Topic: A Perle for your Oyster

[springrite]

A composer I have enjoyed much though I only have 3 CDs worth of his music is the American composer George Perle. Two of those CDs are on NONESUCH of piano music and music for piano and chamber ensemble. I am getting a symphonic CD in October.

He is definitely a 12 tone composer but one that always inventive, interesting, and occasionally lyrical. If anything, he reminds of of the Alban Berg of the Chamber Concerto.

Anyone else like this Perle?

[snyprrr]

Ouch! That Title's...obscene!!



This sounds like Serial Impressionism to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzjzY3s3fXo

Perle is very very smooth in his serialism. I can't remember how many of those old LPs I heard, but right now, all I have is this cozy little Chamber Music disc on GM, with pieces by Carter and Perle (Da Capo Players). I also remember that album of wind quintets, which, though raved about elsewhere, I found kind of homogenized (I guess, what is to be expected?). Oh, I also have some Piano Dedications on a Russell Sherman recital that aren't anything but dedications (a mere shadow of the Boriskin stuff).

I was also recently checking him out on Amazon (baby! ), but, except for a reissue of that SQ maybe, I don't see anything that totally jazzes me. All those endless New World Hamelin/Borisken recitals are confusing.

[springrite]

Well, if you know about George Perle, you'd know he's not exactly into oysters. But anyhow...

I have never been a fan of serialism, but Perle is one of the few that I do like. I don't know what makes his different for me. Is it cute? Delicate?

Listening to the Cocertino now and it is marvelous. I introduced Perle's music to a friend who loves Berg but not so much other 12 toners (much like M.I., I guess) and he loved it as well.

[snyprrr]

Amazingly, Perle's Works List is curiously short:

http://georgeperle.net/cat.html#band

It seems as if everything mature and important has been recorded. The 2 PCs seem to big his Big Statements.I didn't realize that the little GM cd I have really has such chiseled and highly crafted (and rare) works. I highly recommend listening to the SQ 5 on YouTube.

[petrarch]

His books are well worth a read; I have three of them (Serial composition and atonality, Twelve-tone tonality and The listening composer) and they are quite good. I have never dug into his music, so perhaps this thread will finally get me to do it...

[Leon]

A composer I have enjoyed much though I only have 3 CDs worth of his music is the American composer George Perle. Two of those CDs are on NONESUCH of piano music and music for piano and chamber ensemble. I am getting a symphonic CD in October.

He is definitely a 12 tone composer but one that always inventive, interesting, and occasionally lyrical. If anything, he reminds of of the Alban Berg of the Chamber Concerto.

Anyone else like this Perle?

The way Perle handles composition with 12-tones is different from Schoenberg's school or the serialists that came after like Boulez and others.  He does not use a convention 12 note series and permutations of it, but instead likes to create new note series by stacking a 12 note row on top of another one and use the points of coincidence, where the common tones intersect and build things around three or four note clusters that shift to other clusters but may share a common tone as a pivot point. 

That said, his music is very much listenable without knowing any of the theory behind it, and Perle is a composer whom I count among my favorites.  His Wind Quintets, especially, I find wonderful and there is a recording that gathers them all together.

He has also written two books on Alban Berg's operas which are very readable and probably the best things out there on those works.  Plus he was a very nice guy.

[Lilas Pastia]

I have a disc of piano concertos by Perle and Danielpour. The latter is the composer I've been familiar with for a couple decades. That's why I bought this HM disc. However, Perle's second PC (1992) and 6 etudes for piano are the reason I kept it. Good music transcends styles and fashions. I'm quite confident this will be good music to listen to in the next generation or two.

[ibanezmonster]

I also have a CD of this... piano and chamber music. Pretty good, enjoyable stuff. Berg probably is one of the closest comparisons.

[snyprrr]

Well, if you know about George Perle, you'd know he's not exactly into oysters. But anyhow...

I have never been a fan of serialism, but Perle is one of the few that I do like. I don't know what makes his different for me. Is it cute? Delicate?

Listening to the Cocertino now and it is marvelous. I introduced Perle's music to a friend who loves Berg but not so much other 12 toners (much like M.I., I guess) and he loved it as well.

I maintain that he's the 'Impressionistic Serialist'. Did you listen to that SQ 5?

[springrite]

I maintain that he's the 'Impressionistic Serialist'. Did you listen to that SQ 5?

No. I haven't heard any of his works sans the piano so far.

[snyprrr]

No. I haven't heard any of his works sans the piano so far.

Check out that first link above.

[springrite]

Check out that first link above.

utube us blocked in Chine.

[torut]

New recordings of George Perle by Daedalus Quartet was released last year. It is called "Volume 1", so hopefully a complete cycle will be recorded. I agree with most of the comments here about his music.

[snyprrr]

New recordings of George Perle by Daedalus Quartet was released last year. It is called "Volume 1", so hopefully a complete cycle will be recorded. I agree with most of the comments here about his music.

oh... reeeally? mmm...