Mátyás György Seiber (; 4 May 190524 September 1960) was a Hungarian-born British composer who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1935 onwards. His work linked many diverse musical influences, from the Hungarian tradition of
Bartók and
Kodály, to
Schoenberg and
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 als ...
, to jazz, folk song, and lighter music.
Early life
Seiber was born in Budapest. His mother, Berta Patay was a reputed pianist and teacher, so the young Seiber gained considerable skill with that instrument first. At the age of ten, he began to learn to play the cello. After attending grammar school, where he was regarded as "outstanding" in mathematics and Latin according to the almanacs of the
Franz Liszt Academy of Music
The Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music ( hu, Liszt Ferenc Zeneművészeti Egyetem, often abbreviated as ''Zeneakadémia'', "Liszt Academy") is a music university and a concert hall in Budapest, Hungary, founded on November 14, 1875. It is home to the ...
, he studied the cello and composition from 1918 to 1925, and composition with
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music ed ...
from 1921 to 1925. For his degree, he wrote his String Quartet No. 1 (in A minor). Pieces composed at this time, such as the ''Serenade for Six Wind Instruments'' of 1925, show him combining traditional Hungarian folk tunes with the forms of Western art music.
[''Matyas Seiber - Traveller between Worlds'']
Royal College of Music concert, 11 November 2020 He toured Hungary with Zoltán Kodály, collecting folk songs, and built on the research of Kodály and
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hun ...
. He also developed an interest in medieval
plainchant
Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French ''plain-chant''; la, cantus planus) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text ...
.
Career
In 1925, Seiber accepted a teaching position at a private music school. In 1926, he took a position to play the cello in the orchestra of a ship from to North and South America. This was where became acquainted with
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...
.
In 1928 he became director of the jazz department at the
Hoch Conservatory
Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium – Musikakademie was founded in Frankfurt am Main on 22 September 1878. Through the generosity of Frankfurter Joseph Hoch, who bequeathed the Conservatory one million German gold marks in his testament, a school for ...
in Frankfurt, which offered the first academic jazz courses anywhere. His text book ''Schule für Jazz-Schlagzeug'' was written in 1929, as a practical summary of his theoretical requirements. Two of his articles of great importance were published in the journal ''Melos'': "Jazz als Erziehungsmittel" (1928) and "Jazz-Instrumente, Jazz-Klang und Neue Musik" (1930). After the jazz department was closed by the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
s in 1933, Seiber left Germany.
He returned to Hungary but did not settle there; he accepted a position of music
referent in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
for two years, but his employment was ended after that.
Seiber emigrated to England in 1935 and settled in London, after his marriage in
Caterham
Caterham () is a town in the Tandridge District of Surrey, England. The town is administratively divided into two: Caterham on the Hill, and Caterham Valley, which includes the main town centre in the middle of a dry valley but rises to equa ...
, Surrey at 169 Stafford Road. He only became a British citizen after the war. Seiber taught composition and cello privately while working as a consultant for the subsidiary of Schott in London and composed film music.
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 ...
invited him to be a professor of composition 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, London, Waterloo on the South Bank, and two in West London namely in North Kensington and in ...
in London, and from 1942 he was on the staff there; he became a teacher of
composition
Composition or Compositions may refer to:
Arts and literature
* Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography
*Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...
, music aesthetics, and music theory. His students included
Don Banks
Donald Oscar Banks (25 October 19235 September 1980) was an Australian composer of concert, jazz, and commercial music.
Early life and education
Jazz was Banks' earliest and strongest musical influence. He learned the saxophone as a boy in Aust ...
,
John Exton,
Peter Racine Fricker,
Anthony Gilbert,
Barry Gray
Barry Gray (born John Livesey Eccles; 18 July 1908 – 26 April 1984) was a British musician and composer best known for his collaborations with television and film producer Gerry Anderson.
Life and career
Born into a musical family in Blackburn ...
,
Karel Janovický,
Malcolm Lipkin
Malcolm Lipkin (2 May 1932 – 2 June 2017) was an English composer.
Early life and career
Malcolm Leyland Lipkin was born in Liverpool. While a schoolboy at Liverpool College, he studied the piano privately with Gordon Green from 1944 to ...
,
Anthony Milner, Wally Stott (who later became
Angela Morley
Angela Morley (10 March 192414 January 2009) was an English composer and conductor who became a familiar household name to BBC Radio listeners in the 1950s. She attributed her entry into composing and arranging largely to the influence and e ...
), and
Hugh Wood
Hugh Wood (27 June 1932 – 14 August 2021) was a British composer.
Biography
Wood was born in Parbold, Lancashire and grew up in a musical family; while still a teenager, he was encouraged by the composer Alan Bush. He says that his "earli ...
. During this period, he created and trained his choir, the Dorian Singers.
His friendships and work associations embraced many soloists, including
Tibor Varga,
Norbert Brainin
Norbert Brainin, OBE (12 March 1923 in Vienna – 10 April 2005 in London) was the first violinist of the Amadeus Quartet, one of the world's most highly regarded string quartets.
Because of Brainin's Jewish origin, he was driven out of Vie ...
, guitarists
Julian Bream
Julian Alexander Bream (15 July 193314 August 2020) was an English classical guitarist and lutenist. Regarded as one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century, he played a significant role in improving the public perc ...
and
John Williams
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (15 November 2022)Classic Connection review '' WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who w ...
, percussionist
Jimmy Blades, folk singer
Bert Lloyd, and tenor
Peter Pears
Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears ( ; 22 June 19103 April 1986) was an English tenor. His career was closely associated with the composer Benjamin Britten, his personal and professional partner for nearly forty years.
Pears' musical career started ...
.
He was a founder member of the Society for Promotion of New Music, actively promoting new music throughout his life. He was married to ballet dancer Lilla Bauer (1912-2011), another Hungarian émigré. In 1960 he was invited to do a lecture tour in South Africa, but he died there in
Kruger National Park
Kruger National Park is a South African National Park and one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, and extends from north to south and from ...
as the result of a car accident. Kodály dedicated his choral work titled ''
Media vita in morte sumus
(Latin for "In the midst of life we are in death") is a Gregorian chant, known by its incipit, written in the form of a response, and known as "Antiphona pro Peccatis" or "de Morte". The most accepted source is a New Year's Eve religious service i ...
'' to the memory of his former student.
Music
Seiber's music is eclectic in style, showing the influences of
Bartók,
Kodály,
Schoenberg,
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 ...
, jazz, and Hungarian folk song, and his output includes film and lighter music. Often, individual pieces use a combination of these influences. For instance, the two ''Jazzolettes'' for wind and percussion (1929 and 1932, composed in Frankfurt) make liberal use of jazz effects and rhythms that displace the bar lines, but also show his first explorations of twelve-note techniques. His wartime, ''Fantasia concertante'' for violin and orchestra, premiered in 1945 and recorded by
Andre Gertler, and the later work ''Permutationi a Cinque'' (1948) for wind ensemble, illustrate Seiber's very free use of serialism.
['Sieber: Orchestral Works'. Hanssler HC21043 (2021), reviewed at MusicWeb International]
/ref> ''Permutationi a Cinque'' explicitly uses permutations of motifs that eventually come together to reveal a twelve-tone series - but it is all done with lightness and humour.[
Seiber's vocal output includes the large scale cantata ''Ulysses'' (1947) on words by ]James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the Modernism, modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important ...
, another Joyce-related work, ''Three Fragments from "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"'', and choral arrangements of Hungarian and Yugoslav folk songs. He also wrote one opera, ''Eva spielt mit Puppen'' (1934), and the ballet '' The Invitation''. Other works include the two orchestral ''Besardo'' suites,[ a clarinet concertino, three strings quartets, and scores to animated films produced by ]Halas & Batchelor
Halas and Batchelor was a British animation company founded by husband and wife John Halas and Joy Batchelor. Halas was a Hungarian émigré to the United Kingdom. The company had studios in London and Cainscross, in the Stroud District of Glouc ...
, including ''Animal Farm
''Animal Farm'' is a beast fable, in the form of satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to crea ...
'' (1954). The substantial Sonata for violin and piano, a commission for the Cheltenham Festival, was completed just before his death in 1960.
Two comic operas, ''A Palágyi Pekek'' and ''Balaton'', were composed for the Hungarian theatre in London, the "Londoni Pódium". ''A Palágyi Pékek'', (libretto, György Mikes) (1943), was the first collaboration of Mátyás Seiber and George Mikes. ''Balaton'', (libretto, György Mikes) (1944), as George Mikes has reported, was aired during the war by the BBC and, after the end of the war even made it to Budapest.
A setting of the Scottish "poet and tragedian" William McGonagall
William Topaz McGonagall (March 1825 – 29 September 1902) was a Scottish poet of Irish descent. He gained notoriety as an extremely bad poet who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers' opinions of his work.
He wrote about 2 ...
's work, '' The Famous Tay Whale'' was written for the second of Gerard Hoffnung
Gerard Hoffnung (22 March 192528 September 1959) was an artist and musician, best known for his humorous works.
Raised in Germany, Hoffnung was brought to London as a boy, to escape the Nazis. Over the next two decades in England, he became kno ...
's music festivals in 1958.
Seiber used a pseudonym for his jazz works and popular music: G. S. Mathis or George Mathis (a rearrangement of his name using Anglicised forms); under this name, he wrote for John Dankworth
Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE (20 September 1927 – 6 February 2010), also known as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist, clarinettist and writer of film scores. With his wife, jazz singer Dame Cleo Laine, h ...
, most notably 1959's ''Improvisations for Jazz Band and Orchestra''. In 1956 he was awarded the inaugural Ivor Novello award
The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They have been presented annually in London by the Ivors Academy (formerly the BASCA) since 1956, and over 1,000 statuettes have been aw ...
for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "By the Fountains of Rome," which was a hit that year in the UK Single Charts
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
, making it to the Top Twenty. (The lyrics were by Norman Newell
Norman Newell (25 January 1919 – 1 December 2004) was an English record producer, who was mainly active in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also the co-writer of many notable songs. As an A&R manager for EMI, he worked with musicians such as Shir ...
, and it was sung by David Hughes).
[Seiber Boyd, Julia]
"The Seiber Centenary: 2005 and Beyond"
''Suppressed Music'', 9 August 2005.
Alternative name spellings
There are articles with references to Seiber as Seyber and Mátyás as Matthis.
Compositions (selected)
Orchestral
* Sinfonietta for string orchestra (1925/1964) (from String Quartet No 1, transcribed for string orchestra by Antal Doráti
Antal Doráti (, , ; 9 April 1906 – 13 November 1988) was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1943.
Biography
Antal Doráti was born in Budapest, where his father Alexander Doráti was a v ...
)
* ''Besardo Suite No. 1'' (1940)
* ''Besardo Suite No. 2'' for strings (1942; 14 mins.; Schott; BL)
* ''Fantasia Concertante'' for violin and string orchestra (1943; 17 mins.; Ars Viva Verlag, Mainz ; BL)
* ''Notturno'' for horn and string orchestra (1944) (8.5 mins.; Schott; BL)
* Concertino for clarinet and string orchestra (1951; 15 mins.)
* ''Elegy'' for viola and small orchestra (1954; 8 mins.)
* ''Tre Pezzi'' for cello and orchestra (1957; 20 mins.; Schott; BL)
* ''Improvisations for Jazz Band and Orchestra'' (with John Dankworth) (1959; 10 min.; BL)
Instrumental and chamber music
* Divertimento for Clarinet and string Quartet ( 1925; Schott)
* Serenade for six wind instruments (1925; Wilhelm Hansen, Copenhagen ; BL )
* String Quartet No. 1 (1925; 18 mins.; BL)
* ''Two Jazzolettes'' for 2 saxophones, trumpet, trombone, piano, bass, and drums (1929 and 1932; Wilhelm Hansen, Copenhagen ; BL )
* String Quartet No. 2 (1935; 22 mins.; BL)
* ''Sonata da Camera'' (c1948, 15 mins.)
* String Quartet No. 3, Quartettolirico (1951; 23 mins.; Schott; BL)
* Concert Piece for violin and piano (1954; 8 mins.; Schott; BL)
* Fantasia per Flauto, Corno e Quartetto d'archi (1956; Edizioni Suvini Zerboni, Milano)
* ''Permutazioni a Cinque'' for wind quintet (1958; 6.5 mins.; Schott; BL)
* Violin Sonata (1960; 20mins; Schott; BL)
Vocal works with orchestra
* ''Ulysses'' : cantata for tenor solo, choir and orchestra (1947; 45 mins.; Schott; BL)
* ''Cantata Secularis: the Four Seasons'' (text from the Carmina Burana
''Carmina Burana'' (, Latin for "Songs from Benediktbeuern" 'Buria'' in Latin is a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces are mostly bawdy, irreveren ...
) (1949-1952; 20 mins. Schott; BL)
* ''Three Fragments from the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'': chamber cantata for speaker, wordless chorus, orchestra ( 18 min.; Schott; BL)
A cappella choral music
* Missa Brevis (1924, revised 1950; 14 mins.; Curwen; BL)
* ''Three Nonsense Songs'' (lyrics by Edward Lear; 1956)
Songs for solo voice/choral and accompaniment
* ''Three Morgenstern Songs'' (1929) for voice and clarinet
* ''To Poetry'' (1952; 18 mins.; BL)
* ''The Famous Tay Whale'' (text by William McGonagall)( BL)
* The Greek Folk Songs (11 mins.)
* The French Songs (7 mins.)
* Medieval French Songs
* Petőfi Songs (4 Hungarian Folk Songs) (12 m ins.)
* The Yugoslav Folk Songs
* ''Three Hungarian Folk Songs''
* ''The Owl and the Pussycat'' (1957) for voice, violin and guitar
Stage/ballet
* ''Eva spielt mit Puppen'' (1934)
* ''The Invitation'' (1960; BL)
Selected filmography
* ''Figurehead'' (1952, short film)
* '' The Fake'' (1953)
* ''Animal Farm
''Animal Farm'' is a beast fable, in the form of satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to crea ...
'' (1954)
* '' The Diamond'' (1954)
* '' A Town Like Alice'' (1956)
* ''Robbery Under Arms
''Robbery Under Arms'' is a bushranger novel by Thomas Alexander Browne, published under his pen name Rolf Boldrewood. It was first published in serialised form by ''The Sydney Mail'' between July 1882 and August 1883, then in three volumes i ...
'' (1957)
* ''Chase a Crooked Shadow
''Chase a Crooked Shadow'' ( ''Sleep No More'') is a 1958 British suspense film starring Richard Todd, Anne Baxter and Herbert Lom. Michael Anderson directed ''Chase a Crooked Shadow'', the first film produced by Associated Dragon Films, a bus ...
'' (1958)
References
Further reading
* Hair, Graham.
Matyas Seiber’s Improvisations for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra
. ''n''-ISM (Network for Interdisciplinary Studies in Science, Technology, and Music) website (accessed 26 January 2019).
* Karolyi, Otto. ''Modern British Music.: The Second British Musical Renaissance, from Elgar to P. Maxwell Davies''. Associated University Presses, 1994.
* Leach, Gerald. ''British Composer Profiles. A Biographical Dictionary and Chronology of Past British Composers 1800–1979''. British Music Society, 1980.
* Lyman, Darryl. ''Great Jews in Music''. J. D. Publishers, 1986.
* Sadie, Stanley (ed.). ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' London: Macmillan Publishers, 1980.
* List of émigré composers in Britain
External links
*
Online recordings of Mátyás Seiber's music
(British Library)
Mátyás Seiber 2005 centenary website
* ttps://sohothedog.blogspot.com/2007/02/learning-blues.html The first jazz theory class at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seiber, Matyas
1905 births
1960 deaths
20th-century classical composers
Twelve-tone and serial composers
British film score composers
British male film score composers
Hungarian emigrants to the United Kingdom
Hungarian classical composers
Hungarian male classical composers
Hungarian folk-song collectors
Hungarian Jews
British jazz composers
Jewish classical composers
British opera composers
Male opera composers
British ballet composers
Musicians from Budapest
Jews who immigrated to the United Kingdom to escape Nazism
Road incident deaths in South Africa
20th-century British composers
Male jazz composers
20th-century British male musicians
20th-century jazz composers
Animated film score composers