Ernest Farrar

Ernest Bristow Farrar (* July 7, 1885 in Lewisham, † September 18, 1918 at Épehy ) was an English composer and organist.

Life

Ernest Farrar was born in Lewisham ( now part of Greater London) and grew up in Yorkshire, where his father was vicar in Micklefield. He attended high school in Leeds and has already received organ lessons during school hours; 1903 to 1905 he was organist in Micklefield.

In May 1905, Farrar received a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. There he studied with Charles Villiers Stanford (composition) and Walter Parratt (organ). Stanford and his colleague Hubert Parry promoted Farrar, who for six months in 1909 received an organist in Dresden ( in the English Church "All Saints" ). After returning to England, Farrar initially worked in South Shields, and from 1912 in Harrogate as organist and orchestra conductor. In 1913 he married Olive Mason. In 1914, he took the young Gerald Finzi as a composition student.

Farrar, who had been reported as a volunteer, was an officer during the Battle of Épehy almost two months before the end of the First World War in France. There is also his burial place. His friend Frank Bridge dedicated his Piano Sonata ( 1921-24 ) Farrar memory; also in 1924 his pupil Gerald Finzi wrote the Requiem da camera " in memory of EBF ".

Work

Farrar was considered one of the most promising British composer of his generation. Until his untimely death he wrote almost 40 provided with opus numbers compositions, particularly works for orchestra, vocal music and organ music. These include the cantata The Blessed Damozel ( 1908 Stanford premiered ) and the song cycle Vagabond songs. His last orchestral work, the Heroic Elegy, dated May 1918 and bears on the cover of the note "For Soldiers". A Sea Symphony remained, as well as a string quartet, unfinished.

Farrar music shows influences of Edward Elgar and his friend Ralph Vaughan Williams, but also by Richard Wagner, Frederick Delius and the Russian late Romanticism.

Apart from a few songs and the orchestral work English Pastoral Impressions (1915 premiere ) Farrar works are hardly noticed today. Appeared in 1997 under the label Chandos Records a CD with premiere recordings of several orchestral works Farrar.

Source

• Comments from Bernard Benoliel in the booklet of the CD " Ernest Farrar - Orchestral Works " (CHAN 9586 ).