Joseph (Josef) Holbrooke (1878-1958)

[albion]

It was used at an Eisteddfod in Wrexham. A printed score and parts are in the British Library, under the alternative title Old Wales - h.3210.h.(385.).

[jerfilm]

OK, for us colonists, what is an eisteddfod?

Jerry

[Mark Thomas]

An Eisteddfod is a Welsh festival of literature and music.

[Gareth Vaughan]

And the plural is eisteddfodau. The "ei" and "au" represent the same sound: 'ai' as in 'line'. The "dd" is equivalent to the voiced 'th' in 'them' (as opposed to the unvoiced, as in 'both'); "f" in Welsh is the same sound as 'v'.  In "eisteddfod" the accent is on the 2nd syllable.

[albion]

The Holbrooke catalogue (http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,3351.0.html) continues to be subject to daily revisions and amendments. I have tried to make any bracketed annotations to the entries as clear as possible, but given the fact that Holbrooke was an inveterate reviser and recycler there is probably much work still to do.

I have just obtained copies of -

Miniature essays - Josef Holbrooke (J & W Chester, 1924)

Complete list of Holbrooke's published musical works (Modern Music Library, 1941)

Complete list of the musical works of Josef Holbrooke (Modern Music Library, 1952)

which may (but quite possibly may not) lead to further clarification.

[Gareth Vaughan]

This is all excellent work, John. I'm not sure how useful the MML lists will be. I looked at them once and retired confused, but I'm glad someone is trying at least to produce a reasonably accurate list of his output.  I have Rob Barnett's annotated work list and will try to find time to compare it with what you've produced. Together, something comprehensive and reasonably accurate may emerge.

[Mark Thomas]

Yes, I quite agree. A reliable Holbrooke catalogue will be of great value, John; an essential foundation stone for serious Holbrooke scholarship. I do hope it isn't too much of a sisyphean task, but I've found that even in such a comparatively well documented oeuvre as Raff's "new" works keep cropping up!

[albion]

I have added another opera to the list, Varenka. This is alluded to quite often in early Holbrooke literature: Lowe calls it "a work of somewhat lurid character", whilst Baughan, writing in The Musical Standard, describes the libretto by B.W. Findon as "written in the ultra-passionate Italian mode" and quotes Holbrooke as follows - "it [Varenka] hovers between the popular style and Wagner drama ... Not an original conception, perhaps, but one which I thought feasible". Varenka is included by Lowe in a list of scores with which Holbrooke was dissatisfied, and which the composer subsequently destroyed.

The opera never seems to have been performed complete (possibly it remained in an incomplete state, and certainly it remained unpublished) but a Selection of items was performed at a Grand Promenade Concert in aid of the Playgoers' Club Pantomime Fund for Poor Children (organised by Findon, who was on the committee) at His Majesty's Theatre, London, on 24th November 1907: the soloists included Edith Clegg and Constance Drever, and Thomas Beecham conducted the New Symphony Orchestra.

[Sydney Grew]

This morning I came across a chapter on Holbrooke in "Our Favourite Musicians", Sydney Grew(1922). In his first paragraph Grew wrote ".....I cannot steady myself in the case of Holbrooke....by copying a list of compositions....because the list now would run from page to page, dates and serial opus numbers clashing, chronology all askew....". . .

In the following paragraph of that work Grew tells us that "Where a list of her [Dame Smyth's] works forms a column of little more than four inches, a list of his [Holbrooke's] forms a column of three feet four inches in the same type. I make this statement after measuring the two lists in a book that I have."

I have often wondered what that "book that he had" in 1922 was. What a pity he did not see fit to append two or three more words as a reference! Does any one have an idea?

[eschiss1]

Hrm. If he weren't clearly referring to different books, the Holbrooke could have been the recently published Josef Holbrooke and his work, by George Lowe, I imagine... as is, no clue, as the well-known (to me) musical encyclopedias that I was guessing he was referring to seem to have had at the time rather brief entries for Holbrooke (in either spelling used) too.

[Sydney Grew]

Thank you very much! I believe that may be the book to which he was referring. It came out in 1920. The list of Holbrooke's compositions at the end is indeed very long - it occupies fourteen pages. He must have been confused in some way when he implied that Ethel Smyth was treated in the same book. I did just now down-load Ethel Smyth's memoirs ("Impressions that Remain") from 1919, and found it very interesting indeed (especially its chapters about the Benson family), but it contains no list of works.

I found both books at the Internet Text Archive: http://archive.org/details/texts

[eschiss1]

I found it at Google Books but that is probably accessible in fewer places, and Internet Archive is on the whole more recommendable, I'd agree, despite their oddly lax policy about copyright (Google Books is much too strict, Internet Archive lets the ball drop entirely, and my mind is wandering again. Never mind. Night!)

[Mark Thomas]

Belated thanks, Sydney, for the link to the Holbrooke book and Dame Ethel's autobiography. Fascinating stuff!

[giles.enders]

The original version of The Raven was performed only once, at Crystal Palace on March 3rd 1900 after which Holbrooke rewrote it.  The original score was given to Ernest Newman.  Does this still exist?  Holbrooke's first piano concerto, composed while a student was never performed.  Is it known what happened to it?

[Gareth Vaughan]

Holbrooke's first piano concerto, composed while a student was never performed.  Is it known what happened to it?

Mike Freeman has a shrewd suspicion it was very minimally rewritten and re-appeared as the Piano Concerto bearing the subtitle "Song of Gwyn ap Nudd" - and, stylistically speaking, as well as by what one knows of the man, I find this notion very convincing.