Carr was born in
Bradford,
Yorkshire, England. His parents were George Saxton Carr, a schoolmaster and Margaret Durden Carr, née Painter. He attended
New College, Oxford, and
Downing College, Cambridge, receiving a
B.A. degree in 1883 and apparently returning to Oxford to receive a music degree there in 1884. He continued his studies at
Trinity College, Cambridge, earning a Cambridge
M.A. and
B.Mus. in 1886 and gained a doctorate in music at Oxford in 1891. An active
Freemason, he was initiated into
Isaac Newton University Lodge in 1887. in Carr's
His Excellency Carr's first produced work (with lyricist
Adrian Ross) was the
burlesque Faddimir, or the Triumph of Orthodoxy at the
Vaudeville Theatre in London in 1889, which gained the attention of producer
George Edwardes. Edwardes began to commission songs from Carr and Ross, including a song for his next
Gaiety Theatre burlesque
Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué. They next wrote the score for a burlesque of
Joan 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). Carr also composed another burlesque that year,
Blue Eyed Susan, for the
Prince 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, and
Go-Bang (1894), both with lyrics by Ross. 1n 1894, Edwardes engaged Carr to write the music for
His Excellency, a
comic opera with a
libretto by
W. S. Gilbert. This was a moderate success and enjoyed international productions. Carr's musicals in the late 1890s, included
Billy (1895),
My Girl (1896 with Ross),
Biarritz (1896 with Ross and
Jerome K Jerome), a vehicle for
Little Tich called
Lord Tom Noddy (1896, with
George Dance),
Thrillby to a book by
Joseph W. Herbert (1897) and
The 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. Carr's post-1900 pieces included
The Southern Belle (1901),
The Rose of the Riviera (1903),
Miss Mischief (1904) and
The 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 a
ballet produced at the
Empire Theatre in 1907 called
Sir Roger de Coverley. He retired to the country in 1916 but almost immediately died of a heart attack in
Uxbridge,
Middlesex, England, at the age of 58. ==Notes==