Patrick Arthur Sheldon Hadley (5 March 1899–17 December 1973) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
composerA composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Biography
Patrick Sheldon Hadley was born on 5 March 1899 in
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
. His father, William Sheldon Hadley, was at that time a fellow of
Pembroke CollegePembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college has over seven hundred students and fellows, and is the third oldest college of the university. Physically, it is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its...
. His mother, Edith Jane, was the daughter of the Revd Robert Foster,
chaplainTraditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
to the
Royal Hibernian Military SchoolThe Royal Hibernian Military School was founded in Dublin, Ireland, to educate orphaned children of members of the British armed forces in Ireland.-General:...
in
Dublin.
Patrick studied initially at St Ronan's Preparatory School at
West WorthingWest Worthing can refer to:* West Worthing railway station* Worthing West...
and then at
Winchester CollegeWinchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
. However the First World War interrupted his education. He enlisted in the army and was commissioned as a
second lieutenantSecond lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...
in the
Royal Field ArtilleryThe Royal Field Artillery of the British Army provided artillery support for the British Army. It came into being when the Royal Artillery was divided on 1 July 1899, it was reamalgamated back into the Royal Artillery in 1924....
. He managed to survive unscathed until the last weeks of the war, when he received an injury necessitating the below knee amputation of his right leg. This profoundly damaged his confidence and also caused him to perhaps drink more than was wise; he was in constant pain, for which alcohol provided some relief.
Patrick's elder brother Peyton Sheldon Hadley, a former pupil of
Charterhouse SchoolCharterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...
, who served in the infantry, was also wounded in the closing months of the War. He was invalided home to convalesce, but died of pneumonia that October. A memorial to Peyton is found in the Charterhouse School Chapel.
After the war Patrick went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where by now his father was Master. He was fortunate to study with both
Charles WoodCharles Wood may refer to:*Charles Wood, 2nd Earl of Halifax , British politician and peer*Charles Wood, 3rd Earl of Halifax , British peer*Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax , English politician...
and the undervalued English composer
Cyril RoothamCyril Bradley Rootham was an English composer, educator, organist and important figure in Cambridge music life.-Biography:...
. Hadley was awarded B.Mus. in 1922, and an
MAIn the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin, Bachelors of Arts of these universities are admitted to the degree of Master of Arts or Master in Arts on application after six or seven years' seniority as members of the university .There is no examination or study required for the degree...
in 1925. He then went to the
Royal College of MusicThe Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Here he came under the influence of
Ralph Vaughan WilliamsRalph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
for composition and
Adrian BoultSir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...
and
Malcolm SargentSir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
for conducting. Eric Weatherall notes that Hadley's contemporaries at the RCM included
Constant LambertLeonard Constant Lambert was a British composer and conductor.-Early life:Lambert, the son of Russian-born Australian painter George Lambert, was educated at Christ's Hospital and the Royal College of Music...
and
Gordon JacobGordon Percival Septimus Jacob was an English composer. He is known for his wind instrument composition and his instructional writings.-Life:...
. He won the Sullivan prize for composition: at that time the princely sum of 5/-.
He eventually became a member of the RCM staff in 1925 and taught composition. He became acquainted with
Frederick DeliusFrederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
(see Eric Fenby's account in "Delius as I knew him"), E. J. Moeran, Sir Arnold Bax,
William WaltonSir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
,
Alan RawsthorneAlan Rawsthorne was a British composer. He was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, and is buried in Thaxted churchyard in Essex.-Career:...
, and
Herbert HowellsHerbert Norman Howells CH was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.-Life:...
. In fact his friends are a litany of all that was best in English music at that time.
In 1938 he was elected to a
FellowshipA fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
at Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge and appointed as a lecturer in the music faculty. Much of his time was spent in run of the mill administrative activities, but there was still time available for composition. Some of his greatest works were written during and after the war.
During the Second World War he deputised for
Boris OrdBoris Ord , born Bernhard Ord, was an English organist, composer and musical director best known as the choir master of King's College, Cambridge....
as conductor and musical director of the
Cambridge University Music SocietyThe Cambridge University Musical Society is a federation of the university's main orchestral and choral ensembles, which cumulatively put on a substantial concert season during the university term.-Ensembles:...
. There he introduced a number of important works, including Delius'
Appalachia and
The Song of the High Hills. He was keen to promote a wide range of music, including the formation of a
Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
Society. Much of his time was spent in making arrangements for the use of the "chaps" in the choir. Sadly, few of these have survived. We know them only from programme notes and hearsay. In 1946 he was elected to the Chair of Music at Cambridge University. He retained this post until his retirement in 1962. Some of the students taught by Hadley have gone on to make big names for themselves:
Raymond LeppardRaymond "Def" Leppard, CBE is a British conductor and harpsichordist.He was born in London and grew up in Bath, where he was educated at the City of Bath Boys' School, now known as the Beechen Cliff School...
, Sir David Lumsden, and Peter le Huray.
In 1962 Hadley retired to Heacham in Norfolk. He wished to pursue his interest in
folk songFolk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
collection. However, he latterly struggled with
throat cancerEsophageal cancer is malignancy of the esophagus. There are various subtypes, primarily squamous cell cancer and adenocarcinoma . Squamous cell cancer arises from the cells that line the upper part of the esophagus...
and this caused many of his activities to be suspended. Patrick Hadley died on 17 December 1973 at
King's LynnKing's Lynn is a sea port and market town in the ceremonial county of Norfolk in the East of England. It is situated north of London and west of Norwich. The population of the town is 42,800....
. He was 74 years old.
Music
Patrick Hadley was influenced by the music of
Frederick DeliusFrederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
and also to a certain extent
folk musicFolk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
. But there were other non-musical influences in his life too:
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and
NorfolkNorfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
gave him a profound sense of landscape and location. His output was limited. He found the business of composing quite exhausting. Most people think of Hadley as composer of one or two church anthems:
I Sing of a Maiden"I syng of a mayden" is a Middle English lyric poem or carol of the 15th century celebrating the Annunciation and the Virgin Birth of Jesus...
and the mildly exotic
My Beloved spake. The catalogue shows a wide variety of musical forms: from a symphonic
balladA ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
to incidental music for
Twelfth Night. However, there are no cycles of symphonies,
concertoA concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...
s, or
string quartetA string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s. He maintained throughout his a career a sense of the lyrical. Not for him was the experimental music of the Second Vienna School. He had an exceptional understanding of how to set words to music. Much of his music is meditative and quite inward looking. One is left wishing he had written more music for chamber and orchestral forces. Much of Patrick Hadley's music seems to evoke the English and the Irish landscape. This is sometimes overt and sometimes intangible. However it is always done in a very subtle and beautiful way.
Works
One of Hadley's undoubted masterpieces is his
Symphonic Ballad: The Trees So High. This is a large-scale setting of the folk song of that name for
baritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
,
chorusA choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
, and full
orchestraAn orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
. The work is in four
movementA movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
s and it is only in the last that Hadley deploys the chorus and soloist. It is in this movement that Hadley quotes the folk-song in its entirety.
The Hills was completed in 1944 and is perhaps the finest of Hadley’s
cantataA cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
s, the other two being
Fen and Flood and
Connemara, both dating from the 1950s.
The Hills has strong personal links with the composer’s life, dealing with the meeting, courtship, and marriage of his parents. The landscape described is
DerbyshireDerbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
and this is well reflected in the music. One is reminded, perhaps, of Delius's
Mass of Life.
Perhaps the gentlest introduction to Hadley is his short orchestral work
One Morning in Spring, which was composed to celebrate Ralph Vaughan Williams' seventieth birthday. It is a fine example of an English tone poem.
Perhaps the desideratum is the early orchestral sketch
Kinder Scout. However, this is still in manuscript and it will take an adventurous record company to produce it.
Although Hadley was best of friends with Ralph Vaughan Williams, he never truly bought into the so-called folk song revival. Much of his music has folk characteristics, however not for him the old adage of Constant Lambert: "All you can do with a folk tune is to repeat it—louder!". Hadley's use of the folk idiom was subtle.
Much of the composer's output was connected with the Caius Choir. He did a number of arrangements of works in many different genres, from
VerdiGiuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's
Stabat Mater to
Waltzing Matilda and many distinctive folk song settings.
Patrick "Paddy" Hadley’s music will never be widely popular. However, he will appeal greatly to those interested in British music. If he had only composed the
Symphonic Ballad: The Trees So High and nothing else, he would be respected as a fine composer. As it is, all his works exhibit a great degree of skill, craftsmanship, and sheer musicality.
Editions and recordings
- The trees so high David Wilson-Johnson
David Wilson-Johnson is a British operatic and concert baritone.-Career:David Wilson-Johnson studied Modern and Mediaeval Languages at St Catharine's College, Cambridge...
(baritone), conducted Matthias BamertMatthias Bamert is a Swiss composer and conductor.Matthias Bamert studied music in his native Switzerland as well as in Paris and Darmstadt, falling in with the likes of Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen; these associations can be detected in his own compositions from the 1970's...
. Chandos 1993