Priaulx Rainier

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Priaulx (Ivy) Rainier (born February 3, 1903 in Howick (South Africa) , † October 10, 1986 in Besse-en-Chandesse ) was a South African- British composer and university teacher.

Life

Priaulx Rainier had English Huguenot parents. She spent early childhood in a remote area near Zululand . From 1913 she studied violin at the South African College of Music in Cape Town . A scholarship enabled her to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1920 . Her composition teacher there was John Blackwood McEwen . Rainier settled permanently in England, where she worked as a violinist and teacher. In 1937 she studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris for 3 months . From 1943 to 1961 she worked as a professor for composition and harmony at the Royal Academy. In 1952 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and received a John Clementi Collard Fellowship. In 1982 Priaulx Rainier received an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Cape Town .

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The first string quartet , composed in 1939 and premiered in 1944, made Priaulx Rainier known to wider circles as a composer. In 1951 it was recorded by the Amadeus Quartet on Decca Records . The Barbaric Dance Suite for piano (1949) is one of the earlier works . The first major orchestral work is Phalaphala from 1961. The title refers to the South African antelope horn phalaphala . Many of her works were commissioned, for example by the Arts Council of Great Britain ( Vision and Prayer for tenor and piano, 1973) or the BBC ( Quanta for oboe and string trio, 1962; cello concerto 1964 with Jacqueline du Pré as the first soloist; Ploërmel for Wind instruments and drums, 1973). The orchestral suite Aequora lunae was written for the Cheltenham Festival 1967, the violin concerto Due canti e finale for Yehudi Menuhin (premiered in 1977 under the direction of Charles Groves ). The Concertante for Two Winds and Orchestra premiered at the BBC Proms in 1981.

In Rainier's catalog of works, instrumental compositions predominate, but she also created vocal music. For the singer Peter Pears was Cycle for Declamation for unaccompanied voice (1953) and The Bee Oracles for voice and five instruments (1970). Pears was also the soloist of the premiere of her Requiem at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1956, a composition for tenor and choir a cappella based on a text by David Gascoyne .

The musical language of Priaulx Rainier cannot be clearly assigned to any current of its time, such as twelve-tone or serial music . Typical is the lack of thematic structures, instead short melodic and rhythmic patterns dominate (sometimes very complex). The earlier works are based on three tones , in later works there are more dissonances due to the preference for intervals such as small ninths and small seconds as well as clusters , but tonal references remain recognizable.

With a few exceptions, Priaulx Rainier's manuscripts are kept in the University of Cape Town, and other personal papers in the Royal Academy of Music.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Composers' collections and archives, Royal Academy of Music ( Memento of the original from May 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ram.ac.uk

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personal data
SURNAME Rainier, Priaulx
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rainier, Ivy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African-British composer and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Howick (South Africa)
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1986
Place of death Besse-en-Chandesse