Christopher Hogwood

A pioneering figure in the historical performance movement, conductor Christopher Hogwood became one of its most prominent figures and retained that status for many years. He was best known as the director of the <a href="spotify:artist:60adCptqwRkANTtVja0bvf">Academy of Ancient Music</a>, an ensemble that he founded in 1973 and that still exists, but he also conducted modern orchestras and was active in other fields as well, including teaching and musicology. Hogwood's recording catalog was vast, and his performances continued to appear in reissues after his death in 2014.

Hogwood was born on September 10, 1941, in Nottingham. He attended the Skinners' School and went on to Pembroke College at Oxford University. There, he studied music and classics, graduating in 1964. Even at that point, he was interested in early music, a rare specialty in those days, and he studied harpsichord with <a href="spotify:artist:0KmvC3SVTF02l4ueknQCsW">Gustav Leonhardt</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1fSyTPSla0rliirE5ftdDp">Rafael Puyana</a>. Hogwood was also influenced by harpsichordist <a href="spotify:artist:6V0wyvlcCWlmHrHwYVhdEA">Thurston Dart</a> and conductor <a href="spotify:artist:6RX3X6dI939ANy78YXqWXT">Raymond Leppard</a> (with whom he took conducting classes), both major figures in the budding early music scene. He spent a year in Prague on a British Council scholarship, studying with harpsichordist <a href="spotify:artist:3e6f5915PFEoZ5VCyeAoPP">Zuzana Růžičková</a>. Back in Britain, Hogwood, with multi-instrumentalist <a href="spotify:artist:3g42bvWbvi723weXdEiROz">David Munrow</a>, Hogwood organized the <a href="spotify:artist:3KJWGEUmYDVD1BIzFjd0kd">Early Music Consort</a>, which specialized in medieval music, in 1967. The earliest of Hogwood's many LP recordings date from this period. Hogwood struck out on his own in 1973 with a new group, the <a href="spotify:artist:60adCptqwRkANTtVja0bvf">Academy of Ancient Music</a>, located in Cambridge and specializing in music of the Baroque and Classical eras. He remained its director until 2006, and it is still flourishing under the directorship of <a href="spotify:artist:4APHwQBF25uopcHguuOcaK">Laurence Cummings</a>. Hogwood took the name from an 18th century London music organization.

As the historical performance movement (Hogwood preferred the term "historically informed performance" to "authentic performance" or "historical performance") entered the musical mainstream, Hogwood was both prolific and popular. He issued eight recordings in 1984 alone, outdoing himself with nine in 1989. He and the <a href="spotify:artist:60adCptqwRkANTtVja0bvf">Academy of Ancient Music</a> often recorded for the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Decca%22">Decca</a> label in Britain and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22L%27Oiseau-Lyre%22">L'Oiseau-Lyre</a> in France. Beginning in the early '80s, Hogwood branched out increasingly often into conducting orchestras with conventional instruments, often shaping his performances according to principles he had developed in the early music world. He combined Baroque works with 20th century neoclassic pieces by the likes of <a href="spotify:artist:7ie36YytMoKtPiL7tUvmoE">Stravinsky</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:0hW5OU8cM6ANp2gTi5WR2P">Michael Tippett</a> in concert.

In the U.S., Hogwood was music director of the <a href="spotify:artist:0QjKu8W5tafMCDKKw3xHYT">Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra</a> from 1987 to 1992. In 1994, he conducted Boston's <a href="spotify:artist:7zdKTzFDnzNtkLpKUC9SiC">Handel and Haydn Society</a> orchestra in a re-creation of the 1808 concert where Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, and Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ("Pastoral") were premiered. Hogwood stepped down as conductor of the <a href="spotify:artist:60adCptqwRkANTtVja0bvf">Academy of Ancient Music</a> in 2006 in favor of <a href="spotify:artist:0wIAnpAug0yADcWCSB4jKq">Richard Egarr</a> but remained as conductor emeritus and led new performances annually. He taught at Cornell University and at Gresham College London, delivering a series of free public lectures at the latter. His books include a popular biography of <a href="spotify:artist:1QL7yTHrdahRMpvNtn6rI2">Handel</a>. Hogwood made many performing editions of early music. He died of a brain tumor on September 24, 2014, in Cambridge. ~ James Manheim, Rovi