KENNETH LEIGHTON (1929 - 1988)

The music of Kenneth Leighton is highly distinctive - often deeply spiritual, always sincere but never sombre, exuberant and merry without ever losing dignity, and faultlessly crafted. It has won many international awards.

Kenneth Leighton was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire and had an academic background, reading Classics at Oxford, before going to Rome to study composition with Petrassi. His professional life was devoted to composition and teaching, with some prestigious university posts, including his succession to Rubbra as Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, and the Reid Professorship at Edinburgh University, a post he held from 1970 until his death.

This composer's output included three symphonies, an opera, ten concertos, other Orchestral works, much Chamber and instrumental music, Vocal and Choral/Orchestral music, church anthems, etc.

The music is characterised by highly lyrical melody, liberal use of instrumental colour, and virtuoso solo writing. Although fundamentally diatonic, the 12-note writing developed from the chromaticism of his earlier work.

SOME WORKS
Piano sonatas and sonatinas
Violin sonatas
String Quartets
Symphony for Strings '...a fine piece of musical thinking and feeling, with a mastery of the string medium, a structural sense and a technical skill, all of which are used to express a sincere and poetical musical mind...natural and unforced use of a contemporary idiom.'