Thurston Dart

(Robert ) Thurston Dart ( born September 3, 1921 in London, † March 6, 1971 ibid ) was an English harpsichordist, conductor and music educator, best known as a performer of early music.

Dart attended Hampton Grammar School and was a chorister of the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court 1938-39 he studied keyboard instruments at the Royal College of Music in London. During the Second World War he was an officer of the Royal Air Force. He then continued his studies at Charles van den Boren in Brussels. From 1947 to 1964 he was first a lecturer and later Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge. Then he took a King Edward Professor of Music at King's College, University of London. His most famous student was the composer Michael Nyman and the conductor Christopher Hogwood.

Since the late 1940s, Dart appeared as harpsichordist and organist and played also historical instruments of the Baroque period. In 1950, he played the first recordings with the Jacobean ensemble, which had specialized in early music and, inter alia, Neville Marriner belonged. Later he took over the management of the Boyd Neel Orchestra, which has been renamed Philomusica of London. During the four years of his leadership, he played with the ensemble, among others Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites, its double concertos for violin and his harpsichord concertos, on John Dowland Lachrymae, Georg Friedrich Handel's Water Music Serenades of Mozart Concerti grossi by Alessandro Scarlatti, Arcangelo Corelli and Francesco Geminiani and various works by Johann Christian Bach on disc one.

In addition, he edited from 1947 to 1954, the Galpin Society Journal from 1950 to 1965 and oversaw the publication of Musica Britannica. He has written articles on the interpretation of the works of Bach, Handel and Purcell, oversaw the revision of the editions of the works of William Byrd, Couperin, and gave himself works by Thomas Morley, John Bull and the other out. When his music major theoretical work appeared in 1954 in London, The Interpretation of Music.

Swell

• Bach Cantatas - Thurston Dart ( Conductor, Harpsichord )
• Encyclopaedia Britannica - Thurston Dart

• Harpsichordist
• Conductor
• Music teacher
• Born 1921
• Died in 1971
• Man