Classical Composers (H-I)

Pavel Haas (1899-1944), the first-born son of a well-to-do businessman, was born in the Moravian capital of Brno. He enrolled in the Music School of the Philharmonic Society in his early teens, when he also began his first attempts at composition. Drafted into the Austrian army in 1917, he never saw combat and was stationed in his hometown. At the end of the war, he resumed his musical studies at the newly established State Conservatory, where in 1920 he joined the class of Leos Janácek at the Master School. Influenced by Janácek's enthusiasm for Moravian folk songs and by contemporaries of other nationalities, Haas wrote songs, chamber music, and choral and orchestral works. He also wrote incidental music for dramatic productions at the Provincial Theatre in Brno, as well as film scores. (His younger brother Hugo pursued a successful career as a movie actor, first in Czechoslovakia and later in Hollywood, where he managed to emigrate.) Although a well-recognized and well-respected composer, Haas supplemented his income by working in his father's shoe store.

Some of Haas' most important compositions stem from his experience of personal and national tragedy. At the time of his birth, Moravia was part of the Hapsburg Empire. The newly independent Czechoslovakia came into being in October, 1918, after 300 years of Hapsburg oppression. The strongly patriotic Czech hymn of St. Wenceslaus resonated in Haas when the Nazis came to power. Some of the words from the hymn are, "Let us not perish, us and our descendants, Saint Wenceslaus!" The St. Wenceslaus theme emerges from the entire Suite for Oboe and Piano, written in 1939, as well as Haas' unfinished symphony, on which he worked in the ensuing two years. Suite for Oboe and Piano was originally written as a vocal suite, but fear of discovery caused Haas to destroy the provocative text and to replace the voice with oboe. Written between July 18 and October 26, 1939, the work records the composer's reactions to the daily events of the beginning of war.

The first movement moves from the depression over the Nazi occupation and Haas' own entrapment to the balmy effect of the medieval hymn to St. Wenceslaus. In the second movement, the same hymn takes on a fighting spirit as, towards the end, it assumes the rhythm of the Hussite chorale, Yea warriors of the Lord. The Nazi order to ring bells in celebration of a victory sounds defiantly at the end of this movement. The third movement opens with the St. Wenceslaus hymn again providing the thematic material, which develops into an apotheosis of his faith in the final victory of the oppressed nation.

Haas was sent to Terezín in 1941, arriving alone, having formally divorced his wife, saving her; their young daughter; and Hugo's child, now in his wife's care; from a concentration camp. Arriving ill and depressed, the miserable conditions there further affected his severe depressions, resulting in total indifference to the very busy musical life of Terezín. Gideon Klein could not reconcile himself to seeing an artist of Haas' caliber not participating in the musical activities. So, one day, to wake him from his lethargy, Klein put in front of him several sheets of manuscript paper, on which he himself drew the musical staff, and urged Haas to stop wasting time. And indeed, Haas composed several pieces during his stay in Terezín, although only three of them have been preserved. One of them, Study for string orchestra, was immortalized when a performance, in the presence of the composer, was included in the Nazi propaganda film, Der Führer Schenkt den Jüden eine Stadt. (Hitler gives the Jews a Town) Haas died in Auschwitz in October, 1944. Suite for Oboe and Piano. Three audio samples mp3a; mp3b; mp3c from Leonarda CD #LE 342.

Adophus Hailstork (b.1941) received degrees from Howard University, the Manhattan School of Music and Michigan State University. His works have been performed by many leading ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit and Baltimore Symphonies, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Kansas City Lyric Opera and the Boys Choir of Harlem. His awards include the Belwin-Mills Max Winkler Award presented by the Band Director's National Association, the Ernest Bloch Award for choral composition and First Prize by the University of Delaware Festival of Contemporary Music. Dr. Hailstork taught at Norfolk State University in Virginia (1977-2000) and is now Eminent Scholar and Professor of Music at Old Dominion University in Virginia. The Pied Piper of Harlem (solo flute) consists of three movements: Here Come De Piper, (audio sample mp3); Wid A Twinkle In His Eye and . Git On Board (the "A" train) Li'l Chillun. Leonarda CD #LE355.

Geo. F. Handel (1685-1759) (Germany/England) The following works are all on all on  Senza Occhi e Senza Accenti; Scherzano sul Tuo Volto (soprano, bass-baritone, chamber ensemble); Son Come Quel Nocchiero (bass-baritone, small ensemble); No s'emendera Jamas (soprano, guitar, cello, harpsichord); O Fleeting Joys of Paradise (soprano, bass-baritone, baroque organ, cello); Spande Ancor a Mio Dispetto (bass-baritone, strings, continuo), and Se Pari è la Tua Fè (soprano, cello, harpsichord). Leonarda LP #124.

Howard Hanson (1896-1981) was director of the Eastman School of Music from 1924 to 1964. He founded the Institute of American Music of the Eastman School for the publication and dissemination of American music as well as research in the history of 20th-century musical styles. A neo-romantic composer, Hanson wrote many works for large forces in addition to chamber and solo works. Serenade (flute and piano). Audio sample mp3 from Leonarda CD #LE333.

John Harbison (b.1938) is one of America's most prominent composers. Among his principal works are three string quartets, three symphonies, three operas, and the cantata The Flight Into Egypt, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize. Harbison has been Composer-in-Residence with the Pittsburgh Symphony; Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Tanglewood, Marlboro, and Santa Fe Chamber Festivals; and the American Academy in Rome. His music has been performed by many of the world's leading ensembles, and more than thirty of his works have been recorded. Harbison did his undergraduate work at Harvard and earned an MFA from Princeton. Following completion of a junior fellowship at Harvard, he joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1989 and is currently on the faculty of the Aspen Music Festival. Canzonetta (four bassoons). Audio sample mp3 from Leonarda CD #LE348.

Howard Harris (1945-1996) was born in Brooklyn and began his formal musical studies in piano at the age of eleven. From the beginning, however, he played jazz and rock and roll on his own. At the age of twelve, after only a year of formal training, he began composing. A recipient of the Lado Prize, Alexandre Gretchaninoff Memorial Prize and the Abraham Ellstein Memorial Scholarship, he graduated from Juilliard with a B.S. in Music Composition, studying with Elliot Carter, Hall Overton and Roger Sessions. Harris received commissions from numerous modern dance choreographers, among them James Cunningham and Lauren Persichetti, Elizabeth Keen, Linda Tarnay and Reuben Edinger.

Not one to leave any avenue unexplored, he wrote a number of singularly innovative and outrageously above-and-beyond-the-norm musicals: Monsieur de Peauceaugnac (Moliere), The King of the Black-Eyed Peas, Soho Promenade, The Search For the Yeti, The Wind In The Willows and The Toad In The Moon, a musical/opera based on Kenneth Graham's book. Three of these were performed Off-Off Broadway. Harris arranged and performed his composition Frimbo for the Off-Broadway production performed in Grand Central Station, and composed and performed the music for the Actor's Theatre Off-Broadway production of Brecht's Galileo with Laurence Luckinbill. He also performed his music on Channel 13 and at the Whitney Museum.

Harris' music can be heard on RCA, Vee Dee Records, MMC and Broadway Baby Records, the latter which issued the original cast album of his Monsieur de Peauceaugnac. His other music includes ensemble, synthesizer and piano pieces and eight works for orchestra.. Harris died unexpectedly in December, 1996 at the age of 51, just after he finished this orchestration. Musicke for Dauncing Judicially, proving the true observation of time and measure in the Authenticall and laudable use of Dauncing for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra. Audio samples: mp3a; mp3b; mp3c; mp3d; mp3e; mp3f; mp3g. Leonarda CD #LE351.

Mary Harvey (Lady Dering) (1629-1704) (England) studied music at Mrs. Salmon's School, a fashionable English girls' school called where she also learned Latin, French, "all manner of cookery," fancy needle work and dancing. After her marriage at age nineteen, she began lute lessons with Henry Lawes, a composer at the court of Charles I. Three of Lady Dering's songs were included in Lawes' publications of Jacobean lute songs, and although the title page mentions only Henry Lawes as composer, the Lady Dering's name appears on the music itself. When first I saw Fair Dorris' eyes (soprano, lute, bass viola da gamba), audio sample mp3; And is this all, what one poor kisse? (soprano, lute, bass viola da gamba), audio sample mp3; In vain, fair Chloris, you design (soprano, lute, bass viola da gamba), audio sample mp3. Leonarda CD #LE340.

Louise Héritte-Viardot (France) (1841-1919) was the daughter of Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Serenade from "Quartet, Op. 11" (violin, viola; cello, piano), audio sample mp3 from Leonarda double CD #LE353.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1170) (Germany), a unique and extraordinary woman by any century's measure, wrote books on natural science, theology and medicine, as well as the first morality play set to music. She composed a large collection of religious music, Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum (Symphony of the harmony of celestial revelation). Of noble birth, her resources probably helped her to found her own monastery in Germany, and she earned the respect of kings, emperors and churchmen. The title of her collection, "Symphonia," refers, in addition to its more general musical meaning, to the medieval style hurdy-gurdy called a symphonia, used in this performance of 0 Ierusalem. The songs in this collection are in Latin, and, as common with plainsong, were written as a single line of music. This performance includes echoes, counter-melodies and drones inspired by Hildegard's melodies and poetry. In evangelium (soprano, organetto), audio sample mp3; 0 viridissima virga (soprano, psaltery, medieval fiddle) audio sample mp3; O Jerusalem, aurea civitas (soprano, symphonia, medieval fiddle), audio sample mp3. The former three chants are from Leonarda CD #LE340. Kyrie (women's voices in chant), audio sample mp3 ,is from Leonarda double CD #LE353.

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), one of the most learned, skilled, and multi-faceted musicians of the twentieth century, was a violist, author, and an influential teacher as well as an important composer. Born in Germany, he emigrated to the United States in 1940. Hindemith was interested in the interaction between music and people. He composed children's "music plays" and beginning teaching methods for strings and winds, and helped organize the system of musical education in Turkey. Hindemith believed in composing for the enjoyment of amateurs as well as for professional musicians. As head of the music faculty of Yale University, Hindemith exerted a strong influence on music in the United States. His compositions include orchestra masterpieces, choral works, operas, concertos, instrumental solos and sonatas, songs, ballets, film music, and chamber music for diverse combinations of instruments. Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano, audio sample mp3 from Leonarda CD #LE329.

Charles Hoag (b.1931) is professor of music theory and composition at the University of Kansas. He also teaches double bass and has been the conductor of the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra since 1978. Hoag earned his B.M. at Iowa University in 1954 and his M.M. at the University of Redlands the following year. He then served as bassist with the New Orleans Philharmonic before undertaking further musical studies at the University of Iowa where he was awarded his Ph.D. in composition in 1962. From 1963 until 1968, when he assumed his current position at the University of Kansas, Hoag lived in Oklahoma City where he taught at the University of Oklahoma and served as bassist with the Oklahoma City Symphony. His recent honors include grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, International Society of Bassists, University of Kansas, and ASCAP. Inventions on the Summer Solstice (violin, clarinet, and piano). Audio sample mp3 from Leonarda CD #LE326.

Lee Hoiby (b.1926) (USA) studied composition with Gian Carlo Menotti at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He has been a recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships and the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award. Numerous concerts devoted exclusively to his music have taken place, most notably on the American Composer's Series at the Kennedy Center in 1990. His full length operas have been presented by The New York City Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Dallas Opera, and Pacific Opera Victoria, while his one-act operas and two musical monologues have been performed off-Broadway and on tour by Broadway/TV actress Jean Stapleton in the late 80s.

Hoiby's songs are widely performed, notably by soprano Leontyne Price. His setting of the Martin Luther King, Jr. text Free at Last and five Whitman poems were premiered by baritone William Stone and the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, and his What Is the Light was per-formed at the 92nd Street Y by actress Claire Bloom. Mr. Hoiby was composer-in-residence at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. He has also made notable contributions to the choral and instrumental repertoire.The Doe, The Serpent, In the Wand of the Wind, Autumn, and  Winter Song (soprano and piano) were formerly on Leonarda LP #LPI 120. Songs will be released online in the future.

Gustav Holst (1874-1934) began his musical training at home, studying piano with his father. When he developed neuritis, it became apparent he could not expect a solo career, and in 1893 he enrolled at London's Royal College of Music to study composition with Sir Charles Stanford. Holst also learned trombone then and earned a living with his playing. Touring left him insufficient time for his family or composition, however, and eventually he gave up performing. In 1905 he was engaged as music director at St. Paul's Girls' School, a position he was to hold throughout his life. Holst was influenced in his work by his familiarity with Eastern thought and an interest in England's musical heritage, stimulated in part by his association with Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Terzetto (flute, oboe, cello; originally for flute oboe and viola). Audio sample mp3 from Leonarda CD #LE325.

Nora Douglas Holt (1885-1974) was born in Kansas City, Kansas and graduated from Western University at Quindaro, Kansas. She continued her studies at Chicago Musical College. In 1918 she became the first Negro in the U.S. to receive a master's degree in music. Her thesis composition was an orchestral work, Rhapsody on Negro Themes. The following year she co-founded the National Association of Negro Musicians. She went abroad for 12 years, singing at exclusive night clubs and private parties in Paris, Monte Carlo, London, Rome, Tokyo, and Shanghai. On her return to the United States, she finally settled in New York City, where she was music critic for the Amsterdam News from 1943 to 1956 and producer/director of WLIB radio's Concert Showcase from 1953-1964. She composed some 200 works, including orchestral music, chamber music, and songs. When she departed for Europe, she placed all the manuscripts in storage, and on her return, discovered that they had been stolen. Negro Dance is the one piece that survived because it was published in her short-lived journal Music and Poetry (1921). Its style is reminiscent of ragtime, with a generally steady left hand accompaniment and syncopated right hand melody. (solo piano) Negro Dance. Audio sample mp3 from Leonarda CD #LE339.

Katherine Hoover (b. 1937, Elkins, West Virginia) resides in New York, where she maintains an active career as composer, conductor, and flutist. She is the recipient of a National Endowment Composer's Fellowship and many other awards, including an Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Composition. Four of her pieces have won the National Flute Association's Newly Published Music Competition. CDs of her music have been issued on Leonarda, Koch, Delos, Parnassus, Gasparo, Cantilena, Centaur, Bayer, and Boston. Her works are published by Theodore Presser, Carl Fischer, and Papagena Press.

Hoover's tone poem Eleni: A Greek Tragedy, has been performed by 13 orchestras, including the Harrisburg and Fort Worth Symphonies. Her Cello Concerto was performed by Sharon Robinson with the Long Beach (California) Symphony, and her Clarinet Concerto was premiered by Eddie Daniels and the Santa Fe Symphony. Hoover conducted the premiere of her Night Skies, a 25-minute work for large orchestra, with the Harrisburg Symphony.

Deborah Novak chronicled the creation and premiere of Hoover's Dances and Variations in the public television documentary New Music, which won three national awards. The Montclaire and Colorado Quartets; Dorian, Sylvan, and Richards Quintets; and Huntingdon, Verdehr, and Eroica Trios have featured Hoover's works, and The New Jersey Chamber Music Society premiered her Quintet (Da Pacem) for piano and strings at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. Julius Baker, Eugenia Zukerman, Carol Wincenc, and Metropolitan Opera bass John Cheek have also presented her work. Katherine attended the Eastman School of Music. She holds a Masters in Music Theory degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where she taught for years. Her main flute study was with Joseph Mariano and William Kincaid. She has performed and recorded solo and chamber music repertoire and has played with ballet and opera companies in New York.

Hoover Instrumental Works
CD #LE349  
Dances and Variations (flute and harp), audio samples: mp3#1; mp3#2; mp3#3.
Winter Spirits (solo flute), audio sample mp3. 
Divertimento (flute, violin, viola, cello). Audio sample I: mp3. Audio sample II: mp3. 
Reflections (solo flute), audio sample mp3.
Canyon Echoes (flute and guitar), audio samples I: mp3; II: mp3; III: mp3; IV: mp3.

Other CDs
Lyric Trio (flute, cello, piano). Audio sample mp3. CD #LE325
Images (violin, clarinet, piano). Audio sample mp3. CD #LE326
Summer Night (string orchestra with solo flute and horn). Audio sample mp3. CD #LE327
Sinfonia (four bassoons). Samples: Funeral March mp3; Allegro Vivace mp3. CD #LE348

Audio cassette and LP
The Medieval Suite (flute and piano) and Reflections (solo flute) Cassette #LPI 221cs and LP #LPI 121 

Jean Eichelberger Ivey (1923-2010) studied piano at Trinity College and Peabody prior to earning a Masters degree in composition from Eastman and a Doctorate from the University of Toronto. Several major orchestras have performed her music, which has been recorded on CRI, Folkways, and Grenadilla. She has written orchestral, piano, vocal, theater, and electronic music, and was the subject of the NBC documentary "A Woman Is." I would live in your love from "Woman's Love" (voice and piano). Audio sample mp3 from Leonarda CD #LE338.