Denis ApIvor

Denis ApIvor (14 April 1916 – 27 May 2004) was a British composer, best known for his ballet score Blood Wedding.

He had a parallel career as a consultant anaesthetist.

ApIvor (pronounced Ap Ivor) was born in Collinstown, County Westmeath, Ireland, to Welsh parents, Denis ApIvor went to Hereford Cathedral School and was a chorister at Christ Church, Oxford, and Hereford Cathedral.

Because his parents opposed a career in music, he studied medicine in London, but had also pursued the study of music from an early age.

He began his medical studies at the University of Aberystwyth in 1933, moving the next year to University College London.

Inspired by hearing the first performance in England of Wozzeck (at the Queen's Hall, 14 March 1934 conducted by Adrian Boult) and encouraged by Cecil Gray, he also studied composition privately with Patrick Hadley and Alan Rawsthorne.

At the outbreak of World War II he was for a time house physician at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, Hampstead.

His most successful early works include The Hollow Men (1939; rev. 1946), and several ballets.

In 1942 he was called up, mostly serving as a war doctor in India.

While ApIvor introduced serial elements in his Piano Concerto (1948, revised 1954 and performed at the Proms in 1958 by Patrick Piggott), it was only in 1955 that he began regularly using a more freely atonal and athematic serialism, which he continued to do until the 1980s.

He was influenced in this by Edward Clark, a conductor, former BBC music producer, student of Arnold Schoenberg and husband of Elisabeth Lutyens.

He composed five symphonies, various concertos (for cello, guitar, horn, piano and violin), and many chamber and instrumental works, including three string quartets.

He formed a friendship with his Albany Street neighbour Constant Lambert, who conducted the premiere of his first major work, a choral-orchestral setting of T S Eliot's The Hollow Men, on 21 February, 1950.

His diverse musical influences during this period ranged from Busoni, Delius, Peter Warlock and Bernard van Dieren to Berg and Webern.

The 1950s and 1960s were his most productive years, but despite a decline in performances from the 1970s he continued to compose into the 1990s and beyond.

ApIvor's music falls broadly into three periods: early works from the 1950s influenced by Van Dieren and Peter Warlock, soon leading to a stricter serial style until the late 1980s, and finally renewed simplicity in his later works.

A Mirror for Witches (1951), based on the book by Esther Forbes with choreography by Andrée Howard and set designs by Norman Adams, was premiered on 4 March 1952 with the Sadler's Wells Ballet at the Royal Opera House.

It was followed in 1953 by Blood Wedding, choreographed by Alfred Rodrigues, designs by Isabel Lambert.

This Lorca-inspired work achieved international success, with staged productions from Turkey to Chile.

He also wrote a Concertino for guitar (1954), Liaison for guitar and keyboard (1976), and Cinquefoil for flute, guitar, and viola (1984).

It led to the commissioning by Sadler's Wells of the opera Yerma (1955–59).

He made a major contribution to the guitar repertoire: solo works include Variations (1958), Discanti (1970), Saeta (1972), and ten serial pieces included with his book Serial Composition for Guitarists (1982).

When this was shelved as being too difficult, William Glock asked Eugene Goossens to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra and chorus in a broadcast concert performance in 1961.

Glock also commissioned the televised ballet Corporal Jan in 1968.

Composer David Hackbridge Johnson has noted "a less aphoristic approach to serialism" in later works, with the expressive and melodic qualities of the Cello Concerto (1977) foreshadowing the modal works of his final years, such as the String Quartet No 3 (1989-90).

After the war ApIvor continued with his medical career, eventually retiring in 1979 from the Mid Kent Group.

But he also returned to his musical activities.

His Fantasy Concertante (1979-80) for horn was broadcast by soloist Frank Lloyd with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Kraemer in 1996.

He left London to live in Wales in 1987 and in the 1990s moving to Telscombe, near Brighton.

He died in Robertsbridge, Sussex, aged 88.

His final work was an operatic scena The Trixter (2002), setting a poem by Peter Warlock.

Archival material relating to ApIvor can be accessed at the National Library of Wales and a full set of his scores are held at The University of Leeds.