Biografie di Artisti (L)

Larsson, Lars-Erik

Langford, Gordon

Gordon Langford (1930)

nasce nel 1930 a Edgware, come Gordon Colman. È uno dei più noti compositori e arrangiatori inglesi di musica per brass band. Inizia lo studio del pianoforte a 5 anni e a 9 ha già l'occasione di vedere una delle sue composizioni eseguita in pubblico. Ha frequentato la Royal Academy of Music con una borsa di studio, studiando composizione con il professor Norman Demuth, che gli suggerisce di cambiare il suo cognome in Langford. Langford è rinomato per le sue composizioni Facets of Glass and Rhapsody for trombone. Inoltre, ha anche arrangiato opere di altri compositori, come Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith e John Williams. Langford ha composto numerose opere che sono state utilizzate per la BBC. Note anche le sue composizioni per il teatro, come ad esempio il Crooked Mile e The House of Cards. La sua musica è stata spesso utilizzata ad Hollywood, ad esempio in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman II, First Great Train Robbery, Clash of the Titans and Return to Oz. Langford inoltre ha prodotto diversi arrangiamenti per la King's Singers nel 1970.
Attualmente vive a East Devon, compone, e in rari casi partecipa a registrazioni, concerti e trasmissioni.

Lars-Erik Larsson (1908-1986)
In his constant striving for the greatest possible simplicity in musical style, Lars-Erik Larsson exploited his remarkable technical and formal skill. This simplicity, in conjunction with a stream of melodic inspiration and a lyrical-poetical attitude, has made Lars-Erik Larsson one of the most popular Swedish composers of all time.
Larsson tried various means of expression during his creative life. Representative of the neo-classical style in the earlier works, is the Saxophone Concerto (1934), while a following period, primarily lyrical-romantic, is notable chiefly for the Pastoral Suite
(1938), the music from A Winter’s Tale (1938) and the choral work God in Disguise (1940), all of which, more than any other works perhaps, have won great popularity for the composer even with the public at large.
A more radical tendency marks Music for Orchestra (1949) and the Violin Concerto (1952), two peaks in Larsson’s production, as well as Three Pieces for Orchestra (1960) and Orchestral Variations (1962), in which he applies a personal twelve-tone technique while keeping his lyrical and melodic vein.
In an intermediate position stylistically is the much-noted series 12 Concertini (1953-57), one for each of the orchestra’s instruments, the string orchestra parts have been designed with a view to amateur orchestras. Larsson’s production during his later years can be described as something of a synthesis of features from the earlier stylistic periods. The Lyric Fantasy (1967) has a melodic inwardness which puts the Pastoral Suite in mind, whilst Due Auguri (1971), is characterized by an exuberant and ingenious humour, as is the playful pastiche suite Barococo (1973).

Indietro alla pagina Materiale didattico

Indietro alla Home Page