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. Joseph journeys through his remarkable life and career in conversation with composer, Debbie Wiseman.

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! How strange is our world. As I begin to write this piece, BBC Radio 3 plays me ‘Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo’, a cheerful choral work composed by Joseph Horovitz. This year we reprised the wonderful cantata Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo, which we performed alongside a number of songs of the sea. The concert was conducted by Philip Scriven and accompanied by a jazz trio consisting of Mark Austin (piano), Dan Swana (bass), Matthew Green (percussion).

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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. Novello & Company Limited are sad to announce the passing of distinguished composer, conductor and teacher Joseph Horovitz , who died peacefully on 9 February 2022, aged 95. He will be greatly missed by us all and the music world at large. Captain Noah gives the children some rousing choruses to sing, starting with ‘Rain and Rain and Rain’, and ending with a celebration of the end of the flood and God’s promise symbolised by the rainbow in the sky. Members of The Bach Choir had the opportunity to sing several small solo parts as Noah, his wife and sons, and God. 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. 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).

The commitment and enthusiasm of the children was memorable, as was the sight of their parents in the audience” The children's " pop cantata" Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo (1970) was his biggest popular success. [19] 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 similar cantatas commissioned for school use by the publishers 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). The piece was first recorded by the Kings Singers in 1972 on an Argo LP, [20] and a new orchestral version by the composer was conducted by John Wilson in 2018. [12] An environmental cantata, Summer Sunday, followed in 1975, commissioned for the Cookham Festival. [21] His music for television included Lillie, Rumpole of the Bailey, The Search for the Nile, The Fight Against Slavery, Wessex Tales and Partners in Crime. This article is about the British composer and conductor. For the American cultural historian, see Joseph Horowitz.Snowman, Daniel. "The Hitler Emigrés". www.penguin.co.uk. Archived from the original on 22 February 2020 . Retrieved 23 February 2020. 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. 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] The Jubilee Toy Symphony (1977), deploying toy instruments, bird sounds and percussion, was another popular success. Commissioned for the Queen’s silver jubilee, it was given its premiere by a stellar lineup of soloists under Colin Davis at a musical party in aid of the Musicians Benevolent Fund (now Help Musicians) at St James’s Palace, in the presence of the Queen Mother. Goldenes Verdienstzeichen 1995., in Handbuch der Stadt Wien 1995/96., p. II/226. Retrieved 16 February 2022.

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.This 15-minute work takes the listener from melodies of prewar Vienna, which the composer, dedicatee and performers would have known, to a distorted version of Horst Wessel Lied, the Nazi anthem that ended their childhoods. The composer once said that if all his works were thrown in a river, this was the one he would retrieve.