English composer
Jeremy Dale Roberts |
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| Born | (1934-05-16)16 May 1934
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| Died | 11 July 2017(2017-07-11) (aged 83) |
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| Nationality | British |
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| Education | Marlborough College[3] |
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| Alma mater | Royal Academy of Music |
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| Occupation(s) | Composer, teacher, pianist |
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| Notable work | Croquis, Deathwatch, In the Same Space, Tristia |
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Jeremy Dale Roberts (16 May 1934 – 11 July 2017)[4] was an English composer and teacher.[5] After early contact with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gerald Finzi,[5] Dale Roberts studied with William Alwyn and Priaulx Rainier at the Royal Academy of Music, London.[6] He retired as Head of Composition at the Royal College of Music, London in 1999, and was a Visiting Professor of Composition at the University of Iowa for the 1999-2000 academic year.[1][7]
His compositions have been performed at the Edinburgh and Aldeburgh Festivals, the Venice Biennale, the Diorama de Geneve, and the festivals of Avignon and Paris.[8][9] They include
- the cello concerto Deathwatch, written for Rohan de Saram;
- Tombeau for Stephen Kovacevich;
- Croquis for string trio, written for members of the Arditti Quartet (BBC commission);
- In the Same Space, nine poems of Constantin Cavafy, written for Stephen Varcoe;
- Lines of Life, lyric episodes for ensemble, written for Lontano (BBC commission);
- Casidas y Sonetos — del amor oscuro, for solo guitar (Arts Council commission) for Charles Ramierez;
- Hamadryad for alto flute, viola and guitar;
- Stelae, a work for gamelan;
- Nightpiece for soprano and two bass viols;
- Tristia for violin and piano, written for Peter Sheppard Skaerved and Aaron Shorr.
His compositions received attention in the context of a 70th-birthday portrait concert given at the Purcell Room in London by the ensemble Lontano in 2004,[5] the release of an associated CD by the same group in early 2005,[10] and most recently by the long-awaited release of a complete commercial recording of Croquis by NMC Recordings.[11] One writer has described his style as 'a kind of ascetically sumptuous exoticism', and has further characterised Dale Roberts' music in terms of:
- the miniature form and associated possibilities of extended structuring;
- reference to artists and works in other art-forms (in particular sculpture and painting);
- the occasional use of quotation from other composers’ music (albeit in the context of a rather 'pure' modernist idiolect); and
- a fondness for unusual instrumentations.[12]
A review of the CD recording of Croquis noted: "Dale Roberts’s miniatures are brilliantly able to condense a familiar image, such as the reel or the fugue, and accumulate into a substantial, 54-minute statement."[13]
