On George Perle

George Perle is a unique figure in music. It is hard to find a comparable figure, past or present. In the first instance, Perle is a composer whose music is at once modernist and direct. His work has a central sonic beauty and an economy that is rare among composers who were inspired by the giants of the Second Viennese School. Listening to the Serenade No. 1 for Viola and Chamber Ensemble from 1962 or Transcendental Modulations from 1993, one can appreciate why Perle has been so consistently interested in Alban Berg. Like Berg, Perle uses a twentiethcentury grammar for the organization of pitch in a manner that intensifies and expands the rhetoric of meaning and emotion that we associate with the writing and playing of music of extended duration without words. Perle's music is distinctly his, not imitative, and its expressive authenticity and essential simplicity gives it a compelling character that can be grasped by the listener even the untutored listener on first hearing. Perle's output is restrained and elegant. One wishes that his incidental music to The Birds by Aristophanes would be revived, and it is hoped that his compositions will continue to hold a place in the repertory even though the musical language closest to him is no longer in fashion. But like Berg, Perle's music will find its place in the future as an important part of the musical legacy of the second half of the 20th century. But all this is only part of Perle's achievement. As a writer on music, he is one of the most lucid and persuasive. His writings include seminal books and articles on Berg. Perle's contribution is not only interpretive, it is scholarly, ranging from subjects in the early 20th century Scriabin, for instance to the music of the Middle Ages. It is he who unraveled the secret program of Berg's Lyric Suite. Perle has also written textbooks for the student and writings for the lay reader. We often make an artificial separation, to use Schoenberg's terminology, between heart and mind. Intellectuals and academics are derided as being too abstract in their thinking and distant from emotion and passion. Likewise, so-called artists have assumed the stereotype of anti-intellectual emotionalism. These false