Becker, John J. (EN)

Becker John J., *22 January 1886 Henderson (Kentucky), †21 January 1961 Wilmette (Illinois), American composer. In 1905, he graduated from the Cincinnati Conservatory. In 1923, he obtained a doctorate in music from the Wisconsin Conservatory. He held a number of important positions; from 1918 to 1928, he was music director at the University of Notre Dame, and from 1929 to 1933, he was president of the fine arts department at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul. In 1950, Becker participated in the first International Congress of Catholic Artists in Rome as a representative of American music. He was also active in teaching: from 1906 to 1914, he lectured at North Texas College in Sherman, from 1943 to 1957 at Barat College in Lake Forest, Illinois, and from 1949 to 1950 at Chicago Musical College. He published articles on music and co-edited “New Music Quarterly” from 1936 to 1940. Together with H. Cowell, Ch. Ives, W. Riegger, and C. Ruggles, he was considered one of the so-called “American Five.”

Becker’s early works show the influence of late Romantic German music and Impressionism. At the end of the 1920s, his music underwent significant changes. Becker became interested in 16th-century Dutch polyphony, transferring certain elements of it into his own work, in which he definitively broke with tonality. He sometimes employed such forms as fugue, canon, and chorale, but introduced sharp dissonances into them. Focusing on sound effects, he paid particular attention to the choice of instruments; he often emphasized percussion and also treated the piano in a percussive manner. He considered opera to be obsolete; wishing to reform this genre of dramatic music, he proposed a type of drama combining various fields of art: music, poetry (often recited rather than sung), dance, and light. He realized this concept in The Life of Man and A Marriage with Space.

Literature: H. Cowell John Becker. A Crusader from Kentucky, “Southern Literary Messenger” I, 1939; J.W. Downey Homage to John J. Becker, “Focus Midwest” I, 1962; D.C. Gillespie John Becker, Musical Crusader of St. Paul, “The Musical Quarterly” LXII, 1976.