Hans Kox (1930) Dorian Gray suite for orchestra (1979) Orchestra: Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Conductor: David Porcelijn dedicated to Wim Baarens Hans Kox is a Dutch composer. After early studies with his father, an organist and choral conductor, he attended the Utrecht Conservatory and was then a private composition pupil of Badings; his piano studies were completed with Jaap Spaanderman. He was director of the Doetinchem Music School 1956--71, which he brought to a high standard. In 1974 he became director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, but resigned shortly afterwards as a result of the critical reception of his opera Dorian Gray. Thereafter, he lived in Haarlem as a freelance composer, at the same time teaching composition at the Utrecht Conservatory. He made his début with a string trio performed at the Gaudeamus Foundation in 1953, and he increased his reputation with the Piano Sonata no.1 and the First String Quartet. He wrote his first large orchestral work, the Co! ncertante muziek, in 1956 to a commission from the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Kox's music from these early years until 1963 is marked by classical forms and by the harmonic influences of Berg, Mahler and Badings, which gradually disappear; chief among the compositions of this period are the First Symphony, the Piano Concerto and the First Violin Concerto. The Symphony no.2 (1966), in which Kox began to explore the implications of Mahler's work for contemporary music, brought this phase to a definite close
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