Who was A.M.Henderson?

When I started to learn to play the organ my teacher suggested that I purchase a copy of An Introduction to Bach for the Organ by A.M.Henderson. This book turned out to contain thirty pieces with a range of difficulty, including some early organ chorales, chorales from the St. Matthew Passion, four of the Eight Short Preludes and Fugues and both the Prelude and Fugue in C minor (BWV549) and the Fantasia in C minor (BWV562). In addition, there were some well-written transcriptions of orchestral music.

For many years I’ve kept this collection in my music case for those emergencies (especially at weddings and funerals) where the service scheduling has gone seriously wrong. A few months ago it proved to be of considerable value when there was a significant delay to the start of a wedding because of a traffic incident. Looking at the volume on the music desk I started to wonder who A.M.Henderson was. There was no information about him given in the volume but I enjoy a research challenge!

It turns out that Archibald Martin Henderson (1879-1957) was a pianist and organist with a very high profile and reputation in his native Glasgow. Piecing together his early life has been very challenging. From May to October1908 he was studying the piano with Stéphane Pugno, a distinguished French organist and pianist. Pugno had a large country house about 30 miles west of Paris. On Sunday afternoons many French musicians met at his house. Henderson recalls “They were particularly memorable, for it was then I first met some of the most distinguished of French musicians including Saint-Saens, Dubois, Faure, Gigout, d'Indy, and Widor.” At some point in time he was also a piano student of Alfred Cortot and an organ student of Widor.

In 1929 a Memorial Chapel was consecrated at the University of Glasgow in a tribute to students and staff who had lost their lives in WW1. The III/45 organ for the chapel was designed by Henderson and constructed by Henry Willis and Sons. At the same time Henderson formed the University Chapel Choir. The choir quickly gained a high reputation, and Henschel and Rachmaninov were among those who composed works for their performance. Henderson played the organ at weddings in the chapel, officiating at no fewer than 1,600 of them. He retired from this position in 1954. One of his successors was Kevin Bowyer.

Henderson focused on the development of compilations of the works of a wide range of composers. His substantial output included six volumes of Rediscovered Classics for the Piano, and various volumes of Old English Masters, Early Classic Masters and Masterpieces of Russian Piano Music, as well as three volumes of his own transcriptions of for the piano. In addition to the compilation of Bach’s music for the organ Henderson also compiled two books of Rheinberger’s compositions (mainly individual movements from the organ sonatas) and some of Franck’s shorter compositions. The organ volumes were published by the Glasgow firm of Bayley and Ferguson, who specialised in pedological compilations. The quality of the printing is excellent. Although Henderson edited both the Bach and Rheinberger volumes his work is fairly conservative with broad indications of registration and some fingering suggestions.

This could have been an outcome of his studies with Widor in Paris. Between 1908 and 1912 he attended 30 class lessons with Widor. There is a reference to him in John Nears’ massive biography of Widor. Fortunately it seemed that Henderson was fluent in French so he was able to act as an interpreter for American and Canadian students who were also attending these classes. Henderson noted that Widor always treated the Trio Sonatas as chamber music, with a single 8’ stop on the manual and pedal divisions with enough character to be both distinct and yet also blend together.

Henderson also wrote a number of articles for Musical Opinion, of which the description of how Widor taught his students at the Paris Conservatoire in the April 1937 issue is well worth reading. He was also an authority on Russian church music and edited translations of 19^th century Russian choral music.

In summary Henderson was clearly a very capable organist and pianist and no doubt introduced the organ works of Bach and Rheinberger to many students through his compilations. I certainly enjoyed working my way through the Bach volume. I was somewhat surprised that, despite his role as Organist at the Memorial Chapel and his editorial and publishing work, I could not find an obituary of him in any of the Glasgow newspapers.