About the Book
Alexander ('Sandy') Goehr is a leading British composer and teacher. Born into a Jewish musical family in Berlin in 1932, he arrived in England in 1933 with his father, Walter, a composer, conductor, and pupil of Arnold Schoenberg; and his mother Laelia, a trained pianist from Kyiv. Raised in Amersham, he attended Richard Hall's classes at the Royal Manchester College of Music. There he formed the 'Manchester School' – a group of young composers and performers including Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, and John Ogdon. He was introduced to Olivier Messiaen when his father conducted the first British performance of Turangalîla-Symphonie in 1953, and he later studied with Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod in Paris.
In the late 1950s and early '60s Goehr became known as a radical exponent of serial music. Since then, he has composed more than one hundred major works, including operas, orchestral and chamber pieces, and music for film, television, dance and theatre. He is Emeritus Professor of Music at Cambridge University and one of Europe's most important music educators. He has written and lectured extensively and his music is performed all over the world.
Jack Van Zandt (b. 1954), an American composer and Goehr's former pupil and assistant, has co-written this first comprehensive account of the life, creative foundations, and teachings of this great composer.
About the Author :
Alexander ('Sandy') Goehr was a British composer and Emeritus Professor of Music at Cambridge University. He was born into a Jewish musical family in Berlin in 1932, and died on Monday 26 August in Cambridgeshire, at the age of 92. His father, Walter Goehr, was a composer and conductor, and a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg. His mother, Laelia, trained as a pianist at the Kyiv Conservatory.
Goehr moved to England in 1933 when his father accepted a position as conductor there in the wake of Hitler coming to power. He was educated in Britain and spent the war in Buckinghamshire. At the Royal College of Music in Manchester, where he attended Richard Hall’s classes, he formed the "Manchester School," a group of young composers and musicians—including Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, and pianist John Ogdon—who specialized in the performance of new music.
He was introduced to Olivier Messiaen's music when his father conducted the first British performance of Turangalîla in 1953. He subsequently went to study with Messiaen in Paris, and attended the Darmstadt Festival courses where he met and made friends with many composers, including Pierre Boulez and Luigi Nono.
He came to prominence in England in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a radical exponent of serial music. He composed more than one hundred major works, including operas, orchestral and chamber pieces, and music for film, television, dance, and theatre.
Goehr was one of Europe's most important music educators. He was a lecturer at Southampton University, Professor of Music at Leeds University and finally the Professor of Music at Cambridge University for more than twenty-five years. He taught many successful composers, theorists, and musicologists. Over the course of his life he wrote and lectured extensively, and his works are performed all over the world. His music was published by Schott. Jack Van Zandt is a Los Angeles and Ireland-based composer of music for concerts, public spaces, gallery installations, television, film, and advertising. He studied composition at Cambridge University with Alexander Goehr; the Dartington Summer School of Music with Peter Maxwell Davies; and at University of California Santa Barbara with Thea Musgrave, Peter Racine Fricker, and electronic music with Emma Lou Diemer. He was Alexander Goehr's teaching, personal and musical assistant from 1978-1984. Sally Groves worked in music publishing from 1970 to 2014, mainly with Schott Music, where she was Creative Director in London for many years. She has always served on musical boards and trusts. She currently chairs Opera Ventures, the Vaughan Williams Foundation, and the Music Libraries Trust, is a governor of the Royal Society of Musicians, and a trustee of the Michael Tippett Musical Foundation and the Peter Maxwell Davies Trust, as well as of various ensembles. She was awarded an MBE for services in music in 2016.
Review :
'I'd happily recommend this book. For those unfamiliar with Goehr, you'll find a wonderful insight into what a composer's life can look like and see how they grow and develop as individuals. For those familiar with Goehr, it is a fascinating insight into his life which doesn't patronise but is ultimately honest and direct.'
Ben Lunn, Morning Star
'Composing a Life - Goehr's collaboration with Jack van Zandt, the American composer-musicologist and his former pupil - is a fascinating study of musical transmission... The usual musician's reminiscences, little more than glorified name-dropping, are here replaced by a serious dialogue about musical influence, that mystery driving even a creative radical such as Goehr. Read this book if you care at all about how culture is transmitted and transformed.'
Fiona Sampson, The Spectator
