Goehr, Alexander (1932 - 2024)

[Joseph K]

No such luck with the Little Symphony - ah well...

[Petrushka]

I remember a clarinettist friend once recounting an experience she had playing second or third clarinet in a production of Rosenkavalier and playing a passage somewhere which was quite intricately thematic but which would probably never be heard except by the other clarinettists, which gave her the impression that it had only been put there for their pleasure.

I've heard a similar tale about another Strauss opera, either Salome or Elektra, I forget which, where the oboe plays a difficult little phrase that would be impossible to hear amongst the general melee. Apparently, there's a tricky solo passage about to come up and Strauss, ever the practical musician, gives his player a chance to warm up before the solo.

[Dave2002]

No such luck with the Little Symphony - ah well...

I think the Tippett on the other side got more plays.

https://www.discogs.com/Michael-Tippett-Alexander-Goehr-London-Symphony-Orchestra-Colin-Davis-Norman-Del-Mar-Concerto-For-Or/release/4341877

Highly recommended - though I've not heard the Concerto for Orchestra for some time.

[Serial_Apologist]

Alexander Goehr: 1932 - 2024

R.I.P.

[Serial_Apologist]

Three leading works from the 1960s: the Little Symphony, Second String Quartet and Piano Trio.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kxb3Z4XZHV1Xv-z5UZLcxKGQs27pZn2i8

The string quartet is my favourite of these three - I tend to think of it as Schoenberg's Fifth, something I can imagine him having gone on to compose had he another fourteen years.

[Pulcinella]

Times obituary here:

https://www.thetimes.com/article/44df82b9-0614-4976-b32a-c2ba75daa30e?shareToken=e098eb9f05bb9e83ad5b96a3e3f2244a

[AuntDaisy]

John Shea tweeted and shared 3 photos. There was a link to the Schott obituary below it.

John Shea @johnshea63
As a @CamUniMusic undergraduate I found Sandy Goehr quite intimidating (my problem, not his). But years later he proved to be delightful company when we rehearsed his King Lear opera Promised End at Dartington in January 2010. May his memory be a blessing.
6:21 PM · Aug 26, 2024

I think JS is the pianist in the bottom right photo.

[french frank]

Copied over from the Essential Classics thread:

A mere footnote, but he was also a Friend of Radio 3 (as in FoR3). I had a long letter from him which ended: "I hope you can use some of this (not the 1st paragraph!)" - which was somewhat barbed.

He once described the imagined Third Programme listener as " ... a hardworking, Labour-voting schoolmaster in, say, Derby, who was interested in international theatre, new music, philosophy, politics and painting, and who listened selectively to all these things on the Third. That's what everyone believed in."

[french frank]

Also, I saw 'Promised End in Malvern, a couple of weeks after its premiere at ROH. Much enjoyed.

https://boulezian.blogspot.com/2010/10/alexander-goehr-promised-end-world.html

[Pulcinella]

I'd forgotten that he wrote one of the King's carol commissions, included in this compilation:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7940744--on-christmas-day

[french frank]

Nothing as yet in the Guardian, but Tom Service wrote this in 2013:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2013/apr/01/contemporary-music-guide-alexander-goehr

[AuntDaisy]

Nothing as yet in the Guardian, but Tom Service wrote this in 2013:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/to...lexander-goehr

John Shea also included a link to TS's 2010 article "Alexander Goehr takes on King Lear for his swansong".
Does it bring back memories of seeing the production, FF?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/sep/23/alexander-goehr-opera-king-lear

[frankbridge]

The first work I ever heard Bernard Haitink conduct live was the Little Symphony in Manchester in 1978. The only other Goehr piece I've knowingly heard is Eve Dreams in Paradise which I think was a CBSO/Rattle commission and is probably the recording on SA's cassette.

I was at the Town Hall in Birmingham, I think, for the world premiere of Sandy Goehr's 'Eve's Dreams in Paradise' with Rattle and the CBSO at some time in the late 80s, with Ann Murray and Phillip Langridge, and as they were husband and wife in real life, they concluded the piece holding the other one's hand: quite moving really

The only other memory was at the Albert Hall, when we were talking to Sandy in the stalls after some piece of music, and he said maybe you would like to meet the composer: and it was Elliott Carter!! He was all smiles and signed our programme too. Deep joy!

[Ein Heldenleben]

There was a good interview with Julian Anderson about Goehr and his legacy on In Tune yesterday. The number of composers he must have taught . Difficult to think of a more significant pedagogic figure without going back to people like RVW. Very interesting how he transitioned from pure serialism to his own unique style.

[Serial_Apologist]

There was a good interview with Julian Anderson about Goehr and his legacy on In Tune yesterday. The number of composers he must have taught . Difficult to think of a more significant pedagogic figure without going back to people like RVW. Very interesting how he transitioned from pure serialism to his own unique style.

In that respect, as a composer he in some sense represented a continuum from Frank Bridge - an earlier British composer in whose music at different points unexpected stylistic juxtapositions can clearly be heard - Tippett alongside Howells or even Elgar, the latter I would claim in the Chorale motto theme of the Little Symphony, with Tippett and Howells apparent in the modal extrapolations Goehr evinced from the tone row underlying the work. And like Bridge, too (although one could also cite Eisler in this light), there was the eventual return you mention to pre-serial methods of melodic and harmonic construction, heard through the lessons of the serial period (as Berio might put it). Arguably Goehr's music represented the strongest aesthetic continuum with the European, particularly the Baroque/Classical/Romantic Austro-Germanic tradition, that others had previously been so keen to escape from, of any British composer since Elgar