Gordon Crosse

Gordon Crosse (1 December 1937 – 21 November 2021) was an English composer.

Biography Crosse was born in Bury, Lancashire on 1 December 1937, and in 1961 graduated from St Edmund Hall, Oxford with a first class honours degree in music, where his tutors included Egon Wellesz. He then undertook two years of postgraduate research on early fifteenth-century music before beginning an academic career at the University of Birmingham. Subsequent employment included posts at the Universities of Essex, Cambridge and California. He won the Worshipful Company of Musicians' Cobbett Medal for services to music in 1976. For two years after 1980 he taught part-time at the Royal Academy of Music in London but then retired to his Suffolk home to compose full-time.

Crosse first came to prominence at the 1964 Aldeburgh Festival with Meet My Folks! (Theme and Relations, op. 10), a music theatre work for children and adults based on poems by Ted Hughes. Hughes also provided the lyrics for five of Crosse's subsequent works: the "cantata" The Demon of Adachigahara (op. 21, 1968); The New World for voice and piano (op. 25); the opera The Story of Vasco (op. 29, 1974); Wintersong for six singers and optional percussion (op. 51); and Harvest Songs for two choirs and orchestra (op. 56). The Demon of Adachigahara, another music theatre work for children and adults, is a retelling of a traditional Japanese folk-tale akin to a Brothers Grimm story; it warns of the dangers of curiosity. The Story of Vasco, premièred in 1974 by Sadler's Wells Opera at the Coliseum Theatre in London, is a setting of Hughes' translation and adaptation of Georges Schehadé's play Histoire de Vasco.

Changes (op. 17), for soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra, was written for the 1966 Three Choirs Festival in Worcester. The title refers to the sound of church-bells and it sets Crosse's own choice of texts by a variety of English poets ("I spent as long choosing the text as writing the music"), an approach similar to that of Britten in his Spring Symphony. Though the subject-matter is often dark – many of the texts relate to death – the composer aimed "to fashion something enjoyable to listener and performer alike."

Crosse's first opera, Purgatory (op. 18), is a one-act setting of the play by William Butler Yeats. The opera reflects Crosse's admiration for the music of Benjamin Britten, in particular The Turn of the Screw. It was written in 1966 and premièred at the Cheltenham Music Festival later that year. In 1969, Crosse returned to the Aldeburgh Festival to hear the English Opera Group première his second opera The Grace of Todd (op. 20) and revive Purgatory. The following year, the piece Some Marches on a Ground for full orchestra elaborated material that would later appear in The Story of Vasco of 1974.

Crosse also composed the music for King Lear, the 1983 television production of Shakespeare's play, in which Laurence Olivier played the title role, and for which the celebrated actor won the last of his five Emmy Awards. The production marked Olivier's last appearance in a Shakespearean role. This is the only television production for which Crosse has composed the music.

Crosse's interest in the relationship between music, literature and drama is evident in his concert as well as his theatrical work. Two examples are Memories of Morning: Night

With Dirge from Cymbeline for baritone and harp, written in 2007 for the NMC Songbook, Crosse resumed active composition. The Dirge was followed by a Trio for oboe, violin and cello (Rhyming with Everything) and a "Fantasia" for flute/recorder, harp and strings. Then came a stream of new works, both large scale and small. Chamber works included four more string quartets (Nos 2 to 5), Brief Encounter for oboe, recorder and strings, a trio for oboe, violin and cello, and the Three Kipling Songs (2008). Orchestral works included a Viola Concerto, a 3rd violin concerto 'Horizon' and the Symphonies No 3, 4, 5 'The Seabird's Cry' and 6 (for double string orchestra, piano, timpani and harp). OUP was the publisher of his pieces until 1990, and Cadenza Music was his primary publisher since 2008.

Crosse married Elizabeth Bunch in 1965 after they met at Aldeburgh, and they bought a house, Brant's Cottage in Blackheath, Wenhaston, near Blythburgh, Suffolk. There were two sons. She died of cancer in 2011. In later years his partner was the poet Wendy Mulford, with whom he bought a cottage on Papa Westray, the northern-most of the Orkney Islands. Crosse died on 21 November 2021, at the age of 83.

Selected works

Orchestral 2009 Brief Encounter for oboe d'amore, recorder & string orchestra Fantasia on "Ca' the Yowes" for flute/recorder, harp & string orchestra Viola Concerto for viola & string orchestra with French horn 1986 Array 30' for trumpet & string orchestra 1979 Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra 11' recorders (one player) and piano 1980 A Year and a Day 9' counter-tenor, recorder, cello and harpsichord 1978 Wildboy op. 42 27' clarinet and ensemble Thel op. 38 14' flute, two horns and string ensemble 1973 Dreamsongs op. 35 14' clarinet, oboe, bassoon, piano 1972 Ariadne op. 31 23' oboe and ensemble The New World op. 25 20' voice and piano

Opera and music theatre 1977 World Within op. 40 43' actress, mezzo-soprano, ensemble 1974 The Story of Vasco op. 29 135' three-act opera 1968 The Demon of Adachigahara op. 21 30' children and adults The Grace of Todd op. 20 75' "comedy in three scenes" 1966 Purgatory op. 18 40' one-act opera 1964 Meet My Folks! (Theme and Relations) op. 10 25' children and adults

Recordings

Argo ZRG 656 (LP)Lyrita SRCD 259 (CD)

Argo ZRG 810 (LP)Lyrita SRCD 313 (CD)

First Edition LS 471 (LP)RCA Gold Seal GL 25018 (LP)

U-K DKP 9093 (CD)

Métier MSV 92013(CD)

Argo ZRG 842 (LP)Lyrita SRCD 259 (CD)

Olympia OCD 714 (CD)

NMC D019 (CD)

Memories of Morning: NightCello ConcertoSome Marches on a Ground op. 30op. 44op. 28 NMC D058 (CD)

Prima Facie PFCD0004 (CD)

Dutton CDLX 7207 (CD)

Métier MSV 77201 (CD)