He has received numerous commissions over the years from the BBC, beginning with Hecuba’s Lament (1959-61) premiered at the 1961 BBC Proms with John Carewe conducting. Schlussgesang six pieces for viola and orchestra (1996) was premiered by BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 1997 Aldeburgh Festival with Tabea Zimmermann and When Adam Fell (2011-12) was commissioned to celebrate his 80th birthday and premiered with the BBC SO, both with Oliver Knussen conducting.

…second musical offering (GFH 2001) (2001) was a Proms commission premiered by Leonard Slatkin and BBC SO, and BBC Philharmonic and HK Gruber premiered TurmMusik/Tower Music (2009-10) in a festival of Goehr’s music in 2010. Many other world-class orchestras, soloists and conductors have performed his works: The cello concerto Romanza (1968) was written for Jacqueline du Pré and premiere at the 1968 Brighton Festival with Daniel Barenboim and the New Philharmonia Orchestra. Bernard Haitink and the London Philharmonic Orchestra premiered Metamorphosis/Dance (1973-74), Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered Colossos or Panic (1991-92) under Seiji Ozawa and Bamberg Symphony commissioned Two Sarabandes (2014) and premiered the work with Lahav Shani.

Goehr wrote five operas: Arden Must Die, Hamburg 1967; Behold the Sun, Deutsche Oper 1985; Arianna, lost opera by Monteverdi, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1995; Kantan & Damask Drum, Theater Dortmund September 1999; Promised End, derived from King Lear, London 2010; and a music theatre Triptych (1968-70). Promised End (2008-9), based on Shakespeare’s King Lear was premiered in 2010 by English Touring Opera.

After productions of his opera Kantan & Damask Drum (1997-98) in Dortmund and London, Goehr devoted himself almost exclusively to chamber music. Through the chamber music medium he gained an unprecedented rhythmic and harmonic immediacy, while his music remains ever permeable by the music and imagery of other times and places. A series of quintets for different combinations includes Five Objects Darkly (1996), …around Stravinsky (2002) for violin and winds, and Since Brass nor Stone… (2008) for string quartet and percussion, a memorial to Pavel Haas which won a British Composer Award. Marching to Carcassonne (2003) for Peter Serkin and London Sinfonietta, flirts with neoclassicism and Stravinsky. The set of solo piano pieces Symmetries Disorder Reach (2007), a barely disguised baroque suite, was premiered by Huw Watkins and the trio Largo Siciliano (2012) for violin horn and piano was notably performed with pianist Daniel Barenboim. In addition, …between the lines… (2013) was premiered by the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, Verschwindendes Wort (2014-15) was performed by Ensemble Modern, and the quintet after “The Waking” (2016-17) was commissioned by Wigmore Hall and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and premiered by the Nash Ensemble. Goehr’s fifth quartet, Vision of the Soldier Er (2018), was premiered in 2019. Most recently, The Master Said (2016) was premiered by BBC National Orchestra Wales and co-commissioned with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Talea Ensemble gave Double Chaconne with Gaps (2019-2020) its world premiere with Susanne Blumenthal. In celebration of Goehr’s ninetieth birthday, Wigmore Hall hosted a portrait concert of the composer featuring the premiere of Combat of Joseph de la Reina and the Devil (2019-2020) and Cambridge University New Music Group in collaboration with the Britten Sinfonia curated a concert entitled ‘Alexander Goehr: A Retrospective’.

Alexander Goehr was an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a former Churchill Fellow, and in 1997 gave the BBC Reith Lecture. In 2019, Goehr was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society in recognition of his lifelong contribution to musical culture. He was an Emeritus Professor at Cambridge University, and his manuscript archive is curated by the Berlin Akademie der Künste. In December 2022, he was most recently awarded the Ivor Novello award for Outstanding Works Collection.

The collaborative book Composing a Life by Goehr and composer-musicologist and former pupil Jack Van Zandt was published by Carcanet in October 2023. One of Goehr’s final work, Onedering (2023) for string quartet was premiered by the Villiers Quartet at the Royal Northern College of Music to mark the occasion.

Much of Goehr’s music is available on the NMC label, including the discs ‘Colossos or Panic’ (2012), ‘Since Brass, nor Stone’ (2003), and ‘Piano Concerto – Symphony in One Movement’ (1995), and a portrait disc of his orchestral music has been released by Naxos. Collections of his writings can be found in ‘Finding the Key’ (Faber & Faber 1998), and in ‘Fings ain’t wot they used t’be’ (Berlin Akademie der Künste and Wolke-Archive 2012).

The world premiere of Goehr’s Seven Laments for solo clarinet performed by Ib Hausmann will be part of Langenselbolder Klassik-Festival in October 2024 and Ensemble 10:10 conducted by Geoffrey Paterson will perform Sinfonia (1979) in Liverpool in March 2025.

Sandy (to all who knew him) passed away on 26 August 2024 at home in Cambridgeshire.

July 2026

Alexander Goehr is represented worldwide by LoganArts Management Ltd.

For more information, please contact :

Andrew Logan, Director
+44 (0) 7841 582 851 |  info@loganartsmanagement.com
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