Holbrooke from Dutton

[Pengelli]

I was going to say,'neo-classical',myself! But I was too cautious. But,it is as if Holbrooke is paring everything down,albeit,not to the extent that Stravinsky did &  certainly not for the same reasons. As to my reference to French composers, I was referring to the refined quality of the music,not that he actually sounds like Ravel or Debussy,(for example). Yet,I do find an impressionistic quality to some of his best music,and occasionally an astringency,which I don't find in any of the composers that Holbrooke seems to have been packaged with. In one curious example,the 'Prelude to Dylan', Some of the music,especially in the stormy bits,actually makes me think of late Sibelius!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Your remarks are very percipient, Pengelli. That slight astringency is a Holbrooke characteristic, and it is unlike the style of his contemporaries. Sibelius appears in parts of "Bronwen" too - but in the end Holbrooke is his own man.

[Pengelli]

Quite!

[Albion]

In view of the dearth of information on Holbrooke, I was trawling the web and came across an article written by David Wright. Very much a character assassination, laden with inaccuracies, would anybody like to comment on the author's assertions, particularly regarding the 'subtext' of Apollo and the Seaman?

http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/joseph-holbrooke.pdf


We really do need a balanced assessment of Holbrooke, both as a man and as a musician - together with an attempt at an accurate and complete work-list!

Here is the author's website: http://www.wrightmusic.net/

[Gareth Vaughan]

David Wright is a distinguished musicologist but he has a "thing" about Holbrooke and, as you point out, the aggressive (and rather prudish) tone of his article, together with the numerous inaccuracies, undermine any claim it might have to be taken seriously. Perhaps it is not meant to be, as its style is reminiscent of some of Josef's own rants - perhaps deliberately so!
However, David is an authority on, and champion of, the music of Ruth Gipps and William Wordsworth, among others.

[Pengelli]

His other articles are quite interesting.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Yes - he doesn't think much of Schubert either!

[Pengelli]

Another eccentric? I was reading the other day how Glenn Gould thought Mozart was a lousy composer. Another critic on Musicweb thinks Gliere and Myaskovsky are better symphonists than Tchaikovsky,Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Another time I read a review in one cd review magazine saying a cd of Richard Strauss's 'Alpine Symphony' was so muddy,you couldn't tell one instrument the other,another magazine extolled the incredible clarity of the recording. And then there's David Hurwitz who has rubbished Jaqueline du Pre! Critics,eh?
(Incidentally,I like Glenn Gould AND Mozart!) I shall read more of his articles later. I notice he praises the underated Novak,and has articles about some Welsh composers. There's allot there. I must read the one about Schubert.

[Pengelli]

Correction: 'one from the other'. My typing!
Regarding Schubert. I was listening to two of Schubert's early symphonies,last night,which often tend to be dismissed as derivative & inconsequential. I was thinking how delightful & enjoyable they were.

[Albion]

David Wright is a distinguished musicologist

The more I read from the website, the more I suspect unbridled leg-pulling. In the list of Wright's own compositions, eye-catching titles include An unexpected glimpse of lemon for two clarinets and horn, Op.39, On seeing Lucy Owen read the news for oboe, Op.56 and The Forsaken Brownie for string quartet, Op.71.

The scholarship of the articles is so suspect, the writing style is so inept, and the opinions are so perverse that irony appears to be the intent.

[Kriton]

Yes - he doesn't think much of Schubert either!

Sorry for the off topic remark, but reading that article, I can come to no other conclusion that Wright is pulling the reader's leg. He probably took a couple of famous remarks and writings about Schubert, and rewrote them to give them the exact opposite meaning. Apart from the many inaccuracies and historical untruths, he makes such outrageous comments, that anyone with even the slightest interest in this composer knows it's some kind of hoax. The fact that it takes him 7 pages, I think can only have to do with how much the funny man admires the composer.

In any case, I reckon the article is a good lesson for all musicologists in training on how NOT to write scientifically...

[JimL]

Wright sounds like a prudish homophobe and a snob to me.  I think I know who died and appointed him God, but said person was unqualified to do so!

[eschiss1]

David Wright is a distinguished musicologist

The more I read from the website, the more I suspect unbridled leg-pulling. In the list of Wright's own compositions, eye-catching titles include An unexpected glimpse of lemon for two clarinets and horn, Op.39, On seeing Lucy Owen read the news for oboe, Op.56 and The Forsaken Brownie for string quartet, Op.71.

The scholarship of the articles is so suspect, the writing style is so inept, and the opinions are so perverse that irony appears to be the intent.

There is also a The Forsaken Brownie by Alec Rowley.  I do feel dubious about Unexpected Glimpse of Lemon since it's one of those odd ducks with exactly two google hits; this suggests no performances, no rental distribution, no nuttin', unless I'm fairly well mistaken.  Even a friend with only one work performed had google works on that one  work...  But titles like On seeing Lucy Owen read the news aren't that unusual in works by Weir and the Matthews brothers among others, if memory serves (or some composers in modern British music-- I may be thinking of the wrong examples... not that entirely unusual though. Especially now that I know, which I didn't, that Lucy Owen is a newsreader/whatever the term is for, I assume, BBC.)
Eric

[Mark Thomas]

I have seldom read a more badly written and poorly argued article than Wright's on Holbrooke. It's generous of you, Kriton, to think that it's written tongue in cheek but I doubt it. Read his article on Elgar, which I chose to read at random. The writing is marginally, but only marginally, better but it is similarly vituperative and gives prominence to allegations about Elgar's sexual deviance. Not a pleasant read. The article on Chopin is just the same both in its hostility towards the composer and in Wright's fascination with his sex life. Read his article on Walton, remarkable for it's concentration on Britten's homosexuality!

To be sure, when he is writing about composers of whom he approves, Brahms and Karl Amadeus Hartmann for example, he does at least concentrate on their music, but his writing remains woefully ungrammatical. Wright clearly has strong musical opinions, both favourable and critical, and isn't afraid of expressing them strongly. That's to be respected. Less laudable is his careless, childish prose and his juvenile obsession with sex. Frankly, I find this man's writing distasteful.

[Alan Howe]

I agree, Mark. Wright concentrates far too little on the music and far too much on the perceived foibles of the composer. Tabloid musicology of the worst kind, with unsupported opinions - and, as Mark says, often appallingly written. Avoid!