Rae Charles Bodman, *10 August 1955 Leeds, English music theorist, composer, and educator. He studied composition under R. Sh. Johnson at Oxford and R. Holloway at Cambridge and conducting at Hilversum under E. Downes. In 1974, he was a finalist in the Aberdeen Composition Competition, performing Primum Mobile. He taught composition and musical analysis at Leeds College of Music from 1979 to 1992. From 1981 to 1983, as a scholarship holder of the Polish government, he completed complementary studies at the State Higher School of Music (now the University of Music) in Warsaw, making the acquaintance of W. Lutosławski, to whose music he devoted his doctoral dissertation Pitch Organization in the Music of Witold Lutosławski since 1979 (University of Leeds, 1992; unpublished text, extracts used in the book The Music of Lutosławski, London 1994). He was a lecturer at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester from 1997 to 2001 and was appointed Professor at the University of Adelaide in 2001. He received the W. Lutosławski Society Medal (2005) and the medal on the occasion of 100th Anniversary of Witold Lutosławski’s Birthday (2013) for his research on Lutosławski’s music and its popularisation.
Rae is one of the outstanding experts on W. Lutosławski’ s music. He provided in his writings a multifaceted characterisation of the composer’s style, with particular emphasis on the role of the so-called twelve-note aggregate, being the first to describe it systematically. In his compositional output, he represents a moderately conservative direction, referring in some respects (mainly in harmonics and texture) to Lutosławski’s sound technique. References to the sound of bells are an important feature of Rae’s musical style.
Literature: G. Michalski’s conversation with Rae, in: Lutosławski w pamięci. 20 rozmów o kompozytorze, Gdańsk 2007.
Compositions
Instrumental:
orchestral works:
Primum Mobile for orchestra, 1974
Concerto for viola and chamber orchestra, 2007
chamber music:
String quartet No.1, 1981
Fulgura frango for 2 pianos, 1987
String quartet No.2, 2004
Partita Dalriada for clarinet and piano, 2010
solo compositions:
Jede irdische Venus for piano, 1982
Sonata for guitars 1982
Toccata agogica for flute, 2009
Postludia cadenza (after the Lutosławski Piano Concerto) for piano, 2013
Steven Stucky in memoriam for piano, 2017
Partita elegiaca for violin, 2021
Vocal-instrumental works:
Six Verses of Vision for soprano and chamber ensemble, 1976
transcriptions of works by F. Chopin:
for orchestra:
Prelude in C sharp minor Op. 45, 2010
Nocturne in C minor Op. 48 No. 1, 2010
Ballade in G minor Op. 23, 2013
for string quintet or string orchestra:
Etiuda in E flat minor Op. 10 No. 6, 2012
Works:
The Music of Lutosławski, London 1994, third revised edition 1999, Polish edition Muzyka Lutosławskiego, translated by S. Krupowicz, Warsaw 1996
Organizacja wysokości dźwięków w muzyce Lutosławskiego, “Muzyka” 1995 No. 1–2
Świat dźwiękowy Lutosławskiego. Świat kontrastów, published in: Estetyka i styl twórczości Witolda Lutosławskiego, edited by Z. Skowron, Kraków 2000, English edition Lutosławski’s Sound-World. A World of Contrasts, published in: Lutosławski Studies, edited by Z. Skowron, Oxford 2001
The Role of the Major-Minor Chord in Panufnik’s Compositional Technique, published in: Andrzej Panufnik’s Music and Its Reception, edited by J. Paja-Stach, Kraków 2003
Lutosławski and the Scars of Wars, published in: Lutosławski Centenary 2013. Woven Words, edited by S. Stucky, London 2013 (Souvenir book London Philharmonic Orchestra)
Chopin and the Ninth: Comparison of the Original with a New Orchestral Version of the Prelude op.45, published in: Chopin 1810-2010: Ideas, Interpretations, Influences, edited by Z. Chechlinska, Warsaw 2020 (the materials from the Third Chopinological Congress, 2010).
The Polish Musical Psyche from the Second Republic into the Third, published in: Polish Music Since 1945, edited by E. Mantzourani, Kraków 2013.
Lutoslawski et sa musique pour les enfants, published in: Witold Lutoslawski, edited by Z. Skowron, Brussels 2013.
The Bells of Warsaw: Reconstructing the Soundscape of the City, Warsaw 2014, text available on the website of the Narodowy Instytut Muzyki i Tańca
Messiaen and Australia: the Composer as Lyrebird, published in: Olivier Messiaen in Context, edited by R. Sholl, Cambridge 2022
entries in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, including entry Lutosławski
