Both of David Dorward's parents were schoolteachers in Scotland. His father David Gardyne Dorward, was a country schoolmaster first at Logie Pert near Montrose in North Angus, and from 1938 at Monikie, near Dundee. His mother, born Margaret Edward Boyle, was for a year a mathematics teacher at Dalkeith High School.
It was in a Dundee nursing home on 7 August 1933 that David Campbell Dorward was born. His mother recalls that at less than a year old David burst into tears at some sentimental ditty on the radio. However, he remembers his first awakening to music as being an obsession with the local church bell which sound he successfully imitated with an old kettle and pot lid.
He took up the piano at the age of eight with one Nora C Leggatt of Monifieth. She was to die six years later and David was to win the Memorial Prize which was a legacy bequeathed by her. After a few years' gap, his piano studies continued with blind Dr Neill of Dundee. Young Dorward's schools were Monikie Primary between the years of 1938 and 1945 and from them to 1951 Morgan Academy in Dundee, to which he travelled daily as he lived in the country. He was 'adequately competent' at school at most subjects; the exception was English for which he won the school medal in the sixth year.
There was some music at school and David had a visual fascination with musical symbols since the age of six. He wrote a lot of little pieces without titles which employed the black keys in a pentatonic way. His parents regarded this as merely a phase - part of the process of growing up. Dorward says that to his family and their friends composers were "exotic creatures with foreign names who were hailed as geniuses practically from the cradle. As he was not studying the theory of music at school and showed no signs of exceptional musical talent (his piano playing became competent only much later), this obsession with dots on music paper was a self-indulgent waste of time. He should be out helping in the garden". They did not realise that he would become a prolific composer; but the signs were there for, as early as his teenage years he was profoundly influenced by such works as all the symphonies and string quartets of Beethoven that he heard; the Stravinsky ballets particularly Orpheus, Apollo and the Rite of Spring; and that towering masterpiece of Messiaen - the Turangalia Symphony.
For four years from 1951, Dorward read English and Philosophy at St Andrews University graduating with a MA Honours. In fact, in his junior honours year he received a medal for excellence. In his second year he took the General Music Course run by Cedric Thorpe Davie, a splendid teacher who, like his music, could easily be forgotten. He was both a modest and lively man with an attractive and boyish sense of fun. He and his wife were immensely hospitable; as a teacher Davie impressed Dorward; Davie was always clear-headed and practical in his attitudes to music and as a pupil of Vaughan Williams believed in writing music which would be of use to the community of which he felt an integral part. Dorward has emulated this in some measure too. About this time Davie was composing music for a Disney 'Scottish' film which enabled him to buy a magnificent car which he named 'Rob Roy'. He was also writing much theatre music particularly with Tyrone Guthrie, but perhaps his award winning Symphony in C is his finest musical achievement. I have heard it said that this is one of the finest symphonies written by a Scot, a verdict with which I readily concur.
With this distinguished composer, Dorward learned about the history of music, musical analysis (in the tedious-diehard Tovey style), harmony and counterpoint - but, having a keen mind also taught himself. There was an active student life involving music including singing in the chapel choir which boasted a wide repertoire from Bach to Britten. Dorward learned the viola and violin in order to play in the University Orchestra which, from time to time, he conducted. He also conducted the Music Society Choir for a year and gradually overcame his dislike for playing the piano in public accompanying the Society Choir of which the most memorable event was the first performance of Davie's By the River.
Dorward's first performed composition was a now discarded violin and piano piece in 1952. The following year the general public had their first taste of his abilities as a composer with a piece for trumpet and piano, also discarded.
Two years of National Service in the Royal Artillery followed. He was a gunner in the regimental survey team; a small select group with mathematical qualifications. Apart from a threatened participation in the Suez adventure, he remained peacefully in Folkestone, and the life was undemanding, which gave him the chance to read widely away from the rigours of a University Honours Course. It also enabled him for the first time to make visits to London which he did on weekend passes, staying at the Union Jack Club where there were often free tickets for concerts, theatre and opera and ballet at Covent Garden and Sadlers Wells. He began a correspondence course in strict counterpoint, interrupted by illness and ended by manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain. Towards the end of his army career he entered for the Blumenthal Scholarship submitting three scores; an oboe quartet, a song cycle with orchestra and the Cooper o'Fife overture. He won the scholarship, the previous winner was Richard Rodney Bennett, and spent the next three years at the Royal Academy of Music. His first composition teacher was Manuel Frankell who installed confidence and imbued encouragement and boldness, particularly in orchestration. His second teacher, for a short period only, was John Gardner who Dorward states to be a lively character and superb musician; he also studied the piano with Patrick Cory. The Cooper o'Fife won the Royal College of Music's Patron's Fund Award which led to the work's first performance by the Hallé Orchestra under George Weldon at the Academy in 1958. The orchestration was revised for this occasion under the tutelage of Frankell but ten years later the composer reverted to the original orchestration. In that year he won the William Elkin prize for his Epitaph for Captain Matthew, a short accompanied choral work, and the following year the John Davies prize for his Diversions for six clarinets. He was also successful the following year when the format for the prize was a work for baritone and three clarinets. Dorward won with his Meditations on a text of Thomas Browne. In 1959 he won the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society prize for his Fantasy for large orchestra which he has since withdrawn considering it to be 'overscored and meandering'. The Concerto for wind and percussion of 1960 won joint first prize and an American composer, Ned Rorem was runner-up in a competition promoted jointly by the Wind Societies of London and New York. Dorward was still a student at the Academy. The score is extremely skilful and the three movements are strongly contrasted in character. The contrapuntal fluency and sensitivity to texture is admirable. The central slow movement, in the form of a palindrome, is overstandingly successful. The finale is a rondo of excitement and high spirits. It is a work of brilliance, colour, variety and makes a lasting impression. Given publicity and performances it could become a 'best seller'.
Dorward's first broadcast work was the piano suite Aspects of Artists given by Robin Wood in 1961. (Maureen Hall had played it earlier at a Society for the Promotion of New Music concert in the Wigmore Hall). A BBC music producer phoned the composer about the work and this became Dorward's introduction to the BBC where he was a music producer from 1962 to 1991 located in Edinburgh following a couple of years spent teaching and freelancing in London. At the same time as Wood's broadcast an up-and-coming conductor named Colin Davis was performing the Cooper o'Fife with the BBC Scottish Orchestra in Glasgow.
Over the next seven years Dorward composed many impressive works. The Festivities for a young orchestra of 1962 is far from being a childish composition, as the title might suggest. It is tremendous fun, positively brimming with expertise and panache. The third movement is a modern young person's guide to the orchestra, complete with aleatoric effects for each section of the orchestra. The following year saw another 'utility work', the Variations on an Old Scots Air written for the Stirlingshire Youth Orchestra. The first variation is strong, percussive and stirring; the second causes one to wonder if we are in Spain, not Scotland; the third is strident and menacing; the fourth hints at Elgarian slush; the fifth is infectious with an irresistible swagger; the sixth suggests more than a hint of tragedy and possesses a tender violin solo; the finale is very Scottish and swaggers with wonderful audacity. The String Quartet No 2 waited seven years before its first performance by the Edinburgh Quartet in 1970. It is in four movements each based partly on the motif that opens the piece. This quartet is magnificently conceived for the medium with a strong sense of form and memorable material. Every single bar is purposeful and the music is thoroughly accessible embodying as it does something of the charm of Mozart and the dream of Beethoven or Bartòk, yet it speaks an individual language as well as having impeccable craftsmanship and clarity. The second movement is deeply felt, occasionally with a convincing tension and tremendous style. The mischievous scherzo hints at nationalism and has an unshamed foot-tapping bias. The finale constitutes a rich variety of colour with a touch of the macabre and a violin theme of unbearable beauty. Without a doubt, this is a masterpiece. The cantata The Fervent Fire of 1964 is Dorward's first major choral work, a setting for soloists chorus and orchestra of various old Scots texts from Henryson to Montgomerie. The Scotsman reported that the music shows "the composer's distinctive flair for setting words effectively". The work won the St Andrews University Music Society Prize. The Violin Concerto was first performed by Miles Baster and the Glasgow String Orchestra under Adrian Secchi in May 1965. "The work is most accessible; fluently written in a style that presents no problems" wrote the Glasgow Herald. It is a piece of glowing beauty, attractive textures and perfect organisation of its material. The String Quartet No 3 was completed in 1966 and was written for the McEwen Bequest Commission at Glasgow University and first performed by the Edinburgh Quartet in 1966. The distinguished composer Anthony Payne wrote of "intricacies of its long single movement and, at times, the continuity seemed obscure but there was no doubt of the memorability and personality of it". The Glasgow Herald hailed it as "an arresting work which exhibits a strong and assured handling of the medium; its highly dramatic nature giving point to its numerous expressive contrasts. Not least among these were the eloquent recitative statements against a static background, the fleetingly fragmented scherzo, the vigourous dancing fugue and the work's striking individual close". Conrad Wilson, in the pages of the Scotsman, called it "a compelling work." It certainly has a grip; it is more 'advanced' than its predecessor and is often sinister, recalling the menacing sound of the persistent flapping of birds as portrayed in Bernard Herrmann's score for the Hitchcock film. It is a tough, gritty work of intellectual power. The Cello Concerto of the same year was written for Joan Dickson who gave the first performance with the Pro Arte Orchestra of Edinburgh under Eric Roberts in November 1967. It is designed in five movements all based on the C major scale that opens the work. The sensitivity to colour, the technical assurance in what Malcolm Rayment calls an "exceptionally ingenious score" are among the remarkable features of this work.
In June 1968 Dorward married a nurse, Janet Offord at an Edinburgh Registry Office. They have three children; Helen, born in 1972; Frances in 1974 and Alan in 1978. They were not overimpressed with their father's work at first, preferring heavy metal! Nor would they be enamoured of his job probably preferring father to be a television producer. To quote Dorward, "a BBC music producer thinks up ideas for a broadcast recital or concert or, perhaps, a series about a performer, composer, period etc. which he offers to the programme head. The producer was responsible for all aspects of the broadcast; arranging the artiste's contract, booking the studio, getting the sound balance he wants, writing the Radio Times billing and presentation for the announcer." It was this employment which produced Dorward's livelihood. Composition makes little money for him and he sees it as hard work. He admits to "often having scrapped a work". This creative urge is born of obsessive compulsion although his varied hobbies of photography, computers, drawing and painting and astronomy often distract him from the need to compose and difficulties in getting down to it. He once told me that composing "has to be done alone, almost secretly and without anyone's help and advice".
Specific events have not continuously influenced his works although private thoughts, personal ideas and experiences do exert an influence as, to a lesser extent, do the composers he values most; Beethoven, Richard Strauss and late Stravinsky. He has an affinity with Bach (which he prefers to play rather than listen to), Mozart, Wagner who "has the ability to tap something deep in the psyche". He acknowledges, however, that Debussy helped to free him from the Teutonic sense of form, harmony and texture. As for British music he identifies with the sound world of another east coast composer, Britten, admiring particularly the three orchestral song cycles which Dorward claims to be "unique masterpieces". He values Tippett's Double String Concerto but Elgar has, for a long time, been a "blind spot". As for composers with more original gifts Dorward accepts that the serial technique has produced masterpieces but that the only exponent of the aleatory method who has appealed to him is Lutoslawski. He says "this method is just a method as, for example, is the fugue". There are, as with all of us, composers that do not have much appeal. For Dorward these include Brahms, Schonberg, Hindemith, Boulez, Rubbra and Bax, although they have occasionally made some impact both to his surprise and delight.
Dorward is a modest and honest man. He admits a disaffection for some of his works; he claims he has not yet written a work of maturity although he might agree that his Cello Concerto was the first work to give him any satisfaction, and the Second Symphony the second.
As a Scot he enjoys his late night whisky and a cigar. He enjoys company for relaxation but is equally happy alone. His political views are socialist and anti-Thatcherite; he leans towards the concept of independence for Scotland although he finds Nationalism in all its forms unappealing. He is of no religious persuasion believing that organised creeds have caused far more harm than the personal comfort and strength it may give to individuals. Dorward's modesty means that he is reluctant to discuss his work yet, paradoxically, he will continue the compose because "something is there unsaid which must eventually be said. That is why I keep going".
From the late 1960s to date numerous compositions have been produced by David Dorward including a musical A Christmas Carol which has an instant and enduring appeal. The Guardian of 1968 called it "a real success". David Buchan in the Edinburgh Evening News refers to the song "I thought He'd never go" as a "real show stopper" and refers to the whole piece as "the great entertainment which it is". This highlights the composer's amazing versatility. The vaudeville numbers recall pages of his Symphony No 1 of 1960. His only opera to date Tonight, Mrs Morrison dates from 1968. A Faustus Scena was composed for the Bridge of Allan Music Club and first performed in 1970. The work is scored for baritone and piano trio and is both a sombre and strongly-characterised setting of passages from Marlow's play, graphically depicting Faust's life and downfall. The year 1970 saw two impressive orchestral works: the Sonata Concertante which one reviewer describes as "an enjoyable portmanteau-like piece filled with wry little waltz tunes and rhythms, cadenzas, aleatory passages, even a fugue, all coherently put together, sharply etched, and not at all discursive". The Ode for Small Orchestra was written for the Glasgow Chamber Orchestra and is in four movements alternating fast and slow, the last of which takes us back in time alluding to several styles of the last hundred years. The Golden Targe for chorus and orchestra, which dates from 1972 is a setting of the sixteenth century poem by William Dunbar. As it was written for the annual conference of the National Federation of Music Societies the music does not make heavy demands on the singers, or, for that matter, the listeners. The choral writing is basically diatonic as if showing that the composer is restricted and would feel more at home with his personal more modern style as in the splendid String Quartet No 4. There are four movements linked together by a varied passage on the notes D, G, D (the initials of Dorward's father who had died in September 1971). It is a busy, well-integrated work with fascinating contrasts. Often it is rich with very human feeling; in fact, the music is as close to speech as one could imagine; the communicative skill is exemplary. The range of emotion is vast - sometimes the intensity is unbearable but realistic. One phrase in the third section is repeated relentlessly as if a dog with a bone. The finale captures brilliantly the mood of disintegration as if the composer was contemplating his own mortality. The music is often angry but its masterly and powerful impact can only be admired. The splendid Analogues for string orchestra of 1973 has the appearance of a fifth quartet for a larger body of players.
Sobriety is not always a feature of Dorward's work. Histoire of 1974 for eight instrumentalists was described by Conrad Wilson as "not at all a conventional octet but one in which the players tended to form splinter groups - sometimes disruptively as when the trombonist marches off the platform towards the end blaring away to hilarious effect. It is music about other people's music or, at least, their styles. The results were captivating unfolding at times like a comic story yet avoiding the pitfalls that lie in wait for composers who attempt to be humorous". The Piano Concerto of 1976 is a coherent and impressive piece; strong in character; the slow middle section may be overlong despite its admirable impressionism; the finale is mainly robust.
A most recent success is Golden City for orchestra which dates from 1988. It was written for the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra and has, as its starting point, two Scottish children's singing games, which work into luminous and highly effective triadic textures. At one point the strings of the orchestra whistle a Scottish playground tune to clarinet and timpani accompaniment. It is a very agreeable piece which went down well in the EYO's tour of Southern California in 1989.
There are many other works deserving mention but sincere recommendation is no consolation for performance. Here is an advanced and original musical voice from Scotland covering a wide range of music. If anyone fails to find something among Dorward's ninety odd works to cherish it is not the composer's fault. That he has a personal style guarantees that he is an original composer, a rare commodity which because of its quality and rareness demands intense interest.
Shortly after leaving the organisation in 1991, Dorward was commissioned by the BBC, at the suggestion of the trombonist John Kenny, to write a work for trombone. The result was O How I Love Thee (1993) for tenor trombone and piano (the title is from A Midsummer Night's Dream, the scene in which Titania falls in love with the ass-headed bottom). Among other works is Amazonian Moonflower (1992) written for the free-bass accordionist Owen Murray, and first performed by one of his senior students at the Royal Academy of Music. His second violin sonata, Sonata for Mull, was written for Leonard Friedman to play at his Mull Festival. Friedman did not live to see it; he died just a week after the score was completed. It eventually received its first performance on Mull with Virginia Strawson taking his place as violinist: she was to have been the pianist.
In response to a second BBC commission Dorward wrote his Second Symphony in 1995. The first performance in March 1997, by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Alun Francis, was subsequently broadcast on Radio 3.
Other recent works include Measured Notes of Set Music for 3 string orchestras, Five Songs for Strings and several choral works and songs, including one specially composed for an occasion in Manchester celebrating the 80th birthday of his former teacher, John Gardner.