Guide to the Papers of Fritz Bennicke Hart, 1898-1951

Summary

Collection number:

MS 2809

Creator:

Fritz Bennicke Hart

Extent:

1.13m metres and (1 small folio box + 2 security binders + 5 archives boxes + 3 folders)

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Fritz Bennicke Hart, National Library of Australia, MS 2809, [series and/or file number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The papers include correspondence, personal recollections, articles, lists of works, newspaper cuttings, programs, photographs, unpublished novels and manuscript scores. The bulk of the papers cover the period 1920 to 1936 when Fritz Hart lived and worked in Melbourne. There are many cuttings relating to his return to Australia from Honolulu in 1945 for Jubilee celebrations of the Albert Street Conservatorium.

Many of the correspondents, including Dame Nellie Melba, Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst and AE (George Russell), were prominent in literature and in music. The photographs of Hart are from all three stages of his life, in England, in Australia and in Honolulu. There are also photographs of many composers, including Percy Grainger, Richard Strauss, Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst.

All of Hart's unpublished novels are included in the collection. The music scores are for voice and piano accompaniment.

Biographical Note:

Fritz Hart, composer, conductor and teacher, played an important part in the early development of music in Australia. Born in Greenwich, England, on 11 February 1874, he was a chorister at Westminster Abbey before studying piano and organ at the Royal College of Music. His friends there included the composers Gustav Holst, Coleridge Taylor and William Thurlstone. He married Jessie Beattie in 1904 and they had a son, Basil. Two years after his wife died in 1935, he married Marvell Allison, an American.

Hart came to Australia in 1909 for a four-year engagement with J. C. Williamson as conductor of a Light Opera Company. It was 1936 before he left to become the first professor of music at the University of Hawaii and permanent conductor of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra.

When Hart succeeded G.W. Marshall Hall as director of the Melbourne (Albert Street) Conservatorium of Music in 1914, Dame Nellie Melba established her school of singing there. Melba and her pupils shaped Hart's work as a composer. He composed operas, choral works and songs, and he also wrote for piano, violin, chamber groups and orchestra. In 1928 he was appointed conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He worked hard to bring music to the people, conducting the first Myer Free Symphony Concerts in Melbourne. He was highly regarded as a teacher, his pupils including Peggy Glanville-Hicks and Margaret Sutherland.

During the war he wrote twenty four novels, none of which were published. He also wrote verse, and Gustav Holst set some of it to music. He died in Honolulu on 9 July 1949.

Provenance:

The papers were donated to the Library by Mrs Marvell Hart between 1970 and 1980

Indexed terms

Names:

Fritz Bennicke Hart

Conditions Governing Access:

Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2921905).

Conditions Governing Use:

Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Fritz Bennicke Hart, National Library of Australia, MS 2809, [series and/or file number]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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