Fred Lerdahl

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Alfred Whitford (Fred) Lerdahl (born March 10, 1943) is an American music theorist and composer. Best known for his work on musical grammar, cognition, rhythmic theory, and pitch space, he and the linguist Ray Jackendoff developed the Chomsky-inspired generative theory of tonal music.

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Lerdahl has written numerous orchestral and chamber works, three of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Music: Time after Time in 2001, String Quartet No. 3 in 2010, and Arches in 2011. He is a Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University. [1]

Life

Alfred Whitford "Fred" Lerdahl was born on March 10, 1943, in Madison, Wisconsin. [2] His maternal uncle was the astronomer Albert Whitford.

Lerdahl studied with James Ming at Lawrence University, where he earned his BMus in 1965, and with Milton Babbitt, Edward T. Cone, and Earl Kim at Princeton University, where he earned his MFA in 1967. At Tanglewood he studied with Arthur Berger in 1964 and Roger Sessions in 1966. He then studied with Wolfgang Fortner at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg/Breisgau in 1968–69, on a Fulbright Scholarship. From 1991 to 2018 Lerdahl was Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University; before that, he taught at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Lerdahl was awarded an honorary doctorate from Lawrence University in 1999. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Example of Lerdahl and Jackendoff's tree structure analysis of tonal hierarchy (theme of Mozart's Sonata in A major K. 331) Lerdahl and Jackendoff's tree analysis of tonal structure of Mozart's K. 331 theme.pdf
Example of Lerdahl and Jackendoff's tree structure analysis of tonal hierarchy (theme of Mozart's Sonata in A major K. 331)

Lerdahl has written three books: A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (1983, second edition 1996, with linguist Ray Jackendoff, MIT Press), Tonal Pitch Space (2001, Oxford University Press), and Composition and Cognition (2019, University of California Press). He has also written numerous articles on music theory, music cognition, computer-assisted composition, and other topics.

Lerdahl's music is published by Schott, and Bridge Records is producing an ongoing series of recordings of it. Lerdahl's students include composers Christopher Buchenholz, Zosha Di Castri, R. Luke DuBois, John Halle, Huck Hodge, Arthur Kampela, Alex Mincek, Paul Moravec, Matthew Ricketts, Allen Shearer, Kate Soper, Tyshawn Sorey, Christopher Trapani, Carl Voss, Wang Lu, Eric Wubbels, and Nina C. Young; and music theorists Elizabeth Margulis and David Temperley. [3]

Music

Lerdahl's influences include the German classics, Sibelius, Schoenberg, Bartók, Stravinsky, Carter, Messiaen, and Ligeti. He has said he "always sought musical forms of [his] own invention", and to discover the appropriate form for the intended expression. [4] In Fanfare , Robert Carl wrote: "Lerdahl is a profoundly musical composer, engaged in all his work in a rigorous and respectful dialogue with tradition, eager to imbue his pieces with the maximum of both information and clarity." [5] Of Lerdahl's composition Waves, Phillip Scott wrote, "Waves is an orchestral scherzo. It conjures up (rather than depicts) the motion and the sense of waves, not merely of the oceanic variety but also those found on graphs: sound waves, heartbeats, and so on. It begins with a surge of activity and never lets up in its cascading scales and rapid figuration. Unlike Debussy's La mer , whose deep-sea swells it recalls only fleetingly, it has no moments of repose." [6]

List of compositions

Source: [7]

Orchestral

Chamber music

Choral

Vocal

Piano

Discography

Awards

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Lerdahl, Fred" Archived 2008-02-21 at the Wayback Machine , Columbia University
  2. ↑ Zahler, Noel B. (2001). "Lerdahl, Fred" . Grove Music Online . Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.42747. ISBN   978-1-56159-263-0.(subscription, Wikilibrary access, or UK public library membership required)
  3. ↑ See: List of music students by teacher: K to M#Fred Lerdahl .
  4. ↑ Schweitzer, Vivien (November 21, 2010). "Spiral Form and Other Compositional Modes of Fred Lerdahl", NYTimes.com.
  5. ↑ Carl, Robert (January–February 2007). "LERDAHL Time after Time.^ Marches.^ Oboe Quartet.^ Waves' • Jeffrey Milarsky, cond, Columbia Sinfonietta;' Antares;^ La Fenice;^ Orpheus CO' • BRIDGE 9191 (60:24)". Fanfare (January–February 2007).
  6. ↑ Scott, Phillip (September 2006). "Classical Recordings: Lerdahl - "Time After Time"; "Marches"; Oboe Quartet; "Waves"". Fanfare. 30 (1).
  7. ↑ "Schott Music". en.schott-music.com. Retrieved 2016-07-19.
  8. ↑ "The Living Composers Project" . Retrieved 15 October 2010.
  9. ↑ "Time After Time". www.pulitzer.org. Retrieved 2016-07-19.
  10. ↑ "String Quartet No. 3". www.pulitzer.org. Retrieved 2016-07-19.
  11. ↑ "American Academy of Arts and Letters - Current Members". www.artsandletters.org. Archived from the original on 2016-06-24. Retrieved 2016-07-19.
  12. ↑ "Arches". www.pulitzer.org. Retrieved 2016-07-19.
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