Stanley Bate

Stanley Bate (December 12, 1911 – October 19, 1959) was an English composer and pianist.

Life

Bate received early training in music and had composed two operas by age twenty. He studied under Ralph Vaughan Williams, R.O. Morris, Gordon Jacob, and Arthur Benjamin, and then in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and in Berlin with Paul Hindemith. He wrote incidental music for performances at German playhouses, and toured Australia and the United States as a pianist. Bate was openly gay,^[1] but was married to fellow composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks from 1938 to 1949, when they divorced.^[2] After several years living in America, where Bate and Glanville-Hicks had moved in 1941, he returned to London; he received less praise in his birth country than abroad, and the lack of attention his works received resulted in his decision to commit suicide in 1959. There has been recent interest in his music with the high profile and well reviewed recordings of his Symphonies 3 & 4 with Martin Yates conducting The Royal Scottish National Orchestra on the Dutton Epoch label.

Works

Bate's works are influenced by Hindemith, Vaughan Williams, and William Walton.

Dramatic

Operas

• The Forest Enchanted, 1928
• All for the Queen, 1929–30

Ballets

• Eros, 1935
• Goyescas, 1937
• Juanita (mime-ballet), 1938
• Cap over Mill, op.27, 1939
• Perseus, op.26, 1939
• Dance Variations, op.49, 1944–6
• Highland Fling, 1946
• Troilus and Cressida, op.60, 1948

Incidental music

• Electra (Sophocles), 1938
• Bodas de Sangre (Federico García Lorca), ca. 1938
• The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov), ca. 1938
• Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), ca. 1938
• The White Guard, ca. 1938
• The Patriots (play) (Sidney Kingsley), 1944

Music for films

• The Fifth Year, 1944
• Jean Helion, 1946
• The Pleasure Garden, 1952–3
• Light through the Ages, 1953

Instrumental

Orchestral

• Concertante, op.24, 1936–8
• Concertino, op.21, 1937
• Symphony no.2, op.20, 1937–9
• Sinfonietta no.1, op.22, 1938
• Piano Concerto no.2, op.28, 1940
• Symphony no.3, op.29, 1940
• Violin Concerto. no.2, op.42, 1943
• Sinfonietta no.2, op.39, 1944
• Viola Concerto, op.46, 1944–6
• Haneen, op.50, 1944
• Pastorale, op.48a, ca. 1946
• Violin Concerto no.3, op.58, 1947–50
• Piano Concerto no.3, op.66, 1951–2
• Concerto grosso, 1952
• Harpsichord Concerto, 1952–5
• Cello Concerto, 1953
• Symphony no.4, 1954–5
• Piano Concerto no.4, ca. 1955
• Piano Concerto no.5, 1958

Chamber music

• Sonata, op.11, 1937
• 5 Pieces, op.23, ca. 1937
• Sonatina, op.12, 1938
• String Quartet no.2, op.41, 1942
• Sonata no.1, op.47, 1946
• Sonata, op.52, 1946
• Fantasy, op.56, 1946–7
• Recitative, op.52a, 1946–7
• Pastorale, op.57, ca. 1947
• Sonata no.2, 1950

Piano

• 6 Pieces for an Infant Prodigy, op.13, ca. 1938
• 2 Sonatinas, op.19, 1939–41
• Romance and Toccata, op.25, 1941
• Sonatinas nos.3–9, opp.30–6, 1942–3
• Overture to a Russian War Relief Concert, op.37, ca. 1943
• 3 Pieces, op.38, 1943
• Sonata no.1, op.45, 1943
• Suite, op.44, 1943
• 3 Mazurkas, op.38a, 1944
• Sonata no.2, op.59, 1947
• Sonata no.3, op.62, 1949
• 17 Preludes, op.64, 1949
• Prelude, Rondo and Toccata, 1953

Vocal

• Incantations (E. Jolas), op.48
• 4 Songs (A.E. Housman), op.51, 1945
• Pomes Penyeach (James Joyce), op.53, 1946
• 3 Songs (C. Day-Lewis, E. Sitwell, Joyce), op.55, 1946
• 3 Songs (Hilaire Belloc), op.61, 1947–8
• 6 Songs (S. Smith), 1952

Notes

References

• Michael Barlow, "Stanley Bate". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians online.

External links

• Biography