David Farquhar

One of New Zealand's most widely respected composers, David Farquhar was born in 1928 and attended Victoria University, Cabridge University, and Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he studied with Benjamin Frankel. He has written Symphonic workds, opera, theatre music (most notably for a production of Christopher Fry's Ring Around the Moon, a translation of the play by Jean Anouilh), an award-winning piano concerto, and chamber music. His Symphony of 1959 is perhaps his best-known work. It was a short work made up of lean but strong lines of slowly developing musical material in traditional three movement form. Clarity of orchestraiton and purity of tonal structure are earmarks of this composer's elegant and intelligent style. The Symphony was recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eric Lawson on a Peerless/Oryz LP relealsed in the mid-'60s (Oryx 1900). ~ Philip Krumm