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20-612: Cathy Stevens grew up in a musical family (she is the daughter of composer Bernard Stevens ) and studied violin and viola at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Royal Academy of Music . In 1975, she became a professional orchestral player, working with the London Sinfonietta and Fires of London among others. Between 1983 and 1992, Stevens worked as one half of the improvised music duo Pool of Sound (with cellist Chas Dickie,

40-514: A competition sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper for a 'Victory Symphony' to celebrate the end of the war with a high profile premiere at the Royal Albert Hall . The competition judges were Arthur Bliss , Constant Lambert and Malcolm Sargent . The symphony was dedicated to the memory of his friend, the artist and poet Clive Branson , who was killed in action in 1944. The success of

60-611: A former member of Van der Graaf Generator and a veteran of the improvised music scene). By 1982, Stevens had also graduated as a practitioner of the Alexander Technique , and it was in this capacity that she began working with Robert Fripp 's Guitar Craft courses in 1989. On one of these courses she met guitarist Udo Dzierzanowski. In 1991 Stevens and Dzierzanowski formed a viola-and-guitar duo called The Annexe performing both self-penned and classical music, which toured with fellow Guitar Craft graduates California Guitar Trio. On

80-584: A location near the Alps on the German/Austrian border. In 2014 the ensemble released their first album in eleven years (the ambient/improvised recording Eye of the Beholder ). In November 2014, they announced that Austrian bodhran player Wolfgang Maier would be the new third member of the performing trio. Both Stevens and Dzierzanowski are also members of contemporary improvised music ensemble ZAUM (now 2AUM), founded by

100-425: A subsequent residential music course in 1993, second guitarist Alessandro Bruno joined the project, which took on the new name of Europa String Choir. The ensemble's first album, The Starving Moon , was recorded for Fripp's Discipline Global Mobile label later in the same year. In 1996, Europa String Choir recruited a fourth member - Chapman Stick/Warr Guitar player Markus Reuter, another Guitar Craft student. Over

120-642: A very personal application of 12-note serialism. This is best illustrated in three key works: the String Quartet No 2 (1962), the Symphony No 2 (1964) and the Variations for Orchestra (1964). In these works everything that follows is derived from the opening materials, and (as Malcolm MacDonald has pointed out) the 12 note series employed are used in the context of tonalism "to supply triads, scalic segments, leading notes and other elements of tonal vocabulary". Of

140-530: A village in Essex, where his address was The Forge, Great Maplestead . His music room was in a converted blacksmith's forge next to the house. In the late 1960s he and Bertha acquired a small plot of land near Mahón on the island of Menorca and built a holiday villa there, where they spent many summers over the following decade. His final work, the Concertante for Two Pianos (written for Isobel Beyer and Harvey Dagul),

160-458: The BBC Proms in 1948, conducted by Malcolm Sargent. The more inward looking pieces that followed use an essentially diatonic but increasingly individual harmonic language. An example is the 1952 Cello Concerto written for William Pleeth , with its dark and expressive central Chaconne. The later works attracted less public attention, but were highly regarded by musicians. Stevens began to explore

180-584: The Burning Shed label. During the next decade, Europa String Choir continued to record and perform intermittently, predominantly as a duo of Stevens and Dzierzanowski. Celtic harp player/cellist Susan Nares (from the Poole-based Soundways project) was recruited for the ensemble's trio lineup in 2003. In 2013, Stevens and Dzierzanowski relocated the Europa String Choir from south-west England to

200-516: The Opus 1 Violin Sonata and the later Piano Sonata - incorporating three individual movements within a single, uninterrupted span. The Symphony No.1 (1945), a cry of "Liberation" after Nazism, could seem gestural with its looser structure and programmatic elements, and is not typical. Even so, it "completely avoids the rhetoric and pomp of many other 'Victory' pieces". His Fugal Overture received its premiere at

220-438: The String Quartet No 2, Macdonald says: The Second Quartet's language is neither neo-Expressionist or serialist; rather, it uses Schoenberg's fierce logic to create the impression of a seamlessly unfolding tonal song that, creating its own haunting, individual sound world, draws the listener in with its emotional power. Towards the end of his life Stevens explored new methods of tonal organization involving correspondence with

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240-525: The age of eight. The pianist and Bach specialist Harold Samuel heard him play and offered encouragement. He went on to study English and Music at St John's College, Cambridge , with E. J. Dent and Cyril Rootham , then at the Royal College of Music with R. O. Morris (composition) and Gordon Jacob (orchestration) from 1937 to 1940. At the college Arthur Benjamin taught him piano and Constant Lambert conducting. Called up for war service in 1940 he

260-557: The behest of the Communist Party . This had a devastating effect on Stevens. He resigned his Party membership a year later, also as a protest against the Soviet suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. He nevertheless remained committed to Marxist principles. Stevens lived at 71 Parkhill Road, Belsize Park after the war, a house he bought from Max Rostal. Seeking a more peaceful environment where he could compose, he moved in 1951 to

280-403: The late improv/power drummer Steve Harris in 2001 and collaborate with visual artist Frances Hatch (as Frozen Orchestras of Lost Sound). Bernard Stevens Bernard (George) Stevens (2 March 1916 – 6 January 1983) was a British composer who first became known to a wider public when he won a newspaper composition prize for a 'Victory Symphony' in post-war 1946. The broader success

300-517: The next four years, the quartet would intermittently tour Europe and the USA. Europa String Choir's second album Lemon Crash was released by DGM spinoff label DGMLive. A more composed and pre-structured work, reflecting the ensemble's classical leanings, it was produced by David Bottrill. Marching Ants , a second album of improvisations from the Lemon Crash sessions and tour was eventually released in 2003 on

320-707: The symphony led to some lucrative work scoring films in the late 1940s, but after completing three scores Stevens decided not to continue writing film music. In 1948 he was appointed Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music, a post he combined from 1967 with a professorship at the University of London . As an examiner he travelled widely, especially in Eastern Europe. His students included Keith Burstein , Stephen Dodgson , Michael Finnissy , Erika Fox , Malcolm Lipkin , Carlo Martelli and John White . Stevens

340-602: Was composed at the villa. Stevens died in January 1983 after being diagnosed with cancer six years earlier. He was survived by his wife Bertha and daughter Catherine Stevens (born 1952), a viola player. Influenced by composers such as Ernest Bloch , Ferruccio Busoni , Shostakovich , Alan Bush and Edmund Rubbra , Stevens also used fantasia-like elements of form which he took from the Elizabethans Dowland and Farnaby . He frequently composed tightly compressed works - such as

360-619: Was intellectually and emotionally committed to the left and associated with other socialist artists and writers, such as his friends Alan Bush , Mary and Geraldine Peppin , Randall Swingler and Montagu Slater , and was active in the Workers' Music Association. In 1955 a contentious slander case served by Edward Clark on Benjamin Frankel (involving an accusation that Frankel had embezzled ISCM funds) involved Bernard Stevens and Christian Darnton as witnesses. They were accused by Frankel of lying at

380-494: Was not sustained, but Stevens went on to become a respected composer and teacher at the Royal College of Music , using traditional forms for his compositions while extending his essentially tonal harmonic language towards serialism. Born in Stamford Hill London, Stevens grew up in Essex, and received his first musical education at Southend High School , where his teacher was Arthur Hutchings . He began piano lessons at

400-570: Was rejected for a combat role due to his poor eyesight, so served in the Royal Army Pay Corps . While there he composed his Piano Trio and his Violin Sonata, Op. 1, written for his wife Bertha, a violin teacher who he married in 1941. The sonata attracted the attention of Max Rostal , who commissioned a Violin Concerto, which Stevens also wrote during his army service. In 1946 his First Symphony, entitled Symphony of Liberation , won first prize in

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