Ronald Stevenson

Born: 6 March 1928, Blackburn, Lancashire (Great Britain)
Died:

(this composer submitted by Malcolm MacDonald <macvalcompuserve.com>)

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Music

The most profound influences on Stevenson’s music have been the twin (and very different) examples of Busoni and Percy Grainger, the power of folk music (especially Scottish) and the grand tradition of pianism and virtuosity descending from Liszt through Busoni, Medtner, Paderewski and Rachmaninoff.

Selected list of works

(Stevenson’s works run into the hundreds, especially in piano music and songs - this list concentrates on the larger items and those that are published

Concertante works: Fantasia for piano and string orchestra, 1946; Piano Concerto No.1 ‘A Faust Triptych’, 1959-60; Simple Variations on Purcell’s Scotch Tune for clarinet and string orchestra, 1967; Vocalise Variations on themes from Les Troyens for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, 1969; Piano Concerto No.2 ‘The Continents’, 1970-72; Violin Concerto ‘The Gypsy’, 1973-79; Corroboree for Grainger for piano, concert band and percussion, 1989; Cello Concerto ‘The Solitary Singer’ (1992-94)

Orchestra and String Orchestra: Berceuse symphonique, 1951; Scots Dance Toccata, 1965; Young Scotland Suite, 1976; Recitative and Air (arr. strings, 1980)

Chamber Music: Sonata for violin and piano, 1947; 4 Meditations for string quartet, 1964; Nocturne ‘Homage to John Field’ for clarinet and piano, 1965; Duo-Sonata for harp and piano, 1971; Recitative and Air (violin or viola or cello or bassoon and piano, 1974; also for string quartet, 1987); Variations and Theme for cello and piano, 1974; Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, duo for 2 guitars, 1983; Fantasy Piano Quartet ‘Alma Alba’, 1985; Bergstimmung for horn and piano, 1986; The Harlot’s House, ballet after Oscar Wilde for free-bass accordion, timpani and percussion, 1988; String Quartet ‘Voces Vagabundae’, 1990; Wind Quintet, 2000

Piano Music: 3 Sonatinas, 1945-48; Fugue on a Fragment of Chopin, 1949 (also for 2 pianos, 1953), A 20th-Century Music Diary, 1956-59; Prelude, Fugue and Fantasy on Themes from Busoni’s Faust, 1949-59; Passacaglia on D-S-C-H, 1960-62; A Modern scottish Triptych (Keening Sang for a Makar, Heroic Song for Hugh MacDiarmid, Chorale-Pibroch for Sorley MacLean), 1959-67; South Uist Hebridean Folksong Suite, 1969; Peter Grimes Fantasy, 1971; 3 Scottish Ballads, 1973; Sonatina serenissima (in memoriam Benjamin Britten), 1973-77; Norse Elegy for Ella Nygard, 1976-79; Symphonic Elegy for Liszt, 1986; Motus Perpetuus Temporibus Fatalibus, 1987-88; Beltane Bonfire, 1989; A Carlyle Suite, 1995; Le Festin d’Alkan, petit concert, 1988-97

Other solo instruments: Variations on a theme of Pizzetti for solo violin, 1961; Prelude and Fugue on a 12-note theme of Liszt, for organ, 1961; Sonata for harpsichord, 1968; Fantasia polifonia for harp, 1983-84; Scots Suite for solo violin, 1984

Choral music: Songs into Space (Whitman), 1962; A Medieval Scottish triptych, 1967; Anns an Airdre, as an Doimhne, 1968; Ballatis of Luve, 1971; In Memoriam Robert Carver, 12-part motet, 1987; Peace Motets, 1984-87; Coral recitative and Psalm 23, 1990-92

Songs: There are over 300 individual songs, including major collections of settings of Hugh MacDiarmid, William Soutar and James Joyce. The following are just the major cycles - Songs of Innocence (Blake), 1947-48; Vietnamese Miniatures (Ho Chi Minh), 1966; Border Boyhood (MacDiarmid), 1970; The Infernal City (MacDiarmid), 1970-71; 9 Haiku, 1971; Songs of Quest (Davidson), 1974; Hills of Home (RLS), 1975; Lieder ohne Buchstaben (A.D.Hope), 1982; A Child’s Garden of Verses (RLS), 1985; The Gangrel Fiddler (Gordon), 1987

Transcriptions (for piano unless otherwise indicated): Wiegenlied aus Wozzeck, 1953; Grainger, Hill-Song No.1, 1960; Suite from Paderewski’s ‘Manru’, 1961; 9 Songs of Francis George Scott, 1963; Grainger, Green Bushes, 1963; Quartettino (Busoni’s Sonatina No.3 arr for string quartet), 1965; Ysaye: 6 Sonatas for solo violin realized as piano Sonatas, 1981-82; L’Art nouveau du Chant applique au piano (22 songs by various composers arr as studies in Bel Canto pianism), 1980-86; Nielsen, Commotio, 1986; Mahler, Adagio from Symphony No.10, 1987; Van Dieren, string quartet realized as piano sonata, 1987; Grieg, Den bergtekne, 1990; Purcell: Hornpipe, 1995

Biography

Composer, virtuoso pianist and writer on music, Stevenson is the son of a railway fireman (of Scots descent) and a mill-worker (of Welsh). Composer and accompanist for Blackburn Ballet Company at the age of 14, he studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 1945-47, on an open scholarship. Stevenson has always been a pacifist - in 1948, aged 20, he was sent to prison for a year as a conscientious objector to National Service and served in several prisons before finishing the setence in agricultural and labouring work. In 1949 he gave recitals to raise money for him to go to Finland to meet Busoni’s widow. He taught at Boldon Colliery School, Durham, 1950-52. Apart from study in Rome in 1956 he spent the next decade teaching music in various schools in Edinburgh, and settled in the Scottish Borders, in the village of West Linton, in 1956.

Stevenson was Senior Lecturer in Composition at the University of Cape Town, 1963-65, where he premiered his 80-minute piano work Passacaglia on D-S-C-H (the subject derives from the initials of its dedicatee, Shostakovich). Subsequent performances by Stevenson and his friend John Ogdon attracted widespread attention. Returning to Scotland he concentrated on composition, piano playing, witing, and frequent BBC broadcasts as lecturer and performer, earning a Harriet Cohen International Music Award in 1967 for his centenary radio programmes on Busoni. He was guest speaker at the 4th Congress of Soviet Composers in 1968, premiered the song-cycle Border Boyhood with Peter Pears at the 1971 Aldeburgh Festival and introduced his Second Piano Concerto at the 1972 Royal Albert Hall Proms.

Stevenson has travelled worldwide as pianist and lecturer, as advocate not simply of his own music but of Busoni, Grainger and Paderewski in particular. Concert and lecture tours have taken him as far afield as the USA, Canada, Bulgaria, Australia, China, and many times to Switzerland. He is profoundly interested in music for young people. In recent years a Ronald Stevenson Society has publicized his achievements and philosophy, and holds an annual summer school for performers in the Scottish Borders to examine aspects of Stevenson’s work.

Concerts

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