The American composer George Rochberg (1918-2005) started out as a modernist, but turned toward a more traditional style after the death of his son, having found that the atonal idiom was incapable of expressing the grief and rage the event naturally inspired in him. Despite this, Rochberg’s Transcendental Variations for string orchestra, an arrangement of what was originally the slow movement of his Third String Quartet, are mostly serene and lyrical in mood, and have often been compared to the late music of Beethoven.
Although I don’t know if Rochberg was a political reactionary, the booklet that came with my CD of the Variations certainly paints him as an artist who wanted to transcend the individualism, neophilia, subjectivism, and anti-traditionalism of the modern world by establishing a living relationship with the past. I particularly like this quote from him. (It seems to be from the 1963 essay The New Image of Music, but the booklet isn’t entirely clear):
Subjective man views existence as change; himself and his history at the center of a process of becoming… Subjective man cannot transcend time; he is trapped in it. However, when man seizes on the present moment of existence as the only ‘real’ time, he spatializes his existence; that is, he fills his present with objects that take on… a state of permanence.
This performance of the Variations, taken from said CD, is by the Saarbrucken Radio Symphony Orchestra under conductor Christopher Lyndon-Gee.
Theme/Variation 1. Adagio sereno; molto espressivo e tranquillo:
Variation 2. Andante con moto:
Variation 3. Poco adagio:
Variation 4. Poco allegretto; grazioso e leggiero; amoroso:
Variation 5. Andantino grazioso; sempre leggiero:
Variation 6. Moving gently:
Variation 7. Molto adagio e tranquillo; sereno:
Convinced me to order a CD…
The extent to which Rochberg’s “return to tonality” and “polystylism” made him a pariah should not be underestimated. Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3 scandalized the musical establishment. Its composer had flouted the Adorno-Orthodoxy that music must make no compromise with tradition, expectation, or other supposedly bourgeois conventions. Rochberg’s conversion from that orthodoxy came in response to the death of his son in 1964. Suddenly the idiom of academic serialism seemed inadequate to the one real musical purpose: To articulate the human response to human events and to seek redemption in beauty.
It is a matter of some consolation that Rochberg eventually carried the argument. His music gained currency in the last decade of his life and a good deal of his work is available now in the recorded music catalogues. I recommend the original version of the Violin Concerto, one of the Naxos programs devoted to Rochberg. Avoid the Isaac Stern recording from the 1970s, which was heavily cut at Stern’s adamant request.
Throwing out a name I haven’t heard mentioned yet: Morten Lauridsen.
Rochberg was not a simplistic reactionary. His use of style was dictated by the dramatic necessity of whatever composition he was working on. He was not (thank God) a composer burdened with some political ideology which governed his every musical move.
The 3rd Quartet, mentioned above, did indeed cause a stir – but it’s not a straightforward tonal composition. You have to wait 10 minutes before you hear anything that sounds traditional or tonal. And anyone doubting the power of judicious atonality should hear his 2nd Symphony – a gripping “delayed reaction” to his war experiences, composed ten years later.
Pingback: Socialist-Realist Music: A Study in IronySvein Sellanraa’s entries at The Orthosphere under the rubric of “Reactionary Composer of the Week” have provoked lively discussion while at the same time dividing the commentary. This commentator or that one
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