Alexander Goehr in Cambridge
On 7 November 2025, the Faculty was buzzing with activity, talks – music – conversation – teaching - performance, in celebration of the life and music of Sandy Goehr, for 23 years the 1684 Professor of Music. It was wonderful to see so many alumni returning to Cambridge to join this short festival.
Following an evensong at St. Catharine’s College in which we heard Sandy’s setting of Psalm IV in its liturgical context, the day proper began at Trinity Hall at 2pm. Sandy’s former college hosted us in their sunlit Graham Storey room, a grand oblong space dating back to the sixteenth century, where a gathered group heard talks and conversation on topics from the role of new music today and its intuitions, Sandy’s harmonic language, interactions with Boulez, and the role of Walter Goehr in bringing Monteverdi’s music to the UK.
The experience of hearing recordings of the recently deceased is characteristically unsettling (as Edison knew well, long before Francis Baurraud’s oil painting captured ‘Nipper’ listening in perplexity), but several recent interviews with Sandy were heard with rapt attention. In Julian Anderson’s talk, we heard a younger Sandy speak about the clash of rigour and fantasy in art -- the flash of insight and jumps in logic.
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And from shortly before his death, we watched this touching interview with Prof. Richard Causton about students who come to Cambridge to read composition:
Alexander Goehr Contemporary Music Fund Following a generous bequest from the Goehr family, we are launching the Alexander Goehr Contemporary Music Fund, to support an annual concert of contemporary music at the Faculty. If you can, please consider making a donation. |
"To be a musician is a vocation"
he once explained of all music students at Cambridge, and regarding composers in particular:
"I think that the problem really is recognizing their individuality and saying to a student what might be useful to them. Confucius said, 'I show them one corner of a square, they have to fill in the other three by themselves'. If they don't understand the one, they won't fill in the three"
With unfinished geometry stirring our thoughts, the evening brought a wonderful concert in West Road, led by Sandy’s former student Sir George Benjamin, with Britten Sinfonia side-by-side with current students in a richly varied programme, including chamber works (the Laments for solo clarinet, Piano Trio No. 1), and larger enterprises, notably the central soprano aria from Sandy’s opera Behold the Sun (1985) whose soprano register ascends a semitone higher than Mozart’s ‘Der Hölle Rache’ (aka Queen of the Night). It was satisfying that we could also deliver a UK premiere, in the Double Chaconne with Gaps, and we hope the recordings may be released in due course.
As the photos from the evening put you in the picture, please click on the image on the right to view the programme. |  |
Edward Wickham leading the St Catharine's College Consort
Clarinettist Ib Hausmann
The Fidelio Trio
The performance concludes, triumphant.
This event was a moving and memorable celebration for all concerned. The Pendlebury threw open its doors, with display cases of Sandy’s manuscripts and photos, members of Sandy’s family travelled from all over the world to be present, Schott laid out his scores aplenty, and I haven’t seen the foyer so vibrant in some time.
We owe a huge debt of thanks to everyone involved, particularly those at the Centre for Music Performance, Trinity Hall and St. Catharine’s College, to our indefatigable administrative staff, but also to a range of planners, advisors and helpers behind the scenes.
As the Times put it: ‘The Cambridge Faculty did him proud’. We hope it will be the first of many such events. Stay tuned, and do come along.
David Trippett
Chair, Faculty of Music