(Photo credit: Tom Hurley)

Composer Alexander Goehr passed away on August 26, 2024 at the age of 92.

The German-born English composer and academic was born on August 10, 1932, in Berlin. His mother Laelia was a classically trained pianist, and his father Walter Goehr, a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, was a conductor and composer. He studied composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where he met Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, Elgar Howarth, and John Ogdon, with whom he founded the New Music Manchester Group. Later, select members of this group would found the Wardour Castle Summer School in Wiltshire. Goehr also studied with Oliver Messiaen at the Conservatoire de Paris, and privately with Yvonne Loriod.

Many of his vocal works focus on socio-political themes, such as his first opera, “Arden Must Die” (“Arden Muss Sterben”), “The Death of Moses,” Behold the Sun,” and his cantata “Babylon the Great is Fallen.” Goehr’s “To These Dark Steps/The Fathers are Watching” is set to texts by Israeli poet Gabriel Levin which depict the bombing of Gaza during the Iraq war (2011–12). The piece premiered marking the composer’s 80th birthday. Non-political vocal works include a homage to Messiaen’s bird vocalizations, “Sing, Ariel” and operas “Arianna,” “Kantan and Damask Drum,” and “Promised End,” among others.

Goehr also published scholarly works such as, “The Theoretical Writings of Arnold Schoenberg,” “Musical Ideas and Ideas about Music,” “Finding the Key: Selected Writings of Alexander Goehr,” and “Schoenberg and Karl Kraus: The Idea behind the Music.”

From 1968–69, he was composer-in-residence at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and went on to teach at Yale University as an associate professor of music. He also lectured at Southampton University, and he was appointed West Riding Professor of Music at the University of Leeds in 1971. Goehr left Leeds in 1976 when he was appointed Professor of Music at Cambridge University, where he taught until his retirement. At Cambridge, he became a fellow of Trinity Hall. In 2004, Goehr was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from the University of Plymouth. His pupils included Thomas Adès, Julian Anderson, and Ye Xiaogang,