John Raynor

John Raynor (artist unknown).
This is the website of English song composer John Raynor
.John Raynor (artist unknown)

Born in 1909, John Theodore Livingston Raynor attended the Royal College of Music in 1929 and was St. Nicolas Scholar at the School of English Church Music (now the Royal School of Church Music).
 
He wrote more than 680 works, mostly song settings for soprano or tenor soloist, but also sacred pieces including carols and a Mass setting.  Until recently he remained largely unknown, though his music was championed by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
 
He lived for over 30 years in Sussex, at Roffey, near Horsham, where most of his composing was done, though enjoyed holidays in Cornwall.  He died in 1970 as the result of a road accident.

This site

His works

  • John Raynor's  song catalogue  (76Kb)
    • This lists, for each of his 680 compositions, the title, date, opus number and author of the lyrics.  The list includes items for which the manuscript is unavailable.
    The original manuscripts of John Raynor's music, formerly held at the Royal School of Church Music, are now at the CHOMBEC Library in the University of Bristol Arts and Social Studies Library of Special Collections. The archive can be visited by contacting the Archivist or Special Collections Librarian using the Special Collections email address special-collections @ bris.ac.uk or by telephoning 0117 9288014. The archive includes the manuscripts of his music, and other memorabilia.
    CHOMBEC is the newly-established Centre for the History of Music in Britain, the Empire and the Commonwealth.
  • A downloadable .ZIP (64Kb) of Raynor's full catalogue.
    • It's in spreadsheet (Excel 5 or OpenOffice.org) form so that you can sort the catalogue by author, title, etc., and read John Raynor's dedications and other comments on his music.
  • a list of published editions of John Raynor's compositions
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  • a listing of a recording on audio tape held in the British Music Information Centre
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  • first pages of items from Eleven Songs by John Raynor :
    		•  'Eleven Songs by John Raynor', pub. Galliard, 1971

    His life

  • biographical notes about John Raynor by:
  • Olwen Picton-Jones
  • Geoffrey Davies
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  • photographs and pictures
  • photographs of his childhood years and of his family.
  • a portrait of Raynor as a young man (artist unknown)
  • a photo and another photo of Raynor in his later years (taken at Kaithewood, Roffey, Sussex)
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    Links

    John Raynor received his musical education at:
  •  Royal School of Church Music Royal School of Church MusicRoyal School of Church Music
  • Royal School of MusicRoyal College of Music
    • The English lyric tenor Ian Partridge, CBE: Ian Partridge  has performed some of John Raynor's works on his radio & television broadcasts
    Search engines for those interested in British song (titles, authors, composers and lyrics) can be found at:

     
  • British Music Information Centre New Voices  The British Music Information Centre lists contemporary composers' songs
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  • REC Music Foundation Emily Ezust's REC Music Foundation site lists the lyrics of over 9000 songs and lieder, including some of Raynor's works.
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  • There is a useful database of British song at The White Cliffs of Dover British Song 
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    Information on other English composers can be found at:
  • About.com's English culture pages British Music Page Composers and a Guidesite search for English composers
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  •  Jos Smeets'  Classical Composers Database - a growing listing
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  • Dr Len Mullenger's pages of Classical Music on the Web featuring British Composers, particularly lesser known composers from the first part of this century
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  • Simon Crutchley's Composers A-Z site
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  • Paul James's Modern Music Review  and  Missing Composers Index 
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  • A growing British composer site at Music Pages 
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  • A multilingual composer information site at Karadar 
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    Finally, there are some light-hearted musical links on my website: Ken, surveying Guernsey from Castle Cornet Ken Edensor's  home page

    Acknowledgements

    My thanks to Geoffrey and Lorna Davies of Stafford, whose idea this site was, and who painstakingly transcribed the catalogue, resolved anomalies of spelling and dates, proof-read my efforts and provided me with tea and encouragement.
    The site is constantly under review - more details may be added when they come to hand.

    Please contact me to provide feedback on the site or if you have further information about John Raynor.

    © 2009 Ken Edensor