Peter Dickinson remembers a fellow composer - whose music he also recorded - and points listeners to some recordings of key works.

Gordon Crosse made prominent headlines in British music from the mid-1960s through the 1980s. He was widely considered to be one of the most significant composers of a talented generation that included Birtwistle, Davies, Maw and Bennett. Crosse captivated the Aldeburgh Festival in 1964 with Meet my Folks, settings of children’s poems by Ted Hughes. The use of both young and adult performers fitted the Britten ethos, and the great man was impressed and soon invited Crosse to Aldeburgh again. The partnership with Ted Hughes continued with another work involving young performers, The Demon of Adachigahara (1968); a major song-cycle, The New World (1972), for Meriel Dickinson; and a full-scale opera, The Story of Vasco with Sadler’s Wells Opera at the Coliseum in 1974. As early as 1966, Crosse conquered The Three Choirs Festival with Changes: A Nocturnal Cycle. This fastidiously chosen anthology of poems was the basis for a 50-minute choral work with soloists extending the Britten tradition in a personal way.

Crosse’s first opera, Purgatory, based on a ghostly play by WB Yeats, was given with a cast from the Royal Northern College at Cheltenham in 1966, later in London. Crosse returned to Aldeburgh with The Grace of Todd in 1969 which was premiered by the English Opera Group in the Jubilee Hall.

These stage works show Crosse’s instinct for characterisation and drama. This is particularly true of Memories of Morning: Night, a monodrama for mezzo and orchestra, written for Meriel Dickinson, who gave the first performances in 1971 and 1973, with the BBCSO under Colin Davis, later recorded by Susan Bickley. He had specialised in works for soloist and orchestra. The finest is probably Ariadne for oboe (1972). This was commissioned for the oboist Sarah Francis who gave the first performance at the Cheltenham Festival in 1972 and recorded it.

Crosse had posts with Birmingham and Essex Universities, King’s College, Cambridge, the University of California Santa Barbara and the Royal Academy in London. His incidental music included the Granada TV production of King Lear with Olivier. However, Vasco was not a success and there were difficulties with further commissions. As a result, Crosse stopped composing and became a computer programmer. Largely due to prompting from the recorder player John Turner, he returned to composition in 2008.

A flood of pieces resulted, included three more symphonies, three piano sonatas, five more string quartets and a viola concerto. Outstanding among late pieces is On the Shoreline for recorder and strings. Crosse, with his partner, the writer Wendy Mulford, bought a house on the remote island Papa Westray off the Orkneys and this piece is a wonderful evocation of the seascape and wildlife. The sopranino recorder is the soloist, not appearing until two and a half minutes in, but then recalling bird figurations in an atmospheric continuity, never sounding like Messiaen.

There must be few composers who stopped composing for 18 years and then came back with a whole new impetus. This took courage. Now it’s time to investigate unknown works, a number recorded, but never to forget the distinctive early achievements which are a unique contribution to British music.

Recommended recordings

The choral work, Changes, with Jennifer Vyvyan, John Shirley Quirk, London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/Norman Del Mar, as well as Ariadne for oboe and orchestra, with Sarah Francis and the LSO Ensemble/Michael Lankester are available on one CD – Lyrita SRCD259.

The New World (Ted Hughes) with Meriel Dickinson, mezzo, and Peter Dickinson, piano is included in British Song on Heritage HTGCD 240.

On the Shoreline with John Turner, recorders, the Manchester String Orchestra/Richard Howarth on Prima Facie PFCD098.

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