ABSTRACT
This chapter explains an overview of the musical experiences and education that culminated in Wood's Variations for Viola forms. Shedding light on how a composer who studied neither at a music college nor in a university music department was by the end of the 1950s composing works that belonged to the vanguard of contemporary British music. In 1945, Wood began boarding at Oundle School, a school already distinguished by its pioneering all-school performances of Bach's B minor Mass, and one which offered many other musical opportunities. With a school friend, Wood organized and participated in concerts given mainly by pupils; the last of these consisted of music by English composers from Purcell to Vaughan Williams. In the summer holidays of 1948, Wood attended the first year of the Summer School of Music, then at Bryanston School in Dorset, and relocated to Dartington Hall in Devon. The musical world he found there was a revelation.
