Peter Lieberson 1946 - 2011

[Brian]

Now the story of Peter and Lorraine has an even more heartbreaking finale.

Peter Lieberson, the composer of the highly acclaimed Neruda Songs, has died, following complications from lymphoma, at the age of 64. Lieberson died on Saturday, April 23, in Tel Aviv, where he was undergoing treatment for the disease.

Peter Lieberson was honored many times in his career, including the University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition for Neruda Songs, his setting of Pablo Neruda's sonnets, which he wrote for his late wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, before her untimely passing in 2006. The mezzo-soprano was posthumously awarded the Grammy Award for the Nonesuch recording of the piece with James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2007.

"I discovered the love poems of Pablo Neruda by chance in the Albuquerque airport," the composer said. "The book had a pink cover and drew me in. As I glanced through the poems I immediately thought that I must set some of these for Lorraine ... I am so grateful for Neruda's beautiful poetry, for although these poems were written to another, when I set them I was speaking directly to my own beloved, Lorraine."

The Washington Post described Neruda Songs as "one of the most extraordinarily affecting artistic gifts ever created by one lover to another ... [T]hey are just as universal as they are shatteringly personal."

http://www.nonesuch.com/journal/composer-peter-lieberson-dies-at-64-2011-04-25

[springrite]

Sorry to hear this news. I have heard this name for a long time but have not heard a note of his music.

Just added this to my BRO shopping list:

Lieberson, Peter {b.1946}: Drala; Fire {w.Cleveland Orchestra}; Concerto for Four Groups of Instruments; Accordance; Three Songs {w.Rosemary Hardy, soprano}; Ziji; Raising the Gaze {w.ASKO Ensemble}; Free and Easy Wanderer {w.London Sinfonietta}. (All cond. Oliver Knussen. Total time: 67'35')

[westknife]

Alex Ross remembers him: http://www.therestisnoise.com/2011/04/for-peter-lieberson.html

[snyprrr]

I believe I have his Piano Concerto on NewWorld (Serkin/Ozawa). I like it, but it was in the To Sell pile: I'll revisit. It's a very maestoso type event, very epic,... he was into the mystic Asian stuff, and this piece has a kind of mountaintop kind of grandeur, and meditation.

I'm listening now, and it has a sense of existence, a searching quality, though there is also coolness. Ya gotta love those old NewWorld issues,... aaahhhh!!