Antony Hopkins CBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (born 21 March 1921) is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

, conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

, and radio broadcaster

Broadcasting

Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...

.

Hopkins was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 under the name Ernest William Antony Reynolds; his surname was changed during his childhood to Hopkins. His works include the operas Lady Rohesia (1947) (based on the Ingoldsby Legends

The Ingoldsby Legends

The Ingoldsby Legends is a collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry written supposedly by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, actually a pen-name of an English clergyman named Richard Harris Barham....

 of sixteenth-century England), The Man from Tuscany, and Three's Company (1953); the ballet Café des Sports; and Scena for soprano and strings (which was later arranged for three solo voices and full orchestra).http://www.grainger.de/music/composers/hopkinsa.html

Hopkins has written extensively for films, including Here Come the Huggetts

Here Come the Huggetts

Here Come the Huggetts is a 1948 British film, the first of the Huggetts Trilogy about a working class English family. All three films were directed by Ken Annakin and released by Gainsborough Pictures....

(1948), The Pickwick Papers

The Pickwick Papers (film)

The Pickwick Papers is a 1952 British film from George Minter of the Charles Dickens classic. Both screenplay and direction were by Noel Langley. It was awarded a Golden Bear in Russia where the rights were sold for £10,000.-Cast:...

(1952), Cast a Dark Shadow

Cast a Dark Shadow

Cast a Dark Shadow is a 1955 British suspense film directed by Lewis Gilbert. The black-and-white film was based on the play Murder Mistaken by Janet Green about a psychotic Bluebeard.-Plot:...

(1955), and Billy Budd

Billy Budd (film)

Billy Budd is a 1962 film produced, directed, and co-written by Peter Ustinov. Adapted from the stage play version of Herman Melville's short novel Billy Budd, it starred Terence Stamp as Billy Budd, Robert Ryan as John Claggart, and Ustinov as Captain Vere...

(1962).http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0394107/. In the 1970s, he revived the long forgotten oratorio Ruth (infamous as 'the Worst Oratorio in the World') by English composer George Tolhurst

George Tolhurst

George Tolhurst 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...

; this was heard again in 2009 on BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

 programme "The Choir".

However, he is perhaps best-known for his books of musical analysis and, particularly, for his radio programmes Talking About Music broadcast for many years by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

.

Antony Hopkins was appointed a CBE in 1976.

Books

• Beating Time
• Downbeat Music Guide
• Music all Around Me
• Musicamusings
• Music Face to Face (with André Previn
  André Previn
  André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
  
  )
• Pathway to Music
• Sounds of the Orchestra: A Study of Orchestral Texture
• Talking About Concertos
• Talking About Sonatas
• Talking About Symphonies
• The Dent Concertgoer's Companion
• The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven
• The Seven Concertos of Beethoven
• Understanding Music

Articles

• 'Talking About Hopkins': Antony Hopkins, CBE, in conversation with Mark Doran, Musical Opinion, March 2011, pp.14-17.