# RIP Charles Rosen



## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

Charles Rosen, my favorite contemporary writer on music, and a great pianist, died yesterday. RIP.

He was most famous for writing popular but quite difficult books like the _The Classical Style_ and _The Romantic Generation_. In his later years he wrote many essays, some of which were collected and published as _Critical Entertainments_ and _Freedom and the Arts_. Personally I enjoyed those more than the earlier writings. He made many recordings over the course of a long career, and his _Goldberg Variations_ and Beethoven Late Piano Sonatas, among others, are still highly regarded. This an extract from the Preface he wrote for a book about his piano teacher Moriz Rosenthal:

_When I was young, I had rather austere tastes, and I once said to Rosenthal that I did not care for the somewhat sentimental section in A flat from Brahms's fine Rhapsody in E-flat, op. 119, no. 4. Rosenthal remarked, "That passage always seemed to me like the gesture of a man who has been having a great time on the town for the whole evening, and later sitting on his bed before retiring, tosses his slippers away," and he illustrated this with the first bar of Brahms's melody. Now that I have grown to like this page of Brahms, I unfortunately have Rosenthal's image come to my mind at this place every time I perform the piece._











There's a video interview here, from many years later: http://martinperlichinterviews.com/archives/interviews/charles-rosen-2/


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Sad to hear about his passing. I have listened to his recordings, of Webern, Stravinsky, and so forth, but I would like to read his work at some point.


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

He will be missed . I took a graduate course on musical and other criticism with him at Stony Brook university back in the 1980s. It was a great experience .


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

This protean musician and musicologist had a master's degree in French, no diplomas in music! His contributions were many, the performances, that brilliant 'the classical style' which any player should at least try to plummet. A long and very amazing life. R.I.P. indeed, Mr. Rosen.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I remember now that I have in fact read Mr. Rosen's short introduction to Schoenberg. It was a few years ago, so it slipped my mind. I will have to read _The Classical Style_ now.


----------



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Read "The Classical Style" whehn it first came out and was blown away. Attended a one-off lecture on "Thematic Transformation in Late Beethoven" that was very impressive, and his recording of the Hammerklavier sonata finally brought the slow movement into focus for me. An amazing musical mind.


----------



## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Reading _The Classical Style_ opened my eyes in a way that few other books have. I cannot begin to list what I learned from it, nor measure how I thought about music in a new way because of it, or was inspired by it. He was also my favourite contemporary music writer. I am really very sad to hear this.


----------



## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

RIP, one of the great minds of our time. He will be missed.


----------



## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Sad news, indeed. _The Classical Style: Haydn - Mozart - Beethoven_ is a book that I have read, and reread, and every time I pick it up I find something else to underline. The recording below is a prized album in my collection.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Rosen introduced the late Beethoven piano sonatas to me through his recordings. Then I discovered his books. Then I heard him playing Webern, which made him way cool in my book. He'll be a difficult person to replace.


----------



## Guest (Dec 11, 2012)

I just ordered his most recent book, _Freedom and the Arts: Essays on Music and Literature_, and late Beethoven Sonatas.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Remembering Charles Rosen, a prodigious pianost and polymath.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/12/10/166876593/remembering-charles-rosen-a-prodigious-pianist-and-polymath


----------



## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

I was very sad to read of Charles Rosen's passing.
Members have concentrated on his serious side,but there was another side to this artist.
Remember that his teachers were Mr. and Mrs. Moritz Rosenthal and Rosenthal was one of the greatest virtuosos of all time.
I have an LP (original Epic recording) of Rosen playing virtuoso piano transcri[ptions.
It includes such things as Strauss/Godowsky "Wine Women and Song", Schubert/Liszt "Soirees De Vienne" and Strauss/Tausig "You Only Live Once".
A different take on Charles Rosen,it certainly took me by surprise.
I wish somebody would put it on to CD.


----------



## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

moody said:


> I was very sad to read of Charles Rosen's passing.
> Members have concentrated on his serious side,but there was another side to this artist.
> Remember that his teachers were Mr. and Mrs. Moritz Rosenthal and Rosenthal was one of the greatest virtuosos of all time.
> I have an LP (original Epic recording) of Rosen playing virtuoso piano transcri[ptions.
> ...


I've listened to that recording on Youtube!


----------



## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

I had the privilege of hearing him play the Hammerklavier Sonata and the Diabelli Variations in an all Beethoven programme in a small venue a long time ago. I'm not sure any concert since has had such an impact on me.


----------

