LOEFFLER, CHARLES MARTIN

born Jan. 30, 1861, Mulhouse, France died May 19, 1935, Medfield, Mass., U.S. in full Charles Martin Tornow Loeffler American composer whose works are distinguished by a poetic lyricism in an Impressionist style. As a youth, Loeffler studied violin and music theory in Berlin and Paris. He went to the United States in 1881 and joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as a violinist the following year. He resigned in 1903 to devote himself to composition. Almost all of his symphonic works were first performed by the Boston Symphony. His most enduring work, A Pagan Poem (1907; after an eclogue of Virgil) for piano and orchestra, uses Impressionistic harmonies to evoke pagan antiquity. Among other works are the symphonic poem Memories of My Childhood, subtitled Life in a Russian Village (1924), La Mort de Tintagiles (1905; after Maeterlinck), Evocation (1931; for women's voices and orchestra), Canticum Fratris Solis (1925; for voice and chamber orchestra), Music for Four Stringed Instruments (1917), and the Fantastic Concerto (1894; for cello and orchestra), as well as a number of songs, piano pieces, and other chamber music.