572649bk Holbrooke EU_572649bk Holbrooke 18/05/2011 13:01 Page 12 Robert Stevenson Joseph Robert Stevenson studied the piano from the age of seven and had been engaged to give public performances by the age of thirteen. Academic work limited his concert opportunities and he gained a place at Christ’s College, HOLBROOKE Cambridge, to read Natural Sciences and Engineering. Here he gave recitals of solo piano and chamber music and performed concertos with college orchestras. Upon graduating he took up a career in Management Consultancy Violin Concerto ‘The Grasshopper’ but also built a network of musical contacts which enabled him to participate in many amateur concerts, publicly performing piano concertos ranging from Violin Sonata No. 1 • Horn Trio Mozart to Rachmaninov, Liszt and Brahms and more unusual fare by composers such as Delius, Bloch and Rimsky-Korsakov. He has recently joined forces with the Michael Tippett Quartet and the Bridge Quartet to give Kerenza Peacock, Violin • Mark Smith, Horn concerts focusing on unjustly neglected music. In 2008, with the violinist Jacqueline Roche, he made an acclaimed commercial recording of Holbrooke’s Third Violin Sonata (‘Orientale’) Op. 83, and sonatas by Walford Davies and Robert Stevenson, Piano Rootham. 8.572649 12 572649bk Holbrooke EU_572649bk Holbrooke 18/05/2011 13:01 Page 2 Joseph Holbrooke (1878–1958) Kerenza Peacock Violin Sonata No. 1 • Violin Concerto ʻThe Grasshopperʼ • Horn Trio • LʼExtase Kerenza Peacock began playing the violin at the age of three and at ten had won a In the first half of the twentieth century a few English output was prolific and he managed to attract the place at the Royal Academy of Music. She was a member of the National Youth composers, such as Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan attention of conductors such as Dan Godfrey (of the Orchestra for two years. After leaving school she studied with Howard Davies and Williams and William Walton, were able to tap into Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra) and August Manns, Virginia Black at the Academy and led several orchestras there. She was awarded the something in the national consciousness of their time whose Crystal Palace concerts put on a range of new DM Lloyd Prize and the Bunty Lempfert Award and graduated in 2002 with a First and become representative of it (rather like Aaron repertoire. Class Honours degree. As well as playing in the BBC Symphony and Concert Copland in the United States). There was no need for Holbrooke’s strenuous efforts were rewarded by Orchestras and the Philharmonia, she often leads London show orchestras and has them to pay homage to fashionable trends such as several performances of his works and his Second performed with a range of famous singers. Kerenza Peacock is the first violinist of the atonality or serialism and their works have remained Symphony (a large-scale work with a brief last choral Pavao String Quartet, founded in 1998 at the Academy, which has, since, awarded the solidly in the repertoire ever since. Indeed, the listening movement) led to an approach by Lord Howard de quartet a Leverhulme Chamber Music Fellowship for two years. The quartet has public eagerly sought new works from them. Many other Walden (T.E. Scott-Ellis) with a commission to set his toured the United Kingdom and abroad and has made two acclaimed commercial English composers of the period also enjoyed poetic drama ‘Dylan, Son of the Wave’. This association recordings. considerable reputations in their heyday and produced resulted in a trilogy of operas drawn from Welsh legends some fine music – but they and their music managed to with the collective title The Cauldron of Annwn. More slip into comparative obscurity. Now that this music is importantly, Holbrooke had found a generous financial beginning to be explored we are, at last, in a position to benefactor whose friendship, support and commissions assess whether their lack of success was really down to made a huge difference and afforded the composer some Mark Smith the quality of their works, the way they were promoted modest financial security until de Walden’s death in – or both. The composer of the works on the present disc 1946. After this time the composer was out of fashion The horn-player Mark Smith graduated from the Royal College of was a particular case in point. Joseph Holbrooke (who and not being listened to any more. Music in 1986 and was awarded the RCM’s Douglas Moore Prize. sometimes styled himself Josef to avoid confusion with The way in which Holbrooke promoted his works After freelancing in London with the BBC, the Royal Opera House, his father, also Joseph) gained something of a reputation had a lot to do with his subsequent problems and he was and English National Opera and touring abroad with the Royal in the 1900s and was well respected – but few people of probably his own worst enemy. He was convinced of the Philharmonic Orchestra, he left Britain in 1998 to join Denmark’s today, including classical music enthusiasts, have heard genius of his own writing and this sometimes led to a leading chamber music ensemble, Esbjerg Ensemble. With Esbjerg of him. refusal to compromise. His lack of social graces and Ensemble, he made many recordings for radio and CD and toured Initially given music lessons by his father (a somewhat excitable, combative manner alienated extensively, giving concerts and master-classes around the world. sometime music-hall pianist) the young Holbrooke people. In addition, his tough approach to criticism upset While living in Denmark he made regular guest appearances as demonstrated sufficient talent to be accepted by the performers and critics. He may even have drawn Principal Horn with orchestras and ensembles across Europe and taught Royal Academy of Music at the age of fifteen. Here he attention to what he regarded as the weaknesses in the Horn, Natural Horn, Chamber Music and Orchestra Studies at the enjoyed some success and won several prizes before music of his contemporaries. A Musical Times article of Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus. In 2004 he was appointed Principal Horn of Sinfonia ViVA and returned to leaving in 1896. He subsequently struggled to make a 1st April 1913 (which, whilst humorous, is probably not the United Kingdom. He joined the chamber ensemble London Concertante in 2006, giving concerts across the living as a musical director with various touring musical an April Fool prank) illustrates this, whilst still paying length and breadth of the country, and directed the Chamber Music Course at the Dartington International Summer troupes, as a music teacher and as a pianist – performing tribute: School. in music halls and concert halls (he performed the “London musical life would be different from what Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto on a number of it is without Josef Holbrooke. He is the most occasions). In parallel, however, his compositional amusing serious musician in our midst. In his 8.572649 2 11 8.572649 572649bk Holbrooke EU_572649bk Holbrooke 18/05/2011 13:01 Page 10 L’Extase, Op. 55/2 for violin and piano clarified his numbering intentions at that stage and, in compositions, as in the torrent of his literary of some of the music performed is pleasantly Holbrooke wrote several sets of short pieces for violin Ricordi’s 1920 edition of three of the pieces (L’Extase, outpourings, we are continually encountering the mitigated. … Although Josef Holbrooke has enjoyed and piano, including his Opp. 3, 5, 8, 12, 23, 71 and 74. Albanian Serenade and Celtic Elegie) these are shown, bizarre and unexpected. A good deal of his music exceptional advantages in having his music In 1913 Op. 55 was occupied by a projected cycle of confusingly, as Op. 55/1, 2 and 3. In any event, L’Extase has a weird, grim and fearsome psychological basis. performed and in getting his music published, it is twelve Mezzo-Tints for clarinet (or violin) and piano; is a lovely little piece and it deserves an outing. This is This tendency of his mind to dour subjects accounts evident that his halo does not fit perfectly. But he one for each month of the year. The project appears its first recording. for his fondness for the poems of Edgar Allan Poe. girds chiefly at the public, although publishers, never to have got off the ground, although it is very He has a characteristic style which includes an critics, and others with whom he comes in contact, likely that some of the subsequent Op. 55 set of pieces opulent and amazing, almost dazzling, variety of are considerately not forgotten. Does he take (arranged for various instruments but principally for imaginativeness, yet bold, bad critics sometimes himself seriously? The answer is that on the whole violin and piano) can be traced back to this first plan. In © 2011 Robert Stevenson have the temerity to hint that his music does not he does, and it may be said that he has established 1918 the Op. 55 set seems to have consisted of eight (with grateful thanks to Rob Barnett – the author of an always accurately fit the situation, and that it is his claim to be considered a force in British music.” items, of which L’Extase (Andante semplice) was the extensive unpublished annotated catalogue of applied haphazard (sic). It is also suggested that he second. All of these were published but by a variety of Holbrooke’s works, from which some of the factual does not apply those reserves of analytic criticism of If Holbrooke was ever a force in British music he different publishers. Evidently Holbrooke had not details in this note have been drawn.) his own music which he lavishes freely on other was not to remain so.