Gordon Crosse Recordings

Gordon Crosse (1937-2021)

Gordon Crosse was born in Bury, Lancashire, where his father worked for the Midland Bank, on 1st December 1937. Crosse gained a first class degree in Music from St. Edmund Hall Oxford, where his tutors included Wellesz, in 1961, and he then went to Rome on an Italian Government Scholarship, where he attended Petrassi’s classes at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. On his return he worked briefly for the WEA and researched early fifteenth century music. He was appointed Haywood Research Fellow at Birmingham University, a post he held from 1966 to 1969. His colleagues and friends at Birmingham included both Peter Dickinson and David Munrow, and in memory of the latter he was later to write a beautiful elegy, Verses in Memoriam David Munrow, and subsequently A Wake Again. He was snapped up by the Oxford University Press as a house composer shortly after his Oxford degree, his first publication being Two Christmas Songs, to Latin texts, in two parts, for female voices, which were published by the Press in 1963. Other works from this early period included Three Inventions for flute and clarinet, a first (of two) violin concertos (Concerto da Camera), Villanelles for chamber ensemble, and Corpus Christi Carol for soprano, clarinet and string quartet.

Along with his composing, Gordon had several academic posts, at Essex University, Kings College Cambridge (where he was a Visiting Fellow), The University of California Santa Barbara (where he joined on the staff his fellow Brit Peter Racine Fricker), and the Royal Academy of Music in London.

His last piece was Déploration, in tribute to his late friend Peter Maxwell Davies. He told me, with his wry sense of humour, how sorry that he had not managed to get round to writing one for himself..

Gordon passed away on Sunday November 21, 2021. He will be missed by all who appreciated his art.