Daniel Jones (composer)
| Daniel Jones | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Daniel Jenkyn Jones |
| Born |
7 December 1912 Pembroke, Wales |
| Died | 23 April 1993 (aged 80) |
| Genres | classical |
| Years active | 1930s–1980s |
Daniel Jenkyn Jones OBE (7 December 1912 – 23 April 1993) was a composer of classical music, who worked in Britain. He used both serial and tonal techniques. He is best known for his quartets and thirteen symphonies (some composed in his own system of 'Complex Metres') and for his song settings for Dylan Thomas's play, "Under Milk Wood".
Jones was born in Pembroke in south Wales. His father, Jenkyn Jones, was a composer and his mother a singer, and by the time he was nine years old the young Daniel had himself written several piano sonatas.
He attended the Bishop Gore School in Swansea (1924–1931), where his enthusiasm for literature led to a close friendship with the poet Dylan Thomas, and to his going on to study English literature at Swansea University. At this period Jones and Thomas were part of the informal group of aspiring artists who would meet at the Kardomah cafe in Castle Street, Swansea. Other members of the group were the poet Vernon Watkins and the painter Alfred Janes. In 1935 Jones left Swansea to study music at the Royal Academy of Music in London (1935–1938), where his teachers included Sir Henry Wood and Harry Farjeon. Winning the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1935 allowed him to study in Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands and Germany, and to develop his skills as a linguist.
In 1937 Jones married Penelope Eunice Bedford, with whom he would have three daughters. In the years leading up to World War II he composed his first large-scale orchestral works – 'Symphonic Prologue' and 'Five Pieces for Orchestra' – and developed his own compositional system of 'Complex Metres'.
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