Alexander Goehr
Encyclopedia
Alexander Goehr is an English
composer
and academic.
Goehr was born in Berlin
in 1932, the son of the conductor and Schoenberg
pupil Walter Goehr
. In his early twenties he emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers. In 1955–56 he joined Oliver Messiaen's masterclass in Paris
. Although in the early sixties Goehr was considered a leader of the avant-garde
, his oblique attitude to modernism
— and to any movement or school whatsoever — soon became evident. In a sequence of works including the Piano Trio (1966), the opera Arden Must Die (1966), the music-theatre piece Triptych (1968–70), the orchestral Metamorphosis/Dance (1974), and the String Quartet No. 3 (1975–76), Goehr's personal voice was revealed, arising from a highly individual use of the serial method and a fusion of elements from his double heritage of Schoenberg and Messiaen. Since the luminous 'white-note' Psalm IV setting of 1976, Goehr has urged a return to more traditional ways of composing, using familiar materials as objects of musical speculation, in contrast to the technological priorities of much present-day musical research.
when he was only a few months old. Alexander came from an extremely musical family: his mother Laelia was a classically trained pianist, and his father was a Schoenberg pupil and pioneering conductor of Schoenberg, Messiaen (he conducted the UK premiere of the Turangalîla Symphony in 1953) and Monteverdi. As a child, Alexander grew up in a household permanently populated by composers, including Mátyás Seiber
and Michael Tippett
.
Although these premises point all too clearly to Goehr’s future as a composer, his efforts as a composer were not much encouraged by his father, and he initially he proposed to study classics at Oxford University, but went instead to study composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music
, with Richard Hall
.
In his composition classes Goehr became friends with young composers Peter Maxwell Davies
and Harrison Birtwistle
and pianist John Ogdon
, with whom he founded the New Music Manchester Group. A seminal event in Goehr’s development was hearing the UK premiere of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony, conducted by his father. The interest in non-Western music (for instance Indian raga
) sparked by the meeting with Messiaen’s music combined with the interest in medieval modes
shared with Peter Maxwell Davies
and Harrison Birtwistle
largely influenced Goehr's first musical imaginings. His first acknowledged compositions date from these years: Songs for Babel (1951) and the Sonata for Piano, Op. 2, which was dedicated to the memory of Prokofiev, who had died that year.
In 1955, Goehr left Manchester to go to Paris and study with Messiaen, and he remained in Paris until October 1956. The music scene of Paris would make a great impression on Goehr, who became good friends with Pierre Boulez
and was involved in the serialist avant-garde movement of those years. Goehr experimented with Boulez’s technique of bloc sonore, particularly in his first String Quartet of 1956–57. Boulez was a sort of mentor to Goehr in the late fifties, programming his new compositions in his concerts at the Marigny Theatre in Paris.
It was not meant to last. Eventually Goehr’s sensibility parted from Boulez’s serialism
. What disturbed Goehr was mainly his perception that by the mid-fifties, serialism had become a cult of stylistic purity, modelling itself on the twelve-tone works of Anton Webern
. Reference to any other music was forbidden and despised, and spontaneous choice replaced with the combinatorial laws of serialism:
The Deluge in 1957 under his father’s baton. This is a big, ambitious work inspired by the writings of Sergei Eisenstein
—one of Goehr’s many extra-musical sources of inspiration. The soundworld could be seen to have derived from the twelve-tone cantatas of Webern, but it implicitly strives for the imposing harmonic tautness and full sonority of Prokofiev’s Eisenstein cantatas. The genre of the cantata
is one that Goehr would explore over and over again throughout his career.
Indeed, following the success of The Deluge, Goehr was commissioned a new cantata, Sutter’s Gold for choir, baritone and orchestra. However, the new work proved highly unpopular particularly with the singers, who found it impossibly difficult to perform. Indeed, the difficulty of performance is one of the reasons why Sutter’s Gold was dismissed by critics upon its performance at the Leeds
festival in 1961. This débacle, however, had a constructive impact on Goehr: rather than dismissing criticism as the mere result of incompetence on the part of critics and performers, he genuinely faced the questions of the position of the avant-garde
composer and his music:
Despite this, Goehr continued to compose choral works. Encouraged by his friendship with the choral conductor John Alldis
, who was strongly committed to new music, Goehr composed his Two Choruses in 1962, which used for the first time the combination of modality
and serialism
which was to remain his main technical resource for the next 14 years.
His search for a model of serialism
that could allow for expressive freedom led him to his famous Little Symphony, Op. 15 (1963). It is a memorial to Goehr's conductor/composer father, who had unexpectedly died, and it is based upon a chord-sequence subtly modelled upon (but not quoting) the "Catacombs" movement from Mussorgsky
's Pictures at an Exhibition(Goehr senior had made a close harmonic analysis of this unusual movement).
This flexible approach to serialism
, integrating harmonic background with bloc sonore and modality is very representative of the type of writing that Goehr developed as an alternative to the strictures of total serialism. It is no coincidence that Boulez—who had earlier facilitated the performance of Goehr’s music—refused to programme Little Symphony: by 1963 Goehr had neatly departed from the style of his Parisian days.
The sixties also see Goehr founding the Wardour Castle Summer School with Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle in 1964, and most importantly, the beginning of Goehr’s preoccupation with opera
and music theatre. In 1966 he wrote his first opera, Arden Must Die (Arden Muss Sterben), a thoroughly Brechtian setting of a Jacobean morality play which had uncomfortably contemporary political and social resonances. Goehr’s striking setting of a text composed by Erich Fried in rhyming duplets makes the most of the idea of simple musical ideas that are continually distorted to a sinister and sarcastic effect.
In 1967 he founded the Music Theatre Ensemble, and in 1971 he completed a three-part cycle for music theatre—Tryptich— made up of three works: Naboth’s Vineyard (1968) and Shadowplay (1970) were both explicitly written for Music Theatre Ensemble while the later Sonata about Jerusalem (1971) was commissioned by Testimonium, Jerusalem and performed by the Israel Chamber Orchestra
and Gary Bertini
.
The end of the sixties also sees the beginning of a string of prestigious academic appointments for Goehr. In 1968–9 he was composer-in-residence at the New England Conservatory of Music
, Boston
, and went on to teach at Yale University
as an associate professor of music. Goehr returned to Britain as visiting lecturer at Southampton University (1970–71). This appointment was followed suit by a position as the West Riding Professor at Leeds University (1971–6). In 1976 Goehr was appointed professor of music at Cambridge University (1976) where he taught until his retirement in 1999. In Cambridge he became fellow of Trinity Hall
.
coincided with a turning point in his output. In 1976, Goehr wrote a famous white-note setting of Psalm IV. The simple, bright modal
sonority of this piece marked a final departure from post-war
serialism
and a commitment to a more transparent soundworld. Goehr found a way of controlling harmonic pace by fusing his own modal harmonic idiom with the long abandoned practice of figured bass
—thus achieving a highly idiosyncratic fusion of past and present.
The output of the ensuing twenty years testified to Goehr’s desire to use this new idiom to explore ideas and genres that had already become constant features of his work, such as the exploration of symphonic form: Goehr returned to symphonic form in his Sinfonia (1979) and Symphony with Chaconne
(1987). Yet these years’ output is disseminated most notably with a great number of ambitious vocal scores.
A common feature of many of the vocal compositions of these years is the choice of subjects that function as allegories for reflection upon socio-political themes. The Death of Moses (1992) uses Moses
’ angry refusal to die as an allegory for the destiny of the victims of the Holocaust; while the cantata Babylon the Great is Fallen (1979) and the opera Behold the Sun (1985)—for which Babylon the Great can be considered to be a sketch study—both explore the themes of themes of violent revolution via the texts from the Anabaptist
uprising in Munster
of 1543. There are also non-political works such as the Sing, Ariel, that recalls Messiaen’s stylized birdsong and sets a kaleidoscope of English poetry
, and the opera Arianna
(1995)—written on a Rinuccini
libretto for L'Arianna
, a lost opera by Monteverdi—is a typically idiosyncratic exploration of the soundworld of Italian Renaissance
. Indeed, Goehr’s engagement with Monteverdi’s music dates back to the cantata The Death of Moses, which he described as ‘Monteverdi heard through Varèse
’. Arianna is also the piece that most overtly displays Goehr’s intent to turn his reinvention of the past into a musical process that the audience can hear and identify:
theatre tradition, separated by a short kyogen
humorous interlude. Typically for Goehr, the Japanese texts date back to the 15th century and have been adapted by the composer for setting. The lusciously tonal
idiom does not indulge in orientalism
, but rather the relationship between music and drama in Noh
animates the whole work. Again, with Kantan and Damask Drum the search continues for an expressive synthesis; in this case, it is one of western and eastern, past and present.
In the following years, Goehr devoted himself almost exclusively to chamber music
. This is perhaps a response to the difficulties he experienced in the staging of his operas: the limited amount of financial support needed for a chamber music performance allows for music and performance venues that stray off the beaten path while allowing the composer more control over the quality of the performance.
Through the chamber music medium Goehr gains an unprecedented rhythmic and harmonic immediacy, while his music remains ever permeable by the music and imagery of other times and places: the Piano Quintet (2000) and the Fantasie for cello and piano (2005) are haunted by rich sonorities of a thoroughly Ravel-like quality.
The set of piano pieces Symmetries Disorder Reach (2007) is a barely disguised baroque suite
haunted by the spirit of early Berg
. Marching to Carcassonne (2003) flirts with neoclassicism
and Stravinsky, and Manere for violin and clarinet (2008), based on a fragment of medieval plainchant, is a typical foray into the art of musical ornament
. Also written in 2008 is Since Brass nor Stone for string quartet and percussion (2008), a memorial to Pavel Haas
. Inspired by a Shakespeare sonnet, from which it borrows its title, this work is representative of the inventiveness of Goehr's recent chamber work. One reviewer described the soundworld of the work as 'hiccupping fugal patterns overlaid with intricate, delicate percussion [...] a magical garden of dappled textures'
Goehr has recently returned to the operatic medium with the opera Promised End, based on Shakespeare’s King Lear
, which will be performed in 2010 by English Touring Opera
.
; in other words Goehr writes music about a director’s notes for a film based on the writings of a painter! Similarly, his inspiration for new compositions have ranged from the formal proportions of a late Beethoven Piano Sonata
(Metamorphosis/Dance, 1973-4) to a painting by Goya (Colossus or Panic, 1990), to the sinister humour of Bertolt Brecht
(Arden Must Die, 1966) or to the Japanese Noh
theatre (Kantan and Damask Drum, 1999).
Another red-thread element of The Deluge is that it takes its cue from an unfinished project—Eisenstein never carried out this particular project. Goehr will return time and again to the idea of carrying out a synthesis of fragments or unfinished projects left by other artists, albeit in a metaphorical way: the cantata The Death of Moses resonates with Schoenberg
’s unfinished Moses und Aron
; the opera Arianna (1995) is the setting of the libretto of a lost opera by Monteverdi; and the posthumously published prose fragments by Franz Kafka
lurk behind Das Gesetz der Quadrille (1979), Sur terre en l’air (1997) and Schlussgesang (1990).
From a strictly technical musical level, Goehr’s endeavour has long been that of unifying the contrapuntal rigor and motivic workings of the First Viennese School
and Second Viennese School
with a strong sense of harmonic pacing and sonority. It is indicative that Goehr should go to Paris
not only to attend the classes of Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire, but also to study counterpoint
and serialism
with Schoenberg
scholar and composer Max Deutsch
; even more indicative is the anecdote that Deutsch threw Goehr out of his house upon hearing that the young man intended to study with Messiaen as well as with him. Goehr’s indebtedness to Messiaen is very strong, as is apparent in Goehr’s life-long commitment to modality as an integration to both serialism
and to tonality
, as well as his often bird-song inspired melodic writing, particularly in the cantata
Sing, Ariel.
This attitude is concisely expressed by Goehr’s striking assertion that ‘all art is new and all art is conservative’. Understood in this way, his musical imagination of the past can be traced to three fundamental sources:
, Claudio Monteverdi
, Modest Mussorgsky
, Olivier Messiaen
—feature as a red-thread throughout Alexander’s output. For instance, Goehr’s Arianna uses the libretto of a lost opera by Monteverdi, Arianna abbandonata, and conjures up sonorities reminiscent of the Italian Renaissance
. The quintet Five Objects Darkly (whose title is borrowed from a work by the painter Giorgio Morandi
is a set of variations based on a musical fragment by Mussorgsky
, and the earlier Little Symphony uses the chordal structure of Mussorgsky
’s Catacombs' from Pictures at an Exhibition as a harmonic backbone.
had studied with Schoenberg
and was constantly surrounded by high calibre composers such as Seiber, Tippett
, and others. Goehr’s strong sense of indebtment to this generation, particularly to Schoenberg
, had a lot to do with his ambivalent reaction to the Darmstadt School
avant-garde of the fifties (in which his friend and mentor Pierre Boulez
was heavily involved).
, Goehr refuses to view current composition
as a practice that is independent of any musical tradition, but rather, he seeks in tradition the elements for the innovation of musical language. Alexander’s search for a means of controlling structure and harmony
in music led him in the late seventies to an innovating interpretation of the late baroque
practice of figured bass
in conjunction with his personal blend of modality and serialism
. This is exemplified in his setting of Psalm IV and the ensuing correlated works: Fugue and Romanza on the notes of the fourth Psalm (1976 and 1977, respectively). Goehr is also committed to the reinvention of classical forms such as the Symphony
, the classical Concerto
, and the Baroque Suite
(from his Suite Op. 11 of 1961 right up to Symmeteries Disorder Reach of 2007). Further sources of inspiration are the treatises on musical ornamentation by Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, and Monteverdi, whose synthesis of renaissance
polyphony
with the early baroque
move towards homophony
and the control of harmony
clearly mirrors Goehr’s own commitment to a harmonically expressive serialist practice
.
Musicologists
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and academic.
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in 1932, the son of the conductor and Schoenberg
Schoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
pupil Walter Goehr
Walter Goehr
Walter Goehr was a German composer and conductor.Goehr was born in Berlin where studied with Arnold Schoenberg and embarked on a conducting career, before being forced as a Jew to seek employment outside Germany, while working for Berlin Radio in 1932. He was invited to become music director for...
. In his early twenties he emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers. In 1955–56 he joined Oliver Messiaen's masterclass in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Although in the early sixties Goehr was considered a leader of the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
, his oblique attitude to modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
— and to any movement or school whatsoever — soon became evident. In a sequence of works including the Piano Trio (1966), the opera Arden Must Die (1966), the music-theatre piece Triptych (1968–70), the orchestral Metamorphosis/Dance (1974), and the String Quartet No. 3 (1975–76), Goehr's personal voice was revealed, arising from a highly individual use of the serial method and a fusion of elements from his double heritage of Schoenberg and Messiaen. Since the luminous 'white-note' Psalm IV setting of 1976, Goehr has urged a return to more traditional ways of composing, using familiar materials as objects of musical speculation, in contrast to the technological priorities of much present-day musical research.
Youth and studies
Alexander Goehr was born on 10 August 1932 in Berlin, and his family moved to BritainUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
when he was only a few months old. Alexander came from an extremely musical family: his mother Laelia was a classically trained pianist, and his father was a Schoenberg pupil and pioneering conductor of Schoenberg, Messiaen (he conducted the UK premiere of the Turangalîla Symphony in 1953) and Monteverdi. As a child, Alexander grew up in a household permanently populated by composers, including Mátyás Seiber
Mátyás Seiber
Mátyás György Seiber was a Hungarian-born composer who lived and worked in England from 1935 onward.-Career:Seiber was born in Budapest, and studied there with Zoltán Kodály, with whom he toured Hungary collecting folk songs. In 1928, he became director of the jazz department at the Hoch...
and Michael Tippett
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
.
Although these premises point all too clearly to Goehr’s future as a composer, his efforts as a composer were not much encouraged by his father, and he initially he proposed to study classics at Oxford University, but went instead to study composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music
Royal Manchester College of Music
The Royal Manchester College of Music was founded in 1893 by Sir Charles Hallé who assumed the role as Principal. For a long period of time Hallé had argued for Manchester's need for a conservatoire to properly train the local talent. The Ducie Street building, just off Oxford Road, was purchased...
, with Richard Hall
Richard Hall (composer)
Richard Hall was an English musician and composer who became professor of composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music, a position he held from 1938 until 1956, when he became director of music at Dartington College of Arts...
.
In his composition classes Goehr became friends with young composers Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
and Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
and pianist John Ogdon
John Ogdon
John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.-Biography:Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music between 1953 and 1957, where his fellow students under Richard Hall...
, with whom he founded the New Music Manchester Group. A seminal event in Goehr’s development was hearing the UK premiere of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony, conducted by his father. The interest in non-Western music (for instance Indian raga
Raga
A raga is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.It is a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is made...
) sparked by the meeting with Messiaen’s music combined with the interest in medieval modes
Modus (medieval music)
In medieval music theory, the Latin term modus can be used in a variety of distinct senses. The most commonly used meaning today relates to the organisation of pitch in scales...
shared with Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
and Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
largely influenced Goehr's first musical imaginings. His first acknowledged compositions date from these years: Songs for Babel (1951) and the Sonata for Piano, Op. 2, which was dedicated to the memory of Prokofiev, who had died that year.
In 1955, Goehr left Manchester to go to Paris and study with Messiaen, and he remained in Paris until October 1956. The music scene of Paris would make a great impression on Goehr, who became good friends with Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
and was involved in the serialist avant-garde movement of those years. Goehr experimented with Boulez’s technique of bloc sonore, particularly in his first String Quartet of 1956–57. Boulez was a sort of mentor to Goehr in the late fifties, programming his new compositions in his concerts at the Marigny Theatre in Paris.
It was not meant to last. Eventually Goehr’s sensibility parted from Boulez’s serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
. What disturbed Goehr was mainly his perception that by the mid-fifties, serialism had become a cult of stylistic purity, modelling itself on the twelve-tone works of Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
. Reference to any other music was forbidden and despised, and spontaneous choice replaced with the combinatorial laws of serialism:
Choice, taste and style were dirty words; personal style, one could argue, is necessarily a product of repetition, and the removal of repetition is, or was believed to be, a cornerstone of classical serialism as defined by Webern’s late works [...] All this may well be seen as a kind of negative style precept: a conscious elimination of sensuous, dramatic or expressive elements, indeed of everything that in the popular view constitutes music.
Return to the UK, 1956–1976
Upon his return to Britain, Goehr experienced a breakthrough as a composer with the performance of his cantataCantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
The Deluge in 1957 under his father’s baton. This is a big, ambitious work inspired by the writings of Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
—one of Goehr’s many extra-musical sources of inspiration. The soundworld could be seen to have derived from the twelve-tone cantatas of Webern, but it implicitly strives for the imposing harmonic tautness and full sonority of Prokofiev’s Eisenstein cantatas. The genre of the cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
is one that Goehr would explore over and over again throughout his career.
Indeed, following the success of The Deluge, Goehr was commissioned a new cantata, Sutter’s Gold for choir, baritone and orchestra. However, the new work proved highly unpopular particularly with the singers, who found it impossibly difficult to perform. Indeed, the difficulty of performance is one of the reasons why Sutter’s Gold was dismissed by critics upon its performance at the Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
festival in 1961. This débacle, however, had a constructive impact on Goehr: rather than dismissing criticism as the mere result of incompetence on the part of critics and performers, he genuinely faced the questions of the position of the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
composer and his music:
If one wishes, one can just say that music has to be autonomous and self sufficient; but how to sustain such a view when people who sing for pleasure are deprived of true satisfaction in the performance of new work? [...] We can talk about music in terms of the ideas that inform it; we can talk about structure and techniques; we can talk about aesthetics or ethics or politics. But we have to remember that while all this, realistic or not, is of great importance to composers and to anyone who likes to follow what composers are doing, what is being discussed is not the music itself but the location of the music, the place where it exists.
Despite this, Goehr continued to compose choral works. Encouraged by his friendship with the choral conductor John Alldis
John Alldis
John Alldis was an English chorus-master and conductor.After his education at Felsted, Alldis studied as a choral scholar under Boris Ord at King's College, Cambridge, from 1949 to 1952....
, who was strongly committed to new music, Goehr composed his Two Choruses in 1962, which used for the first time the combination of modality
Musical mode
In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...
and serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
which was to remain his main technical resource for the next 14 years.
His search for a model of serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
that could allow for expressive freedom led him to his famous Little Symphony, Op. 15 (1963). It is a memorial to Goehr's conductor/composer father, who had unexpectedly died, and it is based upon a chord-sequence subtly modelled upon (but not quoting) the "Catacombs" movement from Mussorgsky
Mussorgsky
Mussorgsky can refer to:*The Mussorgsky family of Russian nobility;*Modest Mussorgsky, a Russian composer belonging to that family.*Mussorgsky , a 1950 Soviet film about the composer...
's Pictures at an Exhibition(Goehr senior had made a close harmonic analysis of this unusual movement).
This flexible approach to serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
, integrating harmonic background with bloc sonore and modality is very representative of the type of writing that Goehr developed as an alternative to the strictures of total serialism. It is no coincidence that Boulez—who had earlier facilitated the performance of Goehr’s music—refused to programme Little Symphony: by 1963 Goehr had neatly departed from the style of his Parisian days.
The sixties also see Goehr founding the Wardour Castle Summer School with Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle in 1964, and most importantly, the beginning of Goehr’s preoccupation with opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and music theatre. In 1966 he wrote his first opera, Arden Must Die (Arden Muss Sterben), a thoroughly Brechtian setting of a Jacobean morality play which had uncomfortably contemporary political and social resonances. Goehr’s striking setting of a text composed by Erich Fried in rhyming duplets makes the most of the idea of simple musical ideas that are continually distorted to a sinister and sarcastic effect.
In 1967 he founded the Music Theatre Ensemble, and in 1971 he completed a three-part cycle for music theatre—Tryptich— made up of three works: Naboth’s Vineyard (1968) and Shadowplay (1970) were both explicitly written for Music Theatre Ensemble while the later Sonata about Jerusalem (1971) was commissioned by Testimonium, Jerusalem and performed by the Israel Chamber Orchestra
Israel Chamber Orchestra
The Israel Chamber Orchestra is an Israeli orchestra based in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Primary funding comes from the Israel Ministry of Education and the Tel Aviv Jaffa Municipality....
and Gary Bertini
Gary Bertini
Gary Bertini was an Israeli conductor.-Biography:Gary Bertini was born Shloyme Golergant in Bricheva, Bessarabia, then in Romania, now in Donduşeni District, Moldova. His father, K. A. Bertini , was a poet and translator of the Russian and Yiddish Gary Bertini (Hebrew: גארי ברתיני) (born 1 May...
.
The end of the sixties also sees the beginning of a string of prestigious academic appointments for Goehr. In 1968–9 he was composer-in-residence at the New England Conservatory of Music
New England Conservatory of Music
The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest independent school of music in the United States.The conservatory is home each year to 750 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies along with 1400 more in its Preparatory School as well as the School of...
, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, and went on to teach at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
as an associate professor of music. Goehr returned to Britain as visiting lecturer at Southampton University (1970–71). This appointment was followed suit by a position as the West Riding Professor at Leeds University (1971–6). In 1976 Goehr was appointed professor of music at Cambridge University (1976) where he taught until his retirement in 1999. In Cambridge he became fellow of Trinity Hall
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the fifth-oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich.- Foundation :...
.
1976–1996
The year of Goehr’s appointment at CambridgeCambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
coincided with a turning point in his output. In 1976, Goehr wrote a famous white-note setting of Psalm IV. The simple, bright modal
Musical mode
In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...
sonority of this piece marked a final departure from post-war
Post-war
A post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...
serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
and a commitment to a more transparent soundworld. Goehr found a way of controlling harmonic pace by fusing his own modal harmonic idiom with the long abandoned practice of figured bass
Figured bass
Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...
—thus achieving a highly idiosyncratic fusion of past and present.
The output of the ensuing twenty years testified to Goehr’s desire to use this new idiom to explore ideas and genres that had already become constant features of his work, such as the exploration of symphonic form: Goehr returned to symphonic form in his Sinfonia (1979) and Symphony with Chaconne
Chaconne
A chaconne ; is a type of musical composition popular in the baroque era when it was much used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line which offered a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and...
(1987). Yet these years’ output is disseminated most notably with a great number of ambitious vocal scores.
A common feature of many of the vocal compositions of these years is the choice of subjects that function as allegories for reflection upon socio-political themes. The Death of Moses (1992) uses Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
’ angry refusal to die as an allegory for the destiny of the victims of the Holocaust; while the cantata Babylon the Great is Fallen (1979) and the opera Behold the Sun (1985)—for which Babylon the Great can be considered to be a sketch study—both explore the themes of themes of violent revolution via the texts from the Anabaptist
Anabaptist
Anabaptists are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites....
uprising in Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...
of 1543. There are also non-political works such as the Sing, Ariel, that recalls Messiaen’s stylized birdsong and sets a kaleidoscope of English poetry
English poetry
The history of English poetry stretches from the middle of the 7th century to the present day. Over this period, English poets have written some of the most enduring poems in Western culture, and the language and its poetry have spread around the globe. Consequently, the term English poetry is...
, and the opera Arianna
Arianna (Goehr)
Arianna is an opera in eight scenes by the British composer Alexander Goehr, premiered at the Royal Opera House, London, in 1995. It is set to the libretto , by Ottavio Rinuccini, used by Claudio Monteverdi in his 1608 opera, L'Arianna. The opera is Goehr's op...
(1995)—written on a Rinuccini
Ottavio Rinuccini
Ottavio Rinuccini was an Italian poet, courtier, and opera librettist at the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras...
libretto for L'Arianna
L'Arianna
L'Arianna was the second opera written by Claudio Monteverdi, and one of the most influential and famous specimens of early Baroque opera. It was first performed in Mantua on 28 May 1608. The libretto is by Ottavio Rinuccini, who took the Classical story of Ariadne and Theseus from Ovid's Heroides...
, a lost opera by Monteverdi—is a typically idiosyncratic exploration of the soundworld of Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
. Indeed, Goehr’s engagement with Monteverdi’s music dates back to the cantata The Death of Moses, which he described as ‘Monteverdi heard through Varèse
Varese
Varese is a town and comune in north-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 55 km north of Milan.It is the capital of the Province of Varese. The hinterland or urban part of the city is called Varesotto.- Geography :...
’. Arianna is also the piece that most overtly displays Goehr’s intent to turn his reinvention of the past into a musical process that the audience can hear and identify:
The impression I aim to create is one of transparency: the listener should perceive, both in the successive and simultaneous dimensions of the score, the old beneath the new and the new arising from the old. We are to see a mythological and ancient action, interpreted by a 17th-century poet in a modern theatre.
1996–2009
Although the last ten years of Goehr’s output have not received the generous coverage (both in terms of academic writing and frequency of performance) of his previous work, they arguably represent the most interesting of Goehr’s compositional phases. This last decade’s output is heralded by the striking opera Kantan and Damask Drum of 1999, premiered at the Dortmund Opera. This opera consists in fact of two plays from the Japanese NohNoh
, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...
theatre tradition, separated by a short kyogen
Kyogen
is a form of traditional Japanese comic theater. It developed alongside Noh, was performed along with Noh as an intermission of sorts between Noh acts, on the same Noh stage, and retains close links to Noh in the modern day; therefore, it is sometimes designated Noh-kyōgen...
humorous interlude. Typically for Goehr, the Japanese texts date back to the 15th century and have been adapted by the composer for setting. The lusciously tonal
Tonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
idiom does not indulge in orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
, but rather the relationship between music and drama in Noh
Noh
, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...
animates the whole work. Again, with Kantan and Damask Drum the search continues for an expressive synthesis; in this case, it is one of western and eastern, past and present.
In the following years, Goehr devoted himself almost exclusively to chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
. This is perhaps a response to the difficulties he experienced in the staging of his operas: the limited amount of financial support needed for a chamber music performance allows for music and performance venues that stray off the beaten path while allowing the composer more control over the quality of the performance.
Through the chamber music medium Goehr gains an unprecedented rhythmic and harmonic immediacy, while his music remains ever permeable by the music and imagery of other times and places: the Piano Quintet (2000) and the Fantasie for cello and piano (2005) are haunted by rich sonorities of a thoroughly Ravel-like quality.
The set of piano pieces Symmetries Disorder Reach (2007) is a barely disguised baroque suite
Suite
In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
haunted by the spirit of early Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
. Marching to Carcassonne (2003) flirts with neoclassicism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
and Stravinsky, and Manere for violin and clarinet (2008), based on a fragment of medieval plainchant, is a typical foray into the art of musical ornament
Ornament (music)
In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...
. Also written in 2008 is Since Brass nor Stone for string quartet and percussion (2008), a memorial to Pavel Haas
Pavel Haas
Pavel Haas was a Czech composer who was murdered during the Holocaust. He was an exponent of Leoš Janáček's school of composition, and also utilized elements of folk music and jazz. Although his output was not large, he is notable particularly for his song cycles and string quartets.-Pre-war:Haas...
. Inspired by a Shakespeare sonnet, from which it borrows its title, this work is representative of the inventiveness of Goehr's recent chamber work. One reviewer described the soundworld of the work as 'hiccupping fugal patterns overlaid with intricate, delicate percussion [...] a magical garden of dappled textures'
Goehr has recently returned to the operatic medium with the opera Promised End, based on Shakespeare’s King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
, which will be performed in 2010 by English Touring Opera
English Touring Opera
English Touring Opera is an opera company in the United Kingdom. From 1979 to 1992 it was known as Opera 80.- About the company :Opera 80 was founded in 1979 by the Arts Council of Great Britain as the successor to Opera For All; in 1992 the company changed its name to English Touring Opera...
.
Eclecticism and synthesis
All of Goehr’s works are, in one way or another, studies in the synthesis of several, different elements. This is already apparent in his breakthrough piece, The Deluge (1957–58), which is inspired by Eisenstein’s notes for a film based on a writing by Leonardo da VinciLeonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
; in other words Goehr writes music about a director’s notes for a film based on the writings of a painter! Similarly, his inspiration for new compositions have ranged from the formal proportions of a late Beethoven Piano Sonata
Piano sonata
A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...
(Metamorphosis/Dance, 1973-4) to a painting by Goya (Colossus or Panic, 1990), to the sinister humour of Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
(Arden Must Die, 1966) or to the Japanese Noh
Noh
, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...
theatre (Kantan and Damask Drum, 1999).
Another red-thread element of The Deluge is that it takes its cue from an unfinished project—Eisenstein never carried out this particular project. Goehr will return time and again to the idea of carrying out a synthesis of fragments or unfinished projects left by other artists, albeit in a metaphorical way: the cantata The Death of Moses resonates with Schoenberg
Schoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
’s unfinished Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the third act unfinished. The German libretto was by the composer after the Book of Exodus.-Compositional history:...
; the opera Arianna (1995) is the setting of the libretto of a lost opera by Monteverdi; and the posthumously published prose fragments by Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
lurk behind Das Gesetz der Quadrille (1979), Sur terre en l’air (1997) and Schlussgesang (1990).
From a strictly technical musical level, Goehr’s endeavour has long been that of unifying the contrapuntal rigor and motivic workings of the First Viennese School
First Viennese School
The First Viennese School is a name mostly used to refer to three composers of the Classical period in Western art music in late-18th-century Vienna: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. Franz Schubert is occasionally added to the list.In German speaking countries, the...
and Second Viennese School
Second Viennese School
The Second Viennese School is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925...
with a strong sense of harmonic pacing and sonority. It is indicative that Goehr should go to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
not only to attend the classes of Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire, but also to study counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
and serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
with Schoenberg
Schoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
scholar and composer Max Deutsch
Max Deutsch
Max Deutsch was an Austrian-French musical composer, conductor, and teacher.He was a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg and founded the theater Der Jüdische Spiegel in Paris. Here, many works of composers like Schoenberg, Anton Webern, or Alban Berg were debuted in France...
; even more indicative is the anecdote that Deutsch threw Goehr out of his house upon hearing that the young man intended to study with Messiaen as well as with him. Goehr’s indebtedness to Messiaen is very strong, as is apparent in Goehr’s life-long commitment to modality as an integration to both serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
and to tonality
Tonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
, as well as his often bird-song inspired melodic writing, particularly in the cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
Sing, Ariel.
Engagement with the past
Goehr’s interest in the musical past is far from an empty mannerism or a sign of musical conservatism, but rather an earnest, and constantly renewed exploration of his own musical roots. The music of the past does not hinder, in Goehr’s view, the search for an innovative musical language:In the composer's mind, vague memories fuse and grow into a new, conscious, creative idea. An artist is realated to the tradition from which he comes, and this bond has little to do with time or progress.
This attitude is concisely expressed by Goehr’s striking assertion that ‘all art is new and all art is conservative’. Understood in this way, his musical imagination of the past can be traced to three fundamental sources:
Walter Goehr
Although Goehr’s personal relationship to his father was not unproblematic, Walter Goehr had a determining influence on his son via his work as a conductor: the composers whose work Walter championed—Arnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
, Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
, Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
—feature as a red-thread throughout Alexander’s output. For instance, Goehr’s Arianna uses the libretto of a lost opera by Monteverdi, Arianna abbandonata, and conjures up sonorities reminiscent of the Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
. The quintet Five Objects Darkly (whose title is borrowed from a work by the painter Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting apparently simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bowls, flowers, and landscapes.-Biography:Giorgio Morandi was born in Bologna...
is a set of variations based on a musical fragment by Mussorgsky
Mussorgsky
Mussorgsky can refer to:*The Mussorgsky family of Russian nobility;*Modest Mussorgsky, a Russian composer belonging to that family.*Mussorgsky , a 1950 Soviet film about the composer...
, and the earlier Little Symphony uses the chordal structure of Mussorgsky
Mussorgsky
Mussorgsky can refer to:*The Mussorgsky family of Russian nobility;*Modest Mussorgsky, a Russian composer belonging to that family.*Mussorgsky , a 1950 Soviet film about the composer...
’s Catacombs' from Pictures at an Exhibition as a harmonic backbone.
Early twentieth-century modernist composers
Walter GoehrWalter Goehr
Walter Goehr was a German composer and conductor.Goehr was born in Berlin where studied with Arnold Schoenberg and embarked on a conducting career, before being forced as a Jew to seek employment outside Germany, while working for Berlin Radio in 1932. He was invited to become music director for...
had studied with Schoenberg
Schoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
and was constantly surrounded by high calibre composers such as Seiber, Tippett
Tippett
Tippett is the surname of:*Andre Tippett , American footballer*Clark Tippet , American dancer*Dave Tippett , ice hockey coach*Gerald Tippett, fictional character in Shortland Street...
, and others. Goehr’s strong sense of indebtment to this generation, particularly to Schoenberg
Schoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
, had a lot to do with his ambivalent reaction to the Darmstadt School
Darmstadt School
Darmstadt School refers to a loose group of compositional styles created by composers who attended the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music from the early 1950s to the early 1960s.-History:...
avant-garde of the fifties (in which his friend and mentor Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
was heavily involved).
Music of the baroque and classical tradition
Goehr’s interest in these musics is surely part of his Schoenbergian heritage. Just like SchoenbergSchoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
, Goehr refuses to view current composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
as a practice that is independent of any musical tradition, but rather, he seeks in tradition the elements for the innovation of musical language. Alexander’s search for a means of controlling structure and harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
in music led him in the late seventies to an innovating interpretation of the late baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
practice of figured bass
Figured bass
Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...
in conjunction with his personal blend of modality and serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
. This is exemplified in his setting of Psalm IV and the ensuing correlated works: Fugue and Romanza on the notes of the fourth Psalm (1976 and 1977, respectively). Goehr is also committed to the reinvention of classical forms such as the Symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
, the classical Concerto
Concerto
A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...
, and the Baroque Suite
Suite
In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
(from his Suite Op. 11 of 1961 right up to Symmeteries Disorder Reach of 2007). Further sources of inspiration are the treatises on musical ornamentation by Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, and Monteverdi, whose synthesis of renaissance
Renaissance music
Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...
polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
with the early baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
move towards homophony
Homophony
In music, homophony is a texture in which two or more parts move together in harmony, the relationship between them creating chords. This is distinct from polyphony, in which parts move with rhythmic independence, and monophony, in which all parts move in parallel rhythm and pitch. A homophonic...
and the control of harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
clearly mirrors Goehr’s own commitment to a harmonically expressive serialist practice
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
.
Chronology
- 1951, Songs of Babel,
- 1952, Sonata for piano Op. 2
- 1954, Fantasias for cl. and piano Op. 3
- 1957, Capriccio for piano, op.6
- 1957-8, The Deluge, op. 7
- 1959 Variations for flute and piano, op.8,Four Songs from the Japanese, op.9, Sutter's Gold, op.10
- 1956-57, String Quartet No. 1
- 1959-61, Hecuba's Lament, op.12
- 1961, Suite, op.11
- 1961-2, Violin Concerto, op.13
- 1962, Two Choruses, op.14
- 1963, Virtutes, a cycle of nine songs and melodramas, Little Symphony, op.15, Little Music for Strings, op.16
- 1964, Five Poems and an Epigram of William Blake, op.17, Three Pieces for Piano, op.18,
- 1965, Pastorals, op.19
- 1966, Piano Trio, op.20, Arden Muss Sterben (Opera) Op. 21
- 1966-67,Warngedichte (for Mezzo and piano) Op. 22
- 1967, Three Pieces from Arden must Die Op. 21a, String Quartet No. 2, op.23
- 1968, Romanza for cello and orchestra, op.24, Naboth's Vineyard, op.25
- 1969, Konzertstück, op.26,Nonomiya, op.27, Paraphrase for clarinet, op.28 Symphony in One Movement, op.29
- 1970, Shadowplay, op.30, Concerto for Eleven, op.32
- 1971, Sonata about Jerusalem, op.31
- 1972, Piano Concerto, op.33
- 1973-4, Chaconne for Wind, op.34
- Lyric Pieces, op.35, Metamorphosis/Dance, op.36
- 1976, String Quartet No. 3, op.37,Psalm IV, op.38a, Fugue on the Notes of Psalm IV, op.38b
- 1977, Romanza on the Notes of Psalm IV, op.38c
- 1979, Babylon the Great is Fallen (cantata) op.20,Chaconne for organ, op. 34a, Das Gesetz der Quadrille, op.41, Sinfonia, op.42
- 1981, Deux Etudes, op. 43, Behold the Sun (dramatic scena), op.44a
- 1985, Behold the Sun (Opera), ...a musical offering (J.S.B. 1985)... op.46, Two Imitations of Baudelaire, op.47
- 1986, Symphony with Chaconne, op.48
- 1988, Eve Dreams in Paradise, op.49,...in real time, op.50
- 1990, Sing Ariel, op.51, String Quartet No. 4, op.52
- 1992, The Death of Moses (cantata) op.53, Colossos or Panic for orchestra op.55
- 1993, The mouse metamorphosed into a maid for unaccompanied voice, op. 54
- 1995, Arianna, op. 58
- 1996, Schlussgesang for orchestra op.61,Quintet "Five objects Darkly", op.62
- 1997, Idées Fixes for ensemble op.63, Sur terre, en l'air, op.64
- 1999, Kantan and Damask Drum
- 2000, Piano Quintet, op. 69, Suite op.70
- 2002, ...a second musical offering, op.71, ...around Stravinsky, op.72, Symmetry Disorders Reach for piano, op. 73
- 2003, Marching to Carcassonne, op.74, Adagio (Autoporträt), op.75
- 2004, Dark Days, op.76
- 2005, Fantasie, op.77
- 2006, Broken Lute, op.78
- 2008, Since Brass, nor Stone...fantasy for string quartet and percussion op. 80, manere, duo for clarinet and violin;op. 81, Overture for ensemble, op. 82
- 2008-9, Promised End, opera in twenty-four preludes (scenes) to words from Shakespeare's King Lear, op. 83
- 2009, Broken Psalm for mixed choir (SATB) and organ, op. 84
- 2010, Turmmusik (Tower Music) for two clarinets, brass and strings with baritone solo, op. 85
Chamber
- Suite, op.11
- String Quartet No. 3, op.37
- ...a musical offering (J.S.B. 1985)..., op.46,
- Quintet "Five objects Darkly", op.62
- Idées Fixes for ensemble op.63
- Since Brass, nor Stone...fantasy for string quartet and percussion op. 80
Vocal
- The Deluge (cantata). op. 7
- Psalm IV, op.38a,
- Das Gesetz der Quadrille, op.41
- Sing Ariel (cantata) op.51,
- The Death of Moses (cantata) op.53
Orchestral
- Little Symphony, op.15,
- Metamorphosis/Dance, op.36
- Sinfonia, op.42
- Symphony with Chaconne, op.48
- Colossos or Panic for orchestra op.55
- Schlussgesang for orchestra op.61
Opera
- Arden Must Die
- Behold the Sun,
- AriannaArianna (Goehr)Arianna is an opera in eight scenes by the British composer Alexander Goehr, premiered at the Royal Opera House, London, in 1995. It is set to the libretto , by Ottavio Rinuccini, used by Claudio Monteverdi in his 1608 opera, L'Arianna. The opera is Goehr's op...
, op. 58 - Kantan and Damask Drum
- Promised End
Discography
Schott Music provides a full discography by work: Goehr discographyWritings
- ‘The Theoretical Writings of Arnold Schoenberg’. Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association vol. 100 (1973–74), 85–96.
- Musical Ideas and Ideas about Music (London, 1978).
- Finding the Key: Selected Writings of Alexander Goehr', ed. D. Puffett' (London: Faber and Faber, 1998).
- 'Schoenberg and Karl Kraus: The Idea behind the Music' [University of Southampton lecture, 1983]. Music Analysis vol. 4 (March–July 1985), 59-71.
- 'The Composer and His Idea of Theory: A Dialogue'. Music Analysis vol. 11, No. 2-3 (July October 1992), 143-175.
Notable students
Composers- Thomas AdèsThomas AdèsThomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
- Julian AndersonJulian AndersonJulian Anderson is a British composer and teacher of composition.-Biography:Anderson studied at Westminster School, then with John Lambert at the Royal College of Music, with Alexander Goehr at Cambridge University, privately with Tristan Murail in Paris, and on courses given by Olivier Messiaen,...
- David Babcock
- George BenjaminGeorge Benjamin (composer)George William John Benjamin, CBE is a British composer of classical music. He is also a conductor, pianist and teacher....
- Chen YiChen Yi (composer)Chen Yi is a Chinese composer of contemporary classical music. She was the first Chinese woman to receive a Master of Arts in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She is also a violinist....
- Francesco CilluffoFrancesco CilluffoFrancesco Cilluffo is an Italian composer and conductor.He graduated in Composition and Conducting with Gilberto Bosco from the Conservatorio G. Verdi in Turin after having completed a Music Degree from the University of Turin with a thesis about Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd...
- Edward CowieEdward CowieEdward Cowie is an English composer, author, Natural Scientist, and painter-Biography:Cowie was born in Birmingham, England in 1943 and spent most of his early life in the rural countryside...
- David Froom
- Ge Gengru
- Anthony GilbertAnthony Gilbert (composer)Anthony Gilbert is a British composer.-Biography:Gilbert, who was born in London, trained initially as a translator, then studied composition with Mátyás Seiber privately, and with Alexander Goehr and Anthony Milner at Morley College . He also studied with Gunther Schuller...
- Robin HollowayRobin HollowayRobin Greville Holloway is an English composer.-Early life:From 1952 to 1957, he was a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral...
- Silvina MilsteinSilvina MilsteinSilvina Milstein is an Argentine composer and scholar of twentieth century music, living in the United Kingdom and teaching at King's College London...
- Bayan NorthcottBayan NorthcottBayan Northcott is an English composer and music critic.Born in London, he studied English at Oxford University, then taught the subject for six years before taking up music criticism. Later, encouraged by Alexander Goehr and Hans Keller, he took up composition...
- Geoffrey Poole
- Gil Shochat
- Roger SmalleyRoger SmalleyRoger Smalley AM is a British-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley is currently a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in Perth and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney.-Biography:Smalley was born in Swinton, Lancashire,...
- Jeremy ThurlowJeremy ThurlowJeremy Thurlow is an English composer. He studied music at Cambridge University and composition with Alexander Goehr, before spending a year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama studying composition and music-theatre, and then taking a PhD at King’s College, London.His compositions include...
- Jack van Zandt
- Michael Wolpe
- Ye XiaogangYe XiaogangYe Xiaogang is a Chinese composer of contemporary classical music. He is originally Cantonese but spent his early years in Shanghai. He studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing from 1978 to 1983 and at the Eastman School of Music beginning in 1987...
- Zhou LongZhou LongZhou Long is a Pulitzer-prize-winning Chinese American composer.-Biography:Born into an artistic family, Zhou Long began studying piano from an early age. Due to the artistic restrictions implemented during the Cultural Revolution, he was forced to delay his piano studies and live on a state-run...
Musicologists
- Nicholas CookNicholas CookNicholas Cook is a British musicologist and writer born in Athens, Greece. In 2009 he became the 1684 Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge, where he is a Fellow of Darwin College...
- Jonathan Dunsby
- John Rink
- Nicholas WilliamsNicholas WilliamsNicholas Jonathan Anselm Williams , writing as Nicholas Williams or sometimes N.J.A...
External links
- Alexander Goehr page on Schott music publishers' website
- Alexander Goehr – Stageworks / Opera and Music Theatre Archive