Priaulx Rainier

Priaulx Rainier was born in 1903 in Howick, Colony of Natal, to a father of Huguenot descent and an English mother. One of her sisters was a cellist. She taught at Badminton School, Bristol, and also played violin in a string quartet. (1939). It was given a private performance in 1940 but not performed publicly until 1944, at Wigmore Hall. The music was used for a ballet titled Night Spell, performed by the José Limón company in the United States in 1951 and the Barbaric Dance Suite for piano (1949; premiered in November 1950 by Margaret Kitchin). There is also a Suite for clarinet and piano (1943), a Sinfonia da camera for strings (1947; commissioned by a close friend, where she remained until 1961. Jeremy Dale Roberts, Rachel Cavalho, and Christopher Small. She and Michael Tippett co-founded the St Ives September Festival, first presented in June 1953. Music The first of Priaulx Rainier's large orchestral works was Phalaphala (the word refers to an African chief's ceremonial horn), first heard in 1961, celebrating Sir Adrian Boult's tenth anniversary with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1960). gave the first performance of Priaulx Rainier's Requiem (1956; tenor and unaccompanied chorus) at the Aldeburgh Festival that year. in Paris and dedicated to future victims of war. The oboe quartet Quanta was commissioned by William Glock, Head of Music at the BBC, and written for Janet Craxton and the London Oboe Quartet. The title comes from the quantum theory. where it was introduced to the world by Jacqueline du Pré and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Norman Del Mar (at the same concert, duPré played Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto with the same orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent, the year before she made her famous recording of it under Sir John Barbirolli.) It has been claimed that duPré "loathed every second" of the Rainier concerto, "not only because of its idiom, but also because it was technically beyond her". Priaulx Rainier's largest work of that period was the orchestral suite Aequora Lunae, a continuous piece in seven sections, each one descriptive of one of the Moon's seas. It was dedicated to Barbara Hepworth, whose acquaintance she made in the summer of 1949 On the other hand, after hearing her music, William Walton commented that she "must have barbed-wire underwear". Concertante for Two Winds and Orchestra was written for, and dedicated to, Janet Craxton and Thea King and was premiered at the Proms in 1981. The date was the 70th birthday of David Gascoyne, the poet to whose words she had written her Requiem of 1956. ==Legacy==

A large collection of Rainier's letters and personal papers are held at the Royal Academy of Music Library, while most of her music manuscripts are housed at the J.W. Jagger Library at the University of Cape Town. On 28 March 1987 a concert in celebration of her life and work was held at Wigmore Hall. A pictorial biography, Come and Listen to the Stars Singing, written by her long-term partner June Opie, was published in 1988. Her centenary on 3 February 2003 was marked by a special program on Australia's ABC Classic FM. Rainier's Movement for strings, substantially completed in 1951 but lacking final revision, was edited by Douglas Young and received its first performance at the BBC Proms on 10August 2013. ==List of works==

Orchestral • Sinfonia da camera for strings (1947) • Phalaphala, dance concerto (1960) • Violin Concerto (1963–64) • Aequora lunae, seven movement orchestral suite (1966–67) • Ploërmel for wind instruments and percussion (1972–73) • Due canti e finale for violin and orchestra (1977) • Concertante for oboe, clarinet and orchestra (1980–81) • Celebration for violin and orchestra (1984) Chamber and instrumental • String Quartet (1939) • Suite for clarinet and piano (1943) • Violin Sonata (1946) • Barbaric Dance Suite for piano (1949) • Five Pieces for keyboard (1955) • Six Pieces for five wind instruments (1957) • Pastoral Triptych for oboe (1958–59) • Trio-Suite, piano trio (1960) • Quanta for oboe and string trio (1961–62) • Suite for violina and cello (1963–65) • String Trio (1965–66) • Quinque for harpsichord (1971) • Organ Gloriana (1972) • Primordial Canticles for organ (1974) • Grand Duo for cello and piano (1982) Vocal • Three Greek Epigrams (1937) • Dance of the Rain (1947) • Ubunzima [Misfortune] (1948) • Cycle for Declamation (text, John Donne) (1954) • Requiem (text David Gascoyne) for tenor and unaccompanied choir (1955–56) • The Bee Oracles (text, Edith Sitwell) for soloists and chamber ensemble (1969) • Vision and Prayer (test, Dylan Thomas) for tenor and piano (1973) • Prayers from the Ark for tenor and harpsichord (1974–75) ==Notes==