Clement Hugh Gilbert Harris (8 July 1871 – 23 April 1897) was an English pianist and composer who studied in Germany and died fighting in the Greco-Turkish War

Greco-Turkish War (1897)

The Greco-Turkish War of 1897, also called the Thirty Days' War and known as the Black '97 in Greece, was a war fought between the Kingdom of Greece and Ottoman Empire. Its immediate cause was the question over the status of the Ottoman province of Crete, whose Greek majority long desired union...

 of 1897.

He was born in London and educated at Harrow School

Harrow School

Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...

. He subsequently studied music in Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, where he was a piano pupil of Clara Schumann

Clara Schumann

Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era...

. He became intimate friends with Siegfried Wagner

Siegfried Wagner

Siegfried Wagner was a German composer and conductor, the son of Richard Wagner. He was an opera composer and the artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930.-Life:...

 and 1892 undertook a trip to the far East in Wagner's company. During the voyage he sketched his symphonic poem Paradise Lost, after Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

, and helped Siegfried Wagner to choose a composing and conducting career rather than as an architect. An enthusiastic admirer of Greek culture, he was travelling in Greece at the outbreak of the Greco-Turkish war and organized his own battalion of mercenaries to fight on the Greek side. He was killed at Pente Pigadia on 23 April 1897 at the age of 25. Harris's death was commemorated by the poet Stefan George

Stefan George

Stefan Anton George was a German poet, editor, and translator.-Biography:George was born in Bingen in Germany in 1868. He spent time in Paris, where he was among the writers and artists who attended the Tuesday soireés held by the poet Stéphane Mallarmé. He began to publish poetry in the 1890s,...

 in the poem 'Pente Pigadia' in his collection Der siebente Ring.

Clement Harris's works included pieces for piano including Il pensieroso and L'Allegro after Milton, Romances for violin and piano and clarinet, cello and piano, and songs. His diaries were published in German by the Stefan George scholar Claus Bock

Claus Bock

Claus Victor Bock was a professor of German studies.In the early 1950s, Bock studied with Ronald Peacock at the University of Manchester, attracted by the latter's research on Hölderlin, and obtained a PhD at Basle under Walter Muschg...

.

In 1922–23 Siegfried Wagner composed the symphonic poem Glück as a memorial to Harris.

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