Stanley Hawley

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Stanley Hawley
1st page from Hawley's score for Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

Harry Stanley Hawley , FRAM (born May 17, 1867 in Ilkeston , Derbyshire , † June 13, 1916 there ) was a British pianist and composer .

life and work

Hawley's father was a butcher in the small town in central England and died before his son's first birthday. At 16 Hawley received a scholarship to visit the Royal Academy of Music in London , of which he was later a fellow. There belonged u. a. Arthur O'Leary and Ebenezer Prout among his teachers. In 1890 he was the first to receive the medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians and in the same year was allowed to audition Queen Victoria in her summer residence Osborne House on the Isle of Wight .

Hawley later served as music director at the Kingsway Theater in London and as secretary of the Royal Philharmonic Society . In the 1890s he composed especially recitatives with piano accompaniment for well-known English-language poems. Hawley was one of the musicians who took part in the first Proms (in London's Queen's Hall ) between August 10 and October 5, 1895 . He appeared twice: on October 2nd, he accompanied the world premiere of his own composition for Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Bells and repeated the piece on October 5th at the Last Night of the Proms .

When the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg once heard Hawley play one of his piano pieces, he was very impressed and said that Hawley played the piano better than himself. Hawley was in great demand as an accompanist on the piano and toured with many of the great solo musicians of his time. including the violist Lionel Tertis and the baritone David Ffrangcon-Davies not only in his home country, but also in the USA and Europe , including Germany.

Hawley was in Great Britain BC in the late 19th century. a. known for the chamber music recitatives of poems by the following writers, which he composed for piano accompaniment :

In 1916 Hawley was diagnosed with a blood clot in his brain. Shortly afterwards he died at his sister's home in Ilkeston, his hometown.

A memorial concert was held at Wigmore Hall under the direction of Henry Wood . Lena Ashwell , to whom Hawley had dedicated some of his works, performed some of his recitatives. The Franco-American painter Frank Mura created an oil portrait of Hawley that Hawley's heirs gave to the Royal Academy of Music in 1919, where it is still located today.

literature

  • The Musical Times : Obituary , Vol. 57, No. 881 (July 1, 1916), p. 337.
  • The Royal Academy of Music Magazine : A Memorial of Stanley Hawley , 1916, pp. 23-25.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hawley, Stanley FRAM Information on Hawley at the Royal Academy of Music.
  2. ↑ Program for October 2, 1895, Queen's Hall, 8:00 p.m. on bbc.co.uk.
  3. ↑ Program for October 5, 1895: Last Night of the Proms 1895 on bbc.co.uk.
  4. ^ Portrait of Stanley Hawley. By Frank Mura, oil on canvas, c. late 19c. , Information on the oil portrait by Frank Mura
personal data
SURNAME Hawley, Stanley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harry Stanley Hawley (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Ilkeston , Derbyshire
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 1916
Place of death Ilkeston , Derbyshire