Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo

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Horovitz was born in Vienna, Austria, into a Jewish family who emigrated to England in 1938 to escape the Nazis. His father was the publisher Béla Horovitz, the co-founder in 1923, with Ludwig Goldscheider, of Phaidon Press. [3] His sister was the classical music promoter Hannah Horovitz (1936-2010). [4] Joseph Horovitz composes concertos and ballets, operas and chamber music, yet he’s best known for Rumpole of the Bailey, and Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo. 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. In the 1980s he composed music for the TV series Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime and A Dorothy L Sayers Mystery.

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 ] He is survived by his wife, Anna (nee Landau), whom he married in 1956, and their two daughters, Isabel and Sally, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Feel the Spirit, written in 2016, is a cycle of seven familiar spirituals expertly arranged by John Rutter. These vivid and expressive arrangements can be performed individually, or as a complete cycle that showcases the rich heritage of the spiritual. The work brings new life to such well-loved titles as Steal Away, My poem, ‘Noah’s Notes (Preliminary)’, imagines Noah on duty by the Ark’s door as the animals enter. He makes notes about each of the creatures. His notes are preliminary, however. How much more time will he spend, I wonder, studying (like a biblical David Attenborough) the lifestyle of the creatures penned in the Ark as it sails along the flood? 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.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 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. 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. 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). 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.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).

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. 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. 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.

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 has become a favourite among sacred and secular institutions alike. Relatively short (about twenty-six minutes) and intended for children, the work has been successfully adapted for adult performers, with the aforementioned recording by The King’s Singers being one such example. 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.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! 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). This year we reprised the wonderful cantata Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo, which we performed alongside a number of songs of the sea. 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. He spent a year in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, who not only “hoovered my music of redundant notes” but also influenced the searching lines of his 1950 Violin Concerto. “She taught me to admire, to emulate, sometimes even to imitate the procedures of Stravinsky in his neoclassic manner,” he added.