By His Faith, By His Work, To The End [Gilbert] 5/26/28

Henry Gilbert died on May 19 in his native Cambridge where he was born sixty years ago. The Germans called him Uramerikaner, the primeval American composer. Many, on this side, call him the Walt Whitman of American music, a courageous and uncompromising pioneer. His life was a series of picturesque adventures, ennobled by constant striving towards the aim which he had set out to attain: to compose some American music. He was a national composer from conviction, not out of false patriotism. For this he fought valiantly, armed with an unflinching sense of self-assertion and equally strong capacity of reflective criticism. An exquisite sense of humor saved him from both the immoderate elation at a success and mortifying despondency at a failure.