David Gow

David Godfrey Gow (6 April 1924 – 23 February 1993) was an English composer (of Scottish descent) and teacher.

Life Gow was born in London. His ancestors included the 18th Century Scottish fiddler Niel Gow and his son Nathaniel (a connection he acknowledged in his Six Diversions on an Ancestral Theme).

Music Gow described the style of his music as "serialism tempered by tonality", but he was always careful not to make unreasonable demands on performers. He composed nine string quartets (spanning the years 1946 to 1990) and from 1984 (starting at the String Quartet No 4) established a close association with the Maggini Quartet. His Quartet for flute, oboe, violoncello and harpsichord, Op. 28, won the Hans Oppenheimer Prize of the Saltire Society in 1967. He wrote many concertos, including the Piano Concerto for Philip Martin in 1980, the Cello Concerto for Timothy Hugh, and a Marimba Concerto for Evelyn Glennie, completed just before his death. His solo piano works include Twelve Preludes and a Postlude (1979) and two piano sonatas (1984 for Philip Martin and 1990 for Eric Parkin). and choral works such as Ave Maris Stella, which has been recorded. Gow worked closely with the BBC Northern Singers and their conductor Stephen Wilkinson, who gave the first performances and broadcasts of his cantatas The Wreck of the Deutschland (1971, setting Gerard Manley Hopkins), Little Cantata to the Stars (1974), Walden (1984), and Star Gazers (1990). Orchestral works include a nine minute long Mini Symphony written for the Hounslow Youth Orchestra in 1968, the Overture One-Two-Five (1978) commissioned by British Rail and used as the soundtrack for a short documentary film produced by British Transport Films, and the Symphony No 3 Wessex Heights, written in 1990 to commemorate 150 years since the birth of Thomas Hardy.