Holbrooke, Josef

1878-

One of the most important of the younger English composers, whose work has been almost entirely along orchestral lines. He comes of musical stock, his father and grandfather both having been musicians. He was born at Croydon and had his early musical training there from his father. At the age of fifteen he entered the Royal Academy, where he studied four years, his teachers being Frederick Westlake in piano and Frederick Corder in composition. Beside honorable mention in a number of competitions, he won the Potter Exhibition prize for piano playing in 1895, the Sterndale Bennett Scholarship and several other prizes. After leaving the Academy he acted as conductor and accompanist on provincial tours for pantomimes and other light entertainments. While thus engaged, his first orchestral work, a tone-poem, The Raven, founded on Poe's poem, was produced at the Crystal Palace in 1900. He has written in all about twenty orchestral works, among the most important of which are Ode to Victory; Queen Mab, with chorus, The Skeleton in Armor; Masque of the Red Death; Childhood; Characteristic suite and two other suites for strings; and three sets of variations on the popular melodies, Three Blind Mice, Auld Lang Syne, and The Girl I Left Behind Me. Other works founded on Poe's poems are The Bells, for chorus and orchestra; Ulalume, a symphonic poem; and the ballad, Annabel Lee. He has also produced a work for solos, chorus and orchestra, entitled Hommage a Poe. Mr. Holbrooke is at present at work upon an opera entitled Varenka. He has also written songs and chamber-music, which have not proven as successful as his larger pieces.