The American composer and conductor Henry Hadley was born in Somerville, Massachusetts at the end of 1871. His father taught him the piano, violin and conducting, and he went on to study at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Hadley was a highly productive composer who wrote in an expressive, late romantic style. His compositions were very popular during his lifetime, and his musical fluency and technical excellence were highly praised. His Second Symphony of 1901 was awarded the Paderewski Prize. The earliest of Hadley’s works on this recording is the rhapsodic The Culprit Fay, composed in 1908. His Fourth Symphony dates from 1911, and each of its four movements is named after one of the points of the compass, North, South, East and West. The tone poem The Ocean was written between 1920 and 1921, and is a graphic impression of the grandeur of the sea.