Arthur Victor Berger (May 15, 1912 – October 7, 2003) was an American composer and music critic who has been described as a

New Mannerist Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a Style (visual arts), style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 1 ...

Biography

Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, of Jewish descent, Berger studied as an undergraduate at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, ...

, during which time he joined the

Young Composer's Group Young may refer to: * Offspring, the product of reproduction of a new organism produced by one or more parents * Youth, the time of life when one is young, often meaning the time between childhood and adulthood Music * The Young, an American roc ...

, as a graduate student under

Walter Piston Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter ...

at Harvard, and with

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

and at the Sorbonne under a

Paine Fellowship Paine may refer to: Geography *Paine, Chile *Paine College, a defunct Historically Black college in Augusta, Georgia *Paine Field, an airport in Everett, Washington, United States *Paine Lake, a lake in Minnesota *Paine River, a waterstream locate ...

. He taught briefly at

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was r ...

and Brooklyn College, then worked briefly at the ''

New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...

'' and then for a longer period of time at the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the ''New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...

''. In 1953 he left the paper to teach at

Brandeis University Brandeis University is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational institution sponsored by the Jews, Jewish community, Brandeis was established on t ...

where he was eventually named the

Irving Fine Irving Gifford Fine (December 3, 1914 – August 23, 1962) was an American composer. Fine's work assimilated neoclassical, romantic, and serial elements. Composer Virgil Thomson described Fine's "unusual melodic grace" while Aaron Copland noted ...

Professor Emeritus. His notable students there included Gustav Ciamaga and

Richard Wernick Richard Wernick (born January 16, 1934, in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American composer. He is best known for his chamber and vocal works. His composition ''Visions of Terror and Wonder'' won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Career Wernick ...

. He taught occasionally at the

New England Conservatory The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The conservatory is located on ...

during his retirement. He co-founded (with Benjamin Boretz), in 1962, ''

Perspectives of New Music ''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was fir ...

'', which he edited until 1964. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...

in 1971. He wrote the first book on

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

(reprinted 1990, Da Capo Press), and coined the terms ''

octatonic scale An octatonic scale is any eight- note musical scale. However, the term most often refers to the symmetric scale composed of alternating whole and half steps, as shown at right. In classical theory (in contrast to jazz theory), this symmetrica ...

'' and '' pitch centricity'' in his "Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky". He died in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

, Massachusetts, age 91.

Works

His works show a preoccupation with vertical and horizontal musical space (see

pitch space In music theory, pitch spaces model relationships between pitches. These models typically use distance to model the degree of relatedness, with closely related pitches placed near one another, and less closely related pitches placed farther ap ...

). His musical influences include

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

, and later

Anton Webern Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and ste ...

. In the forties he composed neoclassical works including ''Serenade Concertante'' (1944) and ''Three Pieces for Strings'' (1945), and embraced the twelve-tone technique in the 1950s. His later works moved away from

serialism In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

but continued to use tone cluster 'cells' whose

pitch class In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave positi ...

es are displaced by

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

George Perle George Perle (6 May 1915 – 23 January 2009) was an American composer and music theorist. As a composer, his music was largely atonal, using methods similar to the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School. This serialist style, ...

has described his "keen and sophisticated musical intellect" and praised "his serial music

or being Or or OR may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * "O.R.", a 1974 episode of M*A*S*H * Or (My Treasure), a 2004 movie from Israel (''Or'' means "light" in Hebrew) Music * ''Or'' (album), a 2002 album by Golden Boy with Miss ...

as far removed from current fashionable trends as his

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a p ...

music was a few years ago." Perle further praises his ''String Quartet'': "in the quartet, as in Berger's earlier works, and in most of the great music of our Western heritage, timbre, texture, dynamics, rhythm, and form are elements of a musical language whose syntax and grammar are essentially derived from pitch relations. If these elements never seem specious and arbitrary, as they do with so many of the dodecaphonic productions that deluge us today from both the left and right, it is precisely because of the authenticity and integrity of his musical thinking at this basic level."(1980).
Liner notes: ''Form''
", newworldrecords.org; accessed 22 November 2015. His works include ''Ideas of Order'', ''Polyphony'', ''Quartet for Winds'', described by Thomson as "one of the most satisfactory pieces for winds in the whole modern repertory", ''String Quartet'' (1958), ''Five Pieces for Piano'' (1969) and ''Septet'' (1965–66). He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Berger is grouped in the " Boston school" along with

Lukas Foss Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor. Career Born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922, Foss was soon recognized as a child prodigy. He began piano and theory lessons with Ju ...

Alexei Haieff Alexei Vasilievich Haieff (August 25, 1914 – March 1, 1994) was an American composer of orchestral and choral works. He is known for following Stravinsky's Neoclassicism (music), neoclassicism, observing an austere economy of means, and achievi ...

Harold Shapero Harold Samuel Shapero (April 29, 1920 – May 17, 2013) was an American composer. Early years Shapero was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on April 29, 1920. He and his family later moved to nearby Newton. He learned to play the piano as a chi ...

, and Claudio Spies.

References

External links

Arthur Berger Official WebsiteArthur Berger papers
in th
Music Division
o

* The online music revie
La Folia
has an article about Berger

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, October 10, 2003 (retrieved January 31, 2010)

March 28, 1987 {{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, Arthur 1912 births 2003 deaths 20th-century American composers 20th-century classical composers Twelve-tone and serial composers American classical composers American male classical composers Jewish American classical composers American expatriates in France Musicians from New York City Brandeis University faculty Brooklyn College faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard University alumni Mills College faculty New England Conservatory faculty New York University alumni University of Paris alumni Pupils of Darius Milhaud Pupils of Walter Piston 20th-century American male musicians

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links