H. Balfour Gardiner facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
H. Balfour Gardiner
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Henry Balfour Gardiner
7 November 1877 Kensington, England
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| Died | 28 June 1950 (aged 72) Salisbury, England
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| Relatives | Alan Gardiner (brother) |
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Henry Balfour Gardiner (born November 7, 1877 – died June 28, 1950) was a talented British musician. He was a composer and a teacher.
Balfour Gardiner was born in Kensington, London. He started playing music when he was just 5 years old. By the age of 9, he was already composing his own music! He studied piano at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany. There, he learned from famous teachers like Iwan Knorr. He was part of a group of composers called the Frankfurt Group. They all studied music together in the late 1890s.
Gardiner also collected folk songs in Hampshire, England. He taught music for a short time at Winchester College. He wrote many different types of music, including two symphonies. Sadly, many of his musical pieces are now lost.
Contents
Famous Musical Works
Evening Hymn: A Choral Classic
Gardiner's most famous work is called Evening Hymn. He wrote it in 1908. This piece is for a choir with eight parts and an organ. It has a rich, romantic sound.
Evening Hymn is a very popular piece in English choral music. It is still often performed in churches today.
Other Surviving Pieces
While Evening Hymn is well-known, Gardiner also wrote other great pieces. These include:
- Overture to a Comedy (1906, revised 1911)
- Shepherd Fennell's Dance (1911) – This piece was very popular at the Proms concerts. It was played many times between 1911 and 1951.
- A Berkshire Idyll (1913) – This piece sounds a bit like the music of Frederick Delius.
Gardiner also wrote several short piano pieces and songs. There is also a one-movement String Quartet in B-flat major. It was composed in 1905.
Supporting Other Composers
Perhaps Gardiner's most important work was helping other British composers. He used his own money to put on concerts in London in 1912 and 1913. These concerts showed off the music of many new composers. Some of these included:
- Arnold Bax
- Gustav Holst
- Percy Grainger
- Roger Quilter
- Cyril Scott
- Norman O'Neill
Gardiner was very generous. For example, he paid for a special performance of Gustav Holst's famous work, The Planets, in 1918. He also bought the house of composer Frederick Delius so Delius could continue living there.
Later Life and Legacy
Gardiner stopped composing music around 1925. He was very hard on himself and probably destroyed much of his own music. After that, he focused on planting trees on his pig farm in Dorset. This was a new and important project at the time.
Henry Balfour Gardiner passed away in 1950 after having a stroke. His great-nephew is Sir John Eliot Gardiner, who is also a famous conductor.
See also
- Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner (Egyptologist), his brother
