Herbert Menges

Herbert Menges OBE (27 August 190220 February 1972) was an English conductor and composer, who wrote incidental music to all of Shakespeare's plays.

Life and career Siegfried Frederick Herbert Menges was born in Hove on 27 August 1902. His father was German and his mother British. His elder sister was the violinist Isolde Menges. Herbert appeared in public as a violinist at the age of four. He later abandoned the violin for the piano, which he studied with Mathilde Verne and Arthur De Greef. After some years the Players evolved into the Brighton Philharmonic Society, a forerunner of the Southern Philharmonic Orchestra, a professional group based in Brighton from 1945 which also gave regular concerts in Portsmouth and Hastings. Menges was a powerful advocate of the regional professional orchestras. He remained the orchestra's musical director for the remaining 47 years of his life, during which time it became the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra in 1958, and conducted the orchestra 326 times. incidental music for all the plays of William Shakespeare, and numerous plays by other writers. He was associated with the productions of John Gielgud from 1933 onwards. His assistant there for three years was John Cook. He remained with the Old Vic until 1950. From 1941 to 1944, alongside Lawrance Collingwood he conducted performances in London and around Britain for operas with the Sadler's Wells Theatre Orchestra, before returning to the Old Vic company when it moved to the New Theatre. That same year, Malcolm Arnold dedicated his A Sussex Overture, Op. 31, to Herbert Menges and the Brighton Philharmonic Society.

He considered that he had a strong affinity with Bach and conducted the Viennese classics and composers such as Verdi and Tchaikovsky with restraint, while his Brahms and Dvořák are warmer in his interpretations.

He had conducted engagements with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He became Director of Music at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1962.

Herbert Menges was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1963. He died on 20 February 1972, in London, aged 69. His name now appears as a tribute on some Brighton and Hove buses.

He was married in 1935 to Evelyn Stiebel and had three children, Nicholas, Christopher (an Academy Award-winning cinematographer) and Susannah. Benjamin Britten, Piano Concerto, Jacques Abram, Philharmonia Orchestra, recorded Abbey Rd, 25 January 1956 Sergei Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Philharmonia Orchestra, Shura Cherkassky Prokofiev, Violin Concerto No. 1, London Symphony Orchestra, Joseph Szigeti Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Shura Cherkassky Alan Rawsthorne, Piano Concerto No. 1, Philharmonia Orchestra, Moura Lympany Peter Warlock, Capriol Suite, Philharmonia Orchestra (His Master's Voice – 7EP 7063) Holst: St Paul's Suite, Philharmonia Orchestra (His Master's Voice – 7EP 7054) Herbert Menges: Suite of incidental Music to the play 'Richard of Bordeaux' (1932) performed by instrumental septet conducted by Menges with Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies (soprano) Decca K 727 (Side 1 only).