Hardebeck, whose father was German and mother was Welsh, was born in
Clerkenwell, London. He lost his sight when he was a baby. He attended the Royal Normal School for the Blind in London (1880–1892) where, under his teacher
Frederick Corder (a professor from the
Royal Academy of Music), he showed a marked aptitude for music. In 1893, at the age of twenty-four, he moved to
Belfast, where he opened a music store, but the venture failed, and he became the organist of a small parish in the city, the Holy Family Church, Wellington Place. He entered an anthem,
O God of My Salvation for contralto and chorus, for the 1897 Dublin
Feis Ceoil and won; on this occasion he heard folk song arrangements of
Charles Villiers Stanford and others for the first time. At the 1901 Feis Ceoil, he again won a prize, this time for a large cantata,
The Red Hand of Ulster. In 1914 Mary Reavy, Hardeback's wife died. In 1919, he was to become the director of the music school in
Cork and became the first professor of
Irish music at
University College Cork in 1922. Ill-suited for administrative tasks, he relinquished the post after one year and returned to Belfast, which after the
Irish Civil War had become the capital of
Northern Ireland. In 1932, he finally settled in
Dublin, where he worked for
An Gúm, the Irish government publisher, as arranger of Irish traditional songs for piano and choirs, many of which became teaching material at schools in the nascent
Republic of Ireland. He also taught Irish and traditional music in the Dublin Municipal School of Music for two years. On many occasions he acted as adjudicator in singing and musical competitions across Ireland. Despite his mixed German/Welsh/English background, the events of the 1913
Dublin Lock-out, the outbreak of World War I, and the 1916 Easter Rising radicalised him, turning him into an Irish nationalist. He was quoted as saying "I believe in God,
Beethoven and
Patrick Pearse". He studied the
Irish language and collected folk songs from around the country, making some unique arrangements that bridged the gap between traditional and art song. When Hardebeck died in 1945, a
Radio Éireann-sponsored symphony concert, held in the
Capitol Theatre in Dublin, began with a sympathetic performance of his orchestral variations upon
Seoithín Seó. A state funeral was held in Saint Joseph's Church, Berkeley Road, Dublin. The church was packed; various government ministers, the Lord Mayor and representatives of the President and of
Éamon de Valera were there. Hardebeck's own
Kyrie and
Agnus Dei were performed at the requiem mass. He was interred in Glasnevin Cemetery, where a
Benedictus was chanted by the clergy present. A vote of sympathy was issued by the Irish National League of the Blind to Hardebeck's widow and relatives, in which the hope was expressed "that the nation as a whole would not be unmindful of the important contribution which the late Dr Hardebeck had made to Irish culture, music and art". ==Appearance and personality==