Adolph Hallis (4 July 1896 – 1987) was a South African pianist, composer and teacher.

Life

Hallis was born in

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha ( , ), formerly named Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipal ...

Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...

and travelled to England in his twenties, where he studied at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...

; his teachers there included

Tobias Matthay Tobias Augustus Matthay (19 February 185815 December 1945) was an English pianist, teacher, and composer. Biography Matthay was born in Clapham, Surrey, in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and eventually became naturalised Brit ...

and

Oscar Beringer Oscar Beringer (14 July 1844 – 21 February 1922) was an English pianist and teacher of German descent. Beringer was born in Furtwangen im Schwarzwald, Furtwangen in the Black Forest, but by 1849 he had moved to London when his father becam ...

. He made his debut at the

Wigmore Hall The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...

in 1919, and after a wide-ranging European career settled back in South Africa in 1939, where he became a teacher at the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...

. He died in South Africa in 1987.

Career

During his career Hallis premiered numerous works, including

piano concerto A piano concerto, a type of concerto, is a solo composition in the classical music genre which is composed for piano accompanied by an orchestra or other large ensemble. Piano concertos are typically virtuosic showpieces which require an advance ...

s by

Alan Rawsthorne Alan Rawsthorne (2 May 1905 – 24 July 1971) was a British composer. He was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, and is buried in Thaxted churchyard in Essex. Early years Alan Rawsthorne was born in Deardengate House, Haslingden, Lancashire, to ...

and

Erik Chisholm Erik William Chisholm (4 January 1904 – 8 June 1965) was a Scottish composer, pianist, organist and conductor sometimes known as "Scotland's forgotten composer". According to his biographer, Chisholm "was the first composer to absorb Celtic ...

. He gave the first British performance of

Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded as a major composer. Shostak ...

's First Piano Concerto in Birmingham in 1936. Although

Arnold Cooke Arnold Atkinson Cooke (4 November 1906 – 13 August 2005) was a British composer, a pupil of Paul Hindemith. He wrote a considerable amount of chamber music, including five string quartets and many instrumental sonatas, much of which is only n ...

's Piano Concerto (1939/'40) was written for Hallis, the outbreak of WWII prevented him giving its première, which was given instead by Louis Kentner with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Clarence Raybould in 1943 in a studio broadcast for the BBC's Third Programme. In 1938 he made, for

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis after his acquisition of a gramophone manufacturer, The Decca Gramophone Company. It set up an American subsidiary under the Decca name, which bec ...

, the first complete recording of the piano Préludes of

Claude Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

. With

Sophie Wyss Sophie Adele Wyss (5 July 189725 December 1983) was a Swiss soprano who made her career as a concert singer and broadcaster in the UK. She was noted for her performances of French works, many of them new to Britain, for giving the world premieres ...

Christian Darnton Philip Christian Darnton (born Philip Christian von Schunck; 30 October 1905 – 14 April 1981), also known as Baron von Schunck, was a British composer and writer. Amongst his admirers was Vaughn Williams. Early life and family He was born in ...

and

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, o ...

he formed the Hallis Concert Society, which gave a number of innovative concerts in London in the period 1936–1939. These included British premieres of both contemporary and historical British and European music, including works of

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526 – 2 February 1594) was an Italian composer of late Renaissance music. The central representative of the Roman School, with Orlande de Lassus and Tomás Luis de V ...

François Couperin François Couperin (; 10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque music, Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as ''Couperin le Grand'' ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musi ...

Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...

Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...

Elisabeth Lutyens Agnes Elisabeth Lutyens, CBE (9 July 190614 April 1983) was an English composer. Early life and education Elisabeth Lutyens was born in London on 9 July 1906. She was one of the five children of Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964), a me ...

and

Elizabeth Maconchy Dame Elizabeth Violet Maconchy LeFanu (; 19 March 1907 – 11 November 1994) was an English-Irish composer. She is considered to be one of the finest composers Great Britain and Ireland have produced. Biography Elizabeth Violet Maconchy was b ...

. Amongst Hallis's compositions were

film music A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

, (sometimes under the pseudonym of "Hal Dolphe"), including music for two films of

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

, ''

Rich and Strange ''Rich and Strange'', released in the United States as ''East of Shanghai'', is a 1931 British romance film directed by Alfred Hitchcock during his time in the British film industry. The film was adapted by Hitchcock, his wife Alma Reville, and ...

'' (1931) and ''

Number Seventeen ''Number Seventeen'' is a 1932 British Comedy film, comedy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring John Stuart (actor), John Stuart, Anne Grey and Leon M. Lion. The film, which is based on the 1925 burlesque stage play ''Number ...

'' (1932). His other works include a piano concerto and various piano pieces. His students included many South African keyboard players of the postwar generations, amongst them Michael Blake, Norman Olsfanger winner of first SABC piano competition SAMRO Prize, Marcelle Mierowsky, Neville Dove, Marian Friedman,

Paul Hepker Paul Hepker (born in Harare, Zimbabwe on 17 December 1967) is a South African composer, musical director, pianist, best known for composing the score (with Mark Kilian) for the film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film ...

Petronel Malan Petronel Malan, born in Pretoria, South Africa is a South African concert pianist based in the United States. Triple Grammy-nominated South African pianist Petronel Malan is an exclusive recording artist for the internationally recognized label ...

, Anton Nel,

Elizabeth de la Porte Elizabeth de la Porte FRCM (15 September 1941 – 9 April 2020) was a South African harpsichordist, Baroque tutor and pianist. She was renowned for bringing to her performances a rhythmic drive and excitement while allowing the instrument to sin ...

, Renee Reznek, and Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph.Ferreira (n.d.)

References

;Notes ; Sources * Ferreira, Riëtte (n.d.).
Zaidel-Rudolph, Jeanne
, in

Oxford Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and th ...

, accessed 13 June 2014. * Mears, Caroline (n.d.).
Hallis, Adolph
, in

, accessed 10 June 2014. * Plant, Andrew,
Darnton, (Philip) Christian
, in

, accessed 10 June 2014. * Siek, Stephen (2011). ''England's Piano Sage: The Life and Teachings of Tobias Matthay.'' Washington: Scarecrow Press. . * Sloan, Joan E. (ed.) (1995). ''Alfred Hitchcock: A Filmography and Bibliography.'' Oakland, CA: University of California Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hallis, Adolph 1896 births 1987 deaths South African composers South African male composers South African music educators Piano educators South African film score composers 20th-century South African classical composers Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Date of death missing Academic staff of the University of the Witwatersrand 20th-century South African classical pianists 20th-century South African male musicians South African expatriates in the United Kingdom