Henry Holmes (composer)
Henry Holmes (7 November 1839 – 9 December 1905)
Biography
Born in London, Holmes was the younger brother of violinist and composer
In London, Holmes was active as a recitalist, chamber musician, and concert soloist. He taught the violin privately and at the Royal College of Music spent much of his time composing. Some of his notable pupils include Arnold Dolmetsch, Arthur Elwell Fisher, Jessie Grimson and Kathleen Parlow. He spent the last several years of his life in San Francisco, California, where he died in 1905 at the age of 66.[2]
Composition
His works include two sacred cantatas - Praise Ye the Lord and Christmas Day (Gloucester, 1880), as well as O may I join the choir invisible for baritone solo, chorus and strings. Of the symphonies only the last two have survived. The first (in A, op. 32) was given at the
Critical reception
A critic in Gloucester was not impressed and made the following criticism in 1880:
The event at Gloucester was the daily appearances of Mr Henry Holmes – aesthetic, violinist, and the composer of a very mediocre cantata. The hair of this genius was crimped and his manners had been put in curl-papers. One day he was accompanied by Mrs Holmes, dressed in a tablecloth and a nimbus,[6]
See also
- Son-in-law, English novelist Edgar Jepson
References
- ^ "Oxford DNB". Retrieved 10 August 2013.
- ^ a b c Alberto Bachmann, An Encyclopedia of the Violin by p. 365.
- ISBN 9781417907120.
- ^ Jürgen Schaarwächter. 'Overshadowed: British Symphonism Beyond Parry, Stanford, Elgar', in British Music Vol. 27 (2005), pp. 72-81)
- ^ James Duff Brown, Stephen Samuel Stratton. British Musical Biography (1897)
- ^ "Novel or Strange". The Cornishman. No. 115. 23 September 1880. p. 7.