Perle: Orchestral Works

As is amply evident by the music on this recording, George Perle has found a musical language that is both authentically his own and one that is recognizable as a language which has its antecedents in particular composers from the early part of this century - specifically the music of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky and Bartok. The gradual process by which he arrived at a way of working that he himself could identify as his own was not easy, and serendipity played a part. In 1937, Perle made his first connection with the revolutionary innovations of Schoenberg and his school when he came upon a copy of Alban Berg's Lyric Suite. In its immediate impact on the young Perle it was overwhelming, serving both as an incitement and a confirmation of the potentialities of a disciplined yet still expressive musical language for our time. George Perle's is not a temperament at all given to any kind of woolly mysticism about the nature of things, but even today it is possible to marvel at the way Berg's music effected its way into Perle's youthful imagination. The impact has been eloquently described by Perle himself. He recalls that "I took it to the dormitory piano and within the next five minutes my whole future direction as a composer was established...It wasn't until I came upon the Lyric Suite that I realized that there was something going on in contemporary music that implied really significant new ways of thinking about harmony, rather than some other way of evading the subject..." There is no question that George Perle is an important composer. This new disc will help establish his reputation even further.