Alexander Goehr facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Alexander Goehr
Goehr in 2007
Born	(1932-08-10)10 August 1932 Berlin, Prussia, Germany
Died	26 August 2024(2024-08-26) (aged 92) Cambridgeshire, England
Education	Royal Northern College of Music
Occupation	Composer academic teacher
Organization	University of Cambridge
Children	4, including Lydia Goehr
Parent(s)	Walter Goehr

Peter Alexander Goehr (born 10 August 1932 – died 26 August 2024) was an English composer and professor. He was born in Germany but moved to England as a baby. He taught music at the University of Cambridge and inspired many other famous composers.

Goehr became an important figure in the "Manchester School" of British composers after World War II. This group included friends like Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle. He studied with the famous French composer Olivier Messiaen in Paris in 1955.

Back in England, Goehr became well-known in 1957 with his cantata (a type of vocal music) called The Deluge. His father, Walter Goehr, who was also a conductor, led the performance. Goehr often mixed modern music styles with ideas from older music. He wrote many different kinds of pieces, including operas, orchestral works, and chamber music.

Goehr also taught music at several universities, including the University of Leeds and the University of Cambridge. In his later years, he focused more on chamber music, which is music for a small group of instruments.

Alexander Goehr: A Composer's Journey

Early Life and Musical Beginnings

Peter Alexander Goehr was born in Berlin, Germany, on 10 August 1932. He came from a very musical family. His mother, Laelia, was a talented pianist. His father, Walter Goehr, was a student of the famous composer Arnold Schoenberg and a pioneering conductor.

When Alexander was just a few months old, his family moved to Britain. He grew up in a home where many composers, like Mátyás Seiber and Michael Tippett, often visited. He even had music lessons from one of his father's composer friends, Allan Gray.

Even though his family was musical, his father didn't strongly encourage him to become a composer at first. After school, Goehr worked for a music publisher. He later spent two years training on a kibbutz (a community farm) in Essex. Then he went to Manchester for political work, where he wrote his very first piece of music.

Studying Music and New Ideas

From 1952 to 1955, Goehr studied composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music. There, he became good friends with other future composers like Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle. Together, they formed the "New Music Manchester Group." This group was important because it brought new and progressive ideas to British music in the 1950s.

A big moment for Goehr was hearing Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony in 1953, conducted by his own father. This sparked his interest in music from other cultures, like Indian raga, and older European music styles. These interests greatly influenced his early compositions.

In 1955, Goehr moved to Paris to study with Messiaen at the Conservatoire de Paris. He also studied privately with Yvonne Loriod. He stayed in Paris until 1956 and was very impressed by the music scene there. He became friends with Pierre Boulez and got involved in the serialist movement, which was a new way of composing music using mathematical patterns.

However, Goehr eventually felt that strict serialism was too limiting. He believed it stopped composers from being expressive or using their own style. He wanted to find a way to combine new techniques with more traditional musical elements.

Returning to the UK and Breakthrough

When Goehr returned to Britain, his cantata The Deluge became a big success in 1957. His father conducted the performance. This important work was inspired by the ideas of the film director Sergei Eisenstein. Critics praised it for being more dramatic and harmonically clear than much of the other serial music at the time.

Goehr worked for the BBC as a musical assistant from 1960 to 1967. He received more commissions for cantatas. He also composed his Two Choruses in 1962, where he first combined older musical modes with serialism. This blend became a key part of his style for many years.

In 1963, Goehr composed his Little Symphony as a tribute to his father, who had passed away. This piece showed his flexible approach to serialism, allowing for more freedom and expression. He continued to write many different types of music, including the Piano Trio (1966) and the orchestral Metamorphosis/Dance (1974).

Music Theatre and Teaching

In 1967, Goehr founded the Music Theatre Ensemble. He was a pioneer in developing musical theatre in England. He completed a three-part music theatre cycle called Triptych between 1968 and 1971.

The late 1960s also marked the start of Goehr's teaching career. He was a composer-in-residence in Boston in 1968–69 and taught at Yale University. He returned to Britain and taught at Southampton University before becoming a professor at the University of Leeds in 1971.

In 1976, Goehr became Professor of Music at Cambridge University, where he taught until he retired in 1999. Many of his students became important composers themselves, including Robin Holloway, George Benjamin, and Thomas Adès.

Later Works and Musical Style

Around 1976, Goehr started to compose in a more traditional way, moving away from strict serialism. His music became more clear and bright. He began to combine older musical ideas with his own modern style. Over the next twenty years, he applied this approach to traditional forms like symphonies.

Many of his vocal works explored social and political themes. For example, The Death of Moses (1992) used the story of Moses to talk about the victims of the Holocaust. His opera Behold the Sun (1985) explored themes of revolution.

Goehr also wrote an opera called Arianna in 1995. This opera used an old Italian text from a lost opera by Claudio Monteverdi. Goehr wanted the audience to hear how he blended old and new sounds in his music.

In 1987, the BBC invited Goehr to give the famous Reith Lectures. In these talks, he discussed the importance of the symphony and why it seemed less popular in the 20th century.

Final Years and Chamber Music

In his later years, Goehr focused more on chamber music, which is music for smaller groups of instruments. This allowed him more freedom and control over his performances. He composed pieces with "unprecedented rhythmic and harmonic immediacy," like the Piano Quintet in 2000.

His works from this period often referenced older musical styles. Marching to Carcassonne (2003) hinted at neoclassicism, and the piano pieces Symmetry Disorders Reach (2007) were like a Baroque suite.

After a break from opera, Goehr returned with Promised End (2008–09), based on Shakespeare's King Lear. He also wrote When Adam Fell (2010) for orchestra, inspired by a piece by Bach.

Alexander Goehr passed away at his home in Cambridgeshire on 25 August 2024, at the age of 92.

Honours

In 2004, Goehr received an honorary doctorate of music from the University of Plymouth.

Musical Style

Mixing Old and New Ideas

Many of Goehr's compositions show how he combined different ideas. For example, The Deluge (1957–58) was inspired by notes for a film by Eisenstein, which was itself based on writings by Leonardo da Vinci. Other works drew inspiration from Beethoven's piano sonatas, paintings by Goya, or Japanese Noh theatre.

Goehr often used fragments or unfinished projects from other artists in his music. His cantata The Death of Moses echoed Schoenberg's unfinished opera Moses und Aron. His opera Arianna (1995) used the text of a lost opera by Monteverdi.

Technically, Goehr worked to combine the strict counterpoint (a way of combining melodies) of older composers like those from the First Viennese School with a strong sense of harmony and sound. He was greatly influenced by Messiaen, which can be seen in his use of musical modes and melodies that sound like bird songs.

Connecting with the Past

Goehr's interest in music from the past wasn't just a trend. It was a deep and ongoing exploration of his own musical roots. He believed that looking at old music didn't stop him from creating new and innovative sounds. He famously said that "all art is new and all art is conservative."

His connection to the past came from three main sources:

His Father, Walter Goehr

Even though their personal relationship was sometimes difficult, Walter Goehr had a huge influence on his son. Walter was a conductor who championed composers like Arnold Schoenberg, Claudio Monteverdi, and Olivier Messiaen. These composers' works often appeared as themes in Alexander's music. For instance, Goehr's Arianna used a text from a lost Monteverdi opera.

Early 20th-Century Modern Composers

Walter Goehr had studied with Schoenberg, and Alexander grew up surrounded by important composers like Mátyás Seiber and Michael Tippett. This exposure to modern music from the early 20th century shaped his own style.

Baroque and Classical Music

Goehr's interest in Baroque and Classical music was also part of his Schoenbergian background. Like Schoenberg, Goehr didn't see modern composition as separate from musical tradition. Instead, he looked to tradition for new ideas. He found ways to combine the Baroque practice of figured bass (a way of writing harmony) with his own blend of musical modes and serialism.

He also worked to reinvent classical forms like the Symphony and the Concerto. His interest in composers like Monteverdi, who blended older Renaissance polyphony with newer Baroque harmony, mirrored Goehr's own desire to create expressive serial music.

Images for kids

• 

  Goehr in 2007

See also

In Spanish: Alexander Goehr para niños