Elgar Howarth (4 November 1935 – 13 January 2025) was an English conductor, composer and trumpeter. Grove noted that "his performances are marked by powerful concentration and a clear communication of sometimes complex scores".[1] He conducted many world premieres, including Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre and four operas by Harrison Birtwistle. He composed mainly music for brass instruments and brass bands, some under the pseudonym W. Hogarth Lear.[2] As a player, he was one of the trumpeters who performed with The Beatles on the song "Magical Mystery Tour".
Elgar Howarth | |
|---|---|
 Howarth in 2012 | |
| Born | 4 November 1935 Cannock, Staffordshire, England |
| Died | 13 January 2025 (aged 89) |
| Other names | W. Hogarth Lear |
| Education | |
| Occupations |
|
| Organizations | New Music Manchester |
| Spouse |
Mary Neary
(m. 1958; died 2024) |
| Children | 3 |
Biography
editEarly life and education
editHowarth was born in Cannock, Staffordshire, on 4 November 1935,[3] the son of Oliver and Emma Howarth. His father was an engineer who also conducted the Barton Hall Works Band, in which Elgar played cornet and his brother Stanford trombone.[2]
Hogarth was educated in the 1950s at University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester College of Music (the predecessor of the Royal Northern College of Music), where his fellow classmates included the composers Harrison Birtwistle, David Ellis, Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell Davies and the pianist John Ogdon. Together they formed New Music Manchester, a group dedicated to the performance of new music.[2][4]
Career
editHowarth served in the Central Band of the Royal Air Force and then started his career in the trumpet section of the Royal Opera orchestra conducted by Rudolf Kempe. He followed Kempe to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1963, playing also with the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, the Nash Ensemble and the new London Sinfonietta.[2][4][1] He played the opening bars of Tippett's King Priam at its Coventry premiere in 1962, conducting the whole work years later for English National Opera (ENO).[2][5]
Howarth's (unplanned) conducting debut was with the London Sinfonietta on tour in Italy in 1969.[2] Following further work on the concert platform, Ligeti engaged him for the premiere of his Le Grand Macabre at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm in 1978,[4] as well as in Hamburg and Paris.[1] He later conducted the premieres of four operas by Harrison Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus at the ENO (1986), Yan Tan Tethera for Opera Factory (1986), Gawain at the Royal Opera House (1991) and The Second Mrs Kong at Glyndebourne (1994).[6] He was Principal Guest Conductor of Opera North from 1985 to 1988 where he led the UK premiere of Nielsen's Maskarade in 1990;[1] he served as music advisor to the company from 2002 to 2004. At Glyndebourne (and on tour with the company) he conducted Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Verdi's Falstaff in 1981, Nigel Osborne's The Electrification of the Soviet Union in 1987 and 1988, and Birtwistle's The Second Mrs Kong in 1994 and The Last Supper in 2000 and 2001.[7] He first appeared at the Proms in 1970 in a late-night concert of music by Mike Ratledge of the experimental rock band Soft Machine, Terry Riley and Tim Souster.[2] He performed there 23 times until 1989, conducting several UK and world premieres.[8]
As a composer and former trumpet player, he wrote mainly for brass instruments. Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger premiered several of his works on cornet, including his Cornet Concerto, Canto, and Capriccio.[9] He wrote arrangements such as Carnival of Venice variations for brass ensemble[10] and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition arranged for Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, a group he had both played and conducted. Composer Roy Newsome remarked that "Howarth's masterly rendition of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1979) dwarfed all previous transcriptions".[11]
Howarth maintained his interest in brass band music,[2] and made a huge contribution to their modern repertoire.[12] Many of his works were recorded, most notably by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band[13] and the Eikanger-Bjørsvik band. He commissioned music for brass band from composers such as Birtwistle, Thea Musgrave and Hans Werner Henze.[2] He also was one of the trumpeters who performed with The Beatles on the song "Magical Mystery Tour".[2] Howarth conducted the soundtrack for Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer's film 200 Motels.[2][14]
A number of personal copies of works he conducted (some including annotations) are catalogued[15] at the University of East Anglia's School of Music.[16]
Recordings
editHis discography includes Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire with Cleo Laine and the Nash Ensemble,[17] and the suite from Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale, Dumbarton Oaks and Octet for wind in 1974,[18] works by Brian Ferneyhough with the London Sinfonietta in 1978,[19] Copland's Appalachian Spring and Music for Movies with the London Sinfonietta in 1981,[20] music for brass by Paul Hindemith with the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble in 1981,[21] Birtwistle's Gawain with the orchestra and chorus of the Royal Opera House in 1996,[22] and Bliss with the forces of Opera Australia in 2015.[23]
Personal life and death
editHowarth married Mary Neary in 1958; they had three children. They moved from London to Beccles, Suffolk. She died in 2024.[2] In December 2003, he was revealed to have rejected a CBE.[2][24]
References
edit- ^ a b c d Goodwin, Noel. Elgar Howarth. In: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Macmillan, London and New York, 1997, p.758.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Obituaries, Telegraph (16 January 2025). "Elgar Howarth, trumpeter and conductor who worked with Harrison Birtwistle and The Beatles". The Telegraph. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
- ^ "Elgar und Brahms". Hochschule für Musik Saar (in German). 31 October 2007. Retrieved 13 January 2025 – via lifePR.
- ^ a b c Elgar Howarth. Archived 26 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Royal Academy of Music.
- ^ Clark A. King Priam (review of English National Opera at the London Coliseum). Opera. January 2000. Vol. 51, No. 1. p. 104–107.
- ^ "Elgar Howarth". The National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain. Archived from the original on 3 October 2015. Retrieved 2 October 2015.
- ^ Elgar Howarth in the Glyndebourne Archive accessed 14 January 2025.
- ^ Results for Elgar Howarth in the BBC Proms database accessed 14 January 2025.
- ^ Howarth, Elgar; Hardenberger, Håkan (1999), Fireworks, [England]: Doyen, OCLC 1017852822
- ^ "The Carnival of Venice Variations". BBC. Archived from the original on 7 November 2015. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
- ^ Newsome, Roy (2006). The Modern Brass Band: From the 1930s to the New Millennium. Ashgate Publishing. p. 125. ISBN 9780754607175. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
However, Howarth's masterly rendition of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1979) dwarfed all previous transcriptions.
- ^ Howarth, Elgar; Bousfield, Ian; Childs, Robert; Childs, Nicholas; Eikanger-Bjørsvik musikklag (1997), Howarth, Eikanger Bjorsvik Musikklag, London: Doyen, OCLC 43188907
- ^ Elgar Howarth. Archived 26 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Grimethorpe Colliery Band.
- ^ "200 Motels – Details". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
- ^ Elgar Howarth Scores. University of East Anglia. Archived 7 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ School of Music. Archived 18 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine. University of East Anglia.
- ^ Laine, Cleo; Howarth, Elgar; Hymas, Tony; Schoenberg, Arnold; Ives, Charles; Nash Ensemble (1974), Pierrot lunaire: op. 21, New York: RCA Red Seal, OCLC 2810902
- ^ Stravinsky, Igor; Howarth, Elgar; Nash Ensemble (1998), The soldier's tale concert suite ; Dumbarton Oaks ; Octet (in no linguistic content), [England?]: Classics for pleasure, OCLC 1439952242
- ^ Ferneyhough, Brian; Hurst, Linda; Wearing, Clive; Harrison, Elizabeth; Etheridge, Brian; Howarth, Elgar; Hardy, Rosemary; Hall, Peter; Earle, Roderick; London Sinfonietta (1978), Transit, Londres: Decca, OCLC 761720836
- ^ Copland, Aaron; Horne, Marilyn; Peck, Gregory; Nicklin, Celia; Laird, Michael; Mehta, Zubin; Marriner, Neville; Howarth, Elgar; Davis, Carl; Dorati, Antal; Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra; Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields; London Sinfonietta; Philip Jones Brass Ensemble; English Chamber Orchestra; Detroit Symphony Orchestra (1996), Fanfare for the common man ; Appalachian Spring ; El salón México ; Dance symphony ; Rodeo ; Dances ; Lincoln portrait ; Old American songs ; Music for movies, Decca, OCLC 981483969
- ^ Hindemith, Paul; Howarth, Elgar; Crossley, Paul; Philip Jones Brass Ensemble (1981), Concert music : for strings and brass ; Morgenmusik : for brass ; Concert music : for piano, brass, and harps, London: Argo, OCLC 221603100
- ^ Birtwistle, Harrison; Harsent, David; Naxos Digital Services US (2014), BIRTWISTLE, H.: Gawain [Opera] (M. Angel, A. Howells, F. le Roux, John Tomlinson, Royal Opera House Orchestra, E. Howarth), Hong Kong: Naxos Digital Services US Inc, OCLC 913868213
- ^ Dean, Brett; Holden, Amanda; Quaife, Merlyn; Fiebig, Taryn; Gore, Lorina; Parkin, Jane; La Rocca, Teresa; Nikolic, Milijana; Choo, Henry; Breen, Kanen; Cororan, David; Coleman-Wright, Peter; Ryan, Barry; Lowrencev, Shane; Ede, Malcolm; Howarth, Elgar; Carey, Peter; Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra; Opera Australia Chorus (2015), Bliss, [Australia]: ABC Classics, OCLC 1337384006
- ^ "Honoured? No thanks, say elite of arts and TV". The Independent. 22 December 2003. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
- ^ "Elgar Howarth 1935–2025". The National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain. 14 January 2025. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
- ^ Anderson, Colin (14 January 2025). "Elgar Howarth, 1935 – 2025". Colin's Column. Retrieved 15 January 2025.
External links
edit- Elgar Howarth discography at Discogs
- Elgar Howarth at AllMusic
- Elgar Howarth at IMDb
- Elgar Howarth – Topic, YouTube
- Elgar Howarth at Operabase
- Elgar Howarth discography at MusicBrainz
- W. Hogarth Lear discography at Discogs
