Howard Talbot
Encyclopedia
Richard Lansdale Munkittrick, better known as Howard Talbot (9 March 1865 – 12 September 1928), was an American-born, English-raised conductor and composer of Irish descent. He was best known for writing the music to several hit Edwardian musical comedies, including A Chinese Honeymoon
, The Arcadians
and The Boy
, as well as a number of other successful British musicals during the first two decades of the 20th century.
but moved to London at the age of four. His parents were Alexander Munkittrick and his wife, Lillie. Originally planning to enter the medical profession, he studied at King's College, London but switched to music and pursued a musical education at the Royal College of Music
. There he studied under Sir Hubert Parry
, Sir Frederick Bridge
and Sir Walter Parratt
. For some years, although Talbot had had works staged by amateurs in Hunstanton
, Oxford
and King's Lynn
, professionally he only succeeded in having a few of his individual songs performed in other people's productions. In 1895, Talbot married an actress known as Amy Clare Betts (birthname Ada Bellamy; 1871?–1895), but his bride died only eight months after their wedding. He later married Dorothy Maud Cross from Sandringham
, Norfolk
. The couple produced four daughters.
Talbot's first full professionally produced comic opera
was Wapping Old Stairs in 1894. The success of this production in King's Lynn led to a transfer of the show to the Vaudeville Theatre
in London. Despite a strong London cast including Jessie Bond
, Courtice Pounds
and Richard Temple from the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
, the show was not well-received in the West End
and closed after one month. A follow up work, the burlesque All My Eye-van-hoe, was also a flop, and Talbot was forced to sue the producers for monies owed to him for this work.
At this time, Talbot earned the bulk of his living from conducting both in London and for provincial touring productions, such as The Lady Slavey, where managers appreciated his "cheery, goodnatured" attitude. Although he continued to compose, achieving some success both in Britain and America with Monte Carlo in 1896, Talbot's name was not yet considered to be a major force in British musical theatre
, and he continued to be asked mainly to supply individual songs that were inserted into works primarily written by others. The most successful shows that he conducted in London during this period were The Sorrows of Satan (1897) at the Shaftesbury Theatre
and two Arthur Roberts vehicles, Dandy Dan the Lifeguardsman (1897), which included his song "Someone Ought to Speak to Millie Simpson", and Milord Sir Smith (1898). In 1899 he conducted Great Caesar.
Talbot's first blockbuster hit was A Chinese Honeymoon
, which opened in Hanley in 1899 and toured extensively before it was finally presented in London in 1891. A Chinese Honeymoon went on to become the first work of musical theatre
in history to run for over 1,000 consecutive performances and found large audiences around the world. Talbot continued to conduct at the Gaiety Theatre
, Daly's Theatre
and other West End theatre
s and went on to compose or collaborate on two dozen musicals. He commanded a technical proficiency rare among Edwardian musical theatre composers, and his music is reminiscent of Arthur Sullivan
's. In addition to musicals, he produced a body of songs, piano pieces, orchestral works and a cantata
.
(1902, contributing some songs), Three Little Maids
(1903, contributing the concerted music and some lyrics), The Blue Moon
(1904), The White Chrysanthemum
(1905), The Girl Behind the Counter
(1906), and The Belle of Brittany (1908). In addition, he contributed a few songs to other musicals and composed a few unsuccessful musicals.
In 1909, Talbot teamed up with Lionel Monckton
to produce The Arcadians
, which went on to become one of the most successful Edwardian musical comedies and has been described as the masterpiece of the genre. The musicals that followed this, such as The Mousmé in 1911, The Pearl Girl in 1913, My Lady Frayle in 1915, Mr Manhattan in 1916, and other short works for music halls, were only modest successes, however, and musical styles began to change. In 1916 Talbot contributed to a reworking of an American musical, High Jinks for the Adelphi Theatre
, which adapted a Rudolph Friml score. At the same time, he had been composing music for short musical pieces for variety theatres.
The careers of other major composers of the Edwardian era (for example, Sidney Jones
), began to fade by World War I
when they failed to adopt the new American dance rhythms and styles, such as ragtime
. However, in 1917, Talbot and Monckton were hired to write the score for the musical The Boy
, based on Pinero
's The Magistrate, a vehicle for American comedian Bill Berry, who had been the star of High Jinks. The Boy became one of the biggest hits of the wartime era, when audiences sought light, escapist musical comedy. It was also adapted successfully on Broadway as Good Morning, Judge in 1919 and toured the English-speaking world. This was followed by another successful musical for Berry by Fred Thompson
based on a Pinero play, composed with Ivor Novello
, Who's Hooper? (1919). A third Pinero adaptation, My Niece's (1921), was a flop and proved to be Talbot's final West End theatre score.
After retiring to the south of England, Talbot was ill with bronchial trouble for several years before his death. Nevertheless, he continued to compose musicals for the amateur companies with whom he had worked early in his career. He also wrote the successful march "All Hail Our King".
Talbot died at his home at Reigate
, England, at the age of 63.
A Chinese Honeymoon
A Chinese Honeymoon is a musical comedy in two acts by George Dance, with music by Howard Talbot and additional music by Ivan Caryll and others, and additional lyrics by Harry Greenbank and others...
, The Arcadians
The Arcadians (musical)
The Arcadians is an Edwardian musical comedy styled a "Fantastic Musical Play" in three acts by Mark Ambient and Alexander M. Thompson, with lyrics by Arthur Wimperis and music by Lionel Monckton and Howard Talbot...
and The Boy
The Boy (musical)
The Boy is a musical comedy with a book by Fred Thompson and Percy Greenbank , music by Lionel Monckton and Howard Talbot and lyrics by Greenbank and Adrian Ross...
, as well as a number of other successful British musicals during the first two decades of the 20th century.
Life and career
Of Irish descent, Talbot was born in America in Yonkers, New YorkYonkers, New York
Yonkers is the fourth most populous city in the state of New York , and the most populous city in Westchester County, with a population of 195,976...
but moved to London at the age of four. His parents were Alexander Munkittrick and his wife, Lillie. Originally planning to enter the medical profession, he studied at King's College, London but switched to music and pursued a musical education at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
. There he studied under Sir Hubert Parry
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...
, Sir Frederick Bridge
Frederick Bridge
Sir John Frederick Bridge was an English organist, composer, teacher and writer.From a musical family, Bridge became a church organist before he was 20, and he achieved his ambition to become a cathedral organist by the age of 24, at Manchester Cathedral...
and Sir Walter Parratt
Walter Parratt
Sir Walter Parratt KCVO was an English organist and composer.-Biography:Born in Huddersfield, son of a parish organist, Parratt began to play the pipe organ from an early age, and held posts as an organist while still a child...
. For some years, although Talbot had had works staged by amateurs in Hunstanton
Hunstanton
Hunstanton, often pronounced by locals as and known colloquially as 'Sunny Hunny', is a seaside town in Norfolk, England, facing The Wash....
, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
and King's Lynn
King's Lynn
King's Lynn is a sea port and market town in the ceremonial county of Norfolk in the East of England. It is situated north of London and west of Norwich. The population of the town is 42,800....
, professionally he only succeeded in having a few of his individual songs performed in other people's productions. In 1895, Talbot married an actress known as Amy Clare Betts (birthname Ada Bellamy; 1871?–1895), but his bride died only eight months after their wedding. He later married Dorothy Maud Cross from Sandringham
Sandringham
Sandringham can refer to:Places*Sandringham, Johannesburg, a suburb of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa*Sandringham, Norfolk, a village in Norfolk, England*Sandringham House in the aforementioned village, owned by the British Royal Family...
, Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
. The couple produced four daughters.
1890s: early career
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
was Wapping Old Stairs in 1894. The success of this production in King's Lynn led to a transfer of the show to the Vaudeville Theatre
Vaudeville Theatre
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on The Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each new building retained elements of the previous...
in London. Despite a strong London cast including Jessie Bond
Jessie Bond
Jessie Bond was an English singer and actress best known for creating the mezzo-soprano soubrette roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. She spent twenty years on the stage, the bulk of them with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.Musical from an early age, Bond began a concert singing...
, Courtice Pounds
Courtice Pounds
Charles Courtice Pounds , better known by the stage name Courtice Pounds, was an English singer and actor known for his performances in the tenor roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and his later roles in Shakespeare plays and Edwardian musical comedies.As a young member...
and Richard Temple from the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
, the show was not well-received in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
and closed after one month. A follow up work, the burlesque All My Eye-van-hoe, was also a flop, and Talbot was forced to sue the producers for monies owed to him for this work.
At this time, Talbot earned the bulk of his living from conducting both in London and for provincial touring productions, such as The Lady Slavey, where managers appreciated his "cheery, goodnatured" attitude. Although he continued to compose, achieving some success both in Britain and America with Monte Carlo in 1896, Talbot's name was not yet considered to be a major force in British musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
, and he continued to be asked mainly to supply individual songs that were inserted into works primarily written by others. The most successful shows that he conducted in London during this period were The Sorrows of Satan (1897) at the Shaftesbury Theatre
Shaftesbury Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End Theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The theatre was designed for the brothers Walter and Frederick Melville by Bertie Crewe and opened on 26 December 1911 with a production of The Three Musketeers, as the New...
and two Arthur Roberts vehicles, Dandy Dan the Lifeguardsman (1897), which included his song "Someone Ought to Speak to Millie Simpson", and Milord Sir Smith (1898). In 1899 he conducted Great Caesar.
Talbot's first blockbuster hit was A Chinese Honeymoon
A Chinese Honeymoon
A Chinese Honeymoon is a musical comedy in two acts by George Dance, with music by Howard Talbot and additional music by Ivan Caryll and others, and additional lyrics by Harry Greenbank and others...
, which opened in Hanley in 1899 and toured extensively before it was finally presented in London in 1891. A Chinese Honeymoon went on to become the first work of musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
in history to run for over 1,000 consecutive performances and found large audiences around the world. Talbot continued to conduct at the Gaiety Theatre
Gaiety Theatre, London
The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...
, Daly's Theatre
Daly's Theatre
Daly's Theatre was a theatre in the City of Westminster. It was located at 2 Cranbourn Street, just off Leicester Square. It opened on 27 June 1893, and was demolished in 1937.-Early years:...
and other West End theatre
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
s and went on to compose or collaborate on two dozen musicals. He commanded a technical proficiency rare among Edwardian musical theatre composers, and his music is reminiscent of Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
's. In addition to musicals, he produced a body of songs, piano pieces, orchestral works and a cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
.
20th century
Many of Talbot's shows in the first decade of the new century were successes that had international tours, including Kitty Grey (1901, to which he contribued songs including "Mademoiselle Pirouette"), The Girl from KaysThe Girl from Kays
The Girl from Kays is an English musical comedy with music by Ivan Caryll, Paul Rubens, Wilhelm Meyer Lutz and Edward Jones, book by Cecil Cook and lyrics by Adrian Ross and Claude Aveling...
(1902, contributing some songs), Three Little Maids
Three Little Maids
Three Little Maids is an English musical by Paul Rubens with additional songs by Percy Greenbank and Howard Talbot. The story concerns three simple curate's daughters who go to London to earn their livings serving tea in a Bond Street tea shop...
(1903, contributing the concerted music and some lyrics), The Blue Moon
The Blue Moon (musical)
The Blue Moon is an Edwardian musical comedy with music composed by Howard Talbot and Paul Rubens, lyrics by Percy Greenbank and Rubens and a book by Harold Ellis and by Alexander M. Thompson...
(1904), The White Chrysanthemum
The White Chrysanthemum
The White Chrysanthemum is an English musical in three acts by Arthur Anderson and Leedham Bantock, with lyrics by Anderson and music by Howard Talbot). It opened at the Criterion Theatre, produced by Frank Curzon, on 31 August 1905 and ran for 179 performances, closing on 10 February 1906...
(1905), The Girl Behind the Counter
The Girl Behind the Counter
The Girl Behind the Counter is an Edwardian musical comedy with a book by Arthur Anderson and Leedham Bantok, music by Howard Talbot and lyrics by Arthur Anderson , produced by Frank Curzon....
(1906), and The Belle of Brittany (1908). In addition, he contributed a few songs to other musicals and composed a few unsuccessful musicals.
In 1909, Talbot teamed up with Lionel Monckton
Lionel Monckton
Lionel John Alexander Monckton was an English writer and composer of musical theatre. He was Britain's most popular musical theatre composer of the early years of the 20th century.-Early life:...
to produce The Arcadians
The Arcadians (musical)
The Arcadians is an Edwardian musical comedy styled a "Fantastic Musical Play" in three acts by Mark Ambient and Alexander M. Thompson, with lyrics by Arthur Wimperis and music by Lionel Monckton and Howard Talbot...
, which went on to become one of the most successful Edwardian musical comedies and has been described as the masterpiece of the genre. The musicals that followed this, such as The Mousmé in 1911, The Pearl Girl in 1913, My Lady Frayle in 1915, Mr Manhattan in 1916, and other short works for music halls, were only modest successes, however, and musical styles began to change. In 1916 Talbot contributed to a reworking of an American musical, High Jinks for the Adelphi Theatre
Adelphi Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...
, which adapted a Rudolph Friml score. At the same time, he had been composing music for short musical pieces for variety theatres.
The careers of other major composers of the Edwardian era (for example, Sidney Jones
Sidney Jones
James Sidney Jones , usually credited as Sidney Jones, was an English conductor and composer, most famous for producing the musical scores for a series of musical comedy hits in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods....
), began to fade by World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
when they failed to adopt the new American dance rhythms and styles, such as ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
. However, in 1917, Talbot and Monckton were hired to write the score for the musical The Boy
The Boy (musical)
The Boy is a musical comedy with a book by Fred Thompson and Percy Greenbank , music by Lionel Monckton and Howard Talbot and lyrics by Greenbank and Adrian Ross...
, based on Pinero
Piñero
Piñero is a 2001 biopic about the troubled life of Nuyorican poet and playwright Miguel Piñero, starring Benjamin Bratt as the titular character. It was written and directed by the Cuban filmmaker, Leon Ichaso. It premiered at the Montreal Film Festival on 31 August 2001...
's The Magistrate, a vehicle for American comedian Bill Berry, who had been the star of High Jinks. The Boy became one of the biggest hits of the wartime era, when audiences sought light, escapist musical comedy. It was also adapted successfully on Broadway as Good Morning, Judge in 1919 and toured the English-speaking world. This was followed by another successful musical for Berry by Fred Thompson
Fred Thompson (writer)
Frederick A. Thompson, usually credited as Fred Thompson was an English writer, best known as a librettist for about fifty British and American musical comedies from World War I to World War II. Among the writers with whom he collaborated were George Grossmith Jr., P. G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton and...
based on a Pinero play, composed with Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
, Who's Hooper? (1919). A third Pinero adaptation, My Niece's (1921), was a flop and proved to be Talbot's final West End theatre score.
Talbot died at his home at Reigate
Reigate
Reigate is a historic market town in Surrey, England, at the foot of the North Downs, and in the London commuter belt. It is one of the main constituents of the Borough of Reigate and Banstead...
, England, at the age of 63.