Joseph Holbrooke on CPO

[Mark Thomas]

The Symphony No.3 will be a premiere recording won't it? Very good news.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Yes, "Ships" will be a premiere, and also the first complete performance since its first and only performance in 1936 in Budapest.

[Alan Howe]

Wow. We do live in wonderful times for unsung music, don't we?

[eschiss1]

Premiere of the complete work, anyway - I think there's a recording on Symposium of the finale only (possibly from that 1936 performance maybe?..., 1992 CD) conducted by Clarence Raybould - Worldcat. (Ah. No, according to "Joseph Holbrooke: Composer, Critic, and Musical Patriot" the performance issued on the 1992 CD of the finale only is dated June 24, 1937. So its only complete performance was on 3/30/1936 (conducted by Zoltán Sámy), but it did have at least the one fragmentary performance otherwise...)

[eschiss1]

How many of his 9 (according to the aforementioned book Joseph Holbrooke: Composer, Critic, and Musical Patriot - Op.48 of 1906 to Op.122 of the 1940s) symphonies survive in performable form, by the way?

[Gareth Vaughan]

Eric,
The one and only complete performance of symphony no. 3 was the 1936 performance in Budapest under Zoltan Samy. The Raybould recording was not even of the Finale but of an excerpt from the Finale lasting about 3 minutes IIRC (you can hear it on a Symposium CD). Hardly worth the effort of recording it. All this information is given in my booklet notes.
As to the rest of the symphonies,  scores and parts exist for all of them, with the exception of Symphony no. 8, the so called "Dance Symphony", which is really a piano concerto and a close companion of the 2nd piano concerto. It exists only in a 2-piano score and would need to be orchestrated, though this could quite easily be done, following the scoring of the 2nd PC. It would be nice if Martin Yates could be interested in the task.

[FBerwald]

Would you elaborate what you mean by "close companion" with regards to Symphony 8 and PC no. 2

[Gareth Vaughan]

Symphony no. 8 is really a piano concerto and, indeed, the composer sometimes called it Piano Concerto no. 3. It consists of 3 movts illustrative of different dance genres. The 2nd PC, "L'Orient", is in the same mould: 3 dance movts.

[semloh]

This is such an informative thread, and so typical of UC. It's a privilege to have access to such knowledgeable people.

[Alan Howe]

The new CD has just been announced for release:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/joseph-holbrooke-symphonie-nr-3-ships/hnum/8456430

[Mark Thomas]

Good news indeed.

[semloh]

Hear, hear, Mark.

[Ilja]

Symphony no. 8 is really a piano concerto and, indeed, the composer sometimes called it Piano Concerto no. 3. It consists of 3 movts illustrative of different dance genres. The 2nd PC, "L'Orient", is in the same mould: 3 dance movts.

This is very reminiscent of Jan van Gilse's Three Dance Sketches (Drei Tanzskizzen) from 1929, also a de facto piano concerto based on dance themes. From the opus number it seems as though Holbrooke's symphony was written around the same time.

[Mark Thomas]

Often musicologists play the "who influenced whom" game, especially when it comes to unsungs who aren't judged to be capable of having generated an original idea, and no doubt they'd have fun in this case of Holbrooke and van Gilse, but often ideas are just "in the air" amongst contemporaries giving rise to similar compositions seeing the light of day at around the same time. Reznicek's "Dance Symphony" (not a piano concerto-alike) dates form 1924 I see.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I don't think Joseph was influenced by any other composers in his 2 "dance" concertos. He was brought up in the Music Halls and wrote a lot of dance music throughout his life: ballets, suites, etc. Much of it is light in character and all is attractive and well-scored. It would repay exploring by an enterprising company.