Kenneth Harding (composer)
Kenneth Harding (10 March 1903 – September 1992) was a violist in the BBC Symphony Orchestra for thirty-five years and a British composer, composing primarily for viola. Biography. Amos ‘Kenneth’ Harding was born in Abertillery, Monmouthshire, Wales in 1903. His early musical studies were with his father Amos Harding, who was a music teacher, choirmaster, pianist and organist. He started playing the violin at the age of six, and by the age of thirteen Harding was a professional violin player, playing in the cinema orchestra. He joined the O’Mara Opera Company in 1917 and the Bath Municipal  Orchestra in 1919. He briefly studied with Dr. Norman Sprankling before entering the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth in 1920, to study composition with Sir Walford Davies, one-time Master of the King's Music. Harding, having initially studied the violin, took up the viola when Raymond Jeremy, the violist in the University of Wales String Quartet, left to study at London's Royal Academy of Music. In 1925 Harding was appointed as a violin and viola teacher at the university and conducted the junior orchestra. He moved to Cardiff in 1927 and joined the Cardiff Station Orchestra. In  1928 he took up the principal viola position in the new National Orchestra of Wales. In 1930 he moved to London to take up the principal viola position in the newly formed BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult. He played with the BBCSO from 1930 until 1965. On the advice of his doctor, Harding ceased playing the viola in 1988 but continued to compose until his death in September 1992. Compositions. His early compositions from the early 1920s came to the attention of Gustav Holst and in 1923 he composed three string quartets for the University of Wales String  Quartet of which he was a member. His Passacaglia for Violin, Piano and Cello was amongst the first of his compositions to be broadcast. As early as 1930 his works had been played across Great Britain and in the United States. Whilst a member of the BBCSO, many of his compositions were broadcast by the Cardiff Ensemble, the BBC Welsh Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Many of Harding's compositions were dedicated to well-known violists of the period, such as his 1931 Poem No. 1 for viola and piano, dedicated to Bernard Shore; his 1949 Divertimento for four  violas, which was written for and dedicated to Harry Danks, and his 1950 Concertante for four violas, dedicated to Lionel Tertis. On 4 January 1950 Harding's Divertimento for four violas was broadcast on the BBC by the composer and three colleagues from the BBC Symphony Orchestra – Harry Danks, Jacqueline Townshend and Stanley Wootton. In March 1980 a Royal Academy of Music concert celebrated Harding's seventy-seventh birthday. Nine viola compositions by Harding were performed. At the centenary of his birth, in 2003, there was a centenary tribute concert at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and Workshop which  featured several of Harding's compositions. List of Compositions. See also Welsh Library Archive