Eric S notapenguin's blog: "musicstuffs"

... died yesterday of complications from a chest infection.

Neither a least favorite nor a "top-ten" composer of mine but he did write some fine stuff, including a symphony for brass that I think the Brown University orchestra tackled in a concert I went to while my sister was there (at the uni and in its orchestra, as hornist).

...Probably best-known for his film music which I don't yet know- I do like some of what I know of his concert work (the sixth of his nine symphonies probably best of the six of them that I've heard, have also heard some other memorable - I say that positively - music- some works I wasn't so inclined to hear again though memorable in that other way, I guess. I might see if I can give one such work, his fourth symphony, another chance; it's been since 1990 or so since that time I heard it :) I do mean and stand by what I said elsewhere- inventive composer and from what I have heard both deep and witty; what I know of works I haven't yet heard- that 9th symphony that's been recorded twice and which I've read much about and am curious about, yes... - suggests that he could be not only deeply witty (to recall- it was either Rorem's or Lambert's distinction between the French and the German as deeply superficial and superficially deep...!) - but also could be quite deep.

The moment of the works I've heard that sticks in the mind most, though... the jig in the second(?) movement of his second string quartet which starts in popular mood, very jaunty!... and is then struck by attacks physical and dissonant. EEP.

(And that same 6th symphony, as pointed out on a website, both pays homage to Charlie Parker- and one of its three movements is strictly serial; a point I'd never caught...)

My thanks to the soul of a musician for adding to music in so many ways...