William Wordsworth (composer)

William Brocklesby Wordsworth (17 December 1908 – 10 March 1988) was an English composer.

His works, which number over 100, were tonal and romantic in style in the widest sense and include eight symphonies and six string quartets.

Wordsworth was born in London, the son of a clergyman and a descendant of the poet Wordsworth's brother.

He studied harmony and counterpoint under George Oldroyd at St Michael's Church, Croydon from 1921 to 1931, continuing his study with Donald Tovey at Edinburgh University from 1934 to 1936.

The first large scale works appeared in the late 1930s and he started to gain critical attention during the war years, when the String Quartet No. 1, Op. 16 won the Clements Memorial Prize in 1941.

Wordsworth's first acknowledged and published piece was the Three Hymn Preludes for organ, Op. 1 of 1932.

The following year his Phantasy Sonata for violin and piano, Op. 3, attracted the attention of Donald Tovey, and led to his accepting Wordsworth as a pupil.

In anticipation of conscientious objection, he was an active member of the Peace Pledge Union, and voluntarily began work on the land in 1939, a role that was later made a condition of exemption from military service by his tribunal.

Described by Michael Kennedy as having "the overtones of war or spiritual strife", the Symphony No. 1 was composed in 1944 and premiered two years later during a studio recording in Manchester by the BBC Northern Orchestra conducted by Julius Harrison.

There were four more symphonies (1948, 1951, 1953 and 1960), three of the six string quartets, the Piano Concerto (1948) and the Violin Concerto (1956), as well as large scale works for chorus and orchestra such as A Song of Praise (1956) and The Peasants' Revolt (1957).

But during the 1950s and 1960s, while still at the height of his powers, Wordsworth's music began to fall out of favour, separate as it was from the prevailing trends in European music.

He set up his own publishing company, Speyside, to provide an outlet for his music.

He lived in Hindhead, Surrey until 1961 when he moved to Inverness-shire; in 1966, he helped found the Scottish Composers' Guild.

He also helped form the Society of Scottish Composers.

Wordsworth died at Kingussie in Scotland, aged 79.

The Cello Concerto (1962) is a work of symphonic proportions, written in a style that sits somewhere between Shostakovich and Bloch.

Although the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performed it for a modern studio recording in 1968, the Symphony has not yet received a public performance.

Another large work of the wartime period, the oratorio Dies Domini, Op. 18, for three soloists, chorus and large orchestra, was praised by Vaughan Williams, but is still awaiting its first performance.

The fifteen years after the war were the most productive for Wordsworth, and also the time when he received the most recognition.

After the death of his elder son Tim in 1971 at the age of 23, Wordsworth composed two elegiac works, Adonais, Op. 97 (1974) for five mixed voices, piano, cymbals and bells (setting Shelley), and the Symphony No. 6, Elegiaca, for mezzo-soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra, Op. 102 (1977, words by Shelley, John Donne and Edna St. Vincent Millay).

Written in 1962–3, it had to wait until 1975 for its first performance, during a BBC broadcast on 20 January 1975.

When his wife Frieda died in 1982 he produced the Elegy for Frieda for strings, Op. 111a (1984).

His last completed work, a BBC commission, was the two-movement Symphony No. 8 Pax Hominibus, Op.117 (1986), the subtitle reflecting the composer's long-standing involvement in the peace movement.

It was broadcast on 14 November 1986.