Alfred Harborough (1852-1932)

[brendangcarroll]

Alfred Harborough (circa 1925)

Dear Members

Allow me to introduce to you a very forgotten composer indeed. If anyone here knows further details, i would be most grateful to know them. Thank you.
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ALFRED HARBOROUGH ~ A Biographical Sketch by Brendan G Carroll

Alfred Harborough (born near Market Harborough, Leicester, 1852, died Arundel, West Sussex, December 10 1932)

The composer and pianist Alfred Harborough is one of the forgotten figures of English music.

The family name was taken from the small market town near Leicester, although the family moved to Manchester before Alfred's 5th birthday and he spent his formative years there.  He showed aptitude for music from a very young age, although he was a relatively late starter on the piano, beginning formal instruction at the age of 12. He soon made up for lost time and completed his diploma only four years later. As a result he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Music in London at the age of only 16, where he studied with William Sterndale-Bennett and Sir George MacFarren, among others.  He also began to compose at this time and produced a sizeable body of work by the age of 19, including a number of beautiful songs and some colourful solo piano works.

On April 17, 1871, he married Jane Mann, daughter of a prominent Manchester businessman and city councillor and having already graduated from the Royal Academy, he decided to relocate to the prosperous seaside town of Southport in Lancashire, taking up the post of Professor of Music at Wintersdorf School for Young Ladies in Birkdale.

The marriage was to be a long and happy one, producing eight children, and Alfred Harborough lived in some style, first at Tower House, Ainsdale and later in a very large villa, (no doubt to accommodate his rapidly expanding family)  - Waldemere in Gainsborough Road,  Birkdale.

Harborough was made a Professor of the Royal Academy in 1885 and became a distinguished teacher, many of his pupils winning the Academy's Gold Medal for performance.  With a secure income, Alfred Harborough was finally able to devote his spare time to composition.

His first proper published work was the piano fantasy Reverie, composed in 1890 and inspired by the poem "He went in the forest the whole day long" by  the Nobel  Prize-winning Norwegian author and poet, Bjornstjerne Bjornson  (1832-1910) a contemporary of Ibsen. 
Harborough soon began to compose more ambitious works, including the elaborate cantata The Horizon for large orchestra and tenor voice, to words by the Liverpool-born writer James Ashcroft Noble (1844-1896), a neighbour of Harborough's in Birkdale , who was a well-known essayist of the time, frequently contributing, to The Spectator  among other publications. The celebrated  tenor Kingsley Lark gave the first performance of this work at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall with the composer himself conducting (performance date unknown).

In 1900, Harborough's eldest daughter,  Beatrice Ethel, married the heir to the Harrison Shipping Line, thereby transforming the fortunes of the family. Through his extensive and powerful social connections, John Harrison was able to introduce Alfred Harborough to both regional and London society, providing unrivalled opportunities for both commissions, publishing and performance.  Among these connections was with Lady Annette de Trafford (1834-1922), the doyenne of the Northern aristocracy who resided in some splendour at Trafford Park and whose children became Prof Harborough's private pupils. He composed the charming polka "La Fontaine" for her in gratitude for her patronage.
   
As the new century began, Harborough began work on his most ambitious composition, the dramatic symphonic cantata "Crossing the Bar"  for full chorus and orchestra, to words by Alfred Lord Tennyson, which he dedicated to HM Queen Alexandra. It was published in 1909.

Dividing his time between London and Southport, Harborough became actively involved in the British Music Society (not to be confused with the later organisation of the same name, founded in 1979). It was based at Berners Street in London, W1 and Harborough enjoyed the friendly support of its director Dr Arthur Eaglefield Hull (1876-1928) a writer and noted critic of the time, who was also a composer and organist. Hull wrote an important biography of Scriabin and coined the phrase "mystic chord" in relation to his work. The two men shared an interest in religious music and like Hull, Harborough was a proficient organist. Indeed, in spite of his busy and itinerant life, he had been organist of St Joseph's Church in Birkdale since 1876, a post he would diligently hold for some 48 years.

As he grew older, Harborough turned more to religious themes, especially following  the trauma of the Great War. He was also fascinated with mysticism and clairvoyance and purported to be able to read the crystal and have the gift of second sight. In 1921, Jane Harborough, his devoted wife of fifty years, suddenly fell mortally ill with cancer. It was a bitter blow, just as they were about to celebrate their Golden Wedding anniversary. She succumbed in 1922, at the family home in Birkdale.

Within a year, Alfred Harborough remarried, to a young pupil named Mary Webster . She was 24 and he 70, and a year later, the marriage was blessed with a child, a daughter named Muriel. Harborough converted to the Roman Catholic faith upon marrying Mary and so began his final creative period, during which he would compose a large number of works for the Catholic Church. In 1925, he accepted a post as organist and master of the music for the Duke of Norfolk (the premier Catholic Earl in England) at Arundel, and he and his new family moved there.

Among the most significant compositions of this time is a striking choral Te Deum written especially for the Duke of Norfolk's 21st birthday in 1929.   

Alfred Harborough died on December 10th, 1932 aged 80. His second wife Mary lived on until 1974. Regrettably, none of his works are in print or recorded and much about his life is still unknown, requiring considerable further research.  Undoubtedly, he was one of the most colourful figures in English music during this period, who nevertheless perhaps never quite attained his full potential.

BRENDAN G CARROLL - Copyright 2014

[giles.enders]

Have you any idea where the manuscripts of his works are.  If some of his works were published there is a chance that they will have survived.  A quick google only produced one song 'Crossing the Bar, with words by Tennyson.  (I think the family may be a little shocked at what happened to the Trafford Park Estate)

[brendangcarroll]

Giles - I have no idea of the current wherabouts of the Mss although Amazon curiously lists a number of published but regrettably out of print works. "Crossing the Bar" isn't a song but a secular oratorio. Thanks for your interest!

[eschiss1]

Worldcat seems to think that there's a Te Deum and Ave Verum of his out there somewhere too.

[Wheesht]

The Music Department at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin has A Ballade [sic] of Autumn "We built a castle in the air" for voice and piano in its card catalog, published Mayence: B. Schott, text in English and German (no date).

[brendangcarroll]

Thank you so much for these additional links!