Arthur Dennington

Robert Arthur Dennington was born on 12 August 1904 in London, England. He received his musical training at the Guildhall School of Music, but his studies at King’s College London were apparently not musical: University of London records list Robert A. Dennington as graduating from King’s College with a B.Sc. (Special) in 1926. He subsequently attended the London Day Training College for professional teacher training.
After completing his studies Dennington worked as a teacher and began conducting a number of small amateur orchestras connected with schools and educational institutions in North London. By 1931 he was conducting the Highbury Orchestral Society; a surviving programme records a concert at Islington Town Hall on 10 June 1931 in which Dennington conducted Arthur Bliss’s Polonaise. In the same year he brought several of the ensembles with which he was associated together to form the Modern Symphony Orchestra. Dennington himself lived in Highbury at the time.
The Modern Symphony Orchestra was an amateur orchestra, but from the outset Dennington gave it an unusually ambitious artistic purpose. The word “Modern” reflected an intention to perform unfamiliar and contemporary music and at the same time to provide performing opportunities for young musicians, particularly wind players. The orchestra initially appeared at venues including Islington Town Hall and subsequently became closely associated with the Northern Polytechnic. In 1938 it was formally adopted by the Polytechnic Music Trades School; although the institution was unable to subsidise it directly, it provided rehearsal facilities and the Polytechnic Theatre in Holloway Road as a regular concert venue. Dennington remained the orchestra’s principal conductor for forty-four years, until 1975. Sir Adrian Boult served as its president for more than two decades, and the orchestra also participated in the Festival of Britain celebrations of 1951 and the Coronation celebrations of 1953.
Under Dennington the Modern Symphony Orchestra became particularly valuable as a platform for contemporary British composers and for works that were neglected by the established professional orchestras. One of the composers who benefited from this policy was Ruth Gipps. On 13 June 1942 Dennington conducted the world premiere of her Oboe Concerto, Op. 20, with Marion Brough as soloist; Gipps herself appeared in the same concert as soloist in Brahms’s First Piano Concerto. On 5 February 1944 Dennington and the Modern Symphony Orchestra also gave the premiere of Gipps’s Violin Concerto, Op. 24, with her brother Bryan Gipps as soloist. 
During the following decades Dennington conducted a remarkable number of first or early performances of modern works. The orchestra introduced British audiences to compositions including Frank Martin’s Petite Symphonie concertante and also presented the first public performance of Alan Bush’s Piano Concerto. Its repertoire included music by composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Carl Nielsen, Ian Parrott and Alan Rawsthorne, alongside less familiar works from earlier periods. In 1949, after Dennington conducted the world premiere of Ian Parrott’s Scherzo for Orchestra, the critic Malcolm Rayment remarked on the unusually high standard Dennington was able to obtain from an amateur ensemble. The orchestra’s function was therefore not simply recreational: during a period when many contemporary composers found it difficult to secure orchestral performances, Dennington provided them with opportunities to have new scores rehearsed and heard.
Dennington’s interest in contemporary music also extended to opera. On 26 March 1960 he conducted Sophie Wyss and the Modern Symphony Orchestra at the Northern Polytechnic Theatre in the first performance of a group of excerpts from Arnold Cooke’s opera Mary Barton, comprising an introduction, two arias and an interlude. He later conducted stage works including Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Consul in 1963 and Verdi’s La traviata in 1969.
Dennington was also active in recording unusual orchestral repertoire. With the Modern Symphony Orchestra he made a number of LP recordings for the specialist label Rare Recorded Editions, including four volumes devoted to overtures by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber as well as music by other comparatively neglected composers. His long association with the Northern Polytechnic and its successors was formally recognized in 1981 when he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Polytechnic of North London for his work with the Modern Symphony Orchestra.
Arthur Dennington retired from the regular direction of the Modern Symphony Orchestra in 1975, after an association extending back to its foundation in 1931. 
Arthur Dennington died on 16 May 1988 in Walmer, Kent (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.