“So many composers develop a late style when they are about 50, but Elliott had to wait for his 80s to achieve his,” Rosen wrote in a 2007 essay for the New York Times.Īway from the stage, Rosen could impress others with the breadth of his cultural knowledge. He collaborated with Carter numerous times after the musicians first met in 1956. Rosen’s many albums include the first complete recording of Debussy’s Etudes and Stravinsky’s “Movements for Piano and Orchestra.” He also recorded all of Boulez’s piano works. He loved what he was talking about, and he conveyed that right away. “He had no notes, nothing,” recalled Dean Corey, head of the Philharmonic Society. In 2010, Rosen gave a lecture on Chopin, followed by a recital, at the Irvine Barclay Theatre for the Philharmonic Society of Orange County.

A Times review of a 1997 performance in Santa Barbara described Rosen’s playing of Chopin and Brahms as both “passionate and cerebral.” His piano career took him to major cities around the world and occasionally to Southern California. Rosen eventually enrolled at Princeton University, earning a doctorate in French literature. He studied piano under Moriz Rosenthal, who had been a pupil of Franz Liszt.

In February, Rosen received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama at a White House ceremony.īorn in 1927, Rosen embarked on his music career when his parents enrolled him at the Juilliard School at age 6. An article he wrote on William Congreve is in the current issue of the New York Review of Books, for which he was a frequent contributor. Rosen’s most recent book was “Freedom and the Arts,” a collection of essays on topics including music and literature that was published in May.

“I don’t know if he was being witty or not, but he thought the people who wrote the notes on his records were so inane that he had better write those himself,” said Zerner. His writing career began in part out of a certain professional frustration.

The classical style by charles rosen