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George Rochberg's Road to Ars Combinatoria, 1943–63

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2018

AMY LYNN WLODARSKI
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Abstract

George Rochberg often attributed his postmodern shift to the death of his son in 1964. Accordingly, the literature has described his practice of ars combinatoria (“art of combination”) as an “abrupt about-face”—a sudden rejection of modernist aesthetics. But the composer's unpublished essays, diaries, correspondence, and musical sketchbooks suggest that the road to ars combinatoria had well-laid roots in two of his least considered biographical periods: his service during World War II and his serial period. During these two decades, Rochberg actively sought positive models for humanistic composition, historical figures who rose to the level of musical heroes in that they served humanity through their art. But as the war had taught him, heroes are necessarily defined by their struggle against nemeses in ethical conflicts. Correspondingly, he constructed the other side of the artistic world as a realm of vain egoists who sought self-promotion and seemed unconcerned with humanistic modes of expression. As his ideas matured, Rochberg assigned different figures to these archetypes, but the guiding ethical criteria remained fairly consistent throughout. I therefore argue that ars combinatoria was less a sudden aesthetic reversal than it was the result of a longer cumulative process of self-assessment and compositional maturation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , May 2018 , pp. 119 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2018 

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References

References

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Dixon, Joan DeVee. George Rochberg: A Bio-Bibliographic Guide to His Life and Works. Stuyvesant: Pendragon Press, 1992.Google Scholar
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Grimes, Ev, and Rochberg, George. “Conversations with American Composers: Ev Grimes Interviews George Rochberg.” Music Educators Journal 73, no. 1 (1986): 42–8.Google Scholar
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Perle, George. “Evolution of the Tone-Row: The Twelve-Tone Modal System.” Music Review 2, no. 4 (1941): 273–87.Google Scholar
Perle, George. The Listening Composer. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Perle, George. Review of The Hexachord and Its Relation to the 12-Tone Row, by George Rochberg. Journal of the American Musicological Society 10, no. 1 (1957): 55–59.Google Scholar
Perle, George. “Twelve-Tone Tonality.” Monthly Musical Record 73, (1943): 175– 79.Google Scholar
Poulet, Georges. “Timelessness and Romanticism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 15, no. 1 (1954): 3–22.Google Scholar
Ringer, Alexander. “The Music of George Rochberg.” Musical Quarterly 52, no. 4 (1966): 409–30.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. A Dance of Polar Opposites: The Continuing Transformation of our Musical Language. Edited by Gill, Jeremy. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Duration in Music.” In The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music, 61–67. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. Five Lines, Four Spaces: The World of My Music. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. The Hexachord and its Relation to the 12-Tone Row. Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser Company, 1955.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Metamorphosis of a Twentieth-Century Composer.” Interview with Guy Freedman. Music Journal 34, no. 3 (1976): 12–13, 38.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “No Center.” In The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music, 129–34. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Note to Conductor.” Zodiac for Orchestra. Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser Company, 1974.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Preface.” In The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music, xiii–xvi. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Reflections on Schoenberg.” In The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music, 36–58. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. Review of Serial Composition and Atonality, by George Perle. Journal of the American Musicological Society 16, no. 3 (1963): 413–18.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. Twelve Bagatelles. Musical Score. Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser Company, 1955.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Webern's Search for Harmonic Identity.” Journal of Music Theory 6, (1962): 109–22.Google Scholar
Schiller, David. Bloch, Schoenberg, and Bernstein: Assimilating Jewish Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Schoenberg, Arnold. “Problems in Teaching Art.” In Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, edited by Stein, Leonard, 365–69. London: Faber and Faber, 1975.Google Scholar
Schoenberg, Arnold. “Composition with Twelve Tones.” In Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, edited by Newlin, Dika, 10–43. New York: Philosophical Library, 1950.Google Scholar
Shumway, Jeffrey. “A Comparative Study of Representative Bagatelles for the Piano Since Beethoven.” DMA diss., Indiana University, 1981.Google Scholar
Straus, Joseph N. Twelve-Tone Music in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Thomas, Martha Lynn. “Analysis of George Rochberg's Twelve Bagatelles and Nach Bach for Solo Piano.” DMA diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1987.Google Scholar
Tovey, Donald Francis. Beethoven. London: Oxford University Press, 1944.Google Scholar
Wlodarski, Amy Lynn. Musical Witness and Holocaust Representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
George Rochberg Papers. Music Division of the Performing Arts Library. New York Public Library. New York, NY.Google Scholar
Rochberg, Gene. Interview with the Author. July 26, 2013. Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. Interview with Vincent Plush. Oral History of American Music Archive. Yale University, New Haven, CT.Google Scholar
Sammlung George Rochberg. Paul Sacher Stiftung. Basel, Switzerland.Google Scholar
Vincent Persichetti Papers. Music Division of the Performing Arts Library. New York Public Library. New York, NY.Google Scholar
William Schuman Papers. Music Division of the Performing Arts Library. New York Public Library. New York, NY.Google Scholar
Alegant, Brian. The Twelve-Tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anhalt, Istvan, and Rochberg, George. Eagle Minds: Selected Correspondence of Istvan Anhalt and George Rochberg. Edited by Gillmor, Alan M.. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Anton, Ulrike H. “Richard Wagner und England: Die öffentliche Auseinandersetzung mit Person und Werk, 1914–1945.” PhD diss., Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien, 2003.Google Scholar
Baade, Christina. Victory Through Harmony: The BBC and Popular Music in World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Citron, Marcia. Gender and the Musical Canon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Clarkson, Austin, and Johnson, Steve. “ George Rochberg.” Grove Online Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2005.Google Scholar
Dallapiccola, Luigi. “The Genesis of the Canti di prigionia and il Prigioniero: An Autobiographical Fragment.” Translated by Jonathan Schiller. Musical Quarterly 39, no. 3 (1953): 355–72.Google Scholar
Dixon, Joan DeVee. George Rochberg: A Bio-Bibliographic Guide to His Life and Works. Stuyvesant: Pendragon Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Dixon, Joan DeVee. “The Twelve Bagatelles and Sonata-Fantasia of George Rochberg: A Performer's Analysis.” DMA diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1995.Google Scholar
Dufallo, Richard. Trackings: Composers Speak with Richard Dufallo. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Fearn, Raymond. The Music of Luigi Dallapiccola. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Gagne, Cole, and Caras, Tracy. Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Grimes, Ev, and Rochberg, George. “Conversations with American Composers: Ev Grimes Interviews George Rochberg.” Music Educators Journal 73, no. 1 (1986): 42–8.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Evan. Liner notes to George Rochberg: Piano Music. Vol 2. Evan Hirsch, piano. Naxos 8 559631, CD. 2010.Google Scholar
Kenyon, Nicholas. The BBC Symphony Orchestra: The First Fifty Years, 1930–1980. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1981.Google Scholar
Kerman, Joseph. “Tovey's Beethoven.” American Scholar 45, no. 1 (1975–76): 795–805.Google Scholar
Kim, Yoojin. “ An Innovative Approach to Serialism: George Rochberg's ‘Twelve Bagatelles for Piano’ and ‘Symphony No. 2.’” PhD diss., Ohio State University, 2007.Google Scholar
Latham, Clara. “Listening to the Talking Cure: Sprechstimme, Hypnosis, and the Sonic Organization of Affect.” In Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience, edited by Thompson, Marie and Biddle, Ian, 101–16. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.Google Scholar
Lochhead, Judy. “Refiguring the Modernist Program for Hearing: Steve Reich and George Rochberg.” In The Pleasure of Modernist Music: Listening, Meaning, Intention, Ideology, edited by Ashby, Arved, 325–44. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Mackay, Robert. “Being Beastly to the Germans: Music, Censorship, and the BBC in World War II.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 20, no. 4 (2000): 513–25.Google Scholar
McClary, Susan. Feminine Endings. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991.Google Scholar
McClary, Susan. “The World According to Taruskin.” Music and Letters 87, no. 3 (2006): 408–15.Google Scholar
Metzer, David. Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth-Century Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Meyer, Felix. “George Rochberg: ‘Tradition and 12-Tone Music.’” In ‘On revient toujours’: Dokumente zur Schönberg-Rezeption aus der Paul Sacher Stiftung, edited by the Paul Sacher Stiftung, 102–3. Mainz: Schott Musik, 2016.Google Scholar
Pedneault-Deslauriers, Julie. “Pierrot L.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 64, no. 3 (2011): 601–45.Google Scholar
Perle, George. “Evolution of the Tone-Row: The Twelve-Tone Modal System.” Music Review 2, no. 4 (1941): 273–87.Google Scholar
Perle, George. The Listening Composer. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Perle, George. Review of The Hexachord and Its Relation to the 12-Tone Row, by George Rochberg. Journal of the American Musicological Society 10, no. 1 (1957): 55–59.Google Scholar
Perle, George. “Twelve-Tone Tonality.” Monthly Musical Record 73, (1943): 175– 79.Google Scholar
Poulet, Georges. “Timelessness and Romanticism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 15, no. 1 (1954): 3–22.Google Scholar
Ringer, Alexander. “The Music of George Rochberg.” Musical Quarterly 52, no. 4 (1966): 409–30.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. A Dance of Polar Opposites: The Continuing Transformation of our Musical Language. Edited by Gill, Jeremy. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Duration in Music.” In The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music, 61–67. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. Five Lines, Four Spaces: The World of My Music. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. The Hexachord and its Relation to the 12-Tone Row. Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser Company, 1955.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Metamorphosis of a Twentieth-Century Composer.” Interview with Guy Freedman. Music Journal 34, no. 3 (1976): 12–13, 38.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “No Center.” In The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music, 129–34. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Note to Conductor.” Zodiac for Orchestra. Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser Company, 1974.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Preface.” In The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music, xiii–xvi. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Reflections on Schoenberg.” In The Aesthetics of Survival: A Composer's View of Twentieth-Century Music, 36–58. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. Review of Serial Composition and Atonality, by George Perle. Journal of the American Musicological Society 16, no. 3 (1963): 413–18.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. Twelve Bagatelles. Musical Score. Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser Company, 1955.Google Scholar
Rochberg, George. “Webern's Search for Harmonic Identity.” Journal of Music Theory 6, (1962): 109–22.Google Scholar
Schiller, David. Bloch, Schoenberg, and Bernstein: Assimilating Jewish Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Schoenberg, Arnold. “Problems in Teaching Art.” In Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, edited by Stein, Leonard, 365–69. London: Faber and Faber, 1975.Google Scholar
Schoenberg, Arnold. “Composition with Twelve Tones.” In Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, edited by Newlin, Dika, 10–43. New York: Philosophical Library, 1950.Google Scholar
Shumway, Jeffrey. “A Comparative Study of Representative Bagatelles for the Piano Since Beethoven.” DMA diss., Indiana University, 1981.Google Scholar
Straus, Joseph N. Twelve-Tone Music in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Thomas, Martha Lynn. “Analysis of George Rochberg's Twelve Bagatelles and Nach Bach for Solo Piano.” DMA diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1987.Google Scholar
Tovey, Donald Francis. Beethoven. London: Oxford University Press, 1944.Google Scholar
Wlodarski, Amy Lynn. Musical Witness and Holocaust Representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.Google Scholar