Edward German

Edward German, born German Edward Jones on 17 February 1862 in Whitchurch, Shropshire, England, was an English composer and musician of Welsh descent who became one of the leading figures in English comic opera and theatrical music during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He died on 11 November 1936. His first name was an anglicized form of the Welsh "Garmon," though his parents called him Jim. He was the second of five children born to John David Jones, a liquor merchant, brewer, church organist, and lay preacher, and Elizabeth Cox, a teacher of Bible classes. His father introduced him to piano and organ study at the age of five, and by six he had organized a boys' concert band, teaching himself violin, composition, and music arrangement in the process. As a teenager he led the town orchestra of Whitchurch, formed a quintet that included family members and friends, and sang comic songs in local village halls.

German studied privately in his mid-teens with Walter Cecil Hay, conductor of the Whitchurch choral society and director of music at St Chad's in Shrewsbury, before entering the Royal Academy of Music. There he changed his name from J. E. German to simply Edward German to avoid confusion with another student named Edward Jones. He pursued violin and organ studies while undertaking formal composition training under Ebenezer Prout. In 1884 the Academy appointed him sub-professor of the violin, and he won several prizes during his time on the faculty, including the Tubbs Bow for violin proficiency. The 1885 Charles Lucas Medal, awarded for his Te Deum for soloists, choir, and organ, prompted him to shift his primary focus from violin to composition. His light opera The Two Poets, written in 1886 for four soloists and piano, was produced at the Academy and subsequently performed at St George's Hall, later touring successfully in England. His first symphony, in E Minor, was performed at the Academy in 1887 and conducted by German himself in a revised version at the Crystal Palace in 1890. During his Academy years he also taught at Wimbledon School, played violin in theatre orchestras including the Savoy Theatre, and visited Germany in 1886 and 1888–89, where performances at Bayreuth made a strong impression.

In 1888, conductor Alberto Randegger introduced German to theatre manager Richard Mansfield, which led directly to his appointment as conductor and musical director at the Globe Theatre in London. He improved the orchestra there and began supplying incidental music for the theatre's productions, beginning with Richard III in 1889. The score attracted favorable notice, and the overture quickly gained popularity in concert halls. Further incidental music commissions followed, among them Henry Irving's production of Henry VIII at the Lyceum Theatre in 1892, for which German incorporated elements of traditional English dance; sheet music of the dance numbers sold 30,000 copies within a year. Additional commissions included Henry Arthur Jones's The Tempter in 1893, Johnston Forbes-Robertson's Romeo and Juliet at the Lyceum in 1895, Herbert Beerbohm Tree's productions of As You Like It in 1896 and Much Ado about Nothing in 1898, and Anthony Hope's English Nell, later known as Nell Gwynn, in 1900, starring Marie Tempest.

Alongside his theatrical work, German composed extensively for the concert hall, often adapting material from his stage scores. His Gipsy Suite achieved success comparable to his Richard III overture and his Henry VIII and Nell Gwynn dances. He received commissions from major orchestral festivals, contributing a second symphony to the Norwich Festival in 1893, a suite to the Leeds Festival in 1895, The Seasons for Norwich in 1899, and a symphonic poem, Hamlet, performed at Birmingham in 1897 under Hans Richter. After critic George Bernard Shaw argued that German's symphonies were undermined by theatrical tendencies unsuited to symphonic writing, German wrote no further symphonies, instead designating his large-scale four-movement works as symphonic suites. His Welsh Rhapsody of 1904 became among the best known of his concert works. He also produced a substantial body of drawing-room songs and solo piano pieces during this period.

German's transition into comic opera came when he was engaged to complete The Emerald Isle following the death of Arthur Sullivan in 1900. The work's success established him as Sullivan's successor in the field of English comic opera and led to further stage works, including Merrie England in 1902 and A Princess of Kensington. His Broadway credits encompass The Emerald Isle, A Princess of Kensington, and Tom Jones, the last of which dates from 1907. In 1903 he also wrote the Just So Song Book, setting texts by Rudyard Kipling. After approximately 1912, German composed little new music, though he continued to conduct until 1928. That same year he was knighted. He never married.