Someone said to me that Denis ApIvor has the heart of a lion. His commitment to his art in spite of almost total disinterest is in itself proof of an almost reckless energy. - Gordon Rumson (1)Denis ApIvor (1916 - 2004) was an anesthesiologist who in parallel with his medical profession forged an individual path as a British modernist composer.
In addition to his medical and composing activities, ApIvor deeply appreciated modernist art and its Total Theatre aspects, as manifested in multiple Paul Klee inspired works. Perhaps most importantly, he demonstrated a unique literary affinity. He wrote poems, his own librettos for stage works, and translated the entire verse of Garcia Lorca. In his catalog we find time and again the hand of the exquisite writers and poets who inspired him.
- 1916: Born in Ireland during the Easter Rising to Welsh parents: his father was an Anglican minister, and his mother's family also had close ties to the church.
- 1921: The family moves back to Wales during the Irish Revolution. ApIvor is a boy chorister at the local church.
- 1925: Joins the choir at Christ Church, Oxford.
- His choir masters are Henry Ley and Noel Ponsonby who will die in 1928 shortly after ApIvor's departure from Oxford.
- Already by age 10 ApIvor is composing small pieces and is interested in contemporary composers: one day he asks Gustav Holst for an autograph and is rebuffed.
- Unbeknownst to ApIvor, Peter Warlock (pseud. of Philip Heseltine) whose works he would later come to admire, fairly regularly visits Oxford Library--only a few yards away. It is only in 1928 when perusing Vaughan Williams'Oxford Book of Carols that ApIvor will become aware of Warlock.
- 1928-1933: After a pneumonia attack ApIvor transfers to Hereford Cathedral where his father is chaplain and classics master. (7)
- He enjoys singing in a performance there of Elgar's choral setting The Dream of Gerontius. Learns clarinet, piano, and organ, and plays in local orchestras. (8)
- Writes some songs which are later discovered in Canada in possession of ApIvor's friend and linguist Jean-Paul Vinay.
- Dec. 1930: Warlock dies from an unresolved gas-poisoning incident--probably suicide, possibly murder. ApIvor plays in the Hereford Orchestra's performance of Warlock's Capriol Suite in a tribute to the composer.
- 1933-1934: Medical studies
- 1933: University of Aberystwyth. Plays clarinet in the university orchestra.
- 1934: Continues medicine at University College and the hospital in London. Plays clarinet also in this university's orchestra.
- Discovers contemporary music:
- A broadcast of Alban Berg's Wozzeck, organized by Edward Clark, makes a profound impression,
- Finds Frederick Delius' poetic 'decadence' appealing,
- Explores the music of Peter Warlock and Bernard van Dieren.
- 1936: Composes Chaucer Songs Op. 1 in memory of van Dieren.
- August 1936: When the socialist poet Garcia Lorca is murdered in Granada, ApIvor becomes enthusiastic about his poetry.
- Interviews with Herbert Howells for composition lessons, but is turned down when he mentions van Dieren's name.
- 1937: Alas Parting, five songs for high voice and string quartet, Op. 2.
- 1937: Meets critic and composer Cecil Gray who wrote Peter Warlock's biography.
- With Gray's help ApIvor studies first with Patrick Hadley and later with Alan Rawsthorne until 1939.
- Attends with Rawsthorne a concert version, prepared by Edward Clark, of Busoni's Arlecchino. Clark also prepares a concert version of Busoni's Doctor Faustus.
- Gray introduces ApIvor to composer and conductor Constant Lambert some of whose works ApIvor already knows and admires.
- 1930s: His intense religious upbringing leads to works of divine celebration and more sober religious pondering, such as (taken from The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems (1936) and maybe part of Nineteen Songs for Two Voices and Piano Op. 3): (8)
- 1937: There is no rose of swich vertu, a short Medieval hymn to the Virgin
- 1938: Quho is at my window, quho?
- 1939: Lully Lullày
- Late 1930s: ApIvor now explores darker fin-de-siècle Catholic poets and Romantic poetry. (8)
- 1939: Influenced by Lambert, sets TS Eliot's The Hollow Men Op. 5 for baritone, male chorus and orchestra. ApIvor feels this 1925 poem of passing of the soul into one of death's kingdoms portrays pre-World War II sentiment.
- End of 1939-1941: War doctor administering transfusions at the London hospitals of St. John and St. Elizabeth, Hampstead. Treats injuries after the Blitz. In his free time he:
- Starts to arrange Busoni's two-piano version of Fantasia Contrappuntistica for full orchestra.
- Contacts Frida Kindler, Busoni's student and van Dieren's widow, about a transcription of her husband's 5th String Quartet.
- 1942: Marries Grace O'Brien who dies in 1945.
- 1942-1950: War service in India until 1945 and the death of his first wife put a damper on ApIvor's musical activities. He still composes the following:
- 1943-1947: She stoops to conquer Op. 12, an opera buffa based on an 18th century comedy by Oliver Goldsmith, set to ApIvor's own libretto.
- 1945: While anchored at Port Said: composes the Venetian boat song Sospira cuor to text of Frederick Rolfe. (maybe part of Eight Songs for Two Voices and Piano Op. 6).
- 1945: While still in the service, composes Concertante Op. 7 for clarinet, piano, and two percussionists. The work was also arranged for clarinet, harp, strings and percussion as Op. 7a.
- While stationed on the South Coast, he is introduced to Spanish song by Diana Poulton who performs with her husband Tom. Diana also familiarizes the composer with cante jondo. He composes Six Lorca Songs for Voice and Piano Op. 8, one of his most successful song cycles to poems of Garcia Lorca. They exist in an arrangement for voice and guitar as Op. 8a. They are performed in 1946 and 1947; ApIvor's friends and teacher attend. (9)
- ± 1946-1954: Lives in London close to a circle of friends--'an irreverent band of boozy Bohemian intellectuals which had initially formed around the composer Peter Warlock'(10): Dylan and Caitlin Thomas, Constant and Isabel Lambert, Alan and Jessie Rawsthorne, Louis MacNeice--poet and friend of Rawsthorne, Elizabeth Lutyens and her husband conductor Edward Clark, and the poet Roy Campbell.
- 1946: The Song of the Jellicles for medium voice and piano, to text of TS Eliot. It will be included in the children's song cycle Lavenders Blue Op. 11 (1949).
- 1946: Violin Sonata Op. 9, shows a desire to explore new, and sometimes radical sounds, causing one performer to call the work 'somewhat Bartokian.' (2)
- 1947-1954: Second marriage to Irene Russell whom he met in the medical field; ends in divorce.
- 1948: First performance of the Concertante Op. 7; the composer conducts.
- 1948: Piano Concerto No. 1 Op. 13.
- 1948: Starts to employ serial techniques.
- 1949: Lavenders Blue or Here We Go Around Op. 11, six children's songs for voice and piano.
- 1950: Landscapes Op. 15, five songs for tenor, flute, clarinet, horn, and string trio, set to poems by T.S. Eliot.
- 1950: First performance of Hollow Men which was composed in 1939, under Constant Lambert.
- 1950: Concerto for Violin and Fifteen Instruments (Violin Concerto No. 1) Op. 16.
- 1951: Hollow Men is published.
- 1951: ApIvor and a couple of other friends assist the ailing Lambert with the completion of the ballet Tiresias. It is presented in late summer under great criticism.
- 1950s: Commissions, o.a.
- Autumn 1951: Lambert, just before his death, recommends ApIvor to the choreographer Andrée Howard who commissions A Mirror For Witches Op. 19 (Royal Ballet). It is produced in 1952. ApIvor will continue to create works for ballet until the 1960s and beyond.
- 1952: Writes Blood Wedding Op. 23, based Garcia Lorca's play Bodas de Sangre. (Royal Ballet) which enjoys international acclaim.
- 1953: The Goodman of Paris Op. 18 (started under the title Vis-à-vis, Walter Gore Ballet Company).
- 1953: Veneziana using arrangements of Donizetti's music in Stravinskian neoclassicist style (Sadler's Wells Ballet).
- 1954: A concert suite of A Mirror For Witches, Op. 19a, is performed at Proms.
- 1954: Takes a part-time position in Trinidad to write an opera Yerma Op. 28, a story of women's emancipation based on a Lorca play (Sadler's Wells), and completes the score in the Suffolk countryside near Sudbury. Sadler's Wells Theatre refuses to perform the work.
- 1955: Saudades Op. 27, a 'Portuguese' ballet (Royal Ballet).
- Continues to show a deep affinity for the imagery of Garcia Lorca's poetry. Tamar and Amnon Op. 25, a large-scale work for chorus and orchestra based on Garcia Lorca's Cante Jondo, is premiered.
- 1954 - ± 1985: After the setback with Yerma, ApIvor takes on a part-time medical post in Kent, goes through a year of Jungian analysis, and takes a distance from musical, social, and political life for over 30 years. The withdrawal allows the composer to pursue his own modernist path. His sound-world becomes sparse and evocative.
- He spends a lot of time with the ballet critic Fernau Hall.
- 1962-1997: Third marriage to the choreographer Rima Austin. The couple have two children. Together with Fernau Hall they buy a section of a London house and live there until the 1980s.
- During this period ApIvor writes a series of works, a.o. music and libretti for two operas, ballets, and a series of non-theatrical works:
- Three String Quartets.
- Five Symphonies.
- ± 80 Songs, often in Song Cycles based on major poets and with alternative instrumental accompaniments, a.o.
- Seeks out the poetry of Dylan Thomas, a fellow Welshman whom he comes to know personally.
- 1954: Songs of Thomas Lovell Beddoes Op. 24 for high voice and piano, to text poems by Beddoes.
- 1954: Concertino for guitar and orchestra Op. 26, written for Julian Bream, premiered in 1958.
- Late 1950s-1960s: Lutyens, interested in Webern, and Clark, a student of Schoenberg, influence ApIvor who now focuses on serial works.
- 1958: Concertante for clarinet and orchestra Op. 7a.
- 1958: Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra Op. 13 (1948) is performed at the Proms.
- 1959-1982: Works for guitar, significant to the 20th-century guitar repertoire:
- 1959: Variations for guitar Op. 29, commissioned by Julian Bream. Because of their serial style Bream did not perform them.
- 1970: Discanti Op. 48.
- 1972: Saeta Op. 53.
- 1960 and 1961: Two separate full-scale, recorded concert performances of Yerma.
- 1960s: Composes:
- 1962: Overtones Op. 33 for chamber orchestra and saxophone, guitar, mandolin and xylophone, at times divided in two sections, is inspired by the painter Paul Klee.
- Symphony No. 2 Op. 36--he wrote five symphonies.
- Ubu Roi Op. 40, an opera based on the play by Alfred Jarry from the Theatre of the Absurd. The composer wrote the work's music and libretto.
- 1961: Completes Altarwise by Owl-Light Op. 32, a post-Webern, post-Varese style cantata based on Dylan Thomas sonnets. It is one of ApIvor's philosophy and religion inspired works. The BBC refuses to perform it as they at that moment favor the Berio-Boulez-Stockhausen style. (6)
- 1964: Chorales Op. 38 for baritone, chorus and orchestra, based on Hugo Manning's The Secret Sea. The text is inspired by the Tao Te Ching and Mahayana Buddhism.
- 1967: Retrospective concert at Wigmore Hall of the composer's songs and chamber music, o.a.
- String Quartet No. 1 Op. 37(new).
- Landscapes Op. 15 (1950, T.S. Eliot).
- Crystals Op. 39 (1965), a Concert Miniscule for amplified guitar, marimba, Hammond-Organ, contrabass, and 2 further percussion parts.
- 1967: Concerto for string trio and string orchestra (String Abstract) Op. 43.
- 1968: Corporal Jan Op. 42, a ballet is produced with insufficient rehearsal time and is not preserved by the BBC in color film-stock.
- 1968-1969: Tarot: Variations for chamber orchestra Op. 46, uses 22 instruments--11 at a time--and portrays the Trumps of the Tarot Pack. In addition to the Paul Klee-inspired works, this is another composition inspired by the visual and the ideas of Total Theatre. The work also belongs to ApIvor's works inspired by philosophy and religion, in this case referring to the ideas expressed in early Italian Tarot decks.
- 1970 (or 1978-1979): Symphony No. 3 Op. 67, for chamber orchestra, inspired by Paul Klee.(5)(6)
- 1971: Orgelberg Op. 50, for solo organ, inspired by Paul Klee's 1934 drawing of a mountain of organ pipes.
- 1971-1974: Bouvard and Pécuchet Op. 49, another opera from the Theatre of the Absurd, this time a satirical work by Flaubert which Cecil Gray suggested to ApIvor three decades prior. Again, ApIvor wrote the music and the libretto.
- 1972: Resonance of the Southern Flora Op. 54 for chorus, organ and orchestra in a 'succession of transparent timbres'(5) inspired by another Klee painting. The large setting makes performance of this work difficult.
- 1972: Exotics Theatre Op. 52 for ten instrumentalists. The work is 'diaphonously impressionistic, and rhythmic,' reminiscent of post-1914 Stravinsky. It is the last of ApIvor's Klee works, based on 'the extraordinary line-up of humanoid characters' in Klee's drawing. (5)
- 1973: Psycho-pieces for clarinet and piano Op. 55 (also arranged for piano trio Op. 55a), again inspired by Klee.
- 1974: Upon the death of van Dieren's son ApIvor copies and edits many of van Dieren's works.
- 1974-1975 Vox Populi Op. 58, a set of fourteen songs with or without piano accompaniment.
- 1975: Violin Concerto No. 2 Op. 61.
- 1976-1977: Cello Concerto Op. 64, shows a more expressive and melodic serial style and is premiered in the 1980s.
- 1977: Chant Eolien Op. 65 for oboe and piano.
- 1978: Glide the Dark Doors Wide Op. 66, a ballet based on a Sumerian 'Harrowing of Hell' story. The title comes from Dylan Thomas's A Winter's Tale.
- 1979: Retires from medical profession.
- 1980s: ApIvor's feels that avant-garde has lost its 'original impetus'and finds it more and more difficult to hold on to his previous composing techniques, i.e. serialism and abstract and linguistic experiments.
- 1981: Duo Concertante for Horn and Piano Op. 71.
- Love's Season, Fourteen Songs of Ernest Dowson Op. 76 for high voice and piano or strings.
- 1982: Ten original serial pieces included in his book Serial Composition for Guitarists.
- Late 1980s: Returns to a more diatonic, modal style clothed in the emotional language of the postwar years.
The ‘continuous melodic approach’ he described produced music that was directly expressive.(3)
- 1984: Nocturne Op. 78 for solo guitar.
- 1984: Melisma Op. 80 for solo recorder. The work will appear in Pieces for solo recorder. Volume two : Eleven original concert works (1993).
- 1987: ApIvor and his wife Rima move from London to a Forest Lodge on a Welsh hillside.
- 1988: String Quartet No. 3 Op. 84. This work takes the composer on a completely different composing path rejecting serialism and modernist experiments.
- 1988: Serious loss of eyesight. The composer now communicates by cassette. A subsequent fall cripples him until 1990.
- 1989: Fantasy Concertante for Horn and Orchestra Op. 70.
- 1990: Moves with Rima to Telscombe on the English Channel near their son,
- 1990s: He now looks for 'simplicity and serenity of some oriental models' exhibited in the West by a backward look for 'beautiful melodic sound and choral ingenuity.'
- 1991: Symphony No. 5 Op. 87 in three movements. The slow movement is an 'elegiac commentary on the death of the Buddha.'
- 1992: Composes a couple of works for saxophone, an instrument his son is interested in.
- Pieces of Five Op. 88 based on Laozi, for solo saxophone.
- Sonatina sopra "Quia amore langeo" Op. 89 for saxophone in E flat and piano. ApIvor had written the theme for the medieval poem (In a valey of this restles mynde) 40 years prior.
- 1992: Sonatina sopra "Fayre love let us gan play" Op. 90 for viola and piano in two movements, inspired by the same medieval poem.
- 1992: Develops friendship with the South African organist and writer Barry Smith who is preparing a biography of Peter Warlock to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Warlock's birth in 1994. ApIvor composes the following works:
- Organisation of Preludes and Postludes Books 1-3, influenced by the Spanish renaissance organ school.
- Five Pieces for organ solo Op. 92.
- 1993: In the Landscape of Spring Op. 93, a septet requested by Barry Smith to accompany a performance of Warlock's The Curlew in a celebration of Warlock's 100th birthday. The work's title is based on a Zen saying:
- 1993-1994: ApIvor composes songs to texts of Belloc and T.S. Eliot:
- Elegiac Sonnets Op. 94 for unaccompanied SATB or small vocal ensemble, set to sonnets of the Anglo-French poet Hillaire Belloc who lived in Sussex.
- 1994: Four Songs Op. 95 to text from T.S. Eliot's minor poems.
- Gordon Rumson calls No. 1a Eyes that Last I Saw in Tears ‘one of the most beautiful songs ever composed’ and compares its ‘tragic undercurrent expressed without exaggeration’ to the lament in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. This song uses the same imagery of the Eyes that Last I Saw in Dreams section from The Hollow Men Op. 5 (1939), but adopts ApIvor's 1990s style.
- The Wind Sprang up at Four O'Clock has a more menacing undertone and reminds of the poet's The Waste Land
- Further text was taken from Five Fingers Exercises, a sequence of three 'innocuous but doom-laden' poems.
- 1994: Lady of Silences Op. 97 to text from Eliot's Ash Wednesday, for SATB and a small group of choral singers, accompanied by strings, harp, and the ethereal piano harp.
- 2001: Fourth marriage to Suwaree Houyphai.
- 2001: The Denis ApIvor Special Collection is created at the University of Leeds. It contains musical manuscripts, papers, sound recordings, and the cassettes. A systematic catalog of ApIvor's works is not available online. ApIvor wrote ± 100 works, a.o. four operas, five symphonies, concertos, a cantata Alterwise by Owl-light Op. 32 (to text by Dylan Thomas), and chamber music.
- 2002: In his last work, The Trixter Op. 101, an operatic scena for three singers and small ensemble, ApIvor uses one more time his special skills: (1)
- Work for the stage.
- Unusual instrumentation.
- An impeccable sense for poetry and dramatic texts, here taken from a 1916 poem by Peter Warlock.
During the 1990s he began composing small works with a deliberate intention to restrict the material to a few tones in each piece, and avoiding harmonic complexity or aggressive modulation, to concentrate on a continuous melodic approach, and significant and clear emotional content. (5)
In the landscape of spring, there is neither better nor worse. The flowering branches grow naturally, some long, some short. (11)
- A hert tae break, appeared in Eight Songs for two voices and piano Op. 6.
- As the holly groweth green (Henry VIII) was written in 1936 and made the ApIvor realize that he would be a composer. The song was included in Alas Parting Op. 2 the following year.
- Flos Lunae from Fourteen Songs of Ernest Dowson Op. 76.
- Maw Bonnie Lad from Vox Populi Op. 58.
- Spleen, also from the Dowson songs.
- Villanelle (I took her dainty eyes, as well), from the Dowson collection as well.
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(1) Gordon Rumson, "Denis ApIvor Opus 101." MusicWeb International, August 2000. (http://www.musicweb-international.com/apivor/opus101.htm (01/30/2016))
(2) David Hackbridge Johnson, "AN UNSUNG MODERNIST An Introduction to the music of Denis ApIvor." MusicWeb International, 09/01/2001. (http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Sept01/ApIvor.htm#ixzz3yloEOgOc (01/30/2016))
(3) Martin Anderson, "Denis ApIvor." Obituary, MusicWeb International, 06/04/2004. (http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Jun04/ApIvor_obituary.htm (01/30/2016))
(4) David Hackbridge Johnson, "Denis ApIvor." Obituary, The Guardian, 06/14/2004. (http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jun/14/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1 (01/30/2016))
(5) Unattributed biography provided to MusicWeb International by the composer in 1995. (part I: http://www.musicweb-international.com/apivor/biog2.htm and Part II: http://www.musicweb-international.com/apivor/part2.htm (01/31/2016))
(6) David C F Wright,DMus, "Denis ApIvor." 1989 and 2010. (http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/denis-apivor.pdf (02/06/2016)) This is the only source with a comprehensive list of ApIvor's works.
(7) David C. F. Wright asserts that ApIvor was 'far from happy' at Oxford. See "Denis ApIvor," at Warwick Music, originally published in Music Review Magazine.
(8) Mark Marrington, "Music of the Cactus Land, A Consideration of Musical Style and Text Setting in Denis ApIvor’s The Hollow Men." British Music, Journal 36, 2014, p. 2. (https://www.academia.edu/14844778/Music_of_the_Cactus_Land_A_consideration_of_Musical_Style_and_Text_Setting_in_Denis_ApIvors_The_Hollow_Men (01/30/2016))
(9) The initial Op. 8 version uses a somewhat poor translation of the poems. ApIvor will eventually translate all of Lorca's poems and substitute his own translation in 1980s. See here.
(10) Martin Anderson, "Denis ApIvor." Obituary, Independent, 06/02/2004. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/denis-apivor-730514.html (02/07/2016))
(11) I could not find a comprehensive catalog of ApIvor's songs.