Henry Erskine Allon (16 October 1864 – 3 April 1897) was an English composer.

Biography

Henry Erskine Allon's father, Henry Allon, 1879.

Henry Erskine Allon was born on 16 October 1864 to the prominent Nonconformist minister Henry Allon (1818–1892) and his wife, Eliza née Goodman. Allon grew up among four sisters and two brothers, and was educated at Amersham Hall in Caversham, Reading.[1][2] He first attended University College, London, and then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he matriculated at in 1882. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts there in 1885.[3] At Cambridge he received an English essay prize and graduated with a third in History. His father tried to get Allon appointed to the university's inspectorate, but was dissuaded from this by his friend Matthew Arnold as he suspected the Tory government in power (whose Lord President had the job of appointing inspectors) would be unlikely to appoint Nonconformist inspectors.[4]

Allon studied music under William Henry Birch and Frederic Corder and was a vigorous promoter of, and contributor to, the New Musical Quarterly Review, which he had assisted in founding of.[1][2][3] He was one of the composers featured in Granville Bantock's concert of new music by himself and his friends, put on at Queen's Hall on 15 December 1896.[5][6] (Other composers included in this group were William Wallace, Reginald Steggall, Stanley Hawley and Arthur Hinton).

Allon composed and published many musical works, including two cantatas ("Annie of Lochroyan" and "The Child of Elle"), chamber music, solos, and sonatas. Allon composed mainly for the piano, and pain with violin.[1][2] Musicologist Clyde Binfield has noted that while "there was nothing Celtic in his ancestry", his compositions often bore Scottish-inspired names, such as "The Maid of Colonsay" and "May Margaret".[4] According to Edward Irving Carlyle, writing for the Dictionary of National Biography, his works "showed originality and power",[2] and his brief biography in Alumni Cantabrigienses described him up as "a musician of great promise".[3] Binfield was more forthright in his assessment of Allon, declaring "it was all promise, [as] he died in his early thirties".[4]

Despite his father's strong Nonconformist zeal, Allon lapsed from that faith and instead became a member of the CUNU, a Congregationalist and interdenominational religious organisation.[4]

Allon died on 3 April 1897, aged 32, from cerebral meningitis.[1] He left £5966 13s 8d in his will, approximately £466,428 in 2017 currency,[7] and left his library of musical works to the Cambridge Union Society.[1][2][3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Kaye, Elaine (2004). "Allon, Henry (1818–1892)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/411. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Carlyle, Edward Irving (1901). "Allon, Henry" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Venn, John; Venn, J. A., eds. (1940). "Allon, Henry Erskine". Alumni Cantabrigienses, Vol. 2: 1752–1900, Pt. 1: Abbey – Challis. Cambridge University Press. p. 44. ISBN 9781108036115.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Binfield, Clyde (July 1993). "Hymns and an Orthodox Dissenter: In Commemoration of Bernard Lord Manning, 1892-1941" (PDF). Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society. 5 (2): 86–109.
  5. ↑ Budd, Vincent. A Brief Introduction to the Life and Work of Sir Granville Bantock (2000)
  6. ↑ Wallace, William. 'Young England's 'Manifesto', reprinted in The Bantock Society Journal, Vol. 3 No. 1, Summer 1998
  7. ↑ Converted from 1900 to 2017 using: "Currency converter: 1270–2017". The National Archives.

Further reading

  • "Obituary: Henry Erskine Allon". The Times. 6–8 April 1897.
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