Fred Lerdahl

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.

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.

Life Alfred Whitford "Fred" Lerdahl was born on March 10, 1943, in Madison, Wisconsin. 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 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.

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. 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." 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."

List of compositions

Source:

Orchestral Chords, large orchestra (12 winds, 11 brass, harp, piano, percussion, violas, cellos, double basses), 1974–83 Cross-Currents, large orchestra (12 winds, 10 brass, harp, piano, percussion, strings), 1987 Waves, small orchestra (8 winds, 2 French horns, strings), 1988 Without Fanfare, small orchestra (12 winds, 11 brass, 3 percussion), 1994 Quiet Music, large orchestra (12 winds, 11 brass, harp, piano, percussion, strings), 1994 (also version for 2 pianos) Spirals, orchestra (8 winds, 2 French horns, 2 trumpets, piano, percussion, strings), 2006 Arches, cello, small orchestra (22 players), 2011 Time and Again, small orchestra, 2014

Chamber music String Trio, violin, viola, cello, 1966 Imitations, flute, harp, viola, 1977, revised 2001 String Quartet No. 1, 1978, revised 2008 Waltzes, violin, viola, cello, double bass, 1981 Episodes and Refrains, flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn, bassoon, 1982 Fantasy Etudes, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion, 1985 Marches, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, 1992 Time after Time, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion, 2000 Imbrications, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion, 2001 Oboe Quartet, oboe, violin, viola, cello, 2002 Duo, violin, piano, 2005 String Quartet No. 2, 1982–2010 String Quartet No. 3, 2008 Arches, cello, ensemble (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, trumpet, trombone, harp, 2 violins, viola, double bass, piano, 2 percussion), 2010 (also version for cello, small orchestra [22 players]) There and Back Again, cello, 2010 Times 3, violin, cello, piano, 2012 Give and Take, violin, cello, 2014 String Quartet no. 4 "Chaconne", 2016 Three Bagatelles, violin, guitar, 2016 Duo, cello, piano, 2017 Chords, version for 13 instruments, 2018 Cyclic Descent, piano and large ensemble, 2018 Reflection, flute, clarinet, piano, 2020

Choral Cornstalks (text by Richard Wilbur), 16 mixed voices, 2012

Vocal Wake (text by James Joyce), soprano, harp, violin, viola, cello, 3 percussion, 1967–68 Aftermath (dramatic cantata, text by the composer), soprano, alto, baritone, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, harp, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass), 1973 Eros (text by Ezra Pound), mezzo-soprano, alto flute, harp, electric guitar, viola, bass guitar, piano, 2 percussion, 1975 Beyond the Realm of Bird (text by Emily Dickinson), soprano, orchestra (8 winds, French horn, trumpet, trombone, harp, piano, percussion, strings), 1984 The First Voices (text by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, translated by John H. Moran and Alexander Gode), soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, 8 percussion, 2007 Fire and Ice (text by Robert Frost), high soprano, double bass, 2015

Piano Piano Fantasy, 1964 Quiet Music, two pianos, 2001 (version of orchestral work) Three Diatonic Studies, 2004–09 Inner Life, two pianos, 2022

Discography String Quartet No. 1 (original version). Juilliard String Quartet (Composers Recordings, Inc.: CRI 551, 1987 [reissued as New World Records: NWCR551, 2007]) Waltzes; Fantasy Etudes; Eros; Wake. Bethany Beardslee, soprano; Beverly Morgan, mezzo-soprano; Rolf Schulte, violin; Scott Nickrenz, viola; Fred Sherry, cello; Donald Palma, double bass; Robert Beaser/Musical Elements; David Epstein/Boston Symphony Chamber Players; Fred Lerdahl/Collage (Composers Recordings, Inc.: CRI 580, 1991 [reissued as New World Records: NWCR580, 2007; Bridge Records: 9269; Bridge Records: 9391; and New World Records: NWCRL378]) Waves. Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon: 435 389–2, 1992, reissued as Bridge Records: 9191) Fantasy Etudes. eighth blackbird (eighth blackbird, 1999) Time after Time; Marches; Oboe Quartet; Waves. Antares; La Fenice; Jeffrey Milarsky/Columbia Sinfonietta; Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (Bridge Records: 9191, 2006, reissue of Deutsche Grammophon: 435 389-2) Cross-Currents; Waltzes; Duo; Quiet Music (original version). Rolf Schulte, violin; Scott Nickrenz, viola; Fred Sherry, cello; Donald Palma, double bass; James Winn, piano; Paul Mann/Odense Symphony (Bridge Records: 9269, 2008 [partial reissue of Composers Recordings, Inc.: CRI 580, New World Records: NWCR580]) String Trio; Piano Fantasy. Robert Miller, piano; members of The Composers Quartet (New World Records: NWCRL319, c. 2009) String Quartets Nos. 1–3. Daedalus Quartet (Bridge Records: 9352, 2011) The First Voices. Frank Epstein/New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble (Naxos Records: 8.559684, 2011) Eros. Beverly Morgan, mezzo-soprano; Fred Lerdahl/Collage (New World Records: NWCRL378, 2011, reissue of Composers Recordings, Inc.: CRI 580) Spirals; Three Diatonic Studies; Imbrications; Wake; Fantasy Etudes. Bethany Beardslee, soprano; Mirka Viitala, piano; eighth blackbird; Michel Galante/Argento Ensemble; David Epstein/Boston Symphony Chamber Players; Scott Yoo/Odense Symphony (Bridge Records: 9391, 2013, reissue of Composers Recordings, Inc.: CRI 580, New World Records: NWCR580) There and Back Again. Anssi Karttunen, cello (Toccata Classics: TOCC0171, 2013) There and Back Again, String Quartet no. 4 "Chaconne", Fire and Ice, Three Bagatelles, Arches (orchestral version). (Bridge Records: 9522, 2020)

Awards

1966, Koussevitzky Composition Prize 1967, MacDowell Colony Fellowship 1971, 1988 Composer Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters 1974, Guggenheim Fellowship 1977, Naumburg Recording Award 1982, Martha Baird Rockefeller Recording Award 1991, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship 1999, Doctor of Fine Arts (honorary degree), Lawrence University 2001, Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Music (for Time after Time) 2002, ASCAP-Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award (for Tonal Pitch Space) 2003, Wallace Berry Distinguished Book Award (for Tonal Pitch Space) 2010, Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Music (for String Quartet No. 3) 2010, Member, American Academy for Arts and Letters 2011, Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Music (for Arches)