R. O. Morris, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetR. O. Morris
English composer
Date of Birth: 03-Mar-1886
Place of Birth: York, England, United Kingdom
Date of Death: 14-Dec-1948
Profession: composer
Nationality: United Kingdom
Zodiac Sign: Pisces 
About R. O. Morris
- Reginald Owen Morris (3 March 1886 – 15 December 1948), known professionally and by his friends by his initials, as R.O.
- Morris, was a British composer and teacher. Morris was born in York.
- He was educated at Harrow School, New College, Oxford and the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London, where he subsequently became professor of counterpoint and composition.
- On the outbreak of World War I he enlisted in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, along with his friends George Butterworth and Geoffrey Toye.
- He became famous as an exceptional teacher of counterpoint, and wrote several texts including Introduction to Counterpoint (Oxford 1944), Contrapuntal Technique in the Sixteenth Century (Oxford, 1922), Foundations of Practical Harmony and Counterpoint, Volume 1 of The Oxford Harmony (1946), and The Structure of Music (Oxford, 1935).
- In 1926 he taught at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. His compositions have been overshadowed by his formidable reputation as a teacher.
- Students of Morris included composers Gerald Finzi, Sir Michael Tippett, Constant Lambert, Robin Milford, Anthony Milner, Edmund Rubbra, Bernard Stevens and Jean Coulthard.
- But Morris enjoyed a ten year period of creativity as a composer, roughly between 1922 and 1932, writing symphonic and chamber music, songs and choral works.
- Gerald Finzi thought highly of his music, and in an obituary piece (quoted in Diana McVeagh’s biography of Finzi) he chose four pieces representing Morris at his most approachable –Corrina’s Maying for chorus and orchestra, the Concerto Piccolo, the Suite for Chamber Orchestra and the six Canzoni Ricertati for strong orchestra or string quartet – with the Toccata and Fugue for Orchestra at the other extreme and the Symphony in D (first performed on 1 January 1934 at the Queen’s Hall) somewhere in the middle.
- According to Stephen Banfield Finzi regarded the last of the Canzoni Ricertati as "his one genuine masterpiece” and described it as a “grave and lovely” work.
- But in the early 1930s Morris stopped composing and would never talk about his own compositions from that point onwards.
- Today he is generally known for just one work, the hymn tune Hermitage used as the melody for the carol Love Came Down at Christmas.In February 1915 Morris married Emmie Fisher, thus becoming brother-in-law to Vaughan Williams, who had married her sister Adeline.
- He died very suddenly at his London home (at 2, Addison Gardens, Kensington) in December 1948, having been examining at the Royal College of Music the day before with no sign of anything wrong.
Read more at Wikipedia