Ivy Priaulx Rainier (1903 - 1986) South Africa

South African-British composer whose work is characterized by a deeply personal style, influenced by the African music she heard during her childhood in Natal. Although she lived most of her life in England and died in France, she maintained a unique musical aesthetic: she never adopted serialism or twelve-tone technique, but she understood them well, and in fact, the first truly athematic works composed in England are credited to her.

I'll start by sharing her Suite for Clarinet and Piano. There's no sheet music available, you know, copyright.

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She studied violin in Cape Town before moving to London at 17 on a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. Although she took lessons in Paris with Nadia Boulanger (who also appears on this blog), she considered herself largely self-taught. Her composing career began in earnest after a car accident in 1935 that left her recovering for a long time. Her first mature work was String Quartet No. 1 in C minor , composed in 1939 and publicly premiered in 1944.

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Among her most important works are the Cello Concerto , premiered by Jacqueline du Pré in 1964 (although the performer expressed great difficulty and distaste for the work), and the Violin Concerto "Due Canti e Finale", composed for Yehudi Menuhin, who premiered it at the 1977 Edinburgh Festival and described Rainier as possessing an extraordinary musical imagination.

Here I share the Cello Concerto with du Pré's interpretation.

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One of her most unique works was The Bee-Keeper , written in 1969 for Peter Pears and premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival. The piece, based on a poem by Edith Sitwell, is written for an unusual combination of instruments: flute, oboe, violin, cello, and harpsichord. Rainier exploits the qualities unique to her ensemble—the brilliance of the woodwinds, the glide of the strings, the drone of the harpsichord—to evoke the golden magic of the text and its central theme: bees.

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In her later years, Rainier was also a passionate environmentalist and collaborated with Hepworth on the design of the sculpture garden at St Ives. She died in France in 1986, aged 83, on Gascoyne's 70th birthday. Her musical manuscripts are held at the University of Cape Town, and her personal correspondence is held at the Royal Academy of Music Library. In 2003, her centenary was commemorated with special programs and the rediscovery of her 1922 String Quartet. Her legacy, though still little known, is that of a bold, intellectual, and visionary composer.

I end by sharing her Pastoral Triptych for solo oboe, you can see the score in the video :)