Tuesday 22 January 2008

Dramatic Choral Symphony by Josef Holbrooke

Further to my post about Centenary Compositions, here is a brief description of the missing work – Holbrooke’s Dramatic Choral Symphony

“The next important composition of Holbrooke's was his Dramatic Choral Symphony. This creation was inspired by four poems of the composer's favourite poet, Edgar Allan Poe, to whom so much of his work owes its impulse. The poems on which the new symphony was founded were The Haunted Palace, Hymn to the Virgin, The City in the Sea, and The Valley Nis. It was not completed until the year 1908, though six years went to the making of it.
Two of its movements were performed at the Bristol Festival in 1907, but the complete rendering of the work was first given by the Leeds Choral Union in 1908, and was conducted by the composer. Holbrooke has said that this is the last musical poem that he is likely to write on subjects taken from Poe's works, as he considers that he has now utilised all the best of them”
George Lowe

No comments: