[edit] ARNOLD SAFRONI

ARNOLD MIDDLETON’S military marches were marketed under the pseudonym 'Safroni’ THE FAMOUS SAFRONI MILITARY MARCHES FOR THE GOVERNMENTAL REGIMENTAL BANDS.

    It is likely that the name ‘Safroni’ came from his paternal grandfather, Saffory Middleton. This branch of the Middleton’s gradually vanishes in the bowels of the local studies at the Library of Rochester in

He may have used this pseudonym because it was felt that, in the early part of the twentieth century, it would be difficult to succeed in the English music industry unless one had a foreign sounding name and Middleton does hint at this In one of his travel books when he recalls a performance in London.

    He praises the playing of an English violinist - Henley - and comments: 'He was English, and I suppose London's fashionable world positively refused to go mad about an Englishman when so many Germans and Austrians

Kent, but variations have been found of ‘Saffery and ‘Jaffery’ Middleton.    Arnold Middleton was born George Arnold Haynes Middleton but died with a romantic flourish as the splendid ‘Dante Lorenz’ and it seems there had been a family tradition of using pseudonyms. In his travel books, Middleton mentions uncles who were travelers and explorers. These uncles were from the family of St John – see Wikipedia: James Augustus St. John.

    They had been prominent journalists, and it had been

were about.’ A more prosaic reason for using a pseudonym may have been to avoid confusion with another Myddleton who also composed military marches. This Myddleton was known for his march 'The Phantom Brigade.'

common practice at the time to use pseudonyms. An example of this occurs in the publications of Percy B St John. When he wrote about North America, he used the pseudonym ‘Captain Flack’ (The use of pseudonyms has caused problems to later researchers and bibliographers — especially in the matter of attribution).

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