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Showing posts with the label Lancashire

The Songs & The Plays - Kean on Shakespeare

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The Songs & The Plays Listen on Youtube Love’s Labours Lost (1593-94) A revised and polished version of this play was presented for Queen Elizabeth I and her court at Christmas 1598. However the elevated language and subject matter of the drama suggests it was always intended for a sophisticated and highly literate audience. There are two parallel plots – one ‘high’ comedy and one ‘low’ comedy. In the high comedy the King of Navarre and his friends make a pact to ‘fast and study’ and to have no contact with women for three years. No sooner have they agreed than the Princess of Aquitaine and her ladies in waiting arrive to discuss ‘state matters’. Inevitably the King falls in love with the Princess and his friends with the French ladies in waiting. The Gentlemen find loophole in their vows and woo and win women with a dance. The Ladies become aware of their broken vows and treat the noblemen with scorn. In the low comedy the page Moth and the clown Costard ridicule the exaggerated m...
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Ian Higginson - Biographical Notes on a Lancashire Composer

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Ian Higginson Conductor – Composer – Organist – Teacher – Examiner Ian Higginson was born on Merseyside and moved to Gloucestershire in 1983. He is well known as an organist, conductor, accompanist, composer and arranger and has performed in many of the country's leading cathedrals, churches and concert halls. Ian studied the organ with Ian Tracey (Liverpool Cathedral) and John Scott (St Paul's Cathedral), David Saint (St Chad’s Cathedral Birmingham) and the late John Scott (Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue, New York). Ian has also studied conducting with Jonathan Delmar and the late David Willcocks, and he has performed both as an organist and conductor in many concert halls, cathedrals and churches across the UK, USA and Europe .   He has also studied conducting with the late Dr Melville Cook, Jonathan Delmar and Sir David Willcocks. In addition to conducting Cheltenham Choral Society (a post which he has held since 1989) and the English Concertanté Singers and Orchestr...
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Sir William Walton - A Biography of an English Composer & Lancastrian

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  Sir William Walton One of Britain’s greatest ever composers, was born on the 29th of March 1902 at 93 Werneth Hall Road, Oldham, Lancashire. William Turner Walton’s birthplace was a typical Pennine mill town, characterised by factory chimneys, terraced houses and extremes of wealth and poverty. His determination to escape the drab, grey streets of Oldham, combined with a highly developed self critical awareness produced a fabulous body of work of the highest standard. This shy and reserved, yet inherently romantic Lancastrian, in whom stubborn independence and musical sensitivity were finely blended, would become the leading British musical figure between Vaughan Williams and Britten. His father, Charles Alexander Walton, was the son of an Inland Revenue off icial from Hale in Cheshire. Charles had a fine Bass-baritone voice and was one of first pupils at new Royal Manchester College of Music. He became the organist and choirmaster at St John’s Church, Werneth, for 21 years and s...
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Thomas Pitfield - Biography of a Lancashire Composer

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  Thomas Baron Pitfield Thomas Pitfield, composer, teacher, poet and artist was born in the Lancashire cotton town of Bolton, on the 5th of April 1903. His birthplace has since been demolished, but it was located on Bury New Road, near Bolton town centre. Tom’s elderly parents were not overjoyed by his unexpected arrival, and the young boy’s artistic talents were never compatible with their strict, austere, Victorian lifestyle. Pitfield Senior was a master joiner and builder in his father-in-law’s business. His wife was a dressmaker, having trained at Manchester College of Technology. She was particularly frustrated by the birth of a child, as she had built up a good business and it meant an end to her career. The unusual middle name ‘Baron’ was his grandmother's maiden name. The pseudo-title often caused confusion. Tom wrote in the introduction to his first volume of autobiography: ‘Thomas Baron Pitfield is my name: To eminence or rank I have no claim, (So in address my middle nam...
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