Martin Leadbetter
| Martin Leadbetter | |
|---|---|
| File:Martin Leadbetter.jpgMartin Leadbetter.jpg | |
| Born | 6 April 1945 London, England |
| 💼 Occupation | Forensic scientist and composer |
Martin John Leadbetter (born 1945) is a retired forensic scientist and British composer.
Biography
Martin Leadbetter was born in London in 1945 and currently lives in Hertfordshire, SE England.
His career as a forensic scientist stretched over more than forty years. As a fingerprint expert he has given evidence in several major trials, including murder and terrorist cases, and as a forensic specialist, has worked in more than 30 countries worldwide, including two visits to Siberia. He was a member of the EU Police Agency, which designed the national computerised fingerprint system for Bosnia Herzegovina. In the late 1990s, Leadbetter worked with the European Union's Borders & Security Division.
Leadbetter did not come from a musical family, although there is a family legend that his maternal great grandmother was an amateur opera singer of some note. Musical awakening occurred at the Sir Christopher Wren Technical School, Shepherds Bush, London, where he chanced upon an enthusiastic teacher, Eric Matthes, who not only taught music but made the subject come alive with many fascinating and obscure stories of composers' lives. Eric Matthes was not only Leadbetter's most important teacher and mentor, but also became a life-long friend. Leadbetter is one of those unusual composers, (as was the case with Berlioz) in that he doesn't play any musical instrument to a high standard; he became hooked on composition from his mid-teens in the 1960s, and it was this musical discipline that he chose to pursue.
Although never a professional musician, he went on to study composition and orchestration with Dr Alan Bush. He is an Associate and Licentiate of Trinity College, London and also holds a Fellow’s diploma in Professional Composition from that college (FTCL) and a BA(Hons) degree and Diploma in Music and Diploma in European Humanities from the Open University.
Leadbetter has also written a crime novel, Deep and Crisp and Evil, much of which is based upon his professional experience as a crime scene examiner/fingerprint expert.
His varied career and musical activities have been the subject of both an interview for BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and a short film for Anglia Television. In his spare time he sings with the Orpheus Choir of North Hertfordshire who have performed several of his works, and of which he is Secretary.
Compositions
Leadbetter has composed more than 800 works for a wide range of instrumental and vocal ensembles, from solo songs to works for large orchestra. His style is that of the ‘English School’, often evoking sounds of earlier ages, frequently influenced by modal and medieval styles, folk-like idioms and harmonies, and by the church music of Tudor England.
He has had works for percussion and choral works published in the USA, the latter by Paraclete Press. His Soliloquy for solo flute and piano is published by Fentone Music in the UK.
Orchestral including works for String Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra
Ten symphonies, several concertos for various solo instruments and orchestra, and a variety of other orchestral music. His Symphony No. 1, The Pastoral, is dedicated to his teacher, Dr Alan Bush, and premiered in 1982 with the Stevenage Symphony Orchestra under Peter Wigfield.[1][2], part of which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3. The 9th Symphony – In Praise of the Psalms for orchestra, chorus and organ was completed in 2017. His Violin Concerto, Op.1 was premiered in London in 1982, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Philip Lee as soloist.
He has also made several orchestral transcriptions including six Bach organ works, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Reubke’s Sonata on the 94th Psalm and Brahms’ colossal Piano Quintet in F minor for large orchestra. Leadbetter has joined the long list of composers who have written 3rd and 4th movements to append to Schubert's Symphony No 8, "The Unfinished".
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Chamber
Seven string quartets and numerous other works for chamber ensembles. In 1986 he was commissioned by Radio Portsmouth to compose his String Trio, Op.50 (‘The Dorian’) which was later broadcast on that channel. Leadbetter's String Quartet No 1, Op.6 was performed by the Grancino Quartet at Welwyn Garden City in 1980[3]
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Instrumental, including piano works
Three Violin Sonatas, various other sonatas for wind and stringed instruments, and keyboard works. His most recent compositions include 60 Preludes and Fugues for solo piano in Books 1 & 2 in all 30 major and minor keys[lower-alpha 1].
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Music for organ
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Choral
70 choral works, an oratorio Every Eye Shall See, plus a collection of 100 Christmas carols in two books for choir.
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Vocal ensemble
He has recently (2017) completed eight suites of English Folk-Songs for mixed voices and a set of Hertfordshire Folk-Songs.
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Solo voice
Approximately 60 songs for different voice ranges. Some individual songs and a number of song-cycles.
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Stage works
- Promenade, Op.228: An opera in one-act scored for small orchestra & piano. Libretto: David Whitter
- Becky, a musical based upon Thackeray’s, Vanity Fair. Libretto: David Whitter
- If the Shoe Fits, a musical based upon the Cinderella tale. Libretto: Annie Winfield
Other musical activities
Contracted to the Alan Bush Music Trust, Leadbetter has transcribed compositions by the celebrated late composer into performing scores and parts. He has completed more than twenty works to date. He has also recently completed an arrangement for two pianos of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus which was planned to be released on CD, and the same composer's Concerto Academico and Partita for Double String Orchestra. Leadbetter has also made two-piano arrangements of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.3, Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, and Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music. He has also been a guest on BBC Radio 3’s Music Weekly.
Leadbetter is a member of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society and The Alan Bush Music Trust. He is also a member of the Corporation of the Royal Albert Hall.
Forensic activity
Leadbetter is a member of several professional bodies connected with his career as a forensic scientist:
- Founder Fellow of the Fingerprint Society, now a division of the Chartered Society of Forensic Scientists
- Distinguished Member of the International Association for Identification
- Member of the British Academy of Forensic Sciences
As a guest lecturer at the Humboldt University, Leadbetter twice presented papers to its Forensic Faculty in Berlin. The first of these, in 1988, Zur Kriminalitätssituation in Großbritannien[4], described the prevailing operational use of the fingerprint system of identification in the UK. His second paper to the university in 1993 concerned the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)[5]
Leadbetter was a pioneer in the introduction of automatic latent palm mark identification. His paper to the International Association of Identification in 1999 [6] describes its introduction - the first such system operational in the UK.
He describes in a paper to the British Academy of Forensic Sciences [7] in 2005 how a new standard of fingerprint evidence was adopted by the police forces of England and Wales, outlining its development and implementation, and why it was considered necessary to move away from the existing 16-point standard which had been in place for the previous half-century.
The Picasso Saga
In 1996 a drawing, said to be signed by Picasso, became the subject of much controversy. It had been bought for £25 following a house clearance, and the drawing's authenticity was said to hang on the question of a right-hand thumb print on the drawing.
Quizzing
Leadbetter is a keen quizzer, and appeared on BBC TV's Mastermind in 1978 with the specialist subject The Instruments of the Symphony Orchestra, BBC TV's Eggheads in 2014 and the BBC Radio 4 quiz, Counterpoint. He is a founder member of the Mastermind Club of Great Britain, and was the founding editor of its magazine, "Pass".
Notes
- ↑ Leadbetter, unlike J S Bach, Chopin and Shostakovich, extends the range of major and minor keys to include both enharmonic equivalents F♯/G♭ major and D♯/E♭ minor as well as introducing C♯ major, A♯ minor, C♭ major and A♭ minor.
References
- ↑ Observer Colour Magazine 19 September 1982
- ↑ North Herts Gazette 9 September 1982
- ↑ Welwyn & Hatfield Times 10 September 1980
- ↑ Kriminalistik und forensische Wissenschaften 71,72/1988 ISBN 3-326-00360-9
- ↑ Kriminalistik und forensische Wissenschaften 81/1993 ISSN 0023-4702
- ↑ Journal of Forensic Identification, Vol 49, No 1 ISSN 0895-173X
- ↑ Medicine, Science & the Law, Vol 45, No 1 ISSN 0025-80241
External links
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