The 'Austin' family are also very interesting and my connection with them is through Lloyd Clarance's eldest sister Elizabeth Emily Hunt (future reference as named Emily on this page) Emily is my Great Aunt.
Emily was born 9 OCT 1847 in Poplar, Middlesex, England and Baptised 10 days later at All Saints Parish Church, Poplar.
Emily was born 9 OCT 1847 in Poplar, Middlesex, England and Baptised 10 days later at All Saints Parish Church, Poplar.
On the 1871 census taken on 2nd April aged 23 years Emily was living at the family home at 36 Canton Street, Poplar with her father, mother and sister Mary Sarah Hunt. She is not recorded as having an occupation. Two and half months later she married William Austin on 13th June at the Parish of St Anne, Limehouse, Middlesex. Still with no occupation, and now living at Pigott Street. Emily's father as witness plus one other unknown and not direct family.
Emily and William had seven children all of whom would be my 1st cousins 2x removed
Frederick William 30 Mar 1872 - 10 Apr 1952
Ernest John 31 Dec 1874 - 24 Jul 1947
Arthur Henry 19 Dec 1876 - 18 Sept 1925
Edith Elizabeth 1878 - ?
Frank Augustus 1879 - ?
Florence Mary 1881 - ?
William Ewart 20 Aug 1884 - 20 Jul 1921
Frederick and Ernest both had a long career within music, and on stage and are both my persons of interest on this page.
Frederick William 30 Mar 1872 - 10 Apr 1952
Ernest John 31 Dec 1874 - 24 Jul 1947
Arthur Henry 19 Dec 1876 - 18 Sept 1925
Edith Elizabeth 1878 - ?
Frank Augustus 1879 - ?
Florence Mary 1881 - ?
William Ewart 20 Aug 1884 - 20 Jul 1921
Frederick and Ernest both had a long career within music, and on stage and are both my persons of interest on this page.
Frederick William Austin (my 1st cousin 2xremoved. He is nephew of Lloyd Clarance)
Later in his professional career he dropped the 'k' and was more famously known as Frederic William Austin.
He married Amy Oliver on 3rd Aug 1897 and they had two children, Freda Rosamund and Richard Denis Oliver Austin.
A baritone singer and composer, known especially for his arrangement of John Gay's Beggar's Opera for its first modern performance (1920-1923). He made his London debut as a singer in 1902 and later took leading roles at Covent Garden and with the Beecham Opera Company. A proponent of contemporary music he sang in the premier of Frederick Delius 'Sea Drift' (for baritone, chorus, and orchestra) and in the Wagner-influenced operas of Rutland Boughton. In performances of The Beggar's Opera he took the part of Peachum. In 1923 he arranged the sequel, Polly, and in 1924 became artistic director of the British National Opera Company. His compositions include orchestral and chamber music, songs and incidental music to plays.
This piece of information I found online at http://thompsonian.info/epalsgaard.htm
Frederic Austin, ten years younger than Delius, had studied singing and composition with Charles Lunn and Dr W H Hunt, his own uncle. His breakthrough as a singer came at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in 1904, and his début at Covent Garden followed in 1908 when he sang Gunther in The Ring under Richter. From that time on his fine baritone voice was much in demand, both at home and on the continent.
He sang regularly at Beecham’s opera seasons. Austin was also a composer, and for a number of years his orchestral works were frequently performed. He was, however, to remain best known for his re-orchestration and re-harmonisation of The Beggar’s Opera, which from June 1920 had an uninterrupted run in London of some three and a half years – a total of 1463 performances. The Austin-Delius connection began in 1907. So, possibly, did the friendship between Austin and the Schous. But the first piece of evidence clearly linking them comes in the form of a concert programme dating from 1908, found at Palsgaard, suggesting that Elisabeth Schou, at least, was present at a recital in London’s Bechstein Hall of Cyril Scott’s compositions. Austin had sung, and the composer had been at the piano.
Frederic Austin and his family made the first of several visits to Palsgaard in the summer of 1909, when the Deliuses were also there. Four years later, in August 1913, Austin was to return, his visit confirmed by two musical quotations in the visitors’ book, as well as by a slightly more substantial memento. This took the form of an autograph manuscript entitled ‘Engagement’s-Anniversary-Celebrations March’ for piano, inscribed ‘To my friends Einar & Elisabeth Schou’. It is signed, and dated ‘Aug 10th 1913’, and the three-page manuscript, plus title-page, remains at Palsgaard to this day. Even more substantial as a memoir of this second visit, though, is the manuscript of an orchestral suite composed soon after. Later published by the London firm of Chester, the undated autograph score was evidently a gift from Austin to his hosts, presumably conveyed to Palsgaard on one of his later visits. It is inscribed ‘To Einar and Elisabeth Schou – remembering the happy times spent in their delightful country’. ‘Palsgaard’, Danish Sketches for Orchestra, a four-movement suite, was first performed at a Royal Philharmonic Society Concert on 11 December 1916. The venue was the Queen’s Hall and the conductor was Thomas Beecham. The work was favourably, if briefly, reviewed by Musical Opinion and The Musical Times, the former noting: ‘Mr. Austin is a fluent and generally unaffected writer, and this little suite should be heard again.’ I know of two further performances, the first on 9 April 1933 at the Queen’s Hall, with Beecham conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and the second on 6 December of that year at the Bournemouth Pavilion, the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra being conducted by Dan Godfrey.
After a break of sixteen years, Austin was back at Palsgaard in 1929, again accompanied by his wife Amy and – for the first time – his ’cellist friend Herbert Withers, solo ’cellist in Beecham’s orchestra and formerly a student and subsequently a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. In the early 1930s he was to edit the solo part of Delius’s Cello Concerto, as well as that of Delius’s Caprice and Elegy in its ’cello and piano version. Once again a memento, dated 13 August 1929, is left behind by Austin – the manuscript of a little, untitled song celebrating a Schou family birthday. It should also be mentioned that one further Austin song survives at Palsgaard: a setting of Shakespeare’s ‘It was a lover and his lass’. It is undated, and not in the composer’s hand. The Austins were back, again with Withers, in August 1933. In a letter written on the 31st from Palsgaard to his daughter Freda Lee-Browne, Austin reports that both his wife Amy and Bertie Withers have left for home. He himself has to stay on, as he is entering into negotiations with the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen with a view to a production of The Beggar’s Opera. How much you’d enjoy it here, now that you’ve ‘grown up’! In the wonderful weather that we’ve been having, it has been more delightful than can easily be said, continually beautiful, morning, noon & night. What a place to settle down in and work – He was off to dine that evening at Herbert Schou’s home, where there was a good radio and where he would be able to hear a BBC broadcast of the incidental music he had written for a play.
He had meanwhile been interviewed in Copenhagen for Berlingske Tidende, the leading Danish newspaper, on the subject of The Beggar’s Opera [19 August 1933]. In the course of the interview he expressed the hope of a broadcast on Danish Radio during the coming winter season of his Palsgaard Suite, written, as he told the paper, twenty years earlier. ‘It was dedicated to my friends the landowner Schou and his wife, whom I have known since the time they lived in England.’ He and Elisabeth Schou, he added, would be travelling back to Palsgaard the following day. Austin’s fifth and seemingly final visit to Palsgaard came just two years later, in August 1935. Once again, Withers was there too. Five bars of music written by Austin in the visitors book bear what was to be his valedictory superscription: The wood by the sea – Palsgaard.
Later in his professional career he dropped the 'k' and was more famously known as Frederic William Austin.
He married Amy Oliver on 3rd Aug 1897 and they had two children, Freda Rosamund and Richard Denis Oliver Austin.
A baritone singer and composer, known especially for his arrangement of John Gay's Beggar's Opera for its first modern performance (1920-1923). He made his London debut as a singer in 1902 and later took leading roles at Covent Garden and with the Beecham Opera Company. A proponent of contemporary music he sang in the premier of Frederick Delius 'Sea Drift' (for baritone, chorus, and orchestra) and in the Wagner-influenced operas of Rutland Boughton. In performances of The Beggar's Opera he took the part of Peachum. In 1923 he arranged the sequel, Polly, and in 1924 became artistic director of the British National Opera Company. His compositions include orchestral and chamber music, songs and incidental music to plays.
This piece of information I found online at http://thompsonian.info/epalsgaard.htm
Frederic Austin, ten years younger than Delius, had studied singing and composition with Charles Lunn and Dr W H Hunt, his own uncle. His breakthrough as a singer came at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in 1904, and his début at Covent Garden followed in 1908 when he sang Gunther in The Ring under Richter. From that time on his fine baritone voice was much in demand, both at home and on the continent.
He sang regularly at Beecham’s opera seasons. Austin was also a composer, and for a number of years his orchestral works were frequently performed. He was, however, to remain best known for his re-orchestration and re-harmonisation of The Beggar’s Opera, which from June 1920 had an uninterrupted run in London of some three and a half years – a total of 1463 performances. The Austin-Delius connection began in 1907. So, possibly, did the friendship between Austin and the Schous. But the first piece of evidence clearly linking them comes in the form of a concert programme dating from 1908, found at Palsgaard, suggesting that Elisabeth Schou, at least, was present at a recital in London’s Bechstein Hall of Cyril Scott’s compositions. Austin had sung, and the composer had been at the piano.
Frederic Austin and his family made the first of several visits to Palsgaard in the summer of 1909, when the Deliuses were also there. Four years later, in August 1913, Austin was to return, his visit confirmed by two musical quotations in the visitors’ book, as well as by a slightly more substantial memento. This took the form of an autograph manuscript entitled ‘Engagement’s-Anniversary-Celebrations March’ for piano, inscribed ‘To my friends Einar & Elisabeth Schou’. It is signed, and dated ‘Aug 10th 1913’, and the three-page manuscript, plus title-page, remains at Palsgaard to this day. Even more substantial as a memoir of this second visit, though, is the manuscript of an orchestral suite composed soon after. Later published by the London firm of Chester, the undated autograph score was evidently a gift from Austin to his hosts, presumably conveyed to Palsgaard on one of his later visits. It is inscribed ‘To Einar and Elisabeth Schou – remembering the happy times spent in their delightful country’. ‘Palsgaard’, Danish Sketches for Orchestra, a four-movement suite, was first performed at a Royal Philharmonic Society Concert on 11 December 1916. The venue was the Queen’s Hall and the conductor was Thomas Beecham. The work was favourably, if briefly, reviewed by Musical Opinion and The Musical Times, the former noting: ‘Mr. Austin is a fluent and generally unaffected writer, and this little suite should be heard again.’ I know of two further performances, the first on 9 April 1933 at the Queen’s Hall, with Beecham conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and the second on 6 December of that year at the Bournemouth Pavilion, the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra being conducted by Dan Godfrey.
After a break of sixteen years, Austin was back at Palsgaard in 1929, again accompanied by his wife Amy and – for the first time – his ’cellist friend Herbert Withers, solo ’cellist in Beecham’s orchestra and formerly a student and subsequently a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. In the early 1930s he was to edit the solo part of Delius’s Cello Concerto, as well as that of Delius’s Caprice and Elegy in its ’cello and piano version. Once again a memento, dated 13 August 1929, is left behind by Austin – the manuscript of a little, untitled song celebrating a Schou family birthday. It should also be mentioned that one further Austin song survives at Palsgaard: a setting of Shakespeare’s ‘It was a lover and his lass’. It is undated, and not in the composer’s hand. The Austins were back, again with Withers, in August 1933. In a letter written on the 31st from Palsgaard to his daughter Freda Lee-Browne, Austin reports that both his wife Amy and Bertie Withers have left for home. He himself has to stay on, as he is entering into negotiations with the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen with a view to a production of The Beggar’s Opera. How much you’d enjoy it here, now that you’ve ‘grown up’! In the wonderful weather that we’ve been having, it has been more delightful than can easily be said, continually beautiful, morning, noon & night. What a place to settle down in and work – He was off to dine that evening at Herbert Schou’s home, where there was a good radio and where he would be able to hear a BBC broadcast of the incidental music he had written for a play.
He had meanwhile been interviewed in Copenhagen for Berlingske Tidende, the leading Danish newspaper, on the subject of The Beggar’s Opera [19 August 1933]. In the course of the interview he expressed the hope of a broadcast on Danish Radio during the coming winter season of his Palsgaard Suite, written, as he told the paper, twenty years earlier. ‘It was dedicated to my friends the landowner Schou and his wife, whom I have known since the time they lived in England.’ He and Elisabeth Schou, he added, would be travelling back to Palsgaard the following day. Austin’s fifth and seemingly final visit to Palsgaard came just two years later, in August 1935. Once again, Withers was there too. Five bars of music written by Austin in the visitors book bear what was to be his valedictory superscription: The wood by the sea – Palsgaard.
In 1909 Frederic redone an arrangement for the Christmas carol, the Twelve days of Christmas. His version is the one we all sing today. He added to the 'five gold rings. I was fortunate to find sheet music for this on ebay. Click pics to enlarge
Various photographs of Frederic Austin in costume
The Beggar's Opera
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Frederic Austin's 1920's version.
The restoration of the musical score for The Beggar's Opera by John Gay and Dr Pepusch (originally produced in 1728) was undertaken by Frederic Austin and completed in 1920 in time for the production by Nigel Playfair, with artistic designs by Claud Lovat Fraser, which opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith on 6 June 1920 and ran for a record number of 1463 performances until 23 December 1923. Austin preferred the simpler versions made by Pepusch to the edition prepared by Dr Arne. He appeared as Peachum, with Elsie French, Frederick Ranalow (Macheath), Sylvia Nelis (Polly) and others, conducted by Eugène Goossens. The entire venture received universal acclaim, and was performed in Paris, Canada, America and Australia. In 1922 Austin revived the sequel, Polly. Recordings were made of the original cast production. |