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Augarde

H. Augarde. often expanded as Haydon Augarde, was a name used on a wide range of British Victorian and Edwardian salon music, especially accessible descriptive piano pieces and popular arrangements. The “composer” behind the name is widely associated with Charles Arthur Rawlings (1857–1919), a remarkably prolific London musician who published under an extraordinary number of pseudonyms—reports range from several dozen to over sixty. This was partly a commercial strategy: publishers often avoided buying too much music from one name, so a single writer could “spread” their output across multiple identities. As Augarde, Rawlings became known for topical musical storytelling, most famously the 1912 descriptive sketch The Wreck of the Titanic, which turns contemporary news into a vivid parlour‑music narrative. Alongside these piano works, the Augarde name also appears on instrumental repertoire such as the clarinet showpiece Air Varié, valued for its clear melody, idiomatic writing, and audience‑friendly virtuosity.

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