Arthur Hinton
{{short description|English composer}}
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Arthur Hinton (20 November 1869 – 11 August 1941) was an English composer and conductor. His wife was the internationally famous pianist Katharine Goodson, who gave the first performance of his Piano Concerto in D minor in 1905.Foreman, Lewis. [http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2002/Apr02/Hinton.htm 'Arthur Hinton's Piano Concerto'], concert review at MusicWeb International (2002)
Career
Born at Beckenham in Kent, Hinton was educated at Shrewsbury School. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, with Prosper Sainton (violin) and F W Davenport (composition). Granville Bantock was a contemporary there. He stayed on at the Academy as a sub-professor, before travelling to Munich for further study with Josef Rheinberger (and after his death Karel Navrátil), extending his trip with periods in Vienna and Rome.'Arthur Hinton', Who's Who in Music (1913) On his return he began conducting at various London theatres.Leach, Gerald. British Composer Profiles (3rd. Edition, 2012), p 108
Hinton met the pianist Katherine Goodson while he was in Vienna, and after returning to England they married in 1903. Although sharing a close marriage, both of them travelled widely for their respective careers and there were no children. His compositional activity slowed down as he took on more responsibilities as an examiner for the Associated Board.Andrews, Cameron. The Aesthetic Revelation of Katharine Goodson (2019) In this capacity he visited Australia twice, as well as Canada and Jamaica, and he also spent time in America, where Goodson's advocacy helped gain him some recognition and publication.Peterkin, Norman. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/910396 'British Music in America'], in The Musical Times Vol. 61, No. 924 (February, 1920), pp. 100-101
Hinton also did some composition teaching at the Royal Academy of Music, where his pupils included William Alwyn.Wright, Adrian. The Innumerable Dance: The Life and Work of William Alwyn (2008), p. 22 His address in London was 14 St. John's Wood Road.Brower, Harriette. Piano Mastery. Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers (1915) However, the house was destroyed by a bomb in 1941. According to the pianist Mark Hambourg:
I remember the house of my friend Katherine Goodson, the distinguished pianist, being completely destroyed by a high explosive, all except her two grand pianos which stood up back to back on the platform in her ruined studio, unharmed and impassive.Hambourg, Mark. The Eighth Octave (1951), p 9
The couple subsequently established a house in Rottingdean, West Sussex, where Hinton died shortly afterwards. Goodson remained there, and two years later that house also suffered bomb damage.'Waltz for Repair Squad', in The Daily Telegraph, 28 January 1943, p 4
Compositions
Hinton was one of the composers featured in Granville Bantock's concert of new music by himself and his friends, put on at Queen's Hall on 15 December 1896.Budd, Vincent. A Brief Introduction to the Life and Work of Sir Granville Bantock (2000)Wallace, William. 'Young England's 'Manifesto', reprinted in The Bantock Society Journal, Vol. 3 No. 1, Summer 1998 (Other composers included in this group were William Wallace, Reginald Steggall, Stanley Hawley (1867-1916) and Henry Erskine Allon). His Symphony No 1 in Bb was performed in August 1894 while he was in Munich with Rheinberger, and the Symphony No 2 in C minor was played at the Royal College of Music in 1903. A fantasia, The Triumph of Cæsar, was first played at the Queen's Hall in 1906.
Katharine Goodson gave the first performance of Hinton's Piano Concerto in D minor on 1 November 1905 at the Queen's Hall, and she also gave the first performances of his Trio in D Minor (at the Bechstein Hall in 1903),[https://www.jstor.org/stable/903874 'London and Suburban concerts'] in The Musical Times Vol. 44, No. 725 (July, 1903), p 479 Piano Quintet in G minor (1910), Rhapsody (1911) and various shorter solo piano works. Clifford Curzon was also an enthusiast of the Piano Concerto, performing it at a Dan Godfrey Bournemouth concert in 1925.Lloyd, Stephen. Sir Dan Godfrey – Champion of British Composers (1995), pp.144,169 There was a modern revival of the Concerto by the Lambeth Orchestra with soloist Christopher Fifield in 2002. (The Lambeth Orchestra also revived the Symphony No 1).[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEEi8tQIwcA Symphony No 1: concert recording on YouTube] The premiere recording of the Piano Quintet was issued by Dutton Vocalion in 2021.[https://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=CDLX7386 'Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Arthur Hinton, York Bowen – Piano Quintets'], Dutton Vocalion CDLX7386
His Three Orchestral Scenes from Keats's Endymion were given at the Henry Wood Proms in 1907 and 1919, and also performed in America.[https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/eg28q9 BBC Proms performance archive], 21 August 1919 Other works include the opera Tamara (composed while he was in Rome), two children's operettas (The Disagreeable Princess and St Elizabeth's Roses), Chant des Vagues for cello and orchestra (which achieved frequent performances), a Suite for violin and piano (1903), the Violin Sonata (1903, played by Émile Sauret), the six movement piano suite A Summer Pilgrimage (1916), and dramatic vocal settings of Porphyria's Lover (Browning) and Epipsychidion (Shelley). His last orchestral work was the impressionistic Semele (1918) for mezzo-soprano and orchestra.Jones, Michael. [https://www.britishmusicsociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/4-Davies-and-Hinton-Jones.pdf Some Forgotten Anniversaries of 2019: Sir Henry (Walford) Davies and Arthur Hinton] Hinton's surviving scores and parts are held at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
References
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External links
- [https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Hinton,_Arthur Arthur Hinton scores at IMSLP]
- [https://www.britishmusicsociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/4-Davies-and-Hinton-Jones.pdf Work list by Michael Jones]
- Katherine Goodson playing [https://soundcloud.com/veikko-viljanen/arthur-hinton-fireflies-scherzo-katharine-goodson-1920-on-duo-art-6322 'Fireflies', scherzo No 3 from A Summer Pilgrimage In The White Mountains], recorded on a piano roll in 1920 ([https://www.mmdigest.com/Smythe/Smith_Duo-Art_Catalog.pdf Duo-Art 6322])
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Category:20th-century English classical composers
Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music
Category:Fellows of the Royal Academy of Music