Arthur Berger (composer)

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Arthur Victor Berger (May 15, 1912 – October 7, 2003) was an American composer and music critic who has been described as a

New Mannerist.[1]

Biography

Born in

Harvard, and with Nadia Boulanger and at the Sorbonne under a Paine Fellowship
.

He taught briefly at

New England Conservatory
during his retirement.

He co-founded (with Benjamin Boretz), in 1962,

pitch centricity in his "Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky". He died in Boston
, Massachusetts, age 91.

Works

His works show a preoccupation with vertical and horizontal musical space (see

diatonic music was a few years ago."[citation needed
]

Perle further praises his String Quartet: "in the quartet, as in Berger's earlier works, and in most of the great music of our Western heritage, timbre, texture, dynamics, rhythm, and form are elements of a musical language whose syntax and grammar are essentially derived from pitch relations. If these elements never seem specious and arbitrary, as they do with so many of the dodecaphonic productions that deluge us today from both the left and right, it is precisely because of the authenticity and integrity of his musical thinking at this basic level."[4]

His works include Ideas of Order, Polyphony, Quartet for Winds, described by Thomson as "one of the most satisfactory pieces for winds in the whole modern repertory", String Quartet (1958), Five Pieces for Piano (1969) and Septet (1965–66). He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Berger is grouped in the "Boston school" along with Lukas Foss, Irving Fine, Alexei Haieff, Harold Shapero, and Claudio Spies.

References

  1. ^ John Mac Ivor Perkins, "Arthur Berger: The Composer as Mannerist", Perspectives of New Music 5, no. 1 (Autumn–Winter, 1966), pp.75-92; citation on p.76. Reprinted in Perspectives on American Composers, edited by Benjamin Boretz and Edward T. Cone,[page needed] The Perspectives of New Music Series; Norton Library, no. 549 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971): p.231.
  2. ISBN 978-0-465-01484-2
    .
  3. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 July 2011. Retrieved June 16, 2011.
  4. ^ (1980). "Liner notes: Form Archived March 20, 2012, at the Wayback Machine", newworldrecords.org; accessed 22 November 2015.

Further reading

  • Anderson, E. Ruth. Contemporary American Composers. A Biographical Dictionary, 2nd edition, G. K. Hall, 1982.
  • Butterworth, Neil. A Dictionary of American Composers, Garland, 1984.
  • Coppock, Jane. "A Conversation with Arthur Berger". Perspectives of New Music 17, no. 1 (1978), pp. 40–67.
  • Cummings, David M.; McIntire, Dennis K. (Ed.). International who's who in music and musician's directory. In the classical and light classical fields, 12th edition 1990/91, International Who's Who in Music 1991.
  • Gordon, Stewart. A History of Keyboard Literature. Music for the Piano and its Forerunners, Schirmer Books, 1996.
  • Jones, Pamela. "A Bibliography of the Writings of Arthur Berger". Perspectives of New Music 17, no. 1 (1978), p. 83-89.
  • Jones, Robert Frederick. A List of Works by Arthur Berger. Perspectives of New Music. 17, 1 (1978), p. 90-91.
  • Lister, Rodney. "Arthur Berger: The Progress of a Method", American Music, 13-1, 1995, pp. 56–95.
  • Lyman, Darryl. Great Jews in Music, J. D. Publishers, 1986.
  • Northcott, Bayan. "Arthur Berger: An Introduction at 70", Musical Times, 123 (1982), pp. 323–326.
  • Pollack, Howard Joel. Harvard composers. Walter Piston and his students, from Elliott Carter to Frederic Rzewski, Scarecrow Press, 1992.
  • Press, Jaques Cattell (Ed.). Who's who in American Music. Classical, 1st edition. R. R. Bowker, 1983.
  • Silver, Sheila. "Pitch and Registral Distribution in Arthur Berger's Music for Piano", Perspectives of New Music 17, no. 1 (1978), p. 68-76.
  • Sadie, Stanley; Hitchcock, H. Wiley (Ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. Grove's Dictionaries of Music, 1986.

External links

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