Ana Török, violin Kodály Symphony Orchestra Paul Mann, conductor
Henry Cotter Nixon (London, May 17, 1842 - Bromley, December 25, 1907) is a British pianist, organist and composer. Henry Cotter Nixon was born in Kennington (Southwark, London) of an artists' milieu, already by his maternal grandparents: John Danby (1757-1798) was a composer and his grandmother, Sarah Danby, after the death of her husband became Turner's mistress. He is the youngest of four children of a father also a musician, Henry George Nixon (1796-1849), organist and composer, mostly of church music and Caroline Melissa Danby (1760-1861). His brother, James Cassana Nixon (1823-1842), was known for his early violin virtuosity.
Nixon takes his first lessons from his father, then with Harry Deval in Hull. In 1875, he entered the Royal Academy to take classes with Henry Smart, George Macfarren and Walter Macfarren. He also later studied writing with Charles Steggall. He made his concert debut in 1864, during a concert of the Apollo Glee Society, and before 1872 he played the Spohr and Mendelssohn concertos at St James's Hall. In the 1880s he performed concertos by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Hummel and Weber.
In 1872, suffering from the pollution of the capital, he moved to St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex, where he became the organist of the St Mary Magdalen Church (1872-1877) and taught both the piano, violin, singing and composition. He married Alice Mary Woodward in November 1873, who died of cancer in September 18953. The couple has three children - an infant death - a daughter, Alice Violet Sophie Nixon (1883-1984), and Conrad Uriel Malcolm Heath Nixon (1885-1962), himself the father of Anthony Nixon.
In 1880 he received the composition prize at Trinity College London for his piano trio. Palamon and Arcite (1882) is the first symphonic poem composed by a British, whose creation takes place at St Leonards in 1888.
For reasons unknown, he returned to London between 1889 and 1891. He died on Christmas Day 1907.