Two Miniatures for Oboe and Harp

Listen

Movement 1

 

Movement 2

 

About Composer John Marson

John Marson was born in 1932 and died in 2007. He studied the harp with Marie Goossens at the Royal College of Music in London, and in 1958, while still a student, began his professional career with the Carl Rosa Opera Company. A week after leaving college he joined the London Symphony Orchestra for two years before embarking on two decades of freelance work, where he played solos, chamber music and concerti, worked with all the London orchestras and spent much time in recording studios.

He played in many outstanding feature films including the original ‘Star Wars’, and with The Beatles, including the iconic album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band . In 1982 he was appointed Principal Harp of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and subsequently resumed his freelance career while increasingly engaging in composition, both for the harp and for other instruments and voice. He played for many West End and National Theatre productions including over three years as harpist in Lloyd Webber’s ‘Aspects of Love’.

The roll call of musicians with whom John has worked include The Beatles, Richard Rodney Bennett, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Benjamin Britten, Charlie Chaplin, Bing Crosby, John Dankworth, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Liberace, Martha Graham, Hans Werner Henze, Herbert von Karajan, Otto Klemperer, Zoltan Kodaly, Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner, Pierre Monteux, Jessye Norman, Laurence Olivier, Luciano Pavarotti, Gennadi Rozhdestvenski, Frank Sinatra, George Solti, Leopold Stokowski, Igor Stravinsky, George Szell, William Walton, John Williams, Stevie Wonder and countless others.

In 1964 John was one of the two founders of the United Kingdom Harp Association, edited its magazines for many years and became President of the Association in January 2005.

Two years before his death, John Marson wrote The Book of the Harp (2005), a charming ragbag of little known facts, serious scholarship, pleasant anecdotes, and witty, perceptive observations. He also wrote, early in his career, The Complete Guide to Harp Glissandi, which was a study analysing all 2,187 possible pedal settings.

At his death in 2007 his music manuscripts and personal papers were donated to the International Harp Archives at Brigham Young University, USA. The Marson archive includes musical manuscripts, concert programs, press clippings, and extensive correspondence. In addition to his personal papers, John donated his private collection of scores and sound recordings of harp music, totalling more than 1,000 items.

Instrumentation	Harp and Oboe
Genre	Classical
Composer	Marson, John
Artist	Dall’Olio, Gabriella
Level	Intermediate
Harp Type	Pedal Harp