Robin Hull (music critic)

Born at Limpsfield, Surrey, Hull was educated at Malvern College in Worcestershire. While there he studied with the organist and composer Frank Henry Shera (1882-1956), and also learned piano and clarinet. He went on to the Royal College of Music, studying composition with George Dyson, organ with George Thalben-Ball, and playing clarinet in the student orchestra under Malcolm Sargent,^[1] while taking additional private harmony and counterpoint lessons from Harold Darke. There is a portrait of him at the age of 17, painted by Henry Harris Brown.^[2] From 1925 he continued music and English literature studies at Worcester College, Oxford.^[3] Hull composed a setting of William Blake's War-Song to Englishmen, published by Oxford University Press in 1928.^[4] There were also a few piano pieces and settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis.^[1]

Hull accepted deputy organist posts at several churches.^[1] In 1929 he began working as a freelance author and music critic, using the byline Robert H. Hull. His work appeared in the Monthly Musical Record, the Radio Times and The Listener. From 1934 he was assistant music critic to the Morning Post, until it merged with The Daily Telegraph in 1937. He was an occasional broadcaster on BBC Radio and wrote programme notes for the Proms and other BBC concerts. From the late 1930s, when he was living in Basingstoke, he began using the name Robin Hull for his journalism. His friend, the clarinettist and music publisher Alan Frank, used to style him as "all readers Robin".^[5] During the war he served in the Royal Artillery between 1939 and 1942.^[1]