JAVS Spring 2022

Figure 2: Marion Bauer, Sonata for Viola and Piano, op. 22, III. Allegro, mm. 1-4.

Now known as the McCarthy era, the period between the late 1940s and late 1950s in the United States was full of anti-communist sentiment. This especially penetrated the public school and university system. Teachers were seen to be liberal influencers of their students, and many teachers and faculty were called at this time to testify for government panels. Countless lost their jobs as a result. Frederic Ewen was forced to retire early from his academic position in 1952. His accusations of communist sympathies affected Gideon’s career; marriage made her ‘guilty by association.’ 16 After being called to a McCarthy related committee meeting in 1955, Gideon was forced to resign from her teaching post at City College of New York. To earn a living, she taught piano students at her apartment, later gaining a faculty appointment at the Cantors Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. When the McCarthy era ended, she was reinstated as a faculty member at City College. 17 Miriam Gideon belonged to a second generation of American women composers, fighting to continue making their professional mark, but wary of opportunities that would place them into a category to be judged separately from male contributions. Events intended to foster opportunity for women, such as “women-only” competitions and concerts, fell into this category. Gideon avoided these opportunities and was often suspicious of whether her own achievements and awards were given because they were deserved or because she was a woman. 18

Miriam Gideon Miriam Gideon was born on October 23, 1906, to a German-Jewish family in Greeley, Colorado. Her family moved several times before settling in New York City, where she began studying piano at the music conservatory in Yonkers. After a short time working with the composer and pianist Hans Barth, Miriam’s uncle, Henry Gideon, became aware of her musical interests and invited her to live with him and study music in Boston. Henry Gideon was an organist and pianist, as well as the music director of Temple Israel. He supervised Miriam’s music education, giving her lessons, and encouraging her to participate in community recitals. Miriam Gideon earned a bachelor’s degree from the College of Liberal Arts at Boston University in 1926 before moving to New York City, where she intended to pursue a teaching certificate at New York University; however, within a year she dropped the idea of teaching and began to seriously study composition with Lazare Saminsky. 13 When composer Roger Sessions arrived in the United States in 1935, she joined a group of Session’s promising young composition pupils. 14 Gideon intended study abroad, as was expected of young American composers of the period. However, she was forced to return from Germany amid the outbreak of World War II in 1939. She instead entered graduate school for musicology at Columbia University in 1942, working closely with the renowned musicologist Paul Henry Lang. After graduating, she gained teaching appointments at Brooklyn College and the City College of New York. In 1949, she married Frederic Ewen, a member of the English department at Brooklyn College. 15

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 38, No. 1, Spring 2022

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