Finished just weeks before his death, George Rochberg's eloquent memoir offers a detailed look at his fruitful life as a composer, publisher, and teacher of music. The volume traces a life immersed in music, with early study under George Szell and Gian Carlo Menotti and later long-term collaborations with the Concord Quartet and commissions for major orchestras and opera companies. Rochberg takes care to describe the intellectual and aesthetic changes that led him down certain paths as a composer, often challenging the conventions of the day. Reflecting on music, aesthetics, colleagues, and the life of the creative mind, Rochberg's memoir captures not only the spirit but also the intellectual climate of the second half of the twentieth century. Rochberg's life as a composer was marked by an ongoing search for his artistic place between tradition and the avant-garde, with an extensive oeuvre comprising over one hundred works including chamber ensembles, string quartets, symphonies, solo pieces, songs, and an opera. In addition to his importance as an American composer, he was also a central figure in academia and publishing. He served as chair of the University of Pennsylvania's music department, and as an editor and director of publications at the Theodore Presser Company, he helped marshal the company into one of the premier American musical publishing houses.
Through the course of the book, Rochberg reveals the thought processes that led him in unexpected directions as he pursued the independent path of his career. This is the story of a creative mind developing, at times struggling, and constantly growing.
Publication for this book was supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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"One of the most significant composers of the twentieth century, George Rochberg was not only an important musical voice but also a critic and philosopher whose personal ideas and convictions shook the musical world to its core. This book brings us into the mind of a great composer, and that alone is worth the entire book in its verity and truth."--George Boziwick, composer and chief of the music division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts "There was not a better chronicler of music in the twentieth century than George Rochberg. His writings on music are among the most illuminating and insightful we have. His observations, like his best music, are alive with immediacy and conviction."--Michael Hersch, composer and composition faculty, The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University "George Rochberg was a visionary composer who changed the face of American music. He was a generous and inspiring teacher, and a thoughtful and provocative writer. For anyone interested in contemporary art and music, this book is essential reading."--Uri Caine, jazz pianist and composer "I first met George Rochberg while I was a young professor; his presence and point of view were a revelation to me. He was an excellent writer, with a breadth of reading and reference rarely found in composers I've known. But it is as a composer that his work has most moved me."--William Bolcom, composer and Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Composition, University of Michigan
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The candid, insightful memoir of one of the great American composers of the late twentieth century
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
PART 1
Chapter
1. "Save Something for the End": Second Symphony and George Szell
3
Chapter
2. A Concert of Music: Caprice Variations for Solo Violin 25
Interlude
1. A Distant Music: Serenata d'Estate 42
Chapter
3. The Last Gershwin Prize: Night Music and Dimitri Mitropoulos 46
Chapter
4. After and Before: Twelve Ragatelles and String Quartet No. 1
Chapter
5. "Let the Other George Do It": Symphony No. 1 and Eugene Ormandy
75
Interlude
2. Rilke's Angels: String Quartet No. 2 with Soprano 87
Chapter
6. Breaking with Modernism: Third String Quartet and the Concord
String Quartet 96
Chapter
7. "It's Only a Small, Little, Wooden Box": Violin Concerto and Isaac
Stern 116
Interlude
3. Stravinsky's Caveat: Circles of Fire and the Hirsch-Pinkas Piano
Duo 131
Chapter
8. Unlocking the Past: Contra Mortem et Tempus and Music for the
Magic Theater 143
PART II
Chapter
9. A Passion According to the Twentieth Century: Third Symphony and
the Juilliard Orchestra and Chorus 167
Interlude
4. "O for a Muse of Fire": Eliot Fisk and Works for Guitar -- Solo,
Duo, and Ensemble 177
Chapter
10. Pictures of the Floating World: Ukiyo-E, Slow Fires of Autumn,
Between Two Worlds, and Imago Mundi 186
Chapter
11. A Trio of Symphonies: Four, Five, and Six 199
Interlude
5. Gods of Wrath: Phaedra, a Monodrama for Mezzo-Soprano and
Orchestra 216
Chapter
12. A Triptych of Sonatas: Sonata for Violin and Piano (1988), Sonata
for Viola and Piano (1979), Sonata-Aria for Cello and Piano 1992) 223
Chapter
13. Blown on the Wind: Oboe and Clarinet Concertos 232
Chapter
14. A Trio of Trios: Piano Trio No. 1 (1962-63), Piano Trio No. 2
(1985), Piano Trio No. 3 (Summer, 1990) 244
Interlude
6. Constructing with Canons: Sonata-Fantasia for Solo Piano 254
Chapter
15. Some Things Saved for the End 260
Chronology 279
Notes 287
Index 297
Illustrations follow page 142.
George Rochberg (1918-2005) composed six symphonies, three concertos, seven string quartets, and dozens of chamber and solo works over the course of a career spanning six decades. After establishing himself as a modernist composer, he grew dissatisfied with the expressive limitations of serial composition. Through explorations in his music and his writings, he arrived at a more inclusive compositional style that embraced both the old and the new, yielding groundbreaking works such as Music for the Magic Theater, the String Quartet no. 3, and the Concord Quartets. The revised edition of his collected writings on music, The Aesthetics of Survival, was the recipient of an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 2006.
Gene Rochberg met George in 1938 while both were students at what is now Montclair State University. They married in 1941. After they moved to Philadelphia, Gene studied at the Hedgerow Theatre School and the Barnes Foundation and was actively involved in theater and the other arts. She collaborated with her husband on a number of works, including the monodrama Phaedre and the opera The Confidence Man.
Richard Griscom is the head of the Otto E. Albrecht Music Library at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the coauthor of The Recorder: A Research and Information Guide and former editor of the quarterly journal of the Music Library Association, Notes.
