THE
COMPOSITIONS OF JOHN OGDON
The
music of John Ogdon comprises more than 200 compositions, including 4
operas, 2 large works for orchestra, 3 cantatas, songs, chamber music,
a substantial amount of music for solo piano, and 2 piano concertos.
Nearly every work is dedicated to someone. His manuscripts are crammed not only with music notes but with mini essays about composers he admired, programme plans, and musical ideas.
The majority of his music was composed for the piano. He also wrote sonatas for violin, flute and cello all unaccompanied. His music for piano includes 50 transcriptions of works by composers as diverse as Stravinsky, Palestrina, Mozart, Satie and Wagner. These pieces show Ogdon’s great reverence and respect for his fellow musicians: a portrait or photograph of the original composer is pasted to the cover of each manuscript.
He also made piano arrangements of songs by Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and George Gershwin.
The original manuscripts of many of John Ogdon’s compositions now reside at the Royal Northern College of Music Archives Catalogue.
A SELECTION OF CATALOGUED COMPOSITIONS
The list that follows is an incomplete summary of the RNCM Ogdon archives and presented here only to illustrate his diverse range of composition. The RNCM Archives Catalogue is the source of reference for serious research.
- 2 nocturnes
- 2nd valse
- 3 canons
- 3rd waltz
- 6 poems after Skryabin : for piano
- 10 nocturnes
- A garland for J.S. Le Fanu : a short opera in 4 acts
- A kaleidoscope : 10 instrumental sonatas for piano solo
- A portrait of Hitch : transcribed for piano by John Ogdon
- A voyage to Arcturus / based on the novel by David Lindsay and biblical quotations
- An English sonata : from old sketches
- An Hellenic work
- Armenian suite for orchestra
- Berceuses de chat
- Bess you is my woman
- Busoni and Egon Petri : 1 act opera / Words and music by John Ogdon
- Busoni and Egon Petri : libretto
- Cadenza to Beethoven's 2nd concerto
- Cadenza to Beethoven's third piano concerto
- Chaconne
- Collection of miscellaneous fragments
- Composition notebook
- Concertino : piano concerto no.2
- Dance suite, for piano / John Ogdon
- Don Giovanni : arr. for piano duet
- Fantasia
- Fantasia for violin and piano : Movement 3
- Fantasia for violin and piano : in 2 movements
- Five preludes for piano / John Ogdon
- Free variations
- Götterdammerung : Trauermusik / transcribed for piano by John Ogdon
- His voice did come
- Holmes preludes nos.2 & 3
- II-IX Short fantasias
- Irish pictures
- Kaleidoscope no.1
- Kaleidoscope no.2
- Kaleidoscope no.3 : 10 sonatas for piano
- Kaleidoscope no.4 & no.5 : for piano
- Kaleidoscope no.6 : Woodcuts on cinema
- Kaleidoscope no.7 : Woodcuts of television 1951-1988
- Kaleidoscope no.8 : Woodcuts of BBC Radio
- Kaleidoscope no.9a
- Kaleidoscope no.9b : Kaleidoscope of chance
- Kaleidoscope no.10
- Lullaby / transcribed for piano and treble instrument by John Ogdon
- Monodies 1-5
- Notes on Busoni, Schoenberg and Sorabji's O.C.
- Once I loved a maiden fair
- Partita
- Piano concerto No.1
- Piano sonata
- Piano sonatas 1 & 2
- Prelude to Act 3 of Siegfried
- Preludes for piano Op.25 & 32
- Requiem
- Reverie and Saltarello
- Skiathos: song : for voice / poem by Richard Buchanan-Dunlop
- Sonata Scriabinensis
- Sonata for brass quintet
- Sonata for violin solo
- Sonata no.2 for unaccompanied flute
- Sonata no.4
- Sonatina after “Amadeus”
- Sonatina, for piano
- Stabat mater
- Suite
- Suite no.1 for small orchestra : transcribed for piano
- Suite no.2
- Swanee
- Symphonic dances
- The King of Alsander : acts 1 & 2 / Text by J.E. Flecker
- The death of Scriabin : Kaleidoscope part 4
- The man I love : for 2 pianos
- Theme and variations, for piano
- Thoughts of Chairman Mao
- Transcriptions for piano of songs by George Greshwin, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter
- Trois petites pièces montées
- Twenty-five preludes for solo piano
- Untitled work in 3 movements for treble instrument
- Valse no.3
- Variations and fugue op.4 for piano solo
- Variations on a theme by Corelli for horn and piano