Herman Finck (November 4, 1872 – April 21, 1939) was a British composer and conductor of Dutch extraction. Born Hermann Van Der Vinck in London, he began his studies training at the

Guildhall School of Music and Drama The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a conservatoire and drama school located in the City of London, United Kingdom. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz ...

and established a career as the musical director at the Palace Theatre in London (from 1900 until 1920), with whose orchestra he made many virtuoso recordings. During these decades, he was also a principal conductor at the Queen's Theatre, at

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dr ...

and at

Southport Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England. Southport lies on the Irish ...

. Finck was a prolific composer throughout the 1910s and 1920s. He composed around thirty theatre shows of most types -

operetta Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...

s (such as ''Decameron Nights''),

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

s (like ''My Lady Dragon Fly''), incidental music, revues (annual revues ''Round the Map'' and ''The Passing Show'' were especially popular), plus songs, "mood music" for the

silent cinema A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, whe ...

and many light orchestral pieces - suites such as ''Vive La Danse'' and ''Marie Antoinette'', marches such as ''Pageant March'', ''Guards Parade March'', ''Splendour and Victory'' and the individual genre movements ''Dancing Daffodils'', ''Dignity and Impudence'', ''Land of Roses'', ''Penguin Parade'' and ''Queen of the Flowers''. Finck also conducted the first record album ever made (in 1909) of

Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...

's ''

Nutcracker Suite ''The Nutcracker'' ( rus, Щелкунчик, Shchelkunchik, links=no ) is an 1892 two-act ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into ...

''.

Herman Finck - In The Shadows - sheet music - 1910

The Palace Theatre was famous not only for its orchestra, but also for the beautiful Palace Girls, who had many dances composed by Finck in their honour. In 1911 the Palace Girls performed a song and dance number, which was originally called "Tonight", but became hugely popular as a romantic instrumental piece "In The Shadows". This is the most enduring composition of Finck, largely because "In The Shadows" was one of the last numbers played on the

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United ...

and has thus made its way into several Titanic-collections. Another popular song, during the

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

was "Gilbert the Filbert" (also called "The K-Nuts"). It was performed in ''The Passing Show'' of 1914 by the popular

Basil Hallam Basil Hallam (3 April 1888 – 20 August 1916), born Basil Hallam Radford, was an early 20th century English actor and singer, known for the character of Gilbert the Filbert in ''The Passing Show''. He died in action on the Western Front durin ...

, who became Captain B. H. Radford and was killed in 1916 when he fell to his death because his parachute failed to open. Finck also conducted the first London stage production of ''

Show Boat ''Show Boat'' is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock worke ...

'', in 1928. This was the first production of ''Show Boat'' to include

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his p ...

in its cast. His illustrated autobiography, "My melodious memories" was published in 1937. The Divine Art Recordings Group (UK and USA) released on its Diversions label, in February 2012, the first CD album dedicated to the music of Herman Finck, performed by the orchestra and principals of the Bel-Etage Theatre from

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, conducted by

Mart Sander Mart Sander (born 10 August 1967) is an Estonian singer, actor, director, author, artist, and television host. Life and career In his youth, Mart Sander studied violin and conducting. He started singing in the choir of the Estonian National Op ...

. In addition to Finck's most popular tunes "Gilbert the Filbert" and "In The Shadows" (vocal version), this CD also includes several popular dances, patriotic World War I songs and hits from the revues and musicals, as well as two full orchestral suites - ''My Lady Dragonfly'' and the magnificently symphonic ''Decameron Nights'', which had not had a revival since 1923. In 2012, ''Divine Music'' CD label released ''The Finck Album'', the first modern recording of Finck's music, performed by the principals and orchestra of the ''Bel-Etage Theatre'' in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

, conducted by

Selected filmography

* ''

The Old Curiosity Shop ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' is one of two novels (the other being ''Barnaby Rudge'') which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York r ...

'' (1934)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Finck, Herman 1872 births 1939 deaths English composers English people of Dutch descent Light music composers