Tony Osborne: Sonnet for a Summer's Day for soprano & double bass quartet

About the Composition

Sonnet for a Summer’s Day was commissioned in 1998 for Bass-Fest ’98 by David Heyes and is a rare, beautiful and evocative piece for soprano and double bass quartet. A repeated rhythmic figure, played unison, creates unity and cohesion alongside gently changing jazz-inspired harmonies, above which the soprano weaves wonderfully lyrical and melodic vocal lines.

Episodes of a more direct style add contrast and interest, and the double bass quartet acts as a gently sustained accompaniment with its beautifully English pastoral style and subtle jazz harmonies producing a work which never fails to connect with an audience.

Sonnet for a Summer’s Day was premiered at Bass-Fest ’98 (Leighton Park School, Reading, Berkshire) by Sarah Poole (soprano) and David Heyes (double bass 1), Mette Hanskov (double bass 2), Corrado Canonici (double bass 3) and Martin Gregg (double bass 4).

“As its name may suggest, it is a setting of Shakespeare’s immortal Sonnet XVIII in a clear, lyrical styles, drawing freely on light jazz ballad styles and gently contrasted influences of 20th-century composers such as Gabriel Fauré, Gerald Finzi, Richard Rodney Bennett and others. The accompaniment has a more rhythmic function, as well as a harmonic foundation in support of the more sustained vocal line, which may be compared to a flowing stream, surrounded by the beauty of nature.”

[Programme note by Tony Osborne]

Sonnet XVIII by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

About the Composer

Born in 1947 into a musical family, Tony Osborne studied at the Royal Academy of Music (London) with John Walton (double bass) and Richard Stoker (composition), and divided a busy career between composing, teaching, and performing. A prolific composer and arranger, Tony's original compositions include works in almost every genre, notably Chaconne Syncopations and Wainwright's Ways for brass quintet, Celebration Fanfare for brass ensemble, the musical A Fine Time for Wine, a beautiful and dramatic Requiem, and many works for string orchestra. Tony’s music for young bassists is very much at the heart of the teaching repertoire, particularly his jazzy and enjoyable bass trios and quartets, and he had the rare ability to create wonderful music which is always player and audience-friendly.

In 2001 Tony Osborne was elected an ARAM (Associate of the Royal Academy of Music) for his pioneering and important work for double bass and was a featured com- poser at Bass-Fest for over ten years. He was a very successful BIBF Composer-in-residence in 2002-3, was a judge for the British Composer Awards and a judge for the BIBF Composition Competition from 1999 until 2015.

Tony Osborne died on 30 March 2019 at the age of 71.