Fritz Hart

Fritz Bennicke Hart (11 February 1874 – 9 July 1949) was an English composer, conductor, teacher and unpublished novelist, who spent considerable periods in Australia and Hawaii.

Early life Hart was born in Brockley, originally in the English county of Kent but now part of the London Borough of Lewisham, the eldest child of Frederick Robinson Hart and his wife Jemima (Jemmima) Waters, née Bennicke. Both his parents were musical. From the age of six, Fritz sang in the parish choir his father ran, and his mother was a piano teacher. He spent three years as a chorister at Westminster Abbey, under Sir Frederick Bridge, and then went to the Royal College of Music in 1893, where he became acquainted with Gustav Holst, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, William Hurlstone, Ralph Vaughan Williams and John Ireland.

He became one of Holst's closest friends, and they frequently collaborated. Holst set several of Hart's poems to music as songs or part-songs, and Hart wrote librettos for Holst's early operatic works.

Hart toured with a theatre company, during which time he wrote incidental music for Julius Caesar. He also wrote music for Romeo and Juliet, which he conducted himself. He then worked for various touring companies, which gave him exposure to operettas, musical comedy, dramatic incidental music and opera. He married in 1904, and his first child was born the following year. The initial contract for 12 months was extended to four years. In 1913 Hart and Alfred Hill founded the short-lived Australian Opera League. The first programme, on 3 August 1914, included the first performance of Hart's opera Pierrette. Hart was highly regarded as a teacher, his pupils including Peggy Glanville-Hicks, Margaret Sutherland, Hubert Clifford and Robert Hughes.

After 1937 Hart returned to Melbourne only once, for the jubilee of the Albert Street conservatorium in July 1945 when he conducted several of his works. The National Library of Australia has another portrait, by A. D. Colquhoun.

Hawaii In December 1931 Hart was invited to be guest conductor of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. He returned annually, remaining there from December to April. The concert season in Hawaii was short, and occurred during the Australian summer when he was not required in Melbourne, so he was able to work for both orchestras.

Hart's wife died in 1935 and in September 1937 he married an American, Marvel Allison. In 1937 he became permanent conductor of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and first professor of music at the University of Hawaii, a position he retained until his retirement in 1942. He remained conductor of the Symphony Orchestra until his death. There are also 14 other orchestral works and numerous chamber and solo instrumental pieces, including two string quartets and three violin sonatas, transcriptions and arrangements.

Selected operas: The Land of Heart's Desire (1914) Riders to the Sea (1915) Deirdre of the Sorrows (1916) Ruth and Naomi (1917, Melbourne) Malvolio (1918, Melbourne) The Fantasticks (1919, Melbourne) Deirdre in Exile (1926, Melbourne) The Woman who Laughed at Faery (1929, Melbourne) St George and the Dragon (1931, Melbourne) Even Unto Bethlehem (1943, Honolulu).

Choral works: New Year's Eve Salve Caput Cruentatum (1925) O Gloriosa Domina (1925) Natural Magic Joll's Credo (1934). Source: Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

Writing In his student days at the Royal College of Music, Hart wrote verse, some of which was set to music by Gustav Holst (the unpublished operas The Revoke (1895) and The Idea (1898); partsong Light leaves whisper (1896), and children's chorus Clouds o'er the summer sky (1898)).

In Melbourne, his volume of verse Appassionata: Songs of Youth and Love was published by Lothian Press. While in Hawaii he wrote 23 novels, none of which were published.