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When he moved to Cincinnati in 1978, we
fell out of touch for the better part of a decade. I am under
the impression that his years at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory
of Music were among his happiest and most productive. There
he established his reputation as a compelling teacher and mentor.
He wrote program notes for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
and became its composer-in-residence and new-music advisor.
He carried out this role superbly, managing to persuade the
orchestra to perform many challenging new pieces. And these
were creative years for Jonathan. He composed a series of highly
original works based on six-note sets, exploiting in each case
the intervallic possibilities to their fullest. One brilliant
example is Atlanta Licks, an elegant and witty piece
that obliquely evokes elements of jazz while integrating them
into his modernist style. He also published two important books,
Listen to the Music and The Time of Music. The
former, a compilation of his program notes for the Cincinnati
Symphony, showcases his skill with words and his ability to
convey complex material in an accessible fashion. Gunther Schuller
recently mentioned to me that he thinks this the best book of
its kind. The Time of Music expresses Jonathan's abiding
interest in rhythm and time in a unique amalgam of music theory,
perceptual research, imaginative speculation, and insightful
analysis of a wide variety of classical and contemporary works.
It is a permanent contribution.
The last and longest phase in Jonathan's and my friendship has
been at Columbia, to which he moved in 1988 and I in 1991. The
friendship included our wives and children, and we enjoyed doing
things together as families. His creative work in the 1990s
took a postmodern turn that germinated from his earlier reaction
to Stockhausen. He was very aware of the diversity and fragmentation
of modern life. Rather than limiting his response by espousing
any particular version of musical truth, he chose to embrace
this diversity and to make it a part of his aesthetic. In his
writings he challenged the conventional virtues of unity and
organicism. It is not an exaggeration to say that for Jonathan
pluralism became an ethical stance. His compositions now juxtaposed
and integrated contrasting musical styles, leading to a kind
of music that incorporates its own commentary. A fine example
is the piano trio Surreality Check, which is so magical and
subtle in its stylistic transformations that it achieves, ironically,
a meta-level of organic unity. Jonathan recently wrote a book
on musical postmodernism that I understand is now complete in
revised and publishable form. |
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