[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 7:54 PM Eastern on 13 Aug. See below.]
Protecting 14-year-old composer Jay Greenberg, that is. In our article of 28 November 2004, we wrote, in part:
God (or Whatever), Greenberg's gift, and his own confidence in that gift, protect him from falling into the clutches of "New Music" academics and his less gifted (or no-talent) New Music peers, or, rather, near-peers (in respect of age), who absent that protection might succeed in persuading him he's writing his music in a dead language (i.e., the "dead language" of tonality), and ought to instead compose in a language more this-century. If Greenberg resists, perhaps this century will find in him a composer of genius the likes of which has not been seen since Mozart or Mendelssohn.
Today, in an article written for The New York Times, Matthew Gurewitsch reports:
On Tuesday, Sony Classical will release [Jay Greenberg's] 34-minute Symphony No. 5, recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra under José Serebrier. Rounding out the disc is the 18-minute Quintet for Strings, played by the Juilliard String Quartet and Darrett Adkins, cellist.Way t'go, God (and you, too, Mr. Greenberg)!
Both the symphony and the quintet display a gift for drama and for lyricism, expressed in sophisticated colors and textures. There’s verve in the rhythms and invention in the harmonies; the tunes catch the ear. Movement by movement and start to finish, the architecture has a sturdy logic that does not preclude surprise. It’s an impressive debut. And Mr. Greenberg is just 14.
One curious touch is the occasional flourish of Baroque counterpoint, and while you will not discover a fugue in the strict sense, there are definite fugato passages, in which, somewhat more vaguely, one voice chases another. The young Mr. Greenberg has no objection to the term fugato.
“It’s O.K.,” he said one morning in July. “I wouldn’t sue you for defamation of character.” Then came a little play-acting: “I write pure fugues or nothing at all.”
Update (7:54 PM Eastern on 13 Aug): This afternoon we heard a portion (end of the third, and full fourth movements if we have the total structure of the full piece right) of the new Sony recording of Jay Greenberg's Symphony No. 5 (it was broadcast by WQXR), completed when Greenberg was 13-years-old, and it's nothing short of astonishing. It seemed heavily influenced by Shostakovich, and perhaps evidence of that composer's "voice" is somewhat too much present. But even Mozart himself was a bit (sometimes more than a bit) imitative in his formative years. Hardly cause for criticism in a composer so young, even a composer of manifest genius.
It's The Music, Stupid!
Peggy
