E. HAROLD GEER
1886 - 1957
It was with genuine regret that we learned during
the Christmas season of the sudden death of Profes-
sor Emeritus E. Harold Geer at the age of seventy-one
years, more than half of which were spent as a member
of the Vassar faculty in the Department of Music.
Those of us who knew him well respected his musician-
ship, and his uncompromisingly high musical standards.
He gave unstintingly of his service to the college as
a teacher, organist, director of the Vassar Choir and
of the Madrigal Group, and as chairman of the Music
Department for a period of years after the resignation
of Professor Dickinson from that position.
Mr. Geer was born in Tabor, Iowa in 1886. He received
the B. A. and M. A. degrees from Doane College in
Nebraska, and a Mus. B. degree from the Oberlin Con-
servatory of Music in Ohio. In l949 Doane College
bestowed upon him an honorary Mus. D. degree. He
studied organ and composition with Widor and Gedalge
in Paris, organ with T. Tertius Noble and piano with
Ernest Hutcheson in this country, and composition
and conducting at the Conservatoire Americain de
Fontainebleau in France.
Before coming to Vassar College Mr. Geer taught at
Lake Erie College for Women in Ohio and at Albion Col-
lege in Michigan. From 1913 to 1916 he was organist
and choir director of the First Congregational Church
in Fall River, Massachusetts. In 1916 he came to
Vassar College as Assistant Professor of Music and
taught here for thirty-six years. After his retire-
ment in 1952 he went to Chatham College in Pittsburgh.
Subsequently he served as acting chairman of the Music
Department at Hood College in Maryland. Last summer he
taught at the Yale Music School in Norfolk, Connecticut.
He was a member of the College Music Association, Pi
Kappa Lamba and a Fellow of the American Guild of
Organists. He edited and arranged over one hundred
compositions of choral music for women's voices. He
edited the beloved "Peace I Leave with You", originally
harmonized by George Coleman Gow for women's voices.
He also made an arrangement of this for mixed voices.
Mr. Geer was editor of The Hymnal for Colleges and
Schools published in 1955 By the Yaie University Press
and now in use in the Vassar Chapel. His last publication
E. HAROLD GEER (Continued)
was a book, Organ Registration in Theory and Practice,
which came out last month (December, 1957). The study
of this subject was carried on by Mr. Gear for many
years at Vassar College. Grants from the Salmon Fund
aided his research and the publication of the book.
Mr. Geer gave organ recitals at the Prague Municipal
Auditorium in Czechoslovakia and at York Minster,
England. He had numerous appearances in recital in
this country, playing programs of organ music in col-
leges, universities, civic auditoriums and churches.
His Sunday evening organ recitals on the Vassar Campus
offered a wide variety of excellent literature skill-
fully performed. To many generations of students
these programs came to be known as "dark music" since
they were performed in the dramatic setting of the
dimly lighted chapel.
Unquestionably Mr. Geer's primary musical interest at
Vassar College was the Choir, which he directed from
1920 to 1952. He devoted scholarly research to the
selection of choral material which represented the
world's finest settings of sacred texts. The music
he introduced ranged in style from the works of English
composers in the Renaissance Period to those of Vaughan
Williams and Kodaly in the twentieth century. The
insistent emphasis on superior music certainly had a
great influence in improving the musical taste of
students who sang it and heard it from the days of
required chapel to a later time when chapel attendance
was no longer obligatory.
The music for the regular chapel services and for other
programs was meticulously prepared and beautifully
performed. Under Mr. Geer's direction the annual program
of Christmas music became a tradition at Vassar College
and attracted large audiences.
To a casual acquaintance Mr. Geer may have seemed to
be rather reserved and formal but h was certainly far
from that when he conducted performances of the Gilbert
and Sullivan operetta, "Trial by Jury" on Founder's
Day. To those who were intimately associated with him
he was a kind and understanding friend and excellent
teacher. His perceptions were keen and he possessed
a quick sense of humor. He was frank and outspoken,
and even those who disagreed with him on policies he
favored or with his methods of procedure, never
doubted for a moment the sincerity of his convictions.
E. HAROLD GEER (Continued)
Socially the Geer home on Raymond Avenue was always
a friendly place to visit. The choir parties which
Mr. and Mrs. Geer gave each year for choir members
and faculty guests and the memorial Geer family
Christmas cards, which Mr. Geer designed, will long
be remembered.
We extend to Mrs. Gear and to his surviving sons and
daughter the sympathy of the faculty in their loss
and express to them the appreciation of the faculty
for professor Geer's long and distinguished service
to Vassar College.
Donald M. Pearson
Barbara Swain
John M. Peirce
XIV - 375-376