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Dear List Members

The Museum of Music History in London recently asked me to create a special page devoted to the Austrian composer Julius Bittner (1874-1939) to mark the centenary of the world premiere of his opera Das höllisch Gold (The Hellish Gold) at Darmstadt.

This page has just gone "live" at this link:

http://www.momh.org.uk/exhibitions-detail.php?cat_id=5&prod_id=338&iotm=1

I thought it might interest some of you

In spite of the renewed interest in almost every late romantic composer from the first half of the 20th century, Bittner remains forgotten and unrecorded. Apart from two ancient radio broadcasts of two of his operas in dismal sound and a few of his songs, he has been ignored by the recording industry, in spite of my trying to stimulate interest in his music for the past 35 years.

However, I have another reason for posting this link.

I am trying to locate the Mss of Bittner's unpublished Cello Sonata composed in 1915, which is not amongst his papers deposited in the Vienna City Library. It was performed in Vienna by Friedrich Buxbaum with the composer at the piano, but never published.

The Mss certainly survived the war because Bittner's biographer, Hermann Ulrich refers to it in some detail in his book, written in 1966.

So where is it?

Any suggestions would be gratefully received, thank you.

Kind regards

Brendan Carroll

http://www.richardstoehr.com

Thank you so much for these additional links!

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!

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

And here is the very disappointing reply: the search goes on!


"Dear Mr. Carroll,

Kurt Herold died at 6:15 a.m. at July the 16th 1916 in Elberfeld. In the death certificate there is no more information about the circumstances of his death. In the newspapers I found a death notice which said that he peacefully died after long and severe suffering. Unfortunately we have no further documents concerning Kurt Herold and I couldn't find out if or where you could find his estate.

Sincerely
Imke C. Riechey
________________________________________
Stadtverwaltung Wuppertal
-Stadtarchiv / SB 213.4-
Imke C. Riechey
Friedrich-Engels-Allee 89-91
42285 Wuppertal
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May I make a special plea for VATERLAND by Julius Bittner, composed 1915 and premiered by the Vienna Phil under Weingartner? It received wonderful reviews.

Der Vampir exists as a Mss only at the LOC and you would need permission from the Korngold heirs to obtain a copy. I hear that it may be recorded soon however....I will post when I know more!

I would be profoundly grateful if anyone here knows the email address of the municipal archive in either Elberfeld or Wuppertal wherein Herold's estate was deposited in 1916. Many thanks!

Hello mbhaub! Apologies for delay in reply but I've not visited the forum for a while and mistakenly assumed I would be emailed if anyone replied to my post! Hmmm... Anyway, the short answer is yes! There are some scores by EWK still to be recorded, but as these are unpublished and in manuscript only (preserved in the Library of Congress mostly) it really depends on his publishers and the Korngold estate before a recording can be arranged. Some nuggets to whet your appetite include the eerie incidental music to Hans Mueller's play "Der Vampir" (1922), a Fugue for String Quartet, a number of songs and the first version of the Sextet opus 10 also scored for quartet. Then of course there are the operettas which contain a lot of original music by Korngold! (I have a Youtube channel which has some rare recordings of the operettas at www.youtube.com/brendangcarroll) Naxos is about to release Vol 2 of the complete songs which will hopefully include the remaining unpublished items. Among these is the Kaiserin Zitahymn!(1916) Details on all these can be found in my book of course. Best wishes, BGC.

I assisted with the Chandos recording and also wrote the booklet for it, and well remember the problems encountered with the musical materials supplied by the publisher. Without going into detail, the orchestral parts were in such bad shape (there hadn't been a performance since the early 30s) and the orchestra and Maestro Bamert had to spend a lot of session time making corrections. As a result, there simply wasn't time to record Act 2 - a great pity. The piano version is much shorter than the orchestral score as performed in 1910. In 1913, Korngold (then age 16!) revised the entire score and added more music. The archival materials survive for this fuller version, which was revised again in 1931 for a new production at the Vienna Opera under Clemens Krauss direction. I can tell you that the second act actually has the best music with some themes that are every bit as gorgeous as Korngold's later film themes. I hope one day that it will be recorded and that the score materials can be restored in a new imprint (hint-hint UE!)

I just joined this forum and was delighted to find posts about Bittner because I'm currently writing a book about him and was responsible for the YouTube items mentioned here! I have been trying to get the recording industry interested in making some modern recordings of his work for at least 30 years now but without success. His chamber music is very beautiful, if there are any chamber groups that visit this forum!