List of works by Julian Raoul Besset

This list is manually maintained, therefore some of the available pieces may not yet be linked from this page. For an automatically generated alphabetical list of all available pieces, please see
Category:Besset, Julian Raoul.

A list of works in the composer category that are not included here can be found on this page.
Please consult the manual of style for creating composer work lists.

The table below gives the following information (where applicable):

  • JRB. — numbering by Julian Raoul Besset name
  • WoO — Werk ohne Opus numbering, traditional German nomenclature (cancelled)
  • Title — (1) as used by composer originally. (2) as used on IMSLP.
  • Date — the year(s) of the composition, where known.
  • Scoring — the instrumentation used (see IMSLP:Abbreviations for Instruments).
  • Genre — as used by IMSLP's categorization system.
  • Librettists — authors of texts used in the work.
  • Published — the earliest-known publication (P) of the work. This column includes self-publishing (SP=self-published) and revisions (R1:, R2:, etc...)
  • Notes — concerning related works, completeness, authorship, circumstances.

List of Works

JRB. Title Date Scoring Genre Librettists Published Notes
1 (1) 3 Etudes December 1954 pf Exercises Early exercise in crude and laborious although spontaneous Chopinesque style
2 (1) Untitled 1955 ? pf Exercises Various rudimentary Exercises in nearly empty bound family (on the Gunner side) blank music volume
3 (1) Improvisations 1955 or 1956 vn, pf Improvisations Inked on 40 irregular sized pages with corrections on pasted on strips of paper
4 (1) Schmetterling (2) Fragment of Time 1 1956? vn, pf Fantasias R1:2016 Dark blue inked on 12 stave music paper. Large sized notes. Very awkward in style. Perhaps worth salvaging in places, together with a complete overhaul. This design carried through in June 2016.
5 (1) Three Preludes (2) Reprises September 1957 (momentous year : mother died Easter that year of pancreatic cancer, too soon and too late) pf Preludes SP2011 R2:2014 Inked on 16 stave A3 music paper. A notable improvement compared to previous efforts but still lacking in style. Deemed worth salvaging by the composer so typeset in 2011 with considerable alterations.
6 (1) Untitled (2) Left Overs 1958? pf Fantasias SP2013 Page 1 Cleanly inked on undated 16 stave A3 music paper. Page 2 marred by a crossed out passage and various scribbles. A noticeable shift in style.
7 (1) The Blackbird (2) A Bonfire of Songs 1958 v, pf Songs Humbert Wolfe (1885-1940) SP2016 Inked on 14 stave A3 music paper. This piece would seem to represent the first truly idiosyncratic composition penned by JRB. The first of a numerous series of songs, on poems published in French edited English class books, and utilized by the composer for remedial reasons, as a compensation (= music used as a defence against classroom burn out).
8 (1) Wander-Thirst (2) A Bonfire of Songs 1958 v, pf Songs Gerald Gould (1885–1936) SP2016 Unfinished (arrested midway). Terminated in the revised version. Inked on 14 stave A3 music paper together with previous song.
9 (1) Laugh and Be Merry (2) A Bonfire of Songs 1958 or 1959 or 1960 v, pf Songs John Edward Masefield (1878–1967) SP2016 Unpublished with the original words, replaced with the composer's own. Partially inked on 14 stave A3 music paper together with previous songs. Continued and terminated on a different manuscript together with The Seekers.
10 (1) The Seekers (2) A Bonfire of Songs 1958 or 1959 or 1960 v, pf Songs John Edward Masefield SP2012 R2:2016 Partially inked on 14 stave A3 music paper together with previous song. Original lyrics replaced with Thoreau's I am a Parcel to avoid copyright contingencies. Moved to A Bonfire of Songs in 2016.
11 (1) Death by Water 1964 v, pf Songs T.S.Eliot (1888–1965) Complete. Undated. Inked on 16 stave A3 music paper. Studied The Waste Land at the university that year. The idea professed being the reader or listener participated in causing the poetry to exist. JRB's musical rendering was a way of making that creative act even more polycreative.
12 (1) Chamber Music 1964 v, pf Songs James Joyce (1882–1941) Incomplete. Undated. Beginning measures sketched out. Same presentation as above.
13 (1) Across the Door 1964 v, pf Songs Padraic Colum (1881–1972) Complete. Undated. Beginning measures sketched out. Same presentation as above.
14 (1) The Lake Isle of Innisfree 1964 v, pf Songs William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Complete. Undated. Beginning measures sketched out. Same presentation as above.
15 (1) I Hear an Army 1964 v, pf Songs James Joyce (1882–1941) Incomplete. Undated. Beginning measures sketched out. Same presentation as above. Last piece before the composer's being called up for military service (Too late, too long, K'lautern, 5° Cuirassiers, Nov.64-Feb.66), hence the choice (could be).
16 (1) The World of Nowhere 17 September 1968 v, pf Songs Alan Hodge (1915-1979) Barely commenced measurelessly on said date with pencil and ink on 18 stave A3 music paper. Continued with second date (22.8.69 with mention of English school book page holding the poem : 'p.243') in blue ink on another page (again unfinished) and a third time, more completely, with mention "Revised Nov. 1970".
17 (1) Time, You Old Gipsy Man 1968 v, pf Songs Ralph Hodgson (1871–1962) Inked on 18 stave A3 music paper.
18 (1) The Bells Of Heaven 1968? v, pf Songs Ralph Hodgson 13 measures inked on 18 stave A3 music paper, the rest pencilled in.
19 (1) Postlude (2) Fragment of Time 2 1969 org Postludes R1:2016 Composed in Thionville (near where the composer had been appointed as a teacher of English : 1969-1972) between 13.11.1969 and 16.11.1969. Performed by the composer at the Protestant Temple of Thionville at the end of a concert featuring the Kedroff Quartet. Sketched out in blue ink on 14 stave A5 music paper, then copied in black ink on two pages of 15 stave A3 music paper. Considerably altered for the 2016 revision.
20 (1) Prelude 1970? org Preludes Blue inked on 12 stave music paper at an uncertain date, possibly as a counterpart of previous work.
21 (1) Echo 8 October 1971 v, pf Songs Thomas Moore (1779–1852) SP May 2019 Black inked with fountain pen on 12 stave A3 paper. Clean script on p.1 with barlines, less clean on p.2 (no barlines), and gets worse and worse after. The date attached - a rare instance - proves it was sketched in Voiron (Isère) where we were living at the time for professional reasons (our first child was one month old).
22 (1) Life 1971 v, pf Songs Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825) SP May 2019 Complete, but like in many instances, commenced cleanly but sloppy ending. Inked on 12 stave A3 music paper. Reconstructed.
23 (1) A Wish (2) Wayside Songs 11.2 (year date missing, probably 1971) v, pf Songs Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) R1:1998 R2:2012 Incomplete, black inked on 12 stave A3 music paper. Marked '11.2' (no year). Revised and completed in 1998. Further revised in 2012.
24 (1) The Vagabond 1971 v, pf Songs Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) R1:1998 Incomplete, black inked on 18 stave A3 music paper.
25 (1) Elegy for Margaret 1971 v, pf Songs Stephen Harold Spender (1909–1995) R1:1998 Incomplete, black inked on 18 stave A3 music paper. Revised and completed in 1998.
26 (1) The Midnight Skaters 1972 v, pf Songs Edmund Charles Blunden (1896-1974) Unfinished. Black inked on 14 stave A3 music paper.
27 (1) The Bride 1972 v, pf Songs John Suckling (1609–after 1641) SP June 2019 Unfinished. Inked on 12 stave A3 music paper. Taken up again and published in its entirety.
28 (1) A Vision or A World September 1972 v, pf Songs Henry Vaughan (1621–1695) SP May 2019 Unfinished. Black inked on 16 stave A3 music paper, pursued measurelessly on 12 staves. Reconstructed.
29 (1) Ode on Solitude September 1972 v, pf Songs Alexander Pope (1688–1744) Sketched out in pencil only on 18 stave A3 music paper.
30 (1) The Ball Poem September 1972 v, pf songs John Allyn Berryman (1914–1972) Sketched out in pencil only on 18 stave A3 music paper.
31 (1) The Windmill 1972 v, pf Songs Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) Unfinished. Blue inked on 18 stave A3 music paper, continued with pencil.
32 (1) The Leaf Burners 1972 v, pf Songs Ernest Rhys (1859-1946) SP June 2019 Unfinished. Black inked on 18 stave A3 music paper. Attempted to copy the MS but the latter too messy. Reconstructed.
33 (1) Piano Quartet 1973? vn, va, vc, pf Piano Quartets Unfinished. Black inked on 16 stave A3 music paper.
34 (1) Cello Sonata 1973? vc, pf Cello Sonatas Unfinished. Black inked on 18 stave A3 music paper.
35 (1) The Rivals 1974 or 1975 v, pf Songs Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) R3:2018 Blue inked on 16 stave A3 music paper. Very messy. Clean copy attempted but not terminated on 12 stave music paper. Attempted c'puter recopying 04.98 but stopped after 4th measure. Reattempted operation 09.18 with different text (composer's own) without referring to version 1. Added 14th Sept as Mooning Time in Abandoned Songs. Copied the work from the original MS Oct. 2018 with a few minimal changes owing to the difficulty of reinterpreting certain passages.
36 (1) Tamer and Hawk 1974 or 1975 v, pf Songs Thom Gunn (1929–2004) Blue inked on 16 stave A3 music paper. Commenced cleanly, terminated less so.
37 (1) A Song for a Birth or a Death 1974 or 1975 v, pf Songs Elizabeth Jennings (1926–2001) Blue inked on 16 stave A3 music paper. Finished.
38 (1) Wants => Needs 1974 or 1975 v, pf Songs Philip Arthur Larkin (1922–1985) SP May 2019 Blue inked on 16 stave A3 music paper. Last line missing. Reworked with new words with new title ("Needs"). Original wording not preserved (under copyright).
39 (1) Honig (aus Moabiter Sonette) 1974 v, pf Lieder Albrecht Georg Haushofer (1903-1945) Unfinished. Inked on 16 stave A3 music paper. Continued on another page, more fully, at first, with measures, then drops measures, and peters out.
40 (1) Entfesselung (aus Moabiter Sonette) 1974 v, pf Lieder Albrecht Georg Haushofer Finished in blue ink on 12 stave A3 music paper. No year date, just 'Monday 15' at the end.
41 (1) Vom Brot der Sprache (1943) 1974 v, pf Lieder Hans Sahl (1902-1993) Commenced in black ink on 12 stave A3 music paper.
42 (1) Das Opfer (1943) 1974 v, pf Lieder Reinhold Schneider (1903-1958) Commenced in black ink on 12 stave A3 music paper, pursued in pencil.
43 (1) Raben (1943) 1974 v, pf Lieder Ruth Klüger (1931) Blue inked on 16 stave A3 music paper.
44 (1) Sonett von Theresienstadt (1943) 1974 v, pf Lieder Kurt Kapper (1899-1943) Black inked on 12 stave A3 music paper. These German Lieder are due to be reconstructed like the unfinished English songs under the title Gesänge von Fernen. Rehabilitation in process, to be terminated January 2020.
45 (1) Puritan Sonnet (1921) 24.02.1988 v, pf Songs Elinor Wylie (1885-1928) SP May 2019 Black inked on 18 stave A3 music paper. Barely commenced in the clean (the two opening lines), the rest or partly so having been sketched in pencil starting from the bottom up on another page (because more commodious with A3 pages). The "rest" was not checked against this new version, it was completely left out.
46 (1) Curfew  ?1970s v, pf Songs Longellow SP April 2019 Roughly pencilled on 14 stave A3 music paper. Started to retrace in blue ink the opening 4 bars, then gave up, at an unknown date. First page ends by cramming on 2 staves instead of 3. Barely legible. Recomposed April 27-29th 2019 retaining only m.1-4.
47 (1) The Bourne 10th April 1972 v, pf Songs Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) SP May 2019 Black inked 12 stave A3 paper. Almost terminated. Precise dating. Exists in 2 versions, only one dated. Both retained and reworked consecutively much later.