The Piano in Nineteenth-Century British Culture

Instruments, Performers and Repertoire

Susan Wollenberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351541565
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Musique

Since the publication of The London Pianoforte School (ed. Nicholas Temperley) twenty years ago, research has proliferated in the area of music for the piano during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and into developments in the musical life of London, for a time the centre of piano manufacturing, publishing and performance. But none has focused on the piano exclusively within Britain. The eleven chapters in this volume explore major issues surrounding the instrument, its performers and music within an expanded geographical context created by the spread of the instrument and the growth of concert touring. Topics covered include: the piano trade and how piano manufacturing affected a major provincial town; the reception of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum during the nineteenth century; the shift from composer-pianists to pianist-interpreters in the first half of the century that triggered crucial changes in piano performance and concert structure; the growth of musical life in the peripheries outside major musical centres; the pianist as advocate for contemporary composers as well as for historical repertory; the status of British pianists both in relation to foreigners on tour in Britain and as welcomed star performers in outposts of the Empire; marketing forces that had an impact on piano sales, concerts and piano careers; leading virtuosos, writers and critics; the important role played by women pianists and the development of the recording industry, bringing the volume into the early twentieth century.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Therese Ellsworth and Susan Wollenberg

This book presents the fruits of recent research into the piano’s role in nineteenth-century British culture. The project arose from our awareness of the new work currently being done in a field – that of nineteenth-century British music scholarship – altogether notable for its development over recent decades. At the forefront of this development has been Nicholas Temperley. We are delighted and gratified that he has provided the Foreword to the volume.

The present book is not conceived as a survey of the piano in nineteenth-century Britain but rather as a critical introduction to the topic, highlighting historical developments and revealing new perspectives on the subject. Chapters explore key issues concerning the instrument itself, the repertoire heard by audiences in Britain, the performers, both British and foreign, who played that repertoire, and developments in concert structure that produced the piano recital. In Chapter 2, for example, Roy Johnston draws on his unrivalled knowledge of the history of music in Belfast, and related source-material, to develop his account of piano manufacturing in that city. In Chapters 3 and 4, Yo Tomita and Rohan Stewart-MacDonald bring their expertise in Bach and Clementi studies respectively to bear on the reception of two seminal keyboard collections – J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum. Throughout these and other chapters, a variety of individual figures emerges strongly from the narrative, whether these are the makers who peopled the piano manufacturing industry, in competition with one other, or the composers and performers who displayed their prowess on the concert platform, often networking among themselves and among the wider circle of musicians in a spirit of cooperation. It is fitting that at the centre of the book are two contributions (Chapters 5 and 6) by R. Larry Todd and Peter Horton, singling out for our attention the piano compositions of the most significant pianist–composer of the mid-Victorian era, William Sterndale Bennett. Investigations into the careers of three other native pianists – Arabella Goddard (Chapter 7, by Therese Ellsworth), Walter Bache (Chapter 9, by Michael Allis) and Fanny Davies (Chapter 10, by Dorothy de Val) – contribute to our understanding of the different ways in which a professional concert career as a pianist might develop in nineteenth-century Britain, while Chapter 8, the results of a fruitful search for the origins of the piano recital in England presented by William Weber and Janet Ritterman, and Chapter 11, Susan Wollenberg’s study of three Oxford pianistic careers, provide new detail on the contexts in which such careers might flourish.

The various chapters range across the sweep of the nineteenth century and beyond. The reception of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier begins with the appearance of printed editions in London after 1801 (gathering momentum in the 1820s and 1830s); Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum brings us to 1817–25. At the other end of the century are five individuals who form the subjects of three of the chapters and who all lived well into the twentieth century. Arabella Goddard died in 1922, although her professional career had ended in the 1880s. By contrast, Fanny Davies (d. 1934) continued her professional engagements far into the next century; nevertheless, her training as well as her most important work occurred within the ‘long’ nineteenth century. Donald Francis Tovey, Paul Victor Mendelssohn Benecke and Ernest Walker – all of whom lived well into the twentieth century – studied at Oxford during the 1880s and 1890s, and it was in this period that the formative phase of their musical careers was shaped.

From 1801 until 1922, the term ‘British’ referred to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Pockets of British culture existed well beyond these boundaries in the nineteenth century, extending to territories, protectorates or colonies that gradually became part of the British Empire. Description of the worldwide tour of Arabella Goddard in the 1870s provides a glimpse of expatriate culture as well as the hazards of travel and issues of concert arrangements in places far from the capital of the Empire. London functioned as the economic, political and cultural hub of Britain (while at the same time having claim to status as the commercial capital of the world) and, as a result, continued to be its centre of musical life. Recent scholarly enterprise has highlighted musical life in provincial locations outside London, and while the events that occurred in those peripheries might reflect the strong impact of London concert life, the process could be two-way.

Above all the capital is significant for a study of piano music in that it served as one of the principal centres, along with Paris and Vienna, that nurtured the rise of that remarkable nineteenth-century phenomenon, the international piano virtuoso. In addition, the city contained flourishing music publishing businesses and the headquarters of many of the leading British piano-manufacturing companies. It was famously at the Crystal Palace in London, where the Great Exhibition of 1851 took place, that pianos by some 38 British manufacturers were displayed. This event highlights the combination of art or craft with commercial enterprise that nourished the growth of British culture in the nineteenth century.

Current scholarship on piano music in nineteenth-century Britain owes a very particular debt to Professor Temperley. His dissertation ‘Instrumental Music in England 1800–1850’ (University of Cambridge, 1959) opened the door to the wealth of musical activity that occurred during a period previously thought to contain little of interest. Of special importance is his London Pianoforte School, a series of facsimile editions of the music with introductory essays.¹ The generation that has passed since its publication has seen a flourishing of research into pianists, their repertoire and the structures of concert life that helped support them. Temperley set the boundaries for the London Pianoforte School at 1766 to 1860 and demonstrated the many significant developments in piano music that originated with or received important stimulus from the composers, foreign-born and indigenous, who worked in London during that period. Among these are the use of the sustaining pedal, emergence of new genres such as the nocturne, the study and the characteristic rondo, and the expansion of idiomatic piano textures.²

Temperley has also pointed out a divide that occurred within London piano music during the 1820s and 1830s when a more conservative branch appeared, represented most prominently by Cipriani Potter (1792–1871). A pupil of Joseph Wölfl, with whom he studied Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier during the first decade of the century, Potter was appointed the first piano teacher at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) and in 1832 became Principal of that institution, remaining in the post until 1859. As a consequence he influenced at least a generation of students. He advocated a classical ‘legitimate’ style of performing, which he passed on to such RAM graduates as George Alexander Macfarren and William Sterndale Bennett, a style that contrasted with the virtuosic manner favoured by, for example, Julius Benedict.

As a Times critic observed at mid-century, foreign influence was crucial to developments in nineteenth-century Britain. He noted that ‘English music … would seem to be looking up; and the foreigners who annually flock to London have begun to discover that there are both players and composers in this country with whom it would be somewhat difficult for the majority of them to compete’. Moreover, he noted, ‘thanks to the influence and frequent presence’ of foreign musicians such as Weber, Mendelssohn and Spohr, ‘commercial England is unconsciously becoming the most musical country in Europe’.³ With these remarks, the writer identified issues that can be applied in particular to piano music and performance: the acknowledgement of the importance of foreign musicians, high standards of performance among soloists (both native-born and émigrés) and the contribution of increased wealth brought about by commerce. These ideas extended beyond London as virtuosi expanded their tours to provincial cities throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, in some cases settling there as did, for example, Charles Hallé in Manchester.

Mendelssohn, who visited Britain ten times between 1829 and 1847, was welcomed as a composer and equally as a pianist. The critic George Hogarth considered that he ranked ‘among the greatest masters of the day’ as both organist and pianist.⁴ The impact he exerted on the musical culture of Victorian England is well documented. Yet the influence of foreigners (whether visitors, temporary residents or permanent settlers) on piano music began generations before the Times article appeared. Their contribution to developments in repertoire and performance may be traced back as far as J.C. Bach (1735–82). Many others followed, among them Joseph Haydn, Hummel, J.B. Cramer, A.F.C. Kollmann, Dussek, Wölfl, Kalkbrenner and Ries. The pianist Wilhelm Kuhe, who settled in London in 1847 at age 24, declared that the most prominent musicians in London during the 1840s were Louise Dulcken, Ignaz Moscheles and Julius Benedict, all émigrés like himself, and all of them pianists.⁵ The economic dislocations caused by political events on the Continent in 1848 brought many refugees to Britain, including musicians such as Hallé. At the same time, ‘successive waves of influence emanated from London to the Continent’.⁶

Among many Continental links, the German influence was particularly strong in Britain.⁷ The connections between British and German culture extended of course to the British monarchy itself, which descended from the House of Hanover. Within the present volume we learn of the reception of printed editions of German music, specifically Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (Chapter 3). Mendelssohn’s influence on Sterndale Bennett is considered, along with possible influences conveyed from Bennett to Mendelssohn, in Chapter 5; Bennett’s travels to Germany and friendship with Schumann and Ferdinand David exercised a great impact on his development. Furthermore, Bennett’s music was reviewed in the German press and printed by German publishers. A number of soloists trained in Germany, for example Fanny Davies (as a pupil of Clara Schumann) and Walter Bache (who studied at the Leipzig Conservatory). Others studied with teachers of German heritage, as witness Arabella Goddard’s lessons with Thalberg. In addition, pianists from Britain such as Goddard included German cities and the prestigious Gewandhaus concert series on their tours. Special attention is paid by William Weber and Janet Ritterman to Clara Schumann, Charles Hallé and Hans von Bülow in their discussion of the development of the piano recital (Chapter 8). We learn that British premieres of music by Brahms, among others, took place at Oxford. And among the pianists considered in the chapter on Oxford is Paul Victor Mendelssohn Benecke, grandson of Felix Mendelssohn.

One of the most far-reaching areas in the development of British pianism was in the field of musical education (the educational system as a whole being subject to expansion in nineteenth-century Britain). The training of pianists changed during the nineteenth century from exclusively private tutelage to the new opportunities afforded by the opening of conservatoires. The RAM, founded in 1822, figures in these chapters as the training ground for William Sterndale Bennett and as a source of employment for Bennett and others cited here, including Cipriani Potter and G.A. Macfarren. In May 1883 the Royal College of Music (RCM) opened its doors; that institution provided brief employment for Goddard before her retirement. On the university scene, Bennett was appointed Professor of Music at Cambridge in 1856. Piano pedagogy developed alongside other trends. With the introduction of the Well Tempered Clavier into Britain, that work fulfilled the function of a teaching tool. So too did the genre of the study, exemplified by Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum, a work which, as Rohan Stewart-MacDonald reminds us, continued to be drawn on for the syllabuses of the Associated Board well into the twentieth century.

A fundamental division can be seen growing during the nineteenth century between virtuosic playing and classical interpretation; this emerged as the number of pianist–interpreters outpaced the composer–pianists. Fantasias and virtuosic display pieces confronted the question of the ethics of transcriptions and arrangements, a subject addressed by Walter Bache in particular. In addition, a developing canon of piano works formed a core against which ‘early music’ by J.S. Bach, Handel, Couperin, Rameau and Scarlatti and ‘revivals’ of such late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century piano composers resident in London as Dussek, Hummel and Wölfl were highlighted. Performance-practice concerns led to increased interest in harpsichord performance; Fanny Davies played the clavichord and harpsichord, as did Donald Tovey from his undergraduate years onwards. Pianists functioned as advocates for contemporary piano repertoire, as with Fanny Davies’s performances of music by Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Debussy and Elgar, and Ernest Walker’s of late Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, among others.

As mentioned, certain genres received particular impetus from composers and pianists of the London Pianoforte School. The development of the nocturne is seen in the music of John Field, even though those pieces were little performed publicly in Britain. The studies of J.B. Cramer and Clementi found important use as teaching (rather than concert) pieces. The ‘Song without Words’ flourished; W.S. Bennett is believed to have achieved the first performance of Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte in London in 1838, music destined to become phenomenally popular in Britain. Of particular significance is the growth of interest in the piano sonata, especially as it came to represent ‘serious’ repertoire for the solo artist. The Beethoven sonatas received frequent performances by pianists establishing their ‘classical’ credentials.⁸ Alexandre Billet, Charles Hallé and Arabella Goddard were key figures in presenting these works to London audiences during the 1850s and 1860s. Among sonatas composed by British musicians, Bennett’s Sonata in F minor, op. 13 receives close scrutiny in the chapters by R. Larry Todd and Peter Horton as fertile ground for detailed study of a mid-century work of that genre as well as for its programmatic aspects.

Recent research has brought to light the many changes that occurred in concert life during that period. The sheer number of events increased considerably; William Weber, for example, has determined that the annual total during the concert season jumped 305 per cent, from 125 to 381 concerts, between 1826 and 1845.⁹ Equally important was the specialization of concerts, a development that led to the decrease in ‘miscellaneous’ presentations of vocal and instrumental solo, chamber and orchestral works and to the spread of chamber music events and solo recitals. New series evolved to provide increased opportunities for pianists to perform. The Philharmonic Society, founded in 1813, officially admitted piano concertos to their programmes in 1819 and from then on featured piano soloists more than any other for works that involved a solo instrument and orchestra. T...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Music Examples
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword by Nicholas Temperley
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• General Editor’s Series Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 ‘That Domestic and Long-suffering Instrument’: The Piano Boom in Nineteenth-Century Belfast
• 3 ‘Most ingenious, most learned, and yet practicable work’: The English Reception of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century seen through the Editions Published in London
• 4 The Faces of Parnassus: Towards a New Reception of Muzio Clementi’s
• 5 Mendelssohnian Allusions in the Early Piano Works of William Sterndale Bennett
• 6 William Sterndale Bennett, Composer and Pianist
• 7 Victorian Pianists as Concert Artists: The Case of Arabella Goddard (1836–1922)
• 8 Origins of the Piano Recital in England, 1830–1870
• 9 ‘Remarkable force, finish, intelligence and feeling’: Reassessing the Pianism of Walter Bache
• 10 Fanny Davies: ‘A messenger for Schumann and Brahms’?
• 11 Three Oxford Pianistic Careers: Donald Francis Tovey, Paul Victor Mendelssohn Benecke and Ernest Walker
• Index