Difficult to work with: born in Croydon towards the end of the 19th Century, Joseph Holbrooke’s work has fallen out of fashion
CROYDON CHRONICLE: Born in Waddon to a musical family, Joseph Holbrooke was a prodigy who struggled to find a way to make his talents pay in the often harsh world of classical music in Edwardian Britain.
DAVID MORGAN has traced his career from the Crystal Palace to the country’s dance ballrooms
They called him “The Cockney Wagner”, though he was born in Croydon, far from the sound of Bow bells. Joseph Holbrook would grow up to become a concert pianist and composer of the late 19th Century who certainly had a temperament, and an ego: he once threw a hissy fit and refused to appear on stage because his name was not given enough prominence in the programme.
His music was once played regularly in the concert halls of the country. More than a dozen of his pieces have been heard at the Proms. But the last time he enjoyed such prominence was a final Proms performance of his work in 1945, and his popularity has waned to a level where his compositions have largely been forgotten.
He was born Joseph Charles Holbrook in Waddon on July 5, 1878. He would later change his name to Josef Holbrooke, part in affectation to add an air of the fashionable composers of the time, and adding an “e” to his surname to distinguish him from his father, also Joseph Holbrook.
His father and mother, Alice, were touring Music Hall artists who happened to be in Croydon at the time of their son’s birth. Young Joseph had two older sisters. Two other sons, younger than Joseph, both died in infancy.
Joseph Holbrook senior was an accompanist to many of the leading Music Hall acts of his day, including The Great Vance and Victor Liston.
Baby Joseph’s name never appeared in the christening registers at Croydon Parish Church, as the Holbrooks soon moved on, to Islington. Alice Holbrook died when her son was just two years old, and his father cut down on touring to be able to care for his three remaining children – taking on work as a music teacher.
Joseph senior also worked as the resident piano player at Collins’ Music Hall on Islington Green, before moving to Bedford Music Hall, on Camden High Street.
Popular: Joseph Holbrooke would become so famous that he even appeared on cigarette cards of the time
He began to teach son Joseph the piano and the violin when the boy was aged six.
Joseph became a chorister at St Anne’s Church in Dean Street, Soho. He had inherited a wonderful treble voice from his mother, with a huge range. He could hit a top C with ease.
His father began to take Joseph to the Music Hall, where the young prodigy would play along with the musicians in the orchestra pit. In his early teens, Holbrook wrote arrangements for traditional Music Hall songs and even composed some himself, though none survive.
Holbrook’s exceptional singing voice was in great demand. His father realised that his son had a great talent and, when he was 15, in 1893, he got him a place at the Royal Academy of Music.
Holbrook was an outstanding student at the Academy. He was awarded the Potter Exhibition for pianoforte in 1895, in 1896 was awarded the Sterndale Bennett Scholarship and the Heathcote Long Prize for piano, and, in his final year, he won the Charles Lucas Prize for composition (with the “Pantomime Suite” for strings).
He had already composed a piano quintet, a piano concerto and a piano quintet by the time he left the Academy, but it was not easy for a working-class young man without financial support to make a living as a composer.
The Raven: Holbrooke was fascinated by the writing of Edgar Allen Poe, and his most famous compositon can still be heard on YouTube
He was pleased to get a job as pianist and conductor in Arthur Lloyd’s Two Hours of Fun Music Hall show to tour Scotland. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music getting a job on a low-brow Music Hall tour probably wasn’t what Holbrook had hoped for, but a job was a job. Yet even that was not to last very long.
Despite Lloyd’s popularity in London, not enough tickets were sold and the Scotland tour was cancelled part-way through the run.
Holbrook returned to live with his father before settling in Haringey, setting himself up as a private music teacher, leaving him time to compose.
Opera composer: Holbrooke wrote a trilogy of operas, based on medieval Welsh folk stories
It was during 1896 that he changed his name, though he continued throughout his life to use “Joseph” as well as Josef.
Holbrooke’s earning from composing was not adequate, and he took a variety of musical jobs to try to make ends meet. Responding to an ad in Musical News, Holbrooke became the musical companion to Rev Edward Bengough in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, briefly living in the vicarage there.
In 1899, he was appointed as the conductor and pianist for a touring production of the pantomime, Aladdin.
Holbrooke’s pantomime experience was a cruel one. His meagre income was stretched to the limit by having to rehearse for a week with no pay. On the first night, his “orchestra” consisted of a cornet, a single violin and a piano, and Holbrooke had to play the piano. For some performances, Holbrooke was forced to play the violin while hiring another pianist from the town where they were appearing.
This was another show that collapsed before the run was complete, and Bengough had to send him money to allow Holbrooke to return to London.
But while Holbrooke was touring in the pantomime, he sent one of his compositions to August Manns, the musical director at the Crystal Palace, then among the most fashionable attractions of the late Victorian era, which regularly staged theatre shows and concerts.
Musical Times: newspaper articles and features were written about the young virtuoso
Manns liked Holbrooke’s piece and on May 3 1900, he conducted the premiere of “The Raven”, an orchestral poem inspired by the work of Edgar Allen Poe.
Holbrooke was fascinated by the works of Poe and wrote 35 compositions based on the American’s poems and tales.
“The Raven” is one of his pieces that has endured and a recording can be found on YouTube.
The early years of the 20th Century were incredibly productive for the up-and-coming composer. He also achieved fame as a virtuoso concert pianist.
Holbrooke’s friend, Granville Bantock, invited him to become a member of staff at the Birmingham and Midland Institute School of Music. Holbrooke lived with the Bantock family while he worked in Birmingham. In 1902, Holbrooke returned to London.
Holbrooke married in 1904, to Dorothy Hadfield from Rotherham. Holbrooke enjoyed much success in Yorkshire, writing “Byron” for the Leeds Choral Union, which premiered in December 1904 to much acclaim. The 400-voice choir was “magnificent”, Holbrooke noted.
The world of opera benefited from his creativity too. His opera Dylan, or Dylan, Son of the Wave, was first produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on July 4, 1914. It was ahead of its time. A silent film of flying wildfowl was shot in the Outer Hebrides and projected on to a screen positioned on the stage.
Man of Harlech: Holbrooke was injured in the house fire, as he rescued his manuscripts
Although the music covered the noise of the projector, the audience did not take to the new-fangled idea.
Dylan was his second opera in a trilogy, The Cauldron of Annwn. The other operas, also based on Welsh myths, were The Children of Don and Bronwen. Holbrooke’s father’s family had come from Neath, in South Wales, and for many years Josef Holbrooke’s family had a house in Harlech.
The librettist for his Welsh opera trilogy was Thomas Scott-Ellis, a colourful Edwardian character, also known as Baron Howard de Walden, a member of the aristocracy who amassed the world’s biggest collection of heraldry and medieval armour, owned race horses and raced powerboats – even competing at the 1908 London Olympics, the only Games where powerboat racing was staged. Scott-Ellis raced in a boat called Dylan.
Scott-Ellis lived in Chirk Castle, in the Welsh borders, where he taught himself to speak Welsh. He based his writing on the Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh folk tales from the 14th Century. Scott-Ellis, who was also a landowner and politician, was Holbrooke’s patron for many years, providing much-needed financial support.
Where did things go wrong for Holbrooke?
He was never the easiest person to work with. He was easily annoyed if conductors or musicians did not play his music in the way he demanded.
He described artists as being able to stand back and admire what they had put on canvas. He understood how authors completed their book and could reflect on the words, honed and crafted until the text was exactly what they wanted.
He, on the other hand, as a musical composer, was always at the whim of the conductor who was to decide how to interpret the music. Even though Holbrooke had written a piece of music and was very satisfied with it, he would be extremely irritated if the conductor altered the pace or if the balance of sound was different to what Holbrooke had imagined.
The incident hissy fit occurred in 1917. Holbrook had been hired to play his own piano concerto, Gwnn ap Nudd, in Bournemouth. One of the promoters of the concert, Dan Godfrey, had the following note printed and inserted into each programme:
“Mr Dan Godfrey begs to announce that Mr. Joseph Holbrook declines to play today, at this concert, because his name has not been announced on the bills in large enough type.”
Godfrey went on to explain what the substitute player would be performing. Such publicity did nothing for Holbrooke’s cause.
Difficult to work with: Joseph Holbrooke
Holbrooke, too, would write programme notes for his concerts, some of them quite extraordinary in the manner he lashed out, at his fellow musicians and even at the audiences themselves.
This one was from 1914:
“In a recent disclosing, I gave actual instances of orchestras I had personally given concerts with in London, costing me hundreds of pounds. My sole reward is to find them, the orchestras I engaged, united in ignoring, year after year, my works, until I imagine, more money is forthcoming to spend on more performances.”
Holbrooke seemed to attract trouble. On a visit to Chicago in 1915 he was the victim of a hit and run, resulting in a broken arm and a deep gash on his head. When the press reported it, neither the vehicle nor the driver had been traced.
In January 1929, by now 50 years old, he was badly burned trying to rescue his books and manuscripts from a fire in his Harlech house. He was able to save nearly all his papers.
Having become less-than-popular in the world of classical music, Holbrooke adapted and wrote suites of pieces for orchestras to accompany the new, emerging medium of silent films. He also wrote foxtrots, the most noted being “Let’s brighten Brighton” and waltzes dance orchestras, as well as writing for military and brass bands.
Josef, or Joseph, Holbrook, or Holbrooke, died in St John’s Wood on August 5, 1958. He was 80. His son, Gwidion, became one of the leading bassoonists in the country, under the name Gwidion Brooke.
Someone in the musical world today would do well to seek out Croydon-born Joseph Holbrooke’s vast library of compositions and give them another airing. Not every composer can claim to have operas, foxtrots, brass band music and symphonies in their repertoire of works.
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Mead’s Minster time to end after 32 years of church service
- 10 shillings to join the Goose Club and lay on a Christmas feast
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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