Arthur Goring Thomas (20 November 185020 March 1892) was an English

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

Life

He was the youngest son of Freeman Thomas and Amelia, daughter of Colonel Thomas Frederick. His elder brothers included Freeman Frederick Thomas, a noted cricketer, who was the father of

Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon (12 September 1866 – 12 August 1941), was a British Liberal politician and administrator who served as Governor General of Canada, the 13th since Canadian Confederation, and as Viceroy an ...

Viceroy of India The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 19 ...

; and Sir

Charles Inigo Thomas Sir Charles Inigo Thomas (21 November 1846 – 9 May 1929), known as Sir Inigo Thomas, was an English civil servant who spent his entire career in the Admiralty, serving as Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty from 1907–11. Early life and ...

. He was born at Ratton Park,

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the Englis ...

, and educated at

Haileybury College Haileybury may refer to: Australia * Haileybury (Melbourne), a school in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia **Haileybury Rendall School, an offshoot in Berrimah, North Territory, Australia China * Haileybury International School, an international ...

. He was intended for the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

, but delicate health interfered with his studies, and in 1873 he went to Paris to cultivate the musical talent he had displayed from an early age. Here he studied for two years with Émile Durand. In 1875, he returned to England, and in 1877 entered the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke ...

, where for three years he studied under

Ebenezer Prout Ebenezer Prout (1 March 1835 – 5 December 1909) was an English musical theorist, writer, music teacher and composer, whose instruction, afterwards embodied in a series of standard works still used today, underpinned the work of many British cl ...

and

Arthur Sullivan Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinaf ...

, twice winning the Lucas medal for composition. At a later period he received some instruction in orchestration from

Max Bruch Max Bruch (6 January 1838 – 2 October 1920) was a German Romantic composer, violinist, teacher, and conductor who wrote more than 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a prominent staple of the standard ...

. His first published composition was a song, ''Le Roi Henri'', which appeared in 1871. An early

comic opera Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue. Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a n ...

, ''Don Braggadocio'' (libretto by his brother, C. I. Thomas), was apparently unfinished; some of the music in it was afterwards used for ''The Golden Web''. A selection from his second opera, ''The Light of the Harem'' (libretto by Clifford Harrison), was performed at the Royal Academy of Music on 7 November 1879, with such success that

Carl Rosa Carl August Nicholas Rosa (22 March 184230 April 1889) was a German-born musical impresario best remembered for founding an English opera company known as the Carl Rosa Opera Company. He started his company in 1869 together with his wife, Euphr ...

commissioned him to write '' Esmeralda'' (libretto by Theophile Marzials and

Alberto Randegger Alberto Randegger (13 April 1832 – 18 December 1911) was an Italian-born composer, conductor and singing teacher, best known for promoting opera and new works of British music in England during the Victorian era and for his widely used textbook ...

), dedicated to

Pauline Viardot Pauline Viardot (; 18 July 1821 – 18 May 1910) was a nineteenth-century French mezzo-soprano, pedagogue and composer of Spanish descent. Born Michelle Ferdinande Pauline García, her name appears in various forms. When it is not simply "Pauli ...

, produced at

Drury Lane Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster. Notable landmarks T ...

on 26 March 1883. (Creator cast: Georgina Burns (Esmeralda):

Barton McGuckin Barton McGuckin (28 July 1852 – 17 April 1913) was an Irish tenor singer of renown, who made his career principally in Britain with the Carl Rosa Opera Company, but also gained a wide success in oratorio and concert. Richard Ellmann put him f ...

(Phoebus): William Ludwig (Frollo): Leslie Crotty (Quasimodo): Clara Perry (Fleur-de-Lys): Leah Don (Lois): J. H. Stilliard (Chevreuse): Ben Davies (Gringoire): G. H. Snazelle (Clopin).) This contained the very successful aria "O, vision entrancing". Two years later the opera was given (in German) at Cologne and Hamburg, and in 1890 (in French) at

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...

. On 16 April 1885, at

, Rosa produced Thomas's fourth and best opera, ''Nadeshda'' (libretto by

Julian Sturgis Julian Russell Sturgis (21 October 1848 – 13 April 1904) was a British-American novelist, poet, librettist and lyricist. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, Sturgis distinguished himself in Eton's sporting activities and rowed f ...

); a German version of which was given at Breslau in 1890. A fifth opera, ''The Golden Web'' (libretto by

Frederick Corder Frederick Corder (26 January 1852 – 21 August 1932) was an English composer and music teacher. Life Corder was born in Hackney, the son of Micah Corder and his wife Charlotte Hill. He was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School and start ...

and

B. C. Stephenson Benjamin Charles Stephenson or B. C. Stephenson (1839 – 22 January 1906) was an English dramatist, lyricist and librettist. After beginning a career in the civil service, he started to write for the theatre, using the pen name "Bolton Row ...

), an

opéra bouffe Opéra bouffe (, plural: ''opéras bouffes'') is a genre of late 19th-century French operetta, closely associated with Jacques Offenbach, who produced many of them at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, inspiring the genre's name. Opéras bouff ...

slighter than its predecessors, was produced (after the composer's death) by the

Carl Rosa Opera Company The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, and his wife, British operatic soprano Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company premiered ...

at Liverpool on 15 February, and at the Lyric Theatre, London on 11 March 1893. In spite of some positive critical attention, interest in the opera was short-lived. Besides these dramatic works, Thomas's chief compositions were a

psalm The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...

, ''Out of the Deep'', for

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880& ...

solo and chorus (London, 1878); a choral ode, ''The Sun Worshippers'' (Norwich, 1881), and a '' suite de ballet'' for orchestra (Cambridge, 1887). A cantata, ''The Swan and the Skylark'', was found in

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

score among his manuscripts after his death: it was orchestrated by

Charles Villiers Stanford Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the ...

, and produced at the Birmingham Festival of 1894. His minor compositions include over 100 songs and duets. In 1891 Thomas became engaged to be married; shortly afterwards he showed signs of mental disease, and his career came to a tragic end on 20 March 1892 when he committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train. At the time of his death, Thomas was living at 53,

Wimpole Street Wimpole Street is a street in Marylebone, central London. Located in the City of Westminster, it is associated with private medical practice and medical associations. No. 1 Wimpole Street is an example of Edwardian baroque architecture, comple ...

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

. "THOMAS Arthur Goring of 53 Wimpole Street Middlesex musical composer" in ''Wills and Administrations 1892 (England and Wales)'' (1893), p. NN281 He was buried in Finchley Cemetery. Goring Thomas occupies a distinct place among English composers of the 19th century. His music, which shows traces of his early French training, reveals a great talent for dramatic composition and a real gift of refined and beautiful melody. Personally the most amiable of men, he was most critical of his own work, never attempting anything for which he felt he was unfitted, and constantly revising and rewriting his compositions.

References

;Attribution: *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Arthur Goring English classical composers English opera composers Male opera composers People educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College 1850 births 1892 deaths Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music People from Eastbourne Suicides by train Suicides in Westminster 19th-century classical composers English male classical composers 19th-century English musicians 19th-century British composers 19th-century British male musicians 1890s suicides