Francis Pott
Professional
Biography
Born in 1957, Francis Pott was a chorister at New College, Oxford, and a Music Scholar at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he studied composition with Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood while pursuing piano studies as a private pupil of Hamish Milne in London. He remains active as a solo recitalist and accompanist, and maintains piano duo partnerships with both Jeremy Filsell and Roger Owens. He has appeared at the Wigmore Hall and has been heard on BBC Radio 3 playing his own works.
Since 1981 Pott has received four national awards for composition. In 1997 he won First Prize in the piano solo section of the Second International Prokofiev Composing Competition, Moscow. The work in question, Toccata (dedicated to Marc-André Hamelin), was widely performed in Russia. Later the American pianist Frederic Chiu gave the London première at the 'Pianoworks' Festival, Blackheath Concert Halls, and the work has been widely performed in Canada, the USA and the UK by the Canada based Russian virtuoso, Alexander Tselyakov.
Pott's output includes several solo piano works. However, he has attracted most attention for his organ music and sacred choral works. In both he has sought selectively to harness fifteenth and sixteenth century polyphonic techniques to a quietly distinctive harmonic idiom. An unusually rigorous use of motivic counterpoint, allied to a concern with the symphonic methods of Nielsen, has found favour in Britain and also particularly in the USA, Germany and Scandinavia. Pott's style, difficult to pigeon-hole, has been compared in the press with composers as diverse as Nielsen, Barber, Janácek, Messiaen, Martin, Tippett, and even Fauré, though it could be mistaken for none of these.
Pott's growing concert output includes sonatas for violin and for 'cello (both with piano), songs, a piano quintet and a number of works for oboe (the composer's second instrument). In these a greater Romantic lyricism is apparent, although use of tonality remains free: one critic has noted that in the 'Cello Sonata it "fades in and out like a radio signal, but you know it originates somewhere and is strong there".
Pott's work has been heard in at least 18 countries worldwide and broadcast on both sides of the Atlantic. A steady stream of commissions has included the 1999 Elgar Commission for the Three Choirs Festival at Worcester, entitled 'A Song on the End of the World' (after a poem of the same name by Czeslaw Milosz, written in Warsaw in 1944). This work, a seven movement, multi-textual oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra, seeks both to articulate a passionate plea for world peace and to find a coherent divine purpose in the face of worldly suffering by discovering the image of the Crucifixion re-enacted within the human atrocities of each successive age. The world première took place in Worcester Cathedral four months before the new Millennium, performed by Judith Howarth (soprano), Sarah Fryer (mezzo-soprano) and William Clements (bass), the Three Choirs Festival Chorus and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Adrian Lucas. Current and future projects include concertos for piano and for cor anglais, an ensemble work for brass and percussion, and a three act opera. Pott is also composing a two-piano work which he will perform with Jeremy Filsell. Being both delayed by other projects and made for two, it is entitled Tandem. He has written many virtuoso paraphrases and transcriptions of Romantic repertoire (mainly songs) for the piano. Recent commissions include major works for the King's Singers and the Vasari Choir.
From 1991 to 2001 Francis Pott was Lecturer in Music at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and a bass lay clerk in the Choir of Winchester Cathedral under the direction of David Hill. In 2001 he was appointed administrative Head of Music at London College of Music & Media (the arts faculty of Thames Valley University), the following year becoming its Head both of Composition and of Research Development. He is also researching a book on the output of the Russian composer Nikolai Medtner. He lives near Winchester with his wife and two children.
A Song on the End of the World
"Thrilling music, ...contemporary and original, ...impressive and profoundly affecting" - The Times
"Wonderful. A stunningly impressive premiere, ...apocalyptic and luminous" - Birmingham Post
"A deeply serious piece, ...intensely, almost overpoweringly dramatic, ...[ending] with a radiantly beautiful setting of Causley's I am the Great Sun. Let us hope Pott will create more works of this profundity" - The Organ
My Song is Love Unknown
"...Searing, titanic, ...superbly wrought. ...A magnificent and disturbing work." Music Web, 2003.
"...Stands out as a masterpiece of choral writing." Classical News, 2003.
"...A highly dramatic work, making the fullest use of the choral forces available and with a very challenging organ part. ...I am very much aware of a tremendous musical mind." International Record Review, 2003.
Christus
"Arrestingly original, ...the large-scale cohesion fulfils its designation as 'Symphony' with monumental conviction" Musical Times, 1991
"Truly sensational, ..clearly one of the major works for organ in our century." Musical Opinion, 1992
"...Not a work beholden to any other: rather, an astonishingly original composition, compelling in its structural logic and exhilarating in performance. All in all, a stupendous achievement." The Times, April 2001
Empyrean
"Honest music of a quality that is rare in the contemporary organ repertoire. Most striking is the ability to develop ideas into a convincing and strong structure. A highly effective concert piece" Organists' Review, 1989
Introduction, Toccata & Fugue
"Few composers surrently writing for the organ have Pott's command of the relationship between the details and the whole, or achieve such satisfying formal elegance. This...beautifully crafted and unashamedly demanding music ...should be investigated by everyone who cares about the organ as an instrument for serious music-making." Choir & Organ, 2005.
Sonata for 'Cello and Piano'
"Full of original thought and emotive music of considerable power, ...in the top rank of significant British chamber music of recent decades" British Music Society News, 1998.
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Performances |
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- A Song on the End of the World (1999)
[70' 00"] Oratorio for soli, chorus, orchestra and (optional) organ
- My Song is Love Unknown (2002) [17'30"].
Anthem for SATB soli, SATB/SATB chorus and organ.
CD: Tenebrae/Nigel Short; Jeremy Filsell, organ. Signum Records, SIGCD 501 ['Mother and Child'].
- Christus (1990)
[125' 00"] Passion Symphony in five movements for solo organ
Published: United Music Publishers Ltd (3 vols). Double CD: Jeremy Filsell, Signum Records, SIGCD 062
- Empyrean (Rhapsody for organ) (1982)
[10' 00"][UMP.] Winner of First Prize and Special Youth Prize, Lloyd's Bank National Composition Award, 1982
- Introduction, Toccata & Fugue (2001). [14'00".] [UMP.]
- Toccata (1991). [10' 00"] [Fand.]
Improvisation on 'Adeste, Fideles' (2005). [5'00".]
- Sonata for 'Cello and Piano (1995)
[53' 00"; revised version 43'00".] Première: Wigmore Hall, July 1996: David Watkin, 'cello, Howard Moody, piano.
CD: Guild Recordings: GMCD 7141 (Watkin, Moody).
- Solo piano music:
Farewell to Hirta (1985). [7' 00"]
Publication: Fand, 1999. CD: The composer, piano: Guild Recordings: GMCD 7141
- Toccata (1996). [6'30".] [Fand.]
First Prize, Second International Sergei Prokofiev Composing Competition, Moscow, 1997.
- Hunt's Bay (1994). [9' 30"] CD: The composer, piano: Guild Recordings: GMCD 7141
- The Song of Amergin (1983). [12' 00"] Winner, Barclaycard National Composition Award, 1983
- Thalassa (1982). [22' 00"]. Several further titles.
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