1809–1886 · United Kingdom · Romantic
John Liptrot Hatton (1809–1886) was an English composer, conductor, pianist, accompanist and singer from Liverpool. He wrote songs, part songs and music for Shakespearean productions, and for many years accompanied well-known singers. The site offers his piece Duke Street for mixed choir.
Liverpool was where John Liptrot Hatton came into the world on 12 October 1809. His family was musical: his father, another John, and his grandfather both played the violin.
Mostly self-taught, he nonetheless became a pupil of Michael Maybrick and attended the academy run by a Mr Molyneux. At 16 he already held organist's posts at Woolton and Childwall and at the Catholic church in Liverpool.
Versatile and full of humour, he acted on the Liverpool stage too. His next move took him to London, to Macready's company at Drury Lane; in December 1832 he had a place in the cast of Shakespeare's Othello alongside Macready and Kean. In 1839 Liverpool saw him as Joe Blueskin in Jack Sheppard, a role that earned him a big success.
His musical reputation was growing as well. In 1835 Thomas Attwood told Mendelssohn in a letter about a young man called Hatton, who in Attwood's opinion drew near to Mendelssohn's manner of writing while still sounding original.
Hatton won a post in the 1842–1843 winter season, directing choruses for the English opera series at Drury Lane. In February 1843 came the staging of Queen of the Thames, or, The Anglers, his earliest operetta, with words by Edward Fitzball; it ran for six performances.
Among the singers was the German bass Josef Staudigl. Prompted by him, Hatton composed a bigger piece, Pascal Bruno, once more on Fitzball's text. It was given in Vienna in October 1844 for Staudigl's benefit, with Staudigl in the leading role. Opinions were divided and London never heard it, yet its 'Revenge' song, the one number to be printed, won wide popularity in England through Staudigl. Fitzball learned that his words had been sung in German without his permission, and his work with Hatton appears to have stopped there.
The Viennese, all the same, admired Hatton at the piano, above all his memorised performances of J. S. Bach's fugues. During his stay he also took lessons in counterpoint from Sechter.
Shortly afterwards he wrote several songs in the manner of the German classics. About eighteen of them set words by Thomas Oliphant, who ordered them and wanted German versions too. Oliphant collected music, and from 1840 to 1849 he compiled catalogues of the British Museum's manuscript and printed holdings. In England the songs appeared under the made-up name P. B. Czapek, a play on Hatton's name: in Hungarian, 'czapek' means a hat. Along with certain other rights of Hatton's, they became Oliphant's property.
At the Three Choirs Festival in 1846 Hatton took part as a singer and also performed a Mozart piano concerto. Around then he went on tour with Sivori, Vieuxtemps and other players, acting as accompanist and as soloist.
He devised one-man shows, 'monodramatic' entertainments, in which he lectured, sang and played the piano all by himself. Of a December 1846 evening at the Assembly Rooms in Peckham we learn that he played keyboard pieces by Corelli, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven and others and sang songs of comic, sentimental and serious kinds. Only one of his own works was on the programme: the song The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Over half a century before, Charles Dibdin had pioneered the same form of solo show, and Hatton clearly knew it.
Between 1848 and 1850 Hatton lived in America. In New York in 1848 he played a number of concerts, some public and some private; at the Apollo Theatre on 12 September the programme combined his own comic songs with music by Handel, Field and Scarlatti. Also in 1848, in Pittsburgh, Stephen C. Foster appeared on the same stage.
Boston gave him a place with the Handel and Haydn Society. He played Bach fugues and a Mendelssohn piano concerto there, but he also entertained the audience by singing a 'Christmas Sleigh Ride' at the piano, shaking sleigh bells as he went.
Around this time Hatton set poems by Robert Herrick (including the celebrated 'To Anthea'), Ben Jonson and Charles Sedley. Some of these were printed in 1850 or before; further ones went to Oliphant, like his earlier songs. A preface dated 1850 explains that the songs came from various periods: a few were given to friends as keepsakes before he left for America in autumn 1848, the others were written for pleasure while abroad, and a friend finally talked him into collecting them in print.
'Simon the Cellarer' was written in the 1840s too; Hatton let Oliphant have it for ten pounds. Henri Drayton used it in 1859 in his ballad opera Diamond cut diamond. The singer Charles Santley sang it, and 'To Anthea', with Hatton accompanying, and he lived to record each of them twice in the early twentieth century.
Hatton counted as one of the finest accompanists of his day. During the 1850s he toured alongside Mario, Grisi and Sims Reeves. 'Good-night, sweetheart, good-night' was his gift to Mario: he taught the singer how to say the words and drilled him in the tune while it was still unwritten. Reeves toured with him in 1850, shortly before Hatton's brief return to America, and again in 1853 on a trip taking in Dublin, Belfast and Manchester, where in Dublin Reeves sang the song for the first time.
Bald on top with hair around the sides, Hatton was nicknamed 'The Sultan' by Reeves. He liked to perform 'The little fat man', a comic number that poked fun at himself. A secular cantata of his, Robin Hood, with words by George Linley, was heard at the Bradford Festival in 1856.
Love of English madrigals, together with what he took from German music, made Hatton a leading author of glees and part songs. Back from America, he conducted the Glee and Madrigal Union; in the 1850s, as he worked with Charles Kean, he brought out the first of his part-song collections, containing 'Absence', 'When evening's twilight', 'The happiest land' and more. A professional vocal group, the Orpheus Vocal Union under William Fielding, sang them. Composers such as Henry Smart and the two Macfarrens, George Alexander and Walter, were among many who later took the same road.
Around 1853 Hatton took charge of music at the Princess's Theatre in London, writing and conducting the scores for Charles Kean's Shakespeare revivals. That year he wrote for Sardanapalus, King of Assyria, where six harps joined the orchestra, and for Macbeth. For Faust and Marguerite he supplied an overture and entr'actes in 1854, and in 1855 his Henry VIII music, which carried a dedication to Mrs Charles Kean.
Sheridan's Pizarro was revived in 1856, and Hatton's new score displaced the old one by Michael Kelly; only Kelly's glee stayed. Because Kean wanted authentic colour, Hatton composed the whole afresh, drawing on Indian tunes found in a book about the antiquities of Peru. Richard II followed in 1857; in 1858 he supplied scores for Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear and The Merchant of Venice. Music for Henry V is mentioned too, and it called for several instruments of the Middle Ages.
The partnership with Kean appears to have broken down in a legal dispute in 1859. Since the Much Ado About Nothing score was unpublished, Hatton argued that it still belonged to him and that he could rework or play it as he pleased. The court took the view that the music formed an integral part of Kean's production, and it decided against Hatton.
Rose, or Love's Ransom, Hatton's third opera, to a text by Henry Sutherland Edwards, was put on at Covent Garden by the Royal English Opera in 1864 and did not do well. The St James's Hall Ballad Concerts in London began that same year, and Hatton accompanied them for their first nine seasons. The Suffolk town of Aldeburgh became a favourite of his; he lived there for a time, and in October 1865 he was without doubt in residence. To honour it he composed an Aldeburgh Te Deum for four voices.
He crossed to America again in 1866. He joined H. L. Bateman's Concert Troupe and with it played at the first concert held in New York's Steinway Hall, on 31 October. In 1869 his daughter Frances J. Hatton moved to Canada, where she worked as a composer and taught singing in London, Ontario, at the Hellmuth Ladies' College.
Songs of England, a collection later expanded to three volumes under Eaton Faning, had its first two volumes re-edited by Hatton. More than fifty of the older songs received newly composed introductions and accompaniments. Hatton also edited the matching Songs of Ireland alongside J. L. Molloy, a book of comic songs and a book of songs by Robert Schumann for the firm of Boosey & Co.
Songs of England drew on John Gay and Dr Pepusch's The Beggar's Opera, among other things. With John Oxenford, Hatton made a version for performance, adding fresh introductions and accompaniments in place of Stephen Storace's earlier ones. The pair edited three more stage works too: Rosina (Shield and Mrs Brooke), Love in a Village (Arne and Bickerstaffe) and No song, no supper (Storace and Hoare).
Stuttgart was Hatton's destination in 1875. At the Crystal Palace in 1877 came the first performance of his sacred musical drama Hezekiah, which, like his other large-scale works, enjoyed a moderate success. Margate, in Kent, was where he lived out his last years and where he died, in September 1886.
Songs have a notable place in Hatton's output: there are over 150 of them. Among those that won him popularity are 'To Anthea' (a Robert Herrick poem), 'Good-night, sweetheart, good-night' and 'Simon the Cellarer'. He took texts from Herrick, Ben Jonson and Charles Sedley, wrote others in imitation of the German classics, and for the singer Mario he composed 'Good-night, sweetheart, good-night' and rehearsed it with him before it was written down. 'Simon the Cellarer' was used in 1859 within Henri Drayton's ballad opera Diamond cut diamond.
Glees and part songs form a second main strand. His fondness for English madrigals and his acquaintance with German music led him to write a series of them, including 'Absence', 'When evening's twilight' and 'The happiest land'; the professional group Orpheus Vocal Union sang these part songs. He wrote church music too: services for morning and evening in the key of E, the anthems 'Come Holy Ghost', along with 'Blessed be the Lord of Israel', and the Aldeburgh Te Deum.
Hatton's larger works were received in different ways: Queen of the Thames, or, The Anglers (an operetta) ran for six performances, Pascal Bruno met a mixed reception, and Rose, or Love's Ransom had little success; the sacred drama Hezekiah did moderately well, as did his other large-scale works. A considerable part of his work consisted of the scores for Kean's Shakespeare productions and the editing of Songs of England and Songs of Ireland.
Hatton's versatility, as composer, accompanist, singer and editor, set him apart among the musicians of his day. His output includes over 150 ballads and songs; for years he worked for the publisher Boosey as an editor of their volumes and as accompanist at the Ballad Concerts, wrote music for Kean's productions and accompanied Mario, Reeves and Santley. These achievements speak of Hatton's distinctive place in English music.
For performers, the site offers the piece Duke Street for mixed choir (SATB), at the 'Intermediate+' level. It is a good way to get to know the choral side of Hatton's work. If you sing in or lead a choir, start there: it is the only work of his in the site's catalogue.