Digital publications
Monash digital archive of early Australian music
MAMU has an extensive collection of Australian music from the early colonial period through the mid-20th century.
All the scores included here may be downloaded free for performance and study. While access to the music is free of charge, please note that copyright applies to public performances, recording and broadcast of the materials provided here.
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Motet for Choir and Orchestra (Adelaide 1851)Edited by Richard Divall Australian Music Series MDA001
Carl Linger was born in Berlin in 1810 and died in Adelaide in 1862. After early studies in Berlin; Linger visited Milan and Venice to further his study and later returned to his home city. He had a series of songs published in that city and wrote Sechs Zwischenspiele for Orchestra. In 1849 Carl Linger migrated to the Colony of South Australia and took up farming near Smithfield, a venture that was unsuccessful. Relocating to Adelaide, Linger made a major mark on the music and artistic life of Adelaide and, on his death in 1862, there were many eulogies.
A recent study of Carl Linger’s life, details of his early studies, the events surrounding his death and the contents of his will are exhaustively covered in Graeme Skinner’s thesis “Towards a General History of Australian Musical Composition: First National Music 1788-c.1860” [http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au//bitstream/2123/7264/1/ga-skinner-2011-thesis.pdf], pp. 385-387, expanded and updated on the same author’s website [http://www.graemeskinner.id.au/biographicalregisterK-L.htm].
Many of his compositions are only known by mention, as the scores have vanished. Six sacred works, Vier Motetten, a Vater Unser, and this motet, Oh Lord who is as Thee (Skinner nº 315) were found in the Tanunda Liedertafel Library in 1938, and were subsequently housed in the Lutheran Archives in Adelaide. The originals have now disappeared, but not before photocopies of the manuscripts were organised by the Editor around 1968 for the ABC’s Musica Australisproject. These photocopies are now held in the NLA.
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For Soloists, Choir and Orchestra (Sydney,) 1900Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series — MDA002
John Albert Delany was born on 6 July 1852 in London but migrated to New South Wales with his parents as a child. His musical education began in Newcastle where his father established a newspaper, and continued while at School at Lyndhurst College in Sydney under William John Cordner, organist of St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral. After leaving school, he joined the orchestra of the Victoria Theatre as a violinist.
In 1872 Delany was appointed choirmaster at the cathedral and organist in 1874 but resigned in 1877 to join the renowned Lyster Opera Company in Melbourne as chorus master. During the next nine years he worked with various itinerant musical companies, returning briefly to Sydney in September 1882 as musical director of the three-day celebrations marking the opening of the northern end of St Mary’s Cathedral, for which he composed his Triduum March. In 1886 he became musical director at St Mary’s Cathedral. His tenure there was notable for reintroduction of plainsong and unaccompanied polyphony, as well as the popular concert Masses where he could make use of his operatic experience. From 1894 he was a founder member of the new Sydney College of Music, and in 1895 he was also organist at the cathedral. Highlights of his conducting career include massed choral performance in Centennial Park to celebrate the foundation of the Commonwealth in 1901, and the Australian première of Sir Edward Elgar’s oratorio The Dream of Gerontius in the Sydney Town Hall on 21 December 1903, to mark the golden jubilee of the ordination of Patrick Francis Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, who presented him with a papal decoration. Delany died at Paddington on 11 May 1907.
Delany’s output as a composer includes two Masses, many motets and a cantata, Captain Cook, to words by P. E. Quinn. Other than his Song of the Commonwealth, composed for the swearing-in of Lord Hopetoun as governor-general in 1901, reissued in 1951, little of his music was published.
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Six Entreacts for Orchestra (1840s?) Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series — MDA003
Carl Linger was born in Berlin in 1810 and died in Adelaide in 1862. After early studies in Berlin, Linger visited Milan and Venice to further his career and later returned to his home city. He had a series of songs published in that city and wrote Sechs Zwischenspiele for Orchestra probably in the 1840s. In 1849 Carl Linger migrated to the Colony of South Australia and took up farming near Smithfield, a venture that was unsuccessful. Relocating to Adelaide, Linger made a major mark on the music and artistic life of Adelaide, and on his death in 1862, there were many eulogies.
The manuscript of the Sechs Zwischenspiele is held in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung, Berlin (D-B Mus. Ms. 13045). The six movements are written on eighty-one pages of twelve stave paper, in landscape format and are in Linger’s handwriting. The top and bottom staves are not utilised. The score is exemplary throughout and no list of editorial alterations is necessary. Occasional missing accidentals, slurs and dynamics are given in parenthesis.
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The Lord’s Prayer for Choir and Organ (1846)Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series — MDA004
Carl Linger was born in Berlin in 1810 and died in Adelaide in 1862. After early studies in Berlin; Linger visited Milan and Venice to further his study and later returned to his home city. He had a series of songs published in that city and wrote Sechs Zwischenspiele for Orchestra. In 1849 Carl Linger migrated to the Colony of South Australia and took up farming near Smithfield, a venture that was unsuccessful. Relocating to Adelaide, Linger made a major mark on the music and artistic life of Adelaide, and on his death in 1862, there were many eulogies.
Many of his compositions are only known by mention, as the scores have vanished. Six sacred works, Vier Motetten, the orchestral motet, Oh Lord who is as Thee, and this Vater Unser – The Lord’s Prayer were found in the Tanunda Liedertafel Library in 1938, and were subsequently housed in the Lutheran Archives in Adelaide. The originals have now disappeared, but not before photocopies of the manuscripts were organised by the Editor around 1968 for the ABC’s Musica Australis project. These photocopies are now held in the NLA. The manuscript of the Vater Unseris contained on nineteen pages of eight stave paper, including the title page and is in Linger’s handwriting.
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1. Allmächtiger // 2. Deine heilige Geburt // 3. Kommt zu ihm // 4. Wenn Irrtum uns befangen — for Choir and Organ (1845-1846)Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series — MDA005
Carl Linger was born in Berlin in 1810 and died in Adelaide in 1862. After early studies in Berlin; Linger visited Milan and Venice to further his study and later returned to his home city. He had a series of songs published in that city and wrote Sechs Zwischenspiele for Orchestra. In 1849 Carl Linger migrated to the Colony of South Australia and took up farming near Smithfield, a venture that was unsuccessful. Relocating to Adelaide, Linger made a major mark on the music and artistic life of Adelaide, and on his death in 1862, there were many eulogies.
These four motets are written on thirty-three pages of eight stave paper, including the title page and is in Linger’s handwriting. All of the texts are in German and come from various sources, which are listed at the beginning of each work where identified. There are no editorial notes, and any editorial accidentals, or slurs are marked in parentheses. The organ part has figured bass, but I have deliberately not realised the right hand, as almost all competent organists are expert in figure bass.
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London? 1848
Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series — MDA006
Charles Edward Horsley was born in London in 1822 and died in New York in 1876. He came from an intensely musical family, and his father William Horsley, also a composer was a close family friend of Felix Mendelssohn and others. Horsley evinced a great musical talent early in life, and he studied in London with Mendelssohn, and Ignaz Moscheles, Franz Liszt’s own teacher. He later continued studies first in Kassel, and then in Leipzig with the above composers and also composition with Louis Spohr. The Editor has found over 170 compositions by Horsley and edited most of these already, including three symphonies, the piano and violin concertos, two string quartets, two piano trios, several sonatas and many lieder and works for piano solo. The full catalogue (2011), of Horsley’s works to date is included in this introduction.
After returning to London in 1853 he saw performances of his oratorios Gideon and Joseph given in Liverpool and later his David was performed in 1860 in Glasgow. One year later he decided to migrate to Melbourne, then experiencing huge growth because of the gold rush and the development of large scale agricultural industry. His services were obtained by the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic, which is still in existence. He served as organist variously at St Ignatius Church Richmond; St Peter’s Eastern Hill and St Francis Church in Lonsdale Street. He was a brilliant improviser, although no organ works have survived from his hand.
His financial and personal life went into a decline and making significant losses, combined with the decamping of his wife with a neighbour, did little to lift his confidence. After a return to London in 1873 he went to work in New York where he remarried, but died in 1876. However he left numerous manuscripts in Australia, of two symphonies and other works. Horsley was possibly the finest composer to come to Australia before G.W.L. Marshall-Hall, and the uncovering of his more mature works in Australia has resulted in a revision of his status as a composer. His excellent Concerto for Violin was published in full score by Lyrebird Press in 2007 and a detailed biography is available in that publication.
Horsley’s Piano Trio, opus 13 was originally published in parts by Breitkopf and Härtel. This fine trio received a long delayed modern performance in Melbourne, followed by a national tour given by the excellent Seraphim Trio. The manuscript has not survived.
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Fritz Hart, Mass Vexilla Regis
November 17, 2013
for Five-Part Choir (1912)
Edited by Richard Divall Australian Music Series MDA007
ISBN 978-0-9923956-6-7 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-6-7
Fritz Hart (1874-1949) was part of the extraordinary diaspora of British composers who, attracted to the Dominions and colonies of the then British Empire, disseminated the British musical tradition and the fashionable Celtic revival to many parts of the world. Hart’s contribution to music in Australia, and later Hawaii, is remarkable, a distinguished composer, teacher and mentor as well as a conductor and writer. With the exception of Charles Edward Horsley, he was the finest orchestrator to work in Australia before 1930, and his musical influence here lasted for a considerable time, especially through his students, including Margaret Sutherland and Peggy Glanville-Hicks. Both as teacher and mentor, he was especially encouraging to female composers.
Hart’s output included twenty-two operas, two large-scale symphonies, two string quartets, several concertos and a Symphonic Rhapsody for violin and orchestra, three sonatas for violin and piano, and choral, organ, and other keyboard music. He is remarkable for his 500-odd songs set to diverse texts, including poems of the Celtic revival and those of many Australian poets. These songs have not been forgotten: Stephen Banfield, for example, gives them serious consideration in his 1985 study of twentieth-century British song. Details of Hart’s life and career, and a full catalogue of his works are found in Peter Tregear’s excellent “Fritz Bennicke Hart-An Introduction to his Life and Music”, M.Mus. Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1993.
The Mass Vexilla Regis is scored for one soprano, two tenors and two basses, and was composed throughout May 1912 in Adelaide and Brisbane whilst Hart was on a conducting tour around Australia. The work is dedicated to the then Anglican Bishop of Western Australia, Charles Owen Riley. Born in Birmingham in 1854, Riley was Bishop from 1894, and was created the first Archbishop in 1914, a position he held until 1929. This Mass is one of two major sacred works composed by Hart, the other being his Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis of 1931, a work that will form part of this series. The composer’s manuscript of the Mass Vexilla Regis is held in the State Library of Victoria, Latrobe Library, LaTL 9528/1+2.
The edition has been produced with generous assistance from the Marshall-Hall Trust and the Australian Research Theology Foundation
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G.W.L. Marshall-Hall, Melody for Orchestra
Edited by Richard Divall Australian Music Series MDA008
ISBN 978-0-9923956-7-4 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-7-4
G W L Marshall-Hall was born in Hyde Park, London in 1862 and died in Melbourne on 18 July 1915. Born into a medical family, Marshall-Hall studied from the age of sixteen at Kings College, London, and then in Montreux in Switzerland. Destined for the civil service, he decided on music as a career. From 1880 studied in Berlin, before returning to London in 1882 to further study at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Hubert Parry and Frederick Bridge. The then Director of the College, Sir George Grove, recognised his talent and his wide interest in literature and in the history of music. He was a man with an ‘inquiring turn of mind’ and ‘there is some evidence of a temper of no mean order’. He was beginning to make a mark for himself as a composer in England, but in 1887 an advertisement appeared for the position of the inaugural Ormond Professor of Music at The University of Melbourne His application for the position was successful, and he arrived in Melbourne in January 1891 to take up the post. He quickly established a reputation for bohemianism, and as a musician who could inspire both as a teacher and a conductor. His concert programming was adventurous and demanding and his compositional output ranged from two operas to symphonic, orchestral tone poems, chamber works and many songs.
His success was tempered by the publication of a series of provocative poems under the title of Hymns Ancient and Modern, which inflamed the Anglican establishment. Although not devoid of defenders, Marshall-Hall’s tenure as professor was not renewed in 1900. But after a long period of controversy, he was eventually re-appointed as Ormond Professor in July 1914, only one year before his untimely death one year later. His career and music are well examined in Dr Therese Radic’s excellent study G.W.L. Marshall-Hall A Biography and Catalogue (Melbourne: The Marshall-Hall Trust, 2002).
Marshall-Hall had shown support for the young Percy Grainger, and in 1938 Grainger repaid the debt by purchasing Marshall-Hall’s scores from his widow and only son. They are now housed in The Grainger Museum at The University of Melbourne. His grandson, Marshall-Hall Inman bequeathed a sum that provided the resources for the setting up of The Marshall-Hall Trust, which publishes and supports the performance and research into Australia’s earlier music.
Melody for Orchestra survives in a set of orchestral parts. No full score is known and sadly so, for an orchestration list on the original envelope that holds the set of parts calls for an ensemble larger than the parts that survive. However, there is the possibility that the work was written only for the orchestration in this score, which is certainly effective, with its reminiscences of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll.
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Fritz Hart, In memoriam Claude Achille Debussy (vln & pno)
For Violin and Pianoforte, 1918
Edited by Richard Divall Australian Music Series – MDA009
ISBN 978-0-9923956-8-1 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-8-1
Fritz Hart was part of the extraordinary diaspora of British composers who, attracted to the various Dominions and colonies of the then British Empire, disseminated the influence of their British musical tradition and the fashionable Celtic revival to many parts of the world. Hart’s contribution to music in Australia, and later Hawaii, is remarkable, and he distinguished himself as a composer, teacher and mentor as well as a conductor and writer. With the exception of Charles Edward Horsley, he was the finest orchestrator to work in Australia before 1930, and his musical influence in this country lasted for a considerable time, especially through his students, including Margaret Sutherland and Peggy Glanville-Hicks. Both as teacher and mentor, he was especially encouraging to female composers.
Born in Brockley, Kent in 1874, Fritz Hart was a chorister at Westminster Abbey and studied at the Royal College of Music, where he formed lifelong friendships with Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Granville Bantock. He migrated to Australia in 1909 and for many years was Director of the Albert Street Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne, in succession to G.W.L. Marshall-Hall. He was also a joint founder, with Alfred Hill, of the Australian Opera League. In 1937 he relocated to Honolulu, where he conducted the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. After his death in Hawaii in 1949, all of his scores were returned to Melbourne, where they are held in the Latrobe Library of the State Library of Victoria.
This short work, written at the end of March, 1918 on the news of the death of Claude Debussy is in two versions – one for violin and pianoforte and the other for solo pianoforte. Both appear in this series as numbers nine and ten. The composer’s manuscript of the violin and piano version of the ‘In Memoriam Claude Achille Debussy’ is held in the State Library of Victoria, Latrobe Library, LaTL 9528/9-10. These consist of a full score and a separate violin part. There are no editorial notes for either version.
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Fritz Hart, In memoriam Claude Achille Debussy (solo pno)
For Pianoforte, 1918Edited by Richard Divall Australian Music Series – MDA010ISBN 978-0-9923956-9-8 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-9-8
Fritz Hart was part of the extraordinary diaspora of British composers who, attracted to the various Dominions and colonies of the then British Empire, disseminated the influence of their British musical tradition and the fashionable Celtic revival to many parts of the world. Hart’s contribution to music in Australia, and later Hawaii, is remarkable, and he distinguished himself as a composer, teacher and mentor as well as a conductor and writer. With the exception of Charles Edward Horsley, he was the finest orchestrator to work in Australia before 1930, and his musical influence in this country lasted for a considerable time, especially through his students, including Margaret Sutherland and Peggy Glanville-Hicks. Both as teacher and mentor, he was especially encouraging to female composers.
Hart’s output included twenty-two operas, two large-scale symphonies, two string quartets, several concertos and a Symphonic Rhapsody for violin and orchestra, three sonatas for violin and piano, and choral, organ, and other keyboard music. He is remarkable for his 500-odd songs, set to diverse texts, including poems of the Celtic revival and those of many Australian poets. These songs have not been forgotten: Stephen Banfield, for example, gives them serious consideration in his 1985 study of twentieth-century British song. Details of Hart’s life and career, and a full catalogue of his works are found in Peter Tregear’s excellent ‘Fritz Bennicke Hart-An Introduction to his Life and Music’, M.Mus. Thesis University of Melbourne 1993.
This short work, written at the end of March, 1918 on the news of the death of Claude Debussy is in two versions – one for violin and pianoforte and the other for solo pianoforte. Both appear in this series as numbers nine and ten. The composer’s manuscript of the piano version of the ‘In Memoriam Claude Achille Debussy’ is held in the State Library of Victoria, Latrobe Library, LaTL 9528/11-12. There are no editorial notes for either version.
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Fritz Hart, In memoriam Dame Nellie Melba
For three female voices, 1931
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA011
ISBN 978-0-9923957-0-4 / ISMN 979-0-9009643-0-4
Fritz Hart was part of the extraordinary diaspora of British composers who, attracted to the various Dominions and colonies of the then British Empire, disseminated the influence of their British musical tradition and the fashionable Celtic revival to many parts of the world. Hart’s contribution to music in Australia, and later Hawaii, is remarkable, and he distinguished himself as a composer, teacher and mentor as well as a conductor and writer. With the exception of Charles Edward Horsley, he was the finest orchestrator to work in Australia before 1930, and his musical influence in this country lasted for a considerable time, especially through his students, including Margaret Sutherland and Peggy Glanville-Hicks. Both as teacher and mentor, he was especially encouraging to female composers.
Born in Brockley, Kent in 1874, Fritz Hart was a chorister at Westminster Abbey and studied at the Royal College of Music, where he formed lifelong friendships with Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Granville Bantock. He migrated to Australia in 1909 and for many years was Director of the Albert Street Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne, in succession to G.W.L. Marshall-Hall. Renamed the Melba Conservatorium of Music, Dame Nellie Melba became one of his greatest champions. He was also a joint founder, with Alfred Hill, of the Australian Opera League. In 1937 he permanently relocated to Honolulu, where he conducted the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. After his death in Hawaii in 1949, all of his scores were returned to Melbourne, where they are held in the Latrobe Library of the State Library of Victoria.
This short and extremely beautiful work for three female voices was written for the memorial service held at the grave of Dame Nellie Melba at Lilydale cemetery in March 1931. The manuscript of the ‘In Memoriam’ is held in the State Library of Victoria, Latrobe Library, LaTL 9528/1. There are no editorial notes.
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G. W. L. Marshall-Hall, Two Works for Bassoon and Pianoforte
Melbourne, 1890s
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA012
ISBN 978-0-9923857-1-1 / ISMN 979-0-9009643-1-1
George William Louis Marshall-Hall was born in Hyde Park, London in 1862 and died in Melbourne on 18 July 1915. Born into a medical family, Marshall-Hall studied from the age of sixteen at Kings College, London, and then in Montreux in Switzerland. Destined for the civil service, he decided on music as a career. From 1880 studied in Berlin, before returning to London in 1882 to further study at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Hubert Parry and Frederick Bridge. The then Director of the College, Sir George Grove, recognised his talent and his wide interest in literature and in the history of music. He was a man with an ‘inquiring turn of mind,’ and ‘there is some evidence of a temper of no mean order’. He was beginning to make a mark for himself as a composer in England, but in 1887 an advertisement appeared for the position of the inaugural Ormond Professor of Music at The University of Melbourne. His application for the position was successful, and he arrived in Melbourne in January 1891 to take up the post. He quickly established a reputation for bohemianism, and as a musician who could inspire both students, and as a conductor. His programming in concerts was adventurous and demanding and his output as a composer ranged from two operas to symphonic, orchestral tone poems, chamber works and many songs.
His success was tempered by the publication of a series of provocative poems under the title of Hymns Ancient and Modern, which inflamed the Anglican establishment. Although not devoid of defenders, Marshall-Hall’s tenure as professor was not renewed in 1900. But after a long period of controversy, he was eventually re-appointed as Ormond Professor in July 1914, only one year before his untimely death one year later. His career and music are well examined in Dr Therese Radic’s excellent study G.W.L. Marshall-Hall A Biography and Catalogue. Another recent and outstanding study is Marshall-Hall’s Melbourne – Music, Art and Controversy 1891-1915.
Marshall-Hall had shown support for the young Percy Grainger, and in 1938 Grainger repaid the debt by purchasing Marshall-Hall’s scores from his widow and only son. They are now housed in The Grainger Museum at The University of Melbourne. His grandson, Marshall-Hall Inman bequeathed a sum that provided the resources for the setting up of The Marshall-Hall Trust, which publishes and supports the performance and research into Australia’s earlier music.
These two movements for bassoon and piano are amongst the few works that Marshall-Hall composed in the genre of chamber music. The manuscripts are held in The Grainger Museum, The University of Melbourne, catalogued as M-H 3/6-1. Other chamber works include the two string quartets and also the two violin Fantasies originally published by Schott. The two bassoon works seem to be separate pieces, and not part of a larger work. They are written on nineteen and twelve pages respectively, on twelve-stave manuscript paper.
The first work, an Allegro con brio has the inscription on the final page ‘Begun Oct 5 finished Oct 6th’, but the year of composition is unknown. The second movement, an Adagio quasi Andante is inscribed on the first page ‘In the Orchard, Chartersville’. This would refer to the Chartersville Homestead in the Melbourne suburb of Heidelberg, used by painters and artists of the Heidelberg School, many of whom were close personal friends of the composer. In 1896 Lionel Lindsay painted a pen and ink artwork called ‘In the old Orchard, Chartersville’ which is in the National Gallery of Victoria.
The edition has been produced with the generous assistance from the Marshall-Hall Trust
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Charles Horsely, Sonata for violin and pianoforte in F major No 2
For violin and pianoforte, 1848
Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series – MDA013
ISBN 978-0-9923957-2-8 / ISMN 974-0-9009643-2-8
Charles Edward Horsley was born in London in 1822 and died in New York in 1876. He came from an intensely musical family, and his father William Horsley, also a composer was a close family friend of Felix Mendelssohn and others. Horsley evinced a great musical talent early in life, and he studied in London with Mendelssohn, and Ignaz Moscheles, Franz Liszt’s own teacher. He later continued studies first in Kassel, and then in Leipzig with the above composers and also composition with Louis Spohr.
After returning to London in 1853 Horsley saw performances of his oratorios Gideon and Joseph given in Liverpool and later his David was performed in 1860 in Glasgow. One year later he decided to migrate to Melbourne, then experiencing huge growth because of the gold rush and the development of large scale agricultural industry. His services were obtained by the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, which is still in existence.
After arriving in Melbourne his financial and personal life went into a decline, and significant financial losses combined with the decamping of his wife with a neighbour, did little to lift his confidence. After a return to London in 1873 he went to work in New York where he remarried, but died in 1876. However he left numerous manuscripts in Australia, including two symphonies and other works.
Horsley’s Violin Sonata in F major was dedicated to his sister Sophie, and the manuscript of the work is to be found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The work dates from after 1848, when his first sonata was composed, and would have been written whilst he was either still studying in Germany, or after his return to England.
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Isaac Nathan, Psalm 117
For choir and keyboard, 1849
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA014
ISBN 978-0-9923957-3-5 / ISMN 979-0-9009643-3-5
Isaac Nathan, musician, journalist and composer was born in Canterbury, England, the son of a Polish Jewish cantor. A pupil of Domenico Corri, who composed the ballad opera on the South Seas, Pitcairn Island, Nathan came to prominence with his publication in 1815 of the two volumes of Hebrew Melodies, set to the poetry of Lord Byron. Financial difficulties caused Nathan to leave England, and he arrived in Sydney in April 1841. There through his self-promotion he became a well-known musical figure in early Sydney. Together with William Vincent Wallace he was the best known musical identity in the early life of the Colony of New South Wales. Nathan worked as a musician at the embryonic St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, then under the Benedictine Bishop [later Archbishop] John Bede Polding, as well as having an association with St James’ Anglican Church.
Nathan is supposed to have written the first opera in Sydney, Don John of Austria, which was presented on 7 May 1847 at the Victoria Theatre, Sydney. Nathan composed in several genres, songs, sacred music and especially music written about the indigenous inhabitants of the Sydney region, some of the texts set in the native language spoken around Port Jackson. He died in 1864 as the result of an accident on the newly introduced horse drawn tram in Sydney. Very few of his manuscripts survive, presumably because his widow burned them after his untimely death.
The three sacred works in this series were all composed by Nathan in Sydney. The Anthem ‘O Praise the Lord all ye Heathen’ was an arrangement of the anthem of the same text by Henry Purcell (Z43), and reproduced in John Chetham’s A Book of Psalmody, first published in 1717. Nathan ‘revised, corrected and arranged’ the original Purcell and in the style of the time, improved upon the original work, making it into a five part anthem. It was printed in Nathan’s curious book of essays, The Southern Euphrosyne and Australian Miscellany which was published in Sydney in 1849.
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Isaac Nathan, The Lord’s Prayer
For choir and keyboard, 1845
Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series – MDA015
ISBN 978-0-9923957-4-2 / ISMN 974-0-9—9643-4-2
Isaac Nathan, musician, journalist and composer was born in Canterbury, England, the son of a Polish Jewish cantor. A pupil of Domenico Corri, who composed the ballad opera on the South Seas, Pitcairn Island, Nathan came to prominence with his publication in 1815 of the two volumes of Hebrew Melodies, set to the poetry of Lord Byron. Financial difficulties caused Nathan to leave England, and he arrived in Sydney in April 1841. There through his self-promotion he became a well-known musical figure in early Sydney. Together with William Vincent Wallace he was the best known musical identity in the early life of the Colony of New South Wales. Nathan worked as a musician at the embryonic St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, then under the Benedictine Bishop [later Archbishop] John Bede Polding, as well as having an association with St James’ Anglican Church. Nathan is supposed to have written the first opera in Sydney, Don John of Austria, which was presented on 7 May 1847 at the Victoria Theatre, Sydney. Nathan composed in several genres, songs, sacred music and especially music written about the indigenous inhabitants of the Sydney region, some of the texts set in the native language spoken around Port Jackson. He died in 1864 as the result of an accident on the newly introduced horse drawn tram in Sydney. Very few of his manuscripts survive, presumably because his widow burned them after his untimely death. We now know that Nathan was a prolific writer, commentator and may have been Australia’s first food critic.
The three sacred works in this series were all composed by Nathan in Sydney. The first, The Lord’s Prayer was published in 1845 and dedicated to the Rt Rev. William Grant Broughton, then the Anglican ‘Lord Bishop of Australia’. It was composed either as a solo for one voice or to be sung in a four part vocal ensemble, accompanied by either pianoforte or organ.
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Isaac Nathan, The Names of Christ
For choir and keyboard, 1853
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA016
ISBN 978-0-9923957-5-9 / ISMN 979-0-9009643-5-9
Isaac Nathan, musician, journalist and composer was born in Canterbury, England, the son of a Polish Jewish cantor. A pupil of Domenico Corri, who composed the ballad opera on the South Seas, Pitcairn Island, Nathan came to prominence with his publication in 1815 of the two volumes of Hebrew Melodies, set to the poetry of Lord Byron. Financial difficulties caused Nathan to leave England, and he arrived in Sydney in April 1841. There through his self-promotion he became a well-known musical figure in early Sydney. Together with William Vincent Wallace he was the best known musical identity in the early life of the Colony of New South Wales. Nathan worked as a musician at the embryonic St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, then under the Benedictine Bishop [later Archbishop] John Bede Polding, as well as having an association with St James’ Anglican Church. He died in 1864 as the result of an accident on the newly introduced horse drawn tram in Sydney. Very few of his manuscripts survive, presumably because his widow burned them after his untimely death. We now know that Nathan was a prolific writer, commentator and may have been Australia’s first food critic.
The three sacred works in this series were all composed by Nathan in Sydney. The Names of Christ was issued in 1853, and is a series of verses of music, for six voices and set to poetry by the Rev James Brotherton Laughton of Sydney (1814-1883). It was composed expressly for ‘St James’ and St Mary’s Choral Societies’.
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James Henri Anderson, The Lays of the Hebrews
For pianoforte, 1844
Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series – MDA017
ISBN 978-0-9923957-6-6 / ISMN 979-0-9009643-6-6Pianist, organist and composer James Henri Anderson was born in 1822/23 and at the age of twenty arrived in Hobart on 4 February 1842. He had studied with Professor Thomson in Edinburgh and then with the English symphonist and friend of Beethoven, Philip Cipriani Potter (1792-1871), at the Royal Academy of Music, Hanover Square. Potter, as head of keyboard studies had succeeded Nicholas Charles Bochsa (1789- 1856), as director of orchestral studies in 1827, and as Principal in 1832, replacing Crotch who had retired.1 Anderson lived for some time in Launceston before returning to Hobart, and then moving to Sydney in 1844. During his time in Tasmania he was involved with the Consecration of the Launceston Synagogue in St John’s Street in 1846, and contributed a ‘symphony’ to the opening celebrations there. Prior to moving to Hobart Anderson lived in the same street. He was an excellent pianist, but ‘disorganised’ as a lecturer or speaker.
The Lays of the Hebrews is a collection of four melodies, two of them tunes to Psalms ninety-one and twenty-four. Dedicated to the British philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore, the work was arranged for performance at the Consecration of the Sydney Synagogue in York Street on 2 April 1844. Isaac Nathan was in charge of the musical ceremonies, and also composed two works for the same consecration, namely a new Hallelujah Chorus and a setting of the Benedictus, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, both of which have not survived. Styled on the title page ‘a Professor of Music, Sydney’, the only surviving copy of this work by Anderson is held in the Mitchell Library, the State Library of New South Wales. On the title page of his Fitzroy Quadrilles of 1850, and published in Melbourne, Anderson described himself as ‘of the Royal Academy’. Little is known of his life, and he died in Melbourne on 1 May 1879.
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Lewis Moss, Adon ‘Olam (A Hebrew Hymn)
For choir, organ, harmonium, or pianoforte, Sydney 1867.
Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series – MDA018
ISBN 978-0-9923957-7-3 / ISMN 979-0-9009643-7-3
Australia’s first notable Jewish composer was Isaac Nathan. A musician, journalist and composer he was born in 1790 in Canterbury, England, the son of a Polish cantor. Nathan arrived in Sydney in 1841. However several other composers wrote works for Jewish services or for special occasions such as the consecration of Synagogues in Hobart, Launceston, Ballarat and Sydney. This volume contains one of three early works that are known to us. The music is simple, but of social importance to the development of organised Judiac religion in early Australia.
Lewis Moss died in 1875, aged seventy, and had arrived in Sydney from San Francisco in the 1850’s. In 1854 he advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald as being a ‘Music and Music Instrument Importer’ and his shop was based at 5 Hunter Street, Sydney. He composed little music, but he was featured as a pianist at concerts and a reed organ imported by him from Alexandre Pere et Fils (Paris), is held in the Powerhouse Museum. The Hymn Adon ‘Olam (Adon Gnolam on the original score), is a well-known Hebrew text, still in use today.
Other composers followed in writing works for Synagogues in Australia, and these include Alfred Hill’s works for the Great Synagogue in Sydney, and Felix Werder’s imaginative psalm settings, written in Melbourne, and now held in the National Library of Australia.
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Joseph Reichenberg, Ancient Hebrew Melodies
For pianoforte, Hobart 1845.
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA019
ISBN 978-0-9923957-8-0 / ISMN 979-0-9009643-8-0
Joseph Reichenberg (or Richenbergh in the Regimental records), was the bandmaster of the 40thRegiment of Foot, which was stationed in Australia from 1824 to 1829. Apparently he was born in Sicily around 1789-1792, possibly a member of one of the numerous German families who settled there assisting the Austrian Bourbon Kings of Naples and the Two Sicilies. It is said that he had military experience in the Chasseurs Brittanique, English forces based in Messina during the Napoleonic Wars. Reichenberg arrived in Sydney with his Regiment and announced that his Australian Quadrilles would be issued, but no copy has survived. He later moved to Hobart where the majority of the Regiment were stationed, and like many of the enlisted men, elected to stay in Australia. For some years he taught music in Hobart, conducted the first known full concert there in 1826, and died toward the end of January 1851.
The Hobart Synagogue was consecrated in some spectacle on 4 July 1845. Though a Catholic, Reichenberg was delegated to be in charge of the music, and a detailed report of the entire ceremony was printed in the Hobart Town Courier of 9 July. The vocal and instrumental performers included the French violinist and composer, Joseph Gautrot, who had a prolific career in music in Hobart and later in Sydney, before dying there in 1854.
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Henry John King, Suite of Four Pieces
(Melbourne, 1855 – Southport, 1934)
For violin and pianoforte; edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA020
ISBN 978-0-9923957-9-7 / ISMN 979-0-9009643-9-7
Henry John King descended from a long and active musical family. His father, Henry John King senior arrived in Melbourne in 1854, and advertised himself as a teacher of the harp, piano, violin and guitar, and teaching at Emerald Hill. Other members of the family were musicians and the King dynasty were listed a key performers in the Madame Anna Bishop concerts under George Loder. The father was the leader of the Royal Philharmonic Society of Melbourne orchestra from 1857 to 1860. Henry John King junior was born in South Melbourne in 1855 and was taught music at an early age within the family, and then by the composer Charles Edward Horsley, who had been a pupil of Mendelssohn, Ignaz Moscheles and Louis Spohr.
King junior’s talents were obviously valued at an early stage, for in 1872 at the age of sixteen or seventeen, he copied the orchestral parts for Horsley’s Violin Concerto in D minor. He was appointed as organist to the prestigious St Mark’s Anglican Church in Fitzroy, and began a prolific career in composition. There are several secular works cited as being written by him, including the Cantata, The Wedding, and an opera in four acts and a prologue entitled Penelope, set to a libretto by a Mrs J A King. King’s great musical opportunity was when his work, The Centennial Cantata, was selected as the winner of a competition by a committee and premiered at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1888 in Melbourne.
King distinguished himself as a composer of sacred music and settings of his Mass, a Benedictus, and a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis were published in London and are held in Australian libraries. They are well written for the voice, and the organ parts show a considerable expertise on the instrument. King relocated to Queensland in 1910, and he passed away at Southport on 27 June 1934.
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Ernest Truman, String Quartet No. 2
(Somerset, 1869 – Sydney, 1948)
Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series – MDA021
ISBN 978-0-9925672-0-0 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-0-5
Ernest Edwin Philip Truman was born in Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset, England on 29 December 1869, the son of a game and fish dealer. Truman was brought to New Zealand when he was 5 years of age and studied in Dunedin under A. J. Bath, and from 1885 in Sydney with the German pianist Julius Buddee. It was probably this teacher who encouraged Truman to undertake study at the Royal Conservatorium in Leipzig, under the composer Karl Reinicke. He also studied piano, organ and four of his fellow students there included Alfred Hill, Ernest Hutcheson, Archie Fraser (later an early film director in Australia), and the novelist Henry Handel Richardson.
Graduating from Leipzig, Truman returned to Sydney and worked as an organist at St Mary’s Cathedral, Christ Church St. Lawrence and St Patrick’s on Church Hill. His skill on that instrument led to his appointment at the official organist to the City of Sydney in 1909, a position of some importance, that he held for a further twenty-six years, retiring in 1935. Truman married twice and died at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney on 6 October 1948.
As a composer, Truman’s music is generally unknown today. He was an assured composer and his works include a Mass written for St Mary’s Cathedral in 1899, a setting of the Magnificat as well as an operetta entitled Club Life, and a cantata – The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Several orchestral works have survived including a violin concerto, several violin sonatas and two string quartets, as well as organ works. This string quartet in F minor, his opus 26 was found in the papers of the Australian born violinist, Johann Secundus Kruse at The University of Melbourne, and later transferred to the National Library of Australia with other works by Australian composers.
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F S Kelly, Music, When Soft Voices Die
The Unpublished Songs – One. For voice and piano.
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA022
ISBN 978-0-9925672-1-7 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-1-2
Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant- Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire. He was with the burial party when Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) was interred on the island of Skyros, the poet having died as the Royal Naval Division was making its way to the Dardanelles. Devastated by this loss, Kelly wrote his Elegy: in memoriam Rupert Brooke. He was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
Kelly was born in Sydney on 29 May 1881, into a wealthy Irish family. Thomas Hussey Kelly, father of F S Kelly, was a wool broker and company director and a mining promoter. From 1893 he studied at Eton where he developed a precocious talent in both rowing and piano.
From 1903 to 1908 Kelly was a student at Das Hoch’sche Konservatorium at Frankfurt- am-Main where he studied composition under Iwan Knorr – Percy Grainger’s teacher, and piano with Ernst Engesser. Ten of his songs were published in 1910 and 1913 by Schott and Co, but there are about seven further songs that have remained unpublished, and the songs in this series are some of them. Kelly was fond of setting the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shakespeare and Wordsworth, and also of the American poet Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1948). This first brief song is composed in two versions – the first unpublished. Both versions are included here.
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F S Kelly, Mirrors
The Unpublished Songs – Two. For voice and piano.
Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series – MDA023
ISBN 978-0-9925672-2-4 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-2-9
Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant- Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire. He was with the burial party when Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) was interred on the island of Skyros, the poet having died as the Royal Naval Division was making its way to the Dardanelles. Devastated by this loss, Kelly wrote his Elegy: in memoriam Rupert Brooke. He was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
Kelly was born in Sydney on 29 May 1881, into a wealthy Irish family. Thomas Hussey Kelly, father of F S Kelly, was a wool broker and company director and a mining promoter. From 1893 he studied at Eton where he developed a precocious talent in both rowing and piano.
From 1903 to 1908 Kelly was a student at Das Hoch’sche Konservatorium at Frankfurt- am-Main where he studied composition under Iwan Knorr – Percy Grainger’s teacher, and piano with Ernst Engesser. Ten of his songs were published in 1910 and 1913 by Schott and Co, but there are about seven further songs that have remained unpublished, and the songs in this series are some of them. Kelly was fond of setting the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shakespeare and Wordsworth, and also of the American poet Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1948). This brief but deeply moving song, Mirrors is set to a text by that poet.
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F S Kelly, Fulfilment
The Unpublished Songs – Three.
For voice and piano.
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA024
ISBN 978-0-9925672-3-1 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-3-6
Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant- Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire. He was with the burial party when Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) was interred on the island of Skyros, the poet having died as the Royal Naval Division was making its way to the Dardanelles. Devastated by this loss, Kelly wrote his Elegy: in memoriam Rupert Brooke. He was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
Kelly was born in Sydney on 29 May 1881, into a wealthy Irish family. Thomas Hussey Kelly, father of F S Kelly, was a wool broker and company director and a mining promoter. From 1893 he studied at Eton where he developed a precocious talent in both rowing and piano.
From 1903 to 1908 Kelly was a student at Das Hoch’sche Konservatorium at Frankfurt- am-Main where he studied composition under Iwan Knorr – Percy Grainger’s teacher, and piano with Ernst Engesser. Ten of his songs were published in 1910 and 1913 by Schott and Co, but there are about seven further songs that have remained unpublished, and the songs in this series are some of them. Kelly was fond of setting the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shakespeare and Wordsworth, and also of the American poet Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1948). This philosophically moving song, sung in two voices, Fulfilment is set to a text by that poet. The manuscript is dated March 31 1910 and composed at 34 Wimpole Street, London W1, which was close to the Royal Academy of Music.
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F S Kelly, Harvest Eve
The Unpublished Songs – Four. For voice and piano.
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA025
ISBN 978-0-9925672-4-8 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-4-3
Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant- Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire. He was with the burial party when Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) was interred on the island of Skyros, the poet having died as the Royal Naval Division was making its way to the Dardanelles. Devastated by this loss, Kelly wrote his Elegy: in memoriam Rupert Brooke. He was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
Kelly was born in Sydney on 29 May 1881, into a wealthy Irish family. Thomas Hussey Kelly, father of F S Kelly, was a wool broker and company director and a mining promoter. From 1893 he studied at Eton where he developed a precocious talent in both rowing and piano.
From 1903 to 1908 Kelly was a student at Das Hoch’sche Konservatorium at Frankfurt- am-Main where he studied composition under Iwan Knorr – Percy Grainger’s teacher, and piano with Ernst Engesser. Ten of his songs were published in 1910 and 1913 by Schott and Co, but there are about seven further songs that have remained unpublished, and the songs in this series are some of them. Kelly was fond of setting the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shakespeare and Wordsworth, and also of the American poet Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1948). Harvest Eve is set to a text by this American poet. The song is dated 8 April 1910 and composed at 34 Wimpole Street, London W1.
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F S Kelly, The Pride of Youth
The Unpublished Songs – Five. For voice and piano.
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA026
ISBN 978-0-9925672-5-5 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-5-0
Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant- Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire. He was with the burial party when Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) was interred on the island of Skyros, the poet having died as the Royal Naval Division was making its way to the Dardanelles. Devastated by this loss, Kelly wrote his Elegy: in memoriam Rupert Brooke. He was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
Kelly was born in Sydney on 29 May 1881, into a wealthy Irish family. Thomas Hussey Kelly, father of F S Kelly, was a wool broker and company director and a mining promoter. From 1893 he studied at Eton where he developed a precocious talent in both rowing and piano.
From 1903 to 1908 Kelly was a student at Das Hoch’sche Konservatorium at Frankfurt- am-Main where he studied composition under Iwan Knorr – Percy Grainger’s teacher, and piano with Ernst Engesser. Ten of his songs were published in 1910 and 1913 by Schott and Co, but there are about seven further songs that have remained unpublished, and the songs in this series are some of them. Kelly was fond of setting the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shakespeare and Wordsworth, and also of the American poet Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1948). The Pride of Youth is set to the satirical short poem by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), one cruelly based around the frailty of life and the danger of youthful folly. On the first full draft of the song there is the date August 15. 1910 Bisham Grange Marlowe. On the five bar ossia there is the inscription ‘revised Jan 3. 1915’.
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Joseph Gautrot, Josephine Hymn
For soprano and organ, 1844. “Teach Me Dearest Lord to Pray”.
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA027
ISBN 978-0-9925672-6-2 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-6-7
Joseph Gautrot is a fascinating and yet enigmatic figure. According to sources he led an adventurous life, and spent time in out of the way colonial outposts. He composed music seemingly of substance, and for ensembles normally associated with higher class music, yet despite this, we have only one work surviving by this active musician and prolific composer.
The birth date of Joseph Gautrot is unknown, but there are various mentions of his early life and career in an obituary in Bell’s Life of 4 February 1854. In the obituary he was cited as being a member of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, probably as a musician, and was present during the Russian Campaign of 1812. A violinist of some distinction, Gautrot married a soprano who was an accomplished singer. We do not know her Christian name, but she made many appearances in concerts with her husband.
The Minard Company and the Gautrot couple came to Sydney in 1839 and began a season of performances on 15 March. From that time onwards Gautrot travelled between Sydney, Hobart and Melbourne, and there are numerous references to compositions by the composer from 1839 to the year of his death in 1854. He died in Sydney on 30 January, aged 70 or 71. We know that Gautrot composed the Josephine Hymn for his wife to sing, and although it is naive in parts it is charming and spiritually honest.
The text is of historical interest because it is written by the pioneer Roman Catholic priest, Father John Joseph Therry (1790 –1864). Therry played a crucial role in the development of the Roman Catholic Church in the early Australian Colonies. After further postings he eventually returned to Sydney and died there in 1864, being buried in St Mary’s Cathedral, where the Lady Chapel is dedicated to him.
The Josephine Hymn is respectfully inscribed to The Most Reverend Count Polding, Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan of Australasia. An English Benedictine, John Bede Polding (Liverpool 1794-Sydney 1877) arrived in Sydney as the first Catholic Bishop. He was a friend and supporter of Fr Therry and hence the direct and honest dedication to his religious superior and colleague.
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Horsley, Sonata for Flute and Piano Concertante
In A Minor. Opus 11 – 1846.
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA028
ISBN 978-0-9925672-7-9 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-7-4
Charles Edward Horsley was born in London in 1822 and died in New York in 1876. He came from an intensely musical family, and his father William Horsley, also a composer was a close family friend of Felix Mendelssohn and others. Horsley evinced a great musical talent early in life, and he studied in London with Mendelssohn, and Ignaz Moscheles, Franz Liszt’s own teacher. He later continued studies first in Kassel, and then in Leipzig with the above composers and also composition with Louis Spohr.
After returning to London in 1853 Horsley saw performances of his oratorios Gideon and Joseph given in Liverpool and in 1860 his David was performed in Glasgow. One year later he decided to migrate to Melbourne, then experiencing huge growth because of the gold rush and the development of large scale agricultural industry. His services were obtained by the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, which is still in existence. He served as organist variously at St Ignatius Church Richmond; St Peter’s Eastern Hill and St Francis Church in Lonsdale Street. He was a brilliant improviser, although no organ works have survived from his hand.
After arriving in Melbourne his financial and personal life went into a decline, and significant financial losses combined with the decamping of his wife with a neighbour, did little to lift his confidence. After a return to London in 1873 he went to work in New York where he remarried, but died in 1876. However he left numerous manuscripts in Australia, including two symphonies and other works. Horsley’s flute sonata is dedicated to the English flautist and instrument manufacturer Walter Broadwood. It was composed around 1846 and was published in a score and flute part by Wessel and Company as part of their series of grand original duets, by British Authors.
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Henry John King, Benedictus
For choir and organ. Melbourne, c. 1896.
Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series – MDA029
ISBN 978-0-9925672-8-6 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-8-1
Henry John King descended from a long and active musical family. His father, Henry John King senior arrived in Melbourne in 1854, and advertised himself as a teacher of the harp, piano, violin and guitar, and teaching at Emerald Hill. Other members of the family were musicians and the King dynasty were listed as key performers in the Madame Anna Bishop concerts under George Loder. The father was the leader of the Royal Philharmonic Society of Melbourne orchestra from 1857 to 1860. Henry John King junior was born in South Melbourne in 1855 and was taught music at an early age within the family, and then by the composer Charles Edward Horsley, who had been a pupil of Mendelssohn, Ignaz Moscheles and Louis Spohr.
King is listed in local newspapers as working as an organist in Portland, and in 1876 in Castlemaine, both in Victoria. He was appointed as organist to the prestigious St Mark’s Anglican Church in Fitzroy, and began a prolific career in composition. There are several secular works cited as being written by him, including the Cantata, The Wedding, and an opera in four acts and a prologue entitled Penelope, set to a libretto by a Mrs J A King.
King distinguished himself as a composer of sacred music and settings of his Mass, a Benedictus, and a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis which were published before 1900 in London by the London Music Publishing Company, and are held in Australian libraries. The Benedictus is dedicated to his friend Robert S Thomson. The work is extremely well written for the voice, and the organ parts show a considerable expertise on the instrument. There are no critical notes required. King relocated to Queensland in 1910, possibly for health reasons and he passed away at Southport on 27 June 1934.
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Charles Kenningham, ‘Australia’ Hymn
For soprano, chorus, and orchestra. Melbourne, 1901.
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA030
ISBN 978-0-9925672-9-3 / ISMN 979-0-9009642-9-8
On 9 May 1901, In the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings in Carlton, the son of King Edward VII, HRH The Duke of York (later King George V), inaugurated the Official Opening of Australia’s first Parliament. The event was captured in the iconic painting of the Duke’s proclamation and speech by the Australian painter Tom Roberts (1856- 1931), a painting that now hangs in the entry to the Main Committee Rooms in the New Parliament House of Australia in Canberra.
Amongst the music events that took place in the proceedings, an ‘Australia’ Hymn was performed with solo soprano Nellie Stewart, (possibly chorus) and orchestra. The composer was the celebrated English Gilbert and Sullivan tenor Charles Kenningham, who was touring Australia in a season of G and S repertoire for the impresario J C Williamson. Scored for a solo voice, chorus and orchestra the work seemingly received very few performances afterwards, and dropped out of sight until the vocal materials and orchestral parts were passed to the National Library of Australia.
Charles Kenningham was born on 18 November 1860 in Hull and sing for some years as a chorister before enlisting for two years in the 5th Dragoon Guards. Possessing an exceptional and clear tenor voice, he sang for five years at Canterbury Cathedral before embarking on a stage career in 1882 in opera and operetta. In 1891 he sang the role of Maurice de Bracy in the premiere of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s heroic English opera Ivanhoe. He was invited the following month to join the roster of singers with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company which specialised in operetta and especially the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. With that company he created the roles of Captain Fitzbattleaxe in Utopia Limited, and in 1896 of Ernst Dumkopf in The Grand Duke. He was an immensely successful and popular singer in this repertoire, and in 1898 he commenced a long tour of New Zealand and Australia with the J C Williamson Company. When the tour ended, Kenningham decided to remain in Australia with his wife, and continued performing until ill health made him retire to Maryborough in Queensland where he died on 24 October 1925.
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Marsh, The Spell that Beams in Woman’s Eye
For voice and piano. Sydney, 1850-2. Text: Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell.
Edited by Richard DivallAustralian Music Series – MDA031
ISBN 978-0-9925673-0-9 / ISMN 979-0-9009655-0-9
Stephen Hale Alonzo Marsh was born in Sidmouth, Devon on either 4 February 1806 or 4 January 1805. His father, John Marsh operated concert halls in Sidmouth and the young Stephen made his musical debut there in 1817 at the age of eleven. Marsh married in 1826 and studied keyboard and also harp with the pioneer of the modern instrument, Nicholas Charles Bochsa (1789-1856). In England Marsh composed a considerable number of works, which were published by the noted music houses of Chappel and Co and Wessell and Co. including a Grand Sacred Cantata The Spirit of Music.
Following his sister, Marsh and his wife immigrated to Sydney in 1842, on the same ship as the explorer and his friend, Dr Ludwig Leichardt. During the voyage the composer wrote several works on immigration, and later Marsh was to compose two works on Leichardt. In collaboration and in competition with Isaac Nathan, he gave numerous concerts in Sydney, some of them orchestral concerts. For thirty years Marsh made an active contribution to music and composition in Sydney and in 1872 departed Australia for Yokohama, before finally settling in San Francisco where he died on 21 January 1888.
Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell was one of Australia’s most dedicated explorers. Mitchell saw service in the Peninsula Wars and specialised in the drawing up of maps and gathering topographical intelligence for the campaign. An active and enquiring man, he was appointed Surveyor-General of New South Wales in 1828, succeeding the explorer John Oxley. He was a keen admirer of poetry and during the period, several of his poetic works were published in Sydney journals and newspapers. Fifty-five of his own poems survive, and he did a complete translation from the Portuguese of the epic poem Lusiads of Luís Vaz de Camões.
Mitchell’s three verses of The Spell that Beams in Woman’s Eye were set by Marsh probably around the same time as Nathan’s setting of The Meeting of the East and the West, also to a poem by Mitchell. The song was published on two pages, possibly by the music house of Henry Marsh. Only the first verse is set to music, with verse two and three being printed below the score on the final page. The only copy of the song is found in Volume VII of the Papers of Sir Thomas Mitchell, (M 3122), held in The Mitchell Library, which is named after him.
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Nathan, The Meeting of the East and the West
Voice and pianoforte. Sydney, 1850. Text: Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell.
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA032
ISBN 978-0-9925673-1-6 / ISMN 979-0-9009655-1-6
Isaac Nathan, musician, journalist and composer was born in Canterbury, England, the son of a Polish Jewish cantor. A pupil of Domenico Corri, who composed the ballad opera on the South Seas, Pitcairn Island, Nathan came to prominence with his publication in 1815 of the two volumes of Hebrew Melodies, set to the poetry of Lord Byron. Financial difficulties caused Nathan to leave England, and he arrived in Sydney in April 1841.
There through his self-promotion he became a well-known musical figure in early Sydney. Together with William Vincent Wallace he was the best known musical identity in the early life of the Colony of New South Wales. Nathan is supposed to have written the first opera composed in Australia, Don John of Austria, which was presented on 7 May 1847 at the Victoria Theatre, Sydney. Nathan composed in many genres, songs, sacred music and especially music written about the indigenous inhabitants of the Sydney region, some of the texts being set in the native language spoken around Port Jackson. He died in 1864 as the result of an accident on the newly introduced horse drawn tram in Sydney. Very few of his manuscripts survive, presumably because his widow burned them after his untimely death.
Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell was one of Australia’s most dedicated explorers. Mitchell saw service in the Peninsula Wars and specialised in the drawing up of maps and gathering topographical intelligence for the campaign. An active and enquiring man, he was appointed Surveyor-General of New South Wales in 1828, succeeding the explorer John Oxley. He was a keen admirer of poetry and during the period, several of his poetic works were published in Sydney journals and newspapers. Fifty-five of his own poems survive, and he did a complete translation from the Portuguese of the epic poem Lusiads of Luís Vaz de Camões.
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Nicholas Charles Bochsa, Le Roi et la Ligue
For orchestra (opera overture). Paris 1815.
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA033
ISBN 978-0-9925673-2-3 / ISMN 979-0-9009655-2-3
Robert-Nicolas-Charles Bochsa (normally named as Nicholas Charles), harp virtuoso, entrepreneur, publisher and composer was born on 9 August 1789 in Montmédy in Lorraine, France. As a composer he wrote several opera and opera-comiques, many of which were premiered in Paris, and he wrote numerous works for chamber instruments, including several sonatas for woodwinds. His output of composition for the harp was very large and his works are still part of the repertoire. Bochsa’s importance as a virtuoso performer and composer for the harp has eclipsed his real talents as an orchestral composer and as a writer for the theatre.
Unfortunately he involved himself in speculation and publishing ventures that saw him come under a series of criminal charges in the French Courts, which led to him fleeing France for England in 1817. Restabilising a career in London he was a prominent feature in concert life in that city, and a sought-after teacher. From 1826 to 1832 he presided over seven seasons at the Royal Italian Opera, where the new works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Giovanni Simone Mayr and Zingarelli were performed. Bochsa also composed five ballets, four of which were staged at the King’s Theatre in London.
In 1839 he absconded with the soprano Anna Bishop, the wife of the influential English composer, Sir Henry Bishop, and ironically the composer of ‘Home Sweet Home’. There began a long series of foreign tours that took the pair from Scandinavia and Russia to Mexico and several years in the United States, that finally ended in Sydney in 1855.
Bochsa arranged concerts with Anna Bishop to be given by the Sydney entrepreneur Andrew Torning, who was impresario in two Sydney theatres. Rehearsals also commenced for a season of Bellini’s Norma to be conducted by Bochsa, with Bishop in the title role. However after four concerts accompanying Bishop on the piano, Bochsa had a relapse of an earlier heart condition and died at the Royal Hotel in George Street on 6 January 1856.
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G W L Marshall-Hall, Fantaisie No. 1 in A Major
For violin and pianoforte – Melbourne c. 1904-7
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA034
ISBN 978-0-9925673-3-0 / ISMN 979-0-9009655-3-0
G W L Marshall-Hall was born in Hyde Park, London in 1862 and died in Melbourne on 18 July 1915. Born into a medical family, Marshall-Hall studied from the age of sixteen at Kings College, London, and then in Montreux in Switzerland. Destined for the civil service, he decided on music as a career. From 1880 he studied in Berlin, before returning to London in 1882 to further study at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Hubert Parry and Frederick Bridge. The then Director of the College, Sir George Grove recognised his talent, and his wide interest in literature and in the history of music. Sir George wrote that Marshall-Hall was a man with an ‘inquiring turn of mind’, and ‘there is some evidence of a temper of no mean order’.
Marshall-Hall was beginning to make a mark for himself as a composer in England, but in 1887 an advertisement appeared for the position of the inaugural Ormond Professor of Music at The University of Melbourne. His application for the position was successful, and he arrived in Melbourne in January 1891 to take up the post. He quickly established a reputation for bohemianism, as a musician who could inspire both students and staff, and as a conductor. Marshall-Hall’s programming in concerts was adventurous and demanding, and his output as a composer ranged from two operas to two symphonies, several orchestral tone poems, chamber works and many songs.
The Two Fantaisies for Violin and Pianoforte were composed around 1904 to 1907 and were published in the latter year by Schott and Co, Mainz, with the plate numbers 28041 for Fantaisie One in A major and 28042 for Fantaisie Two. The first work was dedicated to the German musician Eduard Scharf, who was an outstanding keyboard teacher at the University Conservatorium of Music at The University of Melbourne.
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G W L Marshall-Hall, Fantaisie No. 2
For violin and pianoforte – Melbourne c. 1905
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA035
ISBN 978-0-9925673-4-7 / ISMN 979-0-9009655-4-7
G W L Marshall-Hall was born in Hyde Park, London in 1862 and died in Melbourne on 18 July 1915. Born into a medical family, Marshall-Hall studied from the age of sixteen at Kings College, London, and then in Montreux in Switzerland. Destined for the civil service, he decided on music as a career. From 1880 he studied in Berlin, before returning to London in 1882 to further study at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Hubert Parry and Frederick Bridge. The then Director of the College, Sir George Grove recognised his talent, and his wide interest in literature and in the history of music. Sir George wrote that Marshall-Hall was a man with an ‘inquiring turn of mind’, and ‘there is some evidence of a temper of no mean order’.
Marshall-Hall was beginning to make a mark for himself as a composer in England, but in 1887 an advertisement appeared for the position of the inaugural Ormond Professor of Music at The University of Melbourne. His application for the position was successful, and he arrived in Melbourne in January 1891 to take up the post. He quickly established a reputation for bohemianism, as a musician who could inspire both students and staff, and as a conductor. Marshall-Hall’s programming in concerts was adventurous and demanding, and his output as a composer ranged from two operas to two symphonies, several orchestral tone poems, chamber works and many songs.
The Two Fantaisies for Violin and Pianoforte were composed around 1904 to 1907 and were published in the latter year by Schott and Co, Mainz, with the plate numbers 28041 for Fantaisie One in A major and 28042 for Fantaisie Two. The second Fantaisie was composed probably in 1905 and dedicated to the German violinist Hugo Heermann, who was a personal friend of Marshall-Hall’s.
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F S Kelly, Elegy – In Memoriam Rupert Brooke
For string orchestra – Gallipoli and Alexandria, 1915
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA036ISBN 978-0-9925673-5-4 / ISMN 979-0-9009655-5-4
Australian F S Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire.
His newly forged friendship with the English poet Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) was to have a special effect on him. Kelly describes in his diaries his meeting Brooke, as they enlisted in 1914 in the Hood Battalion. On the sea voyage to the Dardanelles on the troopship H.M.T. Grantully Castle, Kelly spent some time with Brooke, and was deeply moved when the young poet died of an infection on 23 April 1915, only two days before the landings on what became Anzac Day. Kelly took part in the burial on the island of Skryos.
Devastated by this loss, Kelly wrote the Elegy – in memoriam Rupert Brooke; scored for solo violin, divided string orchestra and harp. He began to conceive the work on the day following Brooke’s death and proceeded to write it whilst recuperating from a wound in Alexandria, Egypt. Kelly in his final diary in late 1915 describes the work as suggesting the rustling of the leaves of the grove of olive trees that stand around Brooke’s lone grave on Skyros.
Kelly was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
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S Pascal Needham, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis
For choir and organ – Melbourne, 1886
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA037
ISBN 978-0-9925673-6-1 / ISMN 979-0-9009655-6-1
Born in Temerton, Devon in 1847, Needham arrived in South Australia of 30 April 1857, aged nine. It is thought that he studied under George Loder (1816-1868), a composer and musician who lived in Adelaide after considerable music making in both Sydney and Melbourne. Needham was an accomplished organist. After marriage in Adelaide in 1869, he became a banker and was the manager of the Union Bank in Fremantle and organist at St John’s Church. It is there where he composed the Cantata Land of the Swan to the text of Francis Hart, which was performed at the Perth International Exhibition in November 1881. For a period he was the music critic for the West Australian newspaper.
In the 1880’s he moved to Melbourne where for a time he was the replacement conductor for the Melbourne Liedertafel, which was under the direction of Julius Hertz. He was also organist at All Saint’s Church in St Kilda. Needham was considered a cultivated man who read widely, and composed and conducted within Melbourne’s community. He composed an opera entitled The Fire King, and several songs there in the 1880’s which were published by Charles Troedel, of the printing firm Troedel and Co, which was founded around 1869. Needham is cited as being a member of the Freemasons Lodge No. 747 in 1887.
His Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis was published by Troedel in 1886 or 1887. Obviously composed for the Choir of St Paul’s Cathedral in Flinders Street, Melbourne it was dedicated to the Right Reverend Field Flowers Goe DD who served as Anglican Bishop of Melbourne from 1887 to 1901.
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P Giorza, Three Anthems for St. Francis Cathedral
For choir with soloists and organ – Melbourne, 1873-4
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA038ISBN
978-0-9925673-7-8 / ISMN 979-0-9009655-7-8
Born in Milan in 1832, Paolo Giorza was one of the interesting number of Italian composers who came to Australia from the Gold Rush period onwards. Giorza studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Milan, and achieved some considerable success with his ballets, the first of which, il Giucatore was premiered at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan in 1853 followed by a season of his second ballet Un Fallo which was staged at La Scala, Milan in the following year. Giorza’s first opera Corrado, Console di Milano was ‘an unmitigated disaster’ at La Scala in 1860.
The composer toured widely with various opera troupes and arrived in Sydney in 1871 with the Agathe States Company, staging Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia to approval from the audiences. From then onwards Giorza stayed in the Colonies and carried out conducting work for the theatrical firm of J C Willamson. In 1873 and 1874 Giorza was the organist and choir director at St Francis Church, Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, which then served as the Roman Catholic Cathedral prior to the building of St Patrick’s Cathedral on Eastern Hill. He composed several pieces for the choir, three of which are the works contained in this volume.
Returning to Sydney Giorza was engaged as the music director of the Sydney International Exhibition where he composed the Cantata to the text of Henry Kendall for the opening of the Exhibition on 17 September 1879. Giorza departed Sydney in 1883, though not before composing his Adieu Waltz, which is dedicated to a prominent Italian family who built up a considerable business in that city. Paolo Giorza lost many of his manuscripts in the fires that followed the San Francisco earthquake and after some years teaching died in Seattle in 1914.
The first two Anthems in this edition are set to the texts of the Salve Regina, and the Hymn Tantum Ergo of St Thomas Aquinas for the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The third is a Christmas Anthem set to the text Welcome our Lord the Hope of Israel. The author of the text remains unknown, but the music is joyful, and in a robust theatrical style. Giorza’s sacred music lies more in the realm of Italian opera than of Victorian period music for the Liturgy.
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G W L Marshall-Hall, ‘Tired Nature’ from Stella
For voice and full orchestra or piano – Melbourne, 1909-10
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA039
ISBN 978-0-9925673-8-5 / ISMN 979-0-9009655-8-5
G W L Marshall-Hall was born in Hyde Park, London in 1862 and died in Melbourne on 18 July 1915. Born into a medical family, Marshall-Hall studied from the age of sixteen at Kings College, London, and then in Montreux in Switzerland. From 1880 he studied in Berlin, before returning to London in 1882 to further study at the Royal College of Music. He was beginning to make a mark for himself as a composer in England, but in 1887 an advertisement appeared for the position of the inaugural Ormond Professor of Music at The University of Melbourne. His application for the position was successful, and he arrived in Melbourne in January 1891 to take up the post. He quickly established a reputation for bohemianism, as a musician who could inspire both students and staff, and as a conductor. Marshall-Hall’s programming in concerts was adventurous and demanding, and his output as a composer ranged from two operas to two symphonies, several orchestral tone poems, chamber works and many songs.
His success was tempered by the publication of a series of provocative poems under the title of Hymns Ancient and Modern, which inflamed the Anglican establishment. Although not devoid of defenders, Marshall-Hall’s tenure as professor was not renewed in 1900. But after a long period of controversy, he was eventually re-appointed as Ormond Professor in July 1914, only one year before his untimely death in 1915.
Marshall-Hall started work composing his opera Stella over a ten week period from September 1909 until 4 February 1910, and he completed the orchestration of the work by 12 May of the same year. It is an opera set in Melbourne, and could be best described as Australian verismo but with a post Wagnerian influence. Some of the orchestration and vocal writing is very beautiful, especially so in the aria Tired Nature which is in this volume. The work is a very dramatic one, and it contains very direct references to the cabals and narrow personalities that beset Marshall-Hall during his time as Ormond Professor and in the following years, by the inclusion of the singing of the Committee of the Social Purity Society. The aria is presented here in both full orchestral score and a vocal score for ready performance.
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G W L Marshall-Hall, ‘How Can I Live’ from Stella
For voice and full orchestra or piano – Melbourne, 1909-10
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA040
ISBN 978-0-9925673-9-2 / ISMN 979-0-9009655-9-2
G W L Marshall-Hall was born in Hyde Park, London in 1862 and died in Melbourne on 18 July 1915. Born into a medical family, Marshall-Hall studied from the age of sixteen at Kings College, London, and then in Montreux in Switzerland. From 1880 he studied in Berlin, before returning to London in 1882 to further study at the Royal College of Music. He was beginning to make a mark for himself as a composer in England, but in 1887 an advertisement appeared for the position of the inaugural Ormond Professor of Music at The University of Melbourne. His application for the position was successful, and he arrived in Melbourne in January 1891 to take up the post. He quickly established a reputation for bohemianism, as a musician who could inspire both students and staff, and as a conductor. Marshall-Hall’s programming in concerts was adventurous and demanding, and his output as a composer ranged from two operas to two symphonies, several orchestral tone poems, chamber works and many songs.
His success was tempered by the publication of a series of provocative poems under the title of Hymns Ancient and Modern, which inflamed the Anglican establishment. Although not devoid of defenders, Marshall-Hall’s tenure as professor was not renewed in 1900. But after a long period of controversy, he was eventually re-appointed as Ormond Professor in July 1914, only one year before his untimely death in 1915.
Marshall-Hall started work composing his opera Stella over a ten week period from September 1909 until 4 February 1910, and he completed the orchestration of the work by 12 May of the same year. It is an opera set in Melbourne, and could be best described as Australian verismo but with a post Wagnerian influence. The work is a very dramatic one, and it contains very direct references to the cabals and narrow personalities that beset Marshall-Hall during his time as Ormond Professor and in the following years, by the inclusion of the singing of the Committee of the Social Purity Society. This aria is sung in deep despair in the final scene, before the heroine Stella commits suicide.
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W J Cavendish, Five Quadrilles and Two Waltzes
For piano – Sydney, 1833
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA041
ISBN 978-0-9925674-0-8 / ISMN 979-0-9009656-0-8
William Joseph Cavendish was born in Kilkenny, Ireland in May 1789 and baptised on 27 May of the same year. Cavendish was born with the German surname of Castell although his father was Peter Castelli. William had a career in London as a violinist, violist, double bass player, organist and pianist. In common with many contemporary musicians Castell was forced to flee to France in 1826 because of unpaid debts. He later migrated to Mauritius where he adopted the pseudo-aristocratic surname of Cavendish de Castell.
The composer arrived in Sydney on the ship Sovereign on 20 January 1833. He may have been accompanied by his ‘sister’ Mary, with whom he lived. The name may be a pseudonym, for as Graeme Skinner in his excellent study of early Australian composers suggests, she was in fact his mistress. According to Skinner and to Ann Beedell, Cavendish was respected in the short time that he was in Sydney as a competent musician, and he was either the founder, or one of the founders of the Cecilian Society, a learned group of amateur musicians who performed music in the Catholic Church Hall near St Mary’s Cathedral. On 26 January 1839 both William and Mary Cavendish were drowned on Sydney Harbour during the annual regatta commemorating the Foundation of Sydney.
The first Australian born composer is Thomas Stubbs, who was born in Sydney in 1802 and died in 1879. However, Cavendish is the first composer resident in Australia whose music has survived. The Five Quadrilles and Two Waltzes survive in a letter written by the composer to presumably his father Mr Castell, 19 Stargate Street, Westminster Bridge, London, and dated Parramatta, Notasia, (meaning Australia), 20 July 1833 and sent via the ship “Edward Lombe”. The dances are entitled Australian, Notasian, Arabian, or Mal[a]gareske quadrilles. Two of the quadrilles have New South Wales titles: Woo-loo-moo-loo and Kurry Jong. Cavendish describes the music as The Fairy Quadrilles asdanced on a Sunbeam by the Elves of the Ocean in the Halls of Beauty at the Coral Palace of the Queen of the Sea. Composed by the Peri of the Purple Wing.
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F S Kelly, Intermezzo
For orchestra – Frankfurt/Oxford, 1906
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA042
ISBN 978-0-9925674-1-5 / ISMN 979-0-9009656-1-5
Australian F S Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant- Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire. He was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
Kelly was born in Sydney on 29 May 1881, into a wealthy Irish family. Thomas Hussey Kelly, father of F S Kelly, was a wool broker and company director and a mining promoter. From 1893 he studied at Eton where he developed a precocious talent in both rowing and piano. From 1903 to 1908 Kelly was a student at Das Hoch’sche Konservatorium at Frankfurt-am-Main where he studied composition under Iwan Knorr – Percy Grainger’s teacher, and piano with Ernst Engesser. Kelly kept a daily diary where he commented on his musical colleagues and activities, as well as his wide circle of acquaintances.
The Intermezzo in C minor for Orchestra was completed on April 3 1906, presumably in Frankfurt-am-Main or whilst Kelly was still at Oxford. It is delicately scored on twenty- five pages of manuscript for double woodwind, pairs of horns, trumpets together with timpani and strings. Like his later Serenade of flute and chamber orchestra of 1911 and written for the Australian flautist John Lemmone, it is a beautiful work, reminiscent of Gabriel Faure. To date it has not been recorded.
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F S Kelly, Quartet
For horn, violin, viola and pianoforte – Frankfurt, 1904
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA043
ISBN 978-0-9925674-2-2 / ISMN 979-0-9009656-2-2
Australian F S Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire. He was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
Kelly was born in Sydney on 29 May 1881, into a wealthy Irish family. Thomas Hussey Kelly, father of F S Kelly, was a wool broker and company director and a mining promoter. From 1893 he studied at Eton where he developed a precocious talent in both rowing and piano. From 1903 to 1908 Kelly was a student at Das Hoch’sche Konservatorium at Frankfurt-am-Main (pictured) where he studied composition under Iwan Knorr – Percy Grainger’s teacher, and piano with Ernst Engesser. Kelly kept a daily diary where he commented on his musical colleagues and activities, as well as his wide circle of acquaintances.
The Quartet in E flat major was completed on 18 November 1904, at his lodgings at Im Sachsenlager 5 in Frankfurt-am-Main, where he was studying composition with Iwan Knorr (right). A short work of only thirty-four bars with several repeats, it is sensitively written for French Horn, Violin, Viola and Pianoforte on only three pages of manuscript. Like his later Intermezzo for Orchestra, composed two years later in 1906, it is a well-constructed chamber piece. I know of no references to the work being performed in Kelly’s diaries. However the young Kelly, aged twenty-three at the time would have taken part in many student performances at the Frankfurt Conservatorium, possibly including this work. Later reviews in London’s The Times of his English concerts are more than favourable on his keyboard technique and his natural musicianship.
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F S Kelly, Serenade Opus 7
For flute, horn, harp and strings – England, 1914
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA044
ISBN 978-0-9925674-3-9 / ISMN 979-0-9009656-3-9
Australian F S Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire. He was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
Kelly was born in Sydney on 29 May 1881, into a wealthy Irish family. Thomas Hussey Kelly, father of F S Kelly, was a wool broker and company director and a mining promoter. From 1893 he studied at Eton where he developed a precocious talent in both rowing and piano. From 1903 to 1908 Kelly was a student at Das Hoch’sche Konservatorium at Frankfurt-am-Main where he studied composition under Iwan Knorr – Percy Grainger’s teacher, and piano with Ernst Engesser. Kelly kept a daily diary where he commented on his musical colleagues and activities, as well as his wide circle of acquaintances.
The genesis of Kelly’s Serenade for solo flute, horn, harp and strings began on a trip to Australia from Egypt on the S.S. Orontes. After visiting his composition teacher Iwan Knorr in Frankfurt in November 1910, Kelly embarked and travelled down the Arabian Gulf before 10 January of the following year. His diary entry of the 13th notes that, after passing Aden he had come to admire the Australian flautist and fellow passenger John Lemmone (1861-1949). The entry on the 23rd of the same month mentions that the composer had begun work on the Menuet of the Serenade, a work that appears to have been inspiredby the playing of Lemmone. The flautist, born in Australia of Greek ancestry, had a distinguished career, often touring with the Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba, a collaboration that saw Lemmone become a close friend and confidante of the diva. Lemmone and Melba are pictured below, ‘on holidays’ at Bilgola, Sydney.
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F S Kelly, Con Moto
For english horn and pianoforte – England
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA046
ISBN 978-0-9925674-5-3 / ISMN 979-0-9009656-5-3
Australian F S Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire. He was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
Kelly was born in Sydney on 29 May 1881, into a wealthy Irish family. Thomas Hussey Kelly, father of F S Kelly, was a wool broker and company director and a mining promoter. From 1893 he studied at Eton where he developed a precocious talent in both rowing and piano. From 1903 to 1908 Kelly was a student at Das Hoch’sche Konservatorium at Frankfurt-am-Main where he studied composition under Iwan Knorr – Percy Grainger’s teacher, and piano with Ernst Engesser. Kelly kept a daily diary where he commented on his musical colleagues and activities, as well as his wide circle of acquaintances.
The oboist Léon Goossens (1897-1988) introduced Kelly’s music to the general public when in 1962 he recorded the final movement, the Jig with a piano accompaniment, from the Serenade Opus 7. This work, was originally composed for solo flute, and dedicated to the Australian flautist John Lemmone. However the short Con Moto for English Horn and Pianoforte is found amongst the sketches held in the National Library of Australia. It is undated and when I am writing, has never been recorded.
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F S Kelly, Trio in B flat
For violin, violoncello and pianoforte – England, 1911
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA047
ISBN 978-0-9925674-6-0 / ISMN 979-0-9009656-6-0
Australian F S Kelly’s brief life uniquely encompassed the highest levels in sport (he won gold for Britain as a rower at the 1908 Olympics) and music (as pianist, composer, conductor and patron). It ended with a hero’s death. Kelly was a Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Naval Division’s Hood Battalion. He was twice at Gallipoli, where he was wounded, receiving the DSC for his bravery under fire. He was killed during one of the last great battles of the Somme at Beucourt-sur-Ancre, on 13 November 1916 when he was shot in the head while taking a machinegun post.
Kelly was born in Sydney on 29 May 1881, into a wealthy Irish family. Thomas Hussey Kelly, father of F S Kelly, was a wool broker and company director and a mining promoter. From 1893 he studied at Eton where he developed a precocious talent in both rowing and piano. From 1903 to 1908 Kelly was a student at Das Hoch’sche Konservatorium at Frankfurt-am-Main where he studied composition under Iwan Knorr – Percy Grainger’s teacher, and piano with Ernst Engesser. Kelly kept a daily diary where he commented on his musical colleagues and activities, as well as his wide circle of acquaintances.
There are mentions of a couple of Trios by Kelly, including one in B minor dated 1911, which is mentioned in his diary note of 17 June 1914, when this Trio was played at Kelly’s sister Mary’s [Masie] home at Bisham Grange Marlow. One of the performers in this particular home event was the composer and violist Frank Bridge, who later taught the young Benjamin Britten. The Trio in B flat major is unusual in that it only contains two movements, the first [Allegro] Legato and the second a Scherzo and Trio in Presto. The Trio is dedicated to the composer’s brother, Thomas Herbert Kelly (1875-1948). The work is in manuscript on nineteen pages of score, including a cover page.
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Henry Backhaus, Two Sacred Duets
For two sopranos and organ – Bendigo, 1860s
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series – MDA048
ISBN 978-0-9925674-7-7 / ISMN 979-0-9009656-7-7
George Henry Backhaus was born in 1811 in Paderborn, then in the German, but Napoleonic administered Kingdom of Westphalia. After early studies in the seminary in Paderborn he was sent to Rome to study for the priesthood. After ordination in August 1836 Backhaus was sent on missionary work to India, but health issues in the tropics caused him to seek a more temperate climate. In 1846 he undertook pastoral duties in Sydney, until he was transferred to Adelaide in the following year to work under Bishop Francis Murphy. Because of the need for priests on the Victorian goldfields, Backhaus elected to go to Bendigo in 1852, then named Sandhurst, where on 2 May of that year he celebrated the first Sunday Mass in the area.
In 1855 Bishop James Goold of Melbourne asked that a substantial church was erected for the area, and Backhaus, who had a particular ability to generate wealth through land dealings, commenced the construction of what became St Kilian’s Church. He also established many schools for the education of local children. He retired from parish duties in 1881 and went to live in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton. But toward his approaching demise, he insisted on returning to Bendigo where he is buried in the churchyard of St Kilian’s Church.
Backhaus was known to have enjoyed and composed music, and these two sacred works set to Latin texts are all that have survived of his composition. With their quiet reminiscences of the music of Mendelssohn, they are gentle reminders of Catholicism in pre-Wilhelmine Germany. The Ave Regina Caelorum is one of the main Marian antiphons. The In Te, Domine speravi (In Thee Lord, have I hoped; let me not be confounded for ever), is the first verse of Psalm 70. This identical text is also placed as the last line in the Te Deum.
MAMU digital books
Martin Paul Maloney
Tempo, Gratia e Misura: A Study of Fabrizia Corosa's Nobilta di Dame (1600)
This volume presents a detailed study of one of the best known dance manuals from renaissance Italy. It deals with social context in courtly life as well as the music and intricate choreography of the dances selected by Caroso.
This book is a revised version of a 1986 Monash Master of Arts thesis now published to initiate a new series of publications and to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music celebrated in 2015.
Although never previously published, this work has circulated among scholars of dance and courtly music in Renaissance Italy and has been frequently cited in the their writings. Accompanying the book is a video reconstructing some of the dances.
MAMU on Monash University Bridges digital repository
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