Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo

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The Trumpet Concerto (1963), written, according to Horovitz, to “demonstrate the agility and brilliance of the modern trumpet”, contrasts spiky, virtuoso material with indulgently mellifluous writing. The closing rondo – a favoured form of the composer – is spiced with Latin American rhythms that keep both soloist and orchestra on their toes. With its colourful orchestration including tambourine, side drum and xylophone, it affords an attractively good-humoured as well as challenging staple in the trumpet repertory. Originally associated with Philip Jones, who gave the first performance under the composer, it was subsequently recorded by a leading trumpeter of the succeeding generation, James Watson. Horovitz made similar contributions to the concerto repertory of many other instruments, too, including violin, clarinet, bassoon, percussion, tuba and euphonium. Many congratulations for last night. It was a great event to be in, and as usual our children benefitted considerably. We had quite a few parents there who were delighted, a new Headteacher who beamed all through it, and I had two relatively inexperienced colleagues who were (as ever) staggered by the standard of the performance their children were part of.”

Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo has become a favourite among sacred and secular institutions alike. Relatively short (about twenty-six minutes) and intended for children, the work has been successfully adapted for adult performers, with the aforementioned recording by The King’s Singers being one such example. Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo was conceived as an accommodating work. In the Preface to the Novello edition the authors indicate that they "hope it will be useful wherever and whenever groups of singers and musicians need a work of some length to perform together, and that they will arrange, divide and adapt it (within reason) as best suits their available talent and the occasion." [1]

On The Go

Born in Vienna, Joseph was the son of Béla Horovitz, a publisher and co-founder of Phaidon Press, and his wife, Lotte (nee Beller). He had two younger sisters: Elly, later Miller, became an art publisher, and Hannah a concert promoter. Escaping from the city just days after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, Joseph and one of his sisters travelled unaccompanied to Antwerp, where the family were reunited, reaching London soon afterwards. They spent the war years in Bath and Oxford. The last of his five string quartets, dating from 1969, one of his finest works, uses gritty dissonance seemingly to recall the harsh experiences of his earlier life, with anguish forcefully invoked by insistent repetitions of Viennese waltz motifs. The disquiet alternates with wistful passages, however, and the quartet achieves a peaceful resolution on to a final consonance. In the 1980s he composed music for the TV series Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime and A Dorothy L Sayers Mystery. How strange is our world. As I begin to write this piece, BBC Radio 3 plays me ‘Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo’, a cheerful choral work composed by Joseph Horovitz. Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo (1970) is a children's cantata composed in a popular style for unison or two-part voices and piano, with optional bass and drums. The libretto by Michael Flanders is an adaptation of the Biblical tale of Noah found in Genesis chapters 6–9. It is one of a series of " pop cantatas" commissioned for school use by Novello, including The Daniel Jazz (1963) by Herbert Chappell, Jonah-Man Jazz (1966) by Michael Hurd and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Andrew Lloyd Webber (1968).

Captain Noah gives the children some rousing choruses to sing, starting with ‘Rain and Rain and Rain’, and ending with a celebration of the end of the flood and God’s promise symbolised by the rainbow in the sky. Members of The Bach Choir had the opportunity to sing several small solo parts as Noah, his wife and sons, and God. Horovitz's story begins with his escape from the Nazis as they entered Vienna in 1938, to then include giving wartime musical appreciation lectures to the forces, being awarded two Ivor Novello awards for later compositions, and working with such comic legends as Gerard Hoffnung and Michael Flanders. Miller, Dr Malcolm. 'From Noah to Ninotchka via Samson and psalms', in Jewish Renaissance, July 2006, p 31

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Choir and children together sang What shall we do with the drunken sailor? and Somewhere over the Rainbow, and The Bach Choir sang a special arrangement of the Skye Boat Song, commissioned from John Tavener.