A summary of the ApIvor digitization project (Special Collections, University of Leeds)

The ApIvor collection was acquired in 2001 by Special Collections, University of Leeds, at a time when key
doctoral research was being undertaken into the composer’s work by Mark Marrington. Encouraged by the
fact that an academic institution finally was giving his music serious attention, ApIvor, who was in his
eighties at this time, agreed to donate his remaining manuscripts and related musical effects to Special
Collections as a means of providing an accessible research source for his work. We are fortunate to possess
a complete set of ApIvor’s works, which exist in the form of either copies made by the composer or original
handwritten MS. The library also possesses excellent holdings of shorthand sketches of works in progress,
personal memoirs, autobiographical material, press cuttings, letters etc which give a very rich picture of his
life and work.

The current archival project has been funded by Special Collections with principal aim to create in digital
form a scholarly resource which can accessed online, featuring specific ‘narratives’ which introduce key
facets of the composer’s work. Using scans of manuscripts, audio clips from recordings, examples of
ApIvor’s writings and reviews of his work, this is intended to offer insight into his music from a number of
perspectives, shedding light on his working processes, sources of inspiration for works (particularly art and
literature), highlighting major contributions to repertoire (especially opera, ballet, choral works and music
for the classical guitar). This will help to position his output in the context British music in general terms as
well as provide a basis for future research.

Who was Denis ApIvor?

ApIvor is typically associated with the small circle of British composers that emerged in London during the
mid-1930s, which also included names like Humphrey Searle and Elisabeth Lutyens (contemporaries of
Walton, Tippett and Britten). He was one of the first British composers to explore modernist composition
techniques (particularly serialism) in the early post-war period, preparing the ground for the more radical
experiments of such groups as the Manchester School during the 1960s. A medical man (an anaesthetist)
by profession, ApIvor retained a distance from the music establishment for much of his career, composing
without recourse to the musical dictates of the time. His stylistic decisions were, in and out of step with
developments in British music, making his compositions difficult to categorize or contextualize, yet at the
same time highly individual and often innovative.
ApIvor’s public career reached its peak during the mid-1950s: he achieved his first major breakthrough with
a highly original choral-orchestral setting of T. S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men (1939), which was broadcast by the
BBC in 1950. He then proceeded to make his reputation as a composer for the stage, receiving several
commissions from the Royal Ballet, of which the most successful was his adaptation of Lorca’s play Blood
Wedding (1953). ApIvor continued to receive commissions and broadcasts of his music from/by the BBC
during the 1960s and 1970s (benefitting from the pro-modernist William Glock climate in particular), but by
the mid-1980s his work was beginning to fall into obscurity. In recent years there has been a revival of
interest in ApIvor’s music, marked in particular by an increased frequency of public performances of his
smaller chamber and vocal works. Much of ApIvor’s music is notable for its drawing on extra-musical
sources – literature and art in particular. He is particular known for his adaptations of Lorca plays for opera
and ballet and his settings of T. S. Eliot and also composed a number of pieces that were inspired by the
work of the painter Paul Klee.

Denis ApIvor and the classical guitar

Of particular interest is the sizeable body of work ApIvor created for the classical guitar which is
characterized by a breadth of output found in few British non-guitarist composers, with the notable
exception of Peter Maxwell Davies. ApIvor was among the first British composers to write for the classical
guitar in the post-war period, alongside Reginald Smith Brindle and John Duarte. Between 1954 and 1991
he produced a substantial body of work for the instrument, including it in a wide variety of solo, chamber
and orchestral contexts. Although not a player, he was taught the guitar for a brief period, enabling him to
gain insight into the problems of writing for the instrument. He was painstakingly conscientious in this
respect, composing music that was always idiomatic and highly knowledgeable of the guitar’s colouristic
resources without compromising his contemporary style and avoiding the clichés of the then dominant
Spanish repertoire. Over the years ApIvor’s music attracted the attention of several well-known performers.
Julian Bream premiered his Concertino for Guitar and Orchestra (1954) in a broadcast by the BBC in 1958
and commissioned ApIvor’s first work for solo guitar, the Variations Op. 29 (1959). Both were subsequently
published by Schott. The Concertino, undoubtedly the first British guitar concerto of the post-war period, is
an exciting showcase for the instrument, displaying a particular debt to Stravinsky in its driving rhythmic
character. The Variations, performed by Isabel Smith in 1968, are completely serial in conception and yet
highly playable.
ApIvor’s chamber and orchestral music including the guitar was mainly composed during the 1960s
and is particularly influenced by Anton Webern in its often pointillist employment of the timbres of the
instrument. Notable pieces written and performed during this period include Overtones (1962) (in which
Ivor Mairants took the guitar part), Symphony No. 2 (1963), Crystals (1965) and Ten String Design (1968).
The early 1970s saw two of ApIvor’s new solo works – Discanti (1970) and Saeta (1972) - published by
Angelo Gilardino’s company Bèrben, the former piece being premiered by Julian Byzantine in 1971. A
second remarkable concerto-like work also emerged during this period, El Silencio Ondulado (after Lorca)
for guitar and chamber orchestra (1972).
During the early 1980s there was a brief resurgence of interest in ApIvor’s music in the guitar world.
A number of his works were performed at the Royal Northern College of Music by the young guitarist
James Woodrow, including a second reading of the Concertino and the premieres of El Silencio Ondulado
and the eleven-minute Sonatina (1983) for solo guitar. His unusual book An Introduction to Serial
Composition for Guitarists was published by George Clinton’s Musical New Services in 1982, along with ten
solo pieces. The most recent performance of an ApIvor guitar work – the brief but haunting Nocturne
(1985) - was given by Helen Sanderson in 1995.
As well as comprising a unique contribution to the contemporary classical guitar repertoire in its
own terms, ApIvor’s guitar music when taken as a whole provides an excellent introduction to his musical
personality and his stylistic development during the course of his long career. A retrospective recording of
selected solo and ensemble works would thus serve a dual purpose in laying the groundwork for both a re-
appraisal of British guitar repertoire in the light of these pieces and a general appreciation of this neglected
composer’s contribution to the landscape of British music.

Mark Marrington, March 2014

Any queries relating to the project or ApIvor’s work in general should be addressed to:

Mark Marrington
Brotherton Fellow
Special Collections, Brotherton Library
University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
E: [email protected]