This volume marks the centenary of British composer Stephen Dodgson (1924–2013), whose long, distinguished and multi-faceted career produced many highly distinctive works in a voice that could be both playful and deeply evocative.
An approachable, thoughtful book for the musician and curious layperson alike, it brings together interviews and specially commissioned articles on Dodgson’s musical output as well as a selection of the composer’s own warmly erudite writings and broadcasts. These sit alongside personal reflections and anecdotes from his friends and family, and a generous selection of photographs, providing a rounded picture of Stephen Dodgson, the musician and the man.
With a wide variety of his work, from opera to chamber music, now available on recordings, this book is a consolidation of Stephen Dodgson’s importance as a fixture in British music, both in the post-war period and today.
(Eds. Oliver Chandler and Thomas Hyde.)
Contents
Introduction: 2 chapters providing a short biography and contextualising Dodgson amid his contemporaries
Part 1: The Composer’s Voice
(Dodgson’s own writings on his compositional process and collaborations)
Part 2: Memories & Tributes
(colleagues, friends and family capture the personality of Dodgson – the musician and the man – in a series of short reflections)
Part 3: Perspectives on Dodgson’s Works
(a series of essays by diverse specialists reflecting on different genres of his work including: guitar works, string quartets, harpsichord works, operas, songs, choral music and his final work, his Trumpet Concerto)
Photographs
ranging from collaborations with fellow musicians to personal photos of Dodgson in his intimate home setting
List of compositions
(with instrumentation)
List of recordings
(commercial and Stephen Dodgson Charitable Trust archive)
‘A wonderful, utterly absorbing collection of essays, interviews and personal reflections, which paints a vivid picture of a congenial and intellectual man, who truly valued the craft of composition.’
Cheryl Frances-Hoad
‘An invaluable guide to a fine, individual composer intelligently setting his life and music into the context of our time.’
Michael Berkeley
‘A fascinating, wide-ranging collection of writings and wonderfully reproduced photographs, which bring this lively, intriguing composer and clearly loveable man to life.’
James Gilchrist
‘This excellent, comprehensive tribute to Stephen Dodgson’s life and music must surely help revive his unjustly neglected reputation.’
David Matthews
‘A delightful, rich collection of essays, reflections and photos where, much like in his compositions, Stephen Dodgson speaks directly from the page, through the eyes of friends, via his music and in his own characteristically thoughtful, humorous and engaging voice.’
Paco Peña
Stephen Dodgson was a highly respected composer of great breadth and experience. He was particularly known for his works for guitar (he was commissioned by both John Williams and Julian Bream) but had a prolific output across many idioms.
Himself a professor of composition at the Royal College of Music (and Radio 3 broadcaster), many of his orchestral works were performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and there has been a resurgence in his chamber works, solo songs, operas and choral works with recent recordings by the Tippett Quartet, Karolos, Perpetuo, Magnard Ensemble, Ailish Tynan, Katie Bray, James Gilchrist, Roderick Williams, Marcus Farnsworth and Christopher Glynn, and Sonoro, the Marian Consort and the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, receiving extremely favourable reviews in the likes of the BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, Fanfare, British Music Society and many more. Future recordings include an orchestral recording by dynamic young professional orchestra the Outcry Ensemble and a solo piano works CD by talented newcomer Osman Tack.
Editor Thomas Hyde is a composer based in London. His output includes the one-man opera, That Man Stephen Ward, released commercially on Resonus Classics, a string quartet, a Symphony for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and a comedy overture based on Les Dawson premiered by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Dalia Stasevska. He is a member of the music department at King’s College London, and in 2019 was elected to a Senior Research Fellowship at Worcester College, Oxford. He is chair of the Lucille Graham Trust, a Vice President of the Presteigne Festival and an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. He has just completed a full-length opera, ‘Aiding and Abetting’, to a libretto by Sir Alexander McCall Smith (after the novel by Muriel Spark), commissioned by Scottish Opera.
Editor Oliver Chandler is Director of Studies in Music at Hertford and Keble Colleges, University of Oxford; he is also an academic professor at the Royal College of Music. He has co-written two books, Return to Riemann: Tonal Function and Chromatic Music (RMA Monographs) and A Twelve-Tone Repertory for Guitar: Julian Bream and the British Serialists, 1956-1983 (GFA Monographs), and he has published on a number of other music-theoretical topics in major academic journals, including Music Analysis, Music & Letters and Music Theory Online. A keen guitarist, he was awarded the guitar-departmental prize by Trinity Laban in 2015.
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