Martin Heyworth
*11 January 1947
Works by Martin Heyworth
Biography
Medical graduate of Cambridge University (1971). Career in academic medicine (retired 2017). Now pursuing career in music, focussing on composition. After piano lessons in childhood in England, started composing at age 17 (1964). Initial works for solo piano and for small instrumental ensembles; somewhat later, a few vocal works. Self-directed musical education included reading theory, and studying and copying scores. Milestones include performances of music for chamber orchestra by community orchestras in California (early 1990s) and Philadelphia (2005), and (especially) recent professional performances: rehearsal/recording of Sinfonia No. 1 by The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (COP; 2015); readings of my 4 string quartets by the Wister Quartet (Philadelphia) in 2017-18; performance of String Quartet No. 4 by Wister Quartet (March 2020); performances of work for solo viola (Danza per Viola da Braccio); transcription of Mozart Adagio in B minor (K. 540) for string orchestra performed by COP in January 2020.
An interest in musicology is exemplified by the following article:
Heyworth, Martin F. (2019) "Mozart's Annotations of Haydn Symphony Themes and Their Relationship to the "Linz" Symphony, K. 425", HAYDN: Vol. 9: No. 2, Article 2.
Available at: https://remix.berklee.edu/haydn-journal/vol9/iss2/2.
My wallpaper reflects my affinity with the natural world, and is a photograph that I took at Lower Hilcot in the Cotswolds (between Cheltenham and Cirencester, in England) on the 11th of September, 2006.
About the music
My style is tonal, and is mainly influenced by ‘Baroque’ and ‘Classical’ models, together with some admixture of late Mediaeval music (notably the so-called Landini cadence) and the whole tone scale. Counterpoint is pervasive, albeit without formal fugues or canons. Although the style may appear broadly ‘familiar’ on first hearing, closer scrutiny reveals that cadences typically resolve in unpredictable directions and that modulations to remote keys (and back) occur with minimal preparation; these features help to sustain energy. The overall result is, I think, personal and recognisable. Despite relative tonal instability, the key at any given moment is almost always evident. Perhaps the main emotional impression is one of nostalgia - there is a sense of ‘pastoral distancing’, combined, however, with forward-driving movement towards a resolution. Although the only instruments that I play are keyboard ones, I have aimed to write effectively for other instruments as well. Not having been formally trained in writing music, and not being currently attached to an academic music department, have helped to ensure that I have developed no allegiance to 'fashionable' or contemporary styles of composition that may fail to communicate effectively with the musically literate public. At the same time, I have aimed at technical rigour and the highest achievable level of professional competence as a composer.
Autograph manuscripts of my works have been donated to the Cambridge University Library (England) and to the Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA).