George Rochberg (July 5, 1918May 29, 2005) was an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included seria ...

. Long a serial composer, Rochberg abandoned the practice following the death of his teenage son in 1964; he claimed this compositional technique had proved inadequate to express his grief and had found it empty of expressive intent. By the 1970s, Rochberg's use of tonal passages in his music had provoked controversy among critics and fellow composers. A professor at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

until 1983, Rochberg also served as chairman of its music department until 1968. He became the first Annenberg Professor of the Humanities in 1978.

Life

Born in

Paterson, New Jersey Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Mannes College of Music Mannes School of Music is a music conservatory in The New School, a private research university in New York City. In the fall of 2015, Mannes moved from its previous location on Manhattan's Upper West Side to join the rest of the New School ca ...

, where his teachers included

George Szell George Szell (; June 7, 1897 – July 30, 1970), originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. He is widely considered one of the twentieth century's greatest condu ...

and Hans Weisse, then the

Curtis Institute of Music The Curtis Institute of Music is a private conservatory in Philadelphia. It offers a performance diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in opera, and a Professional Studies Certificate in opera. All students attend on full scholarship. Hi ...

, where he studied with

Rosario Scalero Natale Rosario Scalero (24 December 1870 in Moncalieri - 25 December 1954 in Montestrutto) was an Italian violinist, music teacher and composer. Life and career By the age of six, Scalero was under the tutelage of Pietro Bertazzi, a violinis ...

and

Gian Carlo Menotti Gian Carlo Menotti (, ; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept h ...

. He served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

in the infantry during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He was Jewish. Rochberg served as chairman of the music department at the

until 1968 and continued to teach there until 1983. In 1978, he was named the first Annenberg Professor of the Humanities. He married Gene Rosenfeld in 1941, and had two children, Paul and Francesca. In 1964, his son died of a brain tumor. Rochberg died in

Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania Bryn Mawr, pronounced , from Welsh for big hill, is a census-designated place (CDP) located across three townships: Radnor Township and Haverford Township in Delaware County, and Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It i ...

, in 2005, aged 86. Most of his works are held in the archive of the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland. Some can also be found in the Music Division of the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

, the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

in Washington D.C., the

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

in New York City, the

, Philadelphia, and the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

Music

A longtime exponent of

serialism In music, serialism is a method of Musical composition, composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other elements of music, musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, thou ...

, Rochberg abandoned this compositional technique upon the death of his teenage son in 1964. He said he had found serialism expressively empty and that it had proved an inadequate means for him to express his grief and rage. By the 1970s, Rochberg had become controversial for the use of tonal passages in his music. His use of

tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is call ...

first became widely known through the String Quartet No. 3 (1972), which includes an entire set of variations that are in the style of late Beethoven. Another movement of the quartet contains passages reminiscent of the music of Gustav Mahler. This use of

caused critics to classify him as a neoromantic composer. He compared

atonality Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a s ...

abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

and

concrete art Concrete art was an art movement with a strong emphasis on geometrical abstraction. The term was first formulated by Theo van Doesburg and was then used by him in 1930 to define the difference between his vision of art and that of other abstract art ...

and compared his artistic evolution with the painter

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...

's, saying "the tension between concreteness and abstraction" is a fundamental issue for both of them. His music has also been described as

neoconservative postmodernism In music, neoconservative postmodernism is "a sort of ' postmodernism of reaction'," which values "textual unity and organicism as totalizing musical structures" like "latter-day modernists". Neoconservative modernism...critically engages moderni ...

Of the works Rochberg composed early in his career, his Symphony No. 2 (1955–56) stands out as one of the most accomplished serial compositions by an American composer. He is perhaps best known for his String Quartets Nos. 3–6 (1972–78). Rochberg conceived Nos. 4–6 as a set and named them the "Concord Quartets" after the

Concord String Quartet The Concord String Quartet was an American string quartet established in 1971. The members of the quartet were Mark Sokol and Andrew Jennings, violins; John Kochánowski, viola; Norman Fischer, cello. They gave their last regular concert on May ...

, which premiered and recorded the works. The String Quartet No. 6 includes a set of variations on

Pachelbel Johann Pachelbel (baptised – buried 9 March 1706; also Bachelbel) was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contribu ...

's Canon in D. A few of his works were musical collages of

quotations A quotation is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is introduced by ...

from other composers. "Contra Mortem et Tempus", for example, contains passages from

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...

Luciano Berio Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled '' Sequenza''), and for his pioneering work ...

, Edgard Varèse and Charles Ives. Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, and 5, and the Violin Concerto were recorded in 2001–2002 by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken and conductor

Christopher Lyndon-Gee Christopher is the English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or '' Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Christ" or "Anointed", and φέρει� ...

and released on the

Naxos Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best ab ...

label.

Legacy

For notable students James Freeman, musician and teacher at

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

, said this about Rochberg and

: "If George Rochberg can do something like that, there's nothing that I can't do and get away with it. I don't have to write 12-tone music; I can if I want to. I can write stuff that sounds like Brahms. I can do anything I want. I'm free. And that was an extraordinary feeling in the late 1960s for young composers, I think, many of whom felt really constrained to write serial music."

Writings

Rochberg's collected essays were published by the

University of Michigan Press The University of Michigan Press is part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earned numerous awards, including L ...

in 1984 as ''The Aesthetics of Survival''. A revised and expanded edition, published shortly before his death, was awarded an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 2006..Selections from his correspondence with the Canadian composer

István Anhalt István Anhalt, (April 12, 1919 – February 24, 2012) was a Hungarian-Canadian composer. Anhalt served as a professor of music at McGill University and founded the McGill University Electronic Music Studio. He also served as head of music a ...

were published in 2007 by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. His memoirs, ''Five Lines, Four Spaces'', were published by the University of Illinois Press in May 2009.

Works

Stage

*''The Confidence Man'', an opera in two parts (1982); libretto by Gene Rochberg, based on the novel of the same name by Herman Melville

Orchestral

*Symphonies **Symphony No. 1 (1948–49; revised 1977; 2003) **Symphony No. 2 (1955–56) **Symphony No. 3, for double chorus, chamber chorus, soloists, and large orchestra (1966–69) **Symphony No. 4 (1976) ** Symphony No. 5 (1984) **Symphony No. 6 (1986–87) *''Canto Sacra'', for small orchestra (1954) *''Cheltenham Concerto'', for small orchestra (1958) *''Imago Mundi'', for large orchestra (1973) *''Night Music'', for orchestra with cello solo (1948) (based on 2nd movement of Symphony No. 1) *''Music for the Magic Theater'', for small orchestra (1965–69) *''Time-Span I'' (1960) *''Time-Span II'' (1965) *'' Transcendental Variations'', for string orchestra (based on 3rd movement of String Quartet No. 3) (1975) *''Zodiac (A Circle of 12 Pieces)'', (1964–65) (orchestration of the piano work ''Twelve Bagatelles'')

Concerti

*Clarinet Concerto (1996) *Oboe Concerto (1983), written for and premiered by Joe Robinson *Violin Concerto (1974; rev. 2001), written for and premiered by

Isaac Stern Isaac Stern (July 21, 1920 – September 22, 2001) was an American violinist. Born in Poland, Stern came to the US when he was 14 months old. Stern performed both nationally and internationally, notably touring the Soviet Union and China, and ...

with the

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra The ''Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra'' (''PSO'') is an American orchestra based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The orchestra's home is Heinz Hall, located in Pittsburgh's Cultural District. History The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is an America ...

Donald Johanos Donald George Johanos (February 10, 1928 – May 29, 2007) was a conductor and music director with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. He was recognized for his support of contemporary classical music. He performed o ...

conducting. The concerto was commissioned by the Steinfirst family in memory of Donald Steinfirst, the music critic for over 35 years of the ''

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the All ...

'' which participated in the commission. Long a friend of Mr. Steinfirst, Isaac Stern consulted with the family. He premiered and recorded the concerto in Pittsburgh, and included it in his repertoire for several years. *''Eden: Out of Time and Out of Space'', for guitar and ensemble (1998)

Wind ensemble

*''Black Sounds'', for winds and percussion (1965) *''Apocalyptica'', for large wind ensemble (1964)

Chamber

2 players

*Duo for Oboe and Bassoon (1946; rev. 1969) *''Duo Concertante'', for violin and cello (1955–59) *''Dialogues'', for clarinet and piano (1957–58) *''La bocca della verita'', for oboe and piano (1958–59); version for violin and piano (1964) *''Ricordanza Soliloquy'', for cello and piano (1972) *''Slow Fires of Autumn (Ukiyo II)'', for flute and harp (1978–79) *Viola Sonata (1979) *''Between Two Worlds (Ukiyo III)'', for flute and piano (1982) *Violin Sonata (1988) *''Muse of Fire'', for flute and guitar (1989–90) *''Ora pro nobis'', for flute and guitar (1989) *''Rhapsody and Prayer'', for violin and piano (1989)

3 players

*Piano trios **Piano Trio No. 1 (1963) **Piano Trio No. 2 (1985) **Piano Trio No. 3 ''Summer'' (1990) *Trio for Clarinet, Horn, and Piano (1980) see recording below

4 players

*String quartets **String Quartet No. 1 (1952) **String Quartet No. 2, with soprano (1959–61) ** String Quartet No. 3 (1972) **String Quartet No. 4 (1977) **String Quartet No. 5 (1978) **String Quartet No. 6 (1978) **String Quartet No. 7, with baritone (1979) *''Contra Mortem et Tempus'', for violin, flute, clarinet, and piano (1965) *Piano Quartet (1983)

5 or more players

*Chamber Symphony for Nine Instruments (1953) *''Serenata d'estate'', for six instruments (1955) *''Electrikaleidoscope'', for an amplified ensemble of flute, clarinet, cello, piano, and electric piano (1972) *Quintet for piano and string quartet (1975) *Octet: ''A Grand Fantasia'', for flute, clarinet, horn, piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass (1980) *String Quintet (1982) *''To the Dark Wood'', for wind quintet (1985)

Instrumental

*''50 Caprice Variations'', for violin (1970) *''American Bouquet'', for guitar (1991)

Keyboard

*''Arioso'' (1959) *''Bartokiana'' (1959) *''Book of Contrapuntal Pieces for Keyboard Instruments'' (1979) *''Carnival Music'', for piano (1971) *''Circles of Fire'', for two pianos (1996–1997) *''Four Short Sonatas'', for piano (1984) *'' Nach Bach: Fantasia'', for harpsichord or piano (1966) *''Partita-Variations'', for piano (1976) *''Sonata Seria'', for piano (1948/98) *''Sonata-Fantasia'', for piano (1956) *''Three Elegiac Pieces'', for piano (1945/48/98) *''Twelve Bagatelles'', for piano (1952) *''Variations on an Original Theme'', for piano (1941)

Vocal/Choral

*''Behold, My Servant'', for mixed chorus, a capella (1973) *''Blake Songs'', for soprano and chamber ensemble (1957; rev. 1962) *''David, the Psalmist'', for tenor and orchestra (1954) *''Eleven Songs to Poems of Paul Rochberg'', for mezzo-soprano and piano (1969) *''Fantasies'', for voice and piano (1971) *''Four Songs of Solomon'', for voice and piano (1946) *''Music for ''The Alchemist'', for soprano and eleven players (1966; rev. 1968) *''Passions ccording to the Twentieth Century', for singers, jazz quintet, brass ensemble, percussion, piano, and tape (1967) *''Phaedra'', monodrama for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (1973–74) *''Sacred Song of Reconciliation (Mizmor L'piyus)'', for baritone and orchestra (1970) *''Seven Early Love Songs'', for voice and piano (1991) *''Songs in Praise of Krishna'', for soprano and piano (1970) *''Songs of Inanna and Dumuzi'', for alto and piano (1977) *''Tableaux'', for soprano, two speakers, small men's chorus, and twelve players (1968) *''Three Cantes Flamencos'', for high baritone (1969) *''Three Psalms'', for mixed chorus, a capella (1954)

Awards and recognitions

*1950–1951 –

Fulbright Fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

*1950–52 – Fellow of

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo (Janiculum Hill) in Rome. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History In 1893, a group of American architects, ...

*1952 – George Gershwin Memorial Award for ''Night Music'' *1956 – Society for the Publication of American Music award for ''String Quartet No. 1'' *1956 –

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

*1959 – First prize in Italian ISCM International Music Competition for ''Cheltenham Concerto'' *1961 –

Naumburg Naumburg () is a town in (and the administrative capital of) the district Burgenlandkreis, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany. It has a population of around 33,000. The Naumburg Cathedral became a UNES ...

Recording Award for ''Symphony No. 2'' *1962 – Honorary degree from

Montclair State University Montclair State University (MSU) is a public research university in Montclair, New Jersey, with parts of the campus extending into Little Falls. As of fall 2018, Montclair State was, by enrollment, the second largest public university in New ...

*1964 – Honorary degree from University of the Arts *1966 –

Prix Italia The Prix Italia is an international Television, Radio-broadcasting and Web award. It was established in 1948 by RAI – Radiotelevisione Italiana (in 1948, RAI had the denomination RAI – Radio Audizioni Italiane) in Capri and is honoured with the ...

for ''Black Sounds'' *1966 –

*1972 –

Chamber Composition Award for ''String Quartet No. 3'' *1972–74 – National Endowment for the Arts Grants *1979 – Kennedy Center Friedhelm Award for ''String Quartet No. 4'' *1980 – Honorary degree from

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

*1985 – Honorary degree from

*1985 – Gold Medal at Brandeis Creative Arts Awards *1986 – Lancaster Symphony Composers Award *1987 –

University of Bridgeport The University of Bridgeport (UB) is a private university in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. In 2021, the university was purchased by Goodwin University; it retain its own ...

's Andre and Clara Mertens Contemporary Composer Award *1987 – Alfred I. duPont Composer's Award *1991 –

Bellagio Bellagio may refer to: * Bellagio, Lombardy, an Italian town * Bellagio (resort), a luxury resort and casino in Las Vegas * Bellagio (Hong Kong), a private housing building * Bellagio declaration, an intellectual copyright resolution * 79271 Bellag ...

artist in residence *1994 – Honorary degree from

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the 10 ...

*1997 –

Longy School of Music Longy School of Music of Bard College is a private music school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1915 as the Longy School of Music, it was one of the four independent degree-granting music schools in the Boston region along with the New En ...

Distinguished Achievement Award *1998 –

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

(nominated) "String Quartet No. 3" *1999 –

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

Lifetime Achievement Award *2004 –

(nominated) "String Quartet No. 5" *2006 –

Deems Taylor Award Joseph Deems Taylor (December 22, 1885 – July 3, 1966) was an American music critic, composer, and promoter of classical music. Nat Benchley, co-editor of ''The Lost Algonquin Roundtable'', referred to him as "the dean of American music." Ear ...

for ''The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music''

References

Sources * * * * * * * * *

External links

George Rochberg's page at Theodore Presser CompanyGeorge Rochberg's Revolution
by Michael Linton, Copyright (c) 1998 First Things 84 (June/July 1998): 18–20. *Horsley, Paul J
"George Rochberg: Volume One"
Liner note essay.

New World Records New World Records is a record label that was established in 1975 through a Rockefeller Foundation grant to celebrate America's bicentennial (1976) by producing a 100-LP anthology, with American music from many genres.Interview with George Rochberg
March 11, 1986
Art of the States: George Rochberg
sound files: ''Circles of Fire'', ''Duo Concertante'', ''Nach Bach'' * George Rochberg: Trio for Clarinet, Horn, and Piano
Liberamente e molto espressivo; allegro con motoAdagioAdagio/Allegro giocosamente
Nobuko Igarashi (clarinet), Robert Patterson (horn), Adam Bowles (piano) of th
Luna Nova Ensemble
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rochberg, George 1918 births 2005 deaths 20th-century classical composers Twelve-tone and serial composers Curtis Institute of Music alumni Jewish classical composers Musicians from Paterson, New Jersey Pupils of Rosario Scalero United States Army soldiers University of Pennsylvania faculty Male classical composers 20th-century American male musicians Mannes School of Music alumni