Orlando Morgan

Robert Orlando Morgan (1865 – 16 May 1956) was an English music teacher, composer and musicologist. 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. His pupils included the composer Benjamin Frankel and the pianist Dame Myra Hess.

In 1910 Morgan composed many songs and classical pieces, as well as the music for the last Savoy opera, Two Merry Monarchs. It had poor notices and a brief run. Morgan wrote no more operas, but continued to compose prolifically throughout his life.

Morgan was born in Manchester, the son of Peter and Elizabeth Morgan. In 1880, at the age of 15, he entered the Guildhall School of Music. 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. In February 1893, he won the Yate prize for composition. In 1894, at the Grand Concours Internationale de Composition Musicale at Brussels, Morgan received the first prize and gold medal.

As a teacher, Morgan's tenure at the Guildhall was exceptionally long. When he retired as Professor of Pianoforte and Composition in 1951 at the age of 85, he had completed 64 years of service. Among his pupils were the composer Benjamin Frankel and the pianist Dame Myra Hess.

A diversion in his normal teaching curriculum was what Fred Astaire called "an attempt" to teach harmony and composition to Astaire and Noël Coward in 1923. Morgan played over a piece that Coward had written and objected to his harmonisation. Coward later recalled, "I was told by my instructor that I could not use consecutive fifths. 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."

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