Payne, Anthony

Biography

Anthony Edward Payne (2 August 1936 – 30 April 2021) was an English composer, music critic and musicologist. He is best known for his acclaimed completion of Edward Elgar's third symphony, which gained wide acceptance into Elgar's oeuvre. Payne is particularly noted for his chamber music, much of which was written for his wife, the soprano Jane Manning, and the couple's new music ensemble Jane's Minstrels. Initially an unrelenting proponent of modernist music, by the 1980s his compositions had embraced aspects of the late English romanticism, described by his colleague Susan Bradshaw as "modernized nostalgia".

Born in London, Payne first seriously studied music at Durham University. His professional career began around 1969 with his first major work, the staunchly modernist Phoenix Mass for choir and brass band. He continued to write choral and vocal works, almost exclusively to British poets. From his 1981 chamber work A Day in the Life of a Mayfly on, he synthesised modernism with the English romanticism of Elgar, Delius and Vaughan Williams. Two orchestral commissions for The Proms, The Spirit's Harvest (1985) and Time's Arrow (1990) were well received. After his successful completion of Elgar's unfinished third symphony, Payne became unsure of his musical identity. He found difficulty in subsequent composition until a series of orchestral works for the Proms, Visions and Journeys (2002), The Period of Cosmographie (2010) and Of Land, Sea and Sky (2016).

Payne held academic posts at various institutions throughout his career, including Mills College, the London College of Music, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Western Australia and the University of East Anglia. Despite regular commissions from a variety of English ensembles, he was not a particularly mainstream composer and was forced to supplement his income with writings. A noted critic, he wrote for The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and Country Life. Other writings include publications on a variety of musical topics, notably Schoenberg (1968)—a study on the composer Arnold Schoenberg—and numerous works on the music of Frank Bridge, to whom he was particularly devoted.

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