ADAGIO for Orchestra (1992) Schott 8:15’
2Picc–2Fl–3Ob,EH–3Cl,BCl–3Bsn,Cbsn / 4–4–4–1 / Timp, Cel, Hp, / Strings
First performance April 13, 1993, New York: Baltimore Symphony, cond. David Zinman
Albany CD, Troy #292 (Seattle Symphony, Schwarz)

“George Perle’s Adagio, played in honor of the composer’s 80th birthday, stands in the tradition of Bruckner and Mahler. The difference lies in attitudes toward the long line: Perle’s line is created out of poignantly halting, yearning, aspiring gestures that constantly regroup to ask still further questions instead of finding resolutions — a process, the piece tells us, that is more important than arriving at answers. This is a masterly work.”
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, Aug. 12, 1995

“Mr. Perle has long been among the more lyrical advocates of post-tonal writing, and with every new score his language seems warmer and more lovingly poetic.”
— Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, August 16, 1995

“Perle is among our most accomplished and reliable composers. …Like much of Perle’s work, the Adagio is chromatic, ‘accessible’ in its appeal to a general audience (but never condescendingly populist in the way it directs that appeal), beautifully constructed and tenderly, almost deferentially, rueful.”
— Tim Page, New York Newsday, April 15, 1993

“The concert opened with George Perle’s Adagio for Orchestra, …eight minutes of music by one of our best composers that made a superb introduction to the 80-minute Mahler symphony. With a rich Berg-like expressiveness in the lower strings and sinuous lines and keening by the high brass, Perle evoked the night in which the Mahler Seventh resides.”
— Stephen Wigler, The Baltimore Sun, June 17, 1994

CONCERTINO for Piano, Winds, and Timpani (1979) Schott 9’
2–2–2–2 / 2–2–2–0 / Timp.
First performance April 20, 1979, Chicago: Morey Ritt, Contemporary Chamber Players of the University of Chicago, cond. Ralph Shapey
Nonesuch CD #79108 (Goode, Schwarz)

CONCERTO for Cello and Orchestra (1966) Presser 17’
2(Picc)–2–2–2 / 4–3–3–1 / Timp, Perc, Cel, Hp / Strings
First performance Nov. 14, 15, 1987, New York City: André Emelianoff and the New York Chamber Symphony, cond. Gerard Schwarz

CONCERTO NO. 1 for Piano and Orchestra (1990) Schott 25’
4(Picc)–3,EH–4(BsCl)–4(Cbsn) / 4–4–3–1 / Timp, Perc, Cel, Hp / Strings
First performance Jan. 24, 25, 26, 1991, San Francisco: Richard Goode and the San Francisco Symphony, cond. David Zinman
Albany CD, Troy #292 (Seattle Symphony, Boriskin, Schwarz)

“… [A] fine new piano concerto, full of grace, color and appealing personal qualities… Here is a work with a fresh sound, a direct manner that draws the listener along with a surprising ease and graciousness. Perle uses a large orchestra but as a discrete palette, not an arsenal. A subtle craft serves an imagination that is as artful as it is lively. …The heartland and the surprise is the Adagio. There the piano establishes a warm and highly personal…revery, and in a most unexpected manner. It comes from the realm of fine modern jazz, something of the feeling of the late Bill Evans. …Not the jazz style as such, for Perle’s language is far richer and more sophisticated, but it is in that spirit and the jazz way of comfortable keyboard speakingsinging. The finale sparkles. It was in the best sense, the composer at play, not pursuing a process game and not showing off, but just letting the music dance.”
— Robert Commanday, The San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 26, 1991.

“…George Perle’s Piano Concerto emerged on first hearing a scintillating 25-minute opus, a frisky showpiece for soloist and orchestra, audible proof of the composer’s love affair with the keyboard and an affirmation of his flirtation with what he considers a humane atonalism. …The complexity of the four-movement concerto, its intricate piano part and the remarkably adroit orchestration, invite close scrutiny. But there’s no doubt that Perle’s purpose is bedazzlement. Ears that yield to the piece’s antic spirit should be captivated. …The wonder of the work is the enormous size of the orchestra (especially in the triple and quadruple winds) and the calculated modesty with which Perle deploys these forces. Yet the various dialogues, off-side commentaries and conference calls between piano and orchestra, and the sheer speed and vivacity of the exchange prove both challenging and diverting. …Every page seems to bring a new exchange, a refinement and restatement of thought, much like what happens when a new participant enters a group conversation, inevitably altering the progress of the discourse. The epigrammatic skill shown by Perle in his piano etudes is extended here on a broader scale. …The lyrical center of the concerto comes with the Adagio, as the pianist intones a ravishing melody with curiously bluesy inflections. The final Allegro provides pyrotechnics aplenty amid the shifting rhythms and cascading arpeggios.”
— Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Examiner, January 25, 1991

“…The Perle Concerto, played by pianist Michael Boriskin, was the revelation of the afternoon. Written in 1990 by the genius-award MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize winner, it is a genuine masterpiece. The Allegro first movement is astonishingly long, as long as the other three movements added together. The perky, sprightly piano and the huge orchestra (four of every woodwind and brass, etc.) create an antiphony of questions and answers, answers and questions, sardonic mockings where each imitates the other. It ends with a plaintive sigh from the English horn. The scampering Scherzo is held together by ligaments of iron and sinews of steel. The Adagio begins with a long piano solo, as moving and as beautiful as anything in contemporary music, and ends with another contemplative piano solo that brings tears to the eyes. The final Allegro, a grand summation, is as show-offy as a circus gallop. Here’s another cadenza and a shorter, mini-cadenza, and an absolutely surprising ending that reaches out and grabs you by the throat. George Perle is an original. No one writes like him…”
— Faubion Bowers, American Record Guide, Jan./Feb., 1999

CONCERTO NO. 2 for Piano and Orchestra (1992) Schott 18’
2(Picc)–2–2–2 / 4–2–0–0 / Timp, 2 Perc / Strings
First performance Jan. 28, 29, 1993, Columbus, OH: Michael Boriskin, Columbus Symphony, cond. Joseph Silverstein
Harmonia Mundi CD # 907124 (Utah Symphony, Boriskin, Silverstein)

“Perle’s Concerto manifests many familiar structural and compositional techniques. In form and scale, it is a traditional classical concerto: three movements in the fast-slow-fast tempo pattern, and the outer movements offer the soloist grand cadenzas for dramatic and technical display. Perle’s clear manner of motivic and thematic development, and the continual conversational ensemble between orchestra and soloist, can’t help but win one’s admiration. It was obvious, even on first hearing, that this concerto is wonderfully crafted music. In particular, the first movement, with its raucous main theme, gives the soloist many moments with flair and humor.”
— Barbara Zuck, The Columbus Dispatch, January 30, 1993

“With music director Joseph Silverstein helming the [Utah Symphony] and Perle specialist Michael Boriskin at the keyboard, the result Friday was an appealing example of what Perle calls his ‘12-tone tonality,’ sprightly and playful in the outer movements yet remarkably evocative , a la Webern, in the central Adagio. …In short, it is witty and imaginative.”
— William S. Goodfellow, Deseret News (Utah), Feb. 6, 1993

DANCE FANTASY (formerly “Dance Overture”) (1986) Schott 10’
3(Picc)–3(EH)–3–2,Cbsn / 4–3–3–1 / Timp, Perc, Cel, Hp / Strings
First performance May 16, 17, 18, 1987, Houston, TX: Houston Symphony Orchestra, cond. Sergiu Comissiona

“A cogent, lavishly orchestrated work that has the sound, character and drive of a ballet score, offered in miniature.”
— Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, April 13, 1989

“The Perle is all playfulness and delicate colors. …The music shatters dance meters into fragments, creating dances glimpsed, dances partly remembered. The elusiveness formulates into a powerful coda of repeated notes that comes fairly near to frenzy.”
— Bernard Holland, The New York Times, March 12, 1992

“The Perle … is a work of bubbling rhythmic wit and ingenuity. …Wonderfully lyrical. Here he breaks the melodic lines into fragments and parcels them out among the instruments like mosaic tiles. Under Schwarz’ baton one heard all the humor and vitality, as well as sudden moments of tenderness. It was delightful.”
— Peter Goodman, New York Newsday, March 12, 1992

“Perle cast his 11-minute Dance Fantasy (premiered by the Houston Symphony in 1987) in the shape of introduction, variations, scherzo and moto perpetuo. It’s full of homages (to Stravinsky and Debussy’s Jeux, among others), yet sustains a high level of rhythmic invention. Balanchine might have loved it and he might have relished Blomstedt’s conducting, too.”
— Allan Ulrich, The San Francisco Examiner, Sept. 12, 1991

NEW FANFARES for Brass Ensemble (1987) Schott 2’
4–3–3–0
First performance August 1, 1987, Tanglewood: Contemporary Music Festival

A SHORT SYMPHONY (1980) Schott 15’
3(Picc.)–3(EH)–2–2,Cbsn / 4–2–3–1 / Timp, Perc, Cel, Hp / Strings.
First performance August 16, 1980, Tanglewood: Boston Symphony Orchestra, cond. Seiji Ozawa

“[The Short Symphony] is a work of great formal ingenuity, ending exactly where it began, dramatizing and reconciling music of different tempos and different characters. But formal ingenuity isn’t the point, any more than it is the point in the music of Alban Berg, the subject of Perle’s lifelong study. Above all, this is expressive music, not ‘expressionistic,’ like Berg’s, but full of sensitivity and imagination, and seeing no need to parade its feelings, which are no less profound because they remain so intimately private. The short symphony is also exceptionally beautiful to listen to because of the lucidity of the argument and Perle’s ear for textures at once transparent and glistening. On its own scale, it is as much a Concerto for Orchestra as Bartok’s blazing work heard last week; one of the pleasures of hearing it is that Perle obviously conceived the work in spatial terms. the music moves around the orchestra in a delightful way, but it never loses its hold on the listener.”
— Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, March 4, 1994

SINFONIETTA I (1987) Schott 14’
1–2–1–2 / 2–1–0–0 / Timp, Xyl / Strings.
First performance Jan. 29, 30, 1988, Saint Paul, MN: Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, cond. David Zinman

“The Sinfonietta draws on the symphony of the 18th century for its form: three movements in the fast-slow- fast pattern. …The outer movements are essentially cheerful in tone, while the slow movement, with its caressing phrases for solo oboe and clarinet, strikes a note of grave melancholy. At times the work’s harmonic language evokes the 18th century. But the music’s darker colorings make it clear that this is a work of our own time — a sophisticated mind referring to the 18th century, not imitating it. …In all, it’s a pleasing, thoughtful work that surely will take its place in the modern chamber-orchestra repertoire.”
— Michael Anthony, Saint Paul (MN) Star Tribune, Feb. 1, 1988

“It is high praise, then, to say that George Perle’s Sinfonietta…made an agreeable pair with Mozart’s Piano Concerto in F Major (K. 459). …The Sinfonietta is lucidly put together. The slow movement, a songful conversation between the woodwind soloists, with strings in the background, is the most accessible of the three. The first movement is a work of Mozartean elegance, its spiky harmonies notwithstanding. And the last is filled with gentle humor, not the least in its valedictory reference to the music of the opening movement. Here as elsewhere, Perle works with a sure, light, hand.”
— Michael Fleming, St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press Dispatch, January 30, 1989

“On paper, George Perle’s new Sinfonietta has the look of the 18th century. There is the same uncomplicated instrumentation, the clarity of texture and the appearance, as well, of lightfooted Rococo elegance. At Saturday night’s concert by the New York Chamber Symphony at the 92nd Street Y, the ear confirmed all these qualities even if, in the hearing, Mr. Perle’s slow movement offers dark clarinet colors that clearly go past Mozart to occupy the more recent world of Alban Berg. …Mr. Perle’s music is by him and of his world, but it traces its ancestry with clarity.
— Bernard Holland, The New York Times, March 14, 1989

SINFONIETTA II (1990) Schott 15’
2(2Picc)–2(EH)–2(PiccCl)–2(Cbsn) / 2–2–1–0 / Timp, Perc, Hp / Strings
First performance Feb. 19, 20, 21, 22, 1991, San Francisco: San Francisco Symphony, cond. Herbert Blomstedt
Albany CD, Troy #292 (Seattle Symphony, Schwarz)

“The 16-minute Sinfonietta II is disarmingly communicative… The architecture of the work, with two Scherzos framing the central slow movement, reveals Perle’s typical daring within a typically conservative framework. Perhaps the most appealing aspect of Sinfonietta is its constant feeling of destination. Even though it flaunts its mild dissonances and revels in its ceaseless activity, the piece is always going somewhere. The slight lilting quality in the opening subject spreads rapidly through the string sections, as the vibraphone hammers out a contrasting tune. Dramatic climbs and descents of the scale predominate. The winds assume a playfully stalking role. Chorales and Diversions, the piece’s quasi-rondo shows of Perle’s gifts as orchestrator. He offers a contrast to the rumblings of trombone and bassoon with flute interjections and comments from the first violin, and derives tension from sudden silences. Scherzo II caps the cheery mood with jazzy syncopations, blue notes and even what sounded Tuesday like a quote from Aaron Copland. The quiet flourish at the end brings us up short; the surprise is pleasurable.”
— Allan Ulrich, The San Francisco Examiner, February 20, 1991

“If you had to characterize George Perle’s new Sinfonietta II in a word, you could call it ‘happy.’ The word would have several reverberations: the music sounds happy; its world premiere by the San Francisco Symphony was a great success Tuesday night; and it seems to reflect the present personal state of one of America’s most eminent composers… If contemporary ‘classical’ music can be said to have a hot property, he’s it.”
— William Glackin, The Sacramento Bee, February, 1991

“We should be grateful for premieres such as Perle brought into the world Tuesday night, with great help from music director Herbert Blomstedt. In his 17-minute Sinfonietta II Perle is full of wit and sparkle, as if he were a musical heir of ‘the Six’ (Milhaud, Honegger, et al.), composers in the French tradition. …Short musical sentences flow back and forth between the strings and winds, like bright dialogue in a hit play. …Nothing is trite; nothing is a rerun; nothing panders to popular taste.
— Paul Hertelendy, The San Jose Mercury News, February 27, 1991

SIX BAGATELLES (1965) Presser 6’
2,Picc–2(EH)–2,Bcl–2,Cbsn / 4–3–3–1 / Timp, Perc, Cel, Hp / Strings
First performance Nov. 18, 1977, Riverhead, NY: Long Island Symphony, cond. Seymour Lipkin.

SONGS OF PRAISE AND LAMENTATION (1974) Schott 40’
I. FROM THE 18TH PSALM for Mixed Chorus and Orchestra
4(Picc)–2,EH–2,Bcl–2,Cbsn / 4–2–4–1 / Timp, Per, Hp / Strings
II. SONNETS TO ORPHEUS for Mixed Chorus a cappella
III. IN EIUS MEMORIAM for Soli, Mixed Chorus and Orchestra
2–2–2–2 / 4–2–4–0 / Timp, Perc, Cel, Hp, Piano / Strings (no basses)
First performance Feb. 18, 1975, Carnegie Hall, New York: Dessoff Choirs and the National Orchestral Association, cond. Michael Hammond

THREE MOVEMENTS FOR ORCHESTRA (1960) Presser 16’
3,Picc–3–2,Bcl–2 / 4–3–3–1 / Timp, Perc, Cel, Hp, Piano / Strings
First performance June 14, 1963, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam (ISCM Festival): Hilversum Radio Orchestra, cond. Roelof Krol
Albany CD, Troy #292 (Royal Philharmonic, Epstein)

TRANSCENDENTAL MODULATIONS (1993) Schott 21’
4(2Picc, AFl)–3,EH–3(PiccCl,BCl)–4(Cbsn) / 4–4–4–1 / Timp,3 Perc,Cel,Hp,Pno / Strings
First performance Nov. 21–26, 1996, New York: New York Philharmonic, cond. Jahja Ling

“The work’s title, a musical twisting of Transcendental Meditation, suggests that its main business might be moving from key to key. That is an element, certainly: themes introduced at the start of the 25-minute piece return transposed, both in new keys and for different instrumental combinations. But the score’s metamorphosis runs deeper than that. Using a mildly astringent language reminiscent of late Stravinsky, but with heart, Mr. Perle presents a stream of subtle contrasts: assertive solo lines against sumptuous ensemble work; intricate wind figures against lush string scoring; fleeting moments of lightheartedness against a pervasively melancholy introspectiveness. Throughout, Mr. Perle speaks with an almost Neo-classical restraint. —
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, November 26, 1996