In Honour of George Perle

George Perle, via his site.

I spotted on Alex Ross's blog that George Perle has died (on Friday the 23rd of January), he was 93.

Ross's post includes a fine piece of Perle's you can stream. More available than his music (for some unknown reason) are his books, two I own and recommend are Twelve-Tone Tonality, and Serial Composition and Atonality.

Twelve-Tone Tonality is unique, at least from what I have read on the subject (harmony in general), it's worth looking at if you are interested in non-diatonic/tertiary harmony.

I intend to get his book 'The Listening Composer' soon also (might order it later actually, EDIT: done).

Recordings of his music seem less easy to obtain, I would like to hear his Wind Quintets performed by the Dorian Wind Quintet but the CD is nearly £20 so I think i'll pass for now.

If anyone has any CD recommendations at a 'nice' price please let me know.

Incidentally, Complement.Inversion.Etc favourite Paul Lanksy was one of Perle's students.

Also linked to on Ross's blog here is the New York Times obit.

Rest in peace Mr Perle.

EDIT: this news is also featured/discussed on Sequenza 21.

Ross Does The Rounds

Seen all over the interweb New Yorker music critic and author Alex Ross discusses his book 'The Rest is Noise' in various places..

At Google, with Charlie Rose, with the Guardian, on BBC Radio3`s Music Matters programme and an AmazonWire podcast.

Whatever you think of his specific musical biases/tastes he is an effective propagandist for 20th century music (70,000 copies sold says so, I have not read any of them, might do when it comes out on paperback)

[Correction: it may already be out on paperback but it is out of stock on Amazon and cant find it on other sites]