Dan Godfrey

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Sir Dan Godfrey (born June 20, 1868 in London , † July 20, 1939 in Bournemouth ) was a British conductor who, like his father Dan (iel) Godfrey (1831-1903), came from a family of musicians.

His son, also named Dan Godfrey , was initially broadcasting manager at the BBC studio in Manchester , before he took up his first full-time position as conductor of the later BBC Philharmonic in 1922 , which was then called the BBC Wireless Orchestra and, from 1926, the Northern Wireless Orchestra .

Sir Dan Godfrey, scion of a famous family of English band masters and son of the bandmaster of the Grenadier Guards military band (to which Émile Waldteufel dedicated the waltz Les Grenadiers , Op. 207), founded the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra in 1893 and directed it for 41 years until 1934. Although he had a contract with the city council of Bournemouth that provided for only one year to conduct a "seasonal band" with 30 musicians, he was thinking of installing a permanent symphony orchestra in the city, which he succeeded in doing brilliantly .

Godfrey made the first record with Ralph Vaughan Williams A London Symphony on February 11, 1915. He conducted excerpts from this symphony again in 1923 and a shortened version in 1925.

With the London Symphony Orchestra he made records of works such as Mozart's Jupiter Symphony . Antonín Dvořák's Slavonic Dances and Edvard Grieg's Sigurd Jorsalfar .

But he also made several records with "his" Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra between 1914 and 1930 for the HMV label . In 1922 he was ennobled as a Knight Bachelor for his outstanding services to British music , also at the violent instigation of the women's rights activist Ethel Smyth .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ BBC Wireless Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved December 9, 2016 .
  2. ^ J. Doctor: The BBC and Ultra-Modern Music, 1922-1936. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  3. ↑ Aryeh Oron: BBC Philharmonic on: Bach Cantatas website
  4. ↑ Y. Waldteufel: Liner note to tape cassette 'Waltzes, Polkas, Galops by Emile Waldteufel'. Nimbus Records 1990.
  5. ^ A. Sanders: Review of CD reissue of the London Symphony. In: Classic Record Collector . 53, summer 2008.
  6. ^ S. Street, R. Carpenter: The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra - A Centenary Celebration. The Dovecote Press, Wimborne 1993.
personal data
SURNAME Godfrey, Dan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British conductor
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH July 20, 1939
Place of death Bournemouth