or pianist, his role being unrecorded. In 1936 his health began to deteriorate: he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. It was operable, but his right eye had to be removed with the growth. During 1937 and 1938 Harty convalesced in Ireland and Jamaica, using the time to resume composition. He set five Irish songs and wrote his last original composition, the tone poem The Children of Lir. He returned to conducting in May 1938 at the Morecambe Music Festival and in December 1938, he conducted a studio concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He appeared at a London concert for the first time since the operation, in March 1939, conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of The Children of Lir. He conducted extensively during the 1939–40 season, but his health declined once more with a recurrence of the cancer, and his last public appearance was in December 1940. Harty and his wife had become estranged, and he was nursed through his final illness by his secretary and intimate friend, Olive Elfreda Baguley. He died in Hove at the age of 61. He was cremated, and his ashes were interred in the grounds of Hillsborough parish church. Recordings According to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Recordings capture the brilliance of [Harty's] conducting. They include The Rio Grande, Walton's First Symphony, some outstanding Berlioz extracts and Elgar's Enigma Variations and Cello Concerto (with W.H. Squire)." Harty was the conductor of a well-known 1929 recording of Nymphs and Shepherds with the Manchester Children's Choir. It was a frequent radio request for many years, and was awarded a gold disc by EMI in 1989. Though few of Harty's compositions continue to be regularly programmed in the concert hall and even the once-popular Handel arrangements have fallen from favour in the era of authentic period performance, all of the orchestral works have now been recorded, notably by the Ulster Orchestra. Hyperion released recordings of the Piano Quintet and the two String Quartets in 2012, performed by Piers Lane and the Goldner String Quartet. A CD of 25 songs (17 first recordings), performed by Kathryn Rudge and Christopher Glynn, was issued in June 2020. Selected works OrchestralAn Irish Symphony (1904, rev. 1915, 1924)A Comedy Overture (1906) Violin Concerto (1908)With the Wild Geese, symphonic poem (1910)Variations on a Dublin Air, for violin and orchestra (1912)Fantasy Scenes from an Eastern Romance (1919)