Rock on, George!

Today is the 100th birthday of George Rochberg (born in Paterson, NJ, in 1918; died in Bryn Mawr, PA, in 2005), for decades a staple of the University of Pennsylvania music department, which he chaired until 1968. He continued to teach there until 1983.

Rochberg’s music underwent a compelling transformation, when, following the death of his teenage son in 1964, he suddenly found the serial palette he had up until then employed inadequate to express his grief. By the 1970s, he had begun incorporating tonal passages into his music, much to the dismay of his peers. Little did anyone realize at the time that this was the most avant garde approach Rochberg could have taken. His music heralded a return to tonality and the embrace of a new romanticism that has since become the norm.

Here’s his Symphony No. 2 (1955-1956), which is serial but, contrary to his later concerns, still emotionally expressive. It’s conducted by George Szell, no less.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk74WLg8Iu4

The Pachelbel variations from Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 6 (1978):

And finally, his lovely “Transcendental Variations” (1971-1972, the third movement of the String Quartet No. 3, transcribed for string orchestra in 1975). Some of the variations have been blocked by Naxos, but there’s enough here to give a good idea. This luminous music could have been written at the turn of last century.

Happy birthday, George Rochberg!

PHOTOS: Rochberg (left) and a bust by his friend, the sculptor Christopher Cairns