Michael Heming

{{short description|British composer}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Michael Savage Heming (14 January 1920 – 3 November 1942) was a British composer. He was the son of Percy Alfred Heming, a well-known baritone, and Joyce Savage. Educated at Wellington College in Berkshire, Heming went on to study conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, and was slated to become a student-assistant of John Barbirolli.[http://www.concertprogrammes.org.uk/html/search/verb/GetRecord/2968/ Michael Heming Collection, Royal Academy of Music]

In 1942, while serving as a lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps,[https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34888/supplement/4085/data.pdf London Gazette, 5 July 1940] Heming was killed in action at the battle of El Alamein.[http://stonechaser.blogspot.com/2011/03/ Royal Academy of Music - Memorials][https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2769312/michael-savage-heming/ CWGC entry] Upon the return home of his personal effects, his mother discovered musical sketches Heming had written during and after his voyage to Africa. Percy Heming showed the sketches to Barbirolli, who engaged the composer and conductor Anthony Vincent Collins to edit the sketches into a work called Threnody for a Soldier Killed in Action.

The work was premiered at Sheffield City Hall, by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Barbirolli, on 14 January 1944, which would have been Heming's 24th birthday.[https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,803066,00.html Time Magazine, 24 January, 1944] In 1945 Barbirolli recorded the piece on His Master's Voice with the Hallé Orchestra.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BED54YsqMzA HMV C 3427, YouTube] Royalton Kisch, a schoolfriend at Wellington College who had also served in the same regiment as Heming, performed the piece many times in Italy and Athens in 1944–45, the first time being the performance on 12 December 1944 at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples.Programmes consulted of all Royalton Kisch's concerts (in his family's possession) The piece received many further performances over the next few years, although it has been largely forgotten since.