William Lewarne Harris (23 May 1929 - 17 August 2013) was an English composer and teacher. Harris was born in

Birkenhead Birkenhead () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic co ...

. He was educated at the

King's School, Canterbury The King's School is a public school in Canterbury, Kent, England. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group. It is Britain's oldest public school and is considered to be the oldest continuously op ...

until the war saw him evacuated to

St Austell Saint Austell (, ; ) is a town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, south of Bodmin and west of the border with Devon. At the 2021 Census in the United Kingdom, census it had a population of 20,900. History St Austell was a village centred ...

in Cornwall. He performed National Service with the

Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI) was a Light infantry, light infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1959. The regiment was created on 1 July 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms, by the merger of the 32nd ( ...

.Obituary, ''The Times,'' 3 September 2013 Afterwards he studied at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

with

Patrick Hadley Patrick Arthur Sheldon Hadley (5 March 1899 – 17 December 1973) was a British composer. Biography Patrick Sheldon Hadley was born on 5 March 1899 in Cambridge. His father, William Sheldon Hadley, was at that time a fellow of Pembroke Coll ...

and later

Herbert Howells Herbert Norman Howells (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music. Life Background and early education Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucest ...

. While there he won the

Lionel Tertis Lionel Tertis, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (29 December 187622 February 1975) was an English viola, violist. He was one of the first viola players to achieve international fame, and a noted teacher. Career Tertis was born ...

prize for his folk-song influenced Suite for viola and piano (1952). It was later broadcast on BBC Radio by Watson Forbes. Harris was married in 1956 and the couple had two sons and a daughter. But the marriage ended in divorce and Harris became a single parent of three children, working as a music and piano teacher in various London and Kent schools. He maintained his Cornish roots from his mother's side of the family, frequently returning to Cornwall and becoming friendly with another Cornish composer of operas,

Inglis Gundry Inglis Gundry (8 May 1905 – 13 April 2000) was an English composer, novelist, musicologist, music pedagogue and writer. He is particularly remembered for his operas and for his numerous books; not only on music, but on a broad array of historic ...

. He was made a Cornish bard in 2002 in recognition of his support for Cornish music. He died in a London nursing home on 17 August 2013, aged 84.Biography, British Music Collection
/ref> His memoirs, ''Knocking on a Bolted Door'', were edited by his son Steven and published in 2014. Steven Harris has also written a memoir about his time working as a piano tuner at the

Harrods Harrods is a Listed building, Grade II listed luxury department store on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It was designed by C. W. Stephens for Charles Digby Harrod, and opened in 1905; it replaced the first store on the ground ...

department store in the late 1970s.

Selected works

Harris composed operas, song cycles and orchestral music as well as chamber music. His operas include: ''The Woman on the Hill'' (1980), based on a short story by Eleanor Inglefield (a relative of

Delius file:Fritz Delius (1907).jpg, Delius, photographed in 1907 Frederick Theodore Albert Delius (born Fritz Theodor Albert Delius; ; 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934) was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prospero ...

); ''The Sunken City'' (1992), his largest opera, telling the story of the mythical submerged city of Ker-ys off the Breton coast; ''The Shining Ones'' (2000), set in London's East End of the 1930s; and ''Rescorla Variations'' (2001, premiered in 2006 by the Cornwall Chamber Orchestra), about the Cornish national hero

Rick Rescorla Richard Cyril Rescorla (May 27, 1939 – September 11, 2001) was a British-American soldier, police officer, educator and private security specialist. He served as a British Army paratrooper during the Cyprus Emergency and a commissioned officer ...

, who died saving lives at the

Twin Towers Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...

on 9/11. The seven song ''A Cycle of Love and Death'', setting

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

, was composed in 1967 and premiered in 1973 at a

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 ...

recital featuring the composer as pianist. The same recital included ''Stanzas for a Drowned City'' and the piano duo ''Sonatina patetico''. The orchestral works include three substantial pieces: ''Dance of Life'' (1982), ''Celtic Triptych'' (1983, for chamber orchestra) and the 20 minute symphonic suite ''My Country'' (1987) also arranged for two pianos. The Camerata Ensemble has recorded the Quintet for recorder and string quartet, which was dedicated to recorder soloist

John Turner John Napier Wyndham Turner (June 7, 1929September 19, 2020) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th prime minister of Canada from June to September 1984. He served as leader of the Liberal Party and leader of the Opposit ...

. There is also a modern recording of the early Suite for viola and piano by Sarah Jane Bradley and John Lenehan.''English Music for Viola and Piano'', Dutton Epoch CDLX 7390 (2021) * Suite for viola and piano (1952, publisher

OUP Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

) * ''Goldenhair'', song (1953, text

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

) * ''An Irish Pilgrimage'', song cycle for baritone and piano (1954, text J M Synge) * ''Sibylla's Scena'', soprano, clarinet and piano (1955) * ''Three Settings Of W.B. Yeats'', mezzo-soprano and piano (1959) * ''Sonatina patetico'' for piano duo (1960) * ''Four Settings of Ezra Pound'' for baritone and piano (1963, revised 1988) * ''A Cycle of Love and Death'', song cycle, baritone and piano, text Ezra Pound (1967) * ''Four Seascapes'' for unaccompanied chorus (1973, text D.M.Knight; L.Henry;

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

) * ''Stanzas for a Drowned City'', song for harp and soprano (fp. 1973) * ''Cantata di femmina'', chorus and chamber ensemble (1974, text W.B. Yeats) * ''The Woman on the Hill'', chamber opera in two acts (fp. 26 September 1980, London) * ''Dance of Life'' for orchestra (1982) * ''Variations on a Cornish Tune'', brass trio (1982, publisher Alphonse Leduc) * ''A Celtic Triptych'' for small orchestra (1983) * ''Chansons de Baudelaire'', song cycle (1983) * ''When The Cornish Came To Town'', unaccompanied part song (1984) * ''My Country'', symphonic suite for orchestra (1987) * ''Two Chorales'' for horn, two trumpets, trombone and tuba (1989) * ''Old Mary Kelynack'', song (1990, text by the composer) * ''The Sunken City'', three act chamber opera "in monochrome" (1992) * ''Passacaglia for Strings'' (1996) * ''The Secret Kingdom'', song cycle for soprano, clarinet and piano (1996, text by the composer) * ''Three Dances From 'The Sunken City for orchestra (1997) * ''Three Songs From Cornwall'' (1997, texts Bert Biscoe, Alan Kent, Donald Rawe) * Wind Quintet (1997 - includes 'The Entry to the Rose Garden') * Quintet for treble recorder, two violins, viola and cello (2002, dedicated to John Turner) * ''The Mother of Storms'', harp and soprano (2002, text by the composer) * ''The Shining Ones'', opera in four acts (2000) * ''Rescorla Variations'', opera (2001)

References

External links

William Lewarne Harris, British Music Collection
* Bill Harris: 'Reminiscences

an

at ''MusicWeb International'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, William Lewarne 1929 births 20th-century English classical composers 21st-century English classical composers 21st-century English male composers 2013 deaths English male classical composers Alumni of the Royal College of Music People educated at The King's School, Canterbury