Warwick Braithwaite

Who was Warwick Braithwaite?

Henry Warwick Braithwaite was a New Zealand-born orchestra conductor. He worked mostly in Great Britain and was especially known for his work in opera. One of the youngest of a large number of children born to Joseph and Mary Braithwaite. The family were musical – his elder sister Mabel Manson emigrated to England before he was born, where she made a considerable career as a singer. He won various competitions as both a composer and pianist and then followed his sister to England in 1916.

Braithwaite served briefly in the New Zealand armed forces during World War I. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1916-1919 but then his father died, the money ran out, and he had to leave and find a job.

He joined the O’Mara Opera Company as chorus master, a touring opera company run by the Irish tenor Joseph O’Mara, and with them made his debut as a conductor with Auber’s Fra Diavolo in 1919. After this he joined the British National Opera Company as a repetiteur and also in 1922 spent a year working for Bruno Walter at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. When Walter left to go to America, Hans Knappertsbusch was appointed to the job and immediately terminated the employment of any non-Germans working for the company. Thereafter he became the first Assistant Musical Director of 2LO, the precursor to the BBC, and then moved to the BBC’s Cardiff 5WA Station Orchestra where he conducted many of the first UK performances of Sibelius’ music. That orchestra was closed down when the BBC decided to centralise its efforts and put its money into the newly formed BBC Symphony Orchestra in London under Sir Adrian Boult.