Adam Carse

Adam Von Ahnen Carse (19 May 1878 – 2 November 1958) was an English composer, academic, music writer and editor, best known for his music for strings and piano, often suitable for student orchestras and beginners, as well as for his studies on the history of instruments and the orchestra. His collection of around 350 antique wind instruments in now in the Horniman Museum.[1]

Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Carse was educated in Hanover and was a Macfarren scholar at the Royal Academy of Music, London where he studied composition with Frederick Corder. He received the 1902 medal from the Worshipful Company of Musicians, handed to the best student of the academy.[2] He later taught music at Winchester College (1909–22), then returning to the Academy as Professor of Harmony and Counterpoint until 1940.[3] In later life Carse concentrated on writing and editing. His books include Musical Wind Instruments (1939), The Orchestra in the 18th Century (1940) and The Orchestra from Beethoven to Berlioz (1948). (An earlier book, The History of Orchestration (1925), was reissued in a Dover Books edition in 1964 and 2012).[4] He also specialised in editing early classical symphonies by composers such as Carl Friedrich Abel, Thomas Arne, J C Bach, Gossec and Stamitz.[5] In February 1945 his son, Edward Adam Carse, was killed in action.[6]