Light Music for Strings
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Product ID: GM2 CO097
By Alan Rawstorne
Publisher:
Goodmusic
Arranger:
Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Bass 4/4/3/4/2
Series:
Goodmusic Concert Originals Series
Line Up:
String Orchestra
Duration:
3'30
Set & Score
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About this item
Alan
Rawsthorne (1905-1971) studied architecture and dentistry before
entering the Royal Manchester College of Music to study piano, cello and
composition. After graduating in 1929 he went abroad for further piano
studies with Egon Petri. Like his near contemporary and fellow
Lancastrian William Walton, Rawsthorne showed his own distinctive voice
from the earliest of his published compositions. His music is marked by
clarity of expression, craftsmanship, concision and where fitting, a
laconic wit. He came to international attention with his Theme and
Variations for Two Violins (1937) and his orchestral Symphonic Studies
(1938). Rawsthorne published some seventy works in most of the
established forms. Though widely performed during his lifetime he is
now remembered mainly for Symphonic Studies, Street Corner Overture, and
the two Piano Concertos and his setting for speaker and orchestra of
six of T.S.Eliot's Practical Cats.He wrote 27 film scores including The
Captive Heart and The Cruel Sea. Most of the orchestral and chamber
music has been recorded by Naxos, the film music by Chandos and
Practical Cats by Classics for Pleasure and Dutton.
LIGHT MUSIC FOR STRINGS was written in 1938 for the Workers Music
Association who first performed and published it. Originally called
Three Catalan Tunes, indicating the composer's sympathies for the
Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War, the three short movements
were written with amateur players in mind. The present name was
suggested by Rawsthorne's publisher Alan Frank when Oxford University
Press republished the work in 1958.
Instrumentation
Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Bass 4/4/3/4/2
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Composer
Alan Rawstorne (1905-1971)
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.
He first achieved recognition as a composer with the Theme and Variations for two violins (1938), performed at the 1938 ISCM Festival in London, and then with the more ambitious Symphonic Studies for orchestra (1938), performed at the 1939 ISCM Festival in Warsaw (Evans 2001). 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.
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