Howard While Skempton (born 31 October 1947) is an English composer, pianist, and

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

ist. Since the late 1960s, when he helped to organise the

Scratch Orchestra The Scratch Orchestra was an experimental musical ensemble founded in the spring of 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton. In the draft constitution published in the ''Musical Times'' of June 1969, Cardew defines a scra ...

, he has been associated with the English school of

experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...

. Skempton's work is characterised by stripped-down, essentials-only choice of materials, absence of formal development and a strong emphasis on

melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...

. The musicologist Hermann-Christoph Müller has described Skempton's music as " the emancipation of the consonance".

Life

Skempton was born in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

and studied at

Birkenhead School Birkenhead School is an independent, academically-selective, co-educational day school located in Oxton, Wirral, in North West England. The school offers educational opportunities for girls and boys from three months to eighteen years of age. ...

and Ealing Technical College.Potter, Grove. He started composing before 1967, but that year he moved to London and began taking private lessons in composition from

Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...

. In 1968 Skempton joined Cardew's experimental music class at

Morley College Morley College is a specialist adult education and further education college in London, England. The college has three main campuses, one in Waterloo on the South Bank, and two in West London namely in North Kensington and in Chelsea, the lat ...

, where in spring 1969 Cardew, Skempton and Michael Parsons organised the

. This ensemble, which had open membership, was dedicated to performing experimental contemporary music by composers such as

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

and

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...

, as well as by members of the orchestra itself. One of Skempton's early works, ''Drum No. 1'' (1969), became one of the "most useful and satisfying" pieces in the repertory of the Scratch Orchestra.Parsons 1980, 13. Through the Scratch Orchestra Skempton met numerous composers and performers, including

Christopher Hobbs Christopher Hobbs (born 9 September 1950) is an English experimental composer, best known as a pioneer of British systems music. Life and career Hobbs was born in Hillingdon, near London. He was a junior exhibitioner at Trinity College London, t ...

, John White and various Systems artists, and the pianist

John Tilbury John Tilbury (born 1 February 1936) is a British pianist. He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Morton Feldman's music, and since 1980 has been a member of the free improvisation group AMM. Early life and education Tilbury st ...

. However, tensions arose during the politicising of the Scratch Orchestra in the early 1970s, when Cardew and a number of other important members pushed the ensemble in a

Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

direction. Skempton, Hobbs, Parsons, White and many others refused to be associated with this political line, and the break-up of the Orchestra was accompanied by (in Parsons's words) "a split between its 'political' and 'experimental' factions".Michael Parsons. Note to ''Piece For Cello and Accordion''
From LMJ 11 CD COMPANION, ''Not Necessarily "English Music" Contributors' Notes''. Since 1971 Skempton has been working as a music editor, performer (of his own compositions, on piano and accordion), and teacher. He now teaches composition at the

Birmingham Conservatoire The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is a music school, drama school and concert venue in Birmingham, England. It provides professional education in music, acting, and related disciplines up to postgraduate level. It is a centre for scholarly res ...

. In 1974 Skempton and Michael Parsons formed a duo to perform their own works. The 1980s saw an increase of interest in Skempton's music, which led to more commissions and permitted him to compose more for larger forces.Parsons 1987, 16. '' Lento'', an orchestral work composed in late 1991, became one of Skempton's most widely recognised pieces. In the 1990s important recordings of his works started appearing, such as a disc of piano music recorded by his old friend and former Scratch Orchestra colleague John Tilbury, released on

Sony Classical Sony Classical is an American record label founded in 1924 as Columbia Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. In 1980, the Columbia Masterworks label was renamed as CBS Masterworks Records. The CBS Records Group was acquired by S ...

in 1996,MacDonald 1996. and ''Surface Tension'', a recording of miscellaneous works released on

Mode Records Mode Records is an American record label in New York City that concentrates on contemporary classical music and other forms of avant-garde music. The label was founded by Brian Brandt in 1984, with a goal of releasing music composed by John Cage ...

. Skempton was the winner in the Chamber Scale Composition category at the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards in 2005 for his

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...

''Tendrils'' (2004).

Works

Skempton's style is characterised by a concentration on quality of sound and economy of means, absence of development in the conventional sense, and concentration on sonority. Many of his pieces are quite short, lasting no longer than one or two minutes. Although the compositional methods are clearly experimental, involving, for example,

aleatory Aleatoricism or aleatorism, the noun associated with the adjectival aleatory and aleatoric, is a term popularised by the musical composer Pierre Boulez, but also Witold Lutosławski and Franco Evangelisti, for compositions resulting from "actio ...

methods, there is a marked emphasis on the melody in many pieces. Some of his earlier piano works, such as ''Saltaire Melody'' (1977) and ''Trace'' (1980), have become favourites with the public. Formative influences on Skempton's music included the works of

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an und ...

and

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...

. For example, ''A Humming Song'' (1967), an early piano piece composed before Skempton started lessons with Cardew, is a miniature with static, gentle sound. The harmonic structure consists of eight symmetrically arranged pitches, out of which six are selected for use in the piece. Chance procedures are then used to determine the order and number of occurrences of individual pitches. The pianist is asked to sustain certain pitches by humming. Another early piece, ''Drum No. 1'' (1969), composed for the

, consists of just a few written instructions to the performers and is clearly inspired by similarly realised works by

, whose music Cardew was enthusiastically propagating in the late 1960s. The score of ''May Pole'' (1971), a piece for orchestra, consists of a chance-determined sequence of chords. Each performer chooses a note from a chord, and chooses the moment when to play that note. The later the choice, the softer the dynamics. Skempton later called such pieces "landscapes" that "simply project the material as sound, without momentum."Parsons 1987, 21. Other early works include two pieces for tape, a medium Skempton rarely used later: ''Indian Summer'' (1969) and ''Drum No. 3'' (1971). The early 1970s saw a slow shift from static, abstract pieces to pieces with more clearly defined rhythmic and harmonic structures, although the methods and forms Skempton used remained unorthodox. For instance, in the series of ''Quavers'' piano pieces (1973–75) the music consists solely of repeated chords with no pauses between them. In addition to "landscapes" two other categories appeared, dubbed "melodies" and "chorales" by the composer. The "melodies" are single melodic lines either with simple accompaniment (''Saltaire Melody'', for piano (1977)) or suspended in space (later works such as ''Trace'' for piano (1980) and ''Bagatelle'' for flute (1985)). "Chorales" are works where material is presented primarily (or solely) using chords. An example is ''Postlude'' (1978), for piano, in contradistinction to ''Eirenicon 3'' (1978), also for piano, which is a "landscape". The earlier "melodies" were apparently composed at the instrument, intuitively, whereas the later ones evolve from a series of written pitches. It was also in the 1970s that Skempton started composing chamber works, although these were almost always for two performers, since they were written to be performed by the duo of Skempton himself and Michael Parsons. These pieces included a number of horn duos, pieces for two drums, and a duet for piano and woodblocks. Finally, in the 1970s Skempton started playing accordion and composing for this instrument. In 1980 Skempton composed ''Chorales'', his first major work for orchestra. It was commissioned by the Merseyside Youth Orchestra. The composer described it as "essentially the same as what I was doing before, but on an orchestral scale". Although the work is clearly a "chorale" in the sense ''Postlude'' and similar pieces are, during the 1980s Skempton's range expanded greatly, leading to works such as ''The Durham Strike'' (1985), which is a set of piano variations that is longer than any of the previous piano pieces, ''

Images An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...

'' (1989), a large cycle of piano works for a TV documentary, and chamber works scored for larger forces than those used previously. Skempton's first major success came in 1991 with the premiere of '' Lento'' (1990), an orchestral piece that gained a larger audience for the composer. During the 1990s and the 2000s Skempton started composing longer works for larger forces. These include several concertos, among which are some for instruments rarely used in the western tradition: the

hurdy-gurdy The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a vio ...

(''Concerto for hurdy-gurdy and percussion'' (1994)) and the accordion (''Concerto for oboe, accordion and strings'' (1997)). Some of the later works explore non-standard instrumentation: ''Alveston'' (2007) is scored for four trumpets, ''Horizons'' (2001) is scored for

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A ...

and

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...

, ''Ballade'' (1997) is a pieces for saxophone quartet and string orchestra.

References and further reading

* Hill, Peter. 1984. "Riding the Thermals: Howard Skempton's Piano Music". ''Tempo'', new series, no. 148:8–11. * MacDonald, Calum. 1996. "Skempton: ''Well, Well, Cornelius (and 43 other Piano Pieces)''. John Tilbury (pno). Sony SK 66482 / Sorabji: ''Gulistan''. Charles Hopkins (pno). Altarus AIR-CD-9036 / Simpson: Piano Sonata; ''Variations and Finale on a Theme of Haydn''; ''Michael Tippett, His Mystery''; ''Variations and Finale on a Theme of Beethoven''. Raymond Clarke (pno). Hyperion CDA66827 / Schnabel: ''Piano Piece in 7 Movements''; Piano Sonata. Benedikt Kohlen (pno). Auvidis Montaigne M0782053". ''Tempo'', new series, no. 197 (July): 47–49. * Müller, Hermann-Christoph. 1998. "Emanzipation der Konsonanz: Howard Skemptons Orchesterstück ''Lento''". ''MusikTexte'', no. 75 (August): 77–81. * Pace, Ian. 1997. "Archetypal Experiments". ''The Musical Times'' 138, no. 1856 (October): 9–14. * Parsons, Michael. 1980. "The Music of Howard Skempton". ''Contact'', issue 21:12–16. * Parsons, Michael. 1987. "Howard Skempton: Chorales, Landscapes and Melodies". ''Contact'', issue 30:16–29. * Potter, Keith. 1991. "Howard Skempton: Some Clues for a Post-Experimental 'Movement'". ''The Musical Times'' 132, no 1777 (March): 126–30. *

Notes

External links

Jems: Journal of Experimental Music Studies
includes articles on Howard Skempton by Michael Parsons, as well as other materials on English experimental composers.
Skempton's page at the Oxford University Press website
includes a biography, a catalogue of works, score samples, etc.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Skempton, Howard 1947 births 21st-century classical composers 20th-century classical composers English classical composers English experimental musicians Living people People from Chester People educated at Birkenhead School English male classical composers 20th-century English composers 21st-century English composers 20th-century British male musicians 21st-century British male musicians