Claude Hobday was 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...

 double-bass player, a member of a well-known musical family, who took part in various early chamber-music recordings.

Claude Hobday was the younger brother of the violist

Violist

-Notable violists:A* Julia Rebekka Adler * Sir Hugh Allen , conductor* Kris Allen * Johann Andreas Amon * Paul Angerer , composer* Steven Ansell * Atar Arad * Cecil Aronowitz...

 Alfred Charles Hobday

Alfred Charles Hobday

Alfred Charles Hobday was an English viola player who made his career in England. He was the elder brother of the double-bass player Claude Hobday....

 (1870–1942) and therefore the brother-in-law of the pianist Ethel Hobday

Ethel Hobday

Ethel Hobday, née Sharpe was an Irish pianist, who became famous in chamber-music recitals especially in England, and was married to the violist Alfred Charles Hobday....

 (née Sharpe). He studied with A.C. White at the Royal College of Music

Royal College of Music

The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...

 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...

 from 1888-1892. He played in leading orchestras, including the Royal English Opera under Sir Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

, the Glasgow Choral Union under Augustus Manns, the Scottish Orchestra under George Henschel

George Henschel

Sir George Henschel , was a British baritone, pianist, conductor, and composer of German birth....

, in the Richter

Hans Richter (conductor)

Hans Richter was an Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor.-Biography:Richter was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was opera-singer Jozsefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory...

 Concerts in London, in the London Symphony Orchestra

London Symphony Orchestra

The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

 as a founding member from 1904–10, in the Beecham Symphony Orchestra from 1910–16 and in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...

, before becoming a founder member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1930. He retired from playing in 1940. He was professor of double-bass at the Royal College of Music from 1902–46, his pupils including Adrian Beers

Adrian Beers

Adrian Simon Beers MBE was a British double bass player and teacher at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music...

, Ernest Ineson and Francis Baines. He was a notable collector of basses, owning instruments by Testore, Montagnana, Gasparo da Salò, Gennaro Gagliano, and Vincenzo Panormo

Vincenzo Panormo

Vincenzo Trusiano Panormo was an Italian luthier of English violins. Panarmo is thought to have been born in Palermo, Sicily . He studied violin making in Naples with the Gagliano family of luthiers. From 1753 to 1789, Panormo worked in Paris as a violin craftsman...

.

Hobday was a major chamber musician, appearing in the South Place Concerts for thirty five years. He was also a prolific recording artist. He appeared with members of the International Quartet (André Mangeot (violin), Frank Howard (viola) and Herbert Withers (cello)) and Wilhelm Backhaus

Wilhelm Backhaus

Wilhelm Backhaus was a German pianist and pedagogue.Born in Leipzig, Backhaus studied at the conservatoire there with Alois Reckendorf until 1899, later taking private piano lessons with Eugen d'Albert in Frankfurt...

 (piano) in an early Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n HMV

HMV

His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...

 recording of Schubert's 'Trout' Quintet (GC ES 395/8, reissued in 1997 as CD Biddulph [England], LHW 038) (acoustically recorded). He also appears with the Léner Quartet

Léner Quartet

The Léner String Quartet, sometimes written the Lehner String Quartet, was a string quartet of Hungarian origin, founded in Budapest in 1918, which for most of its pre-war career operated in or from London...

 in the Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 electric microphone recordings of the Beethoven Septet in E flat major and the (1928) Schubert Octet in F major, with Charles Draper (clarinet), E.W. Hinchliffe (bassoon) and Aubrey Brain

Aubrey Brain

Aubrey Brain was a British horn player and teacher. He was the father of Dennis Brain.-Biography:Aubrey Harold Brain was born in London in 1893. He came from a musical family. His father, A. E. Brain sr. was a member of the London Symphony Orchestra horn quartet...

(French horn). For HMV, with the Quatuor Pro Arte, he recorded Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik and, with Artur Schnabel at the piano, a second version of the 'Trout' Quintet. He also played on the Busch Chamber Players' recordings of the Bach 'Brandenburg' Concertos and Orchestral Suites and Mozart's Adagio and Fugue.

Sources

• A. Eaglefield-Hull, A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (Dent, London 1924).
• F. Forman, 'Acoustic Chamber Music Sets (1899–1926): A Discography,' Journal of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, 3 parts: Vol 31, No. 1 (Spring 2000); 31, No. 2; 32, No. 1.
• T. Potter, 'Hobday's Heyday', Double Bassist, No.18, Autumn 2001, pp. 22–24.