How quickly time passes.
It seems only yesterday that David Del Tredici was one of America’s brightest young composers. Now I learn that he has died at the age of 86.
Del Tredici began his studies as a pianist. (He said if he hadn’t become one, he would have become a florist.) He was mentored by Bernhard Abramovitch and Robert Helps at the University of California, Berkeley. At the same time, he began to venture into composition. He performed his work, “Opus 1,” for a favorably-disposed Darius Milhaud.
Subsequently, Del Tredici attended Princeton University, where his teachers included Roger Sessions, Earl Kim, and Seymour Shifrin. At Princeton, he received a grounding in serialism. Later, he gravitated back toward tonality and became a pioneer of the Neo-Romantic movement.
He achieved considerable recognition for a cycle of works inspired by the writings of Lewis Carroll. One of these, “Child Alice,” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1980. “Child Alice” was inspired by two prefatory poems from Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There” and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” If Carroll and Gustav Mahler had had a love-child, it would probably have come out sounding something like this.
Here’s an excerpt from Part One, “In Memory of a Summer Day,” conducted Gil Rose. If you like what you hear, I highly recommend Rose’s recording of “Child Alice” with Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP).
One day, back in 1990, when I was in my early 20s and living in a cramped efficiency in Philadelphia, I opened my apartment door, and who happened to be standing there in the hall, but Del Tredeci. This was just a few years after Bernstein recorded his orchestral work, “Tattoo,” for release on Deutsche Grammophon. What a surreal experience that was. It turns out he was an acquaintance of my landlord, who lived upstairs. It’s sobering to think, at the time, Del Tredici was younger than I am now.
Del Tredici taught at Harvard, Yale, Boston University, Juilliard, the University of Buffalo, and City College of New York. He was composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic from 1988 to 1990.
He also composed a lot of song settings, many of them on “gay” themes.
Del Tredici is the subject of this “Capricorn Conversation,” hosted by my friend, the documentarian H. Paul Moon.
An earlier interview with Bruce Duffie
https://www.bruceduffie.com/tredici.html
“Del Tredici is that rare find among composers – a creator with a truly original gift. I venture to say that his music is certain to make a lasting impression on the American musical scene. I know of no other composer of his generation who composes music of greater freshness and daring, or with more personality.” – Aaron Copland
R.I.P.
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