NEW YORK, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Composer George Perle, who won a Pulitzer Prize for music in 1986, has died in New York at the age of 93, his wife says.
Perle earned acclaim in the music world for an approach he tabbed "12-tone tonality" that focused on using the 12 notes of the chromatic scale equally in comparison to more traditionally accepted seven-note scales, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The famed composer explained in a 1985 interview how he fell in love with music the first time he heard composer Frederic Chopin's "Etude in F Minor."
"It literally paralyzed me," said Perle, who died Friday of unspecified causes. "I was extraordinarily moved and acutely embarrassed at the same time, because there were other people in the room, and I could tell that nobody else was having the same sort of reaction I was."
In addition to being a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Perle was a noted author, teacher and musical theorist.
The Times said in addition to his wife Shirley, Perle is survived by two daughters, three stepchildren, two grandchildren and three step-grandchildren.
