Bernard (George) Stevens (2 March 1916 – 6 January 1983) was a British composer who first became known to a wider public when he won a newspaper composition prize for a 'Victory Symphony' in post-war 1946.
The broader success was not sustained, but Stevens went on to become a respected composer and teacher at the Royal College of Music, using traditional forms for his compositions while extending his essentially tonal harmonic language towards serialism.
[1] Born in Stamford Hill London, Stevens grew up in Essex, and received his first musical education at Southend High School, where his teacher was Arthur Hutchings.
[3] Called up for war service in 1940 he was rejected for a combat role due to his poor eyesight, so served in the Royal Army Pay Corps.
The sonata attracted the attention of Max Rostal, who commissioned a Violin Concerto, which Stevens also wrote during his army service.
His students included Keith Burstein, Stephen Dodgson, Michael Finnissy, Erika Fox, Malcolm Lipkin, Carlo Martelli and John White.
In the late 1960s he and Bertha acquired a small plot of land near Mahón on the island of Menorca and built a holiday villa there, where they spent many summers over the following decade.
[5] Influenced by composers such as Ernest Bloch, Ferruccio Busoni, Shostakovich, Alan Bush and Edmund Rubbra, Stevens also used fantasia-like elements of form which he took from the Elizabethans Dowland and Farnaby.
[12] Towards the end of his life Stevens explored new methods of tonal organization involving correspondence with the I Ching - evident in his final piece of chamber music, Autumn Sequence (1980) for guitar and harpsichord.