Arthur Dennington

Arthur Dennington was born on 12 August 1904 in London (England). He music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the King's College London. After his studies he started to conduct several small orchestral groups in various institutes and schools in Northern London. In 1931 Arthur Dennington combined these different ensembles and formed the Modern Symphony Orchestra. For the next 44 years, until 1975, Arthur Dennington was the main conductor of the Modern Symphony Orchestra which took an important part in the orchestral landscape of London.

During his years with the Modern Symphony Orchestra Arthur Dennington conducted several world and English premieres of compositions, for example the world premieres of the Horn and Violin concertos by Ruth Gipps, or the English premieres of the Symphonie concertante by Frank Martin, the Guitar concerto by Stephen Dodgson or the first public performance of the Piano concerto by Alan Bush. Arthur Dennington also recorded several LPs with little known orchestral repertoire for the Rare Recorded Editions label, for example four volumes of ouvertures by Daniel Auber. In 1981 Arthur Dennington received an Honorary Fellowship of the Polytechnic Northern London University.

Arthur Dennington died on 16 May 1988 in Walmer (England)

In my possession are two autograph manuscripts of compositions by Arthur Dennington. First a Piano quintet from 1923 and second a String quartet from 1926. I could not find any information about other compositions by Arthur Dennington and so it seems likely that he composed these works during his studies and later quit composing due to his work as a conductor.