Stephen Pruslin

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Stephen Lawrence Pruslin (16 April 1940 – 25 September 2022) was an American pianist and librettist who relocated to London in the 1970s to work with Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle.

Contents

Early life and career

Born in New York, Pruslin was already playing the piano when 3 or 4 years old. Pruslin studied at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts and (from 1961) at Princeton University, graduating in 1963. He studied composition with Roger Sessions and his piano teachers were Luise Vosgerchian and Eduard Steuermann (the Schoenberg pupil who played in the first performance of Pierrot Lunaire). A scholarship from the University of California two years later enabled him to relocate to London, where in 1965 he became a founding member of the contemporary music ensemble the Pierrot Players (later renamed the Fires of London) along with Maxwell Davies, Birtwistle and Alan Hacker. He also sometimes played with the Melos Ensemble.

His debut solo recital took place in 1970 and he toured widely as a soloist. [1] Whilst still a Graduate student, Pruslin had performed live recitals in New York City, and elsewhere in the USA, with the American soprano Bethany Beardslee. In the UK he had performed with violinist Emanuel Hurwitz.

Collaboration and composition

Pruslin wrote the libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's chamber opera Punch and Judy (1968), and for Martin Butler's "operatic adventure story" Craig's Progress, premiered by Mecklenburgh Opera in June 1994 [2] and adapted for radio broadcast by BBC Radio 3 the following year. [3] He was the author of a short study of Maxwell Davies. [4]

Other composers championed by Pruslin included Elliott Carter (especially Night Fantasies , 1980), and Henze. Maxwell Davies wrote his Piano Sonata for Pruslin in 1981, and he subsequently recorded it, alongside piano works by Alexander Goehr. [5] He gave the first performance of Piano Polyptich by Philip Grange on 26 June 1993 at the Aldeburgh Festival. [6]

His other recordings include performances of contemporary British clarinet music with Roger Heaton, [7] and chamber music by Birtwistle, Davies and Goehr with Heaton and the Kreutzer String Quartet. [8]

As a composer Pruslin wrote scores for theatre, film and television, including some arrangements for Derek Jarman's The Tempest (1979) and the musical sequences for Peter Ustinov's play Beethoven's Tenth (1983), which was produced on Broadway and in London. [9]

Milein Cosman drew portraits of him in 1981. [10] In 1989 Pruslin appeared in an episode of the ITV television drama series Agatha Christie's Poirot as a pianist. [11]

Death

He died on September 25, 2022, at the age of 82, survived by his partner of 37 years, the violinist Charles Renwick. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harrison Birtwistle</span> English composer (1934–2022)

Sir Harrison Birtwistle was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include The Triumph of Time (1972) and the operas The Mask of Orpheus (1986), Gawain (1991), and The Minotaur (2008). The last of these was ranked by music critics at The Guardian in 2019 as the third-best piece of the 21st century. Even his compositions that were not written for the stage often showed a theatrical approach. A performance of his saxophone concerto Panic during the BBC's Last Night of the Proms caused "national notoriety". He received many international awards and honorary degrees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Maxwell Davies</span> English composer and conductor (1934–2016)

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Goehr</span> English composer and academic (1932–2024)

Peter Alexander Goehr was a German-born English composer of contemporary classical music and academic teacher. A long-time professor of music at the University of Cambridge, Goehr influenced many notable contemporary composers, including Thomas Adès, Julian Anderson, George Benjamin and Robin Holloway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Adès</span> British composer, pianist and conductor

Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elgar Howarth</span> English conductor, composer and trumpeter

Elgar Howarth, is an English conductor, composer and trumpeter.

Philip Grange is an English composer and academic.

The Fires of London, founded as the Pierrot Players, was a British chamber music ensemble which was active from 1965 to 1987.

Music Theatre Wales (MTW) is a touring contemporary opera company, based in Cardiff, Wales. MTW performs newly commissioned works, alongside existing pieces from the recent past which are either neglected or have been unseen in the UK. Works are toured across the UK and internationally. Over its 22-year history MTW has performed almost 30 productions and 14 world premieres.

The Nash Ensemble of London is an English chamber ensemble. It was founded by Artistic Director Amelia Freedman and Rodney Slatford in 1964, while they were students at the Royal Academy of Music, and was named after the Nash Terraces around the academy. The Ensemble has won awards from the Edinburgh Festival Critics and the Royal Philharmonic Society, as well as a 2002 Gramophone Award for contemporary music.

<i>Eight Songs for a Mad King</i> Opera

Eight Songs for a Mad King is a monodrama by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by Randolph Stow, based on words of George III. The work was written for the South-African actor Roy Hart and the composer's ensemble, the Pierrot Players. It was premiered on 22 April 1969.

Alan Ray Hacker was an English clarinettist, conductor, and music professor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Waterhouse (bassoonist)</span> English bassoonist and musicologist

William Waterhouse was an English bassoonist and musicologist. He played with notable orchestras, was a member of the Melos Ensemble, professor at the Royal Northern College of Music, author of the Yehudi Menuhin Music Guide "Bassoon", of The New Langwill Index, and contributor to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

Huw Thomas Watkins is a British composer and pianist. Born in South Wales, he studied piano and composition at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, where he received piano lessons from Peter Lawson. He then went on to read music at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and Alexander Goehr, and completed an MMus in composition at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Julian Anderson. Huw Watkins was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music, where he used to teach composition. He is currently Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal College of Music.

Antony Pay is a classical clarinettist. After gaining a place with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, with whom he performed the Mozart clarinet concerto at the age of 16, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music and then read Mathematics at Cambridge University, graduating in 1966.

The Melos Ensemble is a group of musicians who started in 1950 in London to play chamber music in mixed instrumentation of string instruments, wind instruments and others. Benjamin Britten composed the chamber music for his War Requiem for the Melos Ensemble and conducted the group in the first performance in Coventry.

The Dr K–Sextett is a short, occasional composition for six instrumentalists, written in 1969 by Karlheinz Stockhausen and given the number 28 in his catalogue of works.

A Garland for Dr. K. is a set of eleven short compositions created in 1969 for the celebration of the eightieth birthday of Dr Alfred Kalmus, the director of the London branch of Universal Edition. It is also the title of an album containing these eleven pieces of music, recorded in 1976.

<i>Incantations</i> (Waterhouse)

Incantations, subtitled Concerto da camera, is a composition for piano and ensemble by Graham Waterhouse, composed in 2015 and first performed in Birmingham.

Humphrey Procter-Gregg was an English composer and academic.

David Ellis was an English composer, arranger and music producer at the BBC.

References