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Peter Lieberson's works first came to national attention in 1983, with the premiere of his Piano Concerto, composed for Peter Serkin and commissioned by Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) for their centennial. Andrew Porter wrote in The New Yorker that it was a "major addition to the modern concerto repertory." It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the subsequent recording of the work won Opus Magazine’s Contemporary Music Award for 1985.
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Biography and Worklist
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Following that work’s success, Lieberson was again commissioned by Ozawa and the BSO, which resulted in Drala (1986), "a short symphony but a profound one and, in many of its pages, a profoundly beautiful one," according to the Boston Globe. Drala has since been performed by many of the world’s top international orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, the New World Symphony, and the London Sinfonietta.
Lieberson's best-known work, Neruda Songs, a setting of five sonnets by Pablo Neruda for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony for Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. The world premiere took place in Los Angeles in May 2005, followed by performances with the Boston Symphony in Boston and at Carnegie Hall. Neruda Songs has also been performed frequently by soloist Kelley O'Connor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Louisville Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, and the Aspen Festival Orchestra, among others. The BBC Symphony with soloist Sarah Connolly presented the British premiere in 2010. Two recordings of Neruda Songs have been released: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, in one of her final performances, with the Boston Symphony and James Levine (Nonesuch, 2006) and Kelley O’Connor with the Atlanta Symphony and Robert Spano conducting (ASO Media, 2011).
Honored many times in his career — including the University of Louisville’s Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition for Neruda Songs — Lieberson’s composition was profoundly influenced by his practice of Tibetan Buddhism and in particular by the teachings of Chogyam Trungpa.
Lieberson’s recent concert works include: Songs of Love and Sorrow, settings of a second group of Neruda love sonnets for baritone Gerald Finley and the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Remembering JFK: An American Elegy, for narrator and orchestra with selected excerpts from Kennedy speeches, commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra to commemorate the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration; Remembering Schumann for Yo-Yo Ma (cello) and Emanuel Ax (piano); and The Coming of Light, for baritone, oboe, and string quartet. At the time of his death, Lieberson was at work on a percussion concerto for soloist Pedro Carniero, commissioned jointly by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Orchestra. This work will be premiered in the 2013-14 season.
Other compositions of the past decade include: Piano Concerto No. 3, for pianist Peter Serkin and the Minnesota Orchestra; Piano Quintet for Peter Serkin and the Orion Quartet; Ah for The Cleveland Orchestra; Six Realms, a cello concerto for Yo-Yo Ma and the Toronto Symphony; Red Garuda, his second piano concerto for Peter Serkin and the Boston Symphony Orchestra; and Fire, a 150th-anniversary commission from the New York Philharmonic, who also commissioned and premiered The World in Flower for mezzo, baritone, chorus, and orchestra in 2009.
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