Gordon Crosse
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Gordon Crosse (born December 1, 1937) is an English composer and music technologist.
Crosse was born in Bury, Lancashire and in 1961 graduated from Oxford University with a first class honours degree in Music. He then undertook two years of postgraduate research on early fifteenth-century music before beginning an academic career at the University of Birmingham. Subsequent employment included posts at the Universities of Essex, Cambridge and California. He won the Worshipful Company of Musicians' Cobbett Medal for services to music in 1976, the same year he retired to his Suffolk home to compose full-time.
Crosse first came to prominence at the 1964 Aldeburgh Festival with Meet My Folks! (Theme and Relations, op.10), a music theatre work for children and adults based on poems by Ted Hughes. Hughes would also provide the lyrics for five of Crosse's subsequent works: the "cantata" The Demon of Adachigahara (op.21, 1968); The New World for voice and piano (op.25); the opera The Story of Vasco (op.29, 1974); Wintersong for six singers and optional percussion (op.51); and Harvest Songs for two choirs and orchestra (op.56). The Demon of Adachigahara, another music theatre work for children and adults, is a retelling of a traditional Japanese folk-tale akin to a Brothers Grimm story; it warns of the dangers of curiosity. The Story of Vasco, premièred in 1974 by Sadler's Wells Opera at the Coliseum Theatre in London, is a setting of Hughes' translation and adaptation of Georges Schehadé's play Historie de Vasco.
Crosse's first opera, Purgatory (op.18), is a one-act setting of the play by William Butler Yeats. It was written in 1966 and premièred at the Cheltenham Music Festival later that year. In 1969, Crosse returned to the Aldeburgh Festival to hear the English Opera Group première his second opera The Grace of Todd (op.20) and revive Purgatory. The following year, the piece Some Marches on a Ground [1] for full orchestra elaborated material that would later appear in The Story of Vasco.
Crosse's interest in the relationship between music, literature and drama is evident in his concert as well as his theatrical work. Two examples are Memories of Morning: Night [1] for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, based on Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea; and World Within for actress, soprano and small ensemble, based on a text by Emily Brontë. Crosse also developed an interest in ballet after he adapted his orchestral piece Play Ground (1977) for choreographer Kenneth MacMillan. The ballet version of Play Ground was premièred at the 1979 Edinburgh Festival by the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, after which MacMillan then choreographed Crosse's chamber piece Wildboy (clarinet and ensemble, 1978) to produce a ballet for the American Ballet Theatre. In 1984, following a request by choreographer David Bintley, Crosse extended Benjamin Britten's Young Apollo for use as ballet music; the resulting ballet was premièred later that year by The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.
Works for soloist and orchestra form the other major strand in Crosse's composition. These include two violin concertos, a cello concerto[1] (written in 1979 "in memoriam Luigi Dallapiccola", based on a motif from Dallapiccola's piece Piccola Musica Notturna) and three works featuring blown instruments (Ariadne for oboe, Thel for flute and Array for trumpet).
In recent years, Crosse has moved away from composition, developing instead an interest in the uses of music technology.
[edit] Selected works
[edit] Orchestral
| 1986 | Array | 30' | trumpet and string orchestra | |
| Harvest Songs | op.46 | 28' | double choir and orchestra | |
| 1979 | Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra [1] | op.44 | 25' | "In Memoriam Luigi Dallapiccola" |
| 1978 | Play Ground | op.41 | 27' | |
| 1975 | Symphony No.2 | op.37 | 24' | |
| 1974 | Young Apollo | 30' | ||
| Memories of Morning: Night [1] | op.30 | 34' | mezzo-soprano and orchestra | |
| 1970 | Some Marches on a Ground [1] | op.28 | 12' | |
| Concerto No.2 for Violin and Orchestra | op.26 | 34' | ||
| Changes: A Nocturnal Cycle | op.17 | 50' | soprano and baritone soloists, chorus, orchestra |
[edit] Chamber
| 1986 | Array | 30' | trumpet and strings | |
| Wintersong | op.51 | six singers, optional percussion | ||
| 1983 | Wavesongs [1] | 30' | cello and piano | |
| 1982 | Watermusic [2] | 11' | recorders (one player) and piano | |
| 1980 | A Year and a Day [1] | op.48a | 8' | solo clarinet |
| 1979 | Verses in Memoriam David Munrow [3] | 9' | countertenor, recorder, cello and harpsichord | |
| 1978 | Wildboy | op.42 | 27' | clarinet and ensemble |
| Thel | op.38 | 14' | flute, two horns and string ensemble | |
| 1973 | Dreamsongs [4] | op.35 | 14' | clarinet, oboe, bassoon, piano |
| 1972 | Ariadne | op.31 | 23' | oboe and ensemble |
| The New World | op.25 | 20' | voice and piano |
[edit] Opera and music theatre
| 1977 | World Within | op.40 | 43' | actress, mezzo-soprano, ensemble |
| 1974 | The Story of Vasco | op.29 | 135' | three-act opera |
| 1968 | The Demon of Adachigahara | op.21 | 30' | children and adults |
| The Grace of Todd | op.20 | 75' | "comedy in three scenes" | |
| 1966 | Purgatory | op.18 | 40' | one-act opera |
| 1964 | Meet My Folks! (Theme and Relations) | op.10 | 25' | children and adults |
[edit] Recordings
| Meet My Folks! | op.10 | EMI LP CLP-1893 | |
| Changes: A Nocturnal Cycle | op.17 | Argo LP ZRG-656 | Vyvyan, Shirley-Quirk, LSO & Chorus cond. del Mar |
| Purgatory | op.18 | Argo LP ZRG-810 | |
| The New World | op.25 | U-K DKP (CD) 9093 | Muriel Dickinson, voice; Peter Dickinson, piano |
| A Year and a Day | op.48a | Metier MSV CD92013 FP | Kate Romano, clarinet; Alan Hicks, piano |
| Ariadne | op.31 | Argo LP ZRG-842 | featuring Sarah Francis, oboe |
| Watermusic | Olympia OCD714 | John Turner, recorders; Peter Lawson, piano | |
| Wavesongs | NMC 019 | Alexander Baillie, cello; Andrew Ball, piano | |
| Memories of Morning: Night Cello Concerto Some Marches on a Ground |
op.30 op.44 op.28 |
NMC D058 | Bickley, mezzo-soprano; Baillie, cello; BBCSO cond. Brabbins |
[edit] Bibliography
- ed. Lewis Foreman, British Music Now: A Guide to the Work of Younger Composers (Paul Elek Ltd.: London, September 1975)
- ed. Walsh, Holden and Kenyon, Viking Opera Guide: Gordon Crosse (Viking: London, 1993; ISBN 0-670-81292-7)
- Crosse has written for and been written about in the journal Tempo.
