Charles Rosen (1927-2012)

[ahinton]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rosen

RIP

[cmg]

Sorry to learn of this.  "The Classical Style" was a big influence in my student days.  Amazing man with an astonishing career.

[ahinton]

Apparently when, as a young prodigy, he went to play for Godowsky, Godowsky asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he replied that he wanted to be a pianist like Josef Hofmann(!); there's really nothing quite like the indiscretion of youth, is there?!

Best,

Alistair

[apmapmapm]

^ Great story Alistair. =)
I cannot claim to be TOO familiar with Rosen the person as a whole, but as a pianist I came to appreciate him through his recordings of Carter's music and the 2 Boulez sonatas he recorded on LP. The music world has been hit hard recently!

[andhow04]

Charles Rosen is absolutely without a doubt my favorite writer in classical music, the writer that I will go to for the most variety of subjects, and that always seems to have something to offer to inspire.

Not only his book books like Sonata Forms, Romantic Generation, Classical Style, which have pages and pages of useful material, but also his smaller essays and reviews, collected in books like Critical Entertainments and Piano Notes.

In particular Critical Entertainments stands out as the book I go back to the most, reading his views on current musicology, performance practice, specific musicians, and so on.  I always write program notes for my concerts, and check first to see if a piece I am playing was ever thought about by Rosen.

This really paid off when I played the Brahms-Schumann Variations op.9.  In an essay in Critical Entertainments, Rosen discusses this relatively obscure piece at great length, showing how Brahms had a specific goal in mind with his variations, to use in each one a specific idea from Schumann (or Clara) and thus provide sort of a summation of Schumann's musical career.  The theme is from Bünte Blatter, and Rosen shows that one of the variations is an almost exact replica of another movement from Bünte Blatter; but he also shows much deeper levels of connection, including a hidden theme of Clara's, and textures derived from Schumann's non-piano music.  He connects that to a whole rhapsody on the nature of inspiration and influence.

His fantastic critique of modern musicology (not just the Sartre-literary-inspired, but also a long review of New Grove's encyclopedia [!]) is totally entertaining, because while is not at all afraid to demolish arguments, such as the proposition that Beethoven's immortality rests first and foremost on the elites that promoted him rather than musical qualities, he still entertains them as serious ones, showing that an open mind in scholarship can lead to real engagement with ideas and real debates.

I must say I am less taken with his piano music.  When I think of his recordings of Beethoven sonatas that I heard a long time (and didn't keep), it just strikes me as a bit grey-washed and not dramatic in particular.  Somehow they carried much less inspiration for me than his writing.

If it were available, I would recommend everyone also to read his review of Taruskin's seven-or-whatever-volume history of music, but New York Review of Books has it behind a paywall.

I did meet Charles Rosen once a long time ago when I played in a silly piano competition, and he was complimentary of my Bach Prelude and Fugue in g# minor from Book II, though if I may subtly say so one had the idea that he didn't seem interested in being a competition judge to Hear the participants... Still, he would have been my favorite writer had he been nice to me or not.

[cmg]

Charles Rosen obituary in today's New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/arts/music/charles-rosen-pianist-polymath-and-author-dies-at-85.html?pagewanted=1&ref=todayspaper