John H White

Born into an unmusical family, at the age of 12, after becoming acquainted with symphonies by Haydn and Mozart heard on the BBC, I lost interest in the pop music of the day (Bing Crosby etc.). The following year my parents bought me a clapped out piano for £8 (that would be $32 at the old fixed exchange rate). Sadly, the touch was so hard that I had to thump the keys to get any sound out of them. In 4 years of lessons, I only got as far as Beethoven's Op 49 No 2 played at half speed. Meanwhile, having heard lots of orchestra music on the "wireless" as we called it in those days, I decided at the age of 17 that most modern composers had lost the plot and I needed to show them the way back onto the straight and narrow clssical path by writing a symphony in the style of my late 18th Century heros. Unfortunately, my lack of knowledge of harmony and counterpoint caused me to abandon the project whilst I got on with the rest of my life. It wasn't until I was in my mid 60s, some years after I had retired with my family to the Isle of Wight, that I came into contact with the Open College of the Arts and signed up for their music writing course. In the 3rd year I took up as my project that symphony which had been going round in my head for all those years. Meanwhile I had acquired a computer and discovered Noteworthy score writing software which I made use of to complete the work I had first envisaged 50 years before (is this a record?).I'm afraid this 1st venture of mine into the symphonic field is a very poor imitation of Haydn and early Schubert but I then went on to produce in the next couple of years a much more mature and up to date ( 1850 style as opposed to 1800) 2nd Symphony in E flat, subtitled "Vectis",the old Roman name for the Isle of Wight, where I now live. I just managed to complete it before the Millenum i.e. just inside the 29th Century.
Sadly, the conductor of our local band, the Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra, turned it down but, through the good offices of our son in law's violin playing sister, it was played through without timpani by the Wirral Symphony Orchestra at one of their rehearsal meetings in 2002. It seemed to work alright and I noticed that the orchestra, who were playing from sight, got things better on the repeats. Anyway, I learnt a few things there from the conductor on that occasion such as the range of certain wind instruments and the fact the opening movement should have been written in 3/4 time instead of 6/8.
Other works I have completed during and after my course with the Open College include 2 string quartets and a divertimento for wind quintet, which was later privately recorded by a professional wind group.
I rarther doubt if my 3rd symphony will ever get completed in my lifetime, as I have so many other interests to persue, such as building and flying rubber powered freeflight model aircraft, walking and cycling( last year I cycled 66 miles round the rather hilly Isle of Wight to celebrate my 80th birthday.
Over the past 15 years or so, quite alot of my spare time has been taken up with copying out scores of rare 19th Century chamber and orchestral music into Noteworthy and latterly also into Sibelius for uploading to such sites as the Noteworthy Scriptorium and the Classical Archives. I reckon there is so much brilliant out there from that period, that it is hardly worth the likes of me to add my mediocre contributions.
Amongst my current favourite works are Franz Lachner's prize winning 5th Symphony of 1834 and Johann Rufinatscha's 6th Symphony.

Male

Isle of Wight, England

Retired Science Teacher

Rare 19th Century music.

Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Spohr, Schubert, Franz Lachner, Ignaz Lachner, Jan Kallivoda,Potter, Sterndale Bennett, Rufinatscha

Classico Romantic

Noteworthy, Sibelius.

Learning the Cello.