Arthur Berger

Biography

Arthur Victor Berger (May 15, 1912 – October 7, 2003) was an American composer and music critic who has been described as a New Mannerist.

Biography

Born in New York City, of Jewish descent, Berger studied as an undergraduate at New York University graduating in 1934, during which time he joined the Young Composer's Group, as a graduate student under Walter Piston at Harvard, and with Nadia Boulanger and at the Sorbonne under a Paine Fellowship.
He taught briefly at Mills College and Brooklyn College, then worked briefly at the New York Sun and then for a longer period of time at the New York Herald Tribune. In 1953 he left the paper to teach at Brandeis University where he was eventually named the Irving Fine Professor Emeritus. His notable students there included Gustav Ciamaga and Richard Wernick. He taught occasionally at the New England Conservatory during his retirement.
He co-founded (with Benjamin Boretz), in 1962, Perspectives of New Music, which he edited until 1964. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971. He wrote the first book on Aaron Copland (reprinted 1990, Da Capo Press), and coined the terms octatonic scale and pitch centricity in his "Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky". He died in Boston, Massachusetts, age 91.