The music world is populated with a few performers for whom the cards fell nicely into place, assuring them both fame and fortune. There is a second tier of performers, much larger in number, occupied by their professional equals but who weren’t quite so fortunate. Performing a few concerts a year is not adequate to a good living, so these fine musicians commonly drift to a career in private teaching, or in the employ of an established school like Julliiard or Eastman School of Music, with an occasional recital.
Leo Smit, composer and pianist, teacher exemplary, fell into the second tier, though so highly esteemed that the State Department sent him on world tours as part of its cultural exchange program.
Leo was a family friend for nearly forty years. In the past few days I had occasion to speak and mention him in my writings. It now seems appropriate to recall that interesting and rewarding association in more detail.
Leo Smit was born in Philadelphia on January 12, 1924. Showing early signs of musical talent, his mother took him to Russia at an early age to study with composer Dmitri Kabalevsky. Later he studied in New York with Isabella Vengerova and Jose Iturbi and composition with Nabokov. Performance of his Symphony No. 1 by the Boston Symphony in 1957 (he composed three symphonies) was one of the highlights of his career. In that year he moved to Los Angeles to teach composition and piano.
It was then that my wife Joy, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, majoring in piano and organ, made his acquaintance. She had previously pursued graduate study with noted pianist E. Robert Schmitz at his school in the old Embassy building is San Francisco. She contacted the University of California in Los Angeles, and, after stating she wanted to continue study, the university recommended Leo Smit, She telephoned him. Intrigued that someone as far away as Santa Fe had called to study with him, Leo was interested, then later was somewhat bemused on learning that she had called from Rancho Santa Fe, California, a hundred miles down the pike.
Leo often gave thematic recitals – sometimes illustrated with his own slides – sometimes reading letters written by the composers. He performed a great deal of new music, especially works by Aaron Copland. He performed a Mozart recital at my home one day, to which organists from the San Diego region were invited.
He wrote two operas: The Alchemy of Love (1969), in collaboration with the British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, with whom he also worked on an oratorio.
Leo was smitten with American poet Emily Dickinson and bemoaned the fact that he was born years too late. He set to music nearly a hundred of her poems. A final work in his life was to record thirty-three of the poems. He performed and recorded them with Soprano Rosalind Rees.
Leo was a frequent visitor at our home in Rancho Santa Fe. He was happy in those surroundings, a few miles from the Pacific.
In 1962 he left for Buffalo where he had taken a position with the Music Department of New York University. He settled comfortably into a a huge old mansion on Jewett Parkway, where he lived alone, but in the midst of company.
In 1969 we moved from Rancho Santa Fe to a home in La Jolla, a few miles away, bordering the Pacific Ocean.
Leo spent his summers in Encinitas, California, a few miles north of San Diego, occupyng an ocean front condominium with a rented upright piano. We met frequently and often dined together. At one time I introduced him to the computer software, Finale, which I had mastered in order to render some of Joy’s compositions into publishing quality. In a few minutes he was composing with my keyboard.
It happened that one evening, Joy received a telephone call from Leo. He was at the airport, awaiting arrival of British Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who was traveling from Australia to England, with a stop-over in San Diego to see Leo. He asked if he could use her piano, as Fred was in town and he wanted to play for him. Of course, he was welcome. Shortly, the pair showed up and we met the famous Fred Hoyle.
Leo sat at the Steinway forthwith and played from memory the entire Beethoven Diabelli Variations, all thirty three, to a rapt audience of three. Then they left. Afterwards I regretted not remembering to ask Fred Hoyle to sign my copy of his science fiction novel, “October the First,” resting on my bookshelf
Stricken with congestive heart failure, Leo made a final return to Encinitas, California, late in 1999, where, a short time later, he came to a lonely end at the age of 78.
Leo Smit, a fine musician, a fine friend.
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