Ronald Stevenson

Ronald Stevenson (6 March 1928 – 28 March 2015) was a British composer, pianist, and writer about music.

Biography

The son of a Scottish father and Welsh mother, Stevenson was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1928. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music (now incorporated in the Royal Northern College of Music), studying composition with Richard Hall and piano with Iso Elinson, graduating with distinction in 1948. He married Marjorie Spedding in 1952.[1] He moved to Scotland in the mid-1950s. As a pacifist, he refused to do National Service, and spent the two-year period in prison.[1]

Among his many compositions, the largest (in terms of duration) and most famous is his Passacaglia on DSCH for solo piano, written between 1960 and 1962, based on a 13-note ground bass derived from the musical motif D-E♭-C-B: the German transliteration of Dmitri Shostakovich's initials ("D. Sch."). Stevenson's work takes more than an hour and a quarter to perform and is one of the longest unbroken single movements composed for piano.

Stevenson's other works include two piano concertos, the second of which was first performed at the Proms in 1972, a violin concerto commissioned by Yehudi Menuhin, and a cello concerto in memoriam Jacqueline du Pré. He also wrote several chamber works including a String Quartet and Piano Quartet, numerous songs (among these, many settings of Hugh MacDiarmid, William Soutar and James Joyce) and works for solo piano. In 2007 he completed a choral symphony, Ben Dorain, on Hugh MacDiarmid's translation of the poem of that name by Duncan Ban MacIntyre. This work, for full chorus and chamber choir with chamber orchestra and symphony orchestra, was begun in the 1960s and laid aside for many years. The world premiere was given in City Halls, Glasgow, on 19 January 2008 by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with the composer present.[1]

Stevenson was very active as a transcriber of music other than his own, chiefly for the piano, in the tradition of Ferrucio Busoni, Percy Grainger and Leopold Godowsky. His transcriptions covered composers as diverse as Henry Purcell and Frederick Delius. Notable examples include piano solo versions of Grainger's Hill Song No.1 (originally for wind orchestra), the first movement of Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony, and of the six unaccompanied violin sonatas of Eugène Ysaÿe as piano sonatas. There is also a collection of piano solos based songs from the 19th and 20th centuries entitled L'art nouveau de chant appliqué au piano, a title that recalls deliberately the collection of song-transcriptions by Sigismond Thalberg. Stevenson made many arrangements of folk music from countries as far apart as Scotland and China, while many of his own works exist in several different instrumentations.

Stevenson was also noted as a teacher. He was senior lecturer in composition at the University of Cape Town in the mid-1960s, delivered seminars at the Juilliard School in New York, and was responsible for a course entitled The Political Piano at the University of York in the early 1980s.

Stevenson died on 28 March 2015, aged 87 at his home in West Linton, Scotland. His widow and three children survive him.[1] His daughter Savourna Stevenson (born 1961) has recorded many works on the Scottish harp. His daughter Gerda Stevenson is a film and theatre actress, and a poet.[2] His granddaughter Anna Wendy Stevenson is a Scots folk fiddler.

List of works (selection only)

(Full list to 2005 in Symposium ed. Scott-Sutherland listed in References)

Orchestra

Solo instrument and orchestra

Solo voice and orchestra

Choral music

Chamber music

Keyboard music

Piano and harp

Harpsichord

Organ

Solo piano

Song cycles
'The Queen's Dolour (A Farewell) by Henry Purcell / Realised by Ronald Stevenson (1958)
Performed live by Mark Gasser
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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Alasdair Steven (2015-03-31). "Obituary: Ronald Stevenson, composer and pianist". The Scotsman. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
  2. ↑ "Braveheart actress composes song for local school". Peebleshire News. 2009-07-31. Retrieved 2010-06-12.

Sources

External links

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