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James Hamilton Siree Clarke (25 January 1840 – 9 July 1912), better known as Hamilton Clarke, was an English conductor, composer and organist. Although Clarke was a prolific composer, he is best remembered as an associate of Arthur Sullivan, for whom he arranged music and compiled overtures for some of the Savoy Operas, including Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.
Clarke began as an organist, pianist and theatre conductor, becoming a musical director for Gilbert and Sullivan, among others. While conducting at London theatres, he also composed a tremendous volume of church music, organ solos, songs, operettas and orchestral works. Beginning in the late 1870s, he composed incidental music as musical director for many of Henry Irving's spectacular productions at the Lyceum Theatre. He also composed music for many of the German Reed Entertainments and conducted at many other London theatres in the 1870s and 1880s. Clark published a Manual of Orchestration and music criticism, as well as some fiction. In 1889, he took charge of the Victorian National Orchestra in Australia, returning to England in 1892 and soon becoming conductor of the Carl Rosa Opera Company for several years.
Clarke was Richard D'Oyly Carte's musical director and conductor at the Opera Comique in 1874 for The Broken Branch adapted from La Branche Cassée."Amusements", Le Follet: Journal du Grand Monde, Fashion, Polite Literature, Beaux Arts &c. &c., 1 September 1874 Clarke interpolated into the operetta a ballet of his own composition, "Les Prètresses de l'Amour"."Music and Drama", Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 26 September 1874 In October 1875, Sullivan hired Clarke as a replacement musical director of Trial by Jury at the Royalty Theatre, London, when Charles Morton succeeded Carte as general manager of the opera's original production. Clarke then moved with the production to the Opera Comique in January 1876, where it ran until May. In 1876 Clarke was reported to be suffering from "a long and painful illness", and Carte organised a benefit concert for him at the Langham Hall. The Observer, 9 July 1876, p. 6 By December of that year, Clarke was working again, adapting the score and providing new choruses and ballet music for the first English performances of Die Fledermaus at the Alhambra Theatre. The Observer, 10 December 1876 The reviewer of The Observer found Strauss's music "thin and commonplace" and thought Clarke's additional music much superior: "in remarkable contrast to that with which it is associated, being full of bright, characteristic melody, well harmonised and enriched by masterly orchestration." The Observer, 24 December 1876, p. 5 In 1877, Clarke participated in a very early experiment with telephone, with his organ playing being sent a distance of four miles down a wire. The Observer, 15 July 1877, p. 3
Clarke performed on the piano as an accompanist at the The Proms at Covent Garden that year, The Times, 22 September 1873, p. 12 and in 1878, encouraged by Sullivan, who was then in charge of the concerts, he conducted a major orchestral work of his own, a symphony in F major. The Times reported this concert thus:
Clarke was a close associate of Arthur Sullivan. In 1878, at Sullivan's instance, he was engaged by Carte as musical director of his touring Comedy-Opera Company from March to November 1878, while the Company presented a revival of Trial, the first provincial production of The Sorcerer, and, from September 1878, the first provincial production of H.M.S. Pinafore. He assisted Sullivan by arranging musical selections from H.M.S. Pinafore for the promenade concerts at Covent Garden in 1878 that stimulated audience interest in that opera. Sullivan described Clarke's arrangement as "most spirited" and conducted it at several of the promenade concerts in late August.Jacobs, p. 122Ainger, pp. 162–63 Clarke also made an arrangement from The Pirates of Penzance for the promenade concerts in 1880. The Times, 21 September 1880, p. 8
Clarke later arranged the overtures for Gilbert and Sullivan's operas The Sorcerer (for its 1884 revival), The Mikado (1885) and Ruddigore (1887). He also assisted in the piano arrangement of Sullivan's 1886 cantata, The Golden Legend and helped prepare the score for printing.Jacobs, p. 238 Sullivan biographer Gervase Hughes later strongly criticised Clarke's work, finding the Mikado overture carelessly constructed and his Ruddigore overture a "jumble" and "a crude selection, hardly redeemed by its spirited ending". Hughes also criticised Clarke's overture to The Sorcerer, though misattributing it to Alfred Cellier.Hughes, pp. 131–32 Sullivan considered rewriting the Mikado overtureShepherd, Marc. "The Sadler's Wells Mikado (1962)," A Gilbert and Sullivan Discography and was thought to have sketched out a new overture on more symphonic lines, but no trace of it survives.Hughes, pp. 136–38 Clarke's Ruddigore overture was dropped by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1919 in favour of a wholly rewritten overture by Geoffrey Toye. The Times, 25 October 1921, p. 8
In 1882 Clarke provided the music for Alfred Tennyson play The Promise of May, which was "a miserable fiasco", though Clarke's music was praised. The Observer, 12 November 1882, p. 6 He provided additional music, in 1883, for the English adaptation of Edmond Audran's Gillette de Narbonne."The Royalty", The Era, 24 November 1883, p. 6; "Royalty Theatre", The Daily News, 21 November 1883, p. 6; and "A New Comic Opera", The Pall Mall Gazette, 21 November 1883, p. 4 He also contributed to the music of the successful 1885 burlesque Little Jack Sheppard. In 1887, he accepted the post of musical director at the Comedy Theatre under the management of Herbert Beerbohm Tree. The Times, 18 April 1887, p. 12
In 1894, Clarke published The Daisy-Chain (Op. 352), an operetta for children in two acts, for which he wrote both words and music. British Library catalogue He also wrote both the libretto and the score for Hornpipe Harry, in 1897, a well-reviewed show depicting the adventures of sailors cast ashore on a remote island.Kidner, Walter J, "Hornpipe Harry at Bristol", School Music Review, September 1898, p. 70 One of his last compositions was the one-act operetta The Outpost, first produced by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company at the Savoy Theatre in July 1900. It was produced as a curtain raiser to The Pirates of Penzance and Patience until December 1900 and also ran on tour in 1901–02.
In 1888 Clarke published his Manual of Orchestration described by The Musical Times as an excellent little book. "As far as can be gathered, either from direct statements or implied directions, Charles Gounod would be the model suggested for imitation, Richard Wagner for avoidance." The Musical Times, 1 August 1888, p. 486 Clarke's conservatism caused comment from other reviewers; The Musical Standard mocked him for denying that Wagner was a master of orchestration: "Mr. Clarke should re-edit his work, cutting out all this nonsense. It might then form an admirable book for the beginner"."The Study of the Orchestra", The Musical Standard, 2 January 1897, p. 15 Clarke also wrote several other books and articles about orchestration, as well as some fiction and song lyrics.
Clarke was appointed conductor of the Carl Rosa Opera Company in 1893. The Manchester Guardian, 24 June 1893, p. 3 In 1899 he composed and conducted the incidental music for John Martin Harvey's adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities."'The Only Way'", The Bury and Horwich Post, 23 May 1899, p. 6 Clarke was forced to retire around 1901 because of failing eyesight. In later life, Clarke suffered from health problems that affected his mind. According to Ellen Terry, Clarke's "brilliant gifts... 'o'er-leaped' themselves, and he ended his days in a lunatic asylum."
Clarke died at Banstead Asylum in Surrey in 1912, aged 72.
Theatre work
Clarke conducted at ten or more London theatres,Scowcroft, Philip L. "Some British Conductor-Composers, Part 6 (conclusion)", MusicWeb, February 1994 including the Lyceum Theatre, where he composed music for a number of Henry Irving's productions, including Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice. Irving's co-star, Ellen Terry, wrote in her memoir, The Story of My Life, "No one was cleverer than Hamilton Clarke, Henry's first musical director, and a most gifted composer, at carrying out Irving's instructions. Hamilton Clarke often grew angry and flung out of the theatre, saying that it was quite impossible to do what Mr. Irving wanted. 'Patch it together, indeed!' he used to say to me indignantly.... 'Mr. Irving knows nothing about music, or he couldn't ask me to do such a thing.' But the next day he would return with the score altered on the lines suggested by Henry, and would confess that the music was improved. 'Upon my soul, it's better! The 'Guv'nor' was perfectly right.'"Marshall, Christabel. reprinted in Ellen Terry's Memoirs, pp. 121–22 He was one of the many composers recruited to write German Reed Entertainments at St. George's Hall.Woodbridge Wilson, Fredric. "Thomas German Reed", Grove Music Online, accessed 10 January 2009 These included Castle Botherem: or An Irish Stew (1880), Cherry Tree Farm (1881), and Nobody's Fault (1882) to texts by Arthur Law, The Observer, 15 February 1880, p. 1 The Times, 2 June 1881, p. 8 The Times, 13 July 1882, p. 1 and Fairly Puzzled (text by Oliver Brand) in 1884 The Times, 14 June 1884, p. 1 and A Pretty Bequest (text by T. Malcolm Watson) in 1885. The Times, 20 October 1885, p. 1 Reviews both for Clarke's music and the performances of Corney Grain and the rest of the company were excellent. The Observer, 22 February 1880 p. 3; 5 June 1881 and 11 June 1882, p. 6
Publications and compositions
Clarke composed over 600 musical works, of which some 400 were published. His second symphony, in G minor, premiered in 1879, The Observer, 7 September 1876, p. 6 and he composed the music for some half dozen ballets and at least eleven operas. Compositions by Clarke mentioned over the years in The Musical Times showed the breadth of his interests, from part-songs, to organ works, to comedy: "Love and Gold": Four-Part Song; The Musical Times, Vol. 40, No. 671 (1 January 1899) "Original Compositions for the Organ": No. 110; The Musical Times, Vol. 30, No. 553 (1 March 1889), p. 170 Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in B Flat; The Musical Times, Vol. 18, No. 414 (1 August 1877), p. 393 "Sonatina for the Pianoforte"; The Musical Times, Vol. 18, No. 413 (1 July 1877), p. 347 "God so Loved the World"; The Musical Times, Vol. 15, No. 353 (1 July 1872), p. 533 "To the Audience : Humorous Four-Part Song;The Musical Times , Vol. 34, No. 599 (1 January 1893), pp. 29–35 "They That Go down to the Sea in Ships";The Musical Times , Vol. 43, No. 709 (1 March 1902), p. 172 Romance for Violin and Pianoforte;The Musical Times , Vol. 38, No. 658 (1 December 1897), p. 824 and "To a Red Rose".The Musical Times'', Vol. 42, No. 706 (1 December 1901), p. 818
Later life
In 1889, Clarke went to Australia, where he succeeded Frederick Cowen as conductor of the Victorian National Orchestra in Melbourne. He was also made inspector of Australian army bands, and given the honorary rank of captain. The Observer, 22 February 1891, p. 6 He did not enjoy Melbourne; after returning to England in 1892, he gave a talk describing his experiences, giving "many valuable hints … to those who might think of accepting appointments in the Australian Colonies"."Royal College of Organists", Musical News, 9 December 1893, p. 500 His comments drew a rejoinder from an Australian writer who accused him of "incompetence and lack of interest" while in Melbourne.G. G. M.,"Music in Australia", Magazine of Music, June 1894, p. 129
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