Biography and career
Steven Gerber's works include the contrapuntal Fantasy for Solo Violin, which has been recorded on both the CRI and Naxos labels, and Piano Trio, commissioned by the Hans Kindler Foundation.
His composition teachers included Robert Parris, James K. Randall, Earl Kim, and Milton Babbitt.
His early works are in a free atonal style. During his years as a graduate student, he wrote serial and non-twelve-tone works, such as the a cappella choral works "Dylan Thomas Settings" and "Illuminations" (Rimbaud), and throughout the remainder of the 1970s most of his works were twelve-tone. Beginning in the early 1980s, he abandoned twelve-tone composition, with rare exceptions, and his music became much more tonal, for example in his Piano Sonata. Since then his music remained largely tonal, sometimes extremely chromatic, sometimes diatonic.
His music has been reviewed in The New York Times and The Washington Post. His music has been played in the former Soviet Union perhaps more widely than that of any other American composer.
In 2005, the conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy commissioned Gerber to compose an orchestral work. The resulting six-movement suite, Music in Dark Times, was premiered by Ashkenazy with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra on March 25–28, 2009. He died on May 28, 2015, aged 66.
1981 Harmonium: Six Poems of Wallace Stevens, for solo soprano and orchestra1989 Symphony No. 11990 Ode (1st movement of Serenade) for string orchestra1990 Serenade for string orchestra1992 Piano Concerto1992 Dirge and Awakening1993 Violin Concerto1994 Cello Concerto1996 Viola Concerto1998 Serenade Concertante1998 Triple Overture for solo violin, cello and piano and orchestra2000 Spirituals, for string orchestra2002 Fanfare for the Voice of A-M-E-R-I-C-A2002 Clarinet Concerto2004 Symphony No. 2, "Elegies and Fanfares"2005 Two Lyric Pieces, for solo violin and string orchestra2005-08 Music in Dark Times1967 Sonata for violin and piano1967 Woodwind Quartet1968 Trio for violin, cello and piano1969 Duo for cello and piano1969 Duo for violin and cello1971 String Trio1972 Nexus, for violin and percussion1973 String Quartet No. 11977 Duo for flute and piano1978 Dreamwork, for flute, viola, cello, and piano1979 Duo for viola and piano1981 String Quartet No. 21984 Duo in Three Movements for violin and piano1984 Concertino for string quartet and piano1986 Woodwind Quintet1987 Fantasy Quartet for percussion1988 String Quartet No. 31991 Piano Quintet for string quartet and piano1995 String Quartet No. 41996 Notturno, for violin, cello and piano1996 (rev. 2006) Five Canonic Duos, for oboe and bassoon1996 Sonatina for oboe and guitar1997 Three Pieces for Two Violins1999 Prelude and Fugue, for oboe, bassoon, and piano1999 Gershwiniana, for 3 violins (or 2 violins and viola)2000 String Quartet No. 52001 Three Folksong Transformations, for violin, cello, and piano2002 Spirituals, for clarinet and string quartet2003-1997 Fantasy, Fugue, and Chaconne, for 2 cellos or viola and cello2003 Five Greek Folksongs (after Ravel), for violin and piano2007 Dialogues, for clarinet and piano2009 Two Antiphonal Pieces, for cello and piano2010 Norma's Variations, for violin and piano2011 String Quartet No. 62011 Spirituals (Book II), for flute and cello1966 Three French Songs (Baudelaire and Verlaine), for high voice and piano1967 After the Funeral (Thomas), for baritone and string trio1974 Doria: Three Poems of Ezra Pound, for soprano and piano1974 "My Papa's Waltz" and Other Songs (Williams, Moore, Plath, Roethke), for soprano and piano1975 Black Hours: Five Sonnets of Gerard Manley Hopkins, for soprano and piano1976 Two Lyrics of Gerard Manley Hopkins, for soprano and string trio1978 Sestina: Altaforte (Pound), for baritone and piano1978 Songs from "The Wild Swans at Coole" (Yeats), for high voice and piano1982 Desert Places: Five Poems of Robert Frost, for high voice and piano1984 Drum-Taps: Three Patriotic Poems (Frost, Whitman, Emerson), for soprano and piano1985 Words for Music Perhaps (Yeats), for soprano and two violins1986 Four Elegiac Songs (Hopkins, Yeats, Shakespeare, Dryden), for high voice and piano1988 Six Songs of William Shakespeare, for medium voice and piano2012 Five Shakespeare Songs, for voice and piano1972 Dylan Thomas Settings1972 Illumination (Rimbaud)1973 Ceremony After a Fire Raid (Thomas)1985 Four Choruses from Une Saison en Enfer (Rimbaud)1985 Une Saison en Enfer (Rimbaud), for solo high baritone or tenor, chorus, and piano2004 Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought (5 Sonnets of William Shakespeare)1966 Two Toccatas1970 Variations1976 Voices1982 Piano Fantasy: Homage to Copland (first movement of Piano Sonata)1982 Piano Sonata1985 Two Intermezzi1989 Cocktail Music (Song Without Words)1967 Fantasy for violin1971 Epithalamium for flute1977 Fantasy1978 High Wood for oboe1987 Three Songs Without Words (arranged from Words for Music Perhaps) for violin1991 Elegy on the Name "Dmitri Shostakovich" for viola (or cello) - dedicated to Elena Ozol2005 Duet for Solo Clarinet2013 Soliloquy for Solo Bassoon - composed for bassoonist Bryan YoungArticles
Interview with 21st Century Music: Food for Thought with Steven GerberInterview with Sequenza21Essay on Orchestration, by Steven Gerber for New Music Box Keeping America Real: Essay on Steven Gerber by Robert ReillySpirituals for String Orchestra; Clarinet Concerto; Serenade Concertante
St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony/Vladimir Lande, conductor
Jon Manasse, clarinet; Jose Miguel Cueto, violin; Natalia Malkova, violin
Arabesque CD Z6803
Symphony No. 1; Dirge and Awakening; Viola Concerto; Triple Overture
Russian Philharmonic Orchestra/Thomas Sanderling, conductor
Lars Anders Tomter, viola
The Bekova Sisters:
Elvira Bekova, violin
Alfia Bekova, cello
Eleonora Bekova, piano
Chandos CD 9831
Violin Concerto; Cello Concerto; Serenade for String Orchestra
National Chamber Orchestra/Piotr Gajewski, conductor
Kurt Nikkanen, violin; Carter Brey, cello
KOCH International Classics KIC-CD-7501
Fantasy; Three Songs Without Words
Curtis Macomber, violin
Composers Recordings, Inc. CD 706
Une Saison en Enfer
The New Calliope Singers/Peter Schubert, conductor
William Parker, baritone; Steven R. Gerber, piano
Composers Recordings, Inc. CD 638
Elegy on the Name "Dmitri Shostakovich"; Françoise Renard, viola
Suoni e Colori SC 53006
Gershwiniana for three violins; 3 Folksong Transformations; 3 Pieces for two violins; Notturno for piano trio; Elegy on the Name Dmitri Shostakovich for viola; 3 Songs Without Words; Fantasy for violin; Duo for violin and cello; Piano Trio
Kurt Nikkanen, violin and viola; Cho-Liang Lin, violin; Cyrus Beroukhim, violin; Brinton Averil Smith, cello; Sara Davis Buechner, piano
Naxos 8.559618
