1957), a concert suite based on his drastically cut score toThe Desperate Hours.
Divertimento No. 1 for thirteen players (1959). Incorporates music from his score toTransatlantico. Recorded by Contemporary Records, where Nadia Boulanger contributed liner notes.[7]
Divertimento No. 2 for eight players (1959)
Sonatina for clarinet and piano (dedicated to Nadia Boulanger) (1959)
String Quartet (1960)
Symphony for 2 pianos (reworked from Symphony No. 1) (1949–79)
Scenes for Orchestra (1962), a reworking of material originally composed and withdrawn for the filmI Thank A Fool. Broadcast in the U.S. in 1968 but never published.[7]
One of theBirthday Variations (1965). This was a set of variations ofOtto Luening's song, a brief movement from Luening's 2nd suite for solo flute, written on the occasion of Luening's 65th birthday, performed for Luening at theAmerican Academy in Rome. The contributing composers were Kubik,Alexei Haieff,John Eaton,William O. Smith, Vincent Frohne, Richard Trythall, andEverett Helm, all present at the concert.
Music for Cleveland, for piano, premiered July 25, 1968, by Jacob Maxin[43]
Prayer and Toccata for 2 pianos and organ (1969–79)
A Record of our Time (1970), for chorus, narrator, soprano, alto, tenor, and orchestra. Commissioned by Kansas State University for the opening of the McCain Auditorium . A protest piece that summarizes Kubik's feelings "about some aspects of the 20th century which put in doubt... the values of contemporary Western civilization: the Jewish Holocuast, our lack of concern about social injustices in America, our tragic involvement in Vietnam, the cancerous racism... which helped to tear the country apart."[44] In one movement titled "The Hate Machine", the chorus recites a long list of terrifying war slogans.[45]
Five Theatrical Sketches (Divertimento III) (1971) for violin, cello, and piano. Incorporates music previously composed for the score to the television episodeThe Silent Sentinel, and from his score forLeopold the See-Through Crumbpicker
Pastorale and Spring Valley Overture (1972), for orchestra. The first movement incorporates music previously composed for the score to the television episodeThe Silent Sentinel.
Fables in Song, for medium voice and piano, based on poems byTheodore Roethke. IncludesThe Kitty-Cat Bird, The Sloth,The Lamb, andThe Serpent. Written at latest by May 1969[46], first published by MCA Music in 1975.
Thunderbolt (1945), written for FMPU, but not released to general public until 1947
C-Man (1949), including the songDo It Now, written with Larry Neill.[51]
Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950 UAP cartoon based on a story byDr. Seuss); Kubik composed also a longer version which is sometimes performed as a narrated concert piece with Dr. Seuss's text
The Miner's Daughter (1950), a UAP cartoon short
Two Gals and a Guy (1951, akaBaby and Me) (incidental music, also served as musical director)
Transatlantico: Una corsa attraversa la storia (1952), often titledTransatlantic: A Short Cut Through History, score for a Philip Stapp cartoon that was a Marshall Plan film
Leopold the See-Through Crumbpicker (1969), aGene Deitch animation of aJames Flora book. The music was ultlimately not used for the score, but repurposed into his Divertimento III.
The Eisenhower Years (1970), produced by Kansas State University for National Educational Radio, incorporates music previously composed forThe Silent Sentinel
^abcBrody, Martin, ed. (2014).Music and musical composition at the American Academy in Rome. Eastman studies in music. Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press. pp. 50–53.ISBN978-1-58046-245-7.
^Burgess, Geoffrey Vernon.Well-tempered woodwinds: Friedrich von Huene and the making of early music in a new world. Publications of the Early Music Institute. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 38.ISBN978-0-253-01641-6.
^Kaufman, Louis; Kaufman, Annette; Svejda, Jim (2014).Fiddler's Tale: How Hollywood and Vivaldi Discovered Me. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.ISBN978-0-299-18383-7.
