Bainton, Edgar Leslie
Bainton, Edgar Leslie
Bainton, Edgar Leslie, English composer and pedagogue; b. London, Feb. 14, 1880; d. Sydney, Australia, Dec. 8, 1956. He studied piano and composition at the Royal Coll. of Music in London with Davies and Stanford. He taught piano and composition at the Cons, of Newcastle upon Tyne from 1901 until 1914, and also was its director (1912–14). The outbreak of World War I found him in Berlin, and he was interned as an enemy alien. After the end of the War, he resumed his pedagogical activities as director of the Newcastle Cons. In 1934 he went to Australia and was director of the State Cons, at Sydney until 1947. As a composer, he followed the tenets of the English national school, writing in broad diatonic expanses with a Romantic élan. His works include the operas Oithona (Glastonbury, Aug. 11, 1915) and The Pearl Tree (Sydney, May 20, 1944), 3 syms. (1903–56), Before Sunrise for Voice, Chorus, and Orch. (1917), Paracelsus, symphonic poem (1921), Concerto-Fantasia for Piano and Orch. (Carnegie Award, 1917; London, Jan. 26, 1922), chamber music, and songs.
Bibliography
H. Bainton, Remembered on Waking: E.L. B. (Sydney, 1960).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire