Uploaded July 2010 | Updated September 2026, 59 minutes ago
Pentland, Barbara. Composer, pianist, teacher, b Winnipeg 2 Jan 1912 (Capricorn), d Vancouver 5 Feb 2000; ATCM 1931, composition diploma (Juilliard) 1939, honorary LLD (Manitoba) 1976; honorary LL D (Simon Fraser) 1985. A heart disorder curtailed her physical and social activities in childhood and forced her to develop a life of the mind. Composition provided a natural exercise for this, but Pentland's first written attempts, shown to the piano teacher with whom, at nine, she had begun lessons at Rupert's Land Girls' School in Winnipeg, only prompted disapproval. Teacher and parents regarded her desire to compose as eccentric and, probably, too 'exciting' for a delicate child. She continued to compose, though she kept to her efforts private. Her teenage works were informed by a study of the French Revolution and by the heroic music of Beethoven.
Sensing a need to develop her skills as a composer, she won a fellowship to the Juilliard Graduate School in 1936 where, for the next two years, she submitted to a course in 16th-century counterpoint under Frederick Jacobi. At the same time, steady encounters with the new music of the day - of which so much more could be heard in New York than in Winnipeg - incited her to fresh rebellion. Leaving Jacobi, she spent her third year at Juilliard searching for freer and more individual means of expression under the encouraging guidance of Bernard Wagenaar. The works of Hindemith and Stravinsky became a significant influence at this time, combining, as they did, the strong counterpoint which her studies with Gauthiez and Jacobi had taught her to respect and the harmonic resilience and freedom she had come to crave.
Though her style was growing closer to a break with tonality, Pentland's first serious consideration of serialism came during her visits (1947, 1948) to the Edward MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire where Dika Newlin, a disciple of Schoenberg, interested her in that master's development and application of strict 12-tone principles. The Octet for Winds, her first deliberately serial work, was the result. The Concerto for Organ, the Symphony No. 2, the Sonata for Solo Violin, the orchestral piece Ave atque vale, the String Quartet No. 2 (chosen to represent Canada at the 1956 ISCM festival in Stockholm, but not performed), and the other works composed between 1949 and 1954 all show the influence of the Schoenberg technique.
Pentland's mature style - exploiting serial possibilities in a free but uncluttered way, and sound combinations in a sensitive but unsensual and, certainly, unsentimental way - became established in all essentials in 1955. In Darmstadt, Pentland had come into contact with a further major influence on her style: the music of Anton Webern. The delicate sonorities, the concision of the structures, and the pellucid qualities of thought and texture in this music appealed to Pentland's intelligence as the Schoenberg ethic could not. The Webern influence was noticeable immediately in the glacial and elegant Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra and the cogent, agile Symphony for Ten Parts; indeed, it pervades virtually all her works of the succeeding decade.
Pentland, Barbara. Composer, pianist, teacher, b Winnipeg 2 Jan 1912 (Capricorn), d Vancouver 5 Feb 2000; ATCM 1931, composition diploma (Juilliard) 1939, honorary LLD (Manitoba) 1976; honorary LL D (Simon Fraser) 1985. A heart disorder curtailed her physical and social activities in childhood and forced her to develop a life of the mind. Composition provided a natural exercise for this, but Pentland's first written attempts, shown to the piano teacher with whom, at nine, she had begun lessons at Rupert's Land Girls' School in Winnipeg, only prompted disapproval. Teacher and parents regarded her desire to compose as eccentric and, probably, too 'exciting' for a delicate child. She continued to compose, though she kept to her efforts private. Her teenage works were informed by a study of the French Revolution and by the heroic music of Beethoven.
Sensing a need to develop her skills as a composer, she won a fellowship to the Juilliard Graduate School in 1936 where, for the next two years, she submitted to a course in 16th-century counterpoint under Frederick Jacobi. At the same time, steady encounters with the new music of the day - of which so much more could be heard in New York than in Winnipeg - incited her to fresh rebellion. Leaving Jacobi, she spent her third year at Juilliard searching for freer and more individual means of expression under the encouraging guidance of Bernard Wagenaar. The works of Hindemith and Stravinsky became a significant influence at this time, combining, as they did, the strong counterpoint which her studies with Gauthiez and Jacobi had taught her to respect and the harmonic resilience and freedom she had come to crave.
Though her style was growing closer to a break with tonality, Pentland's first serious consideration of serialism came during her visits (1947, 1948) to the Edward MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire where Dika Newlin, a disciple of Schoenberg, interested her in that master's development and application of strict 12-tone principles. The Octet for Winds, her first deliberately serial work, was the result. The Concerto for Organ, the Symphony No. 2, the Sonata for Solo Violin, the orchestral piece Ave atque vale, the String Quartet No. 2 (chosen to represent Canada at the 1956 ISCM festival in Stockholm, but not performed), and the other works composed between 1949 and 1954 all show the influence of the Schoenberg technique.
Pentland's mature style - exploiting serial possibilities in a free but uncluttered way, and sound combinations in a sensitive but unsensual and, certainly, unsentimental way - became established in all essentials in 1955. In Darmstadt, Pentland had come into contact with a further major influence on her style: the music of Anton Webern. The delicate sonorities, the concision of the structures, and the pellucid qualities of thought and texture in this music appealed to Pentland's intelligence as the Schoenberg ethic could not. The Webern influence was noticeable immediately in the glacial and elegant Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra and the cogent, agile Symphony for Ten Parts; indeed, it pervades virtually all her works of the succeeding decade.
![Billy Jim Layton, String Quartet in Two Movements (1955-56), First Movement [1 of 2 total]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/U9InVL2Nz1E/mqdefault.jpg "Billy Jim Layton, String Quartet in Two Movements (1955-56), First Movement [1 of 2 total]
Billy Jim Layton, an innovative American composer of the 1950s and 60s who was well known in his prime but abruptly stopped composing and concentrated on academic pursuits, died on Saturday in Cambridge, Mass. He was 79.
The cause was complications of pneumonia, said his daughter, Daphne Layton.
Mr. Layton, who became the first chairman of the music department at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was widely recognized in his time as a fresh musical voice. He wrote well-crafted pieces in a style he termed new liberalism, which he described, according to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, as a new, rich, meaningful, varied, understandable and vital music which maintains contact with the great cultural tradition of humanism in the West.
Reviewing a performance of Mr. Laytons work in The New York Times in 1960, Eric Salzman wrote, Billy Jim Laytons String Quartet is as vital, as startling, and as overwhelming as if nobody had ever written a quartet before.
Born in Corsicana, Tex., on Nov. 14, 1924, Mr. Layton started out in music as a jazz saxophonist and clarinetist before joining the Air Force and serving in a B-29 bomber in World War II. After the war, he studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, going on to Yale for his masters degree and Harvard for his Ph.D.; his teachers included the composer Walter Piston.
It was at the New England Conservatory that he met his wife, Evro Zeniou, a native of Cyprus, whom he married in 1949.
From 1946 to 1964, Mr. Layton wrote a number of well-received pieces, including Three Dylan Thomas Poems and Three Studies for piano; and won numerous awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship and the Rome Prize Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
In 1966, Mr. Layton was appointed chairman of the new music department at Stony Brook, which he helped to establish as a dynamic presence on the music scene, bringing in important composers and performers, in a tradition that remains alive today. In 2002, Brian Wise acknowledged the Stony Brook music department as small but vital in The New York Times.
In 1992, Mr. Layton retired and moved with his wife to Cambridge to be near his two children, Alexis and Daphne, and two grandchildren, all of whom survive him.
This recording of the String Quartet in Two Movements (1955-56) is by the Claremont String Quartet.
We apologize humbly, profusely, and on our bended knees for the execrable sound quality of this 1950s thirty-three-and-one-third revolutions-per-minute long-playing microgroove recording.")
![Claude Ballif, Sonate pour flûte et piano Op. 23 [1958] - 1 of 2](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VE2in5tjJHw/mqdefault.jpg "Claude Ballif, Sonate pour flûte et piano Op. 23 [1958] - 1 of 2
Claude Ballif - Compositeur français né le 22 mai 1924 à Paris, mort le 24 juillet 2004 à Poissons, Haute-Marne. Claude Ballif a étudié au Conservatoire de Paris dans les classes de Noël Gallon, Tony Aubin et Olivier Messiaen. Puis à Berlin en 1954 auprès de Boris Blacher et Josef Rufer. Enfin à Darmstadt avec Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna, Luciano Berio et Karlheinz Stockhausen. Il obtient en 1955 le Premier prix de composition musicale au concours international de Genève pour son oeuvre orchestrale Lovecraft et son premier Quatuor à cordes. En 1956 il publie dans la Revue Musicale son traité : Introduction à la métatonalité.
De retour en France en 1959, il entre comme assistant au GRM où il restera jusquen 1963. Rencontrant Iannis Xenakis, François Bayle et Ivo Malec, Claude Ballif écrit deux pièces pour bande : Etudes au ressort (1961) et Points, Mouvements (1962). Mais lessentiel de sa production demeure instrumentale, avec notamment la création en 1965, au Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, dA Cor et à Cri pour orchestre sous la direction d Hermann Scherchen .
Claude Ballif participe à la création de lUniversité de Paris VIII en 1968 et publie la même année un ouvrage sur Berlioz, il reçoit de nombreux prix et enseigne lanalyse et la composition au Conservatoire de Paris de 1971 à 1990. Depuis, il enseigne ces mêmes matières au Conservatoire de Sevran. En 1984 le Festival Estival de Paris le choisit comme compositeur de lété et organise toute une série de concerts et de manifestations autour de son oeuvre.
Il est Chevalier des arts et lettres en 1984; en 1986 il reçoit le Grand Prix SACEM de la Musique Symphonique; en 1991 il est Officier dans lOrdre national du mérite, puis Commandeur en 1994. Il obtient le Grand Prix national de la Musique en 1999.
Il a publié de nombreux ouvrages sur la musique: Introduction à la Métatonalité, Richard Masse, Paris 1956; Berlioz, Seuil, Paris 1968; Voyage de mon oreille, «10/18», Union Générale dÉdition, 1979; Économie Musicale, Méridiens-Klincksiec, Paris 1988; Lhabitant du Labyrinthe : Entretiens avec Alain Galliari, Pro Musica 1992. Un numéro spécial de la Revue Musicale lui a été consacré en 1968.
Claude Ballif sest toujours situé en marge des écoles et des systèmes, auteur dune oeuvre abondante, il a peu varié dans son esthétique depuis ses débuts de compositeur, fidèle à une écriture atonale (mais non sérielle), usant de micro-intervalles, où lémotion affleure constamment. Compositeur catholique, Claude Ballif a signé plus dune pièce dinspiration sacrée.")
