Sir William Henry Harris | |
|---|---|
 Sir William Henry Harris in 1944 | |
| Born | (1883-03-28)28 March 1883 Fulham, London |
| Died | 6 September 1973(1973-09-06) (aged 90) |
| Occupation(s) | Composer and organist |
| Era | 20th century |
Sir William Henry HarrisKCVO (28 March 1883 – 6 September 1973) was anEnglishorganist, choral trainer andcomposer.
Harris was born inFulham,London and became a chorister atHoly Trinity,Tulse Hill. At the age of 14, he took up a "flexible" position as assistant organist atSt David's Cathedral inWales under Herbert Morris, followed at 16 by a scholarship to theRoyal College of Music. His teachers there wereSir Walter Parratt,Charles Wood, andHenry Walford Davies.[1]
Harris was organist atSt Augustine's Church, Edgbaston from 1911 to 1919 and concurrently assistant organist atLichfield Cathedral. During this time he also taught at theRoyal Birmingham Conservatoire in collaboration withGranville Bantock. A move to Oxford in 1919 saw him take up organist positions successively atNew College and in 1929Christ Church, Oxford. While at Oxford, he conducted theOxford Bach Choir (1925–1933) and was instrumental in founding and conducting the Opera Club, which put on the pioneering production ofMonteverdi'sOrfeo staged byJack Westrup in 1925.[2] In 1933 he was appointed organist atSt George's Chapel, Windsor in succession toCharles Hylton Stewart.[3] There, he was at his most productive: composing for theThree Choirs Festival, conducting at both the 1937 and 1953 coronations, and producing two orchestral pieces premiered atThe Proms: the overtureOnce Upon a Time (1940) and theHeroic Prelude (1942).[4]
Bruce Nightingale, who became senior chorister at Windsor during the wartime years, describes "Doc H" as having "a fat, usually jolly face with a few wisps of hair across an otherwise bald head." Although choir practice was normally conducted in a "benign atmosphere," Nightingale recounts that Harris would occasionally complain of a "batey practise" and, on the rare occasions he considered a performance mediocre, would scold the choirboys in a loud stage whisper from the organ loft. Harris was involved in the musical education of the teenage PrincessesElizabeth andMargaret Rose, who spent the wartime period atWindsor Castle. Every Monday he would direct madrigal practice in the Red Drawing Room at Windsor, where the two Princesses sang alongside four of the senior choristers with the lower voices augmented by Etonians, Grenadier Guards and members of the Windsor and Eton Choral Society. Jars of Argentinian honey, sent to Windsor by overseas subjects, were donated by the Princesses to the Choir School as a treat for the choristers.[5]
Between 1923 and 1953 Harris served as a professor of organ and harmony at the Royal College of Music. He was also president of the Royal College of Organists (1946–8), and director of musical studies at the Royal School of Church Music (1956–61).[2] He was appointedKCVO in 1954.[6] Harris married Kathleen Doris Carter in 1913 and they had two daughters. After retirement from St George's Windsor in 1961 the couple went to live inPetersfield, Hampshire. Kathleen had suffered from deafness since 1925, but in the early 1960s her hearing was partially restored. She died in 1968. Harris died at the age of 90 five years later.[7]
Harris is best remembered today for hisAnglican church music, though during his lifetime he was mainly known for his achievements as a choir-trainer. His most famous works are twoanthems for unaccompanied double choir:Faire is the heaven (1925), a setting ofEdmund Spenser's poem "An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie";[8] andBring us, O Lord God, a setting of a poem byJohn Donne first heard in Windsor on 29 October 1959, and which was sung at theCommittal Service of Queen Elizabeth II atSt George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on 19 September 2022.[9][10]
Another popular anthem by Harris isStrengthen ye the weak hands (1949) for choir and organ. The late anthemEvening Hymn (1961), a setting ofThomas Browne's 'The Night is Come', is particularly notable for its intense and expressive ending (on the words 'when I shall never sleep again, but wake forever') set "in a cool, clear C major with the hint of a sharpened fourth".[11]His Communion Service in F was frequently sung in a great manyAnglicanparish churches up until the 1970s. Thecanticles Harris in A and Harris in A minor are still sung atEvensong in a number ofAnglicancathedrals. Thehymn tuneAlberta (often used for the wordsLead, Kindly Light), and various Anglicanpsalm chants remain familiar.
Harris also composedcantatas andorgan pieces. His largest composition, the 1919 choral-orchestral cantataThe Hound of Heaven (a setting of thereligious allegory byFrancis Thompson), has been almost completely forgotten.[12] A second cantata,Michael Angelo's Confession of Faith (to a poem byMorna Stuart, afterWordsworth), was composed for the Three Choirs Festival in 1935.[2] The organ works span seventy-four years, from the 1899 Andante in D to the Prelude in G (1973), which was later played at the funeral ofPrincess Diana. Most of the organ pieces are miniatures, with the exception of the Organ Sonata (1938) and the two complex Fantasias on "Babylon Streams" (1922) and "Monks Gate" (1930).[13]
| Cultural offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Organist and Master of the Choristers ofNew College, Oxford 1919-1929 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Noel Ponsonby | Organist and Master of the Choristers ofChrist Church Cathedral, Oxford 1929–1933 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Director of Music, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle 1933-1961 | Succeeded by |
| Service settings |
| ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Musical forms | |||||||||||
| Composers |
| ||||||||||
| Other noted people | |||||||||||
| Publications |
| ||||||||||
| Music organisations | |||||||||||
| Performance | |||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| Related topics | |||||||||||
