Mary, Queen of Scots was composed between 19 and was first performed at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1977. Of the operas she wrote one of the best known is Mary, Queen of Scots. Musgrave wrote for orchestra, chamber groups, and voice with the same assurance that she wrote for the opera, a medium in which she was particularly interested. ![]() Her versatility as a composer contributed to her success. The many other commissions she received included a wide variety of music, from songs such as Sir Patrick Spens (1961), which was commissioned by Peter Pears, to the Trio for Flute, Oboe and Piano (1960), which was commissioned by the Mabillon Trio. The association performed the work in 1979. Other commissions came from the Gulbenkian Foundation, for which she wrote the full-length ballet Beauty and the Beast (1968-1969), and from the Virginia Opera Association, for which she wrote A Christmas Carol (1978-1979). The Royal Philharmonic Society commissioned her to write the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (1968). The BBC awarded her commissions for the composition of The Phoenix and the Turtle (1962), a work for small choir and orchestra Night Music (1969) for chamber orchestra and the Viola Concerto (1973). Musgrave was also awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships. The piece was given its premiere performance in the United States by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 1974 she received the Serge Koussevitsky Music Foundation award, for which she composed Space Play, a chamber piece for nine instruments. Musgrave received many commissions and awards, among them the Donald Francis Tovey prize and the Lili Boulanger Memorial prize, which she won while she was a student. In the mid-1980s she lived in Norfolk, Virginia, with her husband, Peter Mark, who was conductor and general director of the Virginia Opera Association. She lectured on music at London University (1959-1965) and later was a visiting professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She attended the Paris Conservatory (1952-1954), and she studied composition privately with Nadia Boulanger from 1950 to 1954. Musgrave was born in Edinburgh in 1928, attending Edinburgh University, where she studied harmony and analysis under Mary Grierson and counterpoint and history of music under Hans Gal, from 1947 to 1950. At the same time, I compose each moment as beautifully, as perfectly as I can. I do compose in long lines, long gestures, and I know where I'm going. It's not E-flat major, but you know it's E-flat. The feeling of home can be established by a chord or a color or a rhythm. I'm also conscious of the big gesture, the route the music will follow, and that is where tonality comes in, creating the feeling of home. Music goes from moment to moment, and I'm very conscious of voice-leading. She described the form of some of her music as "dramatic-abstract" and said, Her compositional techniques included serial writing and electronically generated sound, but her personal style was not confined to one school of composition. Thea Musgrave was highly regarded for her talent in a wide variety of musical forms. Her music was performed in Great Britain, Europe, and the United States. ![]() ![]() Thea Musgrave (born 1928) was a prominent Scottish-born composer whose works include operas, ballet scores, orchestral pieces, chamber music, and vocal and choral works.
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