Updates on the Alma Powell Branch Library can be found on kpl.gov/pow

Edward B. Desenberg (1867-1940)

Kalamazoo Musician and Philanthropist


edward-desenberg-1916-360
Edward B. Desenberg c.1916. The Rotarian

Clearly, music was Edward Desenberg’s first love. Formally educated in Kalamazoo and abroad, Ed Desenberg became a local music instructor, composer, and entertainer of substantial merit.

Following closely in his father’s footsteps, Ed Desenberg went on to become an astute business leader with an ability to make things happen. His immense talent and inherent drive helped awaken the cultural awareness of this young Midwestern community.

But second only to his love of music and art was Desenberg’s compassion for children, especially those less fortunate. To that end, his lasting legacy was to create a place that would help make life a little bit better for the “kiddies” of Kalamazoo.

Early Life

Born 9 September 1867 in Kalamazoo, Edward B. Desenberg was the second of three children born to Bernhard Levi Desenberg and Bertha L. (Schuster) Desenberg after older brother Benno (1865-1917) and kid sister Alma (1872-1950). While in high school, Edward became an accomplished pianist, and began performing for society and literary functions, including numerous programs for the Ladies Library Association. As a teenager, Desenberg performed a piano piece for the Kalamazoo College commencement exercises in 1886, and gave one of his popular xylophone performances during the Kalamazoo High School commencement in 1889. It was said that Eddie Desenberg was the first person in Kalamazoo ever to play such an instrument.

Study Abroad

gazette-1893-01-01-360.jpg
Kalamazoo Gazette, 6 November 1892

With a desire “to cultivate his rare talent for music,” (Gazette-News), Ed traveled to Germany with his father in 1883 to study music at the Conservatory in Leipzig. In April 1890, Edward boarded a train for New York, where he would again set sail for Europe to study music in Berlin. For more than two years, Desenberg studied with Alfred Heinrich Ehrlich (1822–1898), professor of music at the Stern Conservatory of Music (Stern’sches Konservatorium, later Berlin University of the Arts) and with Oscar Raif (1847–1899), a known composer and a professor at Stern’s, and at the Royal Academy of Berlin. During his time in Berlin, Desenberg also studied composition with Wilhelm Taubert (1811–1891), a music instructor at the Royal Academy of the Arts.

Teacher and Performing Artist

After returning to Kalamazoo, Desenberg began performing with several of the community’s finest musicians as a member of the orchestra at the Academy of Music. By then, Desenberg was giving piano lessons and teaching musical composition at the family residence on West Lovell Street.

During the 1890s, Desenberg joined his father’s lucrative wholesale grocery business, where he would remain until 1909, though he was never far from his music. By 1899, Desenberg was president of the Kalamazoo Conservatory of Music and a respected music columnist for the Kalamazoo Gazette. As organist and choir director at Temple B’nai Israel on South Street, Desenberg would often contribute his talents to solo and ensemble performances there and elsewhere throughout the city.

In addition to his musical performances, Desenberg became noted for his illustrated lectures, public talks that featured compelling visual effects. Most were scholarly in nature, focusing on art and music (the life of composer Richard Wagner, for instance), while others were clearly geared towards entertainment. But “proper” was an important distinction at the turn of the 20th century, especially in smaller communities, and apparently some (well, at least one) thought that Desenberg’s illustrations went a bit too far.

While in Lawton presenting a program of shadowgraphs (hand-created shadows set to music from a phonograph), one writer evidently felt that Desenberg had crossed a “proper” line and blasted “the legal guardians of Lawton’s sensitive morals” (elected officials) for allowing it to happen…

“Picture followed picture on the illuminated screen, the motions of the characters keeping time to the melodious strains of a graphophone… In the shadow pantomime the kisses and embraces of the silhouette lovers were reprehensibly ardent and lingering, and well calculated to reduce the moral principles of the spectators to tatters. This is more inexcusable when we remember that the manager of the talented company of shadows has the privilege (by which, evidently, he has not profited), of living in a city where the drama is strictly censored by an alert and discriminating board of aldermen.

At home, no doubt, Mr. Desenberg is obliged to give his shocking exhibition in strict privacy, with guards at the doors. Is it right for him to take advantage of our unprotected condition and publicly set our pulses afire with Nethersole kisses and soulful Saphoid embraces? And back by the door stood the police force with a smile on his shameless lips.”

Kalamazoo Gazette, 25 March 1900

While the writer obviously found parts of the program to be a bit much, the audience loved the performance. The times were indeed beginning to change.

Music Composer

In addition to his musical performance work, Desenberg taught music composition and wrote several of his own pieces, as well. Little is known about the full body of Edward Desenberg’s compositional work, but the pieces we do know about were clearly of great importance within the community at the time. His compositions were prominently featured and audiences remained enthusiastic about what they were hearing wherever Desenberg’s work was performed.

Edward Desenberg’s compositions (partial list)

“‘Mancipation Day” (1898) (First performed 21 April 1898)
“Kalamazoo, an Original Rag-Time Cake-Walk” (1899)
“Youwanta” March and Two-Step, arranged by Ellis Brooks (1899)
“Ivanhoe” March and Two-Step, (undated)
“School of Applied Art” March and Two-Step (1910)
“Romanza” for Piano, (1911) for Miss Dorothy Lethbridge (1899-1926)
“Canto Della Magdelena” (1911) dedicated to Marie Mayer of The Passion Play, Oberammergau, 1910
“Mizzoula” Intermezzo (c.1914)
Music for Charles Dickens’ “A Childs Prayer” (1899)
“Happy Childhood” (c.1925)
“A Memory” (c.1925)

“E.B. Desenberg has received word from Conductor Rosenbecker of the Chicago Symphony orchestra that the orchestra will play his ‘Kalamazoo’ two-step in their concert here next Monday afternoon. This is a great compliment to Mr. Desenberg and is done at the request of several Kalamazoo music lovers.”

Kalamazoo Gazette-News, 13 November 1900

Thoughts about Ragtime Music

kalamazoo-cakewalk-160.jpg
“Kalamazoo, an original rag-time cake-walk” by Edward Desenberg c.1899. Library of Michigan.

In 1901, the call went out among established musicians to abolish ragtime music, just as similar attempts were made to do away with rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s, disco in the 1970s, and rap in the 1980s. (It seems that some things never change). “Rag-time music is immoral, obscene, degrading and unworthy of production!” said the Chicago Federation of Musicians.

In response, several Kalamazoo musicians weighed in on the topic. As a respected local musician and composer, Eddie Desenberg had this to say… “I can’t say I’m in favor of abolishing it. In the first place it couldn’t be abolished and in the second I’m not sure it ought to be. Syncopated music is a fad, and like every other fad will run its course and die and be supplanted by something newer. In the mean time, what’s the use of worrying? It isn’t doing any harm. This talk about it degenerating the public taste is nonsense. Light music isn’t any worse than light literature or light vaudeville. The tendency of the times is for lightness in everything, but will recover from it and welcome the return of the legitimate” (Gazette)

Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra

Though he was seldom a performing member of the orchestra itself, Ed Desenberg was closely associated with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra throughout the organization’s formative years. Desenberg was an early member of Kalamazoo’s Symphony Club (Amateur Symphony Orchestra), and shared the stage in June 1894 with C.Z. Bronson’s newly organized “Symphony Orchestra,” the community’s first professional symphony orchestra and an early forerunner of the modern day Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra.

Kalamazoo Orchestral Association

By 1911, Ed Desenberg had become a director of the Kalamazoo National Bank, as well as treasurer and general manager of the School of Applied Art in Battle Creek. In March that year, Desenberg was elected president of the Kalamazoo Orchestral Association, a professional organization formed in direct response to the success of Kalamazoo’s newly organized symphony orchestra.

In September 1911, Ed Desenberg and fellow union member Chester Bronson petitioned the city council to repeal a local ordinance that prohibited paid Sunday performances, with the hope of creating a series of concerts by the (c.1911) Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. The appeal failed, and sadly, so did the orchestra.

Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra (1914-1921)

When the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra formed (again) in 1914, Desenberg’s composition, the intermezzo, “Mizzoula,” was featured during the orchestra’s April 1914 performance at the Kalamazoo Armory. (The same piece would appear again in 1920 during one of C.Z. Bronson’s Symphonic Orchestra concerts at the Fuller Theatre.) In 1915, Desenberg’s affiliation with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra grew deeper still. He was president of the Kalamazoo Choral Union by then, and was elected vice president of the latest (and current) incarnation of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra.

The Fine Art of Philanthropy

While music was undoubtedly Ed Desenberg’s first love, his compassion for children, especially those less fortunate, was a close second, and would indeed prove to be his lasting legacy.

Ed Desenberg’s desire to contribute to the greater good of his community was evident early on. In January 1893, Desenberg took an active role in a “Grand Charity Benefit for the Needy” at the Academy of Music, where he became close friends with Henry Marcus, a noted violinist and then director of the Academy of Music Orchestra. Marcus and Desenberg would perform together often, either as a duet or as part of various ensembles. Both were actively involved in many of the local fundraising events organized by C.Z. Bronson and O.H. Gibson.

kalamazoo-gazette-telegraph-1916-07-02-p5-1600
Pretty Lake Vacation Camp c.1916 (Edward B. Desenberg, inset). Kalamazoo Gazette-Telegraph, 2 July 1916

Fresh Air School

Desenberg’s mother, Bertha L. Desenberg, was instrumental in bringing the Fresh Air School (open-air school) movement to Kalamazoo. The idea of open-air schools originated in Great Britain about 1907, and came in response to illness brought on by malnutrition, poor living conditions and tuberculosis. To improve the health of children who were too sick to attend school, the movement emphasized the importance of education in an environment of fresh air, exercise and adequate nutrition. As part of her effort, Bertha Desenberg arranged a two-week encampment for 21 disadvantaged local children during the summer of 1915 at West Lake near Kalamazoo.

Pretty Lake Fresh Air Vacation Camp

When Ed Desenberg was asked to deliver an extra tent to the location, he was aghast when he saw that the pump for drinking water at the cottage they had rented for the children was located just a few feet from the outhouse. Realizing for the first time the importance of his mother’s work, Desenberg immediately set out to solicit financial help from able community members to build a safe, permanent camp for the children. Within six weeks, Desenberg was able to raise $6,000, the amount necessary to establish a fresh air camp at Pretty Lake, located southwest of Kalamazoo, complete with suitable sleeping quarters and proper water and septic systems.

“Since 1916 when Mr. Edward Desenberg founded Pretty Lake Vacation Camp, the mission has been to provide a cost-free summer camp experience to the at-risk youth of Kalamazoo County. As we enter our 95th summer, we continue to focus on this mission.”

—Pretty Lake Vacation Camp, 2010

journal-of-the-outdoor-life-p318-1600.jpg
Pretty Lake Vacation Camp, main building floor plan, c.1916 (note the open-air “sleeping porch”). Journal of the Outdoor Life, September 1916.

A Cost-Free Summer Camp Experience

Opened in 1916, the Pretty Lake Fresh Air Vacation Camp provided 15 children with six weeks of summer camp away from the dirt and heat of the city. Within two years, the facility had grown to accommodate 35 children during each two-week period. By 1923, more than one hundred needy kids were able to stay at the camp during each of the five two-week periods — 500 kids each summer. Since that time, the Pretty Lake Vacation Camp has “provided a cost-free summer camp experience to nearly 50,000 at-risk youth from Kalamazoo County.”

“A Kalamazoo man…”

Desenberg remained in Kalamazoo until 1930 when he moved to Chicago, though he always identified himself as “a Kalamazoo man” (Gazette). He retained a close association with the Pretty Lake Vacation Camp and spent each summer there until his death in 1940 at the age of 72. He is buried at Mountain Home Cemetery in Kalamazoo.

 

Written by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library Staff, 2010.

Sources

Books

In the name of the child: health and welfare, 1880-1940
Cooter, Roger.
London; New York: Routledge, 1992
b10540273~S15 (available via MeLCat)


Articles

“Go thou and do likewise”
Buttelman, C.V.
The Rotarian, volume XVI, number 6, June 1920, pages 303-304

“Pretty Lake open air school vacation camp”
Desenberg, Edward B.
Journal of the Outdoor Life, volume XIII, 1916, pages 265-267

“Death takes Pretty Lake founder”
Kalamazoo Gazette, 21 January 1940


Websites

Pretty Lake Vacation Camp: “Since 1916, Pretty Lake Camp, a non-profit community organization, has provided a cost-free summer camp experience to over 60,000 youth from Kalamazoo County who can benefit most from the experience.”


Local History Room Files

History Room Name File: Desenberg, Edward B.

History Room Subject File: Music

History Room Subject File: Pretty Lake Vacation Camp

Share: Facebook Twitter