ALUN HODDINOTT
(11 August 1929 - 12 March 2008)
Alun
Hoddinott was born on 11 August 1929,
in Bargoed, Glamorganshire. His musical
talents developed early, he was an
accomplished violinist at 7, played
viola in the first National Youth
Orchestra of Wales, and when only
16 won a composition scholarship at
University College, Cardiff, graduating
B Mus in 1949, followed by a D Mus
in 1960. He also studied privately
with Arthur Benjamin and was awarded
the Arnold Bax Medal in 1957.
A well known and
respected teacher, he was appointed
lecturer in music at the Welsh College
of Music and Drama in 1951, subsequently
becoming lecturer at Cardiff University
where he was appointed Professor and
Head of Department in 1967, retiring
twenty years later. With John Ogdon,
he co-founded, and was artistic director
of, the Cardiff Festival where much
contemporary music was introduced
to the Welsh public.
But it is as a composer
that he will, and should, be best
remembered and his output was prodigious.
He came to public attention with his
1st Clarinet Concerto,
when it was heard at the Cheltenham
Festival in 1954, played by Gervase
de Peyer and conducted by Sir John
Barbirolli, and given two years later
at the Proms under Sargent. From here
started the long string of commissions
which continued throughout his life,
and he was championed by many of the
most distinguished performers of the
time, including the singers Sir
Geraint Evans (The Beach of
Falesa (1974), Murder, the
Magician (1976), What the Old
Man Does is Always Right (1977)
and The Trumpet Major (1981)),
Dame
Margaret Price, Dame Gwyneth Jones
(A Vision of Eternity (Symphony
No.9) (1992)), Sir Thomas Allen,
Jill Gomez, and, more recently, Jeremy
Huw Williams and instrumentalists
such as Ruggiero Ricci (Violin
Sonata No.1 (1968)), Mstislav
Rostropovich (Noctis Equi (1989)),
Osian Ellis (Harp Concerto
(1957)), Nia Harries (Cello Sonata
No.3 (1996)), John Ogdon (Piano
Concerto No.3 (1966) and Piano
Sonata No.5 (1978)), and David
Childs (Euphonium Concerto, The
Sunne Rising - The King will Ride
(2002)).
Hoddinott’s output
covers all musical genres, with ten
Symphonies (written in two
periods (1955 – 1972
(nos. 1 – 5) and 1984 – 1999 (nos
6 – 10)) separated by work on his
five operas (1974 – 1981), ten piano
sonatas, concertos, orchestral,
chamber, choral and vocal music and
he could as easily write a symphonic
work as a lighter piece – such as
the three sets of Welsh Dances
and the delightful Quodlibet on
Welsh Nursery Tunes.
Hoddinott’s style
evolved throughout his career from
the neo-classicism of the Clarinet
Concerto to a free use of tonality,
a kind of serialism, but one which
never lost sight of a tonal base,
and which could best be described
as richly romantic. He favoured dark,
brooding harmonies and textures, long
lyrical lines and the Nocturne was
never far from his thoughts – whether
a slow evocative night-piece (the
magnificent Lanterne des morts
(1981)) or a mercurial, disturbing
nocturnal scherzo (brilliantly realised
in the cello and orchestra work Nocturnes
and Cadenzas (1969)). His work
was variously described as having
"… a certain sternness of thought"
(Piano Concerto No.3, Musical
Opinion 1966), "…a fine impetus"
(Piano Concerto No.3, Gerald
Larner, The Guardian 1966), "…a
finely controlled sensuousness of
sound that might be described as neo-impressionistic"
(Landscapes, Hugh Ottaway,
Hi-Fi News (1976)), "This is
music with rhythmic tricks and surprises
as well as powerful though enigmatic
harmonies" (Organ Sonata,
Music Quarterly (1978)) and "Hoddinott
is writing tough, purposeful music,
original in form and vividly coloured
(Variants, Stephen Walsh (1966)).
These quotes give some idea of the
quality of invention and earnest thought
in Hoddinott’s music.
His almost vocal
writing for the orchestra made his
move into opera in the 1970s an inevitable
step, and one which both enriched
his language and helped to lighten
his orchestral thinking.
One of the first
works to benefit from this new style
was the poem for violin and orchestra,
The heaventree of stars (1980),
an intense and lyrical response to
a line from James Joyce. His 1989
Proms commission brought from him
one of his masterpieces Star Children,
a large-scale tone-poem featuring
all of Hoddinott’s distinctive fingerprints
– a slow, atmospheric opening (which,
after the première, one critic
referred to as ‘Astral magic’), a
full-bodied, brilliantly scored, fast
section, full of event and colour
and a bold conclusion. Hoddinott created
his first, single movement, Symphony
with his 6th
(1984), described by Geraint Lewis
as a continuously unfolding argument
in related spans. Star Children
takes this idea and continues it with
music which is large in scope but
small in timescale; Hoddinott has
pared away all but the most necessary
notes and created a compact, and very
satisfying, one movement structure.
In 2004 the BBC National
Orchestra of Wales undertook a year
long celebration of Hoddinott’s work
(including new commissions) in honour
of his 75th birthday. The
following year he wrote a fanfare
which was performed at the wedding
of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker
Bowles, having previously written
music for the prince’s investiture
in 1969. After the première
of his 2007, BBC commissioned, orchestral
song-cycle Serenissima, at
the annual St David’s Day concert
in Cardiff, it was announced that
a new recording and performance hall
being built at Cardiff's Wales Millennium
Centre was to be named the BBC Hoddinott
Hall. With this Hoddinott became the
first Welsh composer to be honoured
by having a concert venue named after
him.
Menna Richards, controller
of BBC Wales, said "He was one
of Wales's most distinguished and
influential composers with an international
reputation. Later this year the BBC
National Orchestra of Wales will move
into its new home, Hoddinott Hall,
named in honour of such a fine composer
and distinguished Welshman."
Huw Tregelles Williams,
who became the first director of the
BBC National Orchestra of Wales in
1992, and was the première
performer of Hoddinott’s Organ
Sonata (1978), said "He had a
highly original, colourful style.
Many of his scores, very colourful
scores, filled with exciting percussion
sounds, new brass sounds and so on
- an entirely new musical language
in the history of musical Wales."
Among his many awards
were the John Edwards Memorial Award,
the Arnold Bax Medal for composers,
the Hopkins Medal of the New York
St David's Society and the CBE. In
1997, he received the Glyndwr Award
for an Outstanding Contribution to
the Arts in Wales during the Machynlleth
Festival. He also received a Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Arts Council
of Wales in 1999, Fellowship of the
Welsh Music Guild and the presentation
of a medal to him by the Queen when
she officially opened the Wales Millennium
Centre. He was an honorary member
of the Royal Academy of Music, and
a fellow of the Royal Northern College
of Music.
Alun Hoddinott, who
had been in hospital since he underwent
major heart surgery last year, died
on Wednesday 12 March 2008 at Swansea's
Morriston Hospital.
He married Rhiannon
Huws in 1953, and she and their son
survive him.
Alun Hoddinott, CBE,
composer, was born on 11 August 1929.
He died on 12 March 2008, aged 78.
Bob Briggs
When Alun Hoddinott
was 75, the BBC National Orchestra
of Wales celebrated his birthday with
a year long season of his works. This
tribute tells us two things, that
he was prolific enough to supply a
full season’s worth of works and that
he was firmly rooted in his local
artistic community.
Hoddinott was one
of the composers, like Peter Maxwell
Davies, who made something international
by being local, creating links within
the Welsh arts community and promoting
contemporary music in Wales. As well
as being Professor of Music at Cardiff
University, in 1967 he co-founded
the Cardiff Festival of 20th
Century Music with John Ogdon and
was the festival’s Artistic director.
The festival transformed musical life,
bringing Britten and Messiaen to South
Wales and commissioning some 200 works.
And when Hoddinott retired from Cardiff
University in 1989 he had established
the largest musical department in
Britain.
As a composer Hoddinott
was remarkably fecund, composing in
all genres. His language could be
highly coloured and original; his
scores included exciting sounds from
brass and percussion. His early works
were in a neo-classical vein, with
nods to Rawsthorne and Hindemith.
But as a mature composer he developed
a style which could be dark, characterised
by violent emotions and dense textures.
The influence of Bartók and
the techniques of serialism could
also be felt but Hoddinott developed
a very personal style – energy went
hand in hand with chromaticism and
lyricism.
His writing is tough
and disciplined, tempered with lyricism
and a brooding intensity. He was notably
fond of nocturnal slow movements.
Hoddinott never wrote down, but his
style of modernist romanticism made
accessibility achievable.
Hoddinott was not
a pianist; his training was as a violinist,
so he felt that his music did not
owe allegiance to the sonata-based
Austro-German school. Instead of building
his music on the conflict at the heart
of sonata form, the forms and textures
of the baroque appealed to him and
his music often displays a sense of
continuous development.
His musical development
can be tracked in his symphonies.
The 1st, appearing in 1955,
is densely textured. The 2nd
(1962), 3rd (1968), 4th
(1969), 5th (1973) demonstrate
the gradual development of Hoddinott’s
language, the increasing sophistication
of structure and a love of exotic
tonal colouring, notably percussion.
His 6th symphony (1984)
is noticeably romantic. This sequence
continued through to the 9th
Symphony for Soprano and orchestra
– A Vision of Eternity (1989)
and 10th (1999).
Up until 1974, Hoddinott
was known as a composer of orchestral
and chamber music but his first opera,
The Beach of Falesa was premiered
that year by Welsh National Opera
with a libretto based on Robert Louis
Stevenson’s short story. Over the
next decade Hoddinott would write
a total of five operas, two were written
for television, The Magician and
The Rajah’s Diamond. But possibly
his most successful was What
the Old Man Does is Always Right to
a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, which
mixes adult roles with parts for children
and children’s choruses. Piper would
write a total of three operas with
Hoddinott but this children’s opera
remains their best. Writing the operas
had an influence on his other music,
his orchestral writing notably opened
up, extending his range and palette
as well as introducing a greater warmth
and romanticism.
In the 1990s Hoddinott
wrote music in most genres, but spent
much time writing chamber music and
song-cycles. These latter were often
written for Welsh artists - another
example of Hoddinott’s links to his
local artistic community. His legacy
of instrumental and chamber music
forms a rich and important body of
work.
----------------
Alun Hoddinott was
born in 1929 in Bargoed, Caerphilly
where his father was a teacher. As
a result of his father’s taking a
teaching job in Pont-Iliw, near Swansea,
Hoddinott was brought up there. Despite
his family not being very musical,
he showed an early talent, taking
violin lessons from the age of 4 and
being proficient by the time he was
7. He also showed an early interest
in composition.
At the age of 16
won a scholarship to University College,
Cardiff and whilst still a student
wrote orchestral works, including
a Cello Concerto, songs and chamber
music. These were publicly performed,
but subsequently withdrawn by the
composer. He also studied privately
with Arthur Benjamin.
When he was 24 he
won the Walford Davies composition
prize and the same year his Clarinet
Concerto was first performed at the
Cheltenham Festival by Gervase de
Peyer and the Hallé Orchestra
conducted by Sir John Barbirolli.
In 1951 he became
a lecturer at the Welsh College of
Music and Drama, going on to become
a lecturer at Cardiff University in
1959. He was made Professor of Music
in 1967, a post he held until he retired.
The Royal Philharmonic
Society premiered his Variants
for Orchestra in 1967 and Night
Music was first performed by the
New Philharmonia in 1968. In 1970
The Sun, the Great Luminary of
the Universe, based on an apocalyptic
passage on James Joyce’s ‘Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man’, was
premiered at the Swansea Festival
by the London Symphony Orchestra under
Vernon Handley. It would become one
of Hoddinott’s most admired works
of the 1970s.
Hoddinott was awarded
the CBE in 1983. In 1989 the London
Symphony Orchestra premiered Noctis
Equi for cello and orchestra;
the conductor was Mstislav Rostropovich.
The work’s title refers to a line
in Marlowe’s ‘Doctor Faustus’. The
1990s saw works premiered at the Wales
Garden Festival, Gower Festival, Fishguard
Festival and North Wales Music Festival.
In 1997, at the Machynlleth Festival
he was given the Glyndwr Award for
outstanding contribution to the arts
in Wales. In 1999 he received a lifetime
achievement award from the Arts Council
in Wales.
In 2004 the Queen
presented him with a medal at the
opening of the Wales Millennium Centre
and, having written music for the
Prince of Wales’s investiture in 1969
he would go on to write a fanfare
for the Prince’s wedding to Camilla
Parker Bowles.
In March 2007 the
BBC announced that the new home of
the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
was to be named BBC Hoddinnott Hall.
The night before
the composer died, his most recent
string quartet was premiered at the
Wigmore Hall.
In 1953, Hoddinott
married Rhiannon Huws, a Welsh speaker;
she became his translator and collaborator.
They lived in a suburb of Cardiff
and then on the Gower Peninsula. His
wife and a son survive him.
Robert Hugill
