|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
The renowned American composer George Rochberg (1918-2005)
distilled a lifetime of insights about Western music across some
three hundred years in A Dance of Polar Opposites: The Continuing
Transformation of Our Musical Language. In A Dance of Polar
Opposites: The Continuing Transformation of Our Musical Language,
the renowned American composer George Rochberg distilled a lifetime
of insights about Western music across some three hundred years.
Rochberg describes how the asymmetrical tonal language of the late
eighteenth century--the era of Haydn and Mozart--evolved through
the gradual incursion of symmetry into a system based on the
juxtaposition of tonal and atonal, asymmetrical and symmetrical--as
seen in notable composers such as Webern, Prokofiev, and Rochberg
himself. A Dance of Polar Opposites takes us inside the composer's
studio, reveals how he assessed his and our musicalpast, and paints
a picture of what he believed our musical future may be. George
Rochberg (1918-2005), one of the most respected composers and
writers about music in the second half of the twentieth century,
was a finalist twice for the Pulitzer Prize and longtime professor
at University of Pennsylvania. His writings include The Aesthetics
of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music (which
won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award);the memoir Five Lines, Four
Spaces; and a volume of letters. Jeremy Gill was a student of
George Rochberg and is a composer, conductor, and pianist.
Finished just weeks before his death, George Rochberg's eloquent
memoir offers a detailed look at his fruitful life as a composer,
publisher, and teacher of music. The volume traces a life immersed
in music, with early study under George Szell and Gian Carlo
Menotti and later long-term collaborations with the Concord Quartet
and commissions for major orchestras and opera companies. Rochberg
takes care to describe the intellectual and aesthetic changes that
led him down certain paths as a composer, often challenging the
conventions of the day. Reflecting on music, aesthetics,
colleagues, and the life of the creative mind, Rochberg's memoir
captures not only the spirit but also the intellectual climate of
the second half of the twentieth century. Rochberg's life as a
composer was marked by an ongoing search for his artistic place
between tradition and the avant-garde, with an extensive oeuvre
comprising over one hundred works including chamber ensembles,
string quartets, symphonies, solo pieces, songs, and an opera. In
addition to his importance as an American composer, he was also a
central figure in academia and publishing. He served as chair of
the University of Pennsylvania's music department, and as an editor
and director of publications at the Theodore Presser Company, he
helped marshal the company into one of the premier American musical
publishing houses. Through the course of the book, Rochberg reveals
the thought processes that led him in unexpected directions as he
pursued the independent path of his career. This is the story of a
creative mind developing, at times struggling, and constantly
growing. Publication for this book was supported in part by a grant
from the National Endowment for the Arts.
|
|