Editing Lennox Berkeley (section)

==Musical style==

Berkeley's earlier music is broadly [[Tonality|tonal]], influenced by the [[Neoclassicism (music)|neoclassical]] music of Stravinsky.<ref name=Stevens>{{cite thesis |type=PhD |last=Stevens |first=Douglas |date=2011 |title=Lennox Berkeley : a critical study of his music |publisher=University of Bristol}}</ref> Berkeley's contact and friendship with composers such as Ravel and Poulenc and his studies in Paris with Boulanger lend his music a 'French' quality, demonstrated by its "emphasis on melody, the lucid textures and a conciseness of expression".<ref name=MusicSales>{{cite web|last1=Rushton|first1=James|title=Lennox Berkeley – Five Short Pieces (1936)|url=http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/12080|website=Music Sales Classical|access-date=29 September 2015}}</ref> He maintained a negative view of [[Atonality|atonal]] music at least up until 1948, when he wrote:<ref>{{cite book|last=Dickinson|first=Peter|title=The Music of Lennox Berkeley|date=2003|publisher=The Boydell Press|location=Woodbridge|isbn=9780851159362|page=161|edition=2nd}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=I have never been able to derive much satisfaction from atonal music. The absence of key makes [[modulation (music)|modulation]] an impossibility, and this, to my mind, causes monotony [...] I am not, of course, in favour of rigidly adhering to the old key-system, but some sort of tonal centre seems to me a necessity.}}

However, from the mid-1950s, Berkeley apparently felt a need to revise his style of composition, later telling the Canadian composer, [[R. Murray Schafer]] that "it's natural for a composer to feel a need to enlarge his idiom."<ref>{{cite book|last=Dickinson|first=Peter|title=Lennox Berkeley and Friends : Writings, Letters and Interviews|date=2012|publisher=Boydell Press|location=Woodbridge|isbn=9781843837855|page=9}}</ref> He started including [[tone rows]] and aspects of [[serial technique]] in his compositions around the time of the Concertino, Op. 49 (1955) and the opera ''Ruth'' (1955–56). His shift in opinion was demonstrated in an interview with ''[[The Times]]'' in 1959:{{sfnp|Dickinson|2012|page=110}}

{{Blockquote|text=I'm not opposed to serial music; I've benefited from studying it, and I have sometimes found myself writing serial themes – although I don't elaborate on them according to strict serial principles, because I'm quite definitely a tonal composer. And there are some exceptions to the gospel of intellectualisation – I enjoyed listening to the record of Boulez's ''[[Le Marteau sans maître]]'' very much, because there the timbres of the music were attractive in themselves.}}