Deaths

Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Experimental Music, Performers

The Next Generation to Pass

The recent deaths of both George Perle and Lukas Foss are part of the sad but expected passing, of composers who came of age in the 1940s and 50s. But a slight shock went through me with Douglas Britt’s surprising news in the Houston Chronicle blogs that pioneering composer, percussionist, visual and sound artist Max Neuhaus (b. 1939) has just died as well. Neuhaus is from the generation that gives us Lucier, Ashley, Young, Reich, Glass and Riley.

He semi-retired some time ago from pure composition and performance, preferring to focus on sound art and installations (one of which quietly hums day and night just down the street from me here in Houston, a few steps from Rothko Chapel). Neuhaus’ own website gives a good overview of where his imagination took him these past years, and you can pay homage to his earlier self — percussion iconclast and champion of the likes of Stockhausen, Brown, Feldman, Cage — by revisiting his seminal 1960s recordings courtesy of UbuWeb.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Obits

A Composer’s Composer

George Perle died this weekend, at the ripe old age of 93. Little-known and little heard by the general audience, Perle was a name virtually every composer of the last half century knows. His book Serial Composition and Atonality passed through most of our hands at one point or other in our study; it and his later Twelve-Tone Tonality caused a lot of us to seek out performances and recordings of his poised, extremely lucid and limpid works.

Big-name appreciation is rare enough anymore for composers, as to almost seem a fluke. Given that, the place to pay attention to is who composers themselves appreciate. George Perle certainly had that kind of “cred”, and he’s still alive and vital for his comrades-in-music.

by Steve Layton
Contemporary Classical, Deaths

jorge liderman, 1957-2008

The composer Jorge Liderman died Sunday morning after reportedly jumping in front of an oncoming BART train in the Berkeley, CA area. I had initially heard of him after coming across his name on a bulletin board in the early 80’s at the U of Chicago, and when I saw the news item about his untimely death at the age of 50, it caught my attention. Of Argentine descent, Liderman was being increasingly performed, although I regret that I actually never have heard a note of his music. The circumstances of his death are currently under investigation. (Update: a newer and fuller article from the San Francisco Chronicle.)

by David Toub
Click Picks, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Experimental Music

And one more…

Henri ChopinHonest, I swear this is Sequenza21, not the obituaries. But this is otherwise (and unfairly) likely to pass unnoticed in our usual music-blog land: Henri Chopin, one of the pioneering figures in sound poetry, passed away in France on January 3rd.

Born in 1922, he was one of the great explorers of a poetry that favored supremacy of the voice — in all its manifestations — over the “tyranny” of the word. An early adopter of tape recorders and the same electronic studios European composers were at work in, and for many years an active publisher of magazines that disseminated many of the leading voices of the 50’s, 60’s and &70’s, his influence on a whole generation of avant-garde poets and musicians was strong (though largely unheralded over here). Even though officially labeled a poet, Chopin’s work was just as much a kind of music.

A generous free sampling of his recordings are kept on their own page at UBUweb, and a bit more is to be had at Erratum.org.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths

Jennifer Fitzgerald (1975-2007)

Jennifer FitzgeraldThe past few months have seemed depressingly full of deaths, including some of the grand figures of our time. But sadder still is when we lose a wonderful musical voice far too soon. I just learned over at NewMusicBox that the highly talented composer and pianist Jennifer Fitzgerald lost her life to cancer just a few days before Christmas. Only 32 years old, but already crafting some really beautiful, exciting music… One of the strange artifacts of the Internet age is that a person can leave and yet appear to be around through their webpages, busy and happy, like nothing at all had happened yet. Jennifer’s own website still has news of the recent NYC performance of her opera-in-progress, Judgement of Paris, and her composition list includes a number of pieces that were in the works. Both from her official site, as well as her Myspace page, you can hear excerpts of her music, that show all kinds of command and promise of even more good to come. I never met Jennifer; but through her music I’ll never forget her, either.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths

“Ah What a chill, Ah what a wind…”

Paul Dirmeikis attended Stockhausen’s funeral on December 13, and has a report.

The family is already starting to slowly walk away. Some of us stay around the tomb, scattered between the neighbour tombs. Near the larger alley going down to the chapel, all members of Stockhausen’s family gathered together in a circle, holding their hands. Simon reads something. It’s around 4 pm. That’s it. One of the greatest composers of these last 50 years has just been buried. It’s a freezing afternoon in a distant German village. Fermata.

by Steve Layton
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Obits

Karlheinz Stockhausen, 1928-2007

recieved at the Canadian Eletroacoustic mail-list:

PRESS RELEASE
The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen passed away on December 5th 2007 at his home in Kuerten-Kettenberg and will be buried in the Waldfriedhof (forest cemetery) in Kuerten.

He composed 362 individually performable works. The works which were composed until 1969 are published by Universal Edition in Vienna, and all works since then are published by the Stockhausen-Verlag. Numerous texts by Stockhausen and about his works have been published by the Stockhausen Foundation for Music.

Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer, who have performed many of his works and, together with him, have taken care of the scores, compact discs, books, films, flowers, shrubs, and trees will continue to disseminate his work throughout the world, as prescribed in the statutes of the Stockhausen Foundation for Music, of which they are executive board members.

Stockhausen always said that GOD gave birth to him and calls him home.

****

for love is stronger than death.

IN FRIENDSHIP and gratitude for everything that he has given to us personally and to humanity through his love and his music, we bid FAREWELL to Karlheinz Stockhausen, who lived to bring celestial music to humans, and human music to the celestial beings, so that Man may listen to GOD and GOD may hear His children.

On December 5th he ascended with JOY through HEAVEN’S DOOR, in order to continue to compose in PARADISE with COSMIC PULSES in eternal HARMONY, as he had always hoped to do: You, who summon me to Heaven, Eva, Mikael and Maria, let me eternally compose music for Heaven’s Father-Mother, GOD creator of Cosmic Music.

May Saint Michael, together with Heaven’s musicians in ANGEL PROCESSIONS and INVISIBLE CHOIRS welcome him with a fitting musical GREETING.

On behalf of him and following his example, we will endeavor to continue to protect the music.

Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer
in the name of the world-wide family of musicians who love him, together with everyone who loves his music.

****

On Thursday, December 13th 2007, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. it will be possible to personally say farewell to Karlheinz Stockhausen in the chapel of the Waldfriedhof in Kuerten (Kastanienstrasse).

A commemorative concert will take place soon at the Sülztalhalle in Kuerten. Programme, time and date will be specially announced.

……………………..

The Stockhausen foundation has already published a PDF memorial booklet, which you can download and print for free. And, thirty-five years ago:

by Steve Layton
Click Picks, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths

A Tale of Two Györgys

kurtag & ligetiRecent postings here notwithstanding, I swear I’m not on a complete György Ligeti kick; but it just so happens that the German-news-in-English website Sign and Sight has printed the translation of a speech György Kurtág gave in remembrance of his great friend, fellow Hungarian and fellow composer. (The occasion was Kurtág’s receiving the Ordre Pour le Merite in Berlin.)

The German version was originally published in August this year, in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. As a bonus, this article includes all the extra stuff that Kurtág never got to say during the ceremony.

It’s a beautiful, intensely intimate memoriam.

by Steve Layton