George Tolhurst

George Tolhurst (1827 – 18 January 1877) was an English composer, resident from 1852 to 1866 in Australia.

Born in Maidstone, Kent, George emigrated to Melbourne with his father, where he practised as a teacher of music. He returned to England in 1866, and died in Barnstaple in 1877. His one large-scale composition, the oratorio "Ruth", was first performed in Prahran in 1864, and repeated in London in 1868. Though well received by early audiences, it was universally derided for bathos and technical ineptitude by the musical press, and by the twentieth century was generally regarded as the worst oratorio ever composed. ["The Musical Times" vol. 61, no. 923 (Jan. 1 1920), p. 21-25] It was revived in a re-orchestrated and abridged version at the Royal Albert Hall, London in 1973, conducted by Antony Hopkins.

References

Bibliography

Royston Gustavson, "Tolhurst, George"; "Ruth", in Warren Bebbington, ed., "The Oxford Companion to Australian Music" (Melbourne : Oxford University Press, 1997) ISBN 0-195-534328