Seiber, Mátyás (1905–1960)

Hungarian-born British composer, conductor, and cellist. Influences in his music range from Bartók and Schoenberg to jazz. He is best known for his cantata Ulysses (1947), based on a chapter from James Joyce's novel.

He was born in Budapest, and studied with Kodály at the Budapest Academy of Music 1919–24. After travelling abroad, including North and South America; he taught 1928–33 in the newly established jazz class at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. He also played cello in a string quartet there and conducted a theatre orchestra and a workers' chorus. In 1935 he settled in London as a choral conductor and film composer, and joined the teaching staff at Morley College.

Works Opera and drama opera Eva plays with Dolls (1934); two operettas; incidental music for plays; film and radio music.

Choral Missa brevis for unaccompanied chorus; cantata Ulysses (Joyce, 1947).

Orchestral two Besardo Suites (from 16th-century lute tablatures), Transylvanian Rhapsody for orchestra.

Chamber Pastorale and concertante for violin and strings (1944), Notturno for horn and strings; concertino for clarinet and strings; four Greek songs for voice and strings; three string quartets (1924, 1935, 1951), wind sextet, quintet for clarinet and strings, duo for violin and cello; fantasy for cello and piano, violin pieces.

Other piano works; songs, choruses, folk-song arrangements.