Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo

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Joe’s music was very much his own - work of beguiling colours and rhythms, in which the mixing, with his own very appealing musical voice, of styles from earlier periods or of the characteristics of other musical genres created something that was so very representative of certain contemporary trends of the mid-20th century. Joe was a composer who could turn his hand to a great variety of projects - from TV scores ( Rumpole of the Bailey being the best known example) and music for the classical concert hall (for example, Jazz Concerto or Fantasia on a Theme of Couperin) to what is probably the work for which he is best known, Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo, part of the ground-breaking series of pop-cantatas commissioned by Novello and performed by so many young people over many years and loved also in its animated version for TV. But never did the range of that work compromise its freshness, quality and memorability. Joe will be much missed by all who have had the privilege to know him and to work with him throughout his long and fruitful life."

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. Over the past eighteen months I have been reading various poems translated from the Anglo-Saxon, and pootling about through some Old English poems and tracts. I found several long-forgotten Old English dictionaries belonging to my late husband Peter Redgrove. I studied these in a barefoot kind of way. Some of that strange and mysterious vocabulary has found its way into recent poems. A wish to write about animals sprang from a reading of the Chester Mystery Play of Noah and The Deluge. Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo was conceived as an accommodating work. In the Preface to the Novello edition the authors indicate that they "hope it will be useful wherever and whenever groups of singers and musicians need a work of some length to perform together, and that they will arrange, divide and adapt it (within reason) as best suits their available talent and the occasion." [1] The words by Michael Flanders (of Flanders and Swann) are brilliantly set to music by the composer Joseph Horovitz, who honoured us with his presence in the audience. He composed the score for The Search for the Nile (1971), a miniseries, for a BBC production of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1976), for Lillie, a TV series about Lillie Langtry starring Francesca Annis (1978), and for Rumpole of the Bailey (1978).

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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. The commitment and enthusiasm of the children was memorable, as was the sight of their parents in the audience” Wright, David C. H. (2019). The Royal College of Music and Its Contexts: An Artistic and Social History. Cambridge University Press. p.348. ISBN 9781107163386. Gordon Jacob was an RCM student (studying composition with Stanford, Howells and Vaughan Williams) who returned to teach ... and 1959–66); his students included Ruth Gipps, Imogen Holst, Alan Ridout, Philip Cannon and Joseph Horovitz.

After a wonderful 70-year career in music his compositions number twelve ballets, nine concertos – including his much-loved Jazz Concerto, and the Euphonium Concerto – two one-act operas, chamber music, works for brass and wind bands, film, television and radio, and choral works - most famously his Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo . 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 ] This is the story of a composer of the kind of music that just fits so beautifully, that you hardly notice yourself humming along. The concert was conducted by Philip Scriven and accompanied by a jazz trio consisting of Mark Austin (piano), Dan Swana (bass), Matthew Green (percussion).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. Captain Noah and his floating zoo is the first collaboration of Michael Flanders (of Flanders and Swan) and Joseph Horovitz in 1970. It is a lighthearted look at the old testament story and has been popular with adults and children since its creation. It has been performed in many different versions and adaptations, most notably by The Kings Singers. Although originally intended to be sung in schools, in unison or two parts, our version has been prepared by the composer for mixed chorus. The musical style of the cantata is unashamedly eclectic and exploits all well-known types of popular music to tell this ever-green story in a tuneful and amusing way. Carducci Quartet plays Horovitz, String Quartet No 5". YouTube. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. 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. 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.

Horowitz lived at Dawson Place, London, W2. He died on 9 February 2022, at the age of 95. [10] [11] Music [ edit ] Almost as successful was the Horrortorio, first performed at the Hoffnung astronautical music festival of 1961 at the Royal Festival Hall, and subsequently all over the world. Setting a witty libretto by Alistair Sampson, from a scenario by Maurice Richardson that lampoons Hammer horror films of the period with its storyline populated by Count Dracula, Frankenstein, Moriarty and Fu Manchu, the Horrortorio is a riotous but skilfully crafted pastiche of Handelian oratorio, Gilbert and Sullivan and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. After reading music and modern languages at Oxford he studied with Gordon Jacob at the Royal College of Music and for a year with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Noah’s Notes’ began as a handwritten draft, using couplets and longish lines. And this form didn’t change (though a poem’s form often does change as I re-write). When I’d typed up my first version I began adding creature after creature, writing directly on to the screen. Sometimes a poem must be hunted down and/or coaxed into being, but this poem arrived in a rush, as if eager to be made. Poets will know the rare exhilaration of this.

Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo (1970) is a children's cantata composed in a popular style for unison or two-part voices and piano, with optional bass and drums. The libretto by Michael Flanders is an adaptation of the Biblical tale of Noah found in Genesis chapters 6–9. It is one of a series of " pop cantatas" commissioned for school use by Novello, including The Daniel Jazz (1963) by Herbert Chappell, Jonah-Man Jazz (1966) by Michael Hurd and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Andrew Lloyd Webber (1968).

Captain Noah was recorded by The King’s Singers ( EMI 1972, reissued Dutton Vocalion 2005 as CDLF8120). One of the ensemble's earliest recordings, the performance features Joseph Horovitz at the piano. The work was also commercially recorded as an animated version intended for television broadcast (1972; VHS, 1978). After completing his schooling at The City of Oxford High School Horovitz studied music and modern languages at New College, Oxford, where his teachers included R. O. Morris, Percy Scholes, Bernard Rose and Egon Wellesz. [5] He later attended the Royal College of Music in London, studying composition with Gordon Jacob. [6] Horovitz then undertook a year of further study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. His musical career began in 1950, when he became music director at the Bristol Old Vic. He was subsequently active as a conductor of ballet and opera, and toured Europe and the United States. With the death of Joseph Horovitz, an important link with music making in pre-War Europe disappears," says Howard Friend, Managing Editor, Novello 1998-2019. "Though only 12 when his family had to leave the country of his birth for Britain, his upbringing in the heart of Vienna, the son of a distinguished publisher, never seemed far away in either his intellect or undoubted charm and sense of humour. With a formidable memory for names, faces and works even to the end of his life and clear explanation and delivery in teaching, he attracted enormous affection from his students at the RCM as well as us whose privilege it was to publish many of his practical and finely crafted works.This article is about the British composer and conductor. For the American cultural historian, see Joseph Horowitz.