A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Holmes, Edward

by William H. Husk

HOLMES, Edward, born in 1797, schoolfellow and friend of Keats, was educated for the musical profession under V. Novello, and became a teacher of the pianoforte. He was engaged as music critic of 'The Atlas' newspaper. In 1827, before or during this engagement, he made a tour in Germany, the result of which was a volume entitled, 'A Ramble among the Musicians of Germany, etc.' 1828. This work was well received, and reached a third edition. In 1845 he published 'The Life of Mozart,' including his correspondence,' in an 8vo volume, which justly attracted great attention. This book, which was the result of a second visit to Germany, and bears traces of great and conscientious labour, as well as of talent and judgment of no common order, is characterised by Otto Jahn as the most useful, complete, and trustworthy biography then in existence (Jahn's Mozart, 2nd ed. Vorwort, p. xv). Jahn's own Life of the master contains a mass of materials which no one but a German residing on the spot could have collected, but Holmes's has greatly the advantage of it in compression and readableness, and it is with pleasure that, as these sheets are passing through the press, we notice the publication of a new edition by Mr. Prout (Novello & Co., 1878). In addition to this, his great work, Holmes wrote a life of Purcell for the second issue of Novello's edition of his Sacred Music, an 'Analytical and Thematic Index of Mozart's P. F. works,' often reprinted by the same firm, analyses of several of Mozart's Masses, which were published in the 'Musical Times,' with many other papers on musical subjects. He married the granddaughter of S. Webbe, and died Aug. 28, 1859. (See Mus. Times, Oct. 1, 1859.)

[ W. H. H. ]