Biographical Details
DENNIS STOLL (composer, conductor and author) was born in 1912. He took his Master of Arts degree in Music, English and Economics at Cambridge University, and was before that educated privately in music, studying with Sir Henry Wood, Sir Eugene Goossens, and Sir Thomas Beecham who eventually appointed him as his deputy with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He became musical director of the Ballets de Monte Carlo in 1936, and worked on many ballets with the great Russian choreographer Fokine. His compositions have been performed by the BBC Symphony and Regional Orchestras, the Berlin and Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestras, the Monte Carlo and Cairo Symphony Orchestras, and by many famous artists all over the world. His ‘Persian Suite’ (1958), composed after a partial recovery from polio, which he contracted in 1948, and ‘Homage to Hafiz’ (1959), were commissioned by the BBC, and were given more than 300 broadcasts on their overseas wavelengths.
His BBC-commissioned score ‘Homage to a Beauty’ was played by the BBC Symphony in 1938, and by the BBC Scottish Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis in 1957 to celebrate the relaunching of the Cutty Sark in London by H.M. the Queen. The BBC West of England Orchestra played seventeen of his ballet and operetta suites over the period 1956-60. His ‘Princess Margaret Rose Suite’ was broadcast by the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of H.R.H.’S fifth birthday. The Andante from this work was subsequently performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1961 Stoll’s first String Quartet was given its premiéere in London by the world-renowned Tatrai String Quartet, who included it in their concert repertoire. The First Quartet of the Royal College of Music also performed this work under the direction of Antonio Brosa.
In 1965 Stoll was sufficiently recovered from polio to be able to conduct again. His first assignment was with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which he directed in his own incidental music for the film ‘Mr Brown Comes Down the Hill’, a modern version of the Life of Christ. In the same year, he conducted a series of concerts with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra in which he gave his own ‘Concerto Arabo’ with the American pianist Philippa Schuyler as soloist. For several years until her death she played his piano works at various recitals all over the world, including Carnegie Hall, and for the Chopin Society of New York.
In 1966 Stoll conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the first performance of his ‘Songs of Karnak’, a cycle in the ancient Egyptian idiom. Raimund Herincx (bass-baritone) and Marie Korchinska (harp) were the Soloists. Herincx broadcast these songs many times, and included them in his recitals at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room in London. Marie Korchinska played Stoll’s ‘Isis and the Temple Singer’ and ‘Gates of the Horizon of Amun’ at many recitals until her death in 1979.
In 1969 Stoll formed and conducted his own Nefer Ensemble to provide music for Meditation and to accompany a group of Ancient Egyptian Temple Dancers which he had founded. The Dancers gave thousands of performances in Europe, Egypt and Australia. The gramophone record of Stoll’s Temple Music with the Nefer Ensemble had three pressings and was three times reprinted as a cassette. This has now been re-released as a CD and is available on this site.
In 1984 Stoll, while living at the Meditational Arts in the Kooralbyn Valley of Queensland, Australia, completed the ‘Requiem in Memoriam: Sir Thomas Beecham’ for Orchestra, Soprano or Tenor. His two last works were orchestral tone poems ‘A Day in the Life of Tutankhamun’ and ‘The Heart of Anhai’ in the ancient Egyptian idiom.
Further biographical details appear in ‘The Author’s and Writer’s Who’s Who’ (Burke’s Peerage, London, 1963) and in ‘The International Who’s Who in Music’ (Cambridge, 1975).
Principal Orchestras that have performed Dennis Stoll’s works:
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC West of England Orchestra, Berlin and Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestras, various symphony orchestras in the former U.S.S.R., Monte Carlo Symphony Orchestra, Cairo Symphony Orchestra, and the Nefer Ensemble founded by Dennis Stoll to record his music in the Ancient Egyptian Idiom. Click to read some interesting articles on music by Dennis, some press and memorabilia.
Stoll began his work as a musician and writer – in the last twenty years of his life he became dedicated to bringing beauty and truth through his compositions, choreography and writings. This never ceased until he suffered a stroke in April 1987 which paralysed his right side and subsequently led to his death on 16 December 1987 from bronchopneumonia.
Cheryl says:
Dennis, in addition to his work as a composer-conductor and writer of several published books, started the Ancient Egyptian Arts Association, which incorporated the Ancient Egyptian Temple Dancers as a way of showing the Meditational Arts of Ancient Egypt in music, dance, poetry and philosophy at the Academy of the Arts of Sound and Light.
Dennis’ contribution to the world as a sensitive artist lives on in all of us who were exposed to his music, artistic direction and choreography, writing and performances. Equally affecting is the music that he played by a variety of composers which expressed, in the frequently quoted by Dennis words of his mentor, Sir Thomas Beecham, “the innumerable voices of eternity”.
Dennis’ intuitive understanding of the meditative mind of the Ancient Egyptians, who in their golden age tried to make on Earth a replica of the Divine Order, was profound. The Star Wisdom Teaching incorporates all that Dennis understood. By introducing me to his work and through our loving relationship, there has continued to flower through my work, this teaching which is beautifully shown in the Dance of the Cosmos.
The emphasis of all Dennis’ work was meditation where there is the cessation of all conscious thought and where our heart dances to the rhythmic tune of the moment, intuiting all the wisdom that is needed for daily living.
