Joseph Holbrooke - Recordings

Recordings

Only a small fraction of Holbrooke's large output has been recorded, although he was deeply interested in promoting his music through various reproductive formats. Scott-Ellis financed several gramophone recordings including excerpts from The Cauldron of Annwn, most notably from the final opera of the trilogy, Bronwen. Issued by Columbia, these were positively received:

"The Columbia Company have given one of our most neglected composers a hearing on the gramophone by their issue of some important fragments from Josef Holbrook'e music drama Bronwen. This country has had nothing so intensely individual and so closely dramatic in conception and treatment as the music of Bronwen. Many unforgettable moments of grandeur and spiritual appeal will be wasted if music lovers omit to hear these records for themselves."

Other recordings appeared intermittently throughout the 1930s, including a coupling of the Dylan Prelude and the finale of Holbrooke's third symphony (both abridged) on Decca:

"It has been objected that Holbrooke is mighty clever, and precious little else. That seems too harsh a judgment. I think one can hear a fair amount of his music with pleasure, on occasion but the profound and the natively touching qualities he does not seem surely to command. Yet I have heard lots of preludes inferior in spirit and general stir to this Dylan one, which I think most people would enjoy. It is worth trying, in this clear, judicious, aptly coloured recording."

Another highlight was Paxton's 1949 recording of the piano concerto The Song of Gwyn ap Nudd played by Grace Lyndon with the London Promenade Orchestra conducted by Arthur Hammond (1904-1991).

In 1993 several of these historical recordings were re-issued on compact disc by Symposium. Besides gramophone records, Holbrooke oversaw the production of a large number of pianola and organ rolls of his music including abridged arrangements of Apollo and the Seaman, the overture to Children of Don, the overture to Bronwen, Queen Mab, The Viking, The Raven, The Wilfowl, the variations on Three Blind Mice and Auld Lang Syne, and the second piano concerto L'Orient. Few of his works were commercially recorded in the three decades following the composer's death in 1958, notable exceptions being The Birds of Rhiannon and The Song of Gwyn ap Nudd, although the BBC did broadcast a number of studio performances.

The advent of the compact disc has, however, brought a revival of interest: Marco Polo issued two orchestral discs and one chamber music disc, Hyperion included The Song of Gywn ap Nudd in it's ongoing "Romantic Piano Concerto" series and Lyrita reissued their recording of The Birds of Rhiannon. More recently, several other companies have shown an interest in recording Holbrooke, including CPO, Dutton, Naxos and Cameo Classics.