Frank Osmond Carr (23 April 1858 – 29 August 1916), known asF. Osmond Carr, was an Englishcomposer who wrote the music for severalVictorian burlesques before turning to the new genre ofEdwardian musical comedy, and also composing somecomic operas. He often worked with the lyricistAdrian Ross, and several of his pieces were created for the producerGeorge Edwardes.
Carr was born inBradford,Yorkshire, England.[1] His parents were George Saxton Carr, a schoolmaster and Margaret Durden Carr, née Painter.[2] He attendedNew College, Oxford, andDowning College, Cambridge, receiving aB.A. degree in 1883 and apparently returning to Oxford to receive a music degree there in 1884. He continued his studies atTrinity College, Cambridge, earning a CambridgeM.A. andB.Mus. in 1886 and gained a doctorate in music at Oxford in 1891.[3] An activeFreemason, he was initiated intoIsaac Newton University Lodge in 1887.[4]
Carr's first produced work (with lyricistAdrian Ross) was theburlesqueFaddimir, or the Triumph of Orthodoxy at theVaudeville Theatre in London in 1889, which gained the attention of producerGeorge Edwardes. Edwardes began to commission songs from Carr and Ross, including a song for his nextGaiety Theatre burlesqueRuy Blas and the Blasé Roué.[1] They next wrote the score for a burlesque ofJoan of Arc, or, The merry maid of Orleans (1891), and then the songs for what many historians consider the first British musical comedy,In Town (1892).[2] Carr also composed another burlesque that year,Blue Eyed Susan, for thePrince of Wales Theatre. Carr next composed two successful musicals for producer Fred Harris:Morocco Bound (1893), a model for the music-hall-influenced "variety musicals" to come, andGo-Bang (1894), both with lyrics by Ross.[1]
1n 1894, Edwardes engaged Carr to write the music forHis Excellency, acomic opera with alibretto byW. S. Gilbert. This was a moderate success and enjoyed international productions.[1] Carr's musicals in the late 1890s, includedBilly (1895),My Girl (1896 with Ross),Biarritz (1896 with Ross andJerome K Jerome), a vehicle forLittle Tich calledLord Tom Noddy (1896, withGeorge Dance),Thrillby to a book byJoseph W. Herbert (1897) andThe Maid of Athens (1897, produced by Carr). All were unsuccessful, although a number of individual songs from these musicals became popular, and some toured the British provinces.[2]
Carr's post-1900 pieces includedThe Southern Belle (1901),The Rose of the Riviera (1903),Miss Mischief (1904) andThe Scottish Bluebells (1906), all of which had at least a provincial success, but he never regained his early popularity. Carr also wrote many separate songs and some instrumental pieces. He also produced the score for aballet produced at theEmpire Theatre in 1907 calledSir Roger de Coverley.
He retired to the country in 1916 but almost immediately died of a heart attack inUxbridge,Middlesex, England, at the age of 58.
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