It is perhaps telling that, in the supplement to the second edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, published in the fifth volume in 1911 and compiled by its editor, J. A. Fuller Maitland, Harty appears for the first time, acknowledged for his exploits as a composer and as ‘one of the best of accompanists.’ Certainly by 1909 Harty's reputation as a musician had become pre-eminent, which meant that he was called upon to perform a broad variety of social duties that extended beyond the purely artistic. He was asked to be judge for a competition to select a prize-winning piece for the Empire Day Concert in 1911; he was called upon for Charles Harriss's Imperial Choir (a vast body of over 2,000 voices) at the Albert Hall in May 1914; with Agnes Nicholls he played for the Annual Festival Concert given by the London Sunday School Choir (also at the Albert Hall) in February 1910, and with Ysaye, Luisa Tetrazzini (the coloratura soprano who packed Covent Garden at her London debut in 1908), Clara Butt and Kennerley Rumford, he performed at the ‘at home’ given by Catherine Eckstein (wife of the millionaire Sir Friedrich Eckstein) at 18 Park Lane to receive the recently knighted and much-celebrated Sir Ernest Shackleton, the officers of the British Antarctic Expedition and 500 distinguished guests.