Harty: An Irish Symphony / With The Wild Geese / In Ireland

Description

Hamilton Harty(1879-1941)Orchestral WorksIreland's major contribution to twentieth century music has been thecontinuing pre-eminence of its traditional music, song and dance, rather thanclassical music. Unless one includes the work of the harper and composerTurloch Carolan (1670-1738), whose unique style drew upon ancient Irishharping, traditional music and song, or the music of contemporary Italiancomposers such as Francesco Geminiani and Arcangelo Corelli, the first majorfigures of Irish classical music were the composer, pianist and creator of thenocturne, John Field, and the composer and singer Michael Balfe. Following onfrom Field and Balfe, the two greatest Irish composers of the late nineteenthand early twentieth centuries were undoubtedly Charles Stanford and HamiltonHarty.The composer, conductor, pianist and organist Hamilton Harty was born inHillsborough, Co. Down, on 4th December 1879. His first teacher was his father,and he studied the viola, the piano and the rudiments of counterpoint. By theage of twelve he was already organist at Magheragall Church, Co. Antrim, and inNovember 1895 was offered a new post at St Barnabas' Church, Belfast. He waslater to take up a position at Christ Church in Bray, Co. Wicklow, just a fewmiles south of Dublin, and it was while he was based there that he receivedmuch help and encouragement from the Italian composer Michele Esposito, thenProfessor of Piano at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin.In 1901 Harty resigned as organist at Bray in order to take up a post atAll Saints Church in Norfolk Square, London, although this was to last only aweek after he fell out with the vicar. He was soon to make his mark on theLondon music scene, however, not only as a composer but also as an accompanistof exceptional brilliance. Conducting gradually began to take up more of histime after no less a person than Hans Richter asked him to conduct one of hisown compositions, With the Wild Geese, with the London SymphonyOrchestra in March 1911. Following this he was engaged for the entire 1912-13season of London Symphony Orchestra concerts at the Queen's Hall.Thanks in no small part to the advocacy of both Sir Thomas Beecham andAlbert Coates, Harty was appointed permanent conductor of the Halle Orchestrain 1920, a position he retained until 1933. During this time he introduced manynew works by composers such as Sibelius, Bax, Walton and Richard Strauss,although his own two 'private deities' (as he called them) were Mozart andBerlioz. As a conductor, indeed, his name is particularly associated with thelatter composer, with whom he had a lifelong affinity. He also made aconsiderable impression during his tours of the USA in the 1930s, developing aclose rapport with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.Harty's many awards included a Fellowship from the Royal College ofMusic in 1924, with Honorary Doctorates from Trinity College, Dublin in 1925,from Manchester University the following year, from Queen's University, Belfastin