Alan Rawsthorne was a British composer. He was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, and is buried in Thaxted churchyard in Essex.
Early years
Alan Rawsthorne was born in Deardengate House, Haslingden, Lancashire, to Hubert Rawsthorne, a well-off medical doctor, and his wife, Janet Bridge . Despite what appears to have been a happy and affectionate family life with his parents and elder sister, Barbara, in beautiful Lancashire countryside, as a boy Rawsthorne suffered from fragile health. Although he did at various times attend schools in Southport, much of Rawsthorne's early education came through private tutoring at home. Despite a childhood aptitude for music and literature, Rawsthorne's parents tried to steer him away from his dreams of becoming a professional musician. As a result, he unsuccessfully tried to take on degree courses at Liverpool University, first in dentistry and then architecture. Concerning dentistry, Rawsthorne is on record as having said "I gave that up, thank God, before getting near anyone's mouth", while his friend Constant Lambert quipped "Mr Rawsthorne assures me that he has given up the practice of dentistry, even as a hobby".
Career
In 1925, Rawsthorne was finally able to enrol at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where his teachers included Frank Merrick for the piano and Carl Fuchs for the cello. In 1927, Rawsthorne's mother died aged just forty-nine. After graduating from the Royal Manchester College of Music around 1930, Rawsthorne spent the next couple of years pursuing his piano training with Egon Petri at Zakopane in Poland, and then briefly also in Berlin. On his return to England in 1932, Rawsthorne took up a post as pianist and teacher at Dartington Hall in Devon, where he became composer-in-residence for the School of Dance and Mime. In 1934, Rawsthorne left for London to try his fortune as a freelance composer. His first real public success arrived four years later with a performance of his Theme and Variations for Two Violins at the 1938 International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in London. The next year, his large scaleSymphonic Studies for orchestral was performed in Warsaw, again at the ISCM Festival. The first in a line of completely assured orchestral scores, the Symphonic Studies, which can be heard as a concerto for orchestra in all but name, rapidly helped Rawsthorne establish himself as a composer possessing a highly distinctive musical voice. Other acclaimed works by Rawsthorne include a viola sonata, two piano concertos, an oboe concerto, two violin concertos, a concerto for string orchestra, and the Elegy for guitar, a piece written for and completed by Julian Bream after the composer's death. Other works include a cello concerto, three acknowledged string quartets among other chamber works, and three symphonies. Rawsthorne wrote a number of film scores. His best–known work in this field was the music for the 1953 British war filmThe Cruel Sea, and his other scores included many popular British films, such as The Captive Heart, School for Secrets, Uncle Silas, Saraband for Dead Lovers, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Where No Vultures Fly, West of Zanzibar, The Man Who Never Was and Floods of Fear.
Family
Rawsthorne was married to Isabel Rawsthorne, an artist and model well known in the Paris and Soho art scenes. Her contemporaries included André Derain, Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon. Isabel Rawsthorne was the widow of composer Constant Lambert and stepmother to Kit Lambert, manager of the rock group the Who, who died in 1981. Isabel died in 1992. Alan Rawsthorne was her third husband; Sefton Delmer was her first husband. Isabel was Alan Rawsthorne's second wife, his first wife being Jessie Hinchliffe, a violinist in the Philharmonia Orchestra.
