Eulogy for Larry Heinen 

Delivered by Sally Marchessault at 

The Composers’ Society of Montgomery County Spring Concert 

Honoring the memory of Lawrence ( Larry) Heinen, Louise Smith, and Ruth Levin 

Sunday, June 23, 2024, Silver Spring Maryland

I first met Larry Heinen in 1952 when Larry moved into the  Schenectady (Niskayuna) NY school district where I lived and we started 7th grade classes together. We continued having many classes together through 12th grade in the Niskayuna school system, graduating together as part of the first graduating class of Niskayuna High School in 1959, good friends who enjoyed intellectual sparring with each other as we stretched our minds in class discussions. Our tight knit no-holds-barred English class dissected a poem in Mr. Shipp’s 11th grade Honors English that Larry and I really liked. I was pleased when decades later he shared with me a song he wrote setting the poem to music. I hope it will be found among his musical papers. I have only the verse to share today, not the music. I share it with you today, in his memory. It is a short read. And I think Larry would approve.

                             A.E. Houseman “To An Athlete Dying Young”

My father once told me “To live in the hearts of those we love, is to vanquish death. 

”Rest in Peace, dear friend. The legacy of your friendship and your music lives on in our hearts.

Larry, the young composer

Sometime around 1999, I became involved with the Composers Society as a pianist.  I’m pretty sure the first piece of Larry’s I ever played was the Scherzo from his Suite #1 for piano, which was also part of the last performance of Larry’s music I did before his death.  At some point in the interim Larry had subtitled that suite Vita Brevis, and it was almost painful to play it that night. But anyway, going back to the beginning, when we first started working together as composer and interpreter, we argued about everything—pedaling, dynamics, tempo—you name it, we could find some way to disagree!  But after a couple of collaborations this dynamic mercifully changed, and Larry began to trust me.  Instead of fighting our way through the piece in rehearsals, he came to enjoy just showing up for the concert and hearing which of the different possibilities he’d written into the music would be brought out in performance.  Though we often joked about it— there was a lot of banter in our relationship (Harvard/Yale, upstate/downstate)— that trust, won and re-won many times over many years with every performance of each new work, was very precious to me.  

Larry was a very talented composer, with a prodigious gift for melody.  His musical instincts were nostalgic, and he achieved that wistfulness with a nod to Brahms, through achingly long suspended chords, and a nod to Debussy, with harmonically-ambiguous modal chords.  It’s easy to listen to in a way that belies the sophistication of its construction.  It was always satisfying to play, both because Larry knew how to use the piano, and because for me the music evoked a deep emotional response.  Thank you, Larry, for leaving us, in your music, so many lasting embodiments of your humanity, and a way for us to continue to have you in our lives.

Larry Heinen — with Larry Heinen

I talked with our Niskayuna HS classmate Wayne Green today and we remembered some special things about Larry Heinen. That he played an awesome game of table tennis (ping pong in the olden days). He played and followed Chess and was on the Chess Team at Niskayuna and also, I believe, at Harvard. Wayne said he once watched Larry win a ping pong game while simultaneously playing a game of chess, calling out the chess moves while never leaving the ping pong table. That he played Duplicate Bridge as well as standard Bridge quite masterfully, in local tournaments. He was famous in Dr. York’s math classes at Niskayuna HS for bringing up points and solutions to math problems that showed great insight and left some of us either befuddled or in awe, or both. (Dr. York frequently would cast his eyes heavenward and say, “Thank you, Mr.Heinen, another hair split!” ). He had a wicked sense of verbal humor and liked nothing better than sparring in a back and forth exchange of puns. He was a fine pianist, composing and performing his own works in public, helping to form and grow the Composers Society of Montgomery County which has nurtured many musicians to write and perform their own works.

He was a loyal, beloved friend: smart, witty, fun to be with. He is missed.

I am so sad to hear of Larry’s death, especially sad that he died alone.

I met Larry at Van Antwerp Jr. High School in 1952(?). We graduated together as the first graduating class of the brand new Niskayuna High School , class of 1959. Larry and Margy Henderson, Wayne Green, Eric Henry, Harry Diakoff, and I attended music evenings at Larry’s home on several occasions, listening to classical music (“a little Scarlatti “) and some of Larry’s compositions. Larry and I traded puns and jokes and Pogo-isms and shared friendship through high school. He headed to Harvard. I headed to the University of Chicago. I got married to my first husband, John Jackson, and ultimately wound up in the DC area, as did Larry. After my husband was killed in an auto accident in 1970 when our son Sean was 20 months old, Larry and I dated regularly, enjoying dinners, concerts and plays together, good friends still.

When my current husband, Tom Marchessault and I got married, we continued to maintain the friendship with Larry, occasionally attending the Concerts of Larry’s Montgomery County Composers Society. Tina Silber, Larry, and Tom and I all attended Margy Henderson Harrington’s funeral service in Connecticut when she died.

Larry and I would chat on the phone once or twice a month and shared bad jokes on Facebook. After the pandemic, in the last year, however, he stopped communicating with me and seemed to withdraw from society altogether, no longer on email or Facebook, and left his phone mailbox full so it was impossible to leave a message. His computer needed repair but he didn’t bother to get it fixed. My efforts to reach out to him failed. 

I have lost a dear, wonderful friend. I am sorry his end seems so lonely.

Sally Marchessault 

As a newcoming composer I was helped practically and sometimes technically by Larry Hienman as a joining member of the composer's forum.  He was encouraging and professional. He was honest and supportive. For me he as well as some others, made the Composer's Forum  a very positive experience. My condolences to friends and family of Larry.  Though no longer an active participant since I moved from Maryland to Pennsylvania ( and about to move even further away) I will be listening again to Larry's many compositions to remember his beautifully creative soul.

Jacques Wilmore

I remember the first CSMC (Composers Society of Montgomery College) concert that Larry attended.  Well dressed, friendly, and polite, I knew nothing else about him.  I would soon learn that Larry was a powerhouse of compositional abilities.  It became clear very soon that Larry was one of our best composers and he contributed original music often and over many years. He had a command of musical harmony.  I often prodded him to offer some lectures in harmony.  This never happened.  Maybe he was too modest to take it seriously, or maybe I didn't push hard enough.  He was a computer programmer back in the days of IBM cards and was probably trained as a mathematician.  I don't think he had additionally studied for a music degree, but his knowledge of music, composers, composition form, and harmony must have resulted from considerable self study.  He sometimes wrote suites in the old style with formal dance movements.  He knew their form and usual meter.  His harmony was worthwhile to listen to very closely because the harmonic changes and modulations were subtle and delightful.  I remember some with very unusual endings that I would ponder (especially if it was a piano piece of his that I studied for performance) and try to understand how the technique he used had the effect on me that it did.  A couple of us chuckle with the quip that "Larry never let a suspended chord go to waste." or "never missed the chance to use a suspended chord".  Needless to say I admired Larry's abilities and always enjoyed his creations.

Lest it be unduly overshadowed it should also be remembered that Larry also had considerable pianistic abilitites.  While he may have preferred other more capable pianists to play his pieces, he more often than not played his own piano compositions.  Of course, he wrote well for other instrumental ensembles, some pictured above, and especially for piano/violin and piano/cello duets.

He stepped into the position of concert director, master of ceremonies for our concerts.  This position he ably held for many years.

Another tidbit of information I learned was that he was a master at chess.  He belonged to a DC chess club and would play tournaments in which he would play multiple games at once while walking down long tables of players, making a move and moving on to the next game.

I'm sure there are other interesting things to know about Larry, but these are the things I was privy to.  In most concerts we could rely on Larry to contribute a  composition and one that was often the high point of the concert.  I am going to miss not only his contributions, his music, his leadership, but also his personality, his musical knowledge and insights, and his friendship to all of us in the society.

I first met Larry in 2009. At that time we organized music performances at Laporta’s in Old town Alexandria. 

Larry was a participant as well as an audience. We played some of his violin/piano pieces. I still have his solo piano pieces.

This photo was one of his performances at Laporta’s around 2009, 2010. 

 We will miss Larry dearly. He was one of the most gracious and friendly people I have met. He enjoyed concert performances at The Kennedy center. 

May he rest in peace.

 Hon

Nocturne for Flutes and Cello.  Composed by Lawrence Heinen. Performed by Nancy Suniewick & Angela Thompson, flute; Ellen Ensel, alto flute; and Edwina Moldover, cello at the October 30, 2016 concert of the Composers Society of Montgomery County, Maryland

Composed by Lawrence Heinen. Performed by the Quodlibet Trio:

Kwame Lewis (clarinet), Jon Robert (cello), Susan Alexander (piano) at the January 29, 2017 concert of the Composers Society of Montgomery County, Maryland.

Videography by Jeffrey L. Silberberg, Crosswind Studios, Olney, MD, http://www.crosswind-studios.…

Nancy Sulfridge (c), Wendy Chinn (h) and Susan Alexander (p) perform Lawrence Heinen's new composition "Nocturne for Clarinet, Horn, & Piano" at the October 30, 2009, concert of the Composers' Society of Montgomery County in Rockville, MD

When I first joined the Composers Society in Montgomery County, I was very apprehensive about meeting the other composers and hearing their music.  I imagined that they were all writing sophisticated contemporary pieces and would see me and my compositions as simple and laughable.  When I heard Larry's music, I realized I had been wrong.  Larry's music is so accessible and beautiful.  When I tried to play it on the piano I realized how complex it really is.  He had that incredible gift of writing complex music that sounded natural and accessible.  People talk about Mozart having that kind of gift.  Larry was also incredibly encouraging to me and always had praise for my compositions or a small suggestion on how to make things better.   After a recent concert, Larry remarked at how far my compositional skills had developed.  When I was Executive Director and he was Concertmaster of CSMC we worked closely together.  He defined the role of Concertmaster and I have attempted to step into his very large shoes.