Humphrey Searle
Encyclopedia
Humphrey Searle was a British
composer
.
where he was a classics scholar before studying — somewhat hesitantly — with John Ireland
at the Royal College of Music
in London
, after which he went to Vienna
on a six month scholarship to become a private pupil of Anton Webern
, which became decisive in his composition career.
Searle was one of the foremost pioneers of serial music
in the United Kingdom
, and used his role as a producer at the BBC
from 1946 to 1948 to promote it. He was General Secretary of the International Society for Contemporary Music
from 1947 to 1949.
Works of note include a Poem for 22 Strings (1950), premiered at Darmstadt
, a Gogol
opera, The Diary of a Madman (1958, awarded the first prize at UNESCO’s International Rostrum of Composers
in 1960), and five symphonies (the first of which was commercially recorded by Sir Adrian Boult
).
Searle wrote the monographs Twentieth Century Counterpoint and The Music of Franz Liszt
. He also developed the most authoritative catalogue of Liszt's works, which are frequently identified using Searle's numbering system.
Searle also composed score
s for film
and television
, including incidental music for the 1963 feature The Haunting
and a lost 1965 Doctor Who
serial
. He died in London. Among his notable pupils were composers Hugh Davidson
, Brian Elias
, Michael Finnissy
, Geoffrey King
, and Graham Newcater
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Biography
He was born in OxfordOxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
where he was a classics scholar before studying — somewhat hesitantly — with John Ireland
John Ireland (composer)
John Nicholson Ireland was an English composer.- Life :John Ireland was born in Bowdon, near Altrincham, Manchester, into a family of Scottish descent and some cultural distinction. His father, Alexander Ireland, a publisher and newspaper proprietor, was aged 70 at John's birth...
at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, after which he went to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
on a six month scholarship to become a private pupil of Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
, which became decisive in his composition career.
Searle was one of the foremost pioneers of serial music
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and used his role as a producer at the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
from 1946 to 1948 to promote it. He was General Secretary of the International Society for Contemporary Music
International Society for Contemporary Music
The International Society for Contemporary Music is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music.ISCM was established in 1922, in Salzburg. Its core activity is the World Music Days Festival, held every year at a different location. The festival includes cutting edge productions...
from 1947 to 1949.
Works of note include a Poem for 22 Strings (1950), premiered at Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
, a Gogol
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...
opera, The Diary of a Madman (1958, awarded the first prize at UNESCO’s International Rostrum of Composers
International Rostrum of Composers
The International Rostrum of Composers is an annual forum organized by the International Music Council that offers broadcasting representatives the opportunity to exchange and publicize pieces of contemporary classical music...
in 1960), and five symphonies (the first of which was commercially recorded by Sir Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...
).
Searle wrote the monographs Twentieth Century Counterpoint and The Music of Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
. He also developed the most authoritative catalogue of Liszt's works, which are frequently identified using Searle's numbering system.
Searle also composed score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
s for film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
, including incidental music for the 1963 feature The Haunting
The Haunting (1963 film)
The Haunting is a 1963 British psychological horror film by American director Robert Wise and adapted by Nelson Gidding from the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film centers around the conflict between...
and a lost 1965 Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
serial
The Myth Makers
The Myth Makers is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 16 October to 6 November 1965. The story is set in Homeric Troy, based on Iliad by Homer...
. He died in London. Among his notable pupils were composers Hugh Davidson
Hugh Davidson (composer)
Hugh Hanson Davidson is a Canadian composer, music critic, radio producer, writer, and arts administrator. His compositional output includes works for piano, ballets, chamber music, vocal art songs, choral works, and incidental music for the theatre.Davidson is a graduate of The Royal Conservatory...
, Brian Elias
Brian Elias
Brian Elias is a British composer.- Career highlights :*1965 - commenced informal composition studies with Elisabeth Lutyens.*1984 - L’Eylah premiered at the BBC Proms....
, Michael Finnissy
Michael Finnissy
Michael Finnissy is an English composer and pianist. His music is characterised by the range of extremes often found in his work; opposing binary structures are found commonly, often seen as juxtaposing textures, register and tempi...
, Geoffrey King
Geoffrey King (composer)
Geoffrey King is a British composer and teacher.-Biography:Born in Croydon, England, King's first musical studies were at the Royal School of Church Music at Addington Palace. Later, at the Royal College of Music, he studied with Humphrey Searle, Justin Connolly and Alexander Goehr...
, and Graham Newcater
Graham Newcater
Graham Newcater , is a South African composer of serial music .-Career:Newcater was born September 3, 1941, in Johannesburg, South Africa....
.
Operas
- The Diary of a Madman (1958)
- The Photo of the Colonel (1963–64)
- Hamlet (1964–68)
Orchestral
- Variations on an Elizabethan ThemeVariations on an Elizabethan ThemeVariations on an Elizabethan Theme is a set of variations for string orchestra, written collaboratively in 1952 by six English composers: Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Oldham, Humphrey Searle, Michael Tippett and William Walton...
, jointly composedClassical music written in collaborationIn classical music, it is relatively rare for a work to be written in collaboration by multiple composers. This contrasts with popular music, where it is common for more than one person to contribute to the music for a song...
with Benjamin BrittenBenjamin BrittenEdward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
, Lennox BerkeleyLennox BerkeleySir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley was an English composer.- Biography :He was born in Oxford, England, and educated at the Dragon School, Gresham's School and Merton College, Oxford...
, Arthur OldhamArthur OldhamArthur William Oldham was an English composer and choirmaster. He founded the Edinburgh Festival Chorus in 1965, the Chorus of the Orchestre de Paris in 1975, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra Chorus in Amsterdam in 1979. He also worked with the Scottish Opera Chorus 1966-74 and directed the...
, Michael TippettMichael TippettSir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
and William WaltonWilliam WaltonSir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
(1953) - Symphony No. 1 (1953)
- Symphony No. 2 (1956–58)
- Symphony No. 3 (1958–60)
- Symphony No. 4 (1961–62)
- Symphony No. 5 (1964)
Suites
- Suite No. 1 for Strings (1942)
- Suite No. 2 (1943)
- Night Music (1943)
- Poem for 22 Strings (1950)
- Concertante for Piano, Strings and Percussion (1954)
- Scherzi (1964)
- Hamlet Suite (1968)
- Sinfonietta (1968–69)
- Zodiac Variations (1970)
- Labyrinth (1971)
- Tamesis (1979)
Chorus and instruments
- Gold Coast Customs (1947–49) for speakers, male chorus and orchestra
- The River-run (Joyce) (1951) for speakers and orchestra
- The Shadow of Cain (1952) for speakers, male chorus and orchestra
- Jerusalem (1970) for speakers, tenor, chorus and orchestra
- My Beloved Spake (1976) for chorus and organ
- Dr Faustus (1977) for solo woman, chorus and orchestra
Voice and orchestra
- 3 Songs of Jocelyn Brooke (1954) for high voice and ensemble
- Oxus (1967) for tenor and orchestra
- Contemplations (1975) for mezzo-soprano and orchestra
- Kubla Khan (1973) for tenor and orchestra
Unaccompanied chorus
- The Canticle of the Rose (Sitwell, 1965)
- Rhyme Rude to My Pride (1974) for male chorus
Chamber music
- Bassoon Quintet (1945)
- Intermezzo for 11 Instruments (1946)
- Quartet for Clarinet, Bassoon, Violin and Viola (1948)
- Passacaglietta in nomine Arnold Schoenberg (1949) for string quartet
- Gondoliera (1950) for celesta and piano
- The Owl and the Pussy-Cat (1951) for speaker, flute, cello and guitar
- Two Practical Cats for speaker, flute/piccolo, cello and guitar
- Suite for Clarinet and Piano (1956)
- Three Movements for String Quartet (1959)
- Cello Fantasia (1972)
- Five (1974) for guitar
- Il Penseroso e L'Allegro (1975) for cello and piano
Piano
- Sonata (1951)
- Suite (1955)
- Prelude on a Theme by RawsthorneAlan RawsthorneAlan Rawsthorne was a British composer. He was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, and is buried in Thaxted churchyard in Essex.-Career:...
(1965)
See also
- List of compositions by Franz Liszt, sorted by Searle number
- List of paraphrases and arrangements by Franz Liszt, sorted by Searle number