Susan Bradshaw

Susan Bradshaw
Background information
Born	(1931-09-08)8 September 1931 Monmouth
Died	30 January 2005(2005-01-30) (aged 73)
Genres	contemporary classical
Instrument(s)	Piano

Susan Bradshaw (Monmouth, 8 September 1931 – London, 30 January 2005) was a British pianist, teacher, writer, and composer. She was mainly associated with contemporary music, and especially with the work of Pierre Boulez, several of whose writings she translated. As a critic and musicologist she contributed to a number of magazines and journals over several decades; the titles included Contact, Music & Musicians, Tempo and The Musical Times.

Life

Bradshaw attended the Royal Academy of Music from 1049, studying piano with Harold Craxton and composition with Howard Ferguson and Matyas Seiber. There she met Cornelius Cardew, a fellow student, with whom she performed in Béla Bartók's Sonata for two pianos and percussion.

She attended Darmstadt three times, 1956-1958 and in the last year performed Richard Rodney Bennett's Music for two pianos with the composer. A recording survives of the performance. Around the same period she studied with Pierre Boulez in Paris.

Susan Bradshaw was one of the two musicians (the other being Hans Keller) involved in the famous 'Piotr Zak' hoax in 1961.

After her death, The Susan Bradshaw Composers' Fund was established by the Royal Philharmonic Society with donations from friends and family, led by composer Brian Elias. The purpose of the fund is to support composers (of any age) and young musicians wishing to perform works by living composers. At present the fund is used to support a commission for one of the winners of the RPS Composition Prize.

Her papers are housed at the British Library.

Writings

• "The Music of Elisabeth Lutyens", The Musical Times, Vol. 112, No. 1541 (Jul., 1971), pp. 653+655-656
• "The Twentieth Century", in Keyboard Music, ed. Denis Matthews, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1972, ISBN 0140212507
• "New Music - Shostakovich's 15th Symphony - Anthony Payne and his ‘Paean’", Tempo 100 (Spring 1972), pp. 36-45
• "Whatever Happened to Chamber Music?", Tempo 123 (December 1977), pp. 7-9, DOI: Whatever Happened to Chamber Music?
• "Symphony No.2/Metamorphoses—The Compositional Background" [on Roberto Gerhard], Tempo 139 (December 1981), pp. 28-32 DOI: Symphony No.2/Metamorphoses—The Compositional Background
• "Cornelius Cardew (1936 – 1981)", Tempo 140 (March 1982), p. 22
• "The Music of Edison Denisov", Tempo 151 (December 1984), 2-9. doi:10.1017/S0040298200058940
• "The instrumental and vocal music", in Pierre Boulez - A Symposium, ed. William Glock, London: Eulenberg, 1986, pp. 127-230, ISBN 0 903873 12 5
• "All Fingers and Thumbs. Can We 'Interpret' Contemporary Music, or Do We Just Perform It?", The Musical Times, Vol. 135, No. 1811 (Jan., 1994), pp. 20-24
• "A Performer's Responsibility", in Composition - performance - reception: studies in the creative process in music, edited by Wyndham Thomas, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, pp. 53-65, ISBN 1 85928 325 X
• "Piano music: recital repertoire and chamber music", in Amanda Bayley (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Bartók, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2001, pp. 104-117, DOI: Piano music: recital repertoire and chamber music

Translations

• Boulez, Pierre. 1971. Boulez on Music Today, translated by Susan Bradshaw and Richard Rodney Bennett. London: Faber. ISBN 0-571-09420-1. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-08006-8.
• Jameux, Dominique. 1991. Pierre Boulez, translated by Susan Bradshaw. London: Faber. ISBN 0-571-13744-X. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-66740-9.

External links

• Obituary of Edison Denisov written by Susan Bradshaw
• Susan Bradshaw's obituary in The Guardian
• Susan Bradshaw's obituary in The Independent
• Susan Bradshaw's obituary in The Times
• Gerard McBurney: 'About Susan Bradshaw' (Royal Philharmonic Society website)
• The Susan Bradshaw Composers' Fund