Leopold Spinner

Leopold Spinner (26 April 1906 – 12 August 1980) was an Austrian-born, British-domiciled composer and editor.

Biography Spinner was born of Austrian parentage in Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine, Lwów, Poland during the interwar period). From 1926 to 1930 he studied composition in Vienna with Paul Amadeus Pisk and afterwards began to attract international attention with works which were performed at the ISCM Festivals or awarded prizes. From 1947 he worked as a music-copyist and arranger for Boosey & Hawkes, In 1958 he succeeded Erwin Stein as editor at Boosey & Hawkes, later becoming Chief Editor. He remained with Boosey & Hawkes until his retirement in 1975. His skills and exactitude were highly praised by Stravinsky.

Compositions From 1926 to his death in London in 1980 Spinner steadily and painstakingly built up an individual body of work,

Michael Graubart has championed Spinner's music in articles and performances. In 1982 he conducted the first performances of two works from 1971 in London: The Wind Sonata, Op. 23 and the Two Songs, Op. 24 for soprano and six instruments. Malcolm Hayes highlighted the unusual scoring of the Wind Sonata (D clarinet, oboe, horn and bassoon), and its evocation of the sound world of Viennese expressionism, but combined with the articulation and clarity more associated with late Stravinsky. The Two Songs, in which the soloist is accompanied by flute, oboe, alto saxophone, guitar and celeste, show a calmer and more lyrical side to Spinner's music despite the intense polyphony and motivic control, and "the tendency of Spinner's harmonic ear towards consonance".