Henry Balfour Gardiner (7 November 1877 – 28 June 1950) was a British musician, composer, and teacher.[1] He was the son ofHenry John Gardiner, a successful entrepreneur who made a considerable fortune in thedrapery wholesale business in Bristol and London.[2]
H. Balfour Gardiner | |
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| Born | Henry Balfour Gardiner (1877-11-07)7 November 1877 Kensington, England |
| Died | 28 June 1950(1950-06-28) (aged 72) Salisbury, England |
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| Relatives | Alan Gardiner (brother) |
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Education
editHe was born at 6,Orsett Terrace,Westbourne Grove,Paddington, London.[2] He began to play the piano at the age of 5 and to compose at 9.[3] Between his conventional education atCharterhouse School andNew College, Oxford, where he obtained only a pass degree, Gardiner was a piano student at theHoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, where he was taught byIwan Knorr andLazzaro Uzielli, who had been a pupil ofClara Schumann. He belonged to theFrankfurt Group, a circle of composers who studied at the Hoch Conservatory in the late 1890s.[4] WithGeorge Gardiner (no relation) he collected folk songs in Hampshire (1905–1906),[5][6] taught music briefly atWinchester College (1907), and composed.
Composition
editHis works included compositions in a variety of genres, including twosymphonies (No 2 premiered at theProms in 1908),[7] but many of his scores, including the symphonies, are lost and only a very limited amount of his music survives.
His best-known workEvening Hymn (1908), a setting of thecompline hymn "Te lucis ante terminum", is a lush, romantic work for eight-part choir and organ, of dense harmonies. For most of the time, it sits in four parts, though the treble, alto, tenor, and bass parts all subdivide at various points. It is considered a classic of the English choral repertoire and is still regularly performed as ananthem atEvensong inAnglican churches.[8]
The fame of this work has overshadowed his surviving orchestral works, which includeOverture to a Comedy (1906, revised 1911),[9] thePercy Grainger-likeShepherd Fennell's Dance (1911)[10] (once a favourite at the Proms, chalking up 35 performances between 1911 and 1951),[11] and theDelius-likeA Berkshire Idyll, the latter written in 1913 at Field House, Ashampstead Green in Berkshire, where he lived between 1911 and 1930. The first performance of theIdyll (along with two other unpublished pieces,Philomela and the choral settingApril), took place on 6 May 1955 at the Royal Festival Hall, 42 years after its completion.[12] It was recorded in 2017 for the first time.[13]
Also surviving are a number of short piano works[14] and songs.[15][16] There is also the one movement String Quartet in Bb major, composed in 1905 and premiered that year on 28 February by the Cathie String Quartet at theAeolian Hall. It has been recorded by the Tippett Quartet.[17]
Promoter of contemporary music
editGardiner's most important work, possibly, was his promotion of the music of contemporary British and colonial composers, particularly through a series of concerts he personally financed atQueen's Hall London in 1912 to 1913. The composers represented includedArnold Bax,Frederic Austin,Gustav Holst, Percy Grainger,Roger Quilter,Cyril Scott andNorman O'Neill. (The last four had also studied with him at Frankfurt.) Gardiner was very generous with his personal fortune, paying for a private benefit performance ofThe Planets for Holst in 1918 and purchasingFrederick Delius's house atGrez-sur-Loing to enable him to continue living in it at the end of his life. In the early 1920s he also became a patron ofCharles Kennedy Scott, conductor and founder of the Philharmonic Choir which was the predecessor of the presentLondon Philharmonic Choir.[18]
Final years
editGardiner gave up composing in 1925 largely because he was intenselyself-critical: much of his lost music was probably destroyed by him. For the next 25 years he devoted himself to a pioneeringafforestation programme on hisDorset pig farm. He died in hospital inSalisbury after suffering a stroke.[19]
See also
edit- Alan Gardiner, an Egyptologist
- John Eliot Gardiner, a conductor
References
edit- ^Banfield, Stephen with Lloyd, Stephen.New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 1980, rep 1994, vol 7, 163
- ^abLloyd, Stephen (2005).H. Balfour Gardiner. Cambridge University Press. pp. 2–3.ISBN 9780521619226.
- ^Eaglefield Hull, Arthur (ed.).A Dictionary of Modern Musicians (1924), p. 175
- ^Scott, Cyril. 'The late Balfour Gardiner and our Student Days',Music Teacher xxix (1950) 396
- ^Purslow, F; Marrowbones, English Folk Songs from the Hammond and Gardiner Collections; London; 2007 pp xvi–xvii
- ^J. Simpson and S. Roud,A Dictionary of English Folklore (Oxford: OUP, 2000), 140.
- ^Lloyd, Stephen.H Balfour Gardiner (2005)
- ^The Evening Hour, Signum 446 (2016)
- ^Overtures From the British Isles, Chandos 10797 (2014)
- ^Anthony Collins Conducts British Music, Beulah (2008)
- ^BBC Proms Performance Archive
- ^'New Era Concert',The Times, 7 May 1955, p 3
- ^British Tone Poems, Volume 1, Chandos 10939 (2017)
- ^Balfour Gardiner, Piano Works, played byPeter Jacobs, Continuum (2015)
- ^Balfour Gardiner: The Complete Songs, Regent Records (2015)
- ^British Piano Collection, Vol 2, played by Peter Jacobs, Heritage HTGCD406 (2021)
- ^Dutton Epoch CDLX 7389 (2021)
- ^The Observer, Profile – Kennedy Scott. Sunday, November, 11, 1951.
- ^Stephen Lloyd (2005).H. Balfour Gardiner. Cambridge University Press. p. 211.ISBN 9780521619226.