Harold Craxton

Harold Craxton (born April 30, 1885 - March 30, 1971 in London ) was a British pianist , composer and music teacher .

biography

Craxton studied at Tobias Matthay's piano school with himself and with Cuthbert Whitemore . He soon became known as the piano accompanist for musicians such as Nellie Melba , Clara Butt , John McCormack and Lionel Tertis . In 1915 he married the cellist Essie Faulkner . From 1914 to 1919 he taught at the Tobias Matthay Piano School , after which he was professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music until 1965 . His students included Ronald Kinloch Anderson , Alexander Kelly , Alan Richardson, and Denis Matthews .

In addition to numerous piano pieces, Craxton composed a number of songs in the 1910s that a.o. a. sung by Clara Butt, her husband Kennerley Rumford , Carrie Tubb and John McCormack. He had been interested in early music since the 1920s. He has published and arranged compositions by Henry Purcell , Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli, and others. In the early 1930s he made free transcriptions such as The Plaint of Love , Siciliano and Rigadon , Meditation and Bourrée Humoresque . In 1944 he wrote four songs based on texts by William Shakespeare , which he dedicated to the singers Isobel Baillie and Roy Henderson . Craxton worked on most of his compositions over a long period of time, and they have come down to us in different versions. There are eight different versions of Hear the mermaids softly singing , some of which differ in such a way that they look like different pieces.

Craxton had six children, of whom Janet Craxton became known as an oboist and John Craxton as a painter. In 1971 the Craxton Memorial Trust was founded, which is dedicated to promoting young instrumentalists, especially pianists.

Works

Piano works

• 3 pieces , (1911)
• Three Album Leaves on the initials EF , (1917)
• Little Robin Goodfellow - Scherzetto , (1917)
• Gavotte in E flat , (1917)
• A Shepherdess in Porcelain , (1917)
• Woodland Lullaby , (1917)
• Timothy's Pieces , (1921)
• Tuneful Topics , (1925)
• Here and There , (1930)
• Two Little Studies , (1930)
• Two Soudanese Pieces , (1930)
• December and May , (1931)
• Springtime , (1931)
• Tahitian Dance , (1931)
• Two Pastoral Preludes , (1931)
• The Happy Hunter , (1932)
• The Plaint of Love , (1935)
• Siciliano and Rigadon , (1935)
• Airplanes and Trains , (1936)
• Two Mazurkas , (1937)
• Meditation (Vita in ligno moritur) , (1938)
• Bourrée Humoresque , (1938)
• Five Impromptus , (1939)
• Seven Pieces , (1947)
• An Album Leaf , (1955)
• Eight Preludes , (1955)
• Two Studies , (1959)
• Six Pieces , (1961)

Piano transcriptions

• Purcell : Five Pieces , (1920)
• Bull : The King's Hunt , (1923)
• Weelkes : Galliard , (1923)
• Anon (16th Century): Alman , (1924)
• Boyce : Tempo di Gavotta , (1926)
• Bach : Largo from Clavier Concerto in F minor , (1927)
• The Craxton-Moffatt Collection of Old Keyboard Music , (1928-1937)
• Schubert : Night and Dreams , (1928)
• Eccles : A Trumpet Tune , (1928)
• Couperin : The Gossip , (1931)
• Easy Elizabethans , (1933)
• Airs and Graces from the Early 18th Century , (1935)
• Two Pieces , (1936)
• The Fiddler at the Feast , (1936)
• Anon: Minuet and Rigadoon , (1936)
• Dance Tunes of Other Days , (1937)
• Arne : Gavotte from Sonata no 5 , (1945)
• Two 18th Century Minuets (1959)

Songs

• Come you, Mary! ( Norman Gale ), (1914)
• March on! Canada! ( Lily Alice Lefevre ), (1914)
• Mavis (LA Lefevre), (1914)
• A Requiem ( Robert Louis Stevenson ), (1914)
• Bless thou the Lord, 0 my Soul (Psalm 104), (1915)
• Hearts in Love ( Edward de Vere ), (1915)
• Oh! To see the Cabin Smoke ( PJ O'Reilly ), (1915)
• Timothy ( Norman Gale ), (1915)
• Shepherd Love ( Helen Taylor ), (1916)
• Sorrow no more ( Fred G. Bowles ), (1916)
• The Country Faith (Norman Gale), (1917)
• Bless my Brooms ( Janet Begbie ), (1919)
• The Snowdrop (Norman Gale), (1924)
• Beloved, I am lonely ( May Aldington ), (1926)
• Two Songs from Shakespeare ( 0 Mistress Mine; It was a Lover and his Lass ), (1944)
• Two Songs from Shakespeare ( Come away death; Sigh no more, ladies ) (1944)