Musicatlas
Music
Orchestral music: 6 symphonies (1950-1971), Piano Concerto (1955), Holofernes Overture (1958), Bongo Divertimento (1961), Genghis Khan (1963), Aesop Fabler Suite (1965), Hsiang Fei (1965), Violin Concerto (1968); Epimetheus USA (1968), Bi-Centurion (1975), Icarus (1975), Perseus & Andromeda XX (1977), Akhenaten (1983), Helios Kinetic (1978), Rites in Tenochtitlan (1965).
Other music: three piano sonatas, four string quartets, three choruses.
Life
Romeo Maximilian Eugene Ludwig Gutsche (Americanized to Gene Gutchë), of affluent Polish and French parentage, studied as a child with Feruccio Busoni. In his late teens (1925), in conflict with his father over the notion of a career in music, he came to the United States, settled in Minnesota, and eventually completed a MA in Composition with Donald Ferguson at the University of Minnesota (1950) and a PhD in Composition with Philip Greely Clapp at the University of Iowa (1953).
His vigorous and colorful music, in a personal style which incorporated elements of Hindemith, Bartok and Stravinsky, won numerous international awards and several pieces were recorded (recently reissued by Composers Recordings Incorporated/CRI).
Always a loner and an individualist, Gutchë had no students, followed no particular ‘school’, and lived to compose, aided in many ways by Marion, his wife of 64 years.