Hugh Shrapnel

Hugh Shrapnel (born Birmingham, England, 1947) is an English composer of contemporary classical music.^[1]

Biography

Shrapnel was born in 1947 in Birmingham. From 1966 to 1969 he studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music with Norman Demuth and Cornelius Cardew and oboe with Margaret Eliot winning the Lady Holland Prize for composition.

Shrapnel’s music is characterised by its lyricism, its wide range of musical influences including folk music, music hall, jazz and the sound of bells, a deep identification with the natural world, a liking for unorthodox instrumental line ups and a strong feeling for place and community. Musical enthusiasms/influences include: the English Renaissance composers, Schubert, Schumann, Sibelius, Mahler, Stravinsky, Satie, Webern, Ives, Terry Riley, Charles Mingus. John White and Cornelius Cardew. Shrapnel’s music has been widely performed in Britain, America, Canada and Germany.

As a student Shrapnel composed serial works influenced by Webern and Boulez but through Cornelius Cardew became drawn to experimental music. He played the oboe in the first British performance of Terry Riley’s In C in 1968, in the same year joining Cardew’s experimental music class at Morley College. Shrapnel was a member of the Scratch Orchestra throughout its existence from its formation in 1969 writing many experimental pieces for both trained and untrained musicians for it including the popular Raindrops. In the same year along with John White, Chris Hobbs and Alec Hill he formed the Promenade Theatre Orchestra with its distinctive pioneering brand of English minimalism contributing many pieces for it, including Four Toy Pianos.

During the 1970s Shrapnel taught music in secondary schools in South East London and Lambeth. From the mid 70s through the ‘80s Shrapnel played oboe in the folk/rock group Peoples' Liberation Music (later becoming the Progressive Cultural Association (PCA) Band) together with Cornelius Cardew, Laurie Baker, Dave Smith and others. Along with other members of the band, Shrapnel wrote songs in support of the workers struggles of the time including the 1984 miners’ strike.

In the ‘90s, he formed musical partnerships with the pianist and BBC Radio 3 presenter Sarah Walker and composer/pianist Robert Coleridge putting on many concerts at the British Institute of Contemporary Music in London and art galleries in South East London. In 1994 Shrapnel became Composer in Residence at Musicworks, a community music project in Brixton, south London composing beginner’s pieces for guitar and percussion workshops.

Since 2000 Shrapnel has written many wind ensemble works for the London New Wind Festival concerts and works for Cornelius Cardew Concerts Trust concerts at Morley College in London, including works for two pianos for the Ivory Piano Duo Ensemble, string quartets and piano quintets for the Ligeti and De Madrugada quartets including Easter Rising and The Hazelnut. In 2012 Shrapnel formed a piano duo with the composer and pianist John Lewis (b 1947) composing Tales of South East London, featured on their album Elements of London. In recent years the Ivory Piano Duo Ensemble has performed and recorded many of Shrapnel’s piano works.

Bibliography

Nyman, Michael (1972). Experimental Music - Cage and Beyond. Cambridge University Press

Compositions

Piano

Cantation I (1970)
Lullaby (1970)
East End (for piano duet) (1981)
Scenario (for piano duet) (1983)
Autumn Pieces (1989)
Cat Preludes (1994)
South of the River (for piano duet) (1994)
1st Piano Set (1999)
Coronal (2003)
Sphinxes (after Schumann) (2004)
Sonatine (2004)
Love-Hate (2007)
Temps Perdues (2010)
First Light (2014)
Alternative Worlds (for two pianos) (2015)
Square Blues (for piano duet) (2015)
Follow Me Up to Carlow (for two pianos) (2016)
Winter songs (2016)
West End (for piano duet) (2016)
Tales of South East London (for piano duet) (2017)
Valses mécaniques (2018)
In 3 (2018)
For Bob (2019)
Aftermath (2019)
Piano Set #2 (2019)
Crooked pieces (2020)

Instrumental

Two Pieces (1984) - clarinet and piano
After 4 Years (1991) - solo vibraphone
Unity (1991) - flute and piano
Ouagadougou (1992) - trombone and percussion
Byways (1997) - bass clarinet and cello
West Pier (1997) - euphonium and two electric keyboards
4 Love Sonnets of a Building Worker (1999) - violin and piano
Belladonna (2004) - flute and piano
Sonatine (2006) - flute and piano
Loose Connections (2011) - solo tuba
Coalition Blues (2011) - alto trombone and piano
For James Allen (2014) - solo viola
Sonatine for horn and piano (2016)
Clarinet sonata (2020) - clarinet and piano
Thank you NHS (2021) - solo violin

Chamber

Triamena (1992) - flute, viola and vibraphone
For Cornelius (1992) - flute, viola, vibraphone and piano
Suite for Recorders (1993) - eight recorders (two soprano, two descant, two treble and two tenor), tambourine and two small drums
Beelzebub's Barrel Organ (2002) - saxophone quartet
Objets Inutiles (2006) - oboe, clarinet, horn and trombone
May (2008) - string quartet
Inconsequences (2008) - oboe, bass clarinet, trombone and percussion
String Trio (2011)
Hilly Fields (2013) - wind quintet
Trio (2015) - flute, violin and piano
Easter Rising 1916 (2016) - string quartet and fiddle
Nascence (2017) - string quartet and piano duet
The Hazelnut (2018) - piano quintet
7 Dances for Bob (2019) - clarinet and bass clarinet
Crossover blues (2019) - four bass clarinets
Idée fixe (2023) - four bass clarinets
One day (2023) - trumpet, cello, accordion, piano and percussion

Experimental

Chorale (1970) - two to four reed (or electric) organs
Bells (1970) - any number/kind of tuned metal percussion, pianos, harps and zithers
Raindrops (1970) - any number/kind of tuned and untuned percussion, guitars and other plucked strings
4 Toy Pianos (1971)
Steps (1971) - four keyboards
Carolina Moon (1971) - two toy pianos (or digital keyboards) and two reed (or electric) organs
Chamber Music in 6 parts (1972) - three to ten melody instruments
Prose Collection (1972) - various
Woodlands Collection (2001) - two Casio CTK-650 keyboards and one Roland EP-9e keyboard
Verbal Pieces (2008, 2009, 2017, 2024)

Orchestral

South of the River (1994, orch. 2024) - single wind and brass, harp, celeste and strings
Chachapoyas (2008) - flute, piccolo, B flat clarinet, E flat clarinet, bass clarinet, vibraphone, piano, percussion and strings
Creekside (2013, orch. 2024) - single wind, horn, trumpet, timpani, harp, celeste and strings
Eine Kleine Streichmusik (2018) - string orchestra

Vocal

What is a Miner? (1984) - solo voice, oboe (or trumpet) and piano
That April Day (1987) - solo soprano and chorus (SSAATB)
Three Philip Larkin songs (1988) - contralto (or baritone) and piano
thr(ee) cummings songs (1992) - soprano and viola
2 Robert Burns Sonnets (1996, 2022) - choir (SATB)
3 Poems of Edward Thomas (1998) - baritone and piano
3 Robert Burns songs (1998) - baritone and piano
Love Sonnets of a Building Worker (2000) - tenor and piano
Peace (2001) - soprano, soprano saxophone, banjo, bongos and piano
3 Songs from Africa (2002) - contralto and vibraphone (or piano)
Not In Our Name (2002) - contralto, baritone, flute and piano
Tomorrow's Seed (2011) - flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, cello, soprano saxophone and voice
plant magic dust (2015) - soprano and clarinet
things without name (2020) - soprano and piano

Amateur/Children

Raindrops (1970) - free instrumentation
Beginners Pieces for Guitars (1993)
Duck & co. (2014)
Good Morning (2021) - solo piano
Seascape (2021) - solo piano

Arrangements

5^th Brigade (Republican song - Spanish Civil War) (2011) - voice and string trio
Comintern Song (by Hans Eisler) (2017) - voice, violin and piano
October (based on themes from Shostakovich's 12^th Symphony) (2017) - violin and piano

Discography

Year	Title	Artists	Label
1998	South of the River & Cat Preludes	Sarah Walker and Robert Coleridge (piano); Francesca Hanley (flute); Hugh Shrapnel (piano).	CD Musicnow mncdx02
2002	Promenade Theatre Orchestra at the Orangerie (1 October 1972)	Promenade Theatre Orchestra	Experimental Music Catalogue EMC 102
2020	Elements Of London	Ivory Duo Piano Ensemble^[2]	Convivium Records CR055
2023	Hugh Shrapnel: Piano Works	Ivory Duo Piano Ensemble	Convivium Records CR087
2025	Hugh Shrapnel: Chamber Works (to be released January 2025)	Camarilla Ensemble	Convivium Records CVI097

Publishers

Experimental Music Catalogue - www.experimentalmusic.co.uk
Scodo (Universal Edition) - www.scodo.universaledition.com
Alea Music - www.bassclarinet.ecwid.com

References

^ Scott Baker, Brigid (31 March 2010). "Hugh Shrapnel". Musicnow.
^ Boston, Nick (30 October 2020). "Lewis & Shrapnel: Elements of London – Review by Classical Notes". Convivium Records Ltd. Retrieved 1 November 2022.

External links

[1] Scott Baker, Brigid (31 March 2010). "Hugh Shrapnel". Musicnow.

[2] Boston, Nick (30 October 2020). "Lewis & Shrapnel: Elements of London – Review by Classical Notes". Convivium Records Ltd. Retrieved 1 November 2022.

[1]

[2]