Gerald Strang
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Gerald Strang (February 13, 1908 – November 2, 1983) was an American composer who later in life turned to electronic and computer music. Early in his career he worked with Arnold Schoenberg as a teaching assistant and became one of the disciples of Schoenberg's American period.
Strang was born in Claresholm, Alberta and studied at Stanford University and the University of Southern California, where he completed a PhD in 1948. His teachers included Charles Koechlin and Ernst Toch. He was Arnold Schoenberg's teaching assistant at UCLA between 1936 and 1938. In 1967 Strang edited Schoenberg's Fundamentals of Musical Composition for publication.
Strang became a lifelong teacher, at Long Beach City College (1938–58), San Fernando Valley State College (1958–65, where he founded the music department and taught Harold Budd), and California State University, then returning to Long Beach (1965–9) and UCLA (1969–74). In the 1930s he contributed to and (from 1936) acted as the managing editor of the New Music Society of California's New Music journal. During the war he interrupted his musical activities, working as an engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company. He also worked as a building design consultant and acoustician, consulting on some 25 newly built auditoriums in California and other states.
Until 1960 Strang composed mostly instrumental works, and at the beginning of his career was regarded as one of the early Californian modernists, a group headed by Henry Cowell. Cowell's direct influence is evident in the tone clusters used in his early piano piece Eleven (1931), and in the polyrhythms of Percussion Music (1936). His style was "strongly formal, with a unifying technical idea determining the content". From 1960 he began to focus in on electronic and computer-generated music, frequently working on compositions at Bell Labs in New Jersey, where his series of works under the title Compusition were composed on an IBM 7090 (and later 7094) computer. From 1969 he was lecturer in electronic music as UCLA. His final works for synthesizer were composed for the Synclavier II at Long Beach.
Strang died during open heart surgery in 1983. He was survived by his wife Eileen, a cellist.
- Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 (arr. A. Schoenberg): I. Allegro - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Radio Annoucement - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- I vespri siciliani: Overture - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 (arr. A. Schoenberg): II. Intermezzo - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: I. Allegro con brio - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 (arr. A. Schoenberg): III. Andante con moto - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: II. Andante con moto - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 (arr. A. Schoenberg): IV. Rondo alla zingarese - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: III. Allegro - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (arr. of Handel's Concerto grosso, Op. 6, No. 7): I. Largo - Allegro - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: IV. Allegro - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (arr. of Handel's Concerto grosso, Op. 6, No. 7): II. Largo - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg), Act I: Prelude - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (arr. of Handel's Concerto grosso, Op. 6, No. 7): III. Allegretto grazioso - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (arr. of Handel's Concerto grosso, Op. 6, No. 7): IV. Hornpipe: Moderato - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Intermezzo - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- 3 Preludes: No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor: Andante con moto e poco rubato (arr. D. Broekman) - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- Klemperer talks with Peter Heyworth about Gershwin and Schoenberg - Klemperer in Los Angeles - Gerald Strang
- IV - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Percussion Music: Percussion Music: I. Alla Marcia - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Percussion Music: Percussion Music: II. Moderato - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Percussion Music: Percussion Music: III. Rondino - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Percussion, opus 14 - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Vigilante 1938 (A Dance) - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- March - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Auto Accident - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Three Inventories of Casey Jones: Three Inventories of Casey Jones: One - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Three Inventories of Casey Jones: Three Inventories of Casey Jones: Two - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Three Inventories of Casey Jones: Three Inventories of Casey Jones: Three - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Three Movements for Percussion: Three Movements for Percussion: Restless - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Three Movements for Percussion: Three Movements for Percussion: Endless - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Three Movements for Percussion: Three Movements for Percussion: Tactless - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Dance Rhythms - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Waltz - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Percussion Suite: Percussion Suite: I. - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Percussion Suite: Percussion Suite: II. - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Percussion Suite: Percussion Suite: III. - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
- Return - Restless, Endless, Tactless - Gerald Strang
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