London Born Composers of Classical Music.
I compiled this list over some time, wondering if any had blue plaques where they were born. Of the many composers born in London, I can only find only one who is not 'Unsung', Arthur Sullivan. I have included 'Greater London' and in Arthur Hinton's case gone as far as Beckenham.
There is also a posting for Birmingham composers
Richard Stewart Addinsell 1904-1977 Bloomsbury
Emanuel Abraham Aguilar 1824 - 1904 Clapham, London
Thomas Augustine Arne 28.5.1710- 5.3.1778 Covent Garden
Michael Arne 1740-1786 Covent Garden
Richard Anthony Sayer Arnell 1917-2009 Hampstead
Samuel Arnold 1740-1802 London
Ernest John Austin 1874-1947 London
Frederick William Austin 1872-1952 Hammersmith
Thomas Attwood 1765-1838 London
Edgar Leslie Bainton 1880-1956 Hackney
Henry Charles Banister 1831-1897
Arthur Barclay (Jones) he discarded his surname 1869-1943 London
Granville Ransome Bantock 1868-1946 London
Alfred Henry Barley 1872- 1941 Stoke Newington, London
Ethel Barns 1874-1948 Islington, London
John Francis Barnett 16.10.1837- 24.11.1916 London
Arnold Edward Trevor Bax 1883-1953 Streatham
Sydney Baynes 1879-1938 London
Herbert Bedford 1867-1945 London
Francesco Berger 1834-1923 London
Henry Rowley Bishop 1786-1885 Finchley
Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss 1892-1975 Barnes
Edwin York Bowen 1884-1961 Crouch End, Hornsey
Kathleen Bruckshaw 1877-1921 Islington (Catherine Mary Bruckshaw)
Percy Carter Buck 1871-1947 West Ham
Herbert Bunning 1863-1937 London
Thomas Busby 1755-1838 Westminster, London
Alan Dudley Bush 1900-1995 Dulwich
Geoffrey Bush 1920-1998 Willesden
William Busch 1901-1945 London
George Sainton Kaye Butterworth London 1885-1916
James Calkin 1786-1862 London
John Babtiste Calkin 16.3.1827 - 15.3.1905
Alfred Cellier 1844-1891 Hackney
Edmund Thomas Chipp 25.12.1823 - 17.12.1886
Julian Seymour Clifford 1877-1921 London
Avril Coleridge-Taylor 1903-1998 South Norwood
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor 1875-1912 Bloomsbury
Lawrence Arthur Collingwood 1887-1982 London
Frederick Corder 1852-1932 Hackney
Paul Walford Corder 1879-1922 London
Claudius H Couldery 1842-1930 Lewisham
Edric Cundell 1893-1961 Kentish Town, London ( full name Henry Edric Arnold Griffenhagen Cundell)
William George Cusins 14.10.1833 - 31.10.1893 London
Benjamin James Dale 1885-1943 Holloway
Harold Edwin Darke 1888-1976 London
Norman Demuth 1898-1968 Croydon
Thomas Frederick Dunhill 1877-1946 Hampstead
Thomas Saunders Dupuis 1733- 17.6.1796 London
Katharine Eggar 1874-1961 St.Pancras, London
Ernest Bristow Farrer 1885-1918 Lewisham
Myles Birket Foster 1851-1922
Peter Racine Fricker 1920-1990 Wood Green
Henry Robert Gadsby 1842-1907 Hackney
Henry Balfour Gardiner 1877-1950 London
Claude Gascoigne 1884-19? Leyton, Essex, now Greater London
Guillaume Ignace Gibsone 1826-1897 London
Eugene Goosens III 1893-1962 London
John D H Greenwood 1889-1975 Kensington
Annie Grimson 15,5.1870-9.10.1949 Pimlico
John William Harmston 1823- 26.8.1881
Clement Harris 1871-1897 Wimbledon
Fritz Hart 1874-1949 Deptford
Charles Henry Welton Hickin 16.9.1876 - 3.5.1934 Lambeth, London
Arthur Hinton 1869-1941 Beckenham
Joseph Holbrooke 1878-1958 Croydon
Charles Horsley 1822-1876 London
William Horsley 1774-1858 Kensington
William Yeates Hurlstone 1876-1906 West Brompton, Kensington
Frank Idle 1866-1944
Arthur Herbert Jackson 1852-1881
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob 1895-1984 Norwood, South London
Arthur Barclay Jones 1869-1943
Oliver Arthur King 1855-1923
Bluebell Klean 1875-1950 Bloomsbury
Isidore de Lara (Coehn) 1858-1935 London
Leonard Constant Lambert 1905-1951 Fulham
Walter Leigh 1905-1942 Wimbledon
Henry David Leslie 1822-1896 London
Henry Charles Litolff 1818-1891 Marylebone
George MacFarren 1813-1887 Westminster
Walter MacFarren 1826-1905 Westminster
George William Marshall Hall 1862-1915 London
John Henry Maunder 1858-1920 Chelsea
Tobias Matthay 1858-1945 London
Joseph Mazzinghi 1765-1844 London
Percy Hilder Miles 1878-1922 Erith, Bexley Greater London
Lionel John Alexander Monckton 1861-1924 London
Elizabeth Mounsey 1819-1905 Hoxton
Thomas Molleson Mudie 1808-1866 London
Herbert Murrill 1909-1952 Tooting
Henry Cotter Nixon 1842-1907 London
Norman O'Neill 1875-1934 Kensington
Montague Phillips 1885-1969 Tottenham
Percy Pitt 1870-1932 London
Cipriani Potter 1792-1871 Paddington, London (Philip Cipriani Hambly Potter)
Oliviera Louisa Prescott 1842-1919 London
Percy Reeve 1855-1897
Leopold Joseph Roeckel 11.4.1838 - 1923
Walter Rothwell 1872-1927 London
Albert Edward Sammons 1886-1957 London
Frances Ethel Scarborough 10.1.1880- 9.12.1956 Crouch End, London
William Shakespeare 1849-1931 Croydon (John William Thomas Shakespeare)
Alice Mary Smith 1839-1884 London
Ethel Mary Smythe 1858-1944 London
Kaikhosru Sorabji 1892-1988 Chingford
Joseph William Speaight 1868-1947 Haggerston, London
John Stainer 1840-1901 London
Charles Edward Stephens 1821-1892
Morton Stephenson 1884- 19XX London
Reginald Steggall 1867-1938 London
Charles Edward Stephens 1821-1892 London
Elizabeth Stirling 1819-1895 Greenwich
Stephen Storace 1862-1796 Marylebone
Arthur Seymour Sullivan 1842-1900 Lambeth
Edith Mary Swepstone 1862-1942 Stepney
Michael Kemp Tippett 1905-1998 London
Frank E Tours 1877- London
Charles Abraham Trew 1854-1929 Marylebone. London
Simon Waley Waley 1827-1875 Stockwell
Thomas Attwood Walmisley 1814-1856
Ivor Walsworth 1909-1978 London
Richard Henry Walthew 1872-1951 London
John Charles Ward 1835 - 1919 Clapton, London
Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) 1894-1930
John Fane, Earl of Westmoreland 1784-1859
Dora White 18xx - 19xx London
Felix White 1884- 1945 London
John Jesse White 1833-1916 Bermondsey
Healy Willan 1880-1968 Balham, London
Philip Hamilton Williams 1873-19? Highbury, London
Thomas Wingham 1846-1893 London
Ralph Walter Wood 1902-1957 Tottenham
Plus an honorary mention Of George Grove 1829-1900 Clapham
North London doesn't come off best quality compared with South of the River!
+Percy Hilder Miles (born Erith, Bexley, 1878, died 1922).
(Wikipedia apparently considers Barnes a suburb of London, but I don't know the area - I do wonder about considering Bliss and Bax unsung. Less sung, but they did serve as Masters of the Royal Music (then again, so have Williamson and Maxwell Davies. Well- on the third foot, it suggests some local temporary notoriety will follow. Hrm. Dunno. And Addinsell is known for a piece if not for himself. Well.. hrm. ...)
And on the other hand, Sullivan is fairly unsung, apart from the Savoy operas, and a lot of people who know those wouldn't know the composer's first name (nor whether he was Gilbert or Sullivan)
I have included in this list ALL the composers I can find, sung and unsung and included those with dates which would not normally feature on this forum, like wise by 'London', I have used the term with a little license. The list demonstrates that if you wanted your child to be a famous composer, London was not the best place to be born. There were a number of others who had composed Operas and Overtures for example, who were so obscure that I omitted them.
Quote from: giles.enders on Wednesday 20 June 2012, 11:48To conclude - London must have the record for Unsung Composers
Considering that, at the time of the birth of these composers, London was the largest city in the world, I suppose, by the law of averages, it's hardly surprising.
Can we add William Hurlstone, born in Kensington in 1876?
Can't think why I missed Hurlstone. He is on my list and I have even visited the house. When I was researching him in 2006, I went to look at the house which happened to be for sale so I posed as a potential buyer and had a tour. How is that for good timing?
(Hurlstone, he edits in. It's ok, Mr. Miles, some of us remember you, even if your three published works are, I admit, maybe promising - well, I like the string sextet.)
+
John William Harmston (born 1823).
Albert Sammons (violinist and teacher primarily, true) also composed, including an enjoyable and not at all tossed-off string quartet, and was born in London. Another for the list...
Not only Alice Smith but Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (1858-1944) too was born in London.
I'm dumbfounded as to why there has been no mention of Henry Robert Gadsby (1842-1907), born in Hackney ...
>:( ;)
... and I suppose that we should also include Granville Bantock (1868-1946) as he was yet another born in London.
;D
I'm surprised, given the size of our capital, that there weren't/aren't more.... After all, the population's about the same size as that of Austria. Wonder who'd win that competition?
Quote from: Alan Howe on Saturday 23 June 2012, 18:01I'm surprised, given the size of our capital, that there weren't/aren't more
There
were/ are more - many, many more!
Quote from: giles.enders on Friday 22 June 2012, 12:49There were a number of others who had composed Operas and Overtures for example, who were so obscure that I omitted them.
If you trawl through Brown and Stratton's
British Musical Biography (1897) they soon come out of the woodwork.
:)
Wonder how many of them belong in the woodwork, though? ;)
Referring to Giles's initial "wondering if any [of these London-born composers] had blue plaques where they were born", Samuel Coleridge-Taylor has a blue plaque although it's not where he was born but at 30 Dagnall Park, Selhurst, where he lived between 1900 and 1902. I can't imagine that any of the others has one, although I'd be glad to be proved wrong. The prime candidate, one might have thought, was Sullivan but Bolwell Terrace where he was born has long long since been demolished and the mansion block in Victoria Street in which he lived for many years disappeared in the 1960s to be replaced by a revolting and brutal concrete horror.
I know this isn't our era, but one decidedly sung composer, Henry Purcell, was born in Westminster. But for myself, having been born in the English countryside, I am biased enough to suppose that many of our best composers were also rural in birth, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Britten...
I'm still pretty well unsung and I was born in the old London Borough of Battersea, now part of Wandsworth. Maybe, as an amateur, I don't count.
No, you count, John. Chalk 'im up!
There is unsung and unheard of. My list was of those who were deceased. There were many others like the Opera composer who was born in Tottenham (can any one guess)Who I omitted because they were just too obscure. Coleridge-Taylor was born in Theobolds Road, Bloomsbury but not only has the entire street been renumbered since then but where the house stood is now the middle of the road.
I will happily update the original list after two months and include only those who are deceased. Living composers should join The British Music Society and obtain publicity that way.
Now who is going to list those who died in London. There are plenty of memorials to search out. Hurlstone has a street named after him and is buried in Croydon cemetery, Clementi is in Westminster Abbey and Medtner is in Hendon cemetery.
Oh yes, there were far more who came to London and never left, including foreigners and the foreign-born like Weber and Handel.
Whilst I see the logic of excluding living composers from a list of those who died in London, I can't see any for excluding them from a list of composers born in London. [It's hardly like Nearly Headless Nick trying to join the Headless Hunt.]
Sir Michael Tippett might count as a 'sung' London-born composer
How about a list of composers who were conceived in London?
;) ;D
I need hardly remind you that three eminent and distinguished composers were born in Northampton:
Edmund Rubbra(1901)
William Alwyn(1905)
Sir Malcolm Arnold(1921)
Given its size I think Northampton should win a prize ;D
Arnold alone is more than what's required for Northampton to get a prize.
Seconded!
:)
The Northampton composers are 'sung' what about the unsungs from there?
Enough already! This thread is resolutely about London-born composers!
Quite! Northampton can take care of itself. I put the London list up in the hope that it would induce people, not just from our forum but any one researching 'London' to explore the unsungs. These things get picked up by search engines.
Coach tour, anyone?
Anyone else heard of Dennis (Gray) Stoll, 1912-1987? Born in Wandsworth. I met him while in hospital in Maidstone in 1978; he gave me a tape of some "Egyptian temple dancing music" he had written for a dance troupe, which I could upload? He was noticed in America in the 1940s and I believe he was also a writer.
The dance music is for wind and strings and does, rather, go on a bit.
Perhaps too obscure for the London list. :(
Did someone put him in hospital because of his music?
An hospital for sick music? There wouldn't be many empty beds. :)
Although almost all historical publications give the birthplace of John William Harmston as London, it is almost certain that he was actually born in Lincoln - see www.jwharmston.com (http://www.jwharmston.com)
Wikipedia lists also(? apologies- will try to remove duplicates soon) the following composers born in London:
Humphrey John Stewart (American, 1856-1932, but born in London. Wrote several oratorios and operas, etc.)
David Braham ("The American Offenbach", but born in Middlesex, "then a prosperous neighborhood in the East End of London.") 1834-1905. Mostly composed ballads, show tunes, etc. so maybe not for this list - though worth knowing about, I believe. A lot of his stuff scanned in by LoC; I'd never heard of him before last year, though.
A few more later if I may - lots to do...
London was historically in the County of Middlesex, now what was Middlesex has been absorbed into Greater London. I will amend the list soon as I have a few more composers to add.