Gabriel Irwin was a percussionist actively engaged with amateur orchestras in the Woking area of Surrey, UK. On his death in 2008 his family found in the attic six large boxes of orchestral parts of light music dating from the 1920's and 30's. Petrucci-Merton Booklet Service (P-MBS) was approached on the disposal of his collection, and by agreement with IMSLP began the process of scanning the music, with a view to preserving it for posterity in the Petrucci Library. A first installment of some 50 works has been scanned and will soon appear at IMSLP. More will follow as the scanning programme continues. The items presently available at IMSLP can be seen on this page.
The music was all designed to meet the needs of small orchestras of fluid composition. Parts were provided for the instruments of a symphony orchestra, but there was also a piano-conductor (or very occasionally a violin-conductor) part into which was cued any important thematic material from the instrumental parts. Thus groups of any size down to a piano trio could produce a result that made musical sense. No score was provided: if there was a conductor he or she used a piano conductor part.
