Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo

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Born in Vienna, Joseph was the son of Béla Horovitz, a publisher and co-founder of Phaidon Press, and his wife, Lotte (nee Beller). He had two younger sisters: Elly, later Miller, became an art publisher, and Hannah a concert promoter. Escaping from the city just days after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, Joseph and one of his sisters travelled unaccompanied to Antwerp, where the family were reunited, reaching London soon afterwards. They spent the war years in Bath and Oxford. Meanwhile, the humorist Gerard Hoffnung commissioned Metamorphoses on a Bedtime Theme (1958), a set of variations that parodied television commercials in the style of Bach, Mozart, Verdi, Schoenberg and Stravinsky, and Horrortorio (1961), a hilarious cantata celebrating the nuptials of Dracula’s daughter and Frankenstein’s son. By then he had joined the composition and theory staff of the Royal College of Music, where he became a fellow in 1981. Horowitz lived at Dawson Place, London, W2. He died on 9 February 2022, at the age of 95. [10] [11] Music [ edit ] Aboard the ark, forty days and forty nights of ceaseless rain takes its toll, but the mood changes both dramatically and musically when the rain finally stops. Spirits begin to lift while the musical accompaniment shifts from percussive, raindrop-like figures to a swaying gesture reminiscent of gentle ocean waves. As the floodwaters subside, Noah enlists a terrified raven to scout for dry land. Following a short, unsuccessful survey of the watery landscape the affrighted raven succumbs to a moment of literary allusion croaking "Nevermore!" (invoking Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem, The Raven). The Trumpet Concerto (1963), written, according to Horovitz, to “demonstrate the agility and brilliance of the modern trumpet”, contrasts spiky, virtuoso material with indulgently mellifluous writing. The closing rondo – a favoured form of the composer – is spiced with Latin American rhythms that keep both soloist and orchestra on their toes. With its colourful orchestration including tambourine, side drum and xylophone, it affords an attractively good-humoured as well as challenging staple in the trumpet repertory. Originally associated with Philip Jones, who gave the first performance under the composer, it was subsequently recorded by a leading trumpeter of the succeeding generation, James Watson. Horovitz made similar contributions to the concerto repertory of many other instruments, too, including violin, clarinet, bassoon, percussion, tuba and euphonium.

The first three string quartets were student works (the third accepted as the final part of his Oxford Bachelor of Music degree in 1948). The fourth, described by the composer as "dark and disturbing", was composed in 1953 following four years of work on mostly light-hearted music for ballet and opera. [16] His fifth string quartet, [17] which according to Daniel Snowman is "probably his most profound work", was first performed to honour the 60th birthday of Ernst Gombrich at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1969 by the Amadeus Quartet. [18] [16] Yet there was more to Horovitz than the tale of a messianic shipbuilder who saved the human race by floating away on a series of somewhat corny chord changes. In his early years he was a renowned composer and conductor of ballet, notably Alice in Wonderland (1953), based on Lewis Carroll’s novel and written for Anton Dolin’s Festival Ballet Company (later English National Ballet) to mark the Coronation. Horovitz married Anna Landau in 1956, shortly after coaching at the bi-centenary celebration for Mozart and Glyndeborne. They honeymooned in Majorca, staying in Paguera and visiting Valldemossa. He later used these two names for two clarinet pieces, based on Spanish folk-tunes he had heard there. He was Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music from 1961, and a Council Member of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain from 1970. [7] Between 1969 and 1996 he belonged to the board of the Performing Rights Society.Horovitz was born in Vienna in 1926 and emigrated to England in 1938. He studied music at New College, Oxford, with Gordon Jacob at the Royal College of Music where he won the Farrar Prize, and for a further year with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. The Festival of Britain in 1951 brought him to London as conductor of ballet and concerts at the Festival Amphitheatre. He then held positions as conductor to the Ballets Russes, associate director of the Intimate Opera Company, on the music staff at Glyndebourne, and as guest composer at the Tanglewood Festival, USA. Miller, Dr Malcolm. 'From Noah to Ninotchka via Samson and psalms', in Jewish Renaissance, July 2006, p 31 Horovitz's story begins with his escape from the Nazis as they entered Vienna in 1938, to then include giving wartime musical appreciation lectures to the forces, being awarded two Ivor Novello awards for later compositions, and working with such comic legends as Gerard Hoffnung and Michael Flanders.

Joseph Horovitz (26 May 1926 – 9 February 2022) was an Austrian-born British composer and conductor best known for his 1970 pop cantata Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo, which achieved widespread popularity in schools. Horovitz also composed music for television, including the theme music for the Thames Television series Rumpole of the Bailey, and was a prolific composer of ballet, orchestral (including nine concertos), brass band, wind band and chamber music. [1] He considered his fifth string quartet (1969) to be his best work. [2] Biography [ edit ] Joseph Horovitz, composer who brought humour to classical music and was best known for his cantata Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo – obituary". The Telegraph. 11 February 2022. (subscription required) An energetic, enthusiastic and erudite man, the sprightly Horovitz invariably showed genuine yet modest delight when his works produced a positive reaction. “If people find, for instance, three minutes of a piece of music of mine which they’d like to hear again, that’s a wonderful thing,” he said. Unlike many of his postwar European contemporaries, Horovitz’s music rarely strayed from the approachable and likeable. In The Hitler Emigrés (2002), Daniel Snowman describes Horovitz joking to the musicologist Hans Keller that Schoenberg “wrote no tunes”, whereupon Keller riposted by whistling one of his hero’s most intractable twelve-tone themes. Choir and children together sang What shall we do with the drunken sailor? and Somewhere over the Rainbow, and The Bach Choir sang a special arrangement of the Skye Boat Song, commissioned from John Tavener.The work encompasses a number of musical styles including hymnal, samba, jazz and square dance. Keep an ear out for the Edgar Allan Poe reference rapping on the door! The last of his five string quartets, dating from 1969, one of his finest works, uses gritty dissonance seemingly to recall the harsh experiences of his earlier life, with anguish forcefully invoked by insistent repetitions of Viennese waltz motifs. The disquiet alternates with wistful passages, however, and the quartet achieves a peaceful resolution on to a final consonance. This is the story of a composer of the kind of music that just fits so beautifully, that you hardly notice yourself humming along. This life journey has been one of distinction in many ways, yet Horovitz has not been taken as seriously as he'd like. Debbie Wiseman grapples with this issue, to understand why Horovitz has not received the acclaim that his artistry deserves. His first post as music director for the Bristol Old Vic provided both valuable experience – he continued to conduct throughout his life – and a grounding in the popular styles that were to become an intrinsic element in his own idiom.