Before meeting Christian Wolff in person, some time after 2000, at the Donaueschingen Festival, I had heard his voice. I was visiting György and Márta Kurtág in Berlin in March 1999; they were guests of the Wissenschaftskolleg (Science College)—something of a privilege also accorded to people like Walter Levin of the LaSalle Quartet or Gérard Mortier, director of major opera houses and festivals, whom I was also to meet there on other occasions.

Kurtág told me how Christian Wolff had, at his request, recorded on tape extracts from the Iliad in Ancient Greek, and proceeded to play a few minutes. It was quite an experience to hear the American composer’s voice, imbued with emotion, reciting the text with its many diphthongs and sibilants. Kurtág could follow every word and Márta also understood most of it. The composer said: “I have just written another Hommage à Wolff.”

Like some of his contemporaries, Christian Wolff was fascinated by the classics as much as by music. At Harvard, he pursued a training in classical literature and went to Florence to study Italian and classical literature. On returning to Harvard, he obtained his PhD in comparative literature, teaching there, and later at Dartmouth College, music, the classics, and comparative literature.

He was a pupil of Grete Sultan in piano and of John Cage in composition, later to become a member of the New York Group. (“I have a wonderful pupil. He is sixteen and his favorite composer is Webern. He has great intelligence and sensitivity. What’s more, he was born in France. His name is Christian Wolff.”)

In Donaueschingen, we happened to be staying at the same hotel. He was checking in when I arrived and I introduced myself straightaway. My enthusiasm was dampened by his reserve (in the ensuing correspondence he claimed he had not been aware of any aloofness on his part) and sadly it never came to a proper conversation.

I was all the more impressed by his music. The rehearsal gave me an idea of Wolff’s total dedication to his work and the importance he attributed to every detail in performance; the concert opened a window onto his world—one that was closed after a tantalizingly short time.