Steven Roy Gerber (September 28, 1948, in
Washington, D. C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
– May 28, 2015, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
)
[Musicsack]
/ref> was an American composer of classical music. He attended Haverford College, graduating in 1969 at the age of twenty. He then attended Princeton University with a fellowship to study musical composition.
Biography and career
Steven Gerber's works include the contrapuntal ''Fantasy for Solo Violin'', which has been recorded on both the CRI and Naxos labels, and ''Piano Trio'', commissioned by the Hans Kindler Foundation.
His composition teachers included Robert Parris, James K. Randall, Earl Kim
Earl Kim (1920–1998; né Eul Kim) was an American composer, and music pedagogue. He was of Korean descent.
Early life, education, and training
Kim was born on January 6, 1920, in Dinuba, California, to immigrant Korean parents. He began pia ...
, and Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He was a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, recognized for his serial and electronic music.
Biography ...
.
His early works are in a free atonal
Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...
style. During his years as a graduate student, he wrote serial and non-twelve-tone
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...
works, such as the a cappella
Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...
choral works "Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...
Settings" and "Illuminations" (Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism.
Born in Charleville, he s ...
), and throughout the remainder of the 1970s most of his works were twelve-tone. Beginning in the early 1980s, he abandoned twelve-tone composition, with rare exceptions, and his music became much more tonal, for example in his Piano Sonata. Since then his music remained largely tonal, sometimes extremely chromatic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, es ...
, sometimes diatonic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair ...
.
His music has been reviewed in ''The New York Times'' and ''The Washington Post''. His music has been played in the former Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
perhaps more widely than that of any other American composer.[http://www.21st-centurymusic.com/ML210203.pdf ]
In 2005, the conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy (, ''Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazi''; born 6 July 1937) is a Soviet-born Icelandic pianist, chamber music performer, and conductor. Ashkenazy has collaborated with well-known orchestras and soloists. In addition, ...
commissioned Gerber to compose an orchestral work. The resulting six-movement suite, ''Music in Dark Times'', was premiered by Ashkenazy with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Franci ...
on March 25–28, 2009. He died in New York City on May 28, 2015, aged 66.
List of compositions
Orchestral
*1981 Harmonium: Six Poems of Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...
, for solo soprano and orchestra
*1989 Symphony No. 1
*1990 Ode (1st movement of Serenade) for string orchestra
*1990 Serenade for string orchestra
*1992 Piano Concerto
*1992 Dirge and Awakening
*1993 Violin Concerto
*1994 Cello Concerto
*1996 Viola Concerto
*1998 Serenade Concertante
*1998 Triple Overture for solo violin, cello and piano and orchestra
*2000 Spirituals, for string orchestra
*2002 Fanfare for the Voice of A-M-E-R-I-C-A
*2002 Clarinet Concerto
*2004 Symphony No. 2, "Elegies and Fanfares"
*2005 Two Lyric Pieces, for solo violin and string orchestra
*2005-08 Music in Dark Times
Chamber
*1967 Sonata for violin and piano
*1967 Woodwind Quartet
*1968 Trio for violin, cello and piano
*1969 Duo for cello and piano
*1969 Duo for violin and cello
*1971 String Trio
*1972 Nexus, for violin and percussion
*1973 String Quartet No. 1
*1977 Duo for flute and piano
*1978 Dreamwork, for flute, viola, cello, and piano
*1979 Duo for viola and piano
*1981 String Quartet No. 2
*1984 Duo in Three Movements for violin and piano
*1984 Concertino for string quartet and piano
*1986 Woodwind Quintet
*1987 Fantasy Quartet for percussion
*1988 String Quartet No. 3
*1991 Piano Quintet for string quartet and piano
*1995 String Quartet No. 4
*1996 Notturno, for violin, cello and piano
*1996 (rev. 2006) Five Canonic Duos, for oboe and bassoon
*1996 Sonatina for oboe and guitar
*1997 Three Pieces for Two Violins
*1999 Prelude and Fugue, for oboe, bassoon, and piano
*1999 Gershwiniana, for 3 violins (or 2 violins and viola)
*2000 String Quartet No. 5
*2001 Three Folksong Transformations, for violin, cello, and piano
*2002 Spirituals, for clarinet and string quartet
*2003-1997 Fantasy, Fugue, and Chaconne, for 2 cellos or viola and cello
*2003 Five Greek Folksongs (after Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...
), for violin and piano
*2007 Dialogues, for clarinet and piano
*2009 Two Antiphonal Pieces, for cello and piano
*2010 Norma's Variations, for violin and piano
*2011 String Quartet No. 6
*2011 Spirituals (Book II), for flute and cello
Vocal
*1966 Three French Songs (Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics, an ...
and Verlaine
Verlaine (; ) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.
On January 1, 2006, Verlaine had a total population of 3,507. The total area is 24.21 km2 which gives a population density
Population density (in ag ...
), for high voice and piano
*1967 After the Funeral (Thomas), for baritone and string trio
*1974 Doria: Three Poems of Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...
, for soprano and piano
*1974 "My Papa's Waltz" and Other Songs ( Williams, Moore
Moore may refer to:
Language
* Mooré language, spoken in West Africa
People
* Moore (surname)
** List of people with surname Moore
* Moore Crosthwaite (1907–1989), a British diplomat and ambassador
* Moore Disney (1765–1846), a senior ...
, Plath, Roethke), for soprano and piano
*1975 Black Hours: Five Sonnets of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Society of Jesus, Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame places him among the leading English poets. His Prosody (linguistics), prosody – notably his concept of sprung ...
, for soprano and piano
*1976 Two Lyrics of Gerard Manley Hopkins, for soprano and string trio
*1978 Sestina: Altaforte (Pound), for baritone and piano
*1978 Songs from "The Wild Swans at Coole" (Yeats
William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the ...
), for high voice and piano
*1982 Desert Places: Five Poems of Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...
, for high voice and piano
*1984 Drum-Taps: Three Patriotic Poems (Frost, Whitman, Emerson), for soprano and piano
*1985 Words for Music Perhaps (Yeats), for soprano and two violins
*1986 Four Elegiac Songs (Hopkins, Yeats, Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
, Dryden), for high voice and piano
*1988 Six Songs of William Shakespeare, for medium voice and piano
*2012 Five Shakespeare Songs, for voice and piano
Choral
*1972 Dylan Thomas Settings
*1972 Illumination (Rimbaud)
*1973 Ceremony After a Fire Raid (Thomas)
*1985 Four Choruses from Une Saison en Enfer (Rimbaud)
*1985 Une Saison en Enfer (Rimbaud), for solo high baritone or tenor, chorus, and piano
*2004 Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought (5 Sonnets of William Shakespeare)
Piano
*1966 Two Toccata
Toccata (from Italian ''toccare'', literally, "to touch", with "toccata" being the action of touching) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virt ...
s
*1970 Variations
*1976 Voices
*1982 Piano Fantasy: Homage to Copland Copland may refer to:
* Copland (crater), on Mercury
* Copland (operating system)
* Copland (surname)
* Copland River in New Zealand
* 4532 Copland, an asteroid named after Aaron Copland
* Aaron Copland, American composer
See also
* Copeland (dis ...
(first movement of Piano Sonata)
*1982 Piano Sonata
In music a sonata (; pl. ''sonate'') literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cantare'', "to sing"), a piece ''sung''. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until th ...
*1985 Two Intermezzi
*1989 Cocktail Music (Song Without Words)
Other solo
*1967 Fantasy for violin
*1971 Epithalamium
An epithalamium (; Latin form of Greek ἐπιθαλάμιον ''epithalamion'' from ἐπί ''epi'' "upon," and θάλαμος ''thalamos'' "nuptial chamber") is a poem written specifically for the bride on the way to her marital chamber. This fo ...
for flute
*1977 Fantasy
*1978 High Wood for oboe
*1987 Three Songs Without Words (arranged from Words for Music Perhaps) for violin
*1991 Elegy
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...
on the Name "Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded as a major composer.
Shostak ...
" for viola (or cello) - dedicated to Elena Ozol
*2005 Duet for Solo Clarinet
*2013 Soliloquy for Solo Bassoon - composed for bassoonist Bryan Young
Articles
*Interview with 21st Century Music: Food for Thought with Steven Gerber
Recordings
Spirituals for String Orchestra; Clarinet Concerto; Serenade Concertante
St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony/Vladimir Lande, conductor
Jon Manasse, clarinet; Jose Miguel Cueto, violin; Natalia Malkova, violin
Arabesque CD Z6803
Symphony No. 1; Dirge and Awakening; Viola Concerto; Triple Overture
Russian Philharmonic Orchestra/Thomas Sanderling, conductor
Lars Anders Tomter, viola
The Bekova Sisters:
Elvira Bekova, violin
Alfia Bekova, cello
Eleonora Bekova, piano
Chandos CD 9831
Violin Concerto; Cello Concerto; Serenade for String Orchestra
National Chamber Orchestra/ Piotr Gajewski, conductor
Kurt Nikkanen, violin; Carter Brey, cello
KOCH International Classics KIC-CD-7501
Fantasy; Three Songs Without Words
Curtis Macomber, violin
Composers Recordings, Inc. CD 706
Une Saison en Enfer
The New Calliope Singers/Peter Schubert, conductor
William Parker, baritone; Steven R. Gerber, piano
Composers Recordings, Inc. CD 638
Elegy on the Name "Dmitri Shostakovich"; Françoise Renard, viola
Suoni e Colori SC 53006
Gershwiniana for three violins; 3 Folksong Transformations; 3 Pieces for two violins; Notturno for piano trio; Elegy on the Name Dmitri Shostakovich for viola; 3 Songs Without Words; Fantasy for violin; Duo for violin and cello; Piano Trio
Kurt Nikkanen, violin and viola; Cho-Liang Lin, violin; Cyrus Beroukhim, violin; Brinton Averil Smith, cello; Sara Davis Buechner, piano
Naxos 8.559618
References
External links
StevenGerber.com
- official web site with biography, discography, and audio samples
March 23, 2003
Steven Gerber composer page on publisher's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gerber, Steven
20th-century American classical composers
21st-century American classical composers
American male classical composers
Musicians from Washington, D.C.
2015 deaths
1948 births
20th-century American male musicians
21st-century American male musicians