PROGRAMME NOTES

Three Pieces for String Quartet

Three Pieces for String Quartet

PETER DICKINSON

THREE PIECES FOR STRING QUARTET

Sanctus – Agnus Dei – Gloria

These three pieces are based on movements from my Mass of the Apocalypse, commissioned for the 300th anniversary of St James’ Church, Piccadilly and recorded by theb St, James’ Singers/Ivor Bolton. They are dedicated to Peter Sheppard Skaerved and the Kreutzer Quartet in gratitude for their outstanding CD of my chamber music released early in 2020. They gave the first performance of the Three Pieces, which was filmed and streamed in November 2020, but the live premiere was given by the Gildas Quartet in the William Alwyn Festival at Southwold Church on 8 October 2021.

Peter Dickinson is a British composer of the senior generation. He was born in 1934 at Lytham St Annes, Lancashire; went to Cambridge as Organ Scholar of Queens’ College; then spent three formative years in New York, initially as a graduate student at the Juilliard School. His music has been widely performed by leading performers for many years. There are four full CDs on Albany; three on Naxos; and six on Heritage of his performances or music; two CDs of chamber music were released in 2018 and 2020; the first, called Translations, on Prima Facie; the second on Toccata. As a pianist Dickinson had a twenty-five-year partnership with his sister, the mezzo Meriel Dickinson. His books include studies of Lennox Berkeley (two), Billy Mayerl, Aaron Copland, John Cage, Lord Berners, and Samuel Barber.  He is an Emeritus Professor of the Universities of Keele and London and chair of the Rainbow Dickinson Trust. Peter Dickinson: Words and Music was published in 2016.  His CD of piano pieces called Lockdown Blues was released in November 2021.