Robinson, Joseph (1816–98), baritone singer, composer, conductor, and professor of music, was born 20 August 1816 in Dublin, second son of Francis Robinson, also a baritone singer and professor of music; nothing is known of his mother. Joseph's family was steeped in music, particularly the musical traditions of TCD and Dublin's two Church of Ireland cathedrals. He, his older brother, Francis, and his two younger brothers, John and William, all became accomplished singers and musicians from an early age. Joseph was a chorister at St Patrick's cathedral from 1824 (aged 8) until his voice broke in 1830 and he became organist at Sandford church, Ranelagh, where John had already played. He was a stipendiary of Christ Church cathedral until 1843, when he became a vicar choral at St Patrick's. In 1833, as a youth of 17, he visited Paris, then London in 1834 (where Francis was singing at the Royal Musical Festival in Westminster abbey) and enjoyed invaluable opportunities for meeting foreign artists. These experiences influenced his adult career as a bringer of European classical music to Ireland.
On returning from London, Robinson founded both the Antient Concert Society (or Antient Concerts) as a Dublin outlet for the international repertoire (particularly the contemporary works of Felix Mendelssohn) and the Irish Academy of Music (IAM) at which to teach it. The brothers performed as a quartet specialising in German vocal compositions. Initially, concerts took place at the Robinson home, 85 Lower Mount St. Its peregrinations included the future RIA building in Dawson St., until settling from 1843 at the Antient Concert Rooms, a former gasworks in Brunswick (later Pearse) St., where the society disbanded in 1864. Joseph Robinson had conducted the Society until the previous year. Among the newly introduced instrumental works that he included was a special orchestration of Mendelssohn's ‘Hear my prayer’ in December 1848. This followed from a meeting with the composer in Birmingham two years earlier.
He also conducted (1837–47) the newly formed University Choral Society (or the ‘College Choral’) at TCD. In 1847 he and William conducted eleven leading local musical societies, including his own, in a grand series of February ‘concerts for the poor of Dublin’ at the Rotunda. Joseph subsequently directed the Choral in the first performance of Mendelssohn's ‘Antigone’ outside Germany, followed in December 1849 by the first Irish performance of ‘Elijah’. In a lighter mood, he was a devotee of the Anacreontic Society, derived from existing London and Belfast Anacreontic groups, dedicated to convivial pleasure. In July 1849 Robinson married the English pianist and composer Fanny Arthur; the marriage was not altogether successful and he appears to have had several affairs. However the couple conducted a successful working partnership in public performance and both became professors in 1856 at the reformed IAM in its new, state-sponsored role as a college (designated Royal in 1872). Joseph remained professor and conductor there until 1876, when his performance career found new fields to conquer.
In the meantime, his compositions ranged widely between anthems, piano music, songs, and arrangements which included versions of Irish folk songs. His public appearances featured some of his works and included musical spectaculars at great public events: he conducted the opening concert of the Cork Exhibition in June 1852, combining the Antient Concerts and the University Choral Society with organ and orchestra, an event reported by The Times as both perfect and glorious. He composed a march for the opening of the Dublin exhibition of 1853, held at Leinster Lawn in the great temporary hall for which Sligo-born architect John Benson (qv) was knighted. In 1859 Robinson presented ‘The Messiah’ on the centenary of Handel's death. He conducted an enormous concert of 700 musicians and singers at the opening of the great international exhibition of 1865 on a larger site, south of St Stephen's Green. Although enjoying continued success and popular acclaim, he turned down official honours, including honorary doctorates. He effectively recreated his career in 1876, on resigning his professorship at the RIAM, and founded the Dublin Musical Society (DMS) to replace the defunct Antient Concerts. His wife dramatically committed suicide 31 October 1879, plunging from an upper storey window of their home at 3 Lower Fitzwilliam St. Robinson remarried (1881) and his second wife, Mary Ellen Coyle, joined the Academy staff as a pianist. They had one son, Francis (‘Frank’), Robinson's only child.
Robinson's compositions were largely in church music. Given his lengthy involvement with Dublin's two Church of Ireland cathedrals, it was curious that one of his marches celebrated the unveiling on 15 August 1882 of the monument to Daniel O'Connell (qv) designed by John Henry Foley (qv) in Sackville (later O'Connell) St., Dublin. Having played to an attendance so vast that special excursion trains were arranged to ferry crowds to the event, Robinson also performed the opening concert for the Cork exhibition of June 1883, where musicians and chorus numbered 300. Showing no signs of retiring from public life, he continued to resist honours offered to him, and even returned a gift of gold sovereigns collected by the DMS. Still associated with the RIAM, of which he became vice-president in 1893, he finally retired in 1896. He died 23 August 1898 at his home in Herbert Place, Dublin, a month after receiving a royal civil list pension for services to music. He was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery.