Please note: This site will look much better in a browser that complies with web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.
(née Riley)
(born: Toronto, 1859 - died: Toronto, 1935)
Composer, Pianist, Writer
Educated at a private girls school in Toronto, Harrison (née Riley) began her piano studies with Frederic Boscovitz, and was recognized as both a soloist and accompanist. At 15, she went to Montreal to continue her studies, and it is likely that it was at this time Harrison developed her interest in the music of Quebec. Later in life, she became known as an expert on French-Canadian music and gave illustrated lectures
on the topic. French influence can also be seen in her poetry and music. For example, she arranged several folk songs for piano and used folk melodies in her opera Pipandor. She also used a dialogue form in some songs, in which more than one person relates the story through music. She also quotes French-Canadian folksongs in her piano work "Nocturne," specifically Ah! Si mon moine voulait danser!
and motives from Nous étions les trois capitaines.
Harrison's string quartet based in part on Irish airs is likely the first composed by a Canadian woman.
At age 21, she married John W.F. Harrison, also a professional musician. While living in Ottawa she composed a piece for Lord Landsdowne's first public appearance entitled "Address of Welcome to Lord Lansdowne" (1883). In 1887, the Harrisons moved to Toronto.
Harrison was also a writer and both her musical and literary works have been published in the United States and England. However, for many of these pieces she used the pen names, Seranus or Gilbert King. The latter was used particularly for her musical publications. She not only published three novels, and six books of poetry; but was also the music critic for The Week in Toronto (Dec. 1886- June 1887); editor of the Toronto Conservatory of Music's Conservatory Monthly and wrote articles on Canadian music for Canada: An Encyclopedia of the Country (1898).
In 1896, a reviewer for The Magazine of Poetry described Harrison as follows:
Nature has done much for Mrs. Harrison, in giving her a quick and ready wit, a profoundly sympathetic nature, an unusual power of entering into the thoughts and sentiments of others, besides a very high poetic endowment..... It is necessary to mention that Mrs. Harrison is of British stock, and a native of Toronto. We do not mean that there are not abundant evidences of this origin in her writings; but those who rise from the perusal of her principal volume of poems will find it difficult to believe that she has no Gallic strain in her constitution. It may perhaps be sufficient explanation for this phenomenon, the delicate perception of every shade of French thought and feeling, that the young artist was removed to Lower Canada when only a girl of fifteen, and there became conscious of all the rich material which lay around her, ready to be worked up into living pictures . . . . . Five pages from 'Pine, Rose and Fleur De Lis' are included in Stedman's splendid 'Victorian Anthology,' a high and just tribute from the foremost critic of America. (REV. WILLIAM CLARK, D.C.L., in 'The Magazine of Poetry,' 1896.)
The following is a poem entitled "Nocturne" from Pine, Rose and Fleur de Lis:
O Summer on the lake is fair,
Yet chilly when the sun has fled,
Yet damp where clings the cool night air!
Wrapped in our cloaks we sit just where
We'll watch the moon her measure tread,
O Summer on the lake is fair!
In town the people despair
Bewail the heat in torment dread.
Though damp where clings the cool night air,
We do not fear its breath to share,
Nor dream of such a thing as bed-
O Summer on the lake is fair!
The breeze it blows about the hair,
The boat is warm with wraps o'erspread,
Yet damp where clings the cool night air;
To Heaven there winds a starry stair,
A diamond world is overhead-
O Summer on the lake is fair,
Yet damp where clings the cool night air!
Compositions available through Clifford Ford Publications.
Partial List of Published Works:
Recordings:
Sources