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Percy Hilder Miles (12 July 1878 – 18 April 1922) was an English composer, violinist and academic.[1] For most of his career he was Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music. Among his students at was the composer Rebecca Clarke, and among Miles' associates was Lionel Tertis.

Miles around 1906
Miles around 1906

He was a prolific composer of 160 or so works, most of them unpublished.


Early life


Miles aged 6
Miles aged 6

Miles was born in Crayford, Kent, to parents George Miles (a building contractor) and Fanny Hood, of Bexleyheath, Kent on 12 July 1878.[2][3] Percy's earliest compositions date from when he was 8 years-old and at the age of 13, he performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto at St. James' Hall, Piccadilly, with the Principal of the Royal Academy of Music, Alexander MacKenzie, conducting. Percy became a student at the Royal Academy of Music from June 1893. His teachers there included Francis William Davenport (for harmony), Walter Battison Haynes (for composition) and violinist Hans Wessely.[3][4]


Studies and awards


In 1895 Miles suggested to Lionel Tertis (then also a violin pupil of Wessely at the RAM) the idea of switching to the viola, in order for them to form a string quartet.[5] His name appeared several times in The Musical Times in the late 1890s connected with performances of his own compositions and for those of other contemporaries. According to a brief biography in one of these articles in 1899, he won the Hine Exhibition composition prize in 1893, the Walter MacFarren Scholarship in 1896 (awarded 8 January 1896)[2] Also in 1896 he received a silver medal (presented annually to the most distinguished student at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, or the Guildhall School of Music, in rotation, the recipient nominated by the principal or director of the school) from the Worshipful Company of Musicians.[6] He won the first Sauret prize in 1897, plus the prestigious Charles Lucas (musician) Medal for composition in mid summer 1898. In 1899 he was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship, which was presented to him by Sir John Stainer.[3][4] This enabled the student to study abroad for 3 years with noted teachers of the day. Between 1899 and 1903, Percy studied in Vienna, Berlin, Karlsruhe, Paris and Milan. As a student he also performed alongside his violin teacher Hans Wessely as second violin for chamber music concerts across London.[7]


Professional life and Rebecca Clarke


He was made a sub-professor at the RAM in 1899 and in 1903, upon his return from Mendelssohn Scholarship studies, Percy became a full professor of Harmony and Counterpoint.[8] Among his Harmony students was Rebecca Clarke who studied there from 1903 to 1905. He had become a friend of the Clarke family in the years before and had recommended she study Harmony with him and the violin with Wessely. However her father removed her from the RAM when Miles suddenly proposed marriage and kissed her after a lesson in 1905.[9] This led to her being enrolled in the Royal College of Music where she studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford, who suggested she take up the viola which she later studied with Percy's friend Lionel Tertis.[10]

Miles aged 45
Miles aged 45

In 1906 (at Wessely's suggestion), Miles became an overseas examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. This led to long periods of travel across the British Empire, including Australia [11] . Percy went around the world no fewer than six times,[12] sometimes visiting his brothers in Canada and relatives in Jamaica and Australia. One of his cousins was the famous Australian water colourist J J Hilder.[13]

A cello concerto by Miles initially dedicated to and rehearsed with Herbert Withers (1880–1961) was announced for performance on 3 September 1908 in Henry Wood's Promenade Concerts. However it was not in fact performed as Miles voyaged to Australia in April 1908 and the orchestral parts were not completed in time.[14] Instead Withers performed the Dvorak Concerto and Percy put a line through the dedication to Withers.[15] The orchestral score is lost,[16] but the cello and piano accompaniment parts survive.

Financially secure from Examining, though still living with his parents in Erith, he paid off his father's mortgage and debts and in 1909 he purchased a grand piano and a Stradivarius violin made in 1720, known as the "General Kyd”.[17] He bequeathed this to Rebecca Clarke in his Last Will and Testament of 1912. [check quotation syntax] Although aged 36 at the outbreak of World War I, Percy was keen to enlist. Indeed, despite his age he was called-up several times and presented himself at Woolwich.[18] However he failed the medical on each occasion, either because of his eyesight or weak lungs.

He was reluctant to have his works published[19] although a handful were; his biggest success came in 1920 when his String Sextet, (alongside works by Sir George Dyson, Charles Villiers Stanford and Gustav Holst) was selected from 64 entries for the Carnegie Collection of British Music award, the prize being publication of the score by Stainer & Bell.


Death


In 1922 Miles went blind in one eye and also caught pneumonia[20] which took his life on 18 April of that year.[n 1] According to his catalogue, he left over 160 works, (mainly chamber music and songs), most of which his mother sent to his brothers in Canada after his death. Some are now deemed lost but there are around 100 manuscripts still with relatives in Canada and around 40 survive in the RAM Archive. He never married and lies buried with his parents in Brook Street cemetery, Erith.[21]


List of compositions


Compositions, mostly in Manuscript, held by the Royal Academy of Music Archive, London include:

Winner of Carnegie Trust Award (alongside Holst's "Hymn of Jesus" and Stanford 5th Symphony)

Miscellaneous items also held by RAM Archive

Manuscripts held by Percy's great nephew William Stantan Miles in Canada

Winner of Carnegie Trust Award (alongside Holst's "Hymn of Jesus" and Stanford 5th Symphony)

Miscellaneous items also held by W S Miles:

Manuscripts presumed lost:

Works mentioned in Musical Times reviews:

Several of Miles' works are available here: https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Miles%2C_Percy_Hilder as scores or parts and as recordings.


References



Notes


  1. Death date from an obituary in the June 1922 issue of The Strad, which specifies age (43) and date (18 April). The Rebecca Clarke website, rebeccaclarke.org, confirms year of death 1922.

Citations


  1. Emery, Frederic Barclay (1928). The Violin Concerto – Through a Period of Nearly 300 Years, Covering about 3300 Concertos with Brief Biographies of 1000 Composers. Chicago: The Violin Literature Publishing Company. p. 223. OCLC 1476519.
  2. Musical Times through Google Books. Vol. 37. 1 February 1896. p. 98. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
  3. Musical Times through Google Books. 1 April 1899. pp. 239–240. Retrieved 23 January 2011.
  4. Musical News, Volume 16 at Google Books, 8 April 1899 Issue, page 371.
  5. White, John (2006). Lionel Tertis: the first great virtuoso of the viola. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. pp. 5–6, 303. ISBN 9781843832782. OCLC 70765644.
  6. The Worshipful Company of Musicians at Google Books, published 1905 by Livery Club of the company for private circulation, p.108.
  7. PCS Concert Programmes 1890–1900
  8. Musical Times 1 November 1903 page 747
  9. RC Memoirs Unpub. pages 117–118
  10. Ponder, Michael (2004)"Clarke, Rebecca Helferich (1886–1979)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press
  11. The Associated Board (9 September 1911). "Results of 1911 Examinations". The West Australian. Retrieved 23 January 2011.
  12. see Obituary
  13. Surviving letters by PHM held by family
  14. The Referee 30 August 1908 page 5
  15. BBC Proms Archive Proms 1908 Prom 17
  16. Letter from PHM to his brother Maurice 1919
  17. Letter of Provenance dated 29th May 1911 held by Miles descendants
  18. Letters to Maurice 1917
  19. Revealed in a letter from Mark Andrews, boyhood friend from Erith, to Musical Times, May 1937
  20. obituary
  21. The Associated Board (9 September 1911). "Results of 1911 Examinations". The West Australian. Retrieved 23 January 2011.
  22. MT 1 July 1896 – performed by him, with Paul Pollard (Pft.) & May Mukle (cello) on 18 June in St. James Hall)
  23. "Musical Gossip (description of Royal Academy of Music concert containing Miles' Fantasia)". The Athenæum. Edinburgh: J.C. Francis (3675): 446. 2 April 1898. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
  24. Reviewed MT 1 July 1898 "Highly commended" Performed at the London Organ School 27 May 1898 by Messrs Arthur Payne, Channel, Hambleton, Winterbottom, Draper, Borsdorf
  25. MT 1 July 1899 Performed by PHM, and Messrs Shea, Tertis and Withers at the RAM
  26. MT 1 Jan 1905 (Probably the 3 Fantasies for string Quartet of 1902 composed in Paris)




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