 John
McCabe's dual career as composer and pianist has established him as
one of the leading British musicians of his generation. His integral
recording
on London of the complete Piano Sonatas of Haydn (12CDs) was greeted by
Gramophone Magazine as "one of the great recorded monuments of the
keyboard
repertoire", likening it to Schnabel's Beethoven Sonatas. During his
career
he has given around 1200 performances of British works, while his
50-plus
solo piano recordings range from Clementi and Mozart to Webern, Copland
and Carter and include Hindemith's Ludas Tonalis (Hyperion), music by
Robert
Saxton (NMC), and Rawsthorne's Piano Quintet (Naxos). Among other
composers
whose music he has premiered are Rawsthorne, Richard Rodney Bennett,
Hoddinott,
John Casken and Edward Gregson, and he has given the country premieres
of Messiaen's Sept Hai-kai (Australia), Delius's Piano Concerto
(Denmark),
and John Corigliano's Piano Concerto (England).
His large output of compositions,
which have been performed all over the world, cover most of the genre.
Among his most successful works are the ballet Edward 11, created and
choreographed
by David Bintley (Stuttgart Ballet 1995, Birmingham Royal Ballet 1997),
numerous orchestral works including Concerto for Orchestra
(Solti/London
Philharmonic Orchestra 1983) and four symphonies, and an extensive
range
of keyboard, chamber and vocal music. He has also written scores for a
wide range of TV drama productions. Recent works have included the
Flute
Concerto for James Galway and the London Symphony Orchestra, Tenebrae
for
piano (Barry Douglas), and the chamber works for the Verdehr Trio
(Fauvel's
Rondeaux) and the Raphael Ensemble (Pilgrim for string sextet). The
success
of the Birmingham Premiere and country-wide tour of Edward 11 was such
that in May 1998 Birmingham Royal Ballet staged an extra week of
performances
by public demand, and brought it to Sadlers Wells Theatre, London, for
a highly successful season. The same company commissioned John McCabe
and
David Bintley to create two full-evening ballets on Arthurian themes -
the first, subtitled Arthur Pendragon, was premiered in Birmingham in
January
2000, and the second, Le Morte d'Arthur, is scheduled for performance
in
2001.
John McCabe has also written several
musical monographs on Rachmaninov, Bartok's Orchestral Music, and the
Haydn
Piano Sonatas. His book Alan Rawsthorne: Portrait of a Composer was
published
by Oxford University Press in 1999. From 1983-1990 he was director of
the
London College of Music, and is currently a Visiting Professor of
Composition
at both the Royal Academy of Music and the London College of Music. He
has also held Visiting Professorships at the Universities of Cincinatti
and Melbourne. He has served as Chairman of the Association of
Professional
Composers, President of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, on the
General
Council of the Performing Rights Society and on a committee of the
Musician's
Union. He was appointed C.B.E. by HM The Queen in 1983 for his services
to British Music.
The music of John McCabe is published
by Novello & Co. Ltd.
John
McCabe Website
|
