Stockhoff, Walter William

views updated

Stockhoff, Walter William

Stockhoff, Walter William, American composer; b. St. Louis, Nov. 12, 1876; d. there, April 1, 1968. He was largely autodidact, and began to compose early in life. In his music he was influenced mainly by German Romantic composers, but his thematic material was distinctly American. In some of his early piano music he made use of modernistic devices, such as the whole- tone scale, cadential triads with the added sixth, etc. Busoni wrote an enthusiastic article about him (1915) in which he described him as one of America’s most original composers. The orch. version of his piano suite To the Mountains was premiered under the title American Symphonie Suite (Frankfurt am Main, Dec. 10, 1924). Several of his piano works and some chamber music were publ. Other works include 5 Dramatic Poems for Orch. (1943), Piano Sonata, Metamorphoses for Piano, etc.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire