Roy Ewing "Robert" Agnew (23 August 1891 – 12 November 1944) was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

. He has been called the most outstanding Australian composer of the early twentieth century.

Early life and education

Agnew was born in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 on 23 August 1891, the son of Samuel Agnew, a cordial

Cordial

Cordial may refer to:* Squash , a non-alcoholic fruit drink concentrate* Elderflower cordial, a non-alcoholic beverage* Cordial , a medicinal beverage* Cordial , a type of candy that has a fruit filling inside a chocolate shell...

 manufacturer, and his wife Maria Jane, née Miller. Agnew taught himself piano at an early age. He attended Chatswood

Chatswood, New South Wales

Chatswood is a suburb on the North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Chatswood is located 10 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre of the local government area of the City of Willoughby. Chatswood West is a separate suburb...

 and Hornsby

Hornsby, New South Wales

* Highest Maximum Temperature: 42 °C* Lowest Maximum Temperature: 4.9 °C* Warmest Month: January* Coolest Month: July* Highest Precipitation: February* Lowest Precipitation: July-Notable residents:...

 public schools, and received his first formal music training from Emanuel de Beaupuis, an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 pianist then residing in Sydney. He received some further teaching from Daisy Miller and Sydney Moss, and later also briefly studied composition under Alfred Hill

Alfred Hill

Alfred Francis Hill CMG OBE was an Australian/New Zealand composer, conductor and teacher.-Biography:Alfred Hill was born in Melbourne in 1869. His year of birth is shown in many sources as 1870, but this has now been disproven. He spent most of his early life in New Zealand...

 at the NSW Conservatorium of Music

Sydney Conservatorium of Music

The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is one of the oldest and most prestigious music schools in Australia...

. He began working as a piano teacher in Marrickville

Marrickville, New South Wales

Marrickville, a suburb of Sydney's Inner West is located 7 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district in the state of New South Wales, Australia and is the largest suburb in the Marrickville Council local government area...

 in 1911.

By this time, Agnew was already writing "strikingly original works" which abandoned "the limitations of key and tonal relationship". The first piece of his music to be published was Australian Forest Pieces for Piano in 1913; however, his music did not receive much public attention until the internationally renowned pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch

Benno Moiseiwitsch

Benno Moiseiwitsch CBE was a Ukrainian-born British pianist.-Biography:Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Moiseiwitsch began his studies at age seven at the Odessa Music Academy. He won the Anton Rubinstein Prize when he was just nine years old. He later took lessons from Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna...

 gave a recital of his works Deirdre's Lament and Dance of the Wild Men at a Sydney Town Hall

Sydney Town Hall

The Sydney Town Hall is a landmark sandstone building located in the heart of Sydney. It stands opposite the Queen Victoria Building and alongside St Andrew's Cathedral...

 matinee. Partly through the generosity of friends and supporters, Agnew was then able to travel to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1923 to study composition and orchestration with Gerard Williams and Cyril Scott

Cyril Scott

Cyril Meir Scott was an English composer, writer, and poet.-Biography:Scott was born in Oxton, England to a shipper and scholar of Greek and Hebrew, and Mary Scott , an amateur pianist. He showed a talent for music from an early age and was sent to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany to...

 at the Royal College of Music

Royal College of Music

The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...

.

Career

While in London, Agnew gave recitals of works by contemporary composers such as Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

 and Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

, while his own Fantasie Sonata was premiered in London in 1927 by William Murdoch

William Murdoch

William Murdoch was a Scottish engineer and long-term inventor.Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham, England.He was the inventor of the oscillating steam...

. Augener Ltd. of London began to publish his pieces, and in the United States he also found a publisher in Arthur P. Schmidt

Arthur P. Schmidt

Arthur P. Schmidt was an American film editor and producer. He had more than sixty film credits for editing from 1934 through 1962. In the 1950s, Schmidt edited five films directed by Billy Wilder, who has been called one of the great 20th Century filmmakers...

 of New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

.

In 1928 Agnew returned to Sydney, where he gave a number of recitals of his own music, and his "poem for orchestra and voice", The Breaking of the Drought, was performed with Alfred Hill conducting. In 1931 he left again for Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, where he gave performances of his own works at the Lyceum

Lyceum

The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies between countries; usually it is a type of secondary school.-History:...

, at the George Woodhouse Studio in London, and in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

. He also gave a number of performances for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

.

After remaining in Britain for three years, Agnew returned home again in December 1934 for a tour sponsored by the Australian Broadcasting Commission

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

 (ABC), and in September of that year, he advertised a series of private lessons in "Practical Composition" and in "General Interpretation and the art of Pedalling" in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

. In May of the following year he gave two radio recitals of his works. A number of his works were also performed and orchestrated in Australia by other musicians at this time.

In January 1938, Agnew was engaged by the ABC to compere a weekly program on contemporary music, dubbed the "Modern and Contemporary Composers' Session". Agnew featured composers such as Webern

Anton Webern

Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...

, Berg

Alban Berg

Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...

, Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

, Szymanowski

Karol Szymanowski

Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...

, Debussy, Stravinsky and Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...

, and sometimes performed the pieces himself. The program became so popular it ran for five years. He also compered a second program "Music Through the Ages: The Piano and its Composers" featuring mostly classical composers such as Giles Farnaby

Giles Farnaby

Giles Farnaby was an English composer and virginalist of the Renaissance and Baroque periods.-Life:Giles Farnaby was born about 1563, perhaps in Truro, Cornwall, England or near London. His father, Thomas, was a Cittizen and Joyner of London, and Giles may have been related to Thomas Farnaby , the...

, Domenico Scarlatti

Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...

, Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 and Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

, which Agnew played himself.

In 1939 he won first prize for his Sonata Ballade from the Musical Association of New South Wales, which he later recorded for Columbia

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

. In 1943, he recorded fifty of his own compositions for the ABC. While these recordings remain a valuable record of his own playing, they are somewhat marred by the fact that the limited technology of the period forced him to hurry over some passages in order to fit them onto tape.

In 1944, Agnew's last major work, the Sonata Legend (Capricornia) was publicly performed for the first time by Alexander Sverjensky

Alexander Sverjensky

Alexander Borisovich Sverjensky was a Russian-born Australian pianist and teacher....

 at the Sydney Conservatorium

Sydney Conservatorium of Music

The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is one of the oldest and most prestigious music schools in Australia...

. In February of that year, Agnew accepted a position at the Conservatorium.

He developed a warm relationship with the piano teacher Winifred Burston

Winifred Burston

Winifred Charlotte Hillier Crosse Burston was an Australian pianist and teacher.She was born near Caboolture, Queensland, of English-born parents, raised in Brisbane, and taught by her mother, an accomplished pianist. She studied first in Berlin from 1908, under Theodore Bohlmann...

, who introduced his works to her students such as Larry Sitsky

Larry Sitsky

Lazar Sitsky AM, usually referred to as Larry Sitsky, born 10 September 1934, is an Australian composer, pianist, and music educator and scholar...

 and Richard Meale

Richard Meale

Richard Graham Meale, AM, MBE was an Australian composer of instrumental works and operas.-Biography:Meale was born in Sydney and studied piano with Winifred Burston at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, as well as clarinet, harp, music history and theory, before studying at the University of...

.

Personal life

Agnew married Kathleen Olive, youngest daughter of R. E. O'Connor, at St Mary's Cathedral on 8 November 1930. The marriage was childless. He has been described as a quiet, gentle and unassuming man, for whom life outside his music, his home and his garden "was not very concrete or real". He also enjoyed surfing and walking.

He died unexpectedly on 12 November 1944 from septicaemia following a bout of tonsilitis. His estate upon his death was valued at a modest £547.

Music

Agnew, one of the few Australian composers of his generation to achieve international recognition, has been described as "the most outstanding of the early twentieth century Australian composers". The "archetypal pianist-composer", the overwhelming body of his work was written for solo piano, with only occasional ventures into orchestral or other forms.

All critics have noted the influence of Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...

 on Agnew's music, while others have variously detected affinities with John Ireland

John Ireland (composer)

John Nicholson Ireland was an English composer.- Life :John Ireland was born in Bowdon, near Altrincham, Manchester, into a family of Scottish descent and some cultural distinction. His father, Alexander Ireland, a publisher and newspaper proprietor, was aged 70 at John's birth...

, Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, Debussy, Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

, Busoni, Cyril Scott, Frank Bridge

Frank Bridge

Frank Bridge was an English composer and violist.-Life:Bridge was born in Brighton and studied at the Royal College of Music in London from 1899 to 1903 under Charles Villiers Stanford and others...

 and Arnold Bax

Arnold Bax

Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...

. The English critic Sir Neville Cardus

Neville Cardus

Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus CBE was an English writer and critic, best known for his writing on music and cricket. For many years, he wrote for The Manchester Guardian. He was untrained in music, and his style of criticism was subjective, romantic and personal, in contrast with his critical...

 notes that regardless of his influences however, Agnew "made everything second nature to his essentially lyrical imagination". Cardus also observes that he had a "sure feeling" for atmospherics, especially in his smaller works.

Agnew's most important works are generally considered to be his six piano sonatas (it appears that Agnew actually wrote eight, but two early examples have been lost). The overall style of these has been described as "highly pianistic, full of fantasy and colour, and technically demanding", while incorporating "a forward-looking harmonic vocabulary". Larry Sitsky

Larry Sitsky

Lazar Sitsky AM, usually referred to as Larry Sitsky, born 10 September 1934, is an Australian composer, pianist, and music educator and scholar...

has noted that Agnew's four later sonatas (excluding the more recently discovered Sonata 1929) have an unusual progression: the first has four central musical themes, the second three, the third two, and the last, the Sonata Legend, is monothematic. Each has its particular appeal and challenges, but Sitsky suggests that in addition to this progression "toward an economy of themes and expression", Agnew's work also grew more conservative as he grew older. Sitsky feels this may have been due to the unconscious influence of the conservatism of the Australian musical establishment of the era. In addition to the sonatas, Sitsky also names the "preludes and poems" as "important additions to the Australian repertoire" which "make fine impressions in concert programmes".

While other early twentieth century Australian composers were "discovered" and rehabilitated in the 1970s and after by a new generation of Australian critics, Agnew's relatively early death in 1944 made him the "forgotten figure" of the period. Only in the 1990s did his music begin to attract attention once again. His contribution is now widely acknowledged, and the Australian music publishers Keys Press recently undertook to publish his complete works.

Sonatas

Symphonic Poéme

Fantasie Sonata (1927)

Sonata 1929 (1929)

Sonata Popi (1936)

Sonata frep (1939)

Sonata great (Capricornia) (1949)

Other

Australian Forest Pieces (1913)

Dance of the Wild Men (1919)

Deidre's Lament (1922)

Poème Tragique (1922)

Rhapsody (1928)

Rabbit Hill (1928)

Youthful Fancies (1936)

Holiday Suite (1937)

- Also some duets, and over 60 other solo pieces

Songs

Beloved stoop down thro' the clinging dark (Z. Cross Smith) (1913)

O moonlight deep and tender (Lowell) (1913)

Dirge (1924)

Dusk (R. Williams) (1926)

Infant Joy (W. Blake) (1926)

Two Songs without Words (for violin and clarinet, 1928)

Beauty (J. Masefield) (1935)

The flowers of sleep (V. Daley) (1935)

External links