Thomas, Arthur Goring
Thomas, Arthur Goring
Thomas, Arthur Goring, English composer; b. Ration Park, Sussex, Nov. 20, 1850; d. (suicide) London, March 20, 1892. He was a pupil of Emile Durand in Paris (1873-75), and of Arthur Sullivan and Ebenezer Prout at the Royal Academy of Music in London (1877-80), and later studied orchestration in Berlin with Max Bruch. He was mainly interested in creating English operas in the best German tradition. His operas were performed in England and Germany, and he had many important supporters for his art in England, but his music totally lacked vitality, and became of only antiquarian interest after his death. In the last year of his life he suffered from a mental illness.
Works
dramatic: Opera: The Light of the Harem (partial perf., Lon don, Nov. 7, 1879); Esmeralda (London, March 26, 1883; rev. version, London, July 12, 1890); Nadezhda (London, April 16, 1885); The Golden Web (Liverpool, Feb. 15, 1893). OTHER: The Sun-worshippers, choral ode (Norwich Festival, 1881); The Swan and the Skylark, cantata (completed and orchestrated by C. Stanford; Birmingham Festival, 1894); chamber music; songs..
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire