George Rochberg is one of the more controversial figures in American music partly because his compositional method was so varied. Mid-century, he embraced 20th century serialism, but he later wrote in a modern style incorporating traditional tonality into his works. The dramatic Black Sounds (1965) concerns the act of murder and is unrelenting in intensity and dark in its gesture. The result is a total chromaticized texture, though not necessarily atonal. In contrast, the Cantio Sacra embraces the baroque musical form of the chorale with transcriptions for small orchestra of Scheidt’s organ variations on a chorale tune. The essence of the ancient, terrible, but alltoo-human drama of Phaedra lends itself well to musical setting in Rochberg’s monodrama.