Joe batten biography death

Joe batten biography death: Joseph Hallet Batten FRS

Career Active as an accompanist for several small record companies Served in the army c. Joe Batten, with Fred Gaisberg, was a central figure in the early history of the gramophone in England. Born in the East End of London, he started to play the piano while young, serving as an accompanist for his father in the latter's music-hall appearances.

He was largely self-educated as a musician: he taught himself to read scores borrowed from the Passmore Edwards Library in Shoreditch, heard chamber music at Alfred Clements' South Place concerts, and attended performances by J. Batten's first experience of recording was in , when he accompanied A. Adept in the studio, Batten soon made the transition to disc recordings and witnessed the gradual shift by the general public from prejudice against the gramophone to enthusiastic acceptance.

By the end of the Edwardian era he was accompanying international concert artists such as Peter Dawson. During the war Batten served as a private, but also continued to be active in entertainment. Following demobilization he joined the Edison Bell Company as the house conductor for its 'Velvet Face' label, so-called because of its claimed quiet surfaces.

Following the introduction of electrical recording Batten moved from Velvet Face to the Columbia label, then embroiled in intense competition with the larger Gramophone Company and especially its HMV label. By Columbia was producing a considerable programme of recordings, such as Gounod's Faust conducted by Beecham, Brahms's Third Symphony conducted by Mengelberg in Amsterdam, and Stravinsky's Les Noces directed by the composer.