Alan Rawsthorne

{{Infobox classical composer

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1905|05|02|df=y}}

| birth_place = Haslingden, Lancashire, England, UK

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1971|07|24|1905|05|02|df=y}}

|death_place = Cambridge, England, UK

| spouse = Jessie Hinchcliffe (1934–1954)
Isabel Nicholas (1955–1971) (his death)

}}

Alan Rawsthorne (2 May 1905 – 24 July 1971) was a British composer. He was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, and is buried in Thaxted churchyard in Essex.

Early years

Alan Rawsthorne was born in Deardengate House, Haslingden, Lancashire, {{sfn|Oxford University Press}} to Hubert Rawsthorne (1868–1943), a well-off medical doctor, and his wife, Janet Bridge (1877/8–1927).{{sfn|McCabe|2011}} Despite what appears to have been a happy and affectionate family life with his parents and elder sister, Barbara (the only sibling), in beautiful Lancashire countryside, as a boy Rawsthorne suffered from fragile health.{{sfn|McCabe|2011}}{{sfn|Green|1992}} Although he did at various times attend schools in Southport, much of Rawsthorne's early education came through private tutoring at home.{{sfn|McCabe|2011}} Despite his childhood aptitude for music and literature, Rawsthorne's parents tried to steer him away from his dreams of becoming a professional musician. As a result, he unsuccessfully tried to take on degree courses at Liverpool University, first in dentistry and then architecture. Concerning dentistry, Rawsthorne is on record as having said "I gave that up, thank God, before getting near anyone's mouth", while his friend Constant Lambert quipped "Mr Rawsthorne assures me that he has given up the practice of dentistry, even as a hobby."{{sfn|Rawsthorne|2019}}

Career

In 1925, Rawsthorne was finally able to enroll at the Royal Manchester College of Music,{{sfn|NAXOS Records}} where his teachers included Frank Merrick for the piano and Carl Fuchs for the cello. In 1927, Rawsthorne's mother died aged just forty-nine. After graduating from the Royal Manchester College of Music around 1930, Rawsthorne spent the next couple of years pursuing his piano training with Egon Petri at Zakopane in Poland, and then briefly also in Berlin.{{sfn|McCabe|2011}}

On his return to England in 1932, Rawsthorne took up a post as pianist and teacher at Dartington Hall in Devon, where he became composer-in-residence for the School of Dance and Mime.{{sfn|British Music Collection|2019}} In 1934, Rawsthorne left for London to try his fortune as a freelance composer. His first real public success arrived four years later with a performance of his Theme and Variations for Two Violins at the 1938 International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) Festival in London. The next year, his large-scale Symphonic Studies for orchestra was performed in Warsaw, again at the ISCM Festival. The first in a line of completely assured orchestral scores, the Symphonic Studies, which can be heard as a concerto for orchestra in all but name, rapidly helped Rawsthorne establish himself as a composer possessing a highly distinctive musical voice.({{sfn|Evans|2001}}{{sfn|Belcher|1999}})

Other acclaimed works by Rawsthorne include a viola sonata (1937), two piano concertos (1939, 1951), an oboe concerto (1947), two violin concertos (1948, 1956), a concerto for string orchestra (1949), and the Elegy for guitar (1971), a piece written for and completed by Julian Bream after the composer's death. Other works include a cello concerto, three acknowledged string quartets among other chamber works, and three symphonies.

Rawsthorne wrote a number of film scores. His best–known work in this field was the music for the 1953 British war film The Cruel Sea, {{sfn|Swynnoe|2002|p=161}} and his other scores included many popular British films, such as The Captive Heart (1946), School for Secrets (1946), Uncle Silas (1947), Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948), Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), Where No Vultures Fly (1951), West of Zanzibar (1954), The Man Who Never Was (1956) and Floods of Fear (1958).

Rawsthorne died from pneumonia at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge on 24 July 1971.{{sfn|McCabe|2011|page=299}}

Family

In 1934, Rawsthorne married his first wife Jessie Hinchcliffe, a violinist in the Philharmonia Orchestra. They separated in 1947 and divorced in 1954.[https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/f5c2ac37-d709-3235-b343-2e4de0499473 Royal Northern College of Music archive] Hinchcliffe went on to marry René Leibowitz in Paris. In 1955, he married Isabel Rawsthorne (née Isabel Nicholas), an artist and model well known in the Paris and Soho art scenes.{{sfn|Jacobi|2021}} Her contemporaries included André Derain, Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon. Isabel Rawsthorne was the widow of composer Constant Lambert and stepmother to Kit Lambert, manager of the rock group the Who, who died in 1981.{{sfn|Lloyd|2014|p=416}} Alan Rawsthorne was her third husband; Sefton Delmer (a journalist and member of the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War) was her first husband.{{sfn|Jacobi|2021}} Isabel died in 1992.

Compositions

=Ballet=

Madame Chrysanthème (1955)

=Orchestral=

Light Music for Strings (1938)
Symphonic Studies (1938)
Cortèges, Fantasy Overture (1945)
Concerto for String Orchestra (1949)
Symphonies
Symphony No. 1 (1950)
Symphony No. 2 A Pastoral Symphony (1959)
Symphony No. 3 (1964)
Improvisations on a Theme by Constant Lambert (1960)
Music from film The Cruel Sea
Divertimento for Chamber Orchestra (1962)
Elegiac Rhapsody for Strings (1963)
Hallé Overture
Suite from Madame Chrysanthème
Overture for Farnham
Prisoners' March – from film The Captive Heart
Street Corner Overture
Theme, Variations and Finale
Triptych for orchestra
'Suite for Brass Band' (1964)

=Concertante=

Clarinet Concerto (1936–37)
Oboe Concerto (1947)
Concertante Pastorale for flute, horn and orchestra (1951)
Cello Concerto (1966)
Violin
Violin Concerto No. 1 (1948)
Violin Concerto No. 2 (1956)
Piano
Piano Concerto No. 1 (1939, revised 1942)
Piano Concerto No. 2 (1951)
Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1968)

=Chamber=

Sonatina for Flute, Oboe and Piano (1936)
Concertante for Piano and Violin (1937)
Theme and Variations for Two Violins (1937)
Clarinet Quartet (1948)
Concerto for Ten Instruments (1961)
Piano Trio (1962)
Quintet for Piano, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn & Bassoon (1963)
String Quartets
String Quartet No. 1 (1939)
String Quartet No. 2 (1954)
String Quartet No. 3 (1965)
Piano Quintet (1968)
Suite for Flute, Viola and Harp (1968)

=Instrumental=

Viola Sonata (1937, revised 1953)
Cello Sonata (1949)
Violin Sonata (1960)
Elegy for Guitar (1971)
Suite for Treble Recorder & Piano

=Piano=

Ballade in G sharp minor (Dated Christmas 1929)
Bagatelles (1938)
Piano Sonatina (1949)
Four Romantic Pieces (1953)
Ballade (1967)
The Creel: suite for piano duet

=Vocal orchestral=

Carmen Vitale: choral suite
A Canticle of Man: chamber cantata
The God in a Cave: cantata
Medieval Diptych 962
Practical Cats for speaker and orchestra
Tankas of the Four Seasons

=Choral=

Canzonet from A Garland for the Queen {{harv|France|2011}}
Four Seasonal Songs
Lament for a Sparrow
The Oxen
A Rose for Lidice

=Vocal=

Three French Nursery Songs
We Three Merry Maids
Two Songs to Words by John Fletcher
Carol
Saraband (with Ernest Irving)
Scena Rustica for soprano and harp
Two Fish

Notes

References

{{cite web|url=http://www.musicweb-international.com/rawsth/|title=The Friends of Alan Rawsthorne|publisher=MusicWeb International|date=February 2019|access-date=2022-08-31|ref={{harvid|Rawsthorne|2019}}}}
{{cite web|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/category/arts-and-humanities/sheet-music/composers/rawsthornea/?cc=us&lang=en&|title=Alan Rawsthorne|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=2022-08-31|ref={{harvid|Oxford University Press}}}}
{{cite web|url=https://www.naxos.com/Bio/Person/Alan_Rawsthorne/21013|title=Alan Rawsthorne (1905-1971)|publisher=NAXOS Records|access-date=2022-08-31|ref={{harvid|NAXOS Records}}}}
{{cite web|url=https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/composer/alan-rawsthorne|title=Alan Rawsthorne|date=2019-01-28|publisher=British Music Collection|access-date=2022-08-31|ref={{harvid|British Music Collection|2019}}}}
{{cite AV media notes|title=Rawsthorne: Cello Concerto, Symphonic Studies, Oboe Concerto|last=Belcher|first=John|date=1999|publisher=Naxos Records|type=Liner notes|id=8.554763}}
{{cite book|title=The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians|last=Evans|first=Peter|date=2001|edition=2nd|chapter=Rawsthorne, Alan|editor-last1=Sadie|editor-first1=Stanley|editor-link1=Stanley Sadie|editor-last2=Tyrrell|editor-first2=John|editor-link2=John Tyrrell (musicologist)|publisher=Macmillan Publishers}}{{page needed|date=August 2022}}
{{cite web|url=http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2011/Apr11/English_Choral_HTGCD213.htm|title=Review: English Choral Music - A Garland for the Queen (1953)|publisher=MusicWeb International|last=France|first=John|date=April 2011|access-date=2022-08-31}}
{{cite mailing list|url=http://www.musicweb-international.com/rawsth/Green.htm|title=The Pre-War Years|last=Green|first=Gordon|date=1992|mailing-list=The Creel|publisher=Journal of the Friends of Alan Rawsthorne and the Rawsthorne Trust|volume=2|number=1|access-date=2022-08-31}}
{{cite book|title=Out of the Cage: The Art of Isabel Rawsthorne|last=Jacobi|first=Carol|year=2021|publisher=The Estate of Francis Bacon Publishing|isbn=978-0500971055}}{{page needed|date=August 2022}}
{{cite book|title=Constant Lambert : beyond the Rio Grande|last=Lloyd|first=Stephen|year=2014|publisher=Boydell Press|isbn=9781843838982|oclc=855582154|page=416}}
{{cite book|title=Alan Rawsthorne: Portrait of a Composer|last=McCabe|first=John|date=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-816693-1}}
{{cite ODNB|last=McCabe|first=John|title=Rawsthorne, Alan|orig-date=2004|date=2011|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/31588|isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-31588|access-date=2022-08-31}}
{{cite book|title=The Best Years of British Film Music, 1936-1958|last=Swynnoe|first=Jan G.|date=2002|publisher=Boydell Press|isbn=978-0-85115-862-4|page=161|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g7QETzPRNNoC&q=Music+for+The+Cruel+Sea+(1953}}

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20031117184216/http://www.lsso.co.uk/photos/1967/67%20rawsthorne%20photo.jpg Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra] – Photo: Norman Del Mar, Norma Fisher and the composer following a performance of the 2nd Piano Concerto at the Fairfield Hall, Croydon in 1967
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070928061838/http://www.julianlloydwebber.com/rawsthorne.asp Cello Sonata Reviews]
{{IMDb name|id=0712712}}
[https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/f5c2ac37-d709-3235-b343-2e4de0499473 Papers of Alan Rawsthorne (1905-1971), Archive Collection]

Category:1905 births

Category:1971 deaths

Category:20th-century British classical composers

Category:English classical composers

Category:British ballet composers

Category:People from Haslingden

Category:English Swedenborgians

Category:Musicians from Lancashire

Category:20th-century English musicians

Category:Alumni of the Royal Manchester College of Music

Category:English male classical composers

Category:20th-century British male musicians