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‘WHERE YOU PLANT THE SEED, THE TREE WILL GROW’: GWYN PRITCHARD AT 70

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2019

Tim Rutherford-Johnson
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Abstract

The British composer Gwyn Pritchard turned 70 in 2018. The present article offers the first substantial overview of Pritchard's life and work from his earliest public compositions of the late 1960s to some of his most recent music. His early life, training and periods of self-study are covered, as well as his time as founder-director of the Uroboros Ensemble. The second half of the article offers some insights into Pritchard's methods – particularly his use of permutating six-number series to generate pitch material – revealed in conversation with the composer and supported by unpublished pre-compositional materials.

Type
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Information
Tempo , Volume 73 , Issue 289 , July 2019 , pp. 51 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

1 Accompanying the Sargasso portrait CD (scd28058).

2 Available at www.compositiontoday.com/interviews/gwyn_pritchard.asp.

3 Nicolas Hodges, ‘The Music of Gwyn Pritchard’, (1998), available at www.gwynpritchard.com/survey.htm; Keith Potter, ‘Bristolian Outlooks’, Classical Music (19 May 1984).

4 Remarkably, he can recall this tune, a jolly, somewhat Haydn-esque gigue, even today. (Interview with the composer, 12 June 2018.)

5 Interview with the composer, 12 June 2018.

6 David Bruce, ‘Gwyn Pritchard Interview’, (2005), available at www.compositiontoday.com/interviews/gwyn_pritchard.asp.

7 Quotations in this paragraph are all from the composer's own programme notes to each piece, which may be found at www.gwynpritchard.com/Writings/Writings.htm.

8 Interview with the composer, 12 June 2018.

9 Lutosławski remained a strong supporter of his work, and the two men were both Featured Composers at the International New Music Week in Southampton in 1989.

10 Interview with the composer, 12 June 2018.

11 Interview with the composer, 12 June 2018.

12 See Potter, ‘Bristolian Outlooks’.

13 Interview with the composer, 12 June 2018.

14 Interview with the composer, 12 June 2018.

15 Davies, Peter Maxwell, ‘The Young British Composer’, The Score, no. 16 (March 1956), pp. 84–5Google Scholar.

16 Gwyn Pritchard (n.d.), ‘Notes, Numbers and Narrative’, unpublished lecture, p. 7.

17 Hodges, ‘The Music of Gwyn Pritchard’.

18 Interview with the composer, 12 June 2018.

19 Email to the author, 12 June 2018.

20 Conversation with the composer, 19 February 2019.

21 I am grateful to Gwyn Pritchard for sharing these and other pre-compositional materials related to Forest with me.

22 Interview with the composer, 12 June 2018.