Patrick Arthur Sheldon Hadley was born at Cambridge in 1899. He attended St. Ronan's Preparatory School at Worthing, and Winchester College. But the First World War interrupted his education, and he enlisted in the army.
After the war he went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where his father was Master.
He became a member of the RCM staff in 1925, taught composition and became acquainted with the music of Delius.
In 1938 he was elected to a Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge and appointed as a lecturer in the music faculty.
During the Second War he deputised for Boris Ord as conductor and musical director of the Cambridge University Music Society. There he introduced a number of important works, including Delius's Appalachia and Song of the High Hills.
In 1946 he was elected to the Chair of Music at Cambridge University, and retained this post until his retirement in 1962.
There were other influences in his life: Ireland and Norfolk gave him a profound sense of landscape and location.
He maintained throughout his a career a sense of the lyrical. One of Hadley's undoubted masterpieces is his Symphonic Ballad: The Trees So High, completed in 1931, and first performed in Cambridge the following year. It was at one stage described by him as a "symphony in A minor". This work, for baritone, chorus, and full orchestra, uses the melodic framework of the Somerset folksong of that name. It is in four movements, though it is only in the last movement that Hadley deploys the chorus and soloist, quoting the folksong explicitly in its entirety.
A shorter, but important, choral work, La Belle Dame sans merci, followed in 1935. This "short masterpiece" sets the well-known poem by Keats and lasts approximately ten minutes in performance.
The Hills was completed in 1944 and is perhaps the finest of Hadley's cantatas. Many specific local place-names are quoted in the text. As Christopher Palmer notes, the emotion which the composer is ever concerned to communicate is ecstasy.
Fen and Flood was completed in 1955: its text both provides a history of the Norfolk Fens and commemorates the devastating floods that hit the North Norfolk coast on the night of 31 January 1953. It includes a male voice chorus.
Perhaps the gentlest introduction to Hadley is his short orchestral work One Morning in Spring, composed in 1942. It is a fine example of an English tone poem.
The early (1923) orchestral sketch Kinder Scout, a musical evocation of the distinctive Derbyshire peak, is strikingly scored, calling for cor anglais but no oboes.
Hadley's last major work was his Lenten Meditations (also known as A Lenten Cantata or A Cantata for Lent), completed in 1962. It is a setting of Biblical texts, written for tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra with organ.
In his work Hadley achieved a personal idiom that is a successful synthesis of the influence of Delius, Debussy and Ravel.
Some of his things:
Kinder Scout, orchestral sketch - 1923
The Trees So High, symphonic ballad for baritone, chorus, and orchestra - 1931. There are four movements.
La Belle Dame sans merci, cantata for tenor, chorus, and orchestra - 1935
One Morning in Spring, sketch for small orchestra - 1942
The Hills, cantata for soprano, tenor, bass, chorus, and orchestra - 1944
Fen and Flood, cantata for soprano, bass, chorus, and orchestra - 1955
Connemara, cantata for soprano, tenor, bass, chorus, and orchestra - 1958
A Cantata for Lent, for tenor, bass, chorus, and orchestra with organ - 1962
After the war he went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where his father was Master.
He became a member of the RCM staff in 1925, taught composition and became acquainted with the music of Delius.
In 1938 he was elected to a Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge and appointed as a lecturer in the music faculty.
During the Second War he deputised for Boris Ord as conductor and musical director of the Cambridge University Music Society. There he introduced a number of important works, including Delius's Appalachia and Song of the High Hills.
In 1946 he was elected to the Chair of Music at Cambridge University, and retained this post until his retirement in 1962.
There were other influences in his life: Ireland and Norfolk gave him a profound sense of landscape and location.
He maintained throughout his a career a sense of the lyrical. One of Hadley's undoubted masterpieces is his Symphonic Ballad: The Trees So High, completed in 1931, and first performed in Cambridge the following year. It was at one stage described by him as a "symphony in A minor". This work, for baritone, chorus, and full orchestra, uses the melodic framework of the Somerset folksong of that name. It is in four movements, though it is only in the last movement that Hadley deploys the chorus and soloist, quoting the folksong explicitly in its entirety.
A shorter, but important, choral work, La Belle Dame sans merci, followed in 1935. This "short masterpiece" sets the well-known poem by Keats and lasts approximately ten minutes in performance.
The Hills was completed in 1944 and is perhaps the finest of Hadley's cantatas. Many specific local place-names are quoted in the text. As Christopher Palmer notes, the emotion which the composer is ever concerned to communicate is ecstasy.
Fen and Flood was completed in 1955: its text both provides a history of the Norfolk Fens and commemorates the devastating floods that hit the North Norfolk coast on the night of 31 January 1953. It includes a male voice chorus.
Perhaps the gentlest introduction to Hadley is his short orchestral work One Morning in Spring, composed in 1942. It is a fine example of an English tone poem.
The early (1923) orchestral sketch Kinder Scout, a musical evocation of the distinctive Derbyshire peak, is strikingly scored, calling for cor anglais but no oboes.
Hadley's last major work was his Lenten Meditations (also known as A Lenten Cantata or A Cantata for Lent), completed in 1962. It is a setting of Biblical texts, written for tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra with organ.
In his work Hadley achieved a personal idiom that is a successful synthesis of the influence of Delius, Debussy and Ravel.
Some of his things:
Kinder Scout, orchestral sketch - 1923
The Trees So High, symphonic ballad for baritone, chorus, and orchestra - 1931. There are four movements.
La Belle Dame sans merci, cantata for tenor, chorus, and orchestra - 1935
One Morning in Spring, sketch for small orchestra - 1942
The Hills, cantata for soprano, tenor, bass, chorus, and orchestra - 1944
Fen and Flood, cantata for soprano, bass, chorus, and orchestra - 1955
Connemara, cantata for soprano, tenor, bass, chorus, and orchestra - 1958
A Cantata for Lent, for tenor, bass, chorus, and orchestra with organ - 1962