41 Facts About Alexander Goehr

Alexander Goehr emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers, including Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle, in his early twenties.

Alexander Goehr joined Olivier Messiaen's masterclass in Paris in 1955.

Alexander Goehr composed Little Symphony in 1963 as a memorial to his father, arriving at a serialism that allowed expressive freedom.

Alexander Goehr first lectured in the United States, at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston from 1968 and at Yale University, then at the Southampton University from 1970.

Alexander Goehr was professor of music at the University of Leeds from 1971 and at Cambridge University from 1976 to 1999.

Alexander Goehr returned to a more traditional way of composing with Psalm IV in 1976.

Alexander Goehr wrote the opera Arianna in 1995, setting the libretto of Monteverdi's lost opera.

Peter Alexander Goehr was born in Berlin, on 10 August 1932.

Alexander Goehr came from a musical Jewish family; his mother Laelia, from Kyiv, was a pianist who had appeared with Vladimir Horowitz at age 12, and his father Walter Goehr was a Schoenberg pupil and pioneering conductor of Schoenberg, Messiaen and Monteverdi.

Alexander Goehr's father became an influential conductor in London, leading the world premiere of Tippett's A Child of Our Time.

Alexander Goehr received lessons from a composer colleague of his father, Allan Gray.

Alexander Goehr worked for the music publisher Schott after leaving school.

Alexander Goehr was then sent to Manchester for political work, where he wrote his first piece, described as "a sort of Zionist pageant with songs".

Alexander Goehr studied composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music from 1952 to 1955, with Richard Hall.

Alexander Goehr became friends there with Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, trumpeter Elgar Howarth and pianist John Ogdon.

Alexander Goehr influenced Davies, a clarinetist, and Birtwhistle who studied to teach, to focus on composition.

Alexander Goehr's first acknowledged compositions date from these years: Songs for Babel and the Piano Sonata, Op.

In 1955, Alexander Goehr left Manchester to go to Paris and study with Messiaen at the Conservatoire de Paris, and he studied counterpoint privately with Yvonne Loriod.

Alexander Goehr remained in Paris until October 1956, becoming friends with Pierre Boulez and involved in the serialist avant-garde movement of those years.

Alexander Goehr worked for the BBC as a musical assistant from 1960 to 1967.

Alexander Goehr received two more cantata commissions from the BBC; Sutter's Gold for choir, baritone and orchestra was unsuccessful.

Alexander Goehr was encouraged by his friend, the choral conductor John Alldis, to compose more choral music such as Two Choruses in 1962, which used a combination serialism and modality, to become an approach for years to come.

Boulez, who had facilitated performances of Alexander Goehr's works, refused to program Little Symphony.

Alexander Goehr composed works of many genres including the Piano Trio.

Alexander Goehr wrote Romanza, a cello concerto, in 1968 for Jacqueline du Pre and Daniel Barenboim.

Alexander Goehr founded the Wardour Castle Summer School in Wiltshire with Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle in 1964, which led to a focus on opera and music theatre.

Alexander Goehr returned to Britain as a visiting lecturer at Southampton University.

In 1976 Alexander Goehr became Professor of Music at Cambridge University and taught there until he retired in 1999.

Alexander Goehr's students included some of England's most notable composers to come, such as Thomas Ades, Julian Anderson, George Benjamin and Robin Holloway.

In 1976, Alexander Goehr composed Psalm IV in a "bright modal sonority", in a departure from serialism, towards more transparent sounds.

Alexander Goehr found a fusion of modal harmonics and the tradition of figured bass.

Alexander Goehr focused especially on vocal music, with many works reflecting socio-political themes.

Alexander Goehr wrote the opera Kantan and Damask Drum in 1999, premiered at the Oper Dortmund.

Alexander Goehr wrote When Adam Fell simultaneously, a BBC commission for orchestra based on the chromatic bass from Bach's chorale setting "Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt", BWV 705, that Messiaen had pointed out to him.

Alexander Goehr died at his home in Cambridgeshire on 26 August 2024, at the age of 92.

Many of Alexander Goehr's works are studies in the synthesis of disparate elements.

Just as The Deluge takes its cue from an unfinished project, many of Alexander Goehr's works include a synthesis of fragments or unfinished projects left by other artists.

Alexander Goehr remained indebted to Messiaen, apparent in his lifelong commitment to modality as an integration of serialism and tonality, as well as in melodic writing inspired by bird-song.

Alexander Goehr was an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Churchill Fellow.

Alexander Goehr became an honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society.

Alexander Goehr's manuscripts are held by the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin.