Joseph Holbrooke - Symphony No. 3; etc. (Howard Griffiths)

Information

Composer: Joseph Holbrooke

• The Birds of Rhiannon, Op. 87
• The girl I left behind me, Op. 37 No. 2
• Symphony No. 3 in E minor, Op. 90 'Ships'

Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern

Howard Griffiths, conductor

Date: 2019

Label: CPO
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/joseph-holbrooke-symphonie-nr-3-ships/hnum/8456430

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Review

Apparently ‘the cockney Wagner’ Josef Holbrooke was neither a cockney (born in Croydon, settled in Haringey) nor a Wagnerian (more on that later). He can hardly be blamed for adopting a German spelling of his forename in order to sound more like the real deal. Holbrooke failed to complete his degree at the Royal Academy of Music in 1896 owing to family problems and, unlike some other modestly talented composers of the period, had no guarantees or privileges to fall back on. He was a music-hall act and a destitute teacher before his career took off.

Gareth Vaughan’s booklet note refers to Holbrooke’s ‘handling of the orchestra being more redolent of Debussy or Ravel’ than Wagner, which seems about right. The mysterious ending to The Birds of Rhiannon, the many instances of entwined woodwinds glancing towards Arcadia (as in the central movement of the Symphony No 3, which also includes a delicious sax solo) and the ripe opportunity to twist the orchestral kaleidoscope presented by the Symphonic Variations all show that Holbrooke was no mean painter of orchestral colour.

What’s left – on the evidence of those three works taken as wholes – is music that’s just a bit thin, anonymous, washy and maybe even caught between worlds (one reason variation form suited him; Henry Wood loved his Variations on ‘Three Blind Mice’). The symphony, Ships, moves from a jingoistic reflection of the British fleet setting forth to destroy to a highly reflective portrait of hospital ships with their sorrowful human cargo (that central movement already mentioned) and a final celebration of merchant ships, which introduces the shanty ‘The Maid of Amsterdam’. Was Holbrooke’s experience of poverty and hardship the reason he felt compelled to ballast his penchant for the mysterious, the luminous and the reflective orchestration with stuff he thought might sell?

-- Andrew Mellor, Gramophone

More reviews:
https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Jul/Holbrooke_sy3_5550412.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Symphonic-Poems-DEUTSCHE-RADIO-PHILHARMONIE/dp/B07PRZP3LD

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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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Holbrooke

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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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Griffiths_(conductor)

https://www.howardgriffiths.ch/

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