News

In January this year, Marie van Rhijn performed several movements from Stephen Dodgson’s two Suites for Clavichord as part of her ‘Time Machine’ concert at the Handel House in London. Here, she tells us about performing these works. “On 10th January, I was delighted to perform several works by Stephen Dodgson at a recital for the British Clavichord Society and the British Harpsichord Society at the Handel and Hendrix House. I was lucky to play a beautiful clavichord by Peter Bavington. From the first suite, I chose first the ‘Plaint’, then the ‘Tambourin’. To me, those two movements really connect […]

We’re very pleased to announce the release of the recording of 24 Inventions for Harpsichord by Stephen Dodgson (Sets 1-4), recorded by Ekaterina Likhina on Naxos. For more about the Ekaterina’s style and approach, and the recording process, see the earlier blog about the Inventions CD. The official blurb: “Stephen Dodgson won Royal Philharmonic Society prizes for his early compositions, which signalled his emergence as a significant figure in British musical life. Though he composed in most genres he wrote with particular distinction for guitar and harpsichord and his sets of Inventions for harpsichord span a period of almost forty years. Scarlatti remained his inspiration […]

A gratifyingly insightful and complimentary review of the Stephen Dodgson ‘Complete Music for Cello and Piano’ by Jonathan Woolf in this month’s British Music Society newsletter: “Since Stephen Dodgson was fond of the medium of chamber music and as he wrote so well for the voice it’s not surprising that his cello works should be so infused with lyric-vocal qualities. The Cello Sonata of 1969 shows a fine conception of equals in a clearly structured three-movement work that reveals echoes of Bartókian Nocturne and a spare call-and-response between the instruments. There’s a certain refined introspection to Dodgson’s writing and an […]

We are delighted to announce the imminent release (1st March) of the next Toccata Classics Stephen Dodgson recording: three quintets performed by the Tippett Quartet, Emma Abbate (piano) and Susan Monks (cello). Piano Quintet No. 1 in C (1966) String Quintet (1986) Piano Quintet No. 2 (1999) These three quintets continue the exploration of his chamber music on Toccata Classics. Dodgson’s musical language inherited something of Shostakovich’s irony, Janáček’s spiky energy and Britten’s polished clarity, occasionally reaching further into the past in passages of Purcellian dignity, all animated with a gentle harmonic warmth of Dodgson’s own. The result, in a […]

On Wednesday, an intimate audience were treated to a beautiful performance of Stephen Dodgson’s Five Occasional Pieces at Emma Abbate and Evva Mizerska’s launch concert of their Toccata Classics recording of Dodgson cello and piano works. The performance was further enhanced by the elegant architecture of the St Margaret Pattens Church, a little gem of a church tucked away in the heart of the City of London. Alongside the Dodgson, Emma and Evva also performed Janáček’s Pohadka and Algernon Ashton’s Arioso which they have also recently recorded. Toccata’s Martin Anderson explained to us that Ashton, sadly forgotten but being gradually revived, wrote music […]

On the 3rd and 4th November, Lucian Plessner and the Philharmonisches Orchester Plauen-Zwickau performed Stephen Dodgson’s Concerto No. 2 for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra, a work very close to his heart. Here he tells us more about his experience and the back story of the concerto. “I don’t remember exactly which year the CBS Masterworks record featuring Stephen Dodgson’s 2nd guitar concerto was released with John Williams and the ECO under Sir Charles Groves. I asked Sony, but they couldn’t find out either. It must have been in the late 1970s or early ’80s. I do remember very clearly though […]

We are delighted to announce a new recording on the Naxos label – the first four sets of harpsichord Inventions by Stephen Dodgson. Professor Glen Wilson, who set up the project in collaboration with the Stephen Dodgson Charitable Trust, gives us an insight into the music, the performer and the process of setting up the recording Masterpieces performed by a master harpsichordist “A major step towards a wider dissemination of Stephen’s important corpus of harpsichord music was taken this September (2016) when the first four sets of his Inventions, 24 pieces in all, were recorded in Würzburg, Germany, by a brilliant […]

2015-16 sees Toccata Classics produce five new recordings of Stephen Dodgson chamber works. Below, Stephen’s widow, the harpsichordist Jane Clark Dodgson, gives her perspective on the music and the talented artists performing it. “It is very exciting for me, as Stephen Dodgson’s widow, to report that Toccata Classics will be releasing a series of recordings of his chamber music – which at the moment looks like being five albums. Allow me to outline what you can look forward to. The first of this series, just released, is of his music for cello and piano, played by Evva Mizerska and Emma […]

We are excited to announce the release of the complete works for cello and piano by Stephen Dodgson performed by cellist Evva Mizerska and pianist Emma Abbate, for whom several of the works were written. The works present Stephen’s musical personality in a nutshell. The style is direct but rich in allusion, from Purcell to Janáček, with a lively, sometimes brittle, sense of humour adding a Shostakovichian irony, all fused together in an elegant, individual voice. And the remarkable clarity of the instrumental textures underlines a strong sense of narrative, with the cello almost as a human voice, unfolding its […]