Beskrivelse
Bernard (George) Stevens (2 March 1916 – 6 January 1983) was a British composer. In recent years all of Stevens’ major orchestral and chamber works have been recorded. Particularly notable is his String Quartet no. 2 of 1962. While, as Malcolm MacDonald states in his 1990 sleeve note for Unicorn-Kanchana, “it is one of three compositions (with Symphony no 2 and the Variations for Orchestra) to display…the internal logic…[of] Schoenbergian serial techniques,” the Second Quartet’s language is neither neo-Expressionist or serialist; rather, it uses Schoenberg’s fierce logic to create the impression of a seamlessly unfolding tonal song that, creating its own haunting, individual sound world, draws the listener in with its emotional power. The Cello Concerto (1952) attracted the distinguished artist Alexander Baillie as its soloist (accompanied by the BBC Philharmonic under Edward Downes), while the Symphony no.1 (1945), a cry of “Liberation” after Nazism, could seem gestural with its looser structure. However, what strikes the listener is the Symphony’s imaginative playfulness, a stylistic approach that could be described as the logic of the unexpected.
