Ornstein was the first important composer to make extensive use of the tone cluster. As a pianist, he was considered a world-class talent.In addition to the citations below, see also, e.g., Broyles and Von Glahn (2007), p. 9 ("a pianist of extraordinary skill"); Rumson (2002), p. 352 ("enormous pianistic skills"); Perlis (1983), p. 104 ("recognized as a world famous concert pianist"). According to Oja (2000), he was "the single most important figure on the American modern-music scene in the 1910s" (p. 15). By the mid-1920s, he had walked away from his fame and soon disappeared from popular memory. Though he gave his last public concert before the age of forty, he continued writing music for another half-century and beyond. Largely forgotten for decades, he was rediscovered in the mid-1970s. Ornstein completed his eighth and final piano sonata in September 1990 at the age of ninety-four, making him the oldest published composer in history at the time (a mark since passed by Elliott Carter).
