George Rochberg - Definition and Overview

George Rochberg (born 1918 in Paterson, N.J.) is an American composer. He abandoned serialism after 1963 and by the seventies was causing controversy with often obviously tonal music. He compares atonality to abstract art and tonality to concrete art and compares his artistic evolution with Philip Guston's, saying "the tension between concreteness and abstraction" is a fundamental issue for both of them (Rochberg, 1992).

He 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.

External links

• Theodore Presser Company Composer Information: George Rochberg (http://www.presser.com/Composers/info.cfm?Name=GEORGEROCHBERG)
• George Rochberg's Revolution (http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9806/opinion/linton.html) by Michael Linton, Copyright (c) 1998 First Things 84 (June/July 1998): 18-20.

Source

• Rochberg, George (1992). Guston and Me: Digression and Return. Contemporary Music Review 6 (2), 5–8.