Humphrey Searle (26 August 1915 – 12 May 1982) was an English

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

and writer on music. His music combines aspects of late

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

and

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

serialism In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

, particularly reminiscent of his primary influences,

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

and

Anton Webern Anton Webern (; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its lyric poetry, lyrical, poetic concision and use of then novel atonality, aton ...

, who was briefly his teacher. As a writer on music, Searle published texts on numerous topics; he was an authority on the music of Franz Liszt, and created the initial cataloguing system for his works.

Biography

Searle was the son of Humphrey and Charlotte Searle and, through his mother, a grandson of Sir William Schlich. He was born in

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

where he was a classics scholar before studying—somewhat hesitantly—with

John Ireland John Benjamin Ireland (January 30, 1914 – March 21, 1992) was a Canadian-American actor and film director. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia and raised in New York City, he came to prominence with film audiences for his supporting roles i ...

at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

in London, after which he went to Vienna on a six-month scholarship to become a private pupil of

, which became decisive in his composition career. Searle was one of the foremost pioneers of

serial music In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

in the United Kingdom, and used his role as a producer at the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

from 1946 to 1948 to promote it. He was General Secretary of the

International Society for Contemporary Music The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music. The organization was established in Salzburg in 1922 as Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM) following the ...

from 1947 to 1949. He accepted this post with the encouragement of the new president, Edward Clark. For Clark, he composed the Quartet for Clarinet, Bassoon, Violin and Viola, Op. 12, a musical

palindrome A palindrome (Help:IPA/English, /ˈpæl.ɪn.droʊm/) is a word, palindromic number, number, phrase, or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards, such as ''madam'' or ''racecar'', the date "Twosday, 02/02/2020" and th ...

. ''Gold Coast Customs'', Op. 15, was his first large scale serial work. It is a setting of the jazz-influenced poem by

Edith Sitwell Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess ...

, scored for speakers, male chorus and orchestra, and the first of a trilogy of pieces for speaker and orchestra, to be followed by ''Riverrun'', Op. 20 (1951, words by

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

) and ''The Shadow of Cain'', Op. 22 (1952, words again by Edith Sitwell). The premiere of ''Gold Coast Customs'' took place at BBC Broadcasting House on 17 May 1949, with Edith Sitwell and

Constant Lambert Leonard Constant Lambert (23 August 190521 August 1951) was a British composer, conductor, and author. He was the founding music director of the Royal Ballet, and (alongside Dame Ninette de Valois and Sir Frederick Ashton) he was a major figu ...

as the speakers. Searle wrote his Piano Sonata, Op. 21 for a recital at the

Wigmore Hall The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...

on 22 October 1951, given by the Australian pianist Gordon Watson to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the birth of

. (Watson also performed the complete ''

Transcendental Études The ''Transcendental Études'' (), S.139, is a set of twelve compositions for piano by Franz Liszt. They were published in 1852 as a revision of an 1837 set (which had not borne the title "d'exécution transcendante"), which in turn were – f ...

'' on that occasion.) The Sonata was loosely based on Liszt's Sonata in B minor and has been described as "probably, both the finest and most original piano work ever produced by a British composer". Other works of note include a ''Poem for 22 Strings'' (1950), premiered at

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

, a

Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; ; (; () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol used the grotesque in his writings, for example, in his works " The Nose", " Viy", "The Overcoat", and " Nevsky Prosp ...

opera, ''The Diary of a Madman'' (1958, awarded the first prize at UNESCO's

International Rostrum of Composers The International Rostrum of Composers (IRC) is an annual forum organized by the International Music Council that offers broadcasting representatives the opportunity to exchange and publicize pieces of contemporary classical music. It is funded by c ...

in 1960), and five symphonies, the first of which was commercially recorded by the

London Philharmonic Orchestra The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is a British orchestra based in London. One of five permanent symphony orchestras in London, the LPO was founded by the conductors Thomas Beecham, Sir Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent in 1932 as a riv ...

in 1960, conducted by

Sir Adrian Boult Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, CH (; 8 April 1889 – 22 February 1983) was a British conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London ...

. Writing in 1994,

Ottó Károlyi Ottó Károlyi (26 March 1934 – 30 November 2015) was a musicologist of Hungarian background, born in Paris who lived and worked for most of his career in the United Kingdom. He studied in Budapest, Vienna, and London, taking a diploma at Trinity ...

described the Symphony No. 5 as "a biographical programmatic symphony that sets out to depict, by purely musical means, highlights of Webern's life from his youth to his untimely death". All five symphonies have since been recorded by the Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alun Francis. He also composed

film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

s, including music for ''

The Baby and the Battleship ''The Baby and the Battleship'' is a colour 1956 British comedy film directed by Jay Lewis and starring John Mills, Richard Attenborough and André Morell. It is based on the 1956 novel by Anthony Thorne with a screenplay by Richard De Roy, G ...

'' (1956), '' Beyond Mombasa'' (1956), ''

Action of the Tiger ''Action of the Tiger'' is a 1957 British CinemaScope action film directed by Terence Young and starring Van Johnson and Martine Carol. It was distributed by MGM. The plot is about the rescue of a political prisoner held in Albania. Carson, pl ...

'' (1957), '' The Abominable Snowman'' (1957), '' Law and Disorder'' (1958), ''

Left Right and Centre ''Left Right and Centre'' is a 1959 British satirical comedy film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Ian Carmichael, Patricia Bredin, Richard Wattis, Eric Barker and Alastair Sim. It was produced by Frank Launder. A political come ...

'' (1959), '' October Moth'' (1960) and '' The Haunting'' (1963), as well the 1965 ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

'' serial ''

The Myth Makers ''The Myth Makers'' is the third serial of the third season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. Written by Donald Cotton and directed by Michael Leeston-Smith, the serial was broadcast on BBC1 in four weekly par ...

''. Searle also contributed humorous compositions to some of the

Hoffnung Music Festival The Hoffnung Music Festivals were a series of humorous classical music festivals created by cartoonist and amateur tuba player Gerard Hoffnung and held in the Royal Festival Hall in London. The concerts consisted of humorous works specially com ...

s, including a setting of ''

Young Lochinvar ''Young Lochinvar'' is a 1923 British silent historical drama film directed by W. P. Kellino and starring Owen Nares, Gladys Jennings, and Dick Webb. The screenplay was based on J. E. Muddock’s 1896 novel ''Young Lochinvar, A Tale of the B ...

'' and a parody of

, ''Punkt Kontrapunkt''. Searle taught throughout his life; his notable students included Hugh Davidson,

Brian Elias Brian Elias (born 30 August 1948) is a British composer. Biography Brian Elias was born in Bombay, India, and has lived in the U.K. since he was thirteen years old. After studying at the Royal College of Music under Humphrey Searle and Bernard ...

Michael Finnissy Michael Peter Finnissy (born 17 March 1946) is an English composer, pianist, and pedagogue. An immensely prolific composer, his music is "notable for its dramatic urgency and expressive immediacy". Although he rejects the label, he is often reg ...

Jonathan Elias Jonathan Elias (born 1956) is an American composer best known for his film soundtracks. Background Elias was born in New York City in 1956. He is of Jewish-Hungarian background. Elias started playing piano at the age of six, and was composin ...

, Nicola LeFanu,

Alistair Hinton Alistair Richard Hinton (born 6 October 1950) is a Scottish composer and musicologist with a focus on the works of his friend Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji. He is the curator of the Sorabji Archive. Career and works Hinton, a native of Dunfermline, ...

, Geoffrey King, and Graham Newcater and

Wolfgang Rihm Wolfgang Rihm (; 13 March 1952 – 27 July 2024) was a German composer of contemporary classical music and an academic teacher based in Karlsruhe. He was an influential post-war European composer, as "one of the most original and independent mus ...

. Searle wrote the monographs ''Twentieth Century Counterpoint'' and ''The Music of Franz Liszt''. He also developed the most authoritative catalogue of Liszt's works, which are frequently identified using Searle's numbering system, abbreviated as "S.". Searle married Fiona Nicholson in 1960. He died in London in 1982, aged 66.

List of works

Source

Operas

* '' The Diary of a Madman'' (1958) * ''The Photo of the Colonel'' (1963–64) * ''Hamlet'' (1964–68)

Ballets

* '' Noctambules'' (1956) * ''The Great Peacock'' (1957–58) * ''Dualities'' (1963)

Orchestral

* ''

Variations on an Elizabethan Theme ''Variations on an Elizabethan Theme'' (also seen as ''Variations on Sellinger's Round'') is a set of variations for string orchestra, written collaboratively in 1952 by six English composers: Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Oldham, H ...

'', jointly composed with

Lennox Berkeley Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley CBE (12 May 190326 December 1989) was an English composer. Biography Berkeley was born on 12 May 1903 in Oxford, England, the younger child and only son of Aline Carla (1863–1935), daughter of Sir James ...

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, o ...

Arthur Oldham Arthur William Oldham OBE (6 September 1926 – 4 May 2003) was an English composer and choirmaster. He founded the Edinburgh Festival Chorus in 1965, the Chorus of the Orchestre de Paris in 1975, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra Chorus ...

Michael Tippett Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as o ...

and

William Walton Sir William Turner Walton (29 March 19028 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include ''Façade'', the cantat ...

(1953) * Symphony No. 1 (1953) * Symphony No. 2 (1956–58) * Symphony No. 3 (1959–60) * Symphony No. 4 (1961–62) * Symphony No. 5 (1964) * Sinfonietta (1968–69) * ''Labyrinth'' (1971) * ''Three Ages'' (1982)

Piano concertos

* Piano Concerto No. 1 (1944) * Piano Concerto No. 2 (1955)

Suites

* Suite No. 1 for Strings (1942) * Suite No. 2 (1943) * ''Night Music'' (1943) * ''Poem for 22 Strings'' (1950) * ''Concertante for Piano, Strings and Percussion'' (1954) * ''Scherzi'' (1964) * ''Hamlet Suite'' (1968) * ''Zodiac Variations'' (1970) * ''Tamesis'' (1979)

Chorus and instruments

* ''Gold Coast Customs'' (1947–49) for speakers, male chorus and orchestra * ''The Riverrun'' (Joyce) (1951) for speakers and orchestra * ''The Shadow of Cain'' (1952) for speakers, male chorus and orchestra * ''Jerusalem'' (1970) for speakers, tenor, chorus and orchestra * ''My Beloved Spake'' (1976) for chorus and organ * ''Dr Faustus'' (1977) for solo woman, chorus and orchestra

Voice and orchestra

* ''3 Songs of Jocelyn Brooke'' (1954) for high voice and ensemble * ''Oxus'' (1967) for tenor and orchestra * ''Contemplations'' (1975) for mezzo-soprano and orchestra * ''Kubla Khan'' (1973) for tenor and orchestra

Unaccompanied chorus

* ''The Canticle of the Rose'' (Sitwell, 1965) * ''Rhyme Rude to My Pride'' (1974) for male chorus

Chamber music

* Bassoon Quintet (1945) * ''Intermezzo for 11 Instruments'' (1946) * Quartet for Clarinet, Bassoon, Violin and Viola, Op. 12 (1948; a musical palindrome) * ''Passacaglietta in nomine Arnold Schoenberg'' (1949) for string quartet * ''Gondoliera'' (1950) for celesta and piano * ''3 Cat Poems'' (1951/53): "

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" is a nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published in 1870 in the American magazine '' Our Young Folks'' and again the following year in Lear's own book ''Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets''. Lear wrote ...

" for speaker, flute, cello and guitar and "Two Practical Cats" for speaker, flute/piccolo, cello and guitar * Suite for Clarinet and Piano (1956) * ''Three Movements for String Quartet'' (1959) * ''Cello Fantasia'' (1972) * ''Il Penseroso e L'Allegro'' (1975) for cello and piano

Song cycle

* ''Les fleurs du mal'' (1972) for tenor, horn and piano

Songs

* Two Songs of A.E. Housman, op. 9 (1946): ''March Past (On the idle hill of summer)'' and ''The Stinging-Nettle'', for voice and piano * ''Counting the Beats'' (1963) for high voice and piano

Piano

* Sonata (1951) * Suite (1955) * ''Prelude on a Theme by Rawsthorne'' (1965)

Guitar

* ''Five'' Op.61 (1974)

Selected bibliography

Source * * *

References

Sources

* *

External links

Humphrey Searle: British Composer (1915–1982)

Humphrey Searle
profile by Robert Clements, Classical Net *
Images of Humphrey Searle
on the

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Searle, Humphrey 1915 births 1982 deaths 20th-century English classical composers Alumni of the Royal College of Music British ballet composers English opera composers English male opera composers International Rostrum of Composers prize-winners Musicians from Oxford Twelve-tone and serial composers 20th-century English musicologists 20th-century English male musicians Liszt scholars BBC radio producers Pupils of Anton Webern Alkan scholars Schoenberg scholars Tate scholars Webern scholars BBC music people