George Rochberg

George Rochberg, (July 5, 1918, Paterson, New Jersey – May 29, 2005, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) was an American composer. He abandoned serialism after 1963 when his son died, saying that serialism was empty of expressive emotion and was inadequate to express his grief and rage. By the seventies he was causing controversy with often obviously tonal music. He compared atonality to abstract art and tonality to concrete art and compared his artistic evolution with Philip Guston's, saying "the tension between concreteness and abstraction" is a fundamental issue for both of them (Rochberg, 1992).

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Rochberg is perhaps best known for his "String Quartet No. 6" (recorded by the Concord String Quartet), which includes a movement of variations on the Pachelbel Canon in D.

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Many of his works were musical collages of quotations from other composers. "Contra Mortem et Tempus", for expample, contains passages from Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Edgard Varese and Charles Ives.

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Rochberg attended the Mannes College of Music, where one of his teachers was George Szell. He was the chairman of the music department at the University of Pennsylvania until 1968, and continued to teach there until 1983.

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July 5: July 5 is the 186th day of the year (187th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 179 days remaining....

1918: 1918 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar....

Paterson, New Jersey: Paterson is a city located in Passaic County, New Jersey. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 149,222, making it New Jersey's third largest city. It is the county seat of Passaic County. The City of Paterson is governed under the Faulkner Act (Mayor-Council) system of municip...

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