Alexander Goehr is an eminent modern composer. His father, Schönberg conductor Walter Goehr, went with his family to England in 1933. Alexander Goehr, who studied in Manchester and in Paris, with Olivier Messiaen, became a prominent representative of the musical avant-garde with the cantata The Deluge (1957), the Piano Trio (1966), the opera Arden must die (1966), the music piece for theatre Triptych (1968-’70), the orchestral work Metamorphosis/Dance (1974), and the String Quartet No. 3 (1975-’76).

Psalm IV (1976) marked Goehr’s transition to a more modal, harmonious style of composing. His compositions included operas such as Behold the Sun (1985), the cantata The Death of Moses (1992), and chamber and orchestral music. As a result of his enthusiasms and travels, especially in Asia, he tried in his compositions — which, in the course of half a century, have been conducted by Oliver Knussen, Pierre Boulez, and Daniel Barenboim, among others — to bring together elements of different musical cultures and times.

Goehr was professor of music at Cambridge University from 1976 to 1999. In autumn 2010, his opera Promised End premieres, which is based on Shakespeare’s King Lear.

YouTube: Alexander Goehr - String Quartet no. 3 (1/3)