MDA009 — Fritz HART, In Memoriam Claude Achille Debussy — For violin & piano
Edited by Richard Divall
Australian Music Series
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.
