Alexander Goehr, composer
Alexander Goehr is a composer for whom the conventional labels of new music seem increasingly inadequate. A latent nonconformism is already suggested by the essential biographical facts. He was born in Berlin in 1932, son of the conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr. Still in his early twenties, he emerged as a key figure in the celebrated ‘Manchester School’ of post-war British composers. In 1955-56 he joined Oliver Messiaen’s masterclass in Paris. Thereafter, he worked as a BBC produc...