Reginald Smith Brindle For anyone in Britain growing into classical music in the 1960s and ’70s the name of Reginald Smith Brindle was a permanent presence on the contemporary scene. Fashions change in music as unforgivingly as in the other arts, and his music may have been heard less often in recent years. [...]

Reginald Smith Brindle British composer, best known for his guitar works "It is a matter for considerable regret," wrote James Weir in Contemporary Composers (1990), "that more people know Reginald Smith Brindle as a teacher and critic than as a composer in his own right." Yet it is his compositions that will in [...]

This extract is Chapter 25 of the composer's autobiography. Reproduced with permission. © R SmithBrindle 1999 After I left Pizzetti, I was still not satisfied. Though I was really well enough prepared as a composer, I felt there was still some secret which eluded me. I later realised that put simply, what I was [...]

  1 I became a musician only through many quirks of fortune. If I had not quarrelled in the war with my major in the Shetlands, if after leaving Durban, our ship to the Far East had not turned around and headed for Egypt, or if I had not seen a certain book [...]