Joseph Holbrooke

Joseph Charles Holbrooke (5 July 1878 – 5 August 1958) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist.

Joseph Holbrooke was born Joseph Charles Holbrook in Croydon, Surrey. His father, also named Joseph, was a music hall musician and teacher, and his mother Helen was a Scottish singer. He had two older sisters (Helen and Mary) and two younger brothers (Robert and James), both of whom died in infancy. The family travelled around the country, with both parents participating in musical entertainments. Holbrooke's mother died in 1880 from tuberculosis, leaving the family in the care of Joseph senior, who settled the family in London and took the position of pianist at Collins' Music Hall, Islington, and later at the Bedford Music Hall. Holbrooke was taught to play the piano and the violin by his father, who was not averse to the use of violence as a method of instruction, and played in music halls himself before entering the Royal Academy of Music as a student in 1893, where he studied under Frederick Corder for composition and Frederick Westlake for piano. Whilst at the academy he composed several works, chiefly piano miniatures, songs and some chamber music, which were performed at student concerts: at one recital, he substituted one of his own compositions in preference to Schumann's Toccata, incurring the wrath of the Principal, Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie. Whilst at the Royal Academy, Holbrooke won several prizes including the Potter Exhibition for pianoforte (1895), the Sterndale Bennett Scholarship (awarded on 29 April 1896), the Heathcote Long Prize for pianoforte (1896) and, in his final year (with the Pantomime Suite for strings), the Charles Lucas Prize for composition (1897).

After leaving the Royal Academy Holbrooke sought a variety of occupations. In 1898 he undertook a tour of Scotland accompanying the music hall singer Arthur Lloyd, but the venture failed and he was forced to return to live with his father in London. He then moved out of the family home to Harringay where he began to teach music privately, but once again without financial success. Around this time he decided to change his name from Holbrook to Holbrooke, probably in order to avoid confusion as his father was also still teaching privately. He subsequently adopted the variant Josef Holbrooke which he continued to use inconsistently throughout the remainder of his life. Responding to an advertisement in Musical News, Holbrooke travelled to Horncastle in Lincolnshire where he briefly lived with and served as musical companion to the Reverend Edward Stewart Bengough (1839-1920). He was soon travelling again, conducting a touring pantomime (Aladdin and the Lamp) during the 1899-1900 Christmas season. Once more, however, the enterprise collapsed and Holbrooke was left stranded and virtually destitute, at which point Bengough sent him money to enable him to return to London.

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