Orlando Morgan

He is best remembered as an influential teacher at the Guildhall School of Music in London, where he taught for 64 years, from 1887 to 1951, as Professor of Pianoforte and Composition.

Morgan composed many songs and classical pieces, as well as the music for the last Savoy opera, Two Merry Monarchs (1910), which had poor notices and a brief run.

[3] As a student at the Guildhall, he won the Merchant Taylors' scholarship and the Webster prize, becoming a teacher and examiner at the school by the age of 22.

[5] In 1894, at the Grand Concours Internationale de Composition Musicale at Brussels, Morgan received the first prize and gold medal.

[4] Among his pupils were the composer Benjamin Frankel[6] and the pianist Dame Myra Hess[7] as well as Marian McPartland,[8] Charles Wilfred Orr,[9] Harold Truscott[10] and Harry Waldo Warner.

He went on to explain that a gentleman called Ebenezer Prout had announced many years ago that consecutive fifths were wrong and must in no circumstances be employed.… I argued back that Debussy and Ravel had used consecutive fifths like mad.… I left his presence forever with the parting shot that what was good enough for Debussy and Ravel was good enough for me.

"[4] Morgan's editions include Bach's Forty-Eight Preludes and Fugues and French Suites; Beethoven's Sonatas; and Schumann's's Novelletten, Kinderszenen and Album für die Jugend.

Among his works were three cantatas, The Crown of Thorns, Zitella and The Legend of Eloisa; two song-cycles for four voices, In Fairy Land and Love Rhapsodies; more than 200 songs and pianoforte pieces; and a comic opera, Two Merry Monarchs.

[3] The Times wrote of him, "though he manifested sensitiveness and good workmanship, he failed to awaken any lasting impression in original composition.

[19][20] Other songs included "Fair Rosalind", "At Christmastide", "Before the Dawn", "My Gentle White Dove", "Where the Lotus Blooms" and "When Snowflakes Dance".