Newman, Harold, 1903-1989

Music publisher, composer, and arranger, Harold Newman (1903-1989) became one of the leading advocates for promoting the instruction and performance of recorder music in the United States.

Trained as an accountant, Newman first became aware of the instrument through Shakespeare's Hamlet, learned to play, and quickly became enthusiastic about the instrument. Following a period of intensive study, he became the first president of the American Recorder Society. In 1940 Newman commissioned the American composer Gail Kubik to write the first American composition for recorder, Suite for Three Recorders. In order to make this piece available, Newman formed a publishing firm, Hargail Recorder Music Publishers. The publishing house, which was renamed Hargail Music Press in the mid-1940s, reprinted old recorder music and published original recorder pieces by contemporary composers, commissioned by Newman. Newman soon established a record label called Hargail Records, which issued recordings of the recorder music of Bach, Handel, and Purcell, as well as new works, including compositions by Leonard Bernstein, Lukas Foss, and Paul Hindemith. During the 1950s the company expanded into folk music and Newman also promoted the recorder in elementary schools as a simple and inexpensive way to teach children about music. Hargail would become an American distributor for two foreign recorder manufacturers, Küng (Switzerland) and Toyama (Japan) and developed Harvard, its own plastic recorder line. In 1975 Newman began work on a combined memoir and history of the recorder. Titled "The House that Hamlet Built," it was not published. Newman continued to compose music for the recorder through the 1980s, and he remained president of Hargail until his death.

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