Julius Harrison and the importunate Muse - Geoffrey Self

Over a period of twenty?five years, Julius Harrison (1885-1963) was admired as a conductor ? with Beecham at Covent Garden, with the Scottish Orchestra in Glasgow, and in the 1930s, with the Hastings Municipal Orchestra. But he conducted, of necessity, to earn a living. - - By inclination and calling he was a composer, and there was always a conflict of interest between his twin professions. When in his sixties increasing deafness brought an end to his conducting career, he turned more and more to composition, and in the years remaining to him, produced a handful of works of a quality undreamed of in earlier years. Music can offer very few examples of composers coming to maturity so late; Harrison was such a composer. - - It is the author's belief that at least two of these late works, the Mass in C and the Requiem, are among the finest of their time that has prompted this first study of Harrison's life and achievement.