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Gustav Holst
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Dmitri Shostakovich
Prokofiev and Shostakovich This course examined how two Russian composers came to terms with the constraints of living and working under the Soviet regime. Unlike their contemporaries, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky, both Prokofiev and Shostakovich found ways to express their artistic integrity within the strict confines of Soviet Russia. They were both censored at times but…
Maurice Ravel
Unravelling Ravel A study of his life and music and that of his contemporaries. Maurice Ravel was a very private man who wrote some of the best-loved music of the twentieth century although he always dismissed Bolero as merely an academic exercise – but then he never saw Torvill and Dean. Works studied include Pavane pour…
Music composition
I wrote my first work when I was five. It was for chime bars and Mrs Distin called it “William’s Tune”. This was 1963 and I think she was very surprised that a five year old would be able to come up with an original tune. I had played all the ones she had given…
Benjamin Britten
Britten, Walton and Tippett Three of the greatest British composers of the twentieth century had very different attitudes to music but all attempted to write in many different media such as opera, choral, orchestral and chamber music. Among the operas studied were Midsummer Marriage, King Priam, Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Albert Herring,…
My Mag and Nunc
Written at Durham Cathedral Easter 1987 Magnificat Nunc Dimitis
