Obituary,
John McCabe (1939-2015)
It was with sadness that we heard late on Friday that John McCabe had died, after a long illness. Despite being diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2012, he continued composing right up until his death, with his most recent piece Christ's Nativity being premiered in Manchester in December by the Hallé Choir.
A musical child from an early age, brought up in a musical household and composing before even reaching double digits, McCabe initially set out along the path to a career as a professional pianist; he studied at the then Royal Manchester College of Music (today's Royal Northern) and subsequently in Munich. His recording of Haydn's complete piano sonatas remains one of the benchmarks by which others' are measured, and his British premiere of John Corigliano's Piano Concerto helped to put the work on the map.
Only later in his career did his talent as a composer come to the fore and gain similar appreciation to his skills at the keyboard – surely a testament to his gifts as a performer. Following his studies he found a champion in Sir John Barbirolli at the Hallé, who kick-started his compositional career by giving the premiere of his first symphony.
Although often described as a composer-pianist (and indeed showing prodigious talent at the piano as an intepreter of other people's works as well as in crafting his own) McCabe made a point of not following the example of other such musicians - Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Bartok and others - in composing at the piano itself, finding this a distracting way to work. Indeed he was ever conscious of a need to keep the two activities distinct in order to avoid cross-pollination, remarking once that “...if I was playing Copland, a few phrases of Copland would suddenly creep into my [composed] music.” Even so, it is fair to say that his music was widely and eclectically “pollinated”, showing influences from Vaughan Williams, Britten, Hartmann and also from rock and jazz musicians.
Quite apart from his considerable recorded output as a performer, not to mention his large oeuvre of works in a variety of genres encompassing symphonies, concerti, string quartets, solo piano works and ballet scores, there was a third strand to McCabe's talents – that of education. He was for much of the 1980s the principal of the London College of Music, and went to great lengths to advance the College's interests and raise its profile, with the consequence of its becoming a constituent School of the University of West London (formerly the Thames Valley University).
As an educator, as a pianist and as a composer, he leaves an enormous legacy.
Below is a selection of discs featuring both his compositions and his performances.
John McCabe – Pianist
McCabe's seminal recording of the complete sonatas, plus the Seven Last Words and other solo keyboard works.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
A delightful collection of sadly-neglected character pieces by Howells that portray his musical friends and contemporaries – here brought to vivid life by McCabe.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Long a champion of twentieth-century composers, here John McCabe performs some less well-known works for solo piano by Vaughan Williams, Bax, Britten and others.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Hindemith's response to Bach's Well-tempered Clavier is a fearsome challenge for the performer, but McCabe dispatches its preludes and interludes with aplomb.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
John McCabe – Composer
A broad survey of McCabe's works, incorporating his First Symphony and the improvisatory Tuning, as well as featuring McCabe himself at the piano in two studies and the virtuosic Fantasy on a Theme of Liszt.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Drawing parallels in places with Britten, elsewhere with Vaughan Williams and even Sibelius, McCabe's Fourth Symphony is nevertheless unmistakably his own voice. The Flute Concerto, written for James Galway and featuring a highly demanding solo part, is here performed by Emily Benyon, while Vernon Handley conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
In many ways it is McCabe's works for solo piano that most clearly show the man behind the music. A particular highlight is Tenebrae, a kind of pianistic Requiem for three musical friends of McCabe's who died in rapid succession in 1992 – Sir Charles Groves, William Mathias and Stephen Oliver – movingly played here by Tamami Honma.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
The BBC Singers under David Hill sing McCabe's choral music with the directness and clarity it calls for – the words, carefully chosen by McCabe from sources ranging from Renaissance Latin to the poems of Thomas Hardy, always to the fore.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
David Smith - Head of Digital
