‘Spiritual without being sentimental’
Wrote several works concerned with death
Christopher Rouse, a Pulitzer Prize- winning composer known for unpredictable, expressionistic works that immersed listeners in a world of anguish, terror and sensuous beauty, died Sept. 21 in Towson, Md. He was 70.
The cause was complications of renal cancer. Rouse’s final work, Symphony No. 6, is scheduled to première Oct. 18 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and conductor Louis Langrée.
Rare for achieving both critical acclaim and popular success, Rouse wrote chamber and vocal works that were performed around the world. But he was best known for his symphonies and concertos, which featured a sound that cellist Yo- Yo Ma once described as “spiritual without being sentimental, deeply felt without sentimentality.”
Trained in the 1960s and ’ 70s, an era of heady experimentation, he also loved the Romantic tradition of composers such as Brahms, as well as electric guitars and rock motifs. He quoted Jefferson Airplane and made headlines for his eight-person percussion piece Bonham (1988), an ode to Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham.
“To me, loud dynamics have to do with expressive urgency,” Rouse once said.
In 1993, Rouse won the Pulitzer Prize in music for his Trombone Concerto. It was dedicated to Leonard Bernstein, who died in 1990, and was the first of several Rouse works concerned with death. The theme had interested him since the age of eight, when his best friend hanged himself. For a Cub Scout project that year, Rouse reportedly wrote that he would grow up to “be famous for a darkness of sickness” and “be a great American composer.”
By all accounts, Rouse was far from dour and said he kept writing about death simply because friends and family kept dying.
Earning the ironic nickname “Mr. Sunshine,” Rouse went on to write Flute Concerto ( 1993) dedicated to slain toddler James Bulger; Symphony No. 2 ( 1994), which featured an adagio in memory of composer Stephen Albert; and Envoi ( 1995), an orchestral work dedicated to his late mother. After 9/ 11, he completed an apocalyptic, 90- minute Requiem (2002).
From the mid- 1990s, Rouse moved toward lighter material such as Concert de Gaudí, inspired by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, for which he won a Grammy.