Prof Anthony Hughes
With the death of Anthony (Tony) Hughes on November 30th at the age of 79, Ireland has lost one of its most distinguished musicians, and one who played a dominant role in the musical and cultural life of the country for over 40 years.
A quintessential Dubliner, Tony Hughes grew up in the South Circular Road area and attended Synge Street CBS at a time when that school, together with its Northside counterpart, O'Connell Schools, was the leading educational incubus for many of the brightest of the post-Independence generation of the capital's youth. Possessed of a striking musical talent, he became the prize pupil of leading piano teacher Dina Copeman at the RIAM, winning all available honours for piano at both the RIAM and the Feis Ceoil. After school he moved to UCD, where he quickly came to the attention of the college's legendary professor of music, John F. Larchet.
Nearing the end of his 37-year tenure of the chair of music, Larchet saw in the brilliance of the young Tony Hughes a potential successor. On graduating, Tony was awarded the NUI's coveted travelling studentship, which took him to Vienna for higher pianistic studies for two years with the great Bruno Seidlhofer (teacher of such eminences as Nelson Freire and Friedrich Gulda) where he quickly impressed the veteran Austrian professor with his natural musical capacity and his profound intellectual grasp of musical structure. In a later testimonial, Seidlhofer opined that he knew no one who could play Bach with such architectonic insight as Tony Hughes.
Tony returned from Vienna in the early 1950s, having gained an abiding love for the city, its extraordinary place in the history of western art music, and the composers it nourished. Back in Dublin he gained his DMus degree, joined UCD as assistant to Larchet, and also taught piano at the RIAM. In the late 1950s and 1960s Anthony Hughes emerged, together with the more senior figure of Charles Lynch, as the country's most prominent concert pianist, playing regularly as soloist with the then RTESO, and featuring prominently as chamber music player in the RDS annual international series of winter chamber concerts. His eminence as a concert pianist was recognised by the award of the prestigious Harriet Cohen Medal.
While Tony Hughes was a pianist of prodigious ability, he was always a rather nervous public performer, and it was not surprising that with his appointment to the chair of music in UCD in 1958 (a position he was to hold for 33 years), his public appearances as a pianist gradually decreased as he became increasingly involved in the world of academe and the wider educational promotion of music in the community.
As an academic Tony Hughes belonged firmly to the old school which viewed teaching, rather than publication, as the primary duty of the professor. He viewed music as a craft, embodying practical skills of writing techniques and general musicianship, which he sought to impart in a highly personalised methodology of pedagogy. Totally committed to his students, he was the most hard-working and demanding of teachers, who, it has to be said, was viewed with awe if not fear by many. But he was respected by all. His knowledge of the Western canon was without compare, and his ability to reproduce complex orchestral scores at the piano was truly awesome. I remember well, when he was giving a lecture on Bruckner's Seventh Symphony (a composer he adored), the ageing record-player in the old UCD Music Department teaching room at 86 St Stephen's Green suddenly fell silent.
Tony, with an impatient swish of his academic gown, swooped to the piano, impatiently thrusting the music before him as he sat down to realise the score on the keyboard with luscious sound, and with perfect fidelity to its numerous harmonic and instrumental complexities.
His great love was twofold: the music of the first Viennese school, and opera. Many will remember his public lectures over the years in the RDS, to gramophone societies throughout the country, and in the Italian Cultural Institute, as well as his annual extramural lectures at UCD. He spoke engagingly and with great insight over the widest range of music topics, often showing touching emotional involvement with his subjects. I remember particularly his Schubert sesquicentennial lecture in the RDS in 1978 when, speaking movingly without notes, his engagement with both the vicissitudes of Schubert's life and his incomparable music literally reduced Tony to tears. His commitment to opera was shown by his long-term presidency of the DGOS and his membership of the council of Wexford Opera. Indeed his dedication to the promotion of opera in Ireland was recognised by the award of the decoration Commandatore by the Italian Government.
For the past 15 years Tony Hughes was in declining health, and for one who enjoyed company so much and was such a marvellous raconteur, as well as having the Dubliner's love of a pint or two of an evening, his failing health was a severe trial for him. For the past 47 years he enjoyed the love and companionship of his marvellous wife, Nuala, and his four children, Kevin, Catherine, Jennifer and Eleanor, who meant everything to him, and who brought out in him the very best qualities of a most complex and gifted personality. To them and to their families, and to his sister, Cora, we send our deepest condolences on the loss of a very special husband, brother, parent and grandparent. A man of deep religious faith, may he rest in peace and rise in glory.
GG