Information
Composer: Joseph Holbrooke
- Amontillado, Op. 123
- The Viking, Op. 32 (after H.W. Longfellow, the Skeleton in Armour)
- Three Blind Mice Variations, Op. 37
- Ulalume, Op. 35
Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt
Howard Griffiths, conductor
Date: 2009
Label: CPO
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ARTISTIC QUALITY: 8 / SOUND QUALITY: 9
Josef Holbrooke (1878-1958), like his countryman Granville Bantock, wrote a large quantity of colorful orchestral music in a well-crafted, slightly Straussian vein; but like so many of his contemporaries both at home and abroad, he seemed unable to “let go” and indulge in the sort of decadent orchestral gluttony we expect and demand from the best turn-of-the-century composers. Nevertheless, there’s plenty to enjoy here. Amontillado and Ulalume are both based on stories/poems by Edgar Allan Poe. The former is surprisingly chipper given the subject matter, at least until the end, but Ulalume is wonderfully atmospheric and twilit.
The variations on Three Blind Mice are, as you might expect, cute and fun, but you can’t help harboring the nagging suspicion that a quarter of an hour of it is perhaps too much of a good thing. Holbrooke’s symphonic poem The Viking also tends to overstay its welcome: it needs a really good tune and never quite manages to deliver one, but it has compelling episodes once it gets moving. Howard Griffiths and his Frankfurters deliver committed performances, with only the strings sounding a touch thin and scruffy now and again (and never seriously so). The sonics are quite good. Worth a listen.
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday
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Joseph Holbrooke (5 July 1878 – 5 August 1958) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He studied under Frederick Corder and Frederick Westlake at the Royal Academy of Music. Holbrooke was a late-Romantic composer, writing in a predominantly tonal and richly chromatic idiom. His style was essentially eclectic: whilst the early chamber works echo the language and methods of Brahms and Dvořák, there is also an exuberance informed by his affection for the music of Tchaikovsky. Only a small fraction of Holbrooke's large output has been recorded by CPO, Dutton, Naxos and Cameo Classics.
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Howard Griffiths (born 24 February 1950) is a British conductor. He was born in Hastings and studied music at the Royal College of Music, London. Griffiths has lived in Switzerland since 1981. From 1996 to 2006, he was chief conductor and artistic director of the Zürcher Kammerorchester (ZKO). Griffiths is a champion of music by contemporary Turkish and Swiss composers. With the ZKO, he has also conducted works in a classical and classical modern range. From 2007 to 2018 Griffiths was chief conductor of the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester in Frankfurt. He has recorded over 60 CDs under various labels.
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