The life of William Sterndale Bennett

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Presented to the

EDWARD JOHNSON Music LIBRARY
by

Prof. H.J. Olnick

**^r^ A

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT

1816—1875

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[All Rights reserved.'}

SIR W. STERNDALE BENNETT

AET. LVI

PROM AN ENGRAVING HY T. OI.DHAM BARI.OW, A.R.A.
OF A PORTRAIT BY SIR JOHN E. MILLAIS, BART., P.R.A.

THE LIFE

OF

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT

BY HIS SON
J. R. STERNDALE BENNETT

M.A. ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

7:

EDWARD JOHNSON
MUSSC LIBRARY

CAMBRIDGE:

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

1907

ML

410

'4-5

(JTantfartoge :

PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

8S3571

TO

ELIZABETH BONN CASE

DAUGHTER OF
WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT

November 4, 1907

PREFACE

IN 1 88 1, the seventh year after my father's death, I
began to collect the materials with which his biography,
if thereafter required, might be constructed. He had died
in his 59th year. Many who had known him in youth long
survived him, and were, at the time to which I refer, readily
accessible. His aunt, Mrs Glasscock, his senior by only
thirteen years, was still living and could tell me of his child-
hood. His early friends, Davison and Macfarren, the one
orally, the other in writing, recounted, with loving interest,
their reminiscences of his student days. The extent of
their aid, and of the aid given by others who have long
since passed away, will, I hope, manifest itself in the fol-
lowing pages, wherein, I believe, the sources of these old
memories are, in almost all cases, clearly shown.

For much other valuable help rendered at various
times and in a variety of ways, I take this chance of
recording my great obligations to Mr W. Crowther Alwyn,
Mr J. C. Beazley, Mr P. V. M. Benecke, Sir Frederick
Bridge, Mr J. S. Bumpus, Miss H. M. Burningham,
Mrs Robert Burrows, Mr H. Entwisle Bury, Mr George Case,
Mr W. S. Case, Mr A. D. Coleridge, Mr C. H. Couldery,
Miss Frances Cox, Dr Eaton Faning, Mr J. A. Fuller
Maitland, Dr Gensel, Herr Gustav Jansen, Mr S. B. Kemp,
Miss Julia Kennedy, Rev. W. T. Kingsley, Rev. Canon

viii Preface

Kynaston, D.D., Rev. J. R. Luxmoore, Mr Arthur O'Leary,
Mr Oliver Notcutt, Mrs Rupert Owen, Mr Louis N. Parker,
Mr R. Peyton, Mr D. W. Rootham, Mr W. Shakespeare,
Mr C. E. Sparrow, Mr Fred. R. Spark, Mr W. Barclay
Squire, Sir Charles V. Stanford, Mr W. C. Stockley,
Dr Hans Voigt and Miss Wageman.

By the permission and with the sympathetic assistance
of the Mendelssohn Bartholdy family, the letters which
passed between my father and his illustrious friend became
available. The late Mrs Benecke herself translated those
of her father's letters which he wrote in German. For
similarly valued permissions I have to thank Miss Rose G.
Kingsley, Fratilein Marie Schumann, Lord Tennyson, Herr
F. A. Brockhaus and Mr Paul David. I have gratefully
received the sanction (i) of Messrs Macmillan and Co.
to quote from Miss Bettina Walker's My Musical Ex-
periences, (2) of Messrs Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner
and Co. to quote from the Life of Dr Whewell, by Mrs
Stair Douglas, (3) of Mr Wm. Reeves to use F. R. Ritter's
translations of Schumann's criticisms, and (4) of Messrs
Keene of Derby to reproduce their versions of old pictures
which face pp. 29, 158, 209. Mr T. J. Wright, of West-
minster, most kindly contributed a photograph, which after
long patience he secured, of my father's grave in a dark
corner of the Abbey.

Mr W. T. Freemantle, without regard to the interests
of his own literary projects, unreservedly placed at my
disposal, not only his unique knowledge of Sheffield in the
past, but also his valuable collection of musical treasures
relating to the period in which my father lived.

Preface ix

To consult the Minute-books of the Royal Academy
of Music, and to use a few extracts therefrom, I obtained
the authority of Sir George Macfarren when he was Chair-
man of the Committee of Management. Mr Kellow J. Pye,
Chairman, at an earlier time, of the same Committee,
placed interesting correspondence in my hands. Some of
my references to the Royal Academy of Music and the
Philharmonic Society of London are drawn from Histories
of those Institutions written respectively by Cazalet and
Hogarth.

When time was given me to write this Life, then also
came the privilege of discussing it, chapter by chapter,
with my revered friend, the late Otto Goldschmidt. His
persistent yet gentle pressure never failed to direct my
faltering steps. While revising my manuscript for publica-
tion, I gained great advantage from the criticisms and
suggestions of the President of Corpus Christi College,
Oxford.

J. R. S. B.

THE ATHENAEUM,
PALL MALL,

November 1907.

CONTENTS

PART I

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION AND VISITS TO GERMANY

1816-39

CHAP. PAGE

I PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD, TO 1826 . . . . 3

II SCHOOL-DAYS, 1826-33 12

III ADVANCED STUDENTSHIP, 1833-36 31

IV LEIPZIG, 1836-37 44

V LONDON AND, AGAIN, LEIPZIG, 1837-39 .... 63

PART II

A YOUNG MUSICIAN IN LONDON
1839-47

VI PORTLAND CHAMBERS, 1839-41 83

VII COMPOSITION IN PORTLAND CHAMBERS, 1839-41 . . 95
VIII HESSE-CASSEL, LEIPZIG, BERLIN, 1842 . . . .115

IX THE PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY. THE MUSICAL SEASON OF

1842 132

X CORRESPONDENCE WITH MENDELSSOHN, 1842-43 . . 145

XI MARRIAGE. CORRESPONDENCE CONTINUED, 1844-46 . 155

XII THE UNFORESEEN STROKE. DEATH OF MENDELSSOHN,

1846-47 169

Xll

CHAP.

XIII

XIV
XV

PART III

A HARSH REBUFF. QUIET SPHERES OF
ARTISTIC USEFULNESS

1848-55

RUPTURE WITH COSTA AND THE PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY.
OCCUPATIONS AS A TEACHER, 1848 ....

THE BACH SOCIETY. CHAMBER CONCERTS, 1849-55

CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE SCHUMANNS. GREAT EX-
HIBITION OF 1851. REVIVAL OF THE PHILHARMONIC
TROUBLE. CONDUCTORSHIP OF GEWANDHAUS CON-
CERTS. PRODUCTION OF BACH'S ' PASSIONS-MUSIK,'
1850-55

PAGE

183
2O2

218

PART IV

CALLED TO THE FRONT
1855-66

XVI PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS, 1855-56 241

XVII THE CAMBRIDGE PROFESSORSHIP 256

XVIII DIFFERENCE WITH THE PHILHARMONIC DIRECTORS. BACH

SOCIETY. THE EARL OF WESTMORLAND AND THE
R.A. OF Music, 1856-58 273

XIX LEEDS FESTIVAL. 'THE MAY QUEEN,' 1858 . . .285

XX THE CHORALE BOOK FOR ENGLAND, 1859-62 . . .291

XXI His POSITION AT THE PHILHARMONIC ASSURED. WITH-

DRAWAL OF THE SOCIETY'S ORCHESTRA, 1859-61 . 294

XXII THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF 1862, 1861-62 . 303

XXIII A YEAR OF CONTRASTING IMPORTS. INSTALLATION OF

THE CHANCELLOR AT CAMBRIDGE. JUBILEE OF THE
PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY. DOMESTIC BEREAVEMENT,
1862 318

XXIV HE FACES SORROW. A SYMPHONY IN G MINOR. VISIT

TO LEIPZIG. THE PROFESSORSHIP OF Music AT
EDINBURGH. HE RESIGNS THE PHILHARMONIC CON-
DUCTORSHIP, 1862-66 329

Contents

Xlll

PART V

REPAYMENT OF A DEBT TO ALMA MATER
1866-75

CHAP. PAGE

XXV THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF Music. BENNETT is APPOINTED

PRINCIPAL, 1866-67 347

XXVI CAMBRIDGE PROFESSORSHIP. 'THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA,'

1867 361

XXVII A CRISIS AT THE R.A. OF Music, 1867-68 . . . 369

XXVIII CAMBRIDGE LOCAL EXAMINATIONS. ADDITIONS TO 'THE

WOMAN OF SAMARIA.' ASSOCIATIONS WITH GERMANY.

UPPINGHAM SCHOOL, 1868 376

XXIX GOVERNMENT GRANT RESTORED TO THE R.A. OF Music.

THE R.A. OF Music AND THE SOCIETY OF ARTS,

1868-69 384

XXX COMPOSITIONS. SOME CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS PRIVATE

LIFE, 1869-70 389

XXXI BENNETT WITH THE ACADEMY STUDENTS, 1866-74 • • 394

XXXII HONOURS AND REWARDS, 1870-72 407

XXXIII COMPOSITIONS. THE R.A. OF Music AND THE ALBERT

HALL, 1872-73 417

XXXIV SOME PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 422

XXXV LAST DAYS, 1873-75 . . . . . . . . 440

APPENDIX

A NOTES

(1) Annals of the Bach Society 451

(2) Bennett placed among the opponents of Chopin . . 451

(3) On the order in which Schumann reviewed some of Bennett's

works .......... 453

(4) The production, in 1856, of Schumann's 'Paradise and The

Peri' by The Philharmonic Society .... 454

B LIST OF PUBLISHED AND MSS. WORKS, according to date of com-
position— with references to the pages where they are mentioned
in this book 455

C LIST OF PUBLISHED WORKS, according to their Opus Numbers . 461

D TABLE OF COMPOSITIONS, showing the amount produced at suc-
cessive periods of his life 463

INDEX

465

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

SIR W. STERNDALE BENNETT. In his fifty-seventh year. From a
portrait by Sir John E. Millais, Bart. . . . Frontispiece

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT. When (about) sixteen years old.

From a water-colour drawing by Child .... to face 29

PORTLAND CHAMBERS. Great Titchfield Street, London . to face 95

THE GEWANDHAUS CONCERT ROOM, LEIPZIG . . . to face 131

MRS W. STERNDALE BENNETT. From a water-colour drawing to face 158
LETTER, IN FACSIMILE, MENDELSSOHN TO BENNETT . . .159

LETTER, IN FACSIMILE, BENNETT TO MENDELSSOHN . . . 160

EXTRACT FROM OVERTURE TO 'THE MAY QUEEN' . . to face 164
LETTER, IN FACSIMILE, FROM BENNETT TO LUCAS . between pp. 190-191

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT. When (about) thirty-five years old.

From a Daguerreotype, said to have been taken in 1851 to face 209

PLAY BILL OF PRIVATE THEATRICALS 226

'THE GILBERT ARMS,' EASTBOURNE. From a water-colour drawing

by W. Chalmers Masters (musician) ... to face 287

PAGE OF A LETTER, IN FACSIMILE, WRITTEN BY BENNETT, TO

SOUTHAMPTON. Addressee Unknown .... to face 352

THE NORTH CHOIR AISLE, WESTMINSTER ABBEY . . to face 450

PART I

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND VISITS
TO GERMANY

S. B.

CHAPTER I.

PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD.

—1826.
— aet. 9.

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT was born at Sheffield on
Easter Eve, April 13, 1816. He came of a musical family.
His father, Robert Bennett, was an organist; his grand-
father, John Bennett, was a singer and a hautboy-player ;
moreover, his forefathers, for some generations back, dwelt
in a district noted for song.

Their home was at Ashford-in-the-water, a village situate
' in the sweetest and most sylvan part of the Peak of
Derbyshire.' The neighbourhood reverberated with music,
and that not only of a local or traditional kind ; for in the
larger churches, such as those of Bakewell and Tideswell,
the Services and Anthems of England's church-composers
and the Choruses of Handel were, in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, well known and sung with enthusiasm.
Singers and choir-leaders of exceptional ability were held
in high repute, as is shown on the gravestones in many a
churchyard. It is related that on a day when the beautiful
Duchess of Devonshire was at Court, and was extolling
the Derbyshire singing, George III seemed a little sceptical,
and hinted at the proverbial partiality which the lady had
for the county in which she resided. Thereupon, Her
Grace sent off to Tideswell, and one Samuel Slack was
brought up to sing before the King. The first sounds of
his voice electrified the Royal group, and as the performance
went on, the Duchess, radiant at the effect produced and at
the success of her experiment, triumphantly waved her

4 Parentage and Childhood [CH.

handkerchief at the King from across the room. In 1791,
this same Slack competed for a lay-clerkship at Cambridge
in the one choir which served for the chapels of the three
colleges, King's, St John's and Trinity. At the trial, the
judges, when they heard him sing, said that it would be
waste of time to call up the other candidates. He was
elected, but in less than a year had resigned, and another
singer of ' The Peak,' in the person of John Bennett
(Sterndale Bennett's grandfather), who was also the pos-
sessor of an exceptionally fine bass voice, had been chosen
to succeed him.

John Bennett left Derbyshire, and entered upon his new
duties at Cambridge, early in 1792. He was then thirty-
seven years old, but he remained on the active list for
another thirty-seven years, retiring, at the age of seventy-
four, with a pension from each of the three colleges. Three
of his sons had died in infancy ; but he brought up five
others, four daughters, and, afterwards, three orphan grand-
children. The removal to Cambridge gave good oppor-
tunity for the sons of a poor man to make the first start
on a musical career. His eldest son, William, had already
shown aptitude as a performer on all kinds of instruments,
and worked on till he became a military bandmaster. His
sixth and third surviving son, Robert (baptized at Bakewell,
Feb. 8, 1788), was placed at eight years of age in the choir
of King's College1; another son, Thomas (afterwards lay-
clerk and master of the choristers' school at Ely), starting
life in the same way. Both brothers became solo-singers
in the Chapel, and, on leaving, received the sums of
.£5. 12S. 6d., and ^5. os, %d., as 'box-money' to help them
on their way, these amounts being in excess of that given
to most of the choristers. At the age of 16, Robert
(Sterndale Bennett's father) was placed under Dr Clarke
Whitfeld, at that time organist of St John's and Trinity
Colleges, and afterwards Professor of Music in the
University. With that eminent musician he remained for
seven years ; first, as an articled pupil ; and, later, as a
student of composition and assistant at the Trinity organ.

1 The same lay-clerks sang at the three colleges ; but King's had a set of
choristers and an organist of its own, while St John's and Trinity shared
between them a second organist and a second set of choristers.

i] Sheffield. His Father's Marriage 5

At the end of the sixth year under Dr Clarke Whitfeld, he
competed, in 1810, for the important post of organist at
Sheffield parish church. The judges specially commended
his performance, but preferred another candidate. The
latter resigned within a twelvemonth, and the post was then
offered to Robert without further trial, his election taking
place on June 10, 1811.

A young man of energy and activity, — words used by
nearly all who, in after years, were asked to describe him, —
he was not long in securing full occupation. Within a
year he was able to take a wife, and on May 28, 1812,
married Elizabeth Donn of Cambridge. Her father, James
Donn, had been a pupil of William Aulton, the King's
gardener at Kew, from which place he, Donn, had gone to
Cambridge as Curator of the Botanic Gardens. The issue
of printed leaflets, giving lists of plants which he wished
members of the University to bring him from different
parts of the country, led him, by degrees, to the publication
of an elaborate book, which, under the title of Hortus
Cantabrigiensis, went through six editions in his life-time,
and seven more, under various editors, during the thirty-
seven years after his death. He was elected a member of
the Linna!:an Society, and he made a name for himself, as
a botanist, which is not entirely forgotten, a little space
having been found for him in the Dictionary of National
Biography. From his maternal grandfather, Sterndale
Bennett inherited much of his personal appearance, perhaps
also that love of order which distinguished them both alike,
and certainly a sum of money the usefulness of which will
presently appear.

Robert Bennett, on his marriage with James Donn's
daughter, took a house in Howard Street, Sheffield, and in
that house his three eldest children were born. His ability
and his genial disposition brought him into great favour.
As organist of the parish church, 'he discharged the duties
of his office in a manner highly satisfactory to the con-
gregation, and creditable to himself..., he successfully
cultivated a style of playing, remarkably chaste and grace-
ful, admirably adapted to the sanctity of the temple, and
the solemnity of the service. He uniformly displayed
a considerable degree of taste ; but in pathetically plaintive

6 Parentage and Childhood [CH.

music there were few who could surpass him1.' He was
not only an organist, but also a busy pianoforte teacher,
and his wife wrote to Cambridge that his work left him
' scarcely any time for his meals.' A lady, at whose father's
house he dined every week, on one of his country rounds,
wrote that he had ' the first course of teaching with private
pupils and at the boarding-schools' throughout the Sheffield
district. He also taught at Bake well, whither he rode on
horseback across the moors from Sheffield. Then, again,
he was to the front in all the music of the town, whether in
private society or in the concert room. He was one of a
set of good musicians then resident in Sheffield, who com-
bined for the general good. Wageman, a Dutch portrait-
painter, has left a highly finished pencil-sketch of the four
Sheffield organists, and three or four of the best amateurs,
in the enjoyment of a musical meeting. In Madrigal and
Glee Societies, Robert found his place, as a trained singer
with a beautiful tenor voice. His solo-singing, refined in
style and full of intense feeling, was the special gift which
remained longest in the memory of his friends, as the writer
has been told by their descendants. He was appointed one
of the musical Directors of the Yorkshire Choral Concerts,
which were held at York, Sheffield, and other important
places in the county. The programmes of these concerts
are difficult to obtain ; but, if the announcement of a single
one — at which ' Alexander's Feast ' was to be sung, and
the instrumental pieces were to be chosen from the works
of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven — may be taken as a
type, it would seem that Yorkshire, in its taste not only
for vocal but also for orchestral music, was sound and
abreast of the times. As regards Beethoven, there is a
tradition in Sheffield musical families that one of his
Symphonies was played at these Yorkshire concerts for the
first time in England. Robert also gave annual concerts
of his own, for the first of which the famous singer, Mrs
Salmon, was engaged. Another incident in his life was
the directing of a festival performance of ' The Messiah '
in Bakewell church, for which occasion his father, John,
came from Cambridge to sing the bass solos.

1 From an obituary notice in The Sheffield Iris, a paper edited by James
Montgomery, the sacred poet.

i] Death of his Mother 7

Amongst his intimate friends at Sheffield must be
mentioned : William Howard, an amateur violinist who
later possessed the ' Stradivarius ' that had belonged to
Salomon; the Rev. Thomas Cotterill, who sought his constant
assistance in the compilation of a Psalmody ; and John
Sterndale, a surgeon, whose wife and sons were well known
as artists and authors. One son, William, supplied Robert
with words for a set of Six Songs, which were published,
and dedicated to the Duke of Devonshire. The following
note appeared on the copies : —

' The Composer of the annexed Melodies cannot allow
this opportunity to pass without expressing his acknowledg-
ments to those Friends who have favoured him with their
support ; amongst whom he must particularize Mr WILLIAM
STERNDALE, to whose kindness he is indebted for the original
words that accompany the Melodies.

Sheffield, June 30, 1815.'

So, in the next year, Robert conceived the happy idea
of perpetuating the memory of this artistic partnership, by
giving to his third child and only son the names of his
friend. When William Sterndale Bennett was born, on
April 13, 1816, his parents were living in Howard Street;
but, soon after, they removed to a house in Norfolk Street,
to which was attached an orchard and garden, where Mrs
Robert was often seen playing with her children, and
tending her flowers, as became the dutiful daughter of the
Cambridge botanist. Such happiness, however, was of
short duration. Two years passed, and after giving birth
to a fourth child, she died, May 7, 1818, and was buried
in Ecclesall churchyard, whither her infant daughter followed
in a few days.

The child, William Sterndale, was put out to nurse at
Darnall, a village a few miles out of the town, and Robert's
youngest sister, Sarah, then fifteen years old, was sent from
Cambridge to look after the elder children. For some time
after her arrival, she did not see the little nephew to whom
in later life she showed so much attachment. Of her first
remembrance of him, she thus wrote in her eightieth year :

' After I had been at Sheffield a few months he was
brought home to stay a day or two. When the evening of

8 Parentage and Childhood [CH.

the first day came he cried to go home to his mother as he
called his nurse ; in order to see what he would do, he was
dressed in his little coat and cap and he would have gone
out in the dark to find his mother whom he loved so much.
This happened when he was two years and seven months
old, and showed the loving disposition which characterized
him through life.'

Robert had now been at Sheffield for seven years.
About this time he seized a chance of bettering his position
by adopting the novel method of piano-teaching which
Logier had lately introduced. This method had two striking
features : the one, an apparatus called 'chiroplast' designed
by Logier and patented by him in 1814 ; the other, a plan
laid down for systematic class-teaching. If twelve or more
children could, as was asserted, be taught conjointly not
only as well but better than separately, then the pupil, the
parent, and the professor might all have a share in the
benefit. Robert visited London and Manchester in order
to learn the method, and Logier must have been favourably
impressed by him, or he would not have entrusted him with
the education of his son Henry, who came to Sheffield as
an articled pupil. A move was now made from Norfolk
Street to Eyre Street, where a house was found with a room
in it of sufficient dimensions to hold the pianos on which
the pupils simultaneously performed, and also to admit of
frequent exhibitions — a subsidiary but no insignificant feature
of the system — before admiring parents. The Logierians,
and Robert among them, learnt from their chief the art of
compiling very alluring prospectuses.

Within a year of his first wife's death, Robert married
Miss Harriet Blake of Sheffield. William Sterndale, now
three years old, had returned home, and was giving the
first signs of a musical bent by the interest which he took
in the Logierian proceedings, readily assimilating the tunes
which he heard, and probably, if one may judge from some-
thing that occurred later, gaining a little acquaintance with
the key-board of a pianoforte. He was not, however,
destined to be trained by a mechanical process, or to run
the risk of exhibition as an infant prodigy. An otherwise
sad fatality saved him. A few months after his second
marriage, Robert's health broke down. Forced to leave

i] Death of his Father. Cambridge 9

his work in the hands of his partner, Rogers, he retired
into the country, and, after an illness only long enough to
exhaust his resources, died of consumption, Nov. 3, 1819,
in the thirty-second year of his age. He was buried at
Ecclesall by the side of his first wife. His possessions
were dispersed. His musical manuscripts may have passed
into the hands of his partner and were, perhaps, in course
of time, not deemed worth preserving. Yet his published
songs, though they may not have marked individuality,
show grace and refinement, while the accompaniments are
conceived with fancy and are the work of a well-trained
musician. He sang the songs himself to the great delight
of his hearers, but the title-pages of a second edition record
that they were sung by more eminent vocalists1. His father
possessed a fine portrait of him, painted in oils by Wageman,
which still remains in the family.

On his death, the orphan children were received into
the house of his friends, the Howards, who treated them
with the most considerate kindness ; but their grandfather,
when communicated with, at once offered them a permanent
home. They arrived at Cambridge in December, 1819,
during a severe snow-storm. Their step-mother, who had
accompanied them, returned to her own friends, and did
not see them again.

John Bennett, now sixty-five years old, had lost, by the
death of Robert, the one son out of many who had made a
distinct step forward in the world. He had loved him for
the amiability and gaiety of disposition which had endeared
him to many friends both in Cambridge and Sheffield. He
had been justified in hoping that Robert would become a
Cathedral organist, which would have satisfied his highest
ambition as a parent. Of musical distinction in the family,
where could the hope be now ? But for the personal loss
some solace was at hand. From the first instant that John
set eyes on his grandson, he was observed to be taking a
fresh interest in life. It was not much that the little boy
could do ; but his aunt Sarah, in her old age, would recall
the evening on which he arrived with his two sisters, and
would try to imitate the child as he moved about the room,

1 Public performances of them can be traced up to 1850, when Mrs John
Wood sang one at a chamber concert given by Ernst and Halle' in Manchester.

io Parentage and Childhood [CH.

pointing eagerly at the unfamiliar ornaments and pictures,
and making friends with his relations.

That he prattled for some little time about his father,
and sang around the house the tunes he had heard in the
Logierian schoolroom, putting his own childish words to
them, is all that is known of him until a day, in his fifth
year, when his grandfather took him to King's College
Chapel. There he heard Handel's 'Hallelujah' Chorus for
the first time, and on his return home startled his relations
by repeating portions of it on the piano with accuracy and
precision. John Bennett went off next day to consult
Gifford, who kept the chief music-shop in Cambridge, with
the result that the boy took his first lessons from Miss
Gifford, the music-seller's daughter. He made progress,
and was later placed under William Nunn, but from the
first he shrank from the notice which his attainments
occasioned, giving early signs of a certain reluctance, which
never left him, to unfold himself as a musician. At a
juvenile party, while still a child, he was placed at the piano
to play. A little girl, older than himself, who was present,
always remembered the piteous appeal which he made, as
he turned round on the revolving music-stool, to be let off,
and to be allowed to play 'puss-in-the-corner' with the
other children. At another house, as he grew a little older,
he would sometimes play 'The Battle of Prague' and other
pieces, but notwithstanding the prospect of the half-crown,
with which his kind hostess invariably rewarded such per-
formances, he could not always face the ordeal.

In his eighth year, he was admitted, on Feb. 17, 1824,
to the choir of King's College, and he remained in it two
years. John Pratt, the organist, was not impressed by
him, and, according to a tradition in Cambridge, considered
him a dull boy. Another officer of the college formed a
different opinion. This was the Vice- Provost, the Rev.
S. B. Vince, who in earlier days had admitted Robert
Bennett to his intimate friendship, and who, after the
Sheffield appointment, would seldom pass John Bennett's
door without stopping to enquire after his friend or to have
a look at Wageman's speaking portrait of him. When the
orphans came to Cambridge he extended his interest to
them, and, as time passed, watched the development of

i] From Cambridge to London n

William Sterndale's ability. In the spring of 1826, the
Rev. Frederick Hamilton, who had recently been appointed
resident Superintendent of the Royal Academy of Music,
was on a visit to his friends in Cambridge. There he
heard of little Bennett's talents from Mr Vince, who even
went so far as to call him a 'prodigy.' The boy was sum-
moned to the Vice- Provost's rooms, and Mr Hamilton then
advised his being examined at the Royal Academy of
Music. He was accordingly sent up to London, consigned
to the care of his grandfather's friend, Mrs Taylor, by whom
he was taken, on March 7, 1826, to the Academy house
in Tenterden Street. Thus, on the point of completing
his tenth year, William Sterndale Bennett was launched on
his career in London.

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL-DAYS.

1826—1833.
aet. 9 — 17.

THE Royal Academy of Music, instituted in 1822, began
its work on the evening of Feb. 10, 1823, at No. 4 Ten-
terden Street, Hanover Square, formerly the town mansion
of the Earl of Carnarvon. Lord Burghersh, — afterwards
Earl of Westmorland, — the founder of the Institution, had
recently gone to Florence, as British Envoy, and was there-
fore unable to see the firstfruits of his labours ; but his
colleagues corresponded with him, and no detail of what
happened in his absence was too trivial to interest him. On
the evening in question, 'the whole of the rooms on the
two floors were lighted up, and the place was thoroughly
warm, cheerful, and comfortable.' A Committee of
Directors were presiding over an examination of candidates
for admission on the foundation. The eleven professional
examiners, amongst whom were Sir George Smart, Dr
Crotch1 (Principal of the Academy), Greatorex, Horsley,
J. B. Cramer, and Shield, 'entered into their work with
the greatest good humour, patience, attention, and kindness
to the children, who of course were in general extremely
alarmed.' After three such evenings, the examiners made
their report, and the subscribers, who, as such, were members
of the Corporation, gave their votes. Eleven boys and ten
girls were elected on the foundation. They were promised
residence in the house, and a musical education under the
first Professors of the day, at the small cost of twenty
guineas and in some cases fifteen guineas a year. The

1 Dr Crotch was absent on theyfr'j/ evening of the examination.

CH. n] Royal Academy of Music 13

name of W. H. Holmes, a Derbyshire boy, appeared first
on the list, as nominee of the King, but most votes were
given to H. A. M. Cooke (afterwards known as Grattan
Cooke), who may have been less alarmed at the exami-
nation than the rest of the party. Son of the eminent
Tom Cooke, he himself, in due course, reached fame as the
chief Oboist, but also as the irrepressible wag, of the
London orchestras. These two boys, Holmes and Cooke,
will be mentioned later. The unsuccessful candidates were
terribly disappointed, and room was shortly found for
fifteen of them, who were glad to pay a higher fee of
thirty-eight guineas for advantages hitherto unattainable in
this country on such terms. The house was then full ; but
applications for possible vacancies became so numerous,
that, in a year's time, when the first contract with parents
expired, the Directors raised the fees all round to forty
pounds, observing that if any of the first foundationers
objected they might withdraw, since others were waiting to
fill their places.

Most thoughtful provision was made for the general
training of these young boarders. The Directors held the
opinion that there existed no profession whose members
were more exposed to every species of temptation than
the one for which the pupils of the Academy were to be
prepared ; so that, in selecting a Headmaster or Lady
Superior, they felt it 'an imperious duty' to scrutinize the
character and abilities of those 'whose mind and manners,
precepts and example, must have a material effect upon the
future welfare of the children entrusted to their care.'
The Rev. John Miles, Lecturer of St Michael's, Cornhill ;
the Rev. Frederick Hamilton, who had held a commission
in the army and had fought at Waterloo, before taking
Orders and becoming Chaplain to the Earl of Melbourne ;
the widow of Colonel Wade, a lady personally well known
to some of the Directors; these were the officials appointed
to reside in the house and to take charge of the young
scholars. Hours — none too many — were apportioned to
lessons other than musical ; but the paramount idea was,
that the children should be brought up under religious and
refined influences. The Directors and their Ladies, for
some years, made a point of visiting the house and taking

14 School-days [CH.

notice of their proteges. Nor was it forgotten that child-
hood should as far as possible be passed amidst bright
surroundings. Lord Carnarvon's mansion was described
at the time as situate 'in the outskirts of the metropolis.'
Its interior was renovated throughout. An annex of the
building served as a separate residence for the girls, and
the gardens at the back, shaded by high trees which
ensured privacy, were divided into two playgrounds. Some
forty years later, Bennett told a musical Committee of the
Society of Arts that the Academy had been, in his young
days, 'really a very pretty place.'

But the maintenance, with the musical and the moral
training, of the thirty-six boarders proved very expensive,
and fees, even when raised, covered but a small part of the
cost. Contributions and subscriptions did not meet expect-
ations, and notwithstanding the concerts, balls, and public
dinners, which the Directors, as leaders of Society, were
able to organize, the early balance-sheets spelt speedy ruin.
In 1825 it was announced that day-students would be
taken. Some of the Directors, in view of the ' career
beset with dangers,' shrank from the responsibility of
dealing with pupils over whom they could not have entire
control ; but Lord Burghersh, who wished to see the
benefits of the Institution more widely enjoyed, was
supported by a majority, and early in the year 1826,
upwards of sixty out-door students were receiving instruc-
tion for which they paid ,£30 per annum. The gross
income was increased, but so still more were the expenses.
An extra house was taken, more Professors were engaged,
and dangerous encroachments were made upon a small
invested endowment.

Bennett arrived on March 7, 1826. As the funds of
the Academy were low, while the number of applicants
willing to pay fees was increasing, it appears certain that
his musical gifts impressed his examiners ; for it was
promptly decided to accept him as a boarder, free of any
expense, — the only known case of such a favour being
granted in the early days of the Academy. His relations,
expecting that he would return to them before anything
was finally settled, had only provided him with his night-
things, and a few frills packed in a little dressing-case ; but

n] The new Boy 15

he was now ordered to enter into residence at once, and a
request for his clothes was despatched to Cambridge.
Mr Hamilton then took him off to the schoolroom, where
he introduced him to his school-fellows ; and soon after
this, John Ella, who was giving lessons that day as a sub-
professor, was fetched out of his room by Grattan Cooke
to come and see ' the funny little fellow who had just come
into the house.' The boys had been holding an extra
examination on their own account, and Ella found them
striking on a piano confused handfuls of notes, which
Bennett, from a distant corner of the room, was naming
to their great satisfaction. He was dressed in a brown
jacket with two rows of brass buttons on it, and a white
frill. Though nearly ten years old, he was in Ella's
remembrance 'a wee boy,' and Grattan Cooke, in after-
life, wrote of him as 'the smallest boy,' though 'the greatest
man' with whom the Academy had had to do. Bennett
would himself recall how the older scholars, taking advantage
of his size, used to let him down from a window in a basket,
so that he might fetch them school-boy luxuries after
' locking-up.' He had one treasured recollection of the
time when he first entered the musical world. A day or
two before he reached London, Weber had arrived to
produce his English Opera ' Oberon/ and the boy now
had his first sight of a great musician. Sir George Smart
brought Weber, who was staying with him in Great Portland
Street, to inspect the Academy, and Bennett also saw him
at a concert where he conducted his Overture to ' The
Ruler of the Spirits.'

The boys' side of the Academy, at the time of his
entrance, mustered between forty and fifty pupils, of whom
about half were boarders. The head-boy was Charles
Lucas, eighteen years of age and already a sub-professor.
The new-comer was placed in his class for theoretical studies.
By the express wish of his grandfather, the violin became
Bennett's principal instrument, and so it remained, at least
in name, for five years or more. Spagnoletti and Oury
were in turn his teachers. Oury, in his old age, remem-
bered him as a quick and intelligent pupil. On the piano
he had already made progress at Cambridge. He now
took it for a second study under W. H. Holmes, a clever

1 6 School-days [CH.

lad of fourteen, whose own master, Cipriani Potter, would
perhaps supervise this pupil-teaching. Sixty years later
Holmes wrote of Bennett, ' He was my first pupil ; * * *
I always had the opinion of him as from a child that he
could look music thro' and thro' ; *'' * * I remember when
I first gave him lessons I thought what a delightful thing
it was to teach, when you could get any one to do anything
with so little trouble ; * * * He could always do much
more than I could tell him.'

Two years and more passed, and then some of the land-
marks in a boy's life appeared. His first prize, Goldsmith's
History of Rome, was given him, in the summer of 1828,
by the Countess St Antonio, for progress in Harmony ;
he made his debut, when twelve-and-a-half years old, in
Dussek's Pfte. Concerto in Bt>, at a students' concert ; and
then made his first essay in composition, as he neared his
thirteenth year, when he competed, though unsuccessfully,
with older boys for the gold pencil-case which Sir Andrew
Barnard offered for the best setting of a Fairy Chorus with
orchestral accompaniment. But though his day as a com-
poser had not yet come, he was being gradually prepared
for it by the exercises for Lucas, with which, as far as
writing was concerned, he now contented himself for two
or three years longer. His violin-playing, no doubt, also
helped him much. It had already brought him under the
influence of Cipriani Potter, who, during Dr Crotch's Prin-
cipalship, conducted the pupils' orchestra. A feature of
the Academy training, and one that distinguished it from
the courses of education which musical students had gene-
rally followed in this country, was the constant practice of
the instrumental works of such masters as Haydn, Mozart,
and Beethoven, and the exposition of the ' forms ' they
used. Potter took an exceptional place among the British
composers of his day, by devoting himself chiefly to instru-
mental composition, and by basing his works on such
forms ; and he was certainly the first who had the oppor-
tunity through his connection with the Academy, of setting
any appreciable number of English students on the same
track. Concerted instrumental music, whether for the
orchestra or the chamber, became the daily study of many
Academy boys. Residence in the house, as Bennett would

ii] Orchestral Practices 17

afterwards say, made it easy to arrange meetings. There
were at the Academy several clever boys destined to take,
before long, leading places as orchestral players in London ;
Professors assisted them at their more important rehearsals ;
but Potter did not make proficiency a necessary qualifica-
tion for his student-band. On the contrary, into it he
thrust the boys, as soon as they had learnt to hold their
instruments, and could follow their parts if only in their
mind ; and he would make his practices the occasions for
explaining to these young beginners the plan — the word he
himself used — of the master- works played, and the devices
of orchestration. Thus could a boy like Bennett, with
quick perception and a retentive memory, begin, at an early
age, to store his mind with fine music and with models for
future work of his own.

In the spring of 1829, the Academy was carefully in-
spected by Fetis, the distinguished musical savant and, at
the time, Professor of Counterpoint and Fugue at the Paris
Conservatoire. He was able to send a most favourable
account to Paris of the English Institution. In referring
to the students as composers, he wrote : — ' These young
persons enjoy the inestimable advantage of having their
compositions performed by a complete orchestra on the
Tuesday and Saturday of every week. This practical in-
struction seems to me to be the best that is received in the
Academy. * * The practices are directed by

Mr Potter, who resided for a long time in Vienna, and
received instruction from Beethoven, whose style he imitates
in his compositions. Mr Potter is an excellent musician,
and in every respect qualified for the office which he fills.
These practices were very interesting. I was present at
several of them, and was always satisfied with what I
heard.'

In the summer of 1829, at the close of his third
academical year, Bennett gained a bronze medal for
general progress, and so far all had gone well ; but in
the following December he had so serious an illness, that
he was unable to go home for the holidays. His only
companion in the deserted house was Scipione Brizzi, a
young Italian, who, by a curious reversal of usual pro-
cedure, had come to England to study singing. In the

S. B.

1 8 School-days [CH.

night of Christmas Eve, Bennett was taken so much worse,
that Brizzi became seriously alarmed, and, not daring to
leave the invalid, in order to fetch servants from a remote
part of the house, he nursed him in his arms, till morning
brought the help of others. Dr Granville, the eminent
physician who gave his services free to the Academy, was
so impressed with the circumstance, that he reminded
Bennett of it, when they met again towards the close of
their lives, at the Athenaeum Club. When Bennett lay
dying in 1875, Brizzi called at the house, and said at the
door : ' I think he will get better, but I wish I could nurse
him, for I saved his life once before.' Whether this illness
was the result, or the cause, of a failure of strength, it
certainly came at a time when a check to his progress is
noticeable. Prizes, compositions, solo-playing at concerts,
are not heard of for some time. He seems to have lacked
the power, or perhaps the desire to keep himself to the
front Still, he remained in the midst of music, and was
gathering experience. He had a beautiful alto voice. This
happily brought him to the notice of Attwood, who often
sent for him to sing in the choir of St Paul's. With
another boy, Lovell Phillips, he was in constant request
to join in the glee-singing at public entertainments. He
played the violin in the orchestra at the series of Operas
given by the Academy students at the King's Theatre, and
at the end of 1831 took the part of Cherubino in Figaro,
an event which he liked to speak of in after-life. Sir
George Macfarren, who played the trombone in the orches-
tra on the occasion, remembered Bennett's rendering of
the part as interesting and effective, though it is true that
the critic of The Harmonicon took a different view at the
time.

On the piano, unobserved except by his teacher, he
was still advancing. One day, probably in the winter of
1830—31, Holmes said to his private pupil, J. W. Davison,
' Come, I must take you to hear my Academy boy, who
plays better than I do ; ' and, from that day, Davison, who
afterwards became the leading musical critic in this country,
began to watch Bennett with keen interest. He has written,
as a recollection of the time, that the boy, at the outset of
his Academy life, was ' apparently somewhat apathetic if

ii] His Grandfather s Anxiety 19

not to say idle.' The music-book, in which Bennett entered
and dated his ' approved ' exercises, shows that he was now
studying Canon and Fugue with Lucas ; and Davison re-
membered that a Canon on the subject of ' La ci darem '
was made to do duty on more than one occasion, when
work was called up for examiners' inspection. ' Bunny,'
as his school-fellows named him, was so far best known to
them as ' a merry-hearted boy in the playground ; ' as the
collector of a museum of doubtful antiquities, which he kept
and exhibited in his bed-room ; as a promoter of concerts
of humorous classical music, for which he would copy the
orchestral parts on gigantic pieces of paper ; or as a spirited
actor in Bombastes Furioso and other plays.

When he was just fifteen years old, his grandfather
wrote to him, on May 17, 1831 : —

MY DEAR WILLIAM,]

I write to let you see that I am still alive, and
better than ever I expected to be, but I am far from being
myself again, but thank God I am no worse. *

*^**^****

Now I must change the subject. Volti ! — I wish to
know what progress you are making in music. Do you
practise much on the violin and do you improve ? Is the
piano your favorite instrument still ? Harmony must not
be neglected, and above all your duty to God. I frequently
see or hear of your Academical concerts, but never see or
hear of any of your performances, therefore conclude you
are lazy or negligent, and must or will remain as a cypher
or even a blank amongst them. The Morning Chronicle
spoke last week of your [concert] and mentioned many
names, but alas ! yours was not there.

Have you any idea when we may expect to see you
again ? Let me particularly [hear] how you are proceeding
in your different studies, by whom you are taught, and
whose and what music you are practising. Persevere and
be diligent ; mediocrity stands but a poor chance in the
science of music in these days. It must be Eminence or
nothing. Write to me soon and satisfy my anxiety or

2 2

2O School-days [CH.

curiosity, whatever you please to call it. I hope you are in
good health and not in want of anything. If you are let
me know.

I remain,

Your affectionate grandfather,
JOHN BENNETT.

The boy had now been five years at the Academy, and
his grandfather would surely before this have asked him, in
holiday time, for the details of his work ; but Bennett, like
other school-boys, would avoid such a subject, and his rela-
tions could not get much out of him. At Cambridge, he
was often asked out to sing or play. On his return he
would never satisfy the family curiosity. ' Well, what did
they say ? ' would be asked. ' What should they say ? '
was the only form of reply. His aunt Sarah, when relating
this, added, 'We should have kept the letters he wrote
from the Academy, if we had had any presentiment that he
would become an eminent man, but he never gave us any
chance to expect it.' He was, however, on most affec-
tionate terms with his grandparents. His grandfather
would laugh at his drolleries till the tears rolled down his
face, and would at last burst out with the exclamation, as
if it were a term of endearment, ' Thou fool, thou fool ! '
Early in life the boy learnt to realize the obligation he was
under, as an orphan, to these second parents. He would
often, in after-life, speak of his grandfather's distress in
being obliged to ask him, when he had been some little
time at the Academy, not to write home so often, as they
could not afford to pay for the letters on their arrival. He
preserved two of his grandfather's letters ; the one given
above, because it contained the words, ' Harmony must
not be neglected, and above all your duty to God ; ' and
another because it ended with the words, ' From my little
kitchen, I write farewell ; ' and these two phrases he would
often quote, as if they still touched him in a tender place.
If he spoke of his grandmother, it was generally to refer to
the first night of the holidays, when the old lady, with a
certain amount of ceremony, would open a cupboard and
reveal a special fruit-pie, which she always made to cele-

n] A Change of Studies 2 1

brate the occasion. At the end of the holidays, he would
escape to the coach, without the farewells that he dared not
face.

By the Academy examiners, in the summer of 1831, he
was rebuked for his diffidence with respect to composition.
Other pupils in Lucas's class, George Macfarren for one,
were already writing elaborate works. Bennett alone held
back. 'Here is a boy,' said one of the Professors, 'who
could do something if he chose.' To this branch of work,
however, it seems to have been as futile to press him then,
as it invariably proved later. A promotion, which now
took place, to Dr Crotch's class, certainly gave no impetus ;
for, in lieu of the Fugues written for Lucas, his music-book
contains a series of single and double Chants, a form of
exercise on which Dr Crotch is said to have set great
value.

That Bennett, after the summer of 1831, entered upon
a course of unflagging industry, had, at the outset, nothing
to do with composition. On the violin, he had reached
the stage of playing the Concertos of Rode and Viotti, but
the instrument was not his favourite one. His grand-
father's letter had given him the opportunity of saying so,
and of getting permission to abandon it as his principal
study. A change was made, and, to use his own words,
he took to the pianoforte 'con amore.' ' Instead of playing
about the house,' he once said to the writer, ' I began to
practise incessantly.' But great proficiency on what had
so far been his second instrument was already acquired,
though without attracting notice. In December he made
his first important appearance, playing in the Academy
room Hummers Concerto in A flat, a work which Hummel
had himself introduced to this country earlier in the year.
Bennett's performance took everybody by surprise. He
would say in his latter days that he had heard no more
beautiful pianoforte-playing than that of Hummel. He may
have heard him play this same Concerto, and assimilated
something ; for Sir George Macfarren has written of ' silly
praisers,' who, after this Academy concert, at once styled
him 'The English Hummel, 'whereas, in Sir George's opinion,
he had done quite well enough to deserve the use of his own
name. John Field, who had just arrived in England, after

22 School-days [CH.

thirty years' absence, was present at the concert and on
leaving the room said of Bennett to one of the Professors,
' That little fellow knows what he's about.'

While writing the Chants for Dr Crotch, he composed
his first extended work, a string Quartet in G minor. As
he did not intend to show it to his master, he did not
trouble to make a score, but wrote straight off the separate
parts to try the music with his school-fellows. Fifty years
afterwards, his devoted pupil, Thomas Wingham, found
these parts, dated October, 1831, in the possession of
a former Academy student, and purchased them. He then
arranged for one or two performances of the work in
London, and asked Mr Joseph Bennett, the eminent musical
critic, to write an analytical pamphlet. This was printed
and in it the following passage occurs : —

' In hearing the Quartet it is impossible to overlook
the composer's youth. This is sufficiently asserted by the
intrinsic character of the music, as well as by comparison
with more mature productions. Equally clear is the fact,
that Bennett's master for composition had trained him in
the school of Mozart, whose orderly method, grace, and
clearness of expression are here emulated as far as a student's
unripe powers allowed.'

It is to the last sentence of this extract, rather than to
the Quartet itself or to its discovery, that attention is paid
here. Bennett had not written this work, nor as yet any
such work, under the eye of a living teacher. Who then
had trained him in the school of Mozart ? It was no other
than Mozart himself. Music, in variety sufficient to draw
his attention in many directions, had now for some years
been before his receptive and discriminating mind ; but he
had already determined to turn a deaf ear to vanities, to
study exclusively in a school of Great Masters, and even
to find still further security, by selecting one great musician
as the centre of his thoughts and the first moulder of his
taste. There can be no doubt that the placing of himself
at the feet of Mozart was a deliberate act of his own. This
was clearly shown, if not literally said, by himself, later in
life, on an occasion when, though he made no positive
personal reference, he was nevertheless obviously recalling
his own young days, with their hours of perplexity, and

ii] Mozart as a Model 23

their hour of firm resolve. He was lecturing at Cambridge
in 1871, and exhorting musical students to great caution in
the selection of models for study. He assumed, for the
nonce, that his hearers had passed through the earlier
stages of theoretical knowledge, that they could, for the
purpose of study, read musical scores like ordinary books,
and were wishing to compose. — Here is seen a description
of himself in his fifteenth year. — He next spoke of the
'favourite composer' which a young musician would pro-
bably have, of whom he would be ' continually thinking/
and whose works would ' continually possess him ; ' but he
feared that the favourite might be admired for some specially
fascinating characteristics, which it would be folly to imitate ;
the beginner was, in his opinion, in a perilous position ;
music, good, indifferent, and bad, was hovering round ; and
though experienced teachers might advise, it mainly rested
with the student himself ' to choose his own path and shape
his own taste.' He went on to say, that the adoption of
a chief model must come as the result of ' much self-control
and patient study,' and then, after paying tribute to several
great musicians, in particular reference to instrumental and
operatic music, from the time of Haydn to that of Men-
delssohn, he turned to Mozart, speaking of him at great
length, and urging his listeners to consider the adoption of
that Master as the chief guide of their musical life. — Here,
in his mind's eye, stood the rock on which he had himself
sought security. — He was careful to explain, that, apart
from the immediate purpose of his lecture, viz., to direct
attention to an exemplary model, he had nothing to do with
placing great men in order of merit ; he was not naming
Mozart as the greatest man of an epoch ; the Great Masters
were to him the links of an inseparable chain. Never-
theless, in the history of music as Bennett read it, and in
the period which most interested him, — i.e. from the birth
of the elder Scarlatti in 1659 to the death of Spohr in
I&59> — Mozart, if not in his view standing higher than
others, was in any case the central figure, occupying the
position from which you could, as he put it, 'best review
music from the earliest to the latest times.'

His particular devotion to Mozart was known to his
school-companions. He told his friend Bowley, who was

24 School-days [CH.

a non-resident student, that it was his habit to take Mozart's
scores to bed with him, and to read them in the early
summer mornings. Thus did the seemingly childish or
indolent boy work on, and when his first efforts at com-
position came under the criticism of those around him,
a certain ' finish ' was noticed in them, which caused
surprise, because he seemed to have got over the first
stage of a journey without assistance, and without letting
any one know that he had started. Sir George Macfarren
remembered his boyish ' love for Mozart,' and how ' he
proved it once to the delight of a few bystanders by
playing many pieces from the score of Don Giovanni,
which he so vitalized by distinguishing the characters of
different instruments, and contrasting them with the vocal
effects, as to fix and to fill the attention of his listeners,
though other boys were practising other music on other
pianofortes in the same school-room.' Davison, whose
personal acquaintance with him, and whose interest in
every detail of his work, dated from the very outset of
his career as a composer, has drawn attention to his early
and continued adherence to Mozart. After Bennett's death,
he analyzed, for a concert programme, a Pianoforte Concerto
in C minor composed in 1834, the third of six such works,
and wrote : —

' In none of his Concertos does Bennett dispense with
the old classical tutti, although he had the examples set by
Beethoven in his G and E flat, and by Mendelssohn in his
G minor, which had just burst fresh upon the world of art,
to encourage and support him ; but no, the young English
musician was heart and soul with Mozart ; and in that faith
he remained unswervingly till the close of his career.'

How far Bennett succeeded in modelling his music on
that of Mozart, is a question which the music itself can best
answer. The ' orderly method ' and the ' clearness of ex-
pression ' found in his early efforts, and always noticed with
commendation in his later works, were probably qualities
inherent in him ; but their development certainly connects
him with his chosen guide. He did not hope to be
another Mozart. Such an ideal was only to be reached
through avenues along some of which he could not walk
far ; nor did he think that many had walked the whole

n] Mozart as a Model 25

way. Thus, he wrote of Mozart as a Master of 'Broad
Rhythm, which so few could manage ; ' and, again, as the
writer of ' the real Adagio, of which no composer with
the exception, perhaps, of Beethoven, had left such speci-
mens.' His reverence for Mozart is also shown in the
fact, that the existence of that Master's Operas furnished
one reason for his not attempting to write such a work
himself. But apart from Mozart's, to him inimitable, power,
there were other traits, both in Mozart's music and in his
character as an artist, which sooner or later were observed
by Bennett, which strongly appealed to his own nature, and
which helped to confirm the principles that guided his musical
life. When upholding Mozart as an example to others,
he extolled 'the serious earnestness and deep thought,'
and the ' conscience/ as he called it, which pervaded all that
composer's works ; the ' control ' which the ' consummate
master ' exercised over his ' genius ; ' the ' modesty and
veneration ' with which he observed ' the canons of his
art,' and 'tempered his great power.' To Bennett's mind,
Mozart was the musician 'who never seemed to make
a mistake,' unless, perhaps, he at times erred through over-
seriousness. Of the man himself, Bennett had, as a boy,
learnt something, not from biographies, for there were none
at hand, but from ' many interesting conversations ' with his
'very dear old friend, Thomas Attwood, about his master
Mozart ; ' and in that way he no doubt inherited the warmth
of tone, which was mingled with the reverence of every
word he afterwards used in speaking of the great musician.
Thus early in life he would be told, as he afterwards liked
to tell others, of Mozart's disregard for popularity, and of
his flat refusal to lower the standard of his work to gain
money, even if starvation must come as the alternative.

Much that Bennett said of Mozart, might, if only the
words could be modified to satisfy the sense of proportion,
be said of Bennett himself. Serious earnestness, conscience,
the control of mastery over impulse, modesty and venera-
tion, disregard of popularity, and resistance of the money-
tempter, are to be seen as clearly in the disciple as in the
Master. With Mozart as the centre of his thoughts,
Bennett extended his studies backwards and forwards along
the legitimate line of the musical dynasty. When he

26 School-days [CH.

reached manhood, he became intimately associated with
great musicians of his own time; but they were such as
had learnt the same lessons as himself, and could welcome
him as one who had worn the same school-colours as them-
selves. However much he came to be influenced at times
of his life by new impressions, his early love for Mozart
never left him ; and, indeed, his later works breathe more
and more the pure Mozartian spirit. ' The young English
musician' — to repeat Davison's words — 'was heart and soul
with Mozart, and in that faith he remained unswervingly
to the close of his career.'

To return to the Academy. Though Dr Crotch had
had no hand in the little Quartet, he may have heard of it,
for Bennett was now allowed to take a sudden leap from
Chants to Symphonies, the first of which, in the key of
E flat, was finished on April 6, 1832, a week before the
composer's sixteenth birthday. This work is not quite
dead yet, for the opening subject was used much later for
an eight-part Motet, ' In Thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust,' a posthumous publication, often heard at the present
day in Westminster Abbey and other Cathedral churches.
The Symphony was played at the Academy concert in the
following June, and the same day, Bennett took part in
Mozart's Horn Quintet, playing the viola, the stringed
instrument which he had now adopted instead of the violin.
The prize-day occurred ten days later, and he then set out
for Cambridge, carrying a printed document that would at
length allay 'anxiety,' and satisfy 'curiosity.' His grand-
father could now read in the Report of the Committee :
that ' Bennett had composed a Symphony, performed at
the last concert, which had done him the greatest credit;'
that 'Bennett and Dorrell had made the greatest progress
on the pianoforte ; ' again, that Bennett had been one of
seven ' most regular and attentive to their orchestral
duties ; ' and, finally, that the Committee had adjudged to
BENNETT ' a silver medal, for his great proficiency in the
past year in composition and the Pianoforte, and for his
undeviating good conduct.' Thackeray's Royal Prince
did not take home, from the University of Bosforo, a more
glowing record of a year's work.

Dr Crotch now resigned his connection with the

ii] His Masters for Composition 27

Academy. As he had given concerts in London in his
sixth year, and had reached his sixtieth, he had passed
through a long career of professional work. An active
man, he used to walk from his house in the neighbourhood
of Campden Hill to Tenterden Street, entering his class-
room with his pockets distended by paint-boxes and sketch-
books, and allowing his pupils, to their great delight, to
examine any additions he had made on his walk through
Kensington Gardens. A musical treat, often enjoyed by
his class, was his playing from memory a series of the
Choruses of Handel, which he could select with endless
variety. A short connection with Dr Crotch, as his pupil
in composition for one year, was sufficient to make a
great impression on Bennett's mind of the extent of his
master's erudition and accomplishments. It was to Taunton,
where Dr Crotch lived in retirement to an advanced age,
that Bennett would write, in after years, if he required
information about music of an earlier period. When
Mendelssohn wished to make Handelian researches in
England, Bennett told him that, notwithstanding other
reputed authorities, Dr Crotch was the only man in this
country, who really knew much about Handel's music1.

Bennett, however, had a special cause for satisfaction at
the prospect of studying composition under Cipriani Potter,
who now succeeded to the Principalship. His thoughts
were centred on his favourite instrument. A little while
before, he had said to his friend Dorrell, 'I want to write
a Pianoforte Concerto, but it is no use doing it for Dr
Crotch.' Before the summer holidays (1832) were over,
he must have heard of Potter's appointment ; for he set
diligently to work, at Cambridge, on the first movement of
a Concerto in D minor. After the introduction of the
second subject in the tutti, he had a difficulty in con-
tinuing the music to his liking, and his aged grandfather,
hearing him from time to time play up to a certain point
and then stop, would tease him and cry out, ' Ah, you can't

1 i.e. had extensive knowledge of the music itself. He was not at the time
referring to performance. As to the performance of the best-known Oratorios,
he recognized in Sir George Smart a high authority, and would say that Smart
claimed to have inherited, through his father, the true Handelian 'tempi.'
Some of these, which Sir George passed on to Bennett, differed much from
those adopted during the long regime of Sir Michael Costa.

28 School-days [CH.

get over that!' He did, however, complete the opening
tutti for his first lesson with Potter; and the pat on the
shoulder, and the kind 'Well done, my boy,' were en-
couragements which he never forgot. The Concerto was
finished in October ; a second Symphony, in D minor,
immediately followed; and three days of the Christmas
holiday at Cambridge were spent in writing an Overture
to The Tempest.

Sir George Macfarren has thus referred to the produc-
tion of the Concerto in D minor : —

' The first trial with the band at one of the weekly
Academy rehearsals excited the boundless admiration of
us other boys who had always loved and now began fully
to prize him. Many and meritorious had been the com-
positions of Academy students that had been tried at these
periodical practices, not a few of which had been displayed
at the public concerts of the institution ; but this Concerto
seemed to step out of the range of pupil work and show
something of the maturity of mastership. A shout of
enthusiasm went up from us all, each one proud to acknow-
ledge the rare merit of his school-mate, and it was not the
students alone who perceived this merit, but professors were
as ready to applaud it."

Bennett played the Concerto at an orchestral concert,
which, with the aid of his Academy friends, he gave at
Cambridge, on Nov. 28, 1832 ; and then, for the first time
in London, at an Academy concert in the Hanover Square
Rooms, March 30, 1833. A few days later, he was sum-
moned to Windsor, and his visit furnished news, which,
though about himself, was of too special a kind to be with-
held from his relations. The following letter was thought
worth preserving. It bears the date of his seventeenth
birthday.

ROYAL ACADEMY OF Music,

April 13, 1833.
MY DEAR AUNT,

I wrote to you last, but not having heard from
you I write again to acquaint [you] that I have been
spending my Easter holidays at Windsor, whither I have
been to play on the Pianoforte before their Majesties.
I received a command to attend from Sir Andrew Barnard

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT
AET. CIRCA XVI

IN THE UNIFORM JACKET OF A STUDENT OF
THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC

From a water -colour drawing

ii] At Windsor Castle 29

soon after I last wrote to you, and have had the honor
of playing before the Court three times. Now I'm going
to give you the particulars. After I had played the first
time, Her Majesty did me the honor to rise from her seat
(where she was sitting at needlework) and came to me,
when the following conversation took place between Queen
Adelaide and your humble servant. Queen. — ' I am much
obliged to you for playing that Solo.' (I of course made a
very low dow.} Queen. — 'Is that your own composition?'
I mustered up courage to say ' Yes, your Majesty.'
Queen. — ' Well, if you keep on studying hard you will make
something very great.'

Now what do you think of that — Your nephew having
a conversation with Queen Adelaide of England. She
spoke afterwards to Mr Cramer, the Leader of her Band,
about me. I can assure you that I am as conceited as
possible — playing three different nights before their
Majesties. I played my own Concerto twice, the same
that I played at the Hanover Square Rooms. Mr Hamilton
called me up the other day to say that it was to be pub-
lished and that the Committee will take care that I do not
lose by the publication. Pray take care of the three news-
papers I have sent. I have some other papers which
speak very highly of me. I am very well, and having
chiefly written to tell you of my trip to Windsor Castle,
I must beg to conclude with love to all, not forgetting to be
kindly remembered to the Nutters,

Your affectionate nephew,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Once more the Concerto was played in the Hanover
Square Rooms, at the Midsummer concert of the Academy
on June 26, 1833, and a critic then wrote of Bennett : —

' His execution is wonderful ; and his ease and total
absence of affectation, made him a general favourite. *
The company was charmed with his simple unpretending
manners, as well as surprised by his display of genius.'

By the side of Lord Burghersh, at this concert, sat a
young foreigner whom the Ambassador, adopting a then
usual precaution of British diplomacy, addressed by the
title of Count. When Bennett had finished the slow move-

30 School-days [CH. n

ment of his Concerto, the Count, being short of stature,
stood up, saying, ' I want to have a good look at him.'
Later he asked to be made acquainted with the boy, and
was accordingly taken by Lord Burghersh to the green-
room. Thus was Bennett introduced to Mendelssohn, the
lad of seventeen to the young man of twenty-four.
Mendelssohn forthwith invited him to Germany. ' If I
come,' said Bennett, 'may I come to be your pupil?'
' No, no,' was the reply, ' you must come to be my
friend.'

CHAPTER III.

ADVANCED STUDENTSHIP.

1833—1836.
set, 17 — 20.

BENNETT met Mendelssohn again at this time, for he
has written of an evening when he took part in Attwood's
Glee, 'The Curfew,' and then heard Mendelssohn extem-
porize on the subject of the music, in the presence, and to
the great delight, of its composer. This is but a single
glimpse of Attwood, Mendelssohn, and Bennett in one and
the same place, nor could the three have often met together,
since the chances of their doing so were confined within a few
days of the year 1833, and a few days in the autumn of
1837. Yet Attwood, with a strong tie of affection binding
him to each, had no little to do with bringing his young
friends together. Of the English musicians with whom
Mendelssohn became acquainted during his early visits to
this country, Attwood was one that he certainly loved ;
and Bennett, when writing of his 'very dear old friend,'
expressed himself certain that ' no more genial musician
ever lived.' Attwood, who could look back to four years
spent in his youth as a student on the continent, was
immediately interested in the proposal that Bennett should
sooner or later go to Germany, and continued to keep him
in mind as one who would deserve the advantage of foreign
intercourse, when the days of pupilage in England were
over.

After the summer holidays of 1833, Bennett returned
to Tenterden Street, which was to remain his home for
another three years. He was now nearly seventeen-and-a-

32 Advanced Studentship. [CH.

half years old. He had won his boyish laurels, and it may
be said that his school-days were over. It was, indeed,
only in the early days of the Academy, that the majority
of the boarders were young enough to make the term
' school-life ' applicable. George Macfarren, three years
older than Bennett, worked on by his side under Potter
until they, at the same time, completed a course of advanced
studentship. In the summer of 1833, Bennett had prepared
at Cambridge, as in.the previous year, the first movement of
a Pianoforte Concerto. Potter's encouragement now took a
different form. He did not again pat his pupil on the back,
but spurred him instead to increased endeavour, by advising
him to re-write the whole movement. This Concerto,
No. II in E flat, when finished and played a few weeks
later, raised Bennett a step higher in the estimation of the
Academy circle, not only as a composer, but also as a
pianist. It was a moot point, in which capacity the work
showed him to greater advantage. A knot of students
gathered round Lucas, when he had finished conducting the
rehearsal, and asked him what he thought about the
Concerto. 'Ah/ he replied, 'but what about the playing ? '
And now, when after more than seven years under Holmes,
a change of pianoforte-master was made, the elder students
asked each other, ' What does he want with lessons ?
What is the use of his going under Potter?'

What Bennett, as a pianist, gained from one teacher or
another cannot be determined ; but, speaking generally, he
was taught his instrument in a place where grand traditions
were within reach of those who had the sense to accept
them. Fetis, when he inspected the Academy in 1829,
noticed how fortunate the Institution was in its pianoforte
teachers. Great names can be mentioned in connection
with this. England had been the chosen residence of many
eminent foreign pianists. The very instrument itself owed
much of its development to this country. When the
Academy opened, teachers of rare distinction were at hand,
whilst others claimed direct descent from illustrious men.
Clementi was a constant visitor in Tenterden Street.
J. B. Cramer taught there. Potter, who gave the first
pianoforte lesson in the house, had studied in London for
five years under the celebrated Woelfl, the pupil of Leopold

in] Potter as a Pianoforte Teacher 33

Mozart. Bennett has written that he made acquaintance
at the Academy with an intimate friend of C. P. Emanuel
Bach. No one who followed such guides could go astray.
Nevertheless, Bennett learnt the piano at a time of some
perplexity. During the years of his apprenticeship a new
school of playing, with new music to correspond with it,
came into vogue on the continent, and a dazzling brilliancy
of performance was, or seemed to be, the one object which
the majority of rising pianists had in view. The taste
of this country was thereby rapidly affected. Academy
students who desired to devote themselves to the music
of the Great Masters and their legitimate followers found
sufficient encouragement, but even in Tenterden Street
there was a divergence of interests. Davison found Bennett,
towards the end of his Academy life, exerting an active
influence, and leading a small party of students who were
pledged to what they considered the 'classical' side of
pianoforte music.

Potter, from one source or another, had inherited a key
without which much of the music of certain masters cannot
be fully displayed ; and here a debt which his pupil may
have owed him can be imagined ; for Bennett certainly
played the harpsichord Lessons of Handel, or the P.P.
Concertos of Mozart in a way that revealed to many
hearers unimagined beauties. He would tell a story that
gives a clue to another direction in which Potter guided
his studies. The master wished to introduce his pupil to
a certain composition by Beethoven, now very generally
known as Opus 106. The purchase of any Sonata in those
days was beset with difficulty. Academy boys had to
exercise patience, until the longest ladder in the shop could
be found, and until an avalanche of dust and cobwebs had
fallen from the topmost shelf. On this occasion, Bennett
started with little faith in the success of his errand ; for
Potter's sole direction had been, ' Go and ask for the
Sonata that nobody plays.' That description, however,
proved sufficient for the music-seller, and he brought down
the work. Sir George Grove has suggested that the
appreciation of Beethoven's later works by ' so conserva-
tive a musician as Bennett ' might have been due to his
association with Mendelssohn. It was not so. If per-

s. B.

34 Advanced Studentship [CH.

suasion towards Beethoven was needed, which is very
improbable, one can look for it nearer home. The pupils
of Potter saw in their own master a direct link with
Beethoven. They were, indeed, very proud of this, and
would not require anyone else to explain the great
composer to them. Bennett had gone very far in his
understanding of Beethoven long before he left the
Academy. When he first went to Leipzig, his playing of
that master's works was regarded as one of his best cre-
dentials. Mendelssohn's friend, Dr Klengel, would, years
afterwards, make special reference to it, when Bennett's
name was mentioned in his hearing.

While writing Concertos with orchestral accompaniment,
Bennett also made progress, during his first two years as a
composer, in dealing with the orchestra alone. Davison,
in after life, said that the first movement of a fourth Sym-
phony, in A major, written in the winter of 1833-34, could
take its place beside later works. Davison retained a
warm interest in these early efforts. One evening, about
the year 1870, when dining with Bennett in Bayswater, he
found the score of this Symphony in a book-case and, on
leaving the house, walked off with it. William Dorrell, who
was with him, found great difficulty in getting him back
to town, because he would stop at every lamp-post in the
Bayswater Road to read a page or two of the manuscript.
Davison once took the writer up to his bed-room, and
showed him a collection of Bennett's unpublished scores,
carefully kept amongst his linen in a small chest of drawers.
He said that he often read them and could not bear to part
with them in his lifetime. According to his direction, they
were sent, after his death, to Bennett's family.

As in after years, so even as a student, Bennett was
not an incessant composer. He wrote, at this time, on an
average, three works in each year ; taking in something
like regular rotation, the Symphony, the P. F. Concerto,
and the Overture. Dates on the scores show that a
composition once begun was quickly finished ; but a long
time would often elapse before another was undertaken.
The summer and winter holidays at Cambridge invariably
furnished him with some fresh idea, and late in life he told
an Academy student, who was one of his pupils for compo-

in] An exciting Election 35

sition, that he thought, in his own case, the best of his
work had been done in the holidays.

There were now many calls upon his time in London :
his prescribed studies ; the duty of hearing and taking part
in much music ; honorary work as a sub-professor ; and
outside engagements to furnish him with a little money ;
for though he still enjoyed free residence at the Academy,
he was no longer a boy, and increased personal expense had
to be met by his own exertions. Towards the end of 1833,
he begged the Committee to grant him some relief from
the strict rules of 'leave-out.' 'I have kept them,' he
wrote, ' for upwards of seven years, but am now going out
into the world, and wish to enlarge my connections.'

In the spring of 1834, he stood for the post of organist
at St Ann's, then a chapel-of-ease to Wandsworth Parish
church. There was a keen contest. When the electors
met, the show of hands was not in his favour. His sup-
porters demanded a poll, and issued a printed circular,
which set forth his merits, and was backed by many signa-
tures. On April 3rd, ' The public offices of Wandsworth '
were open 'from 7 a.m. to 7p.m.' for the voting, with the
result that Bennett headed the poll with 174 votes, and a
majority of 67. His opponents then challenged the legality
of the proceedings ; the Vestry took Counsel's opinion ; the
election was ruled in order ; and the successful candidate,
on his eighteenth birthday, secured an income of thirty
guineas per annum. He held the appointment for one
year ; he diligently practised the organ in the hours be-
tween the Sunday services ; and, towards the end of the
time, the verger condescended to inform him that he had
noticed great improvement in his playing. He would amuse
himself, in after-life, by quoting the flattering opinion of
this dignitary, and would at the same time speak of his
slender means, at the time he first took the situation, which
often obliged him to leave his gloves, in lieu of toll, as he
crossed the bridge on his way to church. His next engage-
ment was at a proprietary Chapel in the neighbourhood of
St James's Park, and therefore more easily within his reach.
He practised the organ much later in life, going to the
Hanover Square Rooms when he could find a spare hour,
and probably hoping to take part in organ performances

3—2

36 Advanced Studentship [CH.

given in connection with the Bach Society. In his last
days, he startled the writer by the facility with which he
played and pedalled difficult passages from Bach's organ-
works on a pedal-piano which happened to be in his house
a short time for a student's practice. As he got off the
stool, he seemed to notice his listener's look of surprise, for
he indulged in a merry laugh, and said, ' You didn't know
I could do that.'

Besides Sunday work, he found pupils, though as yet
only at low fees. He was employed at a ladies' school at
Edmonton. He also taught at Hendon ; for when the old
' Greyhound ' Inn of that village was demolished some years
ago, and a sketch of its traditions appeared in a newspaper,
mention was made of Sterndale Bennett having, as a very
young man, taken frugal meals there on his lesson days.
To ' The Greyhound ' at Hendon he would sometimes
repair with his family, in the busy years of after-life, for a
holiday, stolen from the toil of teaching, in the early days
of summer.

His nineteenth year (April 1834 — April 1835), during
which he held his appointment at Wandsworth, was in all
directions well-employed. Composition, though no great
amount of time was spent upon it, showed an increase of
power. In May he wrote a charming Overture to The
Merry Wives of Windsor, for a concert given by Gesualdo
di Lanza, a teacher of singing. But a much more impor-
tant composition followed. The first movement of a P.P.
Concerto, No. Ill, in C minor, was completed at Cambridge
in August, and the other movements were added in October.
This work afterwards served as his musical passport to
Germany, and greatly conduced to his early reputation as a
composer. A Song, ' Gentle Zephyr ' (long after included
in a set of six), and a Canzonet ' In radiant loveliness,' sung,
with orchestral accompaniment, by Miss Birch, also belong
to this year. They were the first, and for some years
remained the only vocal compositions which he issued. At
the same time he wrote his first solo pieces for the piano :
a study in F minor, and a Capriccio in D minor dedicated
to Potter. The Capriccio was much liked by his friends
Davison and Macfarren. The latter knew it by heart, and
played it a great deal at home, to the distraction of Mr

in] Promotion as a Pianist 37

Macfarren senior, who did not share his son's admiration
for the piece. The Overture to ( Parisina ' which Bennett
sketched1 in twenty-four hours, under no pressure but what
the flow of the music itself may have caused, was dated
March 1835. This Overture eclipsed anything he had
so far written for the orchestra alone, and was the only
Academy work of that class that he selected for publication.
It is a very early example of a successful use of the modern
orchestra by a British composer2.

About this time, Attwood wrote to Mendelssohn : —
' We have recently had a new establishment here which is
entitled the Society of British Musicians, in the hope of
bringing forward native talent. I hardly need say that
Bennett stands pre-eminent.' At the concerts of this
society, Bennett's Academy Symphonies, Overtures, and
Concertos were freely introduced ; but he was now to
be brought forward in a sphere offering much greater
distinction. One day in 1835, just before his nineteenth
birthday, intelligence of a startling kind reached the
Academy. Mr William Dorrell told the writer that it took
everybody's breath away, and that amidst a scene of great
though suppressed excitement, the question went round the
house in a sort of whisper : ' Have you heard the news ?
Bennett is to play at the Philharmonic ! ' Sir George Mac-
farren wrote, fifty years later, of the performance : — 'He
played not his latest Concerto [C mi.] and that as yet of
highest aim, but, by choice of the Directors, the one in
E flat [No. 2\ which, with all its grace, and its greater
popularity of character than the other has never taken such
hold of general esteem. This was a notable, I think unique
instance of the composer and player of a work at one of
those exclusive concerts being a youth still at school, still
profiting by instruction, still obedient to discipline, and

1 Sketched. He used the word when he had got to the stage of writing out
the first violin-part alone, from beginning to end of a movement. Later, he
gave up this practice, and rilled in the pages of his score as he went along.

2 Sir George Macfarren remembered that Potter, on first seeing this Over-
ture, questioned the propriety of using the key of B for the recurrence of a
melody which is first given in A, especially with reference to its relation with
F$ minor, the primary key of the piece ; but on Bennett's explaining that he
had wished to employ the same register of the violoncello for the cantabile
phrase in both places, Potter accepted the reason as sufficient to justify the
tonality.

38 Advanced Studentship [CH.

fulfilling tasks among his fellows. I well remember his
rapturous reception.'

The seal of approval set upon his playing by the Phil-
harmonic audience, and the composition of the C minor
Concerto in the previous year, placed him on a level where
further instruction seemed superfluous ; but he lingered on
at the Academy, ' a quasi-student,' as he was afterwards
described by one who was much with him at the time.
When Bennett was examined before a Committee of the
Society of Arts in 1865, he answered questions put to him
on this subject by Sir Henry Cole : —

Q. Was not ten years an unusually long time to remain
at the Academy ?

A. Yes, very few remained so long, though some re-
mained for eight or nine years.

Q. Were there any special circumstances which induced
you to stay so long ?

A. I did not wish to leave, and they very kindly kept
me there.

Q. At your own expense, or that of the Academy ?

A. At the expense of the Academy.

Q. In respect to both living and tuition ?

A. In both respects.

Towards the end of his residence, he was allowed the
unique privilege of a private sitting-room. His work had
previously been done in the school-room, where the practice-
pianos were kept, and used simultaneously. Order was
maintained by an ex-Sergeant of the Guards, whose favourite
sentry-post was at the back of Bennett's cottage-piano, where
he would stand motionless hour after hour looking over at
the boy's fingers. The study now specially assigned to
Bennett long lingered in the memory of his friends. Sir
George Macfarren, addressing the Academy students in
1879, directed their attention to a window next the buttress
of the concert-room in which they were assembled : — ' I can
point you,' he said, 'to the window of the room where Sir
Sterndale Bennett wrote some of the Concertos and Studies
which you play, and in which you are heard to greatest
effect. The room itself is not there, now that the dimen-
sions of the building have been expanded * * * ; but

in] His room at the Academy 39

I feel that his influence rests there, that his spirit hovers
over us, and that we should try to do what he accomplished,
and in that trial we shall at any rate do our best and gain
what success we may.'

Davison, though not a student of the Academy, was a
constant visitor. It was his delight to search old book-
stalls for P.P. Sonatas which could not be found elsewhere.
Such treasures he would take straight off to Tenterden
Street ; for, though he was himself a pianist, he liked to
get his first impression of a piece through the medium of
Bennett's remarkable sight-reading — remarkable, that is,
for what seemed to his companions a prima-facie grasp of a
composer's meaning. Davison has written in The Musical
World of a day when he had unearthed a Sonata of Dussek,
and had then found Bennett in 'his comfortable study at
the Academy, cheerfully lighted, warmed with a blazing
fire, and with a splendid new Broad wood " Grand " just
presented to him on the part of that munificent firm.' In
this room, in 1835, were written: a fifth Symphony, in G
minor ; a Sestet for pianoforte and stringed instruments ;
some P.P. Studies ; and a Concerto for two pianofortes in
which Macfarren and he combined, contributing alternate
portions. The P.P. Studies were played, one by one
as they were written, to Macfarren, and to him they were
dedicated. Amongst them is one in E major which was a
favourite piece of its composer. He liked it, as he after-
wards wrote, because he had composed it in his room at
the Academy ' without getting up from the table.' When
Mendelssohn first heard this study at Diisseldorf, he said
to Davison, in reference to its concluding passages : ' The
man who can develope like that ought to be happy.' The
Sestet was first played at a musical party in the rooms of
Charles Coventry, the publisher of Bennett's early works.
J. B. Cramer was present and after hearing the work and
the composer's interpretation of it, remarked : ' We have
had no one like him since poor young Pinto.'

Then, again, about this time, Davison was the first to
hear Bennett play three new pieces, 'The Lake,' 'The Mill-
stream' and 'The Fountain' ; and, when asked by the com-
poser if they might be called ' Musical Sonnets,1 he advised
the title ' Musical Sketches.' Davison told the writer that

40 Advanced Studentship [CH.

this private performance gave him the only opportunity he
could remember of hearing Bennett strike a wrong note ;
nor did the pianist let the slip pass without comment, for
as he got up from the instrument he said : ' You must not
tell them that I can't play my own music.' The 'Three
Musical Sketches ' always ranked among the most effective
of his minor works. ' You should have heard him play
them himself,' became a very common saying in after
years. Schumann wrote that his playing of ' The Fountain '
created an effect 'almost magical.' When Bennett, later
in life, was walking with a friend through the village of
Grantchester near Cambridge, he showed the mill-stream
which, as he then said, had suggested the second of these
pieces.

In the New Year, 1836, he sketched^ 'Dramatic Over-
ture ' at Cambridge, and this was followed by a P.P. Concerto
in F minor (an unpublished work), the last movement of
which he was finishing on his twentieth birthday, April i3th.
In the same month, he appeared at the Philharmonic for
the second time, playing his Concerto in C minor.

And now, under happy auspices, it was arranged that he
should pay his first visit to Germany. The Lower Rhine
Musical Festival was to be held at Diisseldorf at Whitsun-
tide. Mendelssohn was to conduct it, and his Oratorio,
' St Paul,' was to be produced. Herr Carl Klingemann,
of the Hanoverian Legation in London, Mendelssohn's
intimate friend, was going over to hear the new work.
These projects were the subject of conversation at an
evening party in London. There Mr Henry Broadwood
overheard Attwood expressing a wish that it were possible
for Bennett to accompany Klingemann, and at once said,
that if the difficulty was one of expense, he would most
gladly furnish the means for the journey. Klingemann
also took charge of Davison, whose parents fell in with
his desire to be Bennett's fellow-traveller. They reached
Dtisseldorf in time to attend all the full rehearsals of the
Festival music.

Mendelssohn received the two young strangers most
kindly. He would call early at their hotel to rouse ' the

1 The ' sketch ' exists. A neatly-written Violin-part. He did not fill in the
Score.

in] Dusseldorf Festival 41

lazy Englishmen,' and to chat with them, as they dressed,
before his duties for the day began. When the Festival
was over, he made music, or played billiards with them.
He taunted them for not going farther when they had
come thus far ; so, acting on his suggestion, they did not
return with Klingemann, but, before leaving, took a short
trip up the Rhine. On this excursion Bennett conceived
the idea for his Overture ' The Naiads,' and when he got
back to Dusseldorf he wrote the opening bars on a sheet
of music-paper which Davison preserved as a souvenir of
the happy time. Bennett had taken with him from England
specimens of his work, in the hope that Mendelssohn might
approve of them, and receive him as a pupil. When
Mendelssohn had examined these compositions, he spoke
to Davison in no doubtful tones, assuring him that he
knew of no young composer in Germany, of Bennett's age,
with equal gifts ; and this, which Davison told the writer,
is confirmed by two letters written by Mendelssohn to
English friends, the first addressed to Attwood, and dated,
Dusseldorf, May 28th : —

' I avail myself of Mr Bennett's departure for London
to send you these lines, and to tell you how grateful I am
to you for having procured me his acquaintance. I know
it is owing to your advice, that he went to visit the festival,
and therefore it is to you that I ought to address my thanks
for all the pleasure he gave me by his compositions and his
playing. I think him the most promising young musician
I know, not only in your country but also here, and I am
convinced if he does not become a very great musician, it
is not God's will, but his own. His Concerto1 and Sym-
phony2 are so well written, the thoughts so well developed
and so natural, that I was highly gratified when I looked
over them yesterday, but when he played this morning his
six studies and the sketches, I was quite delighted, and so
were all my musical friends who heard him. He told me
that you wanted him to stay some time on the continent
and with me. I really do think it impossible to give him
(advanced as he is in his art) any advice which he was not
able to give himself as well, and I am sure if he goes on

1 No. 3 in C mi.

2 No. 5 in G mi. (MS.)-

42 Advanced Studentship [CH.

the same way as he did till now, without losing his modesty
and zeal, he will always be perfectly right and develope
his talents as his friends and all the friends of music may
desire ; if however he should like to live on the continent
for a while, and if he should stay at Leipzig, I need not say
that I should feel most happy to spend some time with such
a musician as he is, and that at all events I shall always
consider it as my duty to do everything in my power to assist
him in his musical projects, and in the course of his career,
which promises to be a happy and blissful one. Have
once more my thanks for the treat which I owe to your
urging him to visit this country, and I only hope it may have
given him also some pleasure to assist at the festival here.'

Mendelssohn wrote a little later to Klingemann1 : —

' I have told him [Bennett] that about teachers there
is, in his case, nothing more to be said by any one. Never-
theless, he still wishes to come, and you can imagine what
a pleasure it will be to me to become acquainted with him
more closely and for a longer time. But, I cannot take
any money from him without being a Music-Judas. More-
over, I am certain to gain as much pleasure and profit from
his society, as he from mine.'

On his return to London, Bennett made his last ap-
pearance as an Academy student at the pupils' concert
in July, playing the Concerto in F minor which he had
finished before going to Diisseldorf. At the rehearsal, he
found that the slow movement failed to arouse interest.
Brooding over this throughout the day, a fresh musical
idea suddenly came to him. He accordingly burnt the
midnight oil, and the last work done in his Academy study
had happy result. Next morning, he brought down a new
slow movement with band-parts copied out, and collected
the house-orchestra to try it through with him. This move-
ment, which he called ' Barcarolle/ became one of the most
admired of his compositions. The Concerto in which it
was first placed was never printed, but the ' Barcarolle '
was subsequently published as the slow movement of
another Concerto, also in F minor, a work which will be
referred to later.

1 Original letter is in German.

in] Mr Hamilton s advice 43

And now, in the hour of leave-taking, he did not omit
some expression of gratitude to Mr Hamilton, who had
been the first agent in bringing him to the Academy, and
had since watched over him, for more than ten years, with
parental care. He received the following reply : —

MY DEAR BOY,

I appreciate most sincerely your kind feelings
conveyed to me in your letter just received.

Be assured I feel the most lively interest in your Welfare
and Success whether Professionally or otherwise ; and in
whatever way it were possible for me to evince my Affec-
tion and Regard you know me well enough to be assured
that you have only to point it out to ensure my warmest
exertions. If in very early life I was of any service to you,
be assured, my dear Boy, you have amply repaid me by the
great (though to me not unexpected) success which has
hitherto distinguished your youthful Career. Go on and
prosper, and above all never forget the Giver of all good
Things. If you have been blessed with superior Talents,
if you have had the means of cultivating those Talents,
and still have kind Friends raised up to enable you to
bring them to Maturity ; Remember the great Debt of
Gratitude you owe to Him who has not only given you
those Talents, but has raised up those kind Friends for you,
and who alone has enabled you and will, I fervently pray,
long continue to enable you to be an ornament to your
Country, and an object of Pride and grateful Recollection

to your very sincere

and attached Friend,

FREDERICK HAMILTON.

Royal Academy of Music,
7 July 1836.

To W. Sterndale Bennett,

Student of the R.A. Music.

CHAPTER IV.

LEIPZIG.

October 1836— June 1837.
aet. 20, 21.

SOME weeks of the summer of 1836 were passed by
Bennett at Grantchester near Cambridge. He invited
Alfred C. Johnson, who had been his pupil at the Academy
for the last three years, and whose parents had shown him
much hospitality in London, to stay with him in his country
lodgings. Mr Johnson wrote, in 1882, the following re-
miniscence : — ' Grantchester was a favourite spot of his,
and I spent two happy summer vacations with him there.
I remember being struck, as a youth, by his peculiarity of
repeatedly asking me to come out into the fields at the
back of the cottage, when he would go off into a rhapsody
as to the beauty and stillness of the scene, with the beauti-
ful old village church close by, and in the distance King's
College Chapel rising above the surrounding foliage. After-
wards he would lie down on the grass, fall into a reverie,
and say what I would not a word could I get out of him.
Suddenly when little expected, and I was interested in
a book which, from experience of his peculiarity, I had taken
care to provide myself with, he would jump up, saying,
" Come, let us go in," and no sooner in doors he would set
to work at his scores and at the piano, trying some of the
ideas he had worked out in the fields.'

In this way, while Johnson read his book, Bennett com-
pleted his Overture ' The Naiads,' and he wrote from Cam-
bridge to Davison on Sept. 15 : — ' If you go to Coventry's
to-morrow you will find my Overture which I have sent

CH. iv] Proof-correcting 45

to him to-day — get it copied — and all that sort of thing,
and I will come up next week.' Later in Bennett's life,
someone doubting the correctness of a note in this Overture
referred the matter, in the vestibule of the Academy, to the
composer ; but the latter, with a seeming want of concern,
said, as he ran out of the house, ' Oh I don't know ; you
had better ask Davison, he corrected the parts.'

Notwithstanding the care taken during the progress
of composition, he showed himself, in some ways, uncon-
cerned with the fate of his music, after it had left his hands.
This has been commented upon by Davison, both in print,
and in letters written to Bennett himself. It has been said,
for instance, that not only did he abstain from making any
advances of his own towards getting his works heard, but
also that he did not go out of his way to assist in their being
well performed, and that, too, even if he were conducting
them himself. Though he made three editions, writing
new scores, of ' The Naiads ' within a twelvemonth ; three,
if not four, of the Overture ' Parisina ' in the course of three
or four years ; and took similar trouble over other of his
compositions ; yet, what he describes to Davison in the
above letter as 'all that sort of thing' was often left in
a more or less undecided state, which has occasionally given
trouble to editors, performers and teachers of his music.
About certain concomitants he was particular. He acquired
a clear and even beautiful musical handwriting at a time
when such neatness was not the rule in England. Though
he had no studio in his own house, or study table with its
fixed appurtenances, yet he liked his quire of music-paper
to come from a special maker, and, when about to write,
would go out and buy a bottle of his favourite ink. He
paid attention to titles and title-pages, and would consult
Signer Pistrucci, whom he constantly met at the schools
they both attended, about Italian terms, hitherto unused
in music, which he wished to introduce into his pieces.
But, with all this, he allowed his works to issue, with
needed indications of tempo, or marks of expression often
wanting, and with typographical errors overlooked. He
was a painstaking editor of other composers' music, but
not a good one of his own. If his publisher sent him
a proof of one of his short pieces, you would see him make

46 Leipzig [CH.

one or two corrections on the first page ; he would turn
over, and when half-way down the second page, his face
would assume a fixed expression, his head would begin to
sway a little as if he were again at work upon the music
itself; and when he came to the end, he would lay the
piece down, having entirely forgotten the object for which
he had taken it up. When Moscheles received a copy of
Bennett's Caprice in E major, he returned it to the com-
poser, and wrote : ' The pleasure I felt in reading this very
spirited and interesting composition was only disturbed by
finding on almost every page about half-a-dozen errors of
the engraver. I have marked them down and send you
the adjoining copy that you may derive the advantage from
it of having them corrected, and I shall hope to be favoured
with another copy in due time.'

On leaving Cambridge, Bennett said his last farewell
to his grandfather. The old man died early in the next
year — his grandson being then in Germany — struck down
by an epidemic of influenza which was said at the time
to be the most terrible visitation to this country since the
Great Plague. The maternal grandfather, James Donn,
who had died long before, had left money, and Bennett now
looked forward, on coming of age in six months time, to
a sum of four or five hundred pounds as his share of the
property. It was this prospect that helped him to make
arrangements for going to Germany, and the money fur-
nished his chief means of support for the next two or three
years.

Correspondence with Mendelssohn now began : —

LONDON, October yd, 1836.

MY DEAR SIR,

I presume you are by this time at Leipzig, and
I have taken the liberty of writing to you to say, that I
intend to leave London in about a fortnight to spend the
winter in the same town with you. I should have wished
to have been at Leipzig at the beginning of September,
but I feared you might not have returned from the Hague,
and indeed I am now not certain that this letter will find
you, I can but kope that it will. I have been quite uneasy
since I left Diisseldorf, as I have felt such an anxiety to

iv] A letter to Mendelssohn 47

profit by your good advice to me in my professional
pursuits, and now nothing will stop me from being with
you as soon as possible. I shall wait only to know from
you that you are residing in Leipzig, and whether I may
presume upon the kindness with which you expressed your-
self towards me when I last saw you. I am very sorry
that I am unable to go to Liverpool to hear your Oratorio ;
although it will suffer materially from the loss of Malibran,
I have no doubt that every possible justice will be done to
it. The Choruses1 went off magnificently at Manchester
and most likely the same Chorus-Singers are engaged for
Liverpool. I will bring you a correct account of its per-
formance, which I shall obtain from some friends who are
going. You cannot form an idea of the great sensation
the death of Malibran has excited in England. She was
buried on Saturday at Manchester. The people in England
are very much enraged with De Beriot2 for leaving her
directly she died and not being present at her funeral.

You will much oblige me by writing to me immediately,
as I wish to lose no more time, and also to know positively
that you are at Leipzig. If I can execute any commissions
for you here, pray let me know and I shall be most happy
to do so. London looks at this time most miserable, we
have had nothing but rain during the last month. As for
Music there is none to be heard for Love or for Money.
Attwood has been out of town for three months, but I
believe he returned yesterday. Since I left Diisseldorf
I am sorry to say I have been idle3, but I must make up
my lost time when I get over to Leipzig. I have written
my address4 on the other side of the letter, and shall be
most happy to hear from you as soon as possible.

My dear Sir,

Yours very truly,
W. S. BENNETT.

1 i.e. the choruses of other Oratorios. ' St Paul ' was not performed at
Manchester.

2 Mdme Malibran's second husband.

3 He need not have said this. Besides the new slow movement for his
Concerto, he had written the Overture 'The Naiads,' and 3 Impromptus for
the Pianoforte.

4 He was staying with the publisher Coventry, at 71 Dean Street, Soho.

48 Leipzig [CH.

LEIPZIG, \oth October, 1836.
i

MY DEAR SIR,

I receive your letter of the 3rd this moment,
and hasten to write to you in return, as you wish to have an
immediate answer. I have come back to this place about
three weeks since, and shall stay here during the whole
winter till April of next year. How happy I shall be to see
you here, I need not repeat, because you certainly know the
esteem I have for you and the pleasure it will give me to
become more acquainted with you and your talent, and I
can only repeat in this respect the same things which I said
to you at Diisseldorf. Mr Lipinsky told me some days ago
he was sure you would come over, but I did not believe it,
as I had not heard from you for so long. I was the more
glad when I received your letter, and so are many of my
friends and of the musical people here, who long to see and
hear you. The musical season has begun pretty well here,
the orchestra perform the Symphonies in very good style
and with the greatest zeal, and I hope you will have some
pleasure of your residence here. It is at least now one of
the best and most animated musical places of this country,
and I trust I shall have some of your orchestral music per-
formed as it ought to be. Pray bring your Symphony and
the Concertos, if possible with the instrumental parts, with
you ; if you do not, we shall be obliged to have them sent
after you. Will you have the kindness before you leave
London to enquire at Mr Novello's whether he has answered
my last letter, and if not whether he will give you the
answer to the many questions I put to him. You would
also oblige me if you would ask Mr Klingemann if he has
a letter or something else for me. Excuse the trouble and
let me hope to see you soon here, and to see you in good
spirits and healthy and happy, as I always shall wish you to
be.

If you see Mr Attwood, pray remember me very kindly
to him, and also my best compliments to Mr Davison
(has he received my Psalm, which I gave to Mr Novello
for him ? ).

Yours very truly,

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.

iv] His Arrival 49

Four days after receiving this letter, Bennett started
from London, sailed with favouring winds to Hamburg in
sixty-five hours, and thence proceeded by coach, via Berlin,
to Leipzig, at the average rate of five English miles an hour.
No wonder that when a few weeks later a ' steam-carriage '
arrived from England for the first German railway, he shared
the curiosity of the Leipzigers, and paid his four groschen
with the rest to stare at the interesting novelty.

On Saturday, October 29, about mid-day, he found
himself at the Hotel Russie, Leipzig, feeling very lonely
and friendless ; but a note, sent in the afternoon to announce
his arrival, was immediately answered in person by
Mendelssohn, who took him off to his own lodgings, and
did not leave him again till he had seen him thoroughly
comfortable. The same evening, he was taken to the Hotel
de Baviere, then a favourite resort of the musical circle.
Before Sunday was past, he had made friends with
Ferdinand David, the violinist and leader (Concert- Meister)
of the Gewandhaus orchestra ; with Stamaty, a young
French pianist ; with Eduard Franck of Breslau ; and with
a Scotchman named Monicke, a professor of languages,
who, at Mendelssohn's request, took him under his wing,
acting as his guide and interpreter, and his instructor
in the German language. Of another acquaintance, he
wrote home to Davison : — ' I have found a new friend,
a man who would be just after your own heart. How I wish
you could know him. His name is Robert Schumann.'

After a few days, he took lodgings in the house of Dr
Hasper, Katherinen Strasse 364*, and became a subscriber at
the Hotel de Baviere, where Mendelssohn, with Schumann
by his side, dined regularly during this winter. The landlord
of the house was the genial Julius Kistner, who some years
later succeeded his brother Friedrich as manager of the
music-publishing firm which still bears their name.

During his visits to Germany, Bennett kept journals.
The entries are short and simple. A few extracts will give,
in his own words, his impressions of his new surroundings.
Where art is concerned he is temperate in the expression
of opinion, and always independent. He does not meekly
acquiesce in everything that a land of music puts before him.

1 In 1881 the house was No. 15.

S. B.

50 Leipzig [CH.

[Journal.] Oct. $\st. I have dined again with
Mendelssohn to-day, and also met Mr Monicke, who
afterwards took me to his chambers for coffee and cigars.
He showed me my way to the theatre, which I entered at
half-past five. The Opera began at six. The price of
admission to the boxes or the stalls is sixteen groschen (two
shillings). The Opera was one of Marschner's entitled
' Hans Heiling.' I cannot say that I think it was in any
way well performed, but I like some of the music and I
admire also some points of the orchestra which altogether
is rather more musician-like than our orchestras in England,
though it is far inferior in force and spirit.

Nov. \th. Mendelssohn gave me a ticket for the con-
cert last night. The Symphony [Mozart in E flat1] was
performed really well. The band is rather small, but quite
perfect and possesses great animation. Mendelssohn played
Beethoven's Concerto [in G] very splendidly and his two
cadences were magnificent. The people were enthusiastic.
[The overture to] ' Oberon ' was not so well played as I have
heard it in London. I mean as regards the style of playing
it. I have this afternoon been to the rehearsal of ' Israel
in Egypt' in the Church. Upon consideration, I do not
think that they understand the manner and style of playing
this Oratorio, but I will say nothing until I hear it performed
on Monday. I have made my bow to Miss Clara Wieck2,
a very clever girl and plays capitally. She played me a Con-
certo which she had composed. Altogether it wants weeding,
but I wish all girls were like her. So much for Clara Wieck.

Nov. $th. I have been again to the Church to hear
'Israel in Egypt' and still have the same opinion with
regard to its performance.

Nov. ^>th. I was too late to get a good place in the
Pauliner-Kirche last night, although I went at half-past five,
and as the Germans are very rude in pushing you about in
all directions, I contented myself by standing under the
orchestra. Altogether it might be termed a successful per-
formance. The singers for the soli parts were anything but
good, the orchestra wanted point, and the organist was

1 The works to which he alludes are identified by programmes given in the
diary.

* Afterwards Madame Schumann.

iv] His Journal 51

continually lagging. However, the people seemed pleased,
and that is everything. ' The Horse and his Rider ' was the
best performed of the Choruses. ^150 was taken and each
person paid two shillings.

Nov. qth. I was dressed by nine o'clock this morning
—pretty well for me. After dining at the hotel, I went with
David, Schumann, and Mendelssohn to play billiards at some
gardens a little way out of the town — where afterwards
heard some waltzes played by Mr Strauss's band. They
tell me that the master of the gardens, Mr Queisser, is the
finest trombone player in Europe.

Nov. \2th. Yesterday and to-day Mr and Mrs Paul
Mendelssohn were of our party to dinner. Stamaty and
Schumann came to-day and I played to them. The
weather is not so cold as when I first came here, though
the Germans wonder I don't wear a cloak, which in truth I
would, but that they laugh at my little cloak so much.

Nov. \^th. The Quartetts of last night were played
capitally with the exception of the Bass. That of Haydn
[in G], I did not much like ; it must have been written
when he was either childish in youth or in age. The last
movement has some beautiful points in it. I don't remem-
ber having heard it before. The beautiful Quartett of
Mozart,

— &c.

came like wine after water. The slow movement was very
much out of time. But the Quartett of Beethoven [in E mi.,
Rasoumoffsky] laid hold of you by the ears. I should think
that the Scherzo was one of the most beautiful things ever
written. The Trio is certainly a little too much of a good
thing.

Nov. 22nd. Now then for my first appearance at a
German private dinner. Dinner at one. Very wet day ;
impossible to keep clean boots ; however, by the utmost
care, I managed to walk to Dr Haertel's without getting
very dirty. Left my hat outside the room. David says,
' No, you must take it in the room with you.' This is
something new. Our party consisted of my friend Monicke,

52 Leipzig [CH.

Professor Falkmann, Mr Brockhaus (the large bookseller),
Mr David, Dr Haertel and his brother, and Mrs Haertel.
At any rate a dinner here is a very different thing from a
dinner in England ; no asking people to take wine ; the
dinner wine is on the table and you must help yourself or
you know the consequence. I was placed by Mrs Haertel
who speaks English very well, and indeed there was more
English than German spoken during the meal. I had the
felicity of taking from each dish first, which was not a very
enviable situation, as from their being quite strange to me,
I did not know whether to take much or little, and I had no
example set me. However, I made no very great mistake,
as I could see from those that came after me. The only
accident which occurred to me was that the footman handed
me a pie with a kind of fish-slice which I began very dexter-
ously to use on the dish, but Mrs Haertel stopped me and
said, ' I beg your pardon, sir, use the spoon, the man is quite
wrong,' — so after all, it was not my mistake. After eating
for an hour we removed into a room and drank coffee,
chatted for a few minutes, and left Dr and Mrs Haertel
to enjoy domestic quietude. The house is the most
splendid I have seen for a long time. It is called a Palace
and is worthy of the name. I like Mrs Haertel very much
indeed.

Nov. 2$rd. Went with Schumann this morning to be
introduced to one Mr Kistner, a music-publisher here, and
afterwards to a Madame Voigt, who was dining at half-past
twelve.

Nov. 2%th. Called [yesterday] on Mendelssohn who
introduced me to Madame von Goethe, daughter-in-law of the
Poet, who was with her son (a student of the University
here) at his house.

Kind attentions followed introductions. Herr Friedrich
Kistner came round, in a few days, to Bennett's lodgings,
bringing, as a surprise, proofs of 'Sketches' and ' Impromptus'
engraved from English copies ; and the first sight of his
music in a foreign edition, coming unexpectedly, gave great
pleasure to a young composer. Walther von Goethe, ' the
grandson ' as he was often styled, did his duty under diffi-
culties, and paid a formal call. ' He speaks English,' writes

iv] New Friendships 53

Bennett, ' a little better than I do German, and I don't speak
at all.' But von Goethe met the emergency by bringing
with him Dr Tauchnitz, who entered the room with a
dictionary under his arm ; and, with the ice thus broken,
the two young men, the one as full of fun as the other, soon
found common interests ; nor was it long before they were
playing their pranks together, to the delight of their older
friend, the silent but smiling Schumann. Frau Henriette
.Voigt, who is now remembered as one of the earliest
admirers of Schumann's music, with her husband, Herr
Carl Voigt, a prosperous merchant, at once adopted Bennett
as a member of their family party, giving him a permanent
seat at their Sunday dinner table, and a hearty reception at
all times ; nor does Bennett forget to mention choice cigars,
specially reserved for his use by Frau Voigt, which cigars
he regarded as a set-off against the trial of taking his place
at the piano ; for this lady was a fine amateur pianist, and
music was often brought forward.

' I am making friends,' he writes, 'at the rate of ten
miles an hour' ; but it must have been by personal rather
than musical qualities that he at first found favour. Ten
weeks passed before he was called to appear in public, and
he escaped when he could from playing in private society.
Of an early visit to the Voigts he writes, ' I paid my
respects to Mr and Mrs Voigt and played a little to them ' ;
but, on the other hand, ' I went to the von Goethes,
talked and drank tea, but would not play ; what a fool I
am!' He finds a party at the house of Herr Brockhaus
less agreeable than the one at Dr Haertel's, and though he
gives no reason, it was doubtless because he was obliged to
go to the piano ; for Herr Brockhaus has written of the
same evening in his diary, ' Bennett, the English artist
played very well (sehr brav) and I much enjoyed his ren-
dering of an Adagio by Beethoven.'

Between Schumann and Bennett, sympathetic and even
intimate relationship dates from the first days of their
meeting. If there is any truth in a statement that
Schumann was by nature unsociable, he at any rate quickly
attached himself to this young stranger, coming to his rooms,
prevailing upon him to play the piano, taking him as the
companion of his daily walks, and within a fortnight of the

54 Leipzig [CH.

acquaintance, writing to his home in Zwickau : ' There is a
young Englishman here, whom we meet every day — William
Bennett — a thorough Englishman, a glorious artist, and a
beautiful poetic soul.' Schumann, with a respect for
England engendered by a study of its literature, was pre-
disposed to welcome a musician coming from a land of poets.
Full of fancy, he found pretty ways of showing his interest
in Bennett's nationality. The word William had perhaps
no over-familiar look or sound to German senses, and
Schumann wrote about the coincidence which had given
Bennett the same Christian name as Shakespeare. To this
little piece of extravagance he clung, often writing 'William
Bennett,' to the exclusion of the name Sterndale which
others used1. When Bennett first stepped on to the
platform of the Leipzig concert-room, Schumann had just
overheard the remark, ' Ein englische Componist — kein
Componist.' At the conclusion of the P.P. Concerto, he
turned to his prejudiced but now converted neighbour with
the query, ' Ein englischer Componist ? ' and received the
reply, ' Und wahrhaftig ein englischer.' To this application
of the old play on the words Anglii and Angeli he also
clung, calling Bennett in correspondence 'an angel-
musician.' But Schumann's fancies were prompted by
realities. He readily held out his hand to an Englishman,
but especially to one whose character as an artist was
congenial to him. As editor of a musical journal, he was
crusading against the superficiality which, not the least in
what concerned the pianoforte, characterized the prevailing
music of the period. Anxiously looking to the future, he
was insisting that the works of the Great Masters must be
taken as the source from which new beauties could alone
spring. To combat 'the latest phase of the arch-foes of
art/ which was ' the result of a mere cultivation of executive
technique,' was one of the objects for which Schumann had
taken up his pen. In the young Englishman he saw a firm
adherent to his own principles. That performance should
be subsidiary to music was no axiom at the time ; but

1 i.e. in correspondence and press notices. This was pointed out to the
writer by Herr Gustav Jensen, who, however, in his edition of Schumann's
letters and criticisms has sometimes supplied what he called Bennett's ' Ruf-
name,' Sterndale, where it had been omitted by Schumann.

iv] Schumann's First Tribute 55

Bennett has written that he held that view, and Schumann,
in a critique, has given him credit for acting on the convic-
tion. As a student of the older masters, Bennett would
be found by Schumann already far advanced, and, in this
respect, the education he had received in his own country,
might well take a German by surprise. Schumann, after
knowing Bennett for two months, took him as a subject for
his editorial article in the New- Year number of the Neue
Zeitschrift fur Musik, writing appreciatively of his early
compositions, and of his general musical acquirements,
and in a tone suggesting personal regard. He wrote in
conclusion : —

Much else I might tell you — * * * — how he knows
Handel by heart — how he plays all Mozart's Operas on the
piano so that you can see them actually in front of you —
but it is himself that I can no longer hold at bay. He
keeps looking over my shoulder, and has already twice asked :
' Now what are you writing there ?' I can only add, ' Dear
friend, if you but knew.'

The diary duly records Christmas festivities, with the
Christmas-tree, and other German customs, to which
Bennett is introduced by the hospitable Voigts. The
New-Year, 1837, arrives in severely seasonable garb; the
excitement of sledging excursions is enjoyed ; and then he
finds himself face to face with the horrors of public per-
formance in a strange land.

[Journal.] Jan. i^th. Received a visit from Mr Kistner
in the name of the Concert Directors to ask me to play at
the concert next Thursday. Of course consented.

Jan. i^th. Feel very uncomfortable at the thought of
playing next Thursday.

Jan. i8//z. Rehearsal in Gewandhaus, and I played my
Concerto in C minor pretty well.

Jan. igtk. Good God ! To-day I must play in the
Gewandhaus. Horrible thought! However I must.

It was the custom of the Leipzig public to receive a
new-comer in dead silence. It was not an uncommon
occurrence for a performer to leave the concert-room
without that silence having been broken. On exceptional
occasions, positive marks of disapproval were forthcoming.
Bennett had already been witness to the fact that judgment

56 Leipzig [CH.

in the Gewandhaus was not tempered with mercy. He,
however, successfully passed the ordeal. Mendelssohn —
as was remembered by Herr Eduard Franck — pronounced
the performance ' meisterlich,' and he wrote of the general
feeling about it to his sister : ( Bennett played his C minor
Concerto amidst the triumphant applause of the Leipzigers,
whom he seems to have made his friends and admirers at one
stroke ; indeed, he is the sole topic of conversation here now.'
Schumann described the Concerto and the effect produced,
but without special reference to the playing, probably con-
sidering that in the case of a pianist-composer the idea of
the music and its rendering was indivisible. He wrote : —

' After the first movement, a purely lyrical piece, full of
fine human feeling, such as we meet with only in the best
master-works, it became clear to all, that they had here to do
with an artist of the most refined nature. Still, he was not
rewarded with that general thunder of applause, such
as only bold virtuosos excite. Expectation was visibly
awakened, more was demanded, people wished to make the
Englishman understand that he was in the land of music.
Then began the romance in G minor — so simple that the
notes can almost be counted in it. Even if I had not learned
from the fountain-head, that the idea of a fair somnambulist
had floated before our poet while composing, yet all that is
touching in such a fancy affects the heart at this moment.
The audience sat breathless, as though fearing to awaken
the dreamer on the lofty palace roof; and if sympathy at
moments became almost painful, the loveliness of the vision
soon transformed that feeling into a pure artistic enjoyment.
And here he struck that wonderful chord, where he imagines
the wanderer, safe from danger, again resting on her couch,
over which the moon-light streams. This happy trait set at
rest all doubt respecting our artist, and in the last move-
ment the public gave itself wholly up to the delight we
are accustomed to receive from a master, whether he leads
us on to battle or to peace1.'

Bennett himself dismissed the occasion in few words : —
' Last night I played in the concert at the Gewandhaus, and
according to all accounts made a satisfactory debut. I did
not play so well as I can do when I am thoroughly com-

1 Translated, from the German, by F. R. Ritter.

iv] Mendelssohn 57

fortable. I had a bad clavier, not strong enough. However,
I was perfectly satisfied with the whole affair. To-night I
go to the masquerade in the Theatre.' With a weight off
his mind, he could enjoy himself for a few hours in the guise
of 'A Spanish Inquisitor.'

In the diary of this first visit to Leipzig, there is one
name not so continually mentioned as might be expected.
Bennett met Mendelssohn in general society ; dined most
days at the same table with him ; and attended the concerts
conducted by him ; but of close personal association there
is not much trace for some time. He noticed the quiet
deference shown by Schumann and others to the leader of
the musical circle, and was himself impressed with the
distinction of Mendelssohn's personality. ' I cannot describe
what I mean,' he would afterwards say, ' but Mendelssohn's
entrance into a room caused a check, and everything seemed
different.' So Bennett, at first, modestly kept at a little
distance. He would naturally be unwilling to encroach
upon the private time of a great man busily occupied. Then,
again, in these months, the thoughts of Mendelssohn's spare
moments were not so free as to be given exclusively to his
Leipzig entourage. The rehearsing and performing at the
Gewandhaus under Mendelssohn's direction, and the suc-
cessful result, would help to dissipate Bennett's shyness ; so
between the parts of the next concert he went into the
orchestra to have a chat with the conductor, and the few
minutes thus spent prepared the way to more intimate
friendship. Miss Jeanrenand, to whom Mendelssohn was
soon to be married, had just arrived in the town on a visit
to some friends, and was seated in the concert-room. She
was now pointed out to Bennett, who, after expressing
his own admiration for the young lady, began to teaze
her betrothed about the impending sacrifice of liberty.
Mendelssohn, who was (according to the diary) ' mad with
happiness ' broke out in singing the words, ' Hang the
liberty;' and this phrase thenceforward became a friendly
watchword which passed between himself and Bennett when
they met or corresponded.

Bennett being now a centre of interest, the compliment
was paid him of placing his new Overture, as an attraction,
on the programme of the extra concert given annually ' for
the poor.'

Leipzig

[CH.

[Journal.] Feb. \$th. Yesterday they rehearsed my
Overture (Naiades) in the Gewandhaus. It did not please
me — too much noise, so to-day at the second rehearsal I
dispensed with the trombones and like it all the better.
To-night I shall direct it myself as Mendelssohn wishes
me to do so.

Feb. i^tk. My Overture was received with good
applause last night. I directed it myself, and did not
know what to do with my left hand. I rather liked it
myself, but I do not think the people understood it, with
all the compliments which were paid me. In the second
act of the concert was recited part of the Faust by Goethe,
with music by a Prussian Prince named Radziwill. On this
account, Schumann, and Goethe (the grandson), Armstrong,
and Franck, with myself, adjourned to Dr Faust's cellar,
otherwise Auerbachs Keller, where the Devil and Dr Faust
are said to have had their meetings. There are some
curious old pictures of the Doctor and the Devil, and the
place seems very sulphurish.

A little Canon, now in the library of the ' Gesellschaft
der Musik-Freunde ' at Vienna, was written by Bennett on
the day ' The Naiads ' was first played, and probably in
Auerbachs Keller, as he would scarcely have been in the
fit humour for it, while the verdict on his Overture was in
suspense.

£

m

piT=e

EE±

Herr Schumann ist ein gu - ter Mann, Er raucht Tabak als

Herr Schumann ist ein gu - ter Mann, Er

Niemand kann, Ein Mann vielleicht von 30 Jahr mit

raucht Tabak als Niemand kann, Ein Mann vielleicht von

iv] End of the Concert-Season 59

rfftv — I <~w — ^ — *! — ^ — * — ^ —

_^_p

T.

vU) •• 1 ^

kur - ze Nas' und kur-ze

f'r<* r -

Haar.

(Feb. i3th, 1837.)

rVr r « r

I ! -

f r

L^r * 1^ *1 ' ^ 1

*i ** '

i-

— Iff- — jjpj—

3

1 r

30 Jahr mit kur - ze Nas' und kur - ze Haar.

Another relic of playful hours is the beginning of
a German play, dedicated to Schumann and Walther von
Goethe, which Bennett wrote amidst the exercises for
Mr Monicke, and in which the University student (von
Goethe), the Editor (Schumann), and the Englishman (him-
self), figure in the list of Dramatis Personae.

The concert season closed on March i3th with a per-
formance of the Choral Symphony, which in Bennett's
opinion 'did not go well.' Then he spent a few happy
' breakfast-mornings ' with Mendelssohn, ' playing a good
deal to him,' and receiving, as a parting gift, the autograph
score of the ' Hebrides ' Overture. Mendelssohn, whose
marriage was imminent, now left Leipzig. In the past
twenty weeks, Bennett had spent little time in composition.
The diary tells of a Symphony having been started on
some ' rascally German music-paper,' but there is no further .
trace of the music. The statement, sometimes made, that
he did regular work under the guidance of Mendelssohn,
is false. As an exceptional circumstance, a pair of rather
formal notes passed, to arrange an interview for the con-
ductor's perusal of the ' Parisina ' Overture, before its
performance at the Gewandhaus ; and either at the inter-
view, or after the work had been played, Mendelssohn
suggested that it should be lengthened. Bennett, on his
return to England, acted on this advice, but with no success-
ful result. His London friends, on hearing the new edition,
were of one mind that he had spoilt the work, and he then
restored it to its original shape. The fact is, that Bennett
did not get, or did not take, at this time, the chance of
spending with Mendelssohn musical hours such as he
later enjoyed ; and it was only towards the end of the
twenty weeks which they had been spending in the same
town, that the lost opportunity was realized. Either Men-
delssohn was too busy to seek out Bennett, or Bennett too

60 Leipzig [CH.

timid to approach Mendelssohn. The latter, conscious
that Bennett held aloof, reproached him for it, saying at
last, 'You are always with Schumann.' This remark, which
Bennett repeated more than once in hearing of the present
writer, would only refer to personal intimacy. There was
no professional rivalry between Mendelssohn and Schumann;
no dream that their names would come to be placed in oppo-
sition by partisans ; and, indeed, little foresight, at this par-
ticular time, that Schumann would become a celebrated
musician.

After Mendelssohn's departure, Bennett stayed on in
Leipzig for another three months, and set to work on some
pianoforte compositions. On Mendelssohn's wedding day,
March 28th, he was finishing the last movement of a Sonata
in F minor, to be dedicated to the bridegroom, whose health
was no doubt drunk by Schumann and himself at a little
dinner they took together that day in a country village.
A fortnight later, Bennett was holding festival on his own
account.

[Journal.] April \$lk. Twenty-one to-day. Can hardly
fancy myself a man, but I'll be hanged if I am not, at least
according to law. Thank God for all things. I look back
in my life and wish I had done much more, but never-
theless I have not been a regular scamp, and won't now if
I can help it. Got up early this morning and found my
room ornamented with green, and a wreath of flowers from
Julius Kistner. I can't help wishing myself in England,
perhaps an ungrateful wish.

A Birthday Breakfast.

At half-past eleven my visitors began to arrive. Monicke,
F. Kistner, Franck, von Goethe, Dr Hasper, Schrey,
Cayard, Schumann, and afterwards Benecke. Eating began
at twelve and drinking afterwards. A cold breakfast out
of the Hotel de Baviere, as I could not get a hot one.
Schumann gave me a letter of Martin Luther, Mrs Voigt
one of Weber, von Goethe gave me his Grandfather's works,
Mrs Cayard sent me a silver cigar-case, and lastly Mr Kistner
presented me something in a basket with a laurel wreath,
which looked like a Tea-Caddy, but turned out to be a box

iv] Compositions 61

containing a silver cup and plate from the Concert-Direction.
No wonder with all these attentions I should have been
wondrously merry. We finished with coffee at three. In
the evening went to a party at Monicke's, where I saw
cake on the table illuminated with twenty-one candles,
which, I believe, is a German custom. A jolly day al-
together— Never come again — That's certain.

Besides the Sonata dedicated to Mendelssohn, there
belong to this time ' Three Romances ' for the piano,
which Schumann pronounced : ' a great step in advance
as regards deep, even strange, harmonic combinations, and
a bold, broad construction ; resembling the earlier works in
a rich flowing melody, and in the predominance of the
melody in the upper part, but excelling them in their highly
impassioned character.' Friedrich Kistner used, in after-
days, to greet Bennett by singing the melody of the first
of these Romances. Then, again, a long 'Fantaisie' in four
movements was written, and dedicated ' a son ami, Robert
Schumann ' ; but, apart from the formal inscription, it was
(according to Davison) intended as a souvenir, and expressly
for Schumann's own playing, it being stipulated in fun that
the composer must be sure to make it 'difficult enough.'
Schumann found the ' Fantaisie ' ' ringing with lovely
melodies as over-richly as a nest of nightingales ; ' and
though, through disablement of hand, he had long ceased
to be a professed pianist, he was diligently practising the
manuscript when Bennett left Leipzig. Bennett made him-
self acquainted with Schumann's early pianoforte works,
knowing by heart some of those as yet in manuscript, and
among them the 'Etudes Symphoniques,' which were about
to be published and dedicated to him. It may be assumed
that his renderings pleased the composer, who wrote later
to his future wife that he hoped W. Bennett would join him
in Vienna, because there were no pianists in that city with
whom he was in sympathy so that many of his ' best
thoughts' remained silent. The 'Etudes Symphoniques'
had been written in 1834, but the last movement is said
to have been a later thought. In it comes a fragment of
the Romance from Marschner's Opera, ' The Templar and
the Jewess,' in which Ivanhoe calls on proud England to

62 Leipzig [CH. iv

rejoice over her noble Knights. ' It was an ingenious
way/ writes one of Schumann's biographers, 'of paying
homage to his beloved English composer1.'
The diary brings this chapter to an end : —

May 2$>th. My poor Journal ! ! So many days and even
weeks have elapsed, and you have never once been opened.
And what have I been doing all this time ? Visiting
Princesses (Victoire and Julie of Schonberg) and Counts,
re-scoring my Naiades, packing up my music for London.
Been to breakfast two or three times with Count Reuss
and smoked Turkey tobacco. Forgotten to mention that
I have paid a visit to Madame Schumann2 at Zwickau, fifty
miles from here. I went with Robert Schumann and
von Goethe. It rained the whole time. Have been in a
regular Sunday humour to-day ; quite happy and quiet.

June \oth. Well, I'm off on Monday. Beginning to
pay my visits p. p.c. Count Reuss is gone away to Kreutz.
Called yesterday on Madame von Goethe, dined with
Benecke, and played at Cricket with some Englishmen,
which made the Germans stare very much, as they never
saw the game before — we had English bats and balls.
8 o clock evening. Schumann has been to spend an hour
with me and drink a bottle of Porter, I am so sorry to part
from him, for I think he is one of the finest hearted fellows
I ever knew — My heart springs up when I think that I
leave Leipzig on Monday, but yet I don't know whether
it is with sorrow at leaving this place or joy at seeing my
England again. I could never believe before that one was
so fond of his own country — especially mine. As Sir Walter
Scott says, ' Merry England which is the envy of all other
countries and the pride of all who can call themselves
her natives' — Amen, say I.

Leipzig

Adieu !

auf wiedersehen !

1 Article ' Schumann ' in Grove's Dictionary of Music.

2 Robert Schumann's sister-in-law.

CHAPTER V.
LONDON AND, AGAIN, LEIPZIG.

July 1837 — March 1839.
aet. 21, 22.

BENNETT spent a month over his return journey. He
stopped a day or two in Frankfort to see the Mendelssohns,
and was delayed for a fortnight at Mainz by the non-arrival
of proofsheets which Kistner wished him to correct before
leaving Germany. He occupied his time in making a four-
handed arrangement of ' The Naiads,' but got a little cross
as the days went by. The unforeseen expense taxed his
travelling money, and he was forced to pass ten dreary
days at Rotterdam before he could get a further remittance
from England. It was not till the middle of July that he
found himself under Coventry's hospitable roof in Dean
Street, and was writing to his Aunt : ' I cannot tell you
how glad I shall be to get quietly to Cambridge, where I
rather hope to spend some months with you, that is until the
musical season begins again in London.' From Cambridge
he wrote1 to Schumann on August 26th : —

MY DEAR FRIEND,

You really were most kind to send me such a
charming letter. You show yourself, my dear fellow, in so
happy a mood, and I trust that your joy springs from the
heart. Yes ! as you say, your style is no longer that of an
Editor, but of a maiden of eighteen years. I have so often
had you in my thoughts, wishing at the same time that you

1 The original is in German.

64 London and, again, Leipzig [CH.

were with me here. Ah ! England ! dear land of Whig
and Tory. In London I only spent three weeks, and then
came on to this place, which, as the weather continues to
be fine, still looks quite heavenly. Do come and stop with
me for six months. Say yes, and I will fetch you.

Coventry and H oilier will gladly print your Etudes.
I have been playing them a great deal and with much
enjoyment.

Here, assuredly, is a bar of very great beauty. I play it at
least a hundred times a day.

To-morrow I am going to London for a day or two,
and shall so meet Mendelssohn, for I know he is now
there. I shall be travelling farther on September I4th —
to Birmingham — and then I will write again to tell you
about the Festival. * * *

Thalberg is now the god of Englishmen. For a lesson
of forty minutes he gets two guineas — no trifling sum.
Rosenhain of Frankfort remains in London, having, doubt-
less, discovered the fine colour of English gold. You are
sure to have heard of the concert for Beethoven's monu-
ment. Moscheles played the Concerto in C major very
finely. The Choral Symphony was also given.

Greet the Voigts for me, also my dear friend Walther
von Goethe to whom I wzY/send a manuscript. Is Stamaty
in Leipzig ? I have had no news of him. How, too, is
Anger ? And now, dear Schumann, before you quit this
world, do visit England. I very often think of Zwickau,
of your brother and of his wife. I must soon come and see
you all again, so when I can then I will. Forgive the
errors in this letter. It is my pen, not my heart, that

1 In this quotation Bennett has omitted one or two accidentals, and the
bass notes of the first two chords.

v] Welcomed at the Academy 65

makes them. Write again very soon and believe that
I shall never forget you.

Adieu Schumann,

Always and ever your friend,
W. S. BENNETT.

PS. I am hoping for a copy of your Etudes and for
one of the Carnival. Give my best remembrances to
Monicke, to Julius and Fritz Kistner. Tell David that
he must come to England next year.

The autumn was a poor time for a young musician to
start professional life in London. For all that could be
found to do, Bennett might almost as well have passed the
months at Cambridge. But he was persuaded to make an
attempt ; and he found a little work, as well as a very
pleasing reception, waiting for him at the Academy. On
September 15, he wrote to his Aunt, in explanation of a
broken appointment : —

' This morning I gave a lesson at the Academy at nine
o'clock and was detained there on business all the morning.
At 2 o'clock there was a great meeting of all the Students
to present me with a piece of Plate which I knew nothing
of till then. It was presented with a long speech from the
Principal, Mr Potter. Of course I am very delighted.
* * * I will come to-morrow.'

A few days later, he started for Birmingham ; but, the
coach losing four hours on the road, he reached the Town
Hall just as the performance of 'St Paul' was concluding.
Two special attractions of the Festival still remained.
Mendelssohn was to introduce his new P.F. Concerto in
D minor, and to give a solo-performance on the organ.
To those who heard such organ-playing for the first time,
as Bennett probably did on this occasion, the revelation
was astonishing. Mendelssohn played on the last day of
the Festival, and, when he had finished, hurried away to
catch the coach for London. Bennett went to see him off,
and unable to restrain his curiosity, asked, ' How ever did
you come to play like that ?' It was an old story ; there
had been no royal road ; and Mendelssohn replied rather
sharply, ' By working like a horse.'

s. B. c

66 London and, again, Leipzig [CH.

LONDON, October 14, 1837.
MY DEAR MR MENDELSSOHN,

We cannot let Miss Novello go to Leipzig
without sending you a few lines, just to ask how you arrived
in Germany. I sincerely hope that you found your wife
and all friends perfectly well. I could see when you were
in the coach at Birmingham, how delighted you were at the
thought of going back, and wished many times to go with
you. I think you must have been perfectly satisfied with
your reception in England, which is said to have been the
greatest since Weber produced his Oberon — they talk of
you very much and with the greatest enthusiasm, and I am
very, very glad, because my Country is getting musical. I
am sorry to tell you that our Organist Samuel Wesley died
two days since very suddenly, I believe you were with him
at Christ Church where you played the organ. I have no
more news to tell you, but I hope you will be so kind to
write sometimes and tell me what is going on in Leipzig.
I think I should like to send you something for the Con-
certs, if you would do it, but I will write again about it.
Und nun, nock eine Bitte (Schiller]. Will you accept the
little gold pencil-case from me, which is very simple, but I
hope you will like it. Your name is engraved on the top —
Good-bye — Give my best respects to Mrs Mendelssohn
and the Schunck family and believe me,

Yours very truly,

W. STERNDALE BENNETT.

PS. I rather believe Blagrove (an English Violin-
Player) will pass through Leipzig and give a Concert,
when if you could show him any attention you would much
oblige me. He would like to know David. Will you give
my remembrances to Schleinitz and David — Good bye,
Good Bye.

[Mendelssohn to Bennett1.]
DEAR BENNETT,

A thousand thanks for your most kind present,
and for the great pleasure you have given me by it.
Especially, too, for your kind thought of me and your

1 Original is in German — dated at end.

v] A letter from Mendelssohn 67

friendly letter — in fact, for everything. The pencil is so
graceful and elegant, and the monogram on it so pretty —
' quite English ' as they say here when they want to
describe the essence of elegance and usefulness. I am
delighted that you think of me in this way, yes, even a
little ashamed by your kindness in making me a present
when I should be grateful to be simply remembered by
you. Please do think of me often, and let me see a sign of
it now and then by a letter, which is sure to procure me a
few happy hours. I hope that the new compositions which
you mention will be a reason for your first letter ; for I
must beg you to send them as soon as possible. You know
what pleasure you give to all musicians here by your works,
and that you may rely on our performing them with the
most loving care. Send them soon, very soon. Of your
earlier Overtures I have already put down ' The Naiads '
for one of our concerts, and should like to know soon what
new things I could place on the programmes. Everything
is going on here in the old way which you know, and which
has its good and bad sides. Your friends here are all well.
I often meet Schleinitz, David, the Schuncks, who all return
your greetings many times over, and often speak of you
with friendly interest. Schumann I now see very seldom,
for it was at the hotel that I always used to meet him, and
I have quite given up going there now. But how nice my
home now is, what charm my wife ('hang the liberty !!!'),
has brought into my whole existence, what delight into my
life, you should come and see that for yourself, and I only
wish that you would do so soon. * * * This winter is
again quite madly full of music and musicians, just like last
year if not worse. Clara Novello is creating a tremendous
furore. The public is quite beside itself when she sings
with such perfect intonation, such ease and such reliable
musicianship. Half Leipzig is in love with her. The
people clap her wildly and the other night they even
shouted ' Da Capo ' until she had to come and sing again.
This is quite an exception with us Leipzig folks ! Next
Thursday we are going to do the Messiah in St Paul's
Church, to-day a singer, Mdlle Schlegel, is giving a con-
cert, the day after to-morrow the violinist Vieuxtemps will
give one, a few days ago Kummer the violoncellist gave

5—2

68 London and, again, Leipzig [CH.

one with the clarinettist Kotte from Dresden, next week
the pianist Taubert from Berlin, then Herr Taeglichsbeck
from Hechinghen, Herr Schuncke, Herr Eichler, &c. &c.
&c. &c. &c. — my head quite buzzes from it all. I have not
yet been able to begin composing, and yet am very anxious
to do so. Let this be my excuse for an incoherent letter ;
I find it difficult to write even that much, but I have been
wishing for a long time to thank you for your pretty present
and your kind letter. Continue your kind friendship and
write again soon to

Your friend,

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.
LEIPZIG, ii Nov., 1837.

By the end of the year, Bennett was occupying rooms
on the first-floor front of 'Portland Chambers,' 75 l Great
Titchfield Street, his friend Davison being settled in the
back rooms on the same floor. Davison's brother told the
writer that Bennett kept his chambers in very nice order,
and showed himself (as was always the case later) careful
and proud of his possessions. When his companions ad-
mired the contents of his sitting-room, he would laugh with
pleasure, and say, 'Yes, and it's all my own, you know.'
In March 1838, he wrote to Mendelssohn: — 'I wish you
could see me at this moment in England and know how
well I find myself in my little rooms near Great Portland St.
where you used to live. Your picture hangs over my fire-
place with the canon which you wrote on it at Diisseldorf.
Davison is now in my rooms, we very often talk of you
together and wish our happy German days on the Rhine to
come again.'

He was taking a hopeful view of life, with little idea of
the difficulty he would later find in making his way. Private
pupils he might hope to get in greater numbers, as time
went on; at present he was teaching two, then a third
came, but no more. He was still in request at ' The
Society of British Musicians,' his name appearing either
as composer, pianist, or conductor, on the programmes of
their four concerts in the early months of 1838. He played

1 The house, still bearing the same title, is now (1907) numbered 93.

v] An orchestral Concert 69

Mozart's Concerto in E flat, No. 14, on the opening night
of ' The Vocal Concerts,' a new musical association which
employed an orchestra. The revival of a Concerto of
Mozart's involved trouble, but to him it was doubtless a
labour of love to copy a full score from the band parts,
as he did for the occasion. When the London season
came, he took a bold step by announcing an ' Evening
Concert/ for which he engaged ten of the leading English
and German singers, as well as a full orchestra with Sir
George Smart as conductor. A scheme of Symphonies,
Overtures, Concertos, and Vocal pieces with orchestral
accompaniment, was more costly, and at the same time less
attractive to the general public, than the commoner form of
programme with songs accompanied on the piano, and solo
Fantasias for instruments. With concerts such as Bennett,
and a few others provided, the only commercial question
that arose was how much the loss would be. A well-estab-
lished Professor could count upon his following of pupils
and friends. For a young man, the risk was considerable,
and Bennett, when excusing himself, a month before the
concert, from performing a family duty at Cambridge,
wrote : — ' My concert is coming on, and absence from
London at this time might mean ruin to me.' Whilst
engaged in the preliminary business arrangements, he was
also taking great pains over the composition of a new
Caprice, in E major, for pianoforte and orchestra, which was
to be played at the concert. Davison could point to a
place, about 153 bars from the beginning of this piece,
where progress had been checked, and would relate that
Bennett woke him up one night, to show him how he had
at length solved the difficulty. The event proved that
Bennett had already many good friends ; the favour of the
Academy authorities was valuable ; and May 25 saw the
Hanover Square Rooms well-filled. If the music was of
sterner quality than that usually offered at ' benefit ' enter-
tainments, in quantity at least it conformed to custom, and,
in the course of several hours, the concert-giver could,
without noticeable egotism, introduce two or three of his
own works. Besides the new Caprice, he played on this
occasion the Concerto in F minor, which had so far only
been heard at the Academy. This work he again chose a

yo London and, again, Leipzig [CH.

month later for his appearance at the Philharmonic, which
henceforth became an annual event. So also, except in one
or two seasons, he continued to give his orchestral concert
for the next ten years.

In an attempted sketch of his own life, abandoned when
he reached the third page of a small note-book, he wrote
of having tried at this time, but of having failed, to settle
down in London. He wished once more to go to Germany,
and especially, as he put it, to gain closer companionship
with Mendelssohn. His Leipzig friends were pleased at
the prospect of having him with them again, and the Direc-
tors of the Gewandhaus concerts, hearing that he was likely
to come, despatched a very cordial invitation. On July 27,
he wrote : —

MY DEAR MR MENDELSSOHN,

In reply to your very kind and handsome letter
I beg to say to you that nothing short of Death or severe
accident shall prevent me from shaking hands with you at
Leipzig about the middle of October. I have read over
your letter several times and assure [you] that I have a heart
to appreciate all your kindness and generous feelings and if
I have not the power to express all to you that I feel, you
must give me credit for having it in me. * * * I go to
Cambridge this day and shall remain until the end of
September. * * * I am about finishing a new Concerto
expressly for your Concerts and which is therefore not the
same Concerto which I played at the Philharmonic but in
the same key, and I will also bring my Caprice, and a new
Overture (if possible) — and some little fishes — and so, no
more of myself. * * *

In the cottage at Grantchester, again with A. C. Johnson
as his companion, he completed his new Concerto in F minor;
the slow movement, 'A Stroll through the Meadows,' being
dated Sept. 26, 1838. On his way through London, he
tried the Concerto with the Academy orchestra before
a small audience ; on October 5 he started for Leipzig
with two young musicians, Gledhill and Pickering ; and on
October 15 he found himself at the Hotel de Baviere, whither
his many friends hurried to see him.

v] Count Reuss. Music with Mendelssohn 71

This second visit to Leipzig, lasting twenty-one weeks,
was a close facsimile of the former one. Similar concerts,
the same amusements, and nearly the same associates
appear again. There was, however, no Schumann this
time, for he had gone to Vienna ; Walther von Goethe had
left the University and had returned home to Weimar ; but
Bennett now became very intimate with Count Reuss,
whose acquaintance he had made towards the end of his first
visit. The Count, who afterwards became ' His Highness,
Henry II, Prince of Reuss-Koestritz,' had passed some
years of his early life at a school in Yorkshire, and
seemed to Bennett quite an Englishman. He often came
to Bennett's rooms, his approach being heralded by a
servant bearing his long pipe and other materials for
smoking. He took Bennett to show him his future Princi-
pality, and to introduce him to his family, and as a New
Year's present in 1839 gave him a handsome album, which
eventually became full of interesting autographs and sketches,
and proved one of its owner's choicest treasures. Bennett,
after seeing Count Reuss upon a certain occasion of great
solemnity and sorrow, wrote of him : — ' What a noble fellow
he looked, and I am sure he is a noble fellow.'

Three days after his arrival in Leipzig, Bennett wrote : —
' Yesterday with Gledhill and Pickering I dined at Felix
Mendelssohn's — the first time since he had become a house-
keeper. How very happy he seems in his new station and
how much he deserves to be happy.' Mendelssohn, when
urging Bennett to come over again, had written : ' We would
have more music together than the first time,' and this
promise was now fulfilled. The weekly music-parties, which
Mendelssohn had instituted at his house in Lurgensteins
Garten, gave regular opportunity ; but pleasanter still to
Bennett were the Friday mornings when, the Gewandhaus
concert having taken place the night before, the conductor
had breathing-time, and would invite him to breakfast and
to spend a few hours playing or discussing music. Some
days that music would be their own. Just at this time
Mendelssohn had many fine works to show, and, among
them, Bennett writes of hearing him play : ' the new and
beautiful 42nd Psalm ; ' the ' really glorious ' E flat Quartet ;
the 'very compact and charming' Military Overture; and

72 London and, again, Leipzig [CH.

' the new Rondo in D major.' The meetings were not always
at Lurgensteins Garten, for Mendelssohn was beginning
to treat his young friend, seven years his junior, on an
equality now, and liked to pass a little time in Bennett's
lodgings at Lawyer Klein's in the Tuch-Halle. The Rondo
in D major was there played, to the accompaniment of
' Cheshire cheese and bottled porter.'

On Bennett's side, the year 1838 was not an unpro-
ductive one. He had brought to Leipzig his new Caprice
and Concerto. The Overture ' The Wood-nymphs ' was
written at Leipzig in November; a P.P. solo 'Allegro
Grazioso ' on December 16 and 17; and on Christmas
morning he played with Mendelssohn his ' new little Duets'
(Three Diversions, Op. 17) which he had composed 'in the
last few days.' It was when reviewing these Duets that
Schumann wrote : — ' Foreign lands give us so little just at
present ; Italy only sweeps over to us her butterfly dust, and
the knotted outgrowths of the wondrous Berlioz frighten us
all. But this Englishman, among them all, comes nearest
to German sympathies ; he is a born artist, such a one as
Germany herself possesses few to boast of.'

Whilst enjoying himself at Leipzig, Bennett had not
forgotten his absent friends, Schumann and W. von Goethe.
To the former he wrote : —

Nov. nth, 1838.

DEAR SCHUMANN,

Unless I begin by writing to you, you may
not write to me at all, and I want to hear as soon as
possible how you are in health, how you like Vienna, and
how your whole life goes on. I think you know that I
came here a month ago and I have hoped day after day
to hear news of you. I am lodging in the Tuch-Halle, and
Pickering, an Englishman, is at Madame Devrient's1. Why
are you not with us ? I have here seen for the first time
your Fantaisie-Stiicke and they greatly delight me. Madame
Voigt plays your music very industriously, but to my mind
with too great hardness. I have a new Concerto and

1 Schumann's former lodgings, which, on leaving for Vienna, he had
reserved for Bennett.

v] Walther von Goethe 73

Caprice with orchestra, and am now writing an Overture.
I do not expect to play in public till after Christmas. * * * .
Now, dear Schumann, do write a few lines at once,
so that I may know you are well and happy.

Your friend,

W. STERNDALE BENNETT.

Bennett wrote to Schumann, probably also to W. von
Goethe, in German. The latter, as if to return the com-
pliment, replied in English, which is here given without
emendation.

WEIMAR, Dec. loth, 1838.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

You cannot imagine how much pleasure your
charming letter gave to my ; indeed I am very happy that
you do not forget your old German friends and the nice
time we spent together. I have composed a great deal but
till now nothing is printed. How do you like Schumann's
' Davidsbiindler Tanze ? ' Some of them pleased me very

much, but some Oh, no ! ! ! ! ! I should be very greadful

if you would send me the titles of your new compo-
sitions. At Weimar I am banished in a musical Syberian.
Mrs Shaw turned all the heads in Weimar. The Gran
Duke danced from pleasure on his hands, and the Erb-
Prinz on his head; you see the whole Weimar is upset.
Will you not come to Weimar and spend the Christmas
heare, my mother joins me in this wish and can offer you
a room, pray come, we should be really rejoiced. God
bless you, me dear friend. Write to me soon and tell me
if you know anything of Florestan and Eusebius1.

the foolish

WALTHER.

PS. To write this letter, I wanted three hours and
a half. O friendship ! ! ! ! !

Bennett did not go to Weimar. He was full of engage-
ments at Leipzig. Christmas Eve, with its Christmas tree,

1 Meaning Schumann, who, as a writer, assumed these names.

74 London and, again, Leipzig [CH.

was spent as before with the Voigts. Frau Henriette Voigt
did not live to see another Christmas. In her short ac-
quaintance with Bennett she became sincerely attached to
him. During the summer of 1837, she paid a round of
visits with her husband to friends in various German towns.
Before starting, she commissioned Fraiilein Bo'hm to paint
a miniature portrait of Bennett, who was then in Leipzig.
She wanted to show his likeness to her friends when she
played his music to them. The miniature served its purpose,
and Fraiilein Bohm, according to a letter of her friend, Herr
Hofrath Rochlitz, 'smiled quite prettily' when she heard
that her ' Bennett' had given pleasure in Cassel. ' Ah yes,'
she said, ' when a person has something in him then there
is something to paint, and others observe it — that is quite
natural.' In this way Frau Voigt brought Bennett to the
notice of Spohr in Cassel and then wrote to Fraiilein Jasper :
' This Arch-priest of true art * * * is especially noble in
his recognition of others. Thus he takes a true delight in
our little Bennett's compositions which I have had to repeat
very often. The dear little fellow [Bennett] has written
me a German letter, which I have just answered.' Rochlitz,
then the doyen of German musical critics, wrote to Frau
Voigt when she was at Weimar, and after telling her of
Fraiilein Bohm's pleasure at the success of her miniature,
added : 'Should the Princess1 invite you * * ': I urge you
very much to put forward " Bennettiana," and especially do
it in this case, because the Princess from early childhood has
cherished a fixed predilection for eminent English genius.'
These extracts from letters (kindly supplied by Herr
Gustav Jansen of Verden) point to a warmth of apprecia-
tion and encouragement which a young Englishman found
in Germany, but of which he would know little in his own
country. Bennett afterwards wrote of Frau Voigt : ' She
was an excellent pianoforte-player, with whom I was very
intimate, and who played my music much better than I
could play it myself.' In later life, he would often talk to
his children of the Christmas Eve of 1838, and of the good-
hearted friends with whom he spent it, and he would point
to some little book-shelves, hanging in the dining-room of

1 Maria Paulowna, later Grand Duchess of Weimar, mother of Empress
Augusta.

v] A Christmas Dinner 75

his London house, which had been their present to him on
the occasion.

On Christmas Day, a dinner, after the English manner,
was given at the Hotel de Baviere, the preparation of which
was a source of amusement coupled with anxiety to those
who arranged it. Doubt as to the arrival of a cod-fish,
(a luxury at one time specially associated with Christmas
Day in many English families), which had been ordered
from Hamburg, caused great uneasiness. The Committee,
in their efforts to explain red-currant jelly, at least im-
pressed the cook with the importance of the subject, and
a magnificent mould of transparent gelatine accompanied
the hare. Few mistakes, however, were made ; all passed
off well ; and Herr Brockhaus has described the entertain-
ment in his diary : —

' Our late meal to-day was the result of an invitation
from the English circle to a Christmas-dinner, signed by
Monicke as President, and Sterndale Bennett as Vice-
president. The latter brought with him one of his pupils,
and by degrees has been building up quite an English
circle. Besides the seven hosts there were Clauss, Voigt,
Schunck, Mendelssohn, Preusser, David, and myself. The
society was very lively, and to this, excellent eating and
drinking, almost too splendid for an English dinner, no
little contributed. First came the taking of wine with
each other, quite according to English fashion, and after
moving-the-cloth we got to the speeches, Monicke and
Bennett responding for the hosts, Mendelssohn and Schunck
for the guests. I was also obliged to return thanks for the
toast of " The Town of Leipzig," but I got myself well out
of the difficulty (tho' I was not the worst speaker of English
in the company) by beginning, "Gentlemen," then playfully
passing on to German and with a " Merry old England for
ever " finishing amidst great applause.'

In the first days of the New Year, 1839, Bennett was
preparing for an appearance (his second) at the Gewand-
haus concerts. He showed his new Concerto to Mendels-
sohn. In the previous summer, whilst at Grantchester, he
had revised the slow movement — headed 'A stroll through
the meadows ' — which had failed to please when rehearsed
at the Academy in 1836 as part of the earlier Concerto in

76 London and, again, Leipzig [CH.

the same key of F minor. This piece, in its revised form,
he was now intending to place in his new work, but while
discussing it with Mendelssohn, he also played the ' Bar-
carolle,' the movement which had proved successful when
substituted for the other in the earlier Concerto. When
Mendelssohn heard the ' Barcarolle,' he said, ' Oh Bennett,
that is what you must play,' and, in consequence, 'A stroll
through the meadows ' was again rejected, and the ' Bar-
carolle' then remained a fixture in the later Concerto.
Bennett played the new work at the Gewandhaus on
Jan. 17, upon a fine piano expressly sent over by Messrs
Broadwood, which piano was then retained by the firm of
Breitkopf and Haertel, as a model to be followed in the
manufacture of their own instruments. He wrote to his
friends of the result of his performance and the reception
of his music : —

LEIPZIG, January 23^, 1839.

DEAR GOOD SCHUMANN,

I have been wishing very often to write to
you again, but have waited till I had made my appearance
in public, so that I could tell you all about it. At last
week's concert I played my new Concerto in F minor. It
was very well received, and I myself was kindly and
heartily greeted. I am, on the whole, quite content. The
Concerto is to be printed at once, and I will see that a copy
is forwarded to you in due course. A new Overture (which
is called 'Waldnymphe') will be played at the Gewandhaus
to-night ; I think it is the best thing I have so far written.
* I am now contemplating a Symphony for the
Philharmonic Society of London.

The only thing I miss here, dear Schumann, is your
presence. In about a month's time I shall set out, with
David, for London. That makes it impossible for me to
come to Vienna ; but how delightful it would have been
for me to be always able to pass an hour with you, talking
over music and musicians, and then sometimes about our
everyday concerns. But you really must come to England.
We would make you very welcome.

Of your newer compositions, I always place the ' Davids-

v] A letter to Damson 77

biindler' first. They certainly are very charming. Why
do you not compose something for the orchestra ?

Mrs Shaw is, I think, coming to Vienna in March, and,
if you will let me, I will give her a letter of introduction
to you.

Are you anxious about a composition for the Supple-
ment ? — for a later number ? — because at present I have too
much on hand, and I should like to do it properly for you.

Adieu, dear good Schumann,
Ever and anon
Your friend

W. S. BENNETT.

The above letter was written in German. In his own
tongue he had written, at greater length, a few days before,
to Davison.

LEIPZIG, Jan. iqtA, 1839.
MY DEAR DAVISON,

I can write to you now without any degree of
fidget, as I have got over all my troubles for the present.
If you knew how much I hated going before the Public
under any circumstances, you could imagine how very
uncomfortable it is to walk before an audience, eight
hundred miles from your own home. However, thank
God, I played my new Concerto the day before yesterday
with the most brilliant1 success, and what pleased me most
was that the composition was well understood, I am con-
vinced, and the public seemed to think the playing a second
consideration, and in which I am sure they are right. The
Barcarolle created a great enthusiasm, and also the pizzi-
cato in the first movement. I am sure I never wrote any-
thing that was better received altogether. Another thing
is that I was received, when I went on, with great applause,
a thing quite out of order here. To sum up all, my dear
Davison, you may congratulate me and do not think me
vain in telling you all this. * * * I shall leave Leipzig, on

1 This epithet was modified by being thoroughly scratched through, but is
just traceable.

78 London and, again, Leipzig [CH.

my return to England, on the first of March, and hope to
find you and all my friends quite well and jolly. I have
written three duets on purpose for you and L. to play
together. David is coming with me to England, and I
am sure he will do great things. * * * I hope my chambers
are warming for me. I long to have my feet on my own
fender. For God's sake show this letter to nobody. What
I have told you about myself must go to no one else. I
long to see you again. * * * Adieu, my dear fellow,

Believe me,

Yours very sincerely,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Bennett's opinion, given in the above letter, on the
relation between composition and performance, was echoed
by Schumann in a critique written on the same Concerto
after its publication. In referring to its principal Move-
ments, Schumann wrote : —

' They offer nothing new in form, or, to speak more
correctly, they seek novelty not in any startling effect but
rather in the absence of all pretension. Thus at the con-
clusion of the Soli, where in other concertos the cadences1
succeed one another in quick succession, Bennett interrupts
the cadence and allows it to die away, as if he himself wanted
to prevent all clapping of hands. In the entire concerto
he never aims at bravura and applause. It is understood
that the composition alone shall be the principal thing, and
that virtuosity of execution is of secondary importance2.'

If Bennett in this or other works did anything to limit
the distinction of the Soloist, he did not spare him much
in the direction of difficulty. His pianoforte music has
generally been considered, even by pianists of the highest
rank, to make its own special exactions. Schumann noted
the difficulties of the F minor Concerto, but judged them
to be of an intellectual rather than mechanical kind and to
particularly require the faculty of welding the Solo instru-
ment with the orchestra. Ferdinand Hiller, in a brief but
beautiful obituary notice of Bennett, which he contributed

1 Or ' trills.' Schumann's word is ' trillen.'

2 Translated by J. V. Bridgeman, for The Musical World, June, 1856.

v] Homeward bound 79

to the Kolnische Zeitung, recalled this particular performance
at the Gewandhaus, and wrote, ' On his visit to Leipzig in
the winter of 1838-39 his playing excited the greatest
astonishment.' It is a satisfaction to insert this side by
side with Schumann's remarks, and to know that such
a result could be produced without any resort to extra-
vagant 'tours-de-force.' Hiller summarized the playing
as 'perfect in mechanism, and, while remarkable for an
extraordinary delicacy of nuance, full of soul and fire.'

The ' pizzicato in the first movement ' which Bennett
told Davison had found favour, occurs in some passages
where he used (as he did in some other concerted works)
melodic phrases of single notes for the piano, ' having
evidently conceived the idea,' as one critic remarks1, 'of
giving a cantabile effect to the percussion sounds of the
piano by opposing them to the still shorter and sharper
sounds of the pizzicato [on the stringed instruments].' He
had introduced this at greater length in the rejected move-
ment, 'A stroll through the meadows,' in which much of
the solo part, representing the ' stroller,' employs only one
note of the piano at a time. It is as if he felt that his
favourite instrument could vie, in a succession of single
sounds, with the tone and expression of any other, or even
of the voice. Whether there was or was not any originality
in using the piano in this way2, there is no doubt that even
in the few bars where he did so in the opening movement
of this Concerto, his remarkable legato-playing and an
unsurpassable richness of tone were shown to great ad-
vantage, and even with striking novelty of effect. An
eminent Leipzig pianoforte teacher came to him at the
time, and begged to be initiated into the secret. Bennett
was pleased at this, but had no explanation to offer.

With Ferdinand David for his travelling companion, he
started for home on March 2nd. His twenty-third birthday
was at hand. The two years and nine months, which he
had passed since leaving the Academy, had been a time of
comparative freedom, from which he had derived lasting
benefit. Health, which, according to Davison, had often

1 Article ' Bennett' in Grove's Dictionary of Music.

* Sir George Macfarren writing of the Concerto, in 1871, considered this
particular effect ' as individual as it is felicitous.'

8o London and, again, Leipzig

caused anxiety to his friends, now seemed established. He
had enjoyed the advantage, during the many months spent
at Leipzig, of making several valuable friendships, and of
mixing in a highly cultivated general society to which a
young musician of his day had easier access in Germany
than in England. But the means which had contributed to
this were now exhausted, and he was face to face with the
stern necessity of making his own living.

PART II

A YOUNG MUSICIAN IN LONDON

S. B.

CHAPTER VI.

PORTLAND CHAMBERS.

1839 — 1841.
set. 23—25.

IN the romance of Charles Auchester, Sterndale
Bennett is introduced under the name of Starwood Burney,
and the authoress writes of the young musician, on his
return from Germany, as bringing the whole force of music
to his feet, pupils flocking to him in large numbers and
deeming themselves lucky if they could obtain twenty
minutes of his valuable time. The real tale, as told by the
figures of account-books, is a different one. Fact was less
ready than Fiction to bestow its favours, and many years
were now to pass before Sterndale could stand in Starwood's
shoes.

Among those watching Bennett at this time, no one
showed deeper interest than Mr Thomas Holdsworth, a
solicitor by profession, a great lover of music, an early
patron of the Academy, and a warm-hearted friend to many
of its students. For the past year or two, Mr Holdsworth
had been managing Bennett's little business matters, had
corresponded with him during his visits to Germany, and
had lately written to Leipzig : — ' I do believe most truly,
that I rank high among your friendships, but I should be
unworthy of that, if I were not to act the part of a true
friend. I know your mental resources and riches are great
and the mine is scarcely opened, but I look with anxiety to
your return, because now you are leading a species of idle

6—2

84 Portland Chambers [CH.

life, and on your return you will be imperatively called upon
to work the work of drudgery, viz. Tuition — as the real
resources of the day and week.' When Bennett read this,
he had just been composing and performing at Leipzig, so
that he could demur to the word idle. Mr Holdsworth
offered the conventional explanation ; he had not used the
epithet 'in its ordinary sense;' but he continued his friendly
exhortations. He was aware that Bennett had, so far, paid
scant attention to money matters, and he doubted whether
there would be found, in combination with an artistic
temperament, a capacity for routine work. That such
capacity could be aroused by necessity was soon shown ;
but Mr Holdsworth was not the only person who was
mistrusting Bennett's power of settling down to business
duties. The young musician probably had no innate dis-
position towards them, and it may be imagined that the
harness which in after-life became so heavy and yet was
worn so patiently chafed rather sorely when it was new.
Bennett did not argue with Mr Holdsworth about the
particular way in which a living ought to be made. There
was no suggestion, on either side, that the British music-
market could support him as a. pianist or composer. It was
assumed that, in his case, teaching could alone give security,
and that other art- work should be pursued without reference
to money. In the numerous musical establishments of
Germany, well-accredited musicians could, quite early in
life, find places as Capellmeisters, and thereby ensure not
only subsistence, but also lives of continuous artistic activity.
Without expatriation, an alternative which had been already
suggested and rejected, there was no such opening for
Bennett.

Ferdinand David wrote to Mendelssohn from London
on Bennett's twenty-third birthday, Ap. i3th, 1839: — 'Of
Bennett I see a great deal. While travelling with him I
came to realize the full charm of his personality. He
is a man from whom I should like never to be parted.
I cannot imagine the woman who would not wish to marry
him. His compositions are, it appears, but little known
here. They still see in him nothing beyond the Academy
student. Heaven knows how he, with his unassuming
manner, will make his way forward in this place. There

vi] His reputation in England 85

are few Englishmen who would not deem a man insane, if
he told them, that here was a musician of higher type than
Mori, or Lindley or their other authorities. He keeps in
very good health, looks well, and is in capital spirits.'

Works such as Bennett had been producing could not
spread his name far in England. His pianoforte music
which helped to make him known in German homes could
in the same days do little for him here. Nevertheless, his
own country had given him a share of the best things at
her disposal, and he had already, in a limited but not in-
significant degree, obtained a footing which many young-
English musicians of the time might envy. The present
extent of his fame might be measured by the diagonal of
Hanover Square, starting from the north-west corner in
which stood the Royal Academy of Music, and reaching to
the opposite one, in the south-east, where, in the Queen's
Concert Rooms, five or six hundred connoisseurs attended
Philharmonic concerts. In this neighbourhood he had for
some time been a young man of mark, attracting notice as
a specialist. British composers had been earning their
reputation by vocal music. The Philharmonic Society since
its foundation in 1813 had not, in the course of twenty-
seven seasons, placed more than nineteen orchestral pieces
of home-growth on their programmes. Cipriani Potter and
Bennett were the only native composers who had been
represented by a series of such works, and Bennett's four
Concertos and three Overtures, which were played between
1835 and 1839, gave him an exceptional prominence, within
a select circle of musicians and amateurs, on seven different
occasions.

His countrymen applauded, but were less ready than
the Germans to acknowledge him as a graduate in his art.
At Leipzig, he had from the first been accepted as a young
master of his craft and ' a present value ' had been set
upon him. Schumann took him as he found him, using the
words ' whatever his future may be ' and some time after-
wards, when he saw the word ' promising ' applied by
another critic, he harked back to the days when he had
first met Bennett, and retorted : ' With us and in other
places he has already for six years taken place as a master.'
In England critics gave their opinions tentatively. ' Let

86 Portland Chambers [CH.

us reserve our judgment/ they seemed to say. 'We
want a great representative English musician. When this
promising young man can become that, it will be time
enough for us to acknowledge him.'

William Ayrton, a musician by profession, but also
a man whose general cultivation admitted him to the
best literary circles in London, was at this time regarded
as the foremost writer of musical criticism in England.
With regard to Bennett, he went to two extremes, treating
his Overtures with contempt and derision, but warmly
praising his Concertos and the playing of them. After
hearing the new Overture ' The Wood-nymphs ' — perhaps,
however, coarsely performed — at the Philharmonic, Ayrton
described it as ' a discharge of musical artillery in the shape
of drums, seconded by blasts of trombones and trumpets
that seemed to realise all that we have heard of a tropical
tornado.' Then, after ridiculing the title, he added:
' Seriously, we regret that the Directors should have been
so blind to the interest of the composer as to bring the
work before such an audience. So very clever and promising
a young man ought to meet with every kind of reasonable
encouragement, but judicious and true friends would have
hinted to him that his present production is the dry result
of labour, that it evinces not a particle of that genius which
appears in one or two of his other works, and that in
prudence he ought to have laid it by, not for so long a time
as Horace recommends in a somewhat analogous case, but
for a couple of years at least.'

In curious contrast to this English opinion, Schumann
wrote of the same work : —

' The overture is charming ; indeed, save Spohr and
Mendelssohn, what other living composer is so completely
master of his pencil, or bestows with it such tenderness and
grace of colour, as Bennett ? In the completeness of the
whole, we forgive and forget all that he has overheard of
those masters' tones, and I think he never before gave us
so much of himself as in this work. Essay measure after
measure ; what a firm, yet delicate web it is from beginning
to end ! How closely, how nearly everything is united
here, while in the productions of most men we are ac-
customed to find gaping holes as wide as one's hand ! Yet

vi] Schumann reviews ' The Wood-nymphs ' 87

this overture has been blamed for too great length of treat-
ment ; but this reproach strikes all Bennett's compositions
more or less ; it is his manner ; he must finish everything,
even to the smallest detail. He also repeats often, and
note for note, after the conclusion of the middle period.
But let any one try to alter his works without injuring
them ; it will not do ; he is no pupil, to be improved by
touching up ; what he has thought out stands firmly and
may not be displaced.

' It is contrary to Bennett's simple-minded, inwardly
poetic character, and to his corresponding inclination, to
set great levers and weights in motion ; the splendour of
decoration is foreign to him ; he loves best to linger in
fancy on the lonely shores of the lake, or in the green,
mysterious wood : he does not grasp at drums and trom-
bones, with which to sketch his quiet yet lonely happiness.
He must, then, be taken as he is, and not mistaken for what
he is not, — namely, the creator of a new epoch in art, a
hero whom it is impossible to fetter, — but a genuine, deeply
feeling poet, who passes on his peaceful way, all untroubled
because a few hats, more or less, are raised and waved
in his honour ; but whose progress, though no triumphal
chariots may await it, shall be at the very least embellished
by the wreath of violets that Eusebius here offers him1.'

In judging some of Bennett's earlier works, Schumann
duly noticed similarities to the music of certain other com-
posers. In no instance, however, did he do this, except by
way of preface to insisting on an individuality which clearly
asserted itself notwithstanding any such similarities. This
individuality he observed not alone in most of the materials
of the music, but also in the method of workmanship. He
has expressed this concisely in a second notice of ' The
Wood-nymphs,' where he compares the Overture to ' a
bouquet, to which Spohr had given some flowers, Weber
and Mendelssohn others, but to which Bennett had himself
given the most, while the delicate hand which had designed
and arranged them as a whole was his and his alone.'
Mendelssohn, like Schumann, recognized this individuality.
Mr J. S. Bowley, who was in Bennett's room at Leipzig
when this same Overture was first played on the piano,

1 Translated, from the German, by F. R. Ritter.

88 Portland Chambers [CH.

remembered how Mendelssohn called out continually as the
music went on : ' Ah ! that's Bennett, Bennett, all Bennett.'
Some years later, Mendelssohn wrote from Leipzig : ' We
play your " Waldnymphe" on Thursday next ; I have just
corrected the Programme, where they would spell your
name with one t, and I would have waited till after the
performance to tell you of it, but that I know beforehand
what it will be. The piece is and always will be a favourite
of the Public and the Orchestra, they will do their best to
do it justice, and we shall all be happy with it and only
wish for your being present. That is it what I would write
on Friday and what I can do to-day as well.'

' The Naiads ' and ' The Wood-nymphs,' from the
dates of their first performance, long retained a place on
the Leipzig programmes, being played alternately, season
by season, for more than twenty years. They were much
used in other parts of Germany. In England they had to
wait. When they were ten years old, there came a sudden
growth of orchestral concerts in London, and thenceforward
they were constantly played, but they did not help their
composer much in these earlier days when more publicity
to his name might have been an encouragement.

As to Bennett's merits as a pianist, there had never
been any doubt in Hanover Square. When comparisons
were made, his name from first to last was placed in juxta-
position with pianist-composers of the highest rank alone.
A fortnight after ' The Wood-nymphs ' had been heard, he
played his new Concerto in F minor at the Philharmonic.
Ayrton found it ' an exceedingly clever composition, re-
flecting much credit on the Anglo-German school.' Then he
added : ' The author performed it in a most skilful, feeling
manner, his touch bringing to our recollection that of
Cramer. Let him continue to imitate that great master
of the pianoforte, and he will never want the suffrages of
all admirers of eloquent music.'

So now, in 1839, he had gained, as a public performer,
a place from which he might look for pupils willing to pay
a good price for his lessons, and this was, for the time
being, the pressing matter. Portland Chambers were not
besieged, but when London was full and the musical world
awake, with fifteen hours' teaching a week, — though that
included poorly-paid work at the Academy, — he made a

vi] Waiting for Work 89

fair start, and Ferdinand David, at the end of the London
season, wrote again to Mendelssohn : — 'As for Bennett,
I cannot say enough in his praise. Even as each day
passes, he seems to grow more lovable, more industrious,
more manly ; and he is a veritable jewel in the muddy soil
of the art- world. He is also doing well materially, has a
good number of pupils and, in a quiet way, is sure to succeed.'

This might be said in July, but ten or twelve weeks
of comparative plenty were annually followed by forty of
scarcity. Remunerative work throughout the year would
only come when some of the coveted appointments in the
best finishing schools for young ladies could be obtained,
but such appointments were professional prizes beyond the
reach of a young man. If Bennett's teaching remained
in a small compass, it was due to no want of attention on
his part. He confessed, when afterwards writing of the
time, that he had occasionally been tempted 'on a very
rainy morning ' to shirk an outside lesson and enjoy himself
at home with his 'beautiful pianoforte;' but his account-books
show that there was little irregularity, while they suggest,
at the same time, that there was a good deal of patience.
For nearly two-and-a-half years he remained continuously
at his post, while during that time there was only a single
week, and that a Christmas one, in which no lesson was
given. Mr Holdsworth must have looked on approvingly.
Holidays were short and taken seldom. There were no
more summers at Grantchester. Some young provincial
teacher would make use of vacation time to come up for a
little supplementary instruction, and Bennett must needs
be in the way to pick up the crumbs. A narrow income,
of which by far the greater part was made in three months
of the year, could not last out a twelvemonth, without a
thriftiness not yet acquired. There is no story to tell of
starvation or garret-life ; but ends did not always meet, and
he would say to his friend, who perhaps had help from
home, ' I can't think, Davison, how you always manage to
have money in your pocket.'

Davison 's mother, a distinguished actress, but here only
introduced as another kind mentor, with a motherly eye on
Portland Chambers, wrote the following birth-day letter to
Bennett : —

[CH.

Having been told that you once were heard to
express a doubt of ever saving a guinea, I assume the
privilege of better and longer experience to assure you
there is nothing impossible to the firm resolve. You are
now blessed with youth, health, and extraordinary talent,
but consider, — health uncertain, the world full of change,
and the Public a many-headed monster ! Then reflect, how
sweet is independence, when supplied by your own industry
and careful management. I would not have you a miser,
nor yet a spendthrift. There is ever a middle course to be
pursued in every transaction through life's troubled round,
which if followed will ensure you the approval of your heart,
and the admiration of those whose good opinions are worth
the cultivating — for the rest care not.

For your steady friendship to my dear James, of which
he ever makes grateful mention, accept his mother's thanks.
I understand this is your natal day. May you live in the
cheerful enjoyment of many such. I have to request your
acceptance of the accompanying pocket trifle, to be used as a
kind of savings bank — as old ladies say — to provide for a
rainy day. You will keep it for my sake ; and when the hands
that worked it for that purpose are under the grass green
turf, and the heart, which once beat in the warmth of truth
and friendship, is still and cold ; you will perhaps think of
me, and at the moment you do so, leave a little deposit as a
tribute to my memory and a tacit acknowledgment that you
neglect not my advice.

With every good wish for many returns of Good Friday
to you and your best affections

I remain, dear Mr Bennett,
Yours very truly,

MARIA R. DAVISON.

Though Bennett had at this time no guineas to deposit
in a satin savings-bank, he had at least the faculty of saving
with the most affectionate care anything that was given to
him as a keepsake. Mrs Davison, whose handiwork still
lies where he placed it in his dressing-case, lived to be an
old lady, and to see her young friend making his way.

vi] The Pianoforte Fantasia 91

But the subject of bread-winning may be left awhile ;
for Bennett could see in his call to teaching, a higher
purpose than his own maintenance. Schumann, in special
reference to the pianoforte music of the day, had already
written : — ' Were there many artists who worked with the
same intention as Bennett, then no one would need to be
anxious any longer about the future of our art.' Now
certainly in England the condition of pianoforte music at
this time gave cause for anxiety in some minds, and there
was pressing need of men ready to join a minority in
opposition to a predominant party. Celebrated pianists
had lately done much towards popularizing the pianoforte
among that class who could afford to attend expensive
entertainments. Thalberg and other exponents of the
modern Fantasia had cast a spell over hundreds in this
country who would not under less seductive influences have
stopped their chatter to listen to pianoforte-playing. To
these remarkable players must be given the credit of estab-
lishing the pianoforte as an instrument that could be played
by itself in English concert-rooms; nor can they be blamed
for entirely absorbing, as they did, that increase of interest
in pianoforte performance which they had themselves ac-
cumulated. For years and years the Fantasia held its
supremacy, while the solo masterpieces of the great com-
posers were struggling to obtain a hearing in the concert
room. Meanwhile the duty of preserving and disseminating
the classics of the pianoforte remained chiefly with teachers,
but only with a faithful few who maintained that pianoforte
music could and must be taught, to whatsoever pupil, with
serious intent. There was little music-teaching which was
not going with the stream of fashion. The essential of a
teaching-piece, as of a concert-piece was the parade of
the performer. Compilers of potpourris modelled on the
favourite form abounded, and even composers of high merit
consented to assist in stocking the young ladies' portfolios
with glittering tinsel.

Bennett tried, in 1839, to write an article on the state
of affairs in the pianoforte- world. He noted the important
part which pianoforte-playing was taking in England as a
branch of the musical art, and the powerful influence which
the fashionable players and composers of pianoforte music

92 Portland Chambers [CH.

were exercising. He looked back with regret to days of
yore when the pianoforte had been subservient to music,
and deplored the present subserviency of music to the
pianoforte. He admitted that astonishing feats must be
accomplished by the pianists who desired the applause of
the multitude ; but he contended that the Great Masters had
not been afflicted with such blindness to the capabilities of
the instrument as was now being imputed to them by
the admirers of this modern school of playing. He was
exasperated at hearing Mozart and Beethoven being freely
spoken of as pedants.

He was able, however, before laying down his pen, to
find consolation in an encouraging omen. Certain pub-
lishers were now showing themselves willing to try the
experiment of placing within easy reach of teachers and
students good music which had for many years been difficult
to obtain. Thus one firm had been printing Beethoven's
pianoforte music with Moscheles as editor, and was now
advertising Czerny's edition of Bach's 48 Preludes and
Fugues, with English fingering, at the price of a guinea-
and-a-half, three pounds having hitherto been thought a
fair sum to ask for an old copy of them. Lonsdale announced
another English edition of the same Fugues, and roundly
asserted his intention of printing all the instrumental works
of Bach. In fact, the Leipzig Cantor was for the moment
quite prominent on the advertisement sheets, beside the
composers of Quadrilles and 'Morceaux de salon.' Coventry,
possibly at the instigation of Bennett, with whom he was very
intimate, appealed to Mendelssohn to be his editor of Bach,
and engaged Potter to prepare the P.F. works of Mozart.
The need of such a movement as this was clearly expressed
by Davison when he welcomed the edition of Mozart with
the words, ' It will no longer be necessary to wait for
auction-sales to obtain such music.' Davison wrote fur-
ther of the general ignorance of Mozart's pianoforte music
amongst amateurs, and praised Coventry for filling up ' a
lamentable chasm in the musical literature of this country.'
The previous difficulty of finding music in England may be
illustrated by instances of the pleasure which attended the
discovery of buried treasures. Davison, at the end of a
long life, would talk of the happy day on which he had

vi] Editing the Classics 93

found Dussek's Sonata, ' L' In vocation,' on a book-stall, and
had then taken it off to the Academy to introduce it to
Bennett, and to hear it played by him. Bennett too, in his
later days, would recall the delightful sensation which had
come over him when he 'discovered' one of Mozart's Sonatas,
in F major, in the library of a country-house. ' I felt,' he said,
'as if I had found a diamond.' He soon himself joined
the band of editors and took a share in the revival of
the 'classics.' He selected forgotten Sonatas of Haydn,
Clementi, Dussek and others, which Coventry brought out
in a serial called 'Classical Practice.' This venture met
with just sufficient success to repay the cost of publication.
Coventry's business lay mostly in the provinces, where some
of the early Academy students were now settled as teachers,
and such works as Bennett selected came as godsends to
professors of high aims. Kellow Pye, an excellent musi-
cian and charming pianist, wrote from Exeter to Portland
Chambers, in a tone of distress, imploring Bennett (his old
school fellow) to keep him informed of any new7 publica-
tions of value. Judging by the progress of the ' Classical
Practice,' such music, for some time to come, could be but
thinly scattered. Coventry continued to issue the Sonatas,
but only at long intervals, and in the end the serial did not
reach beyond twelve numbers. But the newer as well as
the older pianoforte music, if described as classical, or if
suspected of bearing that character, did not travel quickly.
A little time back, it had taken four years to sell 1 14 copies
of the first book of Mendelssohn's ' Lieder ohne Worte ' ;
and the publisher Wessel was now obtaining no return but
disappointment for printing the works of Chopin.

Miss Bettina Walker, who made Bennett's acquaintance
when he had been teaching for twenty years, has written of
his telling her that ' from the beginning of his career as
a professor he had set his face against teaching any but
classical music/ and this remark implies that he himself
thought his attitude had been exceptional, and that he had
not found it an easy one to assume, at any rate in relation
to amateur pupils. As a young Professor at the Academy
he at once attracted a class of advanced professional students,
to whom he could lay down the law, and for whom the
choice of music was not limited by considerations of its

94 Portland Chambers [CH. vr

difficulty or abstruseness. Thus to this class he imme-
diately taught the works of Bach, including the Concertos.
But there was a greater demand on the courage of his
opinions when he decided to force on young amateurs music
which was at the time regarded as severe and not adapted for
use in society. He was not taking the shortest road towards
making a living. He certainly insisted on what he con-
sidered classical music being the foundation of work for all
pupils. The new editions of such music came opportunely
to his assistance, but when the Sonatas had been prescribed
there was no profusion of subsidiary attractions. Compo-
sitions of Weber and Hummel seem to have been easily
obtainable, and he used a few of the early pieces of Mendels-
sohn. He did not as yet entirely withhold modern Fantasias ;
he may have recognized their value for the development of
technical skill ; but, even if in using them he deviated from
his principles, he gave way very seldom. He had known
many of these Fantasias by heart, and had played them with
as much brilliancy, in Davison's opinion, as the composers
themselves; but this was a reminiscence of early student
days ; he never played them in public, and taught them so
little, that he may easily have forgotten that he had taught
them at all. To the sixteen young ladies who took lessons
during twenty-one months from March 1839 to December
1840, he distributed sixty-five pieces. Fifty-three of these
were by Haydn, Mozart, Clementi, Dussek, Beethoven,
Weber, Hummel, Cramer, and Mendelssohn. Eight more
were Studies and Rondos by Aloys Schmitt, Herz, Dohler,
Czerny and Hiinten ; two were Fantasias by Herz and
Kalkbrenner ; and two were compositions of his own. He
was only on the threshold of thirty-five years' work as a
teacher. An opportunity may occur later in these pages of
showing how he extended his course of instruction. For
the present, as has already been said, his pupils were not
numerous ; his work with them cannot have occupied much
of his time ; a single lesson given at the distance of East
Sheen might take up the best part of a day and unsettle
his mind for the rest of it ; but for many months of the year
he had much freedom. What else was he doing ? What,
especially, was he doing as a composer ?

PORTLAND CHAMBERS

Graz* Titchfield Street

CHAPTER VII.

COMPOSITION IN PORTLAND CHAMBERS.

1839—1841.
set. 23 — 25.

ON his return from Germany in 1839, Bennett left for a
while Concertos and Overtures, and turned his thoughts to
other forms of composition. In his correspondence during
the next year or two, an Opera, an Oratorio, a Symphony,
Chamber music, and Songs are all mentioned as under con-
sideration. He once told Mendelssohn that he thought his
own sphere as a composer lay among the smaller forms
of art. Mendelssohn disagreed with this limitation, and
further said, — probably with England specially in his mind,
— that small works would attract no notice, until something
on a large scale had been accomplished. At this very time,
there was much talk about English Opera, and Bennett
would naturally be expected by his London friends to
attempt success in the line which so many of his country-
men were following. In the summer of 1839, Coventry,
the publisher, drew up an agreement with him to purchase
the copyright of an Opera when composed, and the name
of a librettist is mentioned in the document.

No libretto ever reached Bennett, but it is unlikely that
he would be eager to see one. Attempts during the next
three years to establish English Opera in London met
with little success ; the ' books ' provided in those days by
English librettists would not appeal to him ; and, moreover,
he was not strongly drawn towards dramatic composition.

96 Composition in Portland Chambers [CH.

His thoughts were not much in theatres. His friends con-
sidered him illiberal in his attitude towards operatic music.
Davison dragged him off one night from Portland Chambers
to hear a French Opera, and was much annoyed because
no expression of opinion could be got out of him as they
walked home. ' You might say something one way or
another/ was Davison's last appeal, but there was no
response. John Ella remarked that his own appreciation
of 'the lighter wares of the French and Italian schools'
was not shared by Bennett, and wrote : ' Our countryman
is too rigid in his opinions on art to suit our views entirely.'
Though there was some want of sympathy with par-
ticular schools of music, Bennett was not really illiberal.
When he chose ' The Opera ' as the subject of a course of
lectures delivered later in life, he showed himself ready to
pay just tribute to Italian and French composers ; speaking
of Rossini as one of the greatest geniuses that the musical
world had ever known ; and of Boieldieu, Herold and
Auber as ' those three splendid men under whose influence
a School had arisen as new as it was beautiful, expressing
French feeling and temperament to the very letter.' But
any real interest in a theatre which he had allowed himself
to take in his earlier years, seemed afterwards to explain
itself as springing from his love for Mozart, and for Mozart's
Operas he certainly did retain not only a musical but a
theatrical regard, liking to recall his memories of them as
seen on the stage. He would, for instance, picture to him-
self the opening scene in // Seraglio, would hum the refrain
of the Air which Osmino sings in the fruit-tree, and would
then burst into laughter at Mozart's idea of making his own
lovely phrase the object of Belmonte's mockery. When he
talked of such things he would speak of his friends, the
Seguins, by whom, at one time of his Academy life, he had
been taken a good deal to the Opera. It was at their
house that he became acquainted with Michael Costa, who,
like the rest of the Seguin circle, admired the boy's render-
ing of the Operas on the piano. About the year 1870,
Mapleson, the manager of Her Majesty's Theatre, gave
Bennett a pressing invitation to write an Opera. He was
flattered and pleased, quoted the remark made by Sebastian
Bach under similar circumstances, but did not appear to

vii] At the Theatre 97

treat the matter in a serious light. He would often play
some attractive strains of melody and harmony, and then
say, as if in sport, ' That's the opening of my Opera ;' but
he had long learnt to take a lofty view of what was neces-
sary for the larger forms of art, and the last remark he
made upon the subject was, ' If I had been Mozart, I would
have written an Opera.'

One fact about him may have escaped the notice of his
opera-loving friends. Apart altogether from music, and,
perhaps, for no clearly defined reasons, he found the theatre
itself uncongenial with his feelings. On his German tours,
he heard for the first time, and recorded in his diaries the
pleasure which he, of course, felt in listening to the music
of such Operas as ' Alcestis,' 'II Seraglio' and ' Oberon.'
Yet it was from Germany, and in reference to attending
the Opera-houses there, that he wrote home in 1842: 'I
cannot bear theatres.' Sir Arthur Sullivan, when a boy,
often took supper at Bennett's house after a music-lesson,
and noticed with surprise that if he himself mentioned any-
thing in connection with a theatre, his master's manner at
once checked the subject. In after years, Bennett would
occasionally go, as if in duty bound, to hear a new Opera ;
but during the performance he would sit taciturn and moody,
and would be quite unlike himself. So also if he could be
persuaded to go to the play-house to see a popular comedy,
those who hoped for his being amused would be disap-
pointed. Once inside the theatre, he would relapse into
silence, could not enter into what was going on, or make
himself companionable. He had, perhaps, in some degree,
that puritanical objection to the stage which was still, in
his own generation, wide-spread in this country ; but he
did not himself give any clue to the cause of his dislike.

A correspondence in 1839 — 40 about Handel, kept him in
touch with Mendelssohn, who was then hoping to bring out
an edition of that master's Oratorios, with an added organ-
part, in order to facilitate their performance in Germany.
Bennett was asked to help by examining the manuscripts
in the Library of Buckingham Palace, and by undertaking
the not easy task of procuring copies of English editions.
Walsh's edition was out of print, and the plates were
scattered all over London. The letters which passed on

s. B. 7

98 Composition in Portland Chambers [CH.

this subject touched also a little on matters personal to the
writers. Bennett, however, was none too communicative
about himself. In October 1839, Mendelssohn, when
announcing the birth of a daughter, wrote : — ' I cannot begin
the letter immediately with Sampson1 and Handel, but rather
with my wife and children. * * * I know that you do
not only partake of my musical pleasures and sorrows, but
also of the domestic ones of which life and happiness de-
pends. I wish you could be with us and spend
some quiet evenings or breakfast-mornings with me and
have a chat about everything. Something at least you
ought to write me about yourself, your life and works in
your next letter ; you are so very " einsylbig" about all this,
in the last.' The Handelian researches, in which Bennett
was proud to take part, may have prompted him towards
sacred composition of his own, and early in the New Year,
1840, he wedged into a long letter about ' Samson/ a little
sentence about himself: — 'And now, my dear friend, I am
writing an Oratorio, and already have done a great deal
which I should like to show you, particularly a little Chorus
which I have this morning written. I assure you I want
some of your encouragement to make me prosper in such
an undertaking.'

The contemplated Oratorio was begun with no over-
weening confidence. ' God give me strength and health/ he
wrote to Kistner, ' and ideas to finish it/ He afterwards
referred to his studies, at this time, of the choral works of
the Great Masters, and in such occupation, as also in writ-
ing sacred music himself, hours were profitably spent to
future advantage ; but the Oratorio never saw the light.
This episode in his life is a little disappointing. If he could
have finished such a work in the fifteen months he first
assigned for it, and if the merit of the whole had been equal
to that of the part he did write, then, may-be, he would
have gained, early in life, wide repute in an Oratorio-loving
country. But to this particular project there was a draw-
back. He started on an insecure basis, without a fixed
libretto. Having chosen a symbolical subject with the title
of ' Zion/ he filled pages of a note-book with texts from the

1 Mendelssohn, in his letters, has liked occasionally to retain the spelling of
Handel's time.

vii] An Oratorio 99

prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, which he selected as
likely material ; but notwithstanding the assistance of a
scholarly friend, Dr Weil, no complete or definite design was
ever arrived at. By degrees, he wrote an introduction and
several numbers in connected sequence, whilst he appar-
ently trusted to the chance of his subject developing as his
work proceeded. With such indistinct purpose, progress
proved slow. Two or three years later he made a revised
edition of the completed part and was still adding to it.
He fully meant, sooner or later, to finish his task. He was
not the man to abandon lightly any intention once formed.
Indeed, this Oratorio, a string Quartet, and the work he
was engaged upon when death overtook him, are the only
examples of important undertakings left unfulfilled. ' Zion '
remained a hope until he found some of his subject em-
bodied in the work of another composer. An Oratorio
employing such texts as, ' The harvest is past, the summer
is ended,' and 'Zion spreadeth forth her hands,' could not
be continued after the appearance of ' Elijah.' He had the
satisfaction of hearing two of the shorter Choruses from
' Zion ' sung nearly thirty years after they were written. He
placed them in his later work, 'The Woman of Samaria,'
produced at Birmingham in 1867. One of them, in six
parts, was redemanded, on that occasion, by the President
of the Festival.

While sacred music was under consideration in Portland
Chambers, Friedrich Kistner of Leipzig was expecting new
works for publication. When fifteen months had passed
since Bennett's departure from Leipzig, he grew impatient,
and wrote in July, I84O1: — ' Though I received in due time
your favour of the 1 2th Feb., nevertheless I expected till here
but in vain the promised manuscrits, in consequence of which
I am really very much afflicted. All your friends here are
asking at least every weackfornewcompositionsfrom Bennett,
and you know that my shop is such a kind of musical parlor,
for there is the whole day a coming of musical men in order to
learn any news, and I am obliged allready since a very long
time to answer their askings, " there is a plenty of manuscrits
from our friend Bennett just now upon road," (but they never
arrive!). * * * As I am told by the newspapers that

1 The words are given here without emendation.

ioo Composition in Portland Chambers [CH.

the postage is now put at a lower rate in England, I shall
send you innumerous letters till I receive the promised
manuscrits — depend upon ! '

Kistner's entreaties were persistent, but, for the time
being, unavailing. With the exception of a ' Notturno ' for
the piano, afterwards called ' Genevieve,' the autograph of
which was reproduced in facsimile in the Allgemeine
Musikalisches Zeitung, Bennett parted with no music to a
publisher between his twenty-third and twenty-sixth birth-
days. This long silence set his German friends wondering,
and he had to attempt explanations. He could write of
works contemplated; but Kistner wanted to meet an immedi-
ate demand, and feared that the interest so far shown could
not be maintained without fresh material. Then Bennett
had to make excuses. To descriptions of festivals and
concerts in Germany, he replied, ' Oh, that I were there,'
and then went on to hint, as he could only do to a foreigner,
that his surroundings were not inspiriting. ' You know,'
he wrote (Feb. 12, 1840), 'what a dreadful place England
is for music ; and in London I have nobody whom I can
talk to about good things ; all the people here are mad with
Thalberg and Strauss, and I have not heard a single
symphony or overture in a Concert since last June.'

Out of harmony with prevailing musical tastes ; entirely
absenting himself, for instance, from the Italian Opera;
thinking it necessary, as he told Kistner, for his own pro-
gress in the right direction as a composer, to be very careful
what music he listened to ; and even avoiding conversation
and arguments on musical subjects with his more eclectic
companions, Bennett was drawn much within himself, and
found a solitary but safe refuge in his piano and his music-
books. In public life, even in by-ways, he was as yet little
wanted. Between his annual performances at the Philhar-
monic in 1839 and 1840, eleven months passed during which
he only took part in seven concerts. He conducted four,
with a small orchestra at the Marylebone Literary and
Scientific Institution, and played at three, two of which
were at Clapham and Stepney. To the paucity of such
engagements he does not refer in his correspondence. He
would not himself notice it. There was nothing different
to expect. Still, the fact remains that, except in his own

vn] Music in London 101

study, or while engaged with his few pupils, he was living
in a musical atmosphere which if not positively depressing
to him, certainly cannot have been exhilarating.

Music had no natural place in London. When the
coterie of wealthy persons who patronized it in the season
had dispersed, and the continental artists had gone away
with well-filled purses, music vanished too, or what was left
of it was too scattered to be noticeable. Then, till spring
returned, the few musical magazines that were printed,
having nothing of passing interest to report, filled their
columns with essays, biographies, and ' chit-chat from the
continent.' Music was for one section of society and did
not enter into the regular life of the Londoner. It might
cross his path occasionally; at the dance, at the public dinner
or other convivial meeting ; not much in church, for the
congregations of most London churches were vocally dumb,
and allowed four ladies and gentlemen in the organ-gallery
to act as their proxies. Jackson's ' Te Deum ' in F, sung
week after week by the hired quartet, represented to many
a Londoner the English School of Church music. There
were Cathedral Services ; but Ecclesiastics, timid of the
influence of music, withheld the means for its full support.
When, later, the choir at Westminster was strengthened,
Sydney Smith, as a Canon of St Paul's shrank from the
example. 'Cathedrals,' he wrote, 'are not to consider
themselves as rival opera-houses ; we shall come by and
bye to act Anthems. * * * It is a matter of perfect
indifference to me whether Westminster bawls louder than
St Paul's1.'

When Bennett first went to Germany, he must have
been prepared to find music more widely cultivated there
than in England, but room was left for surprise at the
extent of the difference. In letters home, he noted the
contrast between the two nations in the amount of respect
shown to the art by intellectual people, and he also observed
that in Germany a love for it in its more advanced forms,
was to be found in all classes. On the evening when he
made his debdt at Leipzig, he espied the man who blacked
the boots at his lodgings, sitting in the gallery of the

1 From letter, — in possession of J. S. Bumpus, Esq., — dated Aug. 21, 1844, to
W. Hawes, Master of the choristers then 8 only in number.

IO2 Composition in Portland Chambers [CH.

Gewandhaus, and in conversation next morning discovered
that this humble individual looked forward to a Symphony-
concert as an occasional treat. Such revelations were
heart- warming, though they brought jealousy as well, to an
E nglish musician. I n this country, anyone holding such views
as Bennett did, moved amongst his fellow-creatures, both
at this time and for many years to come, painfully conscious
that the art he venerated was for the majority non-existent,
and was by many, even by those of the highest culture,
treated with brusqueness as the mere adjunct to cere-
mony, or despised as a frivolous pastime. In the best
literature of the day, if music was noticed at all, such notice
was seldom to its advantage.

That a dull artistic environment could tend to crush a
musical spirit, is a theory which claims passing notice, for
though it is too vague to be much pressed here, Bennett
advanced it again later, and did so at a time when he was
not excusing himself to a publisher. He was, however, no
great grumbler. If, in after life, as for instance in lectures,
he said anything about his own country, it was always rather
to defend it as a musical nation, and to speak of progress
witnessed in his own time ; or if in conversation he became
more critical, it would, at any rate, only be of the existing
state of music that he would talk, and not of how that
affected the musician or himself.

Of London, as a place of residence, he was a true lover.
He could enjoy the bustle of its busy streets, and the beauty
of its out-lying districts. When he could take Kistner to
Richmond, or Marschner to 'The Spaniards' at Hampstead,
then he was the proud Londoner. In his older age, he went
so far as to say that he thought he could compose better in
London than elsewhere. ' In the country,' he added, 'com-
position generally ends in taking a walk.'

The excuses sent to Kistner from Portland Chambers
came to an end, and he said at last : ' I can hardly tell you
the reason why you have not received anything from me to
publish, although I still say that I have plenty on hand for
you.' The question which he thus gave up trying to answer,
thenceforward became a crux to others than himself; for
notwithstanding the great facility for composition which the
friends of his youth thought he had shown at the Academy,

vn] Sanguine Friends 103

notwithstanding Schumann's impression that he could
' accomplish anything with sportive ease,' Bennett was not
to be a voluminous composer. Davison could point to
movements of Symphonies which had been written in
Tenterden Street currente calamo and without premedita-
tion, but Bennett himself, if such facility were referred to in
after years, would then shake his head in disapproval, and
he once said that he could only compare the production of
a composition to the acutest form of bodily pain.

Much was expected from him, more indeed than he
seems to have felt he had the power to accomplish. A little
later than the time now under notice, he was again in Ger-
many and was writing home letters to his future wife. He
then dwelt upon the difficulty he foresaw in satisfying these
expectations of others. Referring to the anxieties of an art-
career, he wrote : — ' I should be very ungrateful to complain,
for I am sure no one ever went through life, as far as I have
gone, meeting with more kindness and encouragement ; but
the difficulty is to answer the hopes of one's friends, who
are always too sanguine.' He recurs to this point more
than once in the same correspondence: — 'This year (1842)
I must do a good deal, for my too sangidne friends are
expecting much from me, and I must not totally dis-
appoint them.' Then he wrote again : — ' You will hear
many people speak of me in different ways, some of my
most sanguine friends will say much more than is proper for
you or myself to believe, and others will (as a kind of
balance) abuse me more than perhaps I may deserve. I
trust you will believe that I am neither on the one hand too
much excited or satisfied, nor on the other likely to be
depressed or discouraged.'

He used to say that a composer should never allow
himself to write below his proper level ; that, if he did so,
his reputation would be more likely to rest on his bad work
than on his good ; that one single careless publication might
rise up in judgment against him hereafter, and utterly con-
demn him. These were his views. They may read like
truisms, but they were not accepted as such by many of his
time. There was to some the temptation, to others perhaps
the necessity, of making a little money, which was quite as
easy, or indeed easier to find by common-place work.

IO4 Composition in Portland Chambers [CH.

Bennett, as an artist, never succumbed to the temptation
of money ; nor did any wish for popularity or publicity
prompt him to swerve from the narrow path which seemed
to him to lead to the ideal.

He became very cautious. That can be noticed in him
as soon as he returned from Germany, after his first visit,
when he may have realized that the Germans set a higher
value upon him, than he had hitherto placed upon himself.
On his way home in 1837, he was detained at Mainz, and
wrote thence to Kistner, that he was spending the time in
reading German poetry, and would send him some songs
soon after he got back to England. At the end of the year
he wrote that he had composed twelve, and would send them
over at the first opportunity. He always afterwards said, that
what with finding words with which he thought he could deal,
and then finding appropriate music which had at the same
time some independent interest of its own, song-writing
had been to him more difficult than any other form of
composition. From the day that he first wrote to Kistner
on the subject of songs, though he kept alluding to it in
further letters as being still in his mind, it took him just five
years before he could, after much consideration, selection,
and rejection, hand his first set of six songs to his publisher.
It was, perhaps, a wiser mode of proceeding than if he had
issued sixty and left it to the public to make its own selection.
Some may see in this a diffidence or a delay and therewith
find fault, but others may see a constraint which they
can commend. At all events, the songs themselves, when
they did appear, were thought very satisfactory.

He wrote a Pianoforte Trio in 1 839, which was fated to be
a good deal played in the future, and to find many admirers.
By its simplicity and comparative brevity it illustrates, as
some of his later works also do, his desire to keep in what
he deemed his proper place, and to avoid entering the lists
with the greatest masters. Of this work he wrote to
Kistner : — ' It is rather small, and only fit for Kammer-
Musik, * * * one movement I hope you will like
better than anything I have done.' Then the diffidence,
or the caution, appears again. He played the Trio in public
the year after it was written, and promised to send it to
Leipzig for publication, but he could not make up his mind.

vn] Works issued sparingly 105

1 You are keeping what you do,' Kistner then wrote, 'a secret
between yourself and your London friends.' Letters show
that the manuscript was constantly on the point of starting,
but it did not set out for six years.

Davison, when he became a musical critic, often found
fault with what he called Bennett's ' want of productivity.'
' We have no patience with it/ he once wrote, ' whatever the
cause may be ;' but with the cause he did not deal, though he
had been in as good a position as anyone to fathom it. He
ended by saying that the matter had always been a puzzle
to him for which he could find no solution. When Bennett,
in course of years, became busily occupied in other direc-
tions, it was generally assumed that there was not enough
time left for composing, and he would sometimes himself
say so. Dr John Hullah, for one, thought that ' the curse
of English music, pianoforte-teaching ' must be held respon-
sible. But Bennett's heavy work did not fall to his lot till
his thirtieth year was passed, and this slow production was
noticed long before that time. There is no period of his life
at which it comes clearer to view than in these early days at
Portland Chambers, when for two-thirds of each year he was
not giving, on the average, more than six lessons a week ;
and yet his compositions came no more quickly then, than
they did later, when he was in full work as a teacher, and
was also discharging the duties of public appointments.

If one may now anticipate and take his life as a whole,
there was a rate at which he issued his works, which, though
slow as compared with that of other composers, was so
nearly uniform as to suggest that it was regulated by some
natural law within himself, and that it was not, in the long
run, much influenced by outside circumstances. Through-
out life, in his career as a composer, and as if in fulfilment
of Schumann's prediction, ' a genuine and deeply-feeling
poet' he pursued 'his peaceful way.' His progress was not
always visible, but it was not a case of the slumbering hare ;
sure steps were being taken towards a goal ; and in the
end, for Bennett endured to the end, he left behind him
a set of works representative of many departments of com-
position, the catalogue of which is as neatly moulded in
form, as are the items themselves which it includes. Forty-
two works, many of them in small dimensions, written in

io6 Composition in Portland Chambers [en.

forty-two years, were not enough to keep him, during his
life-time, in that continual evidence which others desired ;
but looking back through the vista, there are no prominent
gaps in the sequence of production, and the total amount
of work left may be taken as characteristic of a man always
trying to assess his gifts at their true value, and to use
them in some due proportion to their nature and extent.
Surely, if not among musicians, then among poets, some
parallel case to Bennett's can be found. It has been
suggested to the writer that Bennett was 'the Gray of
music.'

He had a kind of unwillingness to commit his ideas to
paper. He explained this by saying that when once written
down they became stereotyped in his mind, and that then
revision proved to him a matter of great difficulty. Re-
vision, in his case, had to be done before the pen was
touched. Up to his thirtieth year, he did make new
editions of some of his manuscripts, but where comparison
with the older ones is possible, the alterations seen are in
points of orchestration rather than in the music itself.
Later works he did not alter, and, even in the course of
first writing them, he made few erasures or changes of in-
tention, such as may be seen in the manuscripts of other
composers of his time. He once saw a student working
at a harmony-exercise with a pencil and india-rubber, and
he objected saying, ' No, you must use ink, and get the
habit of making up your mind, before you write anything
down.' He himself often spent a great deal of time in
making up his mind before he wrote anything down, and
the hours he gave to composition, or to attempts at compo-
sition, cannot be measured by the amount of music-paper
he filled. In his later life, those who had the opportunity
of being much near him, of sitting by his side in his
carriage as he went long distances to his pupils, of taking
silent walks with him, and of spending country holidays in
his company, cannot but retain the opinion that few con-
secutive hours passed, without his brain being hard at
work on its musical imaginings, and this no doubt had
always been the case.

Mrs Meredith, the housekeeper at Portland Chambers,
afterwards kept a lodging-house of her own, and Bennett

vii] Selection of subjects 107

would recommend it as a residence for musical students.
When he became Principal of the Academy, she liked to
talk of him to a younger generation, and to tell how fre-
quently, on opening the front door, she had discovered
him in a state of trance, and had watched him, as he passed
her without notice and walked mechanically to his room ;
but to this she would add, that, when he came to himself
and could not remember having seen her, he always came
down and made her a pretty apology. Frequent fits of
a complete abstraction, which would sometimes seize him
quite suddenly, changing the one man so wide-awake and
full of observation, into another whom nothing could disturb,
told those who watched him that Bennett was at work, and
gave them the impression of an industrious composer.

He did not, however, readily accept the thoughts passing
through his brain. Nor did he often get, according to his
own statement, an idea that would give him the impulse,
or justification, for starting a composition. Here he may
have been too critical, for it is well-known that some of
his best music came to him when he was writing under
pressure, and when, to bystanders, no difficulty in evoking
it was noticeable. Still, when left to himself, he took full
advantage of freedom of choice. How far he succeeded in
finding fresh or striking openings for the principal move-
ments of his compositions is not to be said here, but the
point was certainly one that he kept in view. All his com-
position-pupils at the Academy have remembered the advice
he gave them on this subject ; how he would say that the
works of the Great Masters could be identified by the first
sound heard, whether a chord or a single note, and how he
would give them many startling examples. An eminent
German Capellmeister, who was staying at his house and
heard him enunciate this theory, was sceptical, but it only
took Bennett two or three minutes to convert him. It
became, at one time, a favourite diversion of his, when he
had musical friends around him, to go to the piano to play
such an opening chord or note, and ask the name of the
work ; but he liked, in turn, to be tested himself, and his
answers would come like lightning.

In the case of his own compositions, which it is perhaps
needless to say were not introduced in his musical game,

io8 Composition in Portland Chambers [CH.

he took no credit for the principal ideas or subjects. A
remark he made more than once was that they came ' at
such strange times ; ' and then he would go on to say, that
it had always been a little bit of a mystery where they
came from and why they should come to him. The duty
of choosing from them was felt to be his own, and he took
it seriously. In his very last days, when he was sitting in
his garden at St John's Wood, he said, not in conversation,
but as if the result of a train of thought had, without his
knowing it, escaped his lips : — ' My life has been spent in
rejecting musical ideas.' He said this very gravely, in no
tone that could be taken to imply regret, but rather re-
signation, and as if he were preparing for the day when he
would be called upon to answer for the use of his talents.

This brief summary of his own life, as given by himself,
and to himself, in the hour of self-examination, seems to
show him regarding composition, or the preparation for
composition, as having been one of his most engrossing
occupations. The narrative of his active life will not, of
itself, give sufficient evidence of this. Much else he did,
as the sequel will certainly show, for the sake of music
other than his own. Even as a composer, he did much
besides rejecting ideas. But the reader will now have,
in advance, some explanation, and that partly from his
own words, why in many pages of this story his work
as a composer will be lost to view.

When Kistner could not get what he wanted from
Portland Chambers, he ventured, in one letter, to ask his
young friend, 'Is idleness the cause?' Here one may
borrow from Mr Holdsworth and reply that there was no
idleness at the Chambers ' in the ordinary sense of the
word.' Bennett besides being a composer and a teacher
was also a pianist, and that demanded a great deal. His
friends have vouched for his industry ; they even com-
plained of it at the time, because it was the cause of their
seeing so little of him. An outer baize-covered door pro-
tected his room, and no amount of knocking would unearth
him. He was known to be within, because the piano was
in incessant use. He was described by his friend John Jay,
one of those who had reason to remember ' Bennett's
knocker,' as having been 'a slave to the pianoforte.' Yet

vn] Birmingham and Hull 109

there was little outside encouragement to such devotion,
three years passing while only four invitations to play at
important concerts arrived.

Summer months of 1840 found him in constant at-
tendance at the sick-bed of an old school-fellow, George
Richards, a poor young violinist befriended by Coventry
who was always ready to turn his house in Dean Street
into a hospital. Three years before this, Bennett had
dedicated 'Three Impromptus' as a tribute of affection to
W. P. Beale, an esteemed pianist, then being nursed by
Coventry in an illness, which, like that of Richards, proved
fatal. When it is seen later that Bennett's business rela-
tions with Coventry as a publisher turned out unsatisfactory,
it will be understood why he was ready to sacrifice a good
deal out of gratitude for the kindness which he, like others,
had met with from the warm-hearted ' little man of Dean
Street.'

In the autumn of 1840, Bennett went to Birmingham
to hear the ' Lobgesang,' and on September 3Oth had the
pleasure of welcoming the composer to Portland Chambers,
Mendelssohn inscribing the address and date on a set of
his own Overtures. A few days later Bennett was writing
to Carl Voigt : — ' I have had a very happy time at Birming-
ham with Mendelssohn and his " Lobgesang." What a
wonderful thing ! * * I hope to come to Leipzig next
year, and be happy once more.'

In October 1849, Sir George Smart introduced the
Overture, ' The Wood-nymphs,' at the Hull Festival,
urging the band at the rehearsal to particular effort, as
' it was seldom that a native work found place on the
programmes of similar musical gatherings.' As to the
result, Sir George wrote to Bennett that ' the audience
evinced their good taste by silence during the performance,
and by loud and deserved applause after it.' The mention
of silence by one with such experience of musical perform-
ance, towards the close of a long career as a Conductor, is
interesting. The notion that instrumental music was placed
on miscellaneous programmes for the sake of resting the
singers, and of relaxing the prolonged attention of the
audience, was very prevalent in England. Sir George
Smart was probably noting the advent of a novel interest.

1 10 Composition in Portland Chambers [CH.

One day, Davison found on a book-stall a dilapidated
piece of music, shorn of its title-page, and without trace of
its author's name. He took it home, called a council, and
was much interested to hear Bennett's reasons for dis-
missing, one after another, suggested composers. It was
at last admitted that there must be some remarkable
writer of pianoforte music who was unknown to Portland
Chambers. On reference elsewhere, the piece was recog-
nized as a Sonata by the lamented young Pinto. This
was the musician to whom, thirty years after his death,
J. B. Cramer found in Bennett the first young Englishman
worthy to be a successor1. The tattered Sonata was soon
reprinted in the ' Classical Practice ' series, and it headed
the programme of a unique concert which Bennett, assisted
by other pianists, gave in 1841 in Coventry's rooms,
' hoisting the banner of classical sonatas,' — as an enthusiastic
correspondent of The Musical World put it, — 'and entering
upon a crusade against all manufacturers of fantasias, etc.'

Played by

Sonata, A ma., Op. 3 W. S. Bennett Pinto.

E flat, 'Les Adieux' R. Barnett Beethoven.

B mi., Op. 40 W. S. Bennett dementi.

A mi Cipriani Potter Mozart.

G ma., Op. 35 W. Dorrell Dussek.

Ctf mi., Op. 27 W. S. Bennett Beethoven.

If solo Sonatas were ever meant for public performance,
the occasions on which they had been so used in this
country must have been very rare for many years previous
to the date of this little manifesto. At any rate, it is not
easy to find them on programmes given in musical journals.
When recalling these bachelor days, Bennett's friends one
and all remembered his useless and aggravating- knocker.
They would then go on to give a reminiscence of a contrary
kind. On his birthdays, four of which were passed in
Portland Chambers, the baize-door was thrown wide open,
Davison's rooms were annexed, and in imitation of the
happy day on which he had come of age at Leipzig, he held
high festival. William Dorrell, in his old age, still talked
of this. 'Everybody,' he would say, 'remembered April
1 3th.' 'We all went,' wrote Grattan Cooke, 'whether we

1 See p. 39. Cramer's remark was handed down by Davison.

vn] Birthday-Parties 1 1 1

were invited or not.' It was a merry gathering of old
school-fellows round one who later proved himself, and was
perhaps already, the focus of Academy 'esprit de corps.'
Among these early friends were some who were ever ready
to show their personal devotion to Bennett by loyally
assisting him in serious projects of later life ; but there is
a time for work and a time for play, and April i3th was
reserved for the latter.

Grattan Cooke, the well-known oboist, would be quite
in his element. He was a good 'entertainer,' a rapid pen-
and-ink caricaturist, and humorous even to a fault. The
tales of his ludicrous behaviour in an orchestra are many.
At rehearsals he was uncontrollable. One day he left his
place, and was next seen struggling up the concert-room
with a long ladder. He had resented the introduction of
a very high note for his oboe in a new composition, and
had gone for assistance to enable him to reach it. Bennett
had a favourite tale of Cooke calling out to Platt, the horn-
player, who had failed in one or two attempts at an awkward
passage, ' Try it from the other end, Platt ! ' When telling
stories of Academy life, Bennett would imitate the young
oboist busily plying his fingers on his instrument, but
also using any moment at which his right hand was dis-
engaged, to manipulate the double-bass pegs, temptingly
within his reach, to the mystification of the player on the
lower tier of the stage.

Another birthday guest was Adolfo Ferrari, the son
of eminent musical parents, who had begun life as
a surgeon, but had soon exchanged, as he would say,
'healing for howling,' had entered the Academy, had thence
gone to Italy where he appeared with success as an opera-
singer, and afterwards for many years resided in the house
of the great singing-master Crivelli, acting as his assistant-
professor. He was full of fun and frolic, and many a bright
hour did Bennett, in the course of thirty years to come,
pass with his dear friend ' Ferry.' Ferrari was one who
continued to keep Bennett's birthdays in observance, and
in later years would spend weeks beforehand in preparing
his annual gift ; at one time turning, after repeated failures,
a baton light and slender enough to suit his friend's taste, —
it was used to conduct the Philharmonic Concerts for many

1 1 2 Composition in Portland Chambers [CH.

seasons ; — and at another time training, to execute pretty
cadenzas, a young parrot which, in due course, became
attached to Bennett, learnt to echo his laugh in a sweet
sotto voce, and, in the end, pined rapidly away, refusing all
food after its master's death.

Another comrade, a very serious musician, but also an
amateur 'entertainer,' was Robert Barnett, who by a com-
bination of drollery, nervousness, and beautiful pianism had
the characteristics of a John Parry. But John Parry him-
self may have been of the party, for he was an old Academy
student, knew and appreciated Bennett, and assigned him
a place of honour in a comic song, by the side of Thalberg
and Liszt, as one of those composers with whose music the
over-taxed young lady of the boarding-school would have
to struggle before she could pass out as ' finished.'

' The birthday entertainment,' according to Sir George
Macfarren, ' beginning with a breakfast party and lasting
all day, was most convivial, he (Bennett) having that excel-
lent quality in a host of setting each of his guests to say
or do something which would show him to best advantage.'
Bennett had his own little ' show ' of conjuring tricks with
accompanying narrative, and character-sketches, with which
he could bring down the house at the Leipzig parties, and
which he enjoyed exhibiting occasionally, in domestic circles,
throughout his life. An effective spur to the merriment of
others was his own laughter. ' Have you seen Bennett
laugh ? ' was a question put by Signer Ferrari, in later years,
to Miss Frances Cox, when she had recently become Bennett's
pupil. The sound of his laugh ' gleeful and childlike/ as
Miss Bettina Walker has described it, had great musical
charm ; but the eye was also attracted, not alone to his
face which glistened with gaiety and sometimes bore a
pretty sly look, but also to his figure, which the laugh
permeated, his whole frame vibrating, though without con-
tortion, whilst, as if to control himself, he would pass his
arm rapidly to and fro across his back, then press one hand
firmly to his forehead, and finally interlocking the two
hands would rub them together lengthways with great
vivacity, till the fun seemed to escape through his wide
finger-tips. At all times of his life he could, when in the
vein, keep a small company of intimate friends at a high

vn] Suspense 113

pitch of mirth for hours together, and without effort. It
was not always, at the end, that anything he had said could
be remembered to account for this ; but the fact was that,
with all his seriousness, he never lost the naivete of child-
hood, and therein lay the secret of the fascination which
held those, and they were many, who delighted to be the
companions of his play-hours.

The spring of 1841 brought Ferdinand David again to
London. In the summer Count Reuss came over and
spent some time with Bennett. Then the latter became
drawn again to Leipzig, and determined to set out in
October to spend the winter there, and to get, as he wrote,
' a new spirit and enthusiasm, not to be found in England'
Where he could look for the means to do this, unless
perhaps, through the offer of some generous friend, cannot
be conjectured. There was not much winter work to leave
behind, and he arranged that a brother professor should
take his private pupils during his absence.

Now, however, came another interest which could
compete even with Leipzig. His journey was postponed,
and he continued to take his class at the Academy till
Christmas. He had found a new tie to his old home in
Tenterden Street in the person of Miss Mary Wood, who
was residing there to study under Mrs Anderson, and who
was a very bright and charming girl in her seventeenth
year. It was at one of the subscription Balls which Lord
Burghersh used to arrange for the financial benefit of the
Academy, that ' soft eyes looked love to eyes that spake
again ; ' but Bennett could only be sure of his own feeling
and courtship was at the time impossible. One or two
Academy concerts gave opportunity for presence in the
same room, and for exchanging a few words about musical
studies ; but that was all, and Bennett wrote afterwards of
' a miserable half-year of suspense ' while waiting till the
Christmas holidays would give him the chance of taking
a bold step, with doubtful hope, and of learning his fate.
He had not miscalculated. Lady Thompson (then Miss
Kate Loder), who had invited Miss Wood to spend part
of the same holidays in Bath, remembered the pride and
pleasure with which her young friend and fellow-student
confided to her that she was the object of Bennett's choice.

s. B. 8

ii4 Composition in Portland Chambers [CH. vn

Thus accepted ; having obtained the consent of Miss
Wood's mother to a correspondence ; armed with manu-
scripts for the encounter with Herr Kistner ; as the year
1841 closed, Bennett, in the highest of spirits, was on his
way to Germany, directing his first steps to Cassel, in order
to introduce himself to Louis Spohr, at that time the
acknowledged ' doyen ' of German composers.

CHAPTER VIII.

HESSE-CASSEL, LEIPZIG, BERLIN.

Jan. — March, 1842.
act. 25.

IN this chapter use is made of a series of very long
letters written by Bennett to his future wife. In after-life
she was on the point of destroying them ; she had already
torn one or two of them in shreds, when, sacrificing her
own feelings, — for they belonged to her ' love-letters,' — she
stayed her hand, tacitly sanctioning thereby the purpose to
which they are now put. If Bennett, for a time, seems to
be talking more about himself than usual, it must be re-
membered to whom he was writing. In fifty-six quarto
pages of minute handwriting closely wire-woven with
crossing, the passages here given are but an infinitesimal
part of the whole and have in their original place no ap-
pearance of egotism. So, too, in a journal kept at the
same time, the accounts of his own musical doings are none
too prominent amid descriptions of the places he visited
and of the people, other than musical, whom he came across.

English musicians of his generation did not often see
one of their number starting on an artistic expedition to
a foreign country. His associates did not allow the oc-
casion to pass without some demonstration of interest. He
thus described his departure from London to Miss Wood :
' As soon as I had finished my letter (on Thursday last)
to you, I started for the Coach office in Regent St. where
I found many Academy friends, including Dorrell, Patey,
Smith, Goodban, Dunsford &c. I took leave of Dorrell
there, and Dunsford and Patey rode on with me towards

n6 Hesse-C asset > Leipzig, Berlin [CH.

the Elephant and Castle where I, to my astonishment,
found my faithful friend Dorrell again. He had taken
a cab and got there before we did. You can't tell how
that pleased me ! The three then rode with me a long
way further, and we had a long farewell while the coach
was being properly packed. However, I was obliged to
say Good-bye at last and took my place inside the coach.
We were thirteen hours getting to Dover ! '

The journey from London to Cassel, which, by way of
Calais, was a little over 600 miles, had still to be taken, for
the greater part of the way, under old-fashioned circum-
stances. A third of the distance could now be traversed
by train, — this was new to Bennett, — from Ostend to Li6ge,
and again from Aix to Cologne, at a speed of nearly fourteen
miles an hour. But coach, boat, and diligences over the
other 400 miles reduced the average rate, whilst actually
on the move, to 7 miles an hour. Then again the journey
could not be continuous, and though Bennett at each stage
took the next available conveyance he spent five-and-a-half
days in reaching Cassel. There were exciting moments on
the way. A night- ride between Liege and Aix, 'in a horrid
diligence at four miles an hour,' kept the travellers in
a constant state of alarm. It was mid- winter ; the roads
were covered with frozen snow ; many steep hills lay in the
track ; the vehicle was top-heavy with luggage. Accident
seemed, at every turn, inevitable. The crisis came when,
on a narrow bridge, the coach-wheels stuck fast in a rut.
The passengers, expecting to be hurled into the depths
below, clamoured to be let out. The conductor insisted
on their keeping their seats while the diligence was being
jerked into position. There was no catastrophe, but Bennett
on arriving at Cologne wrote : ' I assure you we (the pas-
sengers) considered ourselves very lucky to get over this
part of our journey.' A final ride of thirty-five hours
covered the distance, via Frankfort, between Cologne and
Cassel.

[Journal] ' Romischer Kaiser, Hesse-Cassel, 3 o'clock
Mittwoch, Jan. 5, 1842. * * * On my arrival here [at
9 a.m.], immediately sent my cards to Spokr, Hauptmann,
Madame de Malzburg, and Frank Mori. * * * I received
messages from all. * * * Since dinner have paid my visit

vin] With Spohr 1 1 7

to Spohr, who has always been represented to me as a cold,
haughty person, but whom, I am proud to say, I found quite
the reverse. He has a very pretty little house all to
himself, in a little garden, and as soon as I entered I heard
the violin going, but found that it was a pupil playing;
he received me very kindly ; talked with him about his
new Symphony which we are to have at the Philharmonic
this next Season, and other matters. * * To-morrow
evening I shall hear under his direction " The Templar
and the Jewess" of Marschner, though, as he told me, he
wished me to hear "Fidelio" which was to have been

fiven, but in consequence of the illness of one of the
ingers [was] postponed ; he received the message to this
effect whilst I was with him, and the coolness with which
these Germans take these matters perfectly astonishes an
Englishman, at least it does me. Now I only want to see
Cherubim, and I shall know the only three great men left in
our Art, viz. Spohr, Mendelssohn and Cherubini.
Wednesday night, 1 1 o'clock. Have been to the concert
given by Frank Mori this evening, and met Spohr there,
who introduced me to his wife with whom and himself I sat
the whole evening. * * * Talked a great deal with Spohr
about musical matters, about his Symphony in D minor
(which I like better than anything of his) and which he told
me he wrote twenty years ago in London. * * * '

'Jan. jth. * * Went last evening to the theatre,
which is a very nice building but like all German Theatres
very badly lighted. * * :: I was in the stalls behind the
Orchestra, and between the acts Spohr came and talked to
me about the Music and situations of the performers in the
Orchestra. The Stringed instruments are all on one side
and the Wind instruments on the other ; the Basses in the
centre. I only wish our Wind instruments in England
would play as well in tune as they do here. The singing
was not good. I wonder our English singers do not learn
German and travel, I am sure they would have great
success.'

On January 8, he wrote to Miss Wood : — ' There is
here a Madame de Malzburg, one of the aristocracy of
Hesse-Cassel, who is a great friend of mine, and plays my
Sketches by memory and other things, * * * and last

ii8 Hesse-Cassel, Leipzig, Berlin [CH.

evening I made my first appearance in Cassel at a large
party in her house. Spohr was there and got up one of
his double Quartetts for me to hear, he also played one
of his single Quartetts. I never heard such playing in my
life. He is now nearly sixty years old, but has the greatest
energy. I promised him in the morning that I would play
and I found the parts of my Caprice in my portmanteau, so
I took that and trusted to my memory for the Pianoforte
part. You would have pitied me if you had seen the
curious Pianoforte I had to play on, and I had not touched
one since I left London. However I knew it was no time
to make apologies, and off I started with everybody round
the instrument. Something made me very determined, and
I got through with capital success. They would not let
me get up from the Pianoforte, and I must now play, " Der
See, Der Miihlbach, und die Quelle," which is in English,
"The Lake, The Millstream and the Fountain." The
young ladies play these little sketches here, and so Spohr
said to me, " They all play them differently, and now you
must settle the point ; " and then after I had played them,
there was a great uproar. After supper, once more the
ladies begged Spohr to ask me to play again, I played
them my " Allegro Grazioso " and one of Mrs Anderson's
pieces1. * * * Altogether it was perhaps the most gratify-
ing time I ever spent in my life, and I only looked round
the room for my Mary Wood to make my happiness
complete.'

'Jan. qt/i [letter continued]. * * * I have been re-
ceived here by the musical people like a Prince ; when I go
to the theatre Spohr leans over the Orchestra and talks
to me as if I were his son. He paid me yesterday his visit
at my Hotel but I was unfortunately not at home ; he sent
me, however, a note, inviting me to tea at his house and
afterwards he took me to a Society, or kind of Club, of
which he is a member, where I found many people smoking
pipes and playing cards (in the German fashion). I was
obliged also (only imagine) to play three games of billiards
with him, and had the pleasure of being very well beaten
by him, although I managed to win one game. I afterwards

1 Mrs Anderson had accepted the dedication of his ' Suite de Pieces,' a
work recently written.

vni] Spohr s Kindness 119

supped with him at the same place as his guest, and he
brought me home again, and in all respects he has behaved
to me as if I were really his son. He talks to me about
music as if I knew as much about it as he did. * * *
To-night I think I shall go and spend the evening at
Madame de Malzburg's. * * Yesterday I found on her
pianoforte my three diversions which she played with me
uncommonly well. There was also a volume on the piano-
forte with Bennett on the back. All these things make me
very vain, and I must get back to England to bring me to
myself again.'

[Journal.] 'Jan.ioth. Paid my Abschieds- Visit to Spohr
this morning and stayed nearly an hour with him. He has
behaved all the time I have been here with the greatest
kindness, and I wont forget it hastily. * * * Afterwards
went to my favourite Madame de Malzburg, whom I like
very much indeed and I never met a more amiable lady
in my life. They want me to come back this way and
I will if I can. Mr K. supped with me this evening and
talked about Theory and Counterpoint enough to serve
half-a-dozen Academies. I must not forget to mention
that the Austrian Ambassador sent me a most polite
message to spend the evening at his house, but I declined
as I had to send my luggage to the Post-office and had no
coat to go in. * * * I am now going to bed, and start
to-morrow morning at half-past five. I cannot however
close this book without a most grateful feeling for the great
kindness I have experienced during the few days I have
been in Cassel, and I shall always retain the most pleasant
recollections of my visit.'

'God save Spohr, Mdme de Malzburg, &c. &c. &c.'

Bennett remained, throughout life, 'constant in his loyalty
to Spohr, always maintaining that the Cassel composer, when
at the zenith of his powers, had written music which gave
him a right of succession in the dynasty of Great Masters.
In forming such an opinion, Bennett was not conscious of
deriving any assistance from the comparison of one com-
poser with another ; for he regarded the rare mastery which
attests greatness as an absolute quality, and used to say
that it was far too pronounced in the individual who

I2O Hesse-Cassel, Leipzig, Berlin [CH.

possessed it to allow of any uncertainty in recognising it.
He strongly resented any discussion upon the relative
eminence of the great men who had in their turn helped
to raise the edifice of Music ; so that all there is to say
with certainty about his estimate of Spohr is that he placed
him in a first class, that class being one within which, in
his opinion, no order of merit was feasible. He wrote,
however, in reference to the great musicians : — ' I do not
confound genius with mastery ; ' and he may possibly have
valued Spohr for what he called ' mastery ' rather than for
what he called 'genius.' He certainly thought him a great
master of orchestration, especially admiring him as one
who could, when he chose to use his means frugally, lay
them out to the best advantage. In a lecture at Cambridge,
in 1871, after quoting Mozart's G minor Symphony as an
example of marvellous power and pathos displayed with
sparing use of instruments, he next put forward the score
of Spohr's ' Scena Cantante ' as a study of modesty with
grandeur. His mention of these two composers in such
close sequence, though it only refers to a single trait which
he recognised in both, is of itself sufficient to give some
notion of his respect for Spohr's mastery. But he was no
blind hero- worshipper. He did not consider a Great Master
outside the pale of reverent criticism, nor did he think that
a Master had his genius perpetually within call. One day
he had been studying a newly-arrived instalment of the
Leipzig edition of Bach's works, and as he gently placed
the volume in his book-case he sighed and said, ' Very dis-
appointing.' Such a man was not likely to be afflicted with
musical manias, and the violent mania raging at one time
in this country for Spohr's choral music, and more especially
for that which he wrote in his declining years, only affected
Bennett in so far that he thought it had done Spohr harm.
When the reaction came, he would say angrily that the
English people had got tired of Spohr, because they had
only admired his defects. It was not, however, the populace
alone who were fickle to Spohr. Bennett lived to notice
with pain some apostasy among musicians who in earlier
days had been the composer's adherents, and he did not
understand turncoats. In one of his letters to Mendelssohn,
he asserted of himself that he was never liable to hasty im-

vin] Fidelity to Spohr 121

pressions, but that he could not forget anything that had
once gone to his heart. He was not then referring to
music, but his constancy as a musician was very marked,
and a particular instance of it may be seen in his attachment
to Spohr's D minor Symphony, the work to which he gave
a preference in his Cassel diary. He seized opportunities
of reviving it at his own orchestral concerts in London.
As soon as he became one of the Philharmonic Directors,
the Symphony after long neglect immediately reappeared on
the Society's programmes. The same thing happened, many
years later, when he was appointed the Society's conductor.
Mr Paul David, who, during the last ten years of Bennett's
life, was intimately acquainted with him, has written of the
same Symphony : — ' It was a favourite work of Sterndale
Bennett, who was never tired of humming its spirited and
melodious themes1.' Sir George Grove, when recalling the
last occasion on which he had met Bennett, said, 'He talked
to me of Spohr's Symphony in D minor.'

In his work as a pianist and pianoforte-teacher, Bennett
could not offer the same liege service to Spohr as to other
great musicians. It was probably this disability which led
him to take every chance of expressing his respect by word
of mouth. Chary as he was of conversation on musical
subjects, whenever Spohr's name was mentioned in his
presence he would always open his lips, and give some
token of his fidelity. He certainly kept the promise which
he made to himself in Cassel, not to forget hastily Spohr's
personal kindness to him.

He left Cassel at 5.30 a.m. on Jan. 11. After 'a cold
langweiliche Reise ' he reached Leipzig at 2 p.m. next day,
and took up his quarters at the Hotel de Baviere. Within
an hour of his arrival, Kistner, David, Verhulst, Monicke,
and Schumann had been to see him. Two Cambridge
undergraduates, H. H. Pearson and Novelli, whom he
already knew, arrived from Dresden the same afternoon.
Mdlle Meerti, the singer engaged for the winter season
at the Gewandhaus, was staying in the Hotel, and sent
down a note to solicit his help at a concert which the
Directors were to give for her benefit on the following
Monday. 'Poor girl,' he wrote, 'she had been refused

1 See Article 'Spohr' in Grove's 'Dictionary of Music and Musicians.'

122 Hesse-Cassel, Leipzig, Berlin [CH.

by everybody and was waiting for me to come, therefore
I am very glad to be of any service, although I had wished
to have turned myself round first' On Jan. 13 he wrote
to Miss Wood : ' To-night (Thursday) I am going to one
of the grand concerts to hear Spohr's new Symphony1 which
will be given for the first time, and which afterwards I put
in my portmanteau and bring to London for the Philhar-
monic.' [Journal.] Jan. 15^. 'Dined yesterday (Friday)
with Voigt, where I met Schumann and his wife. We after-
wards sledged it to Connewitz, a little village two miles
from Leipzig. How interesting it is for me to renew the
acquaintance of Schumann whom I have not seen for
nearly five years.' Invitations to dinner at noon and to
' Thee und Butterbrod ' came ' pouring in fast.' On Satur-
day he dined with the Davids ; on Sunday with the
Schumanns ; on Monday he played his Caprice in E major
with orchestra at the Gewandhaus and accompanied Mdlle
Meerti in her songs ; on Tuesday he went to the Buchhandler
Borse to hear a few bars of an Overture of his own which
he thought was being very well played, and then hurried
off to a large music-party at Mdme Haertel's which brought
a gay week to a close. Dr Haertel pleased him very much
by offering to send to his rooms one of the new grand
pianofortes recently made by the firm of Breitkopf and
Haertel. These instruments had special interest for an
Englishman, because they were after an English model,
and he wrote : — ' On my former visit to this town I ordered
for them a Broadwood Pianoforte from London, and they
have made Pianofortes exactly like them, which are very
successful.'

He now set out to find Mendelssohn who was residing
in Berlin.

[Journal.] 'Jan. list, Berlin. * * * Left Leipzig at
six o'clock yesterday morning and arrived here at two.
* * * Called on Mendelssohn at 5 o'clock — not at home.
Went then to the theatre [Gluck's Alcestis\, and before two
acts were over, he came and found me out. He took me
afterwards to the Singing Academy, where I heard part of
a Mass of Cherubini's, which I did not like very much.
Saw Spontini there. Capital Society, about 200 in the

1 (Op. 121) for 2 Orchestras.

vin] A Director of The Philharmonic 123

chorus, chiefly amateurs. Breakfasted and spent the morning
with Mendelssohn, had a little music and a great deal of
talk. Kinder than ever to me. * * * This town is very
dull. * * * Sent a card to Liszt, and one to the British
Embassy3 — all very grand. * * * Oh England! never
mind, March will soon be here.'

All the journals which Bennett kept when abroad, show
him as constantly attacked by sudden fits of home-sickness.

He had recently been elected one of the seven managing
Directors of the Philharmonic Society. Mendelssohn had
been asked if he could contribute a new work for per-
formance during the coming season, and had replied to
Bennett early in December 1841 : — ' I do not know whether
I can have anything ready. * * * Should I have anything,
it would be finished by the time of your arrival, and I would
then ask you to take it back to the Society.' Mendelssohn,
at the exact time predicted, had a work ready. He finished
it on the very day of Bennett's arrival in Berlin. It was
the Scotch Symphony.

Bennett then wrote to Miss Wood : — ' I am reckoning
greatly upon our Philharmonic season, and trust that as
I am now partly responsible, we shall have good success.
All the musicians that I meet here are congratulating me
on being a Director, and I am sure I did not think anything
of it before. When Mendelssohn saw me in the theatre,
almost the first words he spoke were, " Why, Bennett,
I really don't see you are any prouder," and I could not
think what he meant.'

[Journal.] ' Sunday, Jan. 24^, eleven o clock. Break-
fasted with Mendelssohn this morning and he played me
his new Symphony which I hope we shall play at the Phil-
harmonic next Season. I like it very much already and
I am sure with the orchestra it will be very successful
indeed ; he tells me he has never played a note of it to any-
body. * * Dine to-day with Madame Mendelssohn sen.
* * * Sunday evening. Met nearly the whole Mendelssohn
family. * * After dinner went over to Mendelssohn's
lodging to hear once more his new Symphony and I am
sure I shall always like it.'

1 The Earl of Westmorland, founder of the Royal Academy of Music, was
Ambassador at the time.

124 Hesse-Cassel, Leipzig, Berlin [CH.

When Mendelssohn was leaving his mother's house in
the afternoon after dinner, he said, ' Now, Bennett, you
must come and let me play the Symphony once more, you
do see through music so quickly.' Bennett would himself
relate this with modest pride, and he could, confidentially,
show places in the Scotch Symphony where the composer,
who liked him to criticize, had adopted his suggestions.
The same evening, there was a long talk about the Phil-
harmonic. This opened the question of Mendelssohn going
to England to take part in the Society's concerts of 1842.
For the past year or two the Directors had been trying,
but without success, to secure his services. Accordingly,
Bennett had now been asked to use his personal influence,
and a few weeks later he was able to say that he had
' persuaded ' Mendelssohn, and that he thought the Phil-
harmonic ought to be 'very much obliged' to him.

Another invitation which Bennett gave at this time,
and which he did not hesitate to give on his own responsi-
bility, has great interest. He wrote to Miss Wood from
Leipzig on Jan. 18: — 'Clara Schumann, who is married
here to a friend of mine, is one of the finest players I have
ever heard, and is altogether an extraordinary person ; you
may perhaps have heard of her as Clara Wieck. I want
her to come to England and I have answered that she shall
play at the Philharmonic, but I fear I shall not be able to
persuade her.' Nor did he, and the reason of his failure is
easy to find. A classical pianist, like Madame Schumann,
would not, at that particular time, secure enough engage-
ments in London to meet the expenses of her tour. Later
in his life Bennett negotiated for six years before he
succeeded in bringing Madame Schumann to this country
for the first time.

After a few days in Berlin, he returned to Leipzig.
[Journal] ' Leipzig, Jan. 2$th. Arrived from Berlin last
night about seven o'clock ; dined and dressed and managed
to hear the third part of Verhulst's concert. * * * Schumann
supped here this evening. Capital fellow ! Mrs Shaw
arrived from Berlin and paid me a visit in my rooms.
Count Reuss also here to-night.' Then three weeks passed
in which he had social engagements every day. He worked
in the early hours of the morning, but towards mid-day his

vin] A Quartet by Mendelssohn 125

rooms were 'full of people,' so that he was prevented from
completing a new P. F. Concerto which he had begun in
London in view of playing it at Leipzig. He was a great
deal with Count Reuss, with Mrs Shaw and her husband, and
with the Schumanns. There was, of course, music. He
heard performances of his ' Naiads ' and ' Wood-nymphs '
and was invited to play at two of the Chamber Concerts
which the Gewandhaus Directors had lately added to their
scheme. In reference to one of these concerts, he wrote : —
' Mendelssohn's Quartett I really do like ; only perhaps not
so much the last movement. * * * I had a very bad head-
ache and came home to the Hotel between the Acts and
so missed my everlasting favourite, Mozart's Quintett [in
G mi.]. I returned however soon enough to hear

&f=^ip=

The programme of the concert shows that the Quartet of
Mendelssohn was the one in D major. The original manu-
script of the work, given to him at this time by the com-
poser, always remained one of Bennett's most valued
possessions. In after-life, as an exceptional mark of favour
to one or other of his pupils, he would take it down from
his book-case and show it, together with the autograph
score of ' The Hebrides,' the Album in which he kept his
letters from Mendelssohn, and the other Album, given him
by Count Reuss, which contained a water-colour drawing by
Mendelssohn of the Thomas-Schule at Leipzig.

On his former visits to Leipzig, a warm attachment
had sprung up between Bennett and the members of the
Schunck family, with whom Mendelssohn also was on terms
of close intimacy. Their family circle had lately gained
a charming addition through the marriage of Herr Julius
Schunck to Mdlle Jeanrenaud, Mendelssohn's sister-in-law.
Bennett described his first meetings with this lady in a letter
to Miss Wood. Here he shows himself in the opposite
moods of seriousness, or perhaps shyness, and of gaiety.
A young lady, who moved in this same set, has given her
remembrance of him, under these two aspects, in a letter
which will be quoted presently. To Miss Wood he wrote : —

126 Hesse-Cassel, Leipzig, Berlin [CH.

1 1 went out the other day to a dinner-party and met for the
first time a Mrs Schunck (the sister of Mrs Mendelssohn),
who had married a friend of mine, Mr Julius Schunck, since
I was here. I suppose she expected me to be jumping
over all the tables and chairs in the room, for I heard after-
wards that she was disappointed in finding " such a serious
person," but a few days afterwards I spent the evening at
her house and made noise enough for ten people, and she
seemed quite delighted and begged me to visit them very
often as she found me " very merry," so I have set my
character to rights there.' A few days later he wrote of
her in his journal, 4 How I do like Mrs Schunck.'

Trains were now running from Leipzig to Dresden in
four hours, so Bennett went over with Carl Voigt to spend
three days amid pictures and porcelain. He also anticipated
a rare musical treat. Mendelssohn had given him a letter
of introduction to Schneider, telling him that he would hear
the Organ Fugues of Bach played ' better than by anybody
in the world.' The great organist, however, was too
unwell to trust himself in a cold church, so Bennett came
away disappointed. He found himself not altogether a
stranger in Dresden, and wrote : ' I had a curious scene in
a music-shop here. I went to order something and kept
walking about the room and at last came and leant over
the counter and looked at the music-seller, and he started
back as if I were a ghost and exclaimed, "Is it, is it, is it,
Mr Ben- Ben- Bennett ? " I made my bow and said that
was my name, and had a hearty shake of the hand, and
I asked where we had had the pleasure of meeting one
another. I then found out that he had only seen my
Leipzig portrait, which proved to me that it must at any
rate be something like.'

He went for a second time to Berlin. [Journal.] 'Feb. \£>th.
Have been spending the evening with Mrs Mendelssohn
where I met the whole Mendelssohn family. Mrs Hensel
played some of her new compositions and played them
charmingly.' Of another evening (Feb. 21) he wrote to
Miss Wood : — ' I went to a small music-party at Mendels-
sohn's where I met all his family and some other musical
people. He played three pieces and then insisted on my
playing. I never was so alarmed before ; not at him, for

vin] Liszt and Taubert 127

we have played too often together, but at his sister,
Mrs Hensel. However, he was getting rather angry, and
I played very well as it happened, and they were very
generous in their applause. I never was frightened to play
to any one before, and to think that this terrible person
should be a lady. However, she would frighten many
people with her cleverness.'

[Journal.] 'Feb. 22nd. * * * To-day I have been
dining with Mendelssohn, and played him my Songs.
Mr Liszt made his appearance to take farewell of Mendels-
sohn, and he played me the few bars of most extraordinary
harmony, which he had written for me on a sheet of paper
I sent him this morning, but which I have not yet got.

* * * To-night spend the evening with Taubert.'

Bennett wrote of the pleasure he found in making
Taubert's acquaintance, and how the mutual knowledge
of one another's music served as an introduction to their
chatting together as if they had known each other all their
lives. Liszt showed him some kind attentions ; but un-
fortunately Liszt seems to have been very bitter against
England at the time. He abused the country 'very un-
mercifully' to Bennett, saying that there was nothing to be
found there but ' manufacture and brutality ; ' so that the
Englishman's patriotic feelings were wounded. As, however,
Liszt cannot possibly have meant to offend Bennett, and
was, at the time he made the remarks, drinking his health
at dinner, one can only imagine that he was intending to
sympathize with a refined artist who had to make his way
in the art-world of London.

On February 23 Bennett returned to Leipzig, and
wrote to Miss Wood of a 'delightful journey' of eight-
and-a-half hours which he had taken with Mendelssohn
from Berlin. ' The weather was very fine, and we talked
and laughed the whole way. He (Mendelssohn) brought
with him a whole stock of provisions, and a bottle of
Madeira, twice past the line, and when I said, "Whose
health?" he replied, "Miss Wood." On Thursday next

* * * he gives his new Symphony and directs the concert,
and I expect it will be the fullest of the season.'

The Scotch Symphony was produced at Leipzig on
March 3. Bennett played his F minor Concerto the same

128 Hesse-Cassel, Leipzig, Berlin [CH.

evening. After the concert he attended a large supper-
party at Madame Frege's, Mendelssohn also being a guest.
He wrote in his journal at midnight : ' Miserable all day —
always am the day I am going to play. Concert very
brilliant to-night. Mendelssohn's Symphony was the great
attraction, and I liked it excessively. Never played with
more comfort to myself; Barcarolle immensely applauded,
very happy this evening.' He also wrote to Miss Wood,
' Mendelssohn told me that I played better than he had
ever heard me. Are you pleased ? '

The same evening is incidentally mentioned in a letter
written forty years later to Bennett's friend and pupil,
Mr Arthur O'Leary, by a lady with whose family Mendels-
sohn was closely connected, and who was present both at
the concert and at the supper-party after it. The letter,
however, goes further, picturing Bennett amongst his Leipzig
friends, and especially by Mendelssohn's side.

' Sterndale Bennett,' this lady wrote, ' was a frequent
and welcome guest at our house, and I often met him and
Mendelssohn together. Their relations to each other were
those of surpassing friendliness. Each loved and respected
the other, and Mendelssohn felt the highest pleasure not
only in the eminent gifts, but also in the characteristic and
amiable nature of the young artist. One can say that
Mendelssohn, like an elder brother, shared in his strivings
and successes, and always supported him readily with his
counsel in the most loving way. Their intercourse was most
cordial and intimate. They were both given to pleasantry
and Bennett in particular was as a rule in the mood for all
manner of fun. The German language, still unfamiliar to
him though he studied it industriously, German life and
customs all gave rise to laughable mistakes and witty
remarks. Within the circle of his more intimate friends,
Bennett's childlike merriment was irrepressible. He was
fond of performing divers conjuring tricks, and his anec-
dotes and comical stories were received with roars of
laughter. In large assemblies he was reserved and retiring,
but very popular, all considering themselves fortunate in
counting him among their guests. His first1 appearance

1 Not \i\sjirst appearance, but perhaps the first occasion on which this lady
heard him.

vin] Artistic Affinity to Mendelssohn 129

at the Gewandhaus was a decided success. The refined
grace with which he gave the second movement of his
Concerto — entitled " Barcarolle," if I mistake not — inspired
the audience with enthusiasm. Mendelssohn rallied him
on this occasion about a nervousness which had made him
accelerate the time, though he was greatly pleased at his
triumph.'

The relationship of an elder to a younger brother,
which this lady's memory has given to Mendelssohn and
Bennett at the ages of 33 and 26 respectively — bringing
to one's mind a like happy association half-a-century before
between Mozart and Storace with the same difference in
their ages — seems also traceable in Schumann's mind when
he wrote of them as contemporary musicians sharing a
common inheritance, and not as master and disciple. ' No
one,' he wrote, ' desires to call Bennett a great genius, but
he has a great deal of one kind of genius ; ' and certainly,
in Schumann's opinion, Bennett was worth speaking of in
the same breath with Mendelssohn. This is to be seen
in the first as well as in one of the last of his criticisms on
Bennett. Thus, in 1837 he wrote: —

' The first thing that strikes every one in the character
of his compositions is their remarkable family1 resemblance
to those of Mendelssohn. The same beauty of form, poetic
depth yet clearness, and ideal purity, the same outwardly satis-
fying impression, — but with a difference. This difference
is still more observable in their playing than in their com-
positions. The Englishman's playing is perhaps more
tender, more careful in detail ; that of Mendelssohn is
broader, more energetic. The former bestows fine shading
on the lightest thing, the latter pours a novel force into
the most powerful passages ; one overpowers us with the
transfigured expression of a single form, the other showers
forth hundreds of angelic heads, as in a heaven of Raphael.
Something of the same kind occurs in their compositions2.'

Now, five years later (1842), Schumann reviewed at
great length the ' Suite de Pieces,' a set of elaborate Piano-
forte Solos which Bennett had completed in London
before starting for Germany :—

1 The word in the original is ' Bruderahnlichkeit.'

2 Translated from the German by F. R. Ritter.

S. B. o

130 Hesse-Cassel, Leipzig, Berlin [CH.

' The resemblance of his compositions to those of
Mendelssohn has often been remarked ; but those who
think they have sufficiently designated Bennett's character
by such a remark, do him great injustice, and betray their
own want of judgment. Resemblances are common between
different masters of the same epoch. In Bach and Handel,
in Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven in his earlier period, we
find a similar aim, like a bond of union between them, and
which often outwardly expresses itself, as though one were
calling unto the other. But this inclination of one noble
mind to another should never be misnamed imitation, and
Bennett's likeness to Mendelssohn is involuntary. Yet
Bennett's works have continued to increase in originality ;
and in the one that lies before us, we are merely reminded
of the artistic striving that inspires him in common with
Mendelssohn. We think more frequently of older masters,
into whose nature the English composer seems to have
penetrated. The study of Bach and of Domenico Scarlatti,
whom Bennett prefers among pianoforte composers1, has
not been without influence on his development. And he
is right to study them ; for he who desires to be a master
can only learn this from masters. * * * '

Schumann here observes ' increase in originality ' and
fresh influence of 'older masters,' so one may think that
Bennett had done himself no harm by abstaining for two
or three years from writing pianoforte-music, and then, as
it were, starting on a new track. Davison, in his review
of these pieces, thus noticed the change: — 'In this work
Mr Bennett has altogether abandoned the accompanied
song style which characterises the majority of his previous
compositions for piano solo. We are not sorry for this,
since, in addition to its rescuing him from the accusation
of monotony, we find in the Suite de pieces a strength and
energy which are not compatible with the style we have
alluded to. * * * The fifth [piece] reminds us, we know
not why, of some of the quaint lessons of Domenico
Scarlatti. * * * ' Bennett had certainly tried in Portland
Chambers to extend his knowledge of Scarlatti's music.

1 A more literal translation of Schumann's sentence would be 'The study of
Bach, and of the clavier-works of D. Scarlatti for which Bennett has a par-
ticular fondness has not been without in6uence on his development.'

viii] A Store of Reminiscences 1 3 1

He had searched for it. Knowing that Lord Fitzwilliam's
library, bequeathed to the University of Cambridge in 1816,
contained works of the composer, he made enquiries in
1840, but received the disappointing reply that the music-
library was stored away pending the completion of the
Fitzwilliam Museum.

Bennett now saw the last of Germany for many a long
year. This visit, especially, furnished many treasured re-
collections. His reception by Spohr; his introduction to
the Mendelssohn family, to Madame Hensel and her
husband the painter, and to Mendelssohn's other brother-
in-law the mathematician Dirichlet ; his meeting with
Spontini, Meyerbeer, Taubert, Schneider, and other
musicians in Berlin and Dresden ; his joyous day's journey
with Mendelssohn from Berlin to Leipzig ; all such things
were often to be thought of and recounted. The evening
on which the Scotch Symphony was first heard, and on
which he played his own Concerto, was never forgotten by
him, and he was justified in recalling it with some pride.
On the one hand, Mendelssohn had come from Berlin to
preside over a single concert, on the spot which he had
made peculiarly his own. He conducted his new work at
a desk wreathed with laurels, and was received with all
the honour due to a great master giving to the world a
glorious masterpiece. On the other hand, Bennett played
his Concerto amidst universal applause, and the lady who
wrote of the evening forty years afterwards had not
forgotten Mendelssohn's pleasure at his young friend's
' triumph.' Opportunities of distinction came rarely to an
English pianist of the time, and Bennett would, in later
days, speak of his connection with this concert as one of
the chief events of his life.

He remained in Leipzig a few days longer, took part
in all the social festivities held for welcoming Mendelssohn,
heard the new 'Antigone' music at the theatre, and then
travelled straight through to England, to be present, in his
place as one of the Directors, at the first Philharmonic
concert on March 14.

9—2

CHAPTER IX.

THE PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY.
THE MUSICAL SEASON OF 1842.

March to July, 1842.
aet. 25, 26.

THE Philharmonic Society of London, an institution
with which Bennett was closely connected during the greater
part of his life, was founded in 1813, i.e. three years before
his birth, and thirteen years before he began his studies
at the Academy. The movement which originated the
Society, gave a new direction to the musical taste of this
country, and prepared the way, by the introduction of fresh
models, for that extension of musical education of which he
was one of the first to reap the benefit. The Philharmonic
accepted him, while still a youth, as one reared under the
same influences as itself, and thenceforward to the end of
his life regarded him as the English musician who came
nearest to its own ideal. He, in turn, for the best part of
forty years, followed with the deepest interest the Society's
work ; grateful, no doubt, as time went on, for success
gained under its auspices, and tied to it by the memory
of happy associations ; but beyond any such self-concern,
always very jealous for its reputation as the chief home
in this country of a school of music which he piously
venerated.

The Society had been the outcome of a strong desire
on the part of certain eminent musicians to see concerted
instrumental music, and especially orchestral music of the
then modern type taking up a fixed abode in England.
The last decade of the eighteenth century was marked by

CH. ix] Origin of The Philharmonic 133

the visits of Haydn and the production of his Symphonies
at Salomon's concerts ; but Salomon found it impossible
to keep alive the interest in such music which Haydn's
presence had aroused, and in 1799 abandoned the attempt.
The nineteenth century opened with no promise of progress.
This country was at a crisis when it could give little atten-
tion to home affairs of any kind, and art could look for no
encouragement. It was not alone to instrumental music
that the check came. Haydn's Oratorio ' The Creation,'
produced here in 1800, took no hold until it was revived
thirteen years later, a few days after the first Philharmonic
concert. In the month of March, 1813, music in this
country awoke to a new life. The aristocracy at their
* Concert of Antient Music ' had been steadily preserving
Handelian traditions, and in the course of long programmes
of vocal music had listened to the Overtures and Concertos
of Handel, or Corelli, or Geminiani ; but modern music
could not, by their rules, appear on their scheme. The
Philharmonic Society was a union of professional musicians ;
but they would never have attained their purpose had it not
been for the fact that they came forward, in this instance,
simply as music-lovers. They had no material interests of
their own in view. They did not aim at the production of
their compositions ; for few of them wrote concerted instru-
mental music. They looked for no prominence as per-
formers ; for they at first excluded from their programmes
works in which soloists were conspicuous. They had no
thought of pecuniary gain to themselves ; on the contrary,
the Members and Associates resolved to support the under-
taking by their own subscriptions, and to accept no remunera-
tion for any services which they rendered at the concerts.
Bennett, in his later life, liked to tell, in praise of these
pioneers, how he had heard that some leading musicians of
the day, who were not professed orchestral players, renewed
the practice of instruments learnt in their youth, and enlisted
in the ranks of the Philharmonic band to help the Society
on its start in life. So admirable a spirit courted success,
and success both artistic and financial came. There was
a rich store of music ready for performance, little of which,
save the almost forgotten Symphonies of Haydn, had been
heard in England before ; but the Society was ambitious

134 The Philharmonic Society [CH.

to concern itself with the present as well as the past, and
with the security of accruing funds entered into negotiations
with celebrated living composers, engaging them to write
new works and inviting their presence at concerts. Thus
between 1817 and 1829, all the world being then at peace,
Cherubini, Spohr, Weber, and the youthful Mendelssohn,
were in turn welcomed to the Philharmonic platform. The
advent of Spohr in 1820 led to a repeal of the law for-
bidding Concertos with a soloist, and thenceforward many
European artists of renown performed at the concerts, the
first introduction of a modern pianoforte Concerto by
Moscheles, in 1821, creating a remarkable sensation. Of
paramount interest, however, was the co-operation of
Beethoven as a composer, culminating in his dedication
to the Philharmonic of his Choral Symphony. Fortunate,
too, was the Society who could find means to contribute
to 'the comforts and necessities' of Beethoven in his last
illness, and who could place on its records the grateful
message he sent back, eight days before his death, to ' the
noble English.' Thus, when the Philharmonic came of
age in 1833 (an event which it celebrated by commissioning
the composition of seven new works) it had made history
and acquired prestige. Foreigners eyed with favour an
institution which took delight in honouring them, whilst
English musicians regarded election as Member or Associate
in the light of a professional diploma granted with authority,
and scarcely obtainable at the time in any other way.

Bennett's adoption by the Society came early, and his
promotions followed quickly. Performances of his works,
after his debut in 1835, were given annually. He was
elected an Associate in 1838, at the age of twenty-two,
and being in Leipzig when he heard the news, he im-
mediately ran off to Mendelssohn to tell him of his 'good
luck.' He was raised to the rank of Member in 1840, and
at the end of 1841 was appointed one of the seven Directors,
as also one of the seven Conductors of concerts, for the
next year's season. The conductorship, though it only
entailed presiding at a single concert, was an honourable
post for him, seeing that in the first year he held it, when
he was twenty-six years old, he was the colleague of Sir
George Smart, Sir Henry Bishop, Potter, Lucas, Moscheles,

ix] The Directors of the Society 135

and Mendelssohn. In his other office as Director, to which
he was annually re-elected until such time as he declined to
serve further, he was able to make himself useful. His
views were not always in accord with those of the majority
of his colleagues, as his correspondence will show ; though
why he disagreed with them he does not definitely state.
One cause of variance, however, can be made plain. When
he first joined the Board, the Society, which was entering
on its thirtieth year, was passing through a time of de-
pression. It no longer had the monopoly of instrumental
performance in London ; the material prosperity of earlier
years could not be maintained ; and for some time past
accumulated savings had been drawn upon to cover deficits.
Business had to be thought of as well as art. It had come
to pass that the Directors were not necessarily selected
because they were the most learned of the Members in
that branch of music which was the speciality of the Society.
Certainly, in framing their programmes, whether it was that
they thought to please and attract a larger public, or whether
they only listened to the dictates of their own tastes, they
often admitted musical works and performances which were
out of keeping with Philharmonic traditions. There were
items on their programmes of which a man as strict as
Bennett could not possibly approve. It was, however, an
awkward duty, for one who himself figured as a pianist and
composer at the concerts, to give opinions on the merits
of others. He therefore set to work quietly, though he
was by no means inactive. His connection with Germany
was the first source of his practical usefulness to the
Society, and from that same connection he derived the
most pleasure in his new position ; for, with no further
prospect of travelling himself, he could still keep in touch
with his German friends. Philharmonic business led to
much correspondence between Mendelssohn and himself.
That correspondence supplies some of the best material
available for following his professional and also his private
life during the next few years. It will be used as the
groundwork of this narrative, which will now be resumed
in March, 1842.

Bennett, after his return from Germany, moved from
Portland Chambers to 42 Upper Charlotte St, Fitzroy

136 The Philharmonic Society [CH.

Square1, where his friend, Mrs Johnson, was residing with
her two sons, one of whom, Alfred Croshaw Johnson, has
been already mentioned as his pupil and his visitor at Grant-
chester. Mrs Johnson had lately been left a widow ; her
house was beyond her requirements ; and some friends of
hers, who also knew Bennett, suggested that she should
admit him as a member of her family. The proposed
arrangement promised well for him ; it would increase his
expenditure ; but he would be in a better position to
receive pupils, and in the handsome rooms assigned to him
he would be able to give little concerts or music-parties.
All this he explained in letters to his aunt at Cambridge,
writing : ' I hope to see a few carriages before my door in
the course of the season ;' and, again, ' It seems more of a
home than I have been latterly used to ; no more Chamber
life for me ! ' At the same time another home was ready to
welcome him at Southampton where his future mother-in-
law dwelt. Thither he now went to spend an Easter holiday.
Miss Wood had only just completed her seventeenth year,
so there was no talk of an immediate marriage ; nor would
his present means have allowed of it. Her father, a Com-
mander in the Royal Navy, was abroad, and was not
expected home for two years. Meanwhile, Bennett must
work and have something satisfactory to say to Captain
Wood on his return. From Southampton he wrote to
Mendelssohn, using note-paper with a view of Netley
Abbey upon it. Mendelssohn had been delighted to hear
that Bennett was engaged, and had never ceased to sing
4 Hang the liberty ' when they were together in Berlin.

SOUTHAMPTON, April 2, 1842.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

I hope you will be so good to notice well the
picture on this sheet of paper and if you remark the name
of the town I have written underneath you will be able
to tell where I am now and what the object of my visit to
this part of the world is. I am just going back to London
but I thought I should very much like to write to you from
this place, and after this little introduction I must begin to

1 Now (1907) 92 Charlotte St. On the east side, the 4th house south of
Rowland St.

ix] Correspondence with Mendelssohn 137

talk about other things. I am beginning to be very anxious
about my box which contains the parts of your Symphony
and I shall be very much obliged to you if you will
immediately after you receive this send a few lines to
Kistner and enquire if he has sent it off, for I am very
anxious that the rehearsal of your Symphony should take
place as soon as possible. * * * I hope if you have made
the alterations which once you spoke to me of, you will
write me full directions. * : * If you can, do tell me the
very day you are likely to be in England as I will come
and meet you if possible. I always regret that I did
not see you the day I left Leipzig and hope you received
my letter from Mainz. I delivered all your dispatches
most punctually and delivered them all in the Philharmonic
concert room where many asked for more letters than
I had to give them. * * * I find the Philharmonic going
on in the same way as ever, I have already spoken on some
little matters and hope to effect some improvement, but
I must do it very quietly. I arrived in London on the
morning of the first concert from Dover. I had a very
bad journey all the way from Mainz to England. I was
abused in one of the newspapers that I was absent from
England when the first programme was made and indeed
it was a very bad concert. I am very unsettled at this
moment as I am changing my lodgings and hope in about
eight weeks to welcome you in Upper Charlotte Street,
Fitzroy Square (No. 42). A young Lady wishes to thank
you for the Song you wrote for her and so I have promised
to leave some room in this letter. I hope your visit to
Leipzig did not very much fatigue you and that I shall see
you well and happy in England. Pray write soon.

With best remembrances to Mrs Mendelssohn and your
family,

Believe me ever

Yours sincerely,
WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Bennett, having failed to find Mendelssohn when he
called to say Good-bye to him in Leipzig, had written from
Mainz : ' I very much regretted it, wishing to have a chat
with you for a quarter of an hour and to thank you for all

138 The Philharmonic Society [CH.

your kindness to me when I was at Berlin and many
other things which I must say to you when I see you
in London. Amongst these other things I most especially
wished to ask the favour of your playing over Six pieces
(which Kistner is now engraving) and to see that they do
not publish all the wrong notes which I am afraid in the
hurry of writing them out I made. And will you also be
so good as to mark any Pia. or For. which you may think
necessary, for I know I have not marked them sufficiently
and I fear I shall not be able to correct the proofs and
send them back in time to be printed. Do pray excuse
this most inhuman request. * * * '

Mendelssohn wrote from Berlin, on April 15 : —

MY DEAR BENNETT,

Mr Kistner writes me yesterday (dated
1 2th April) that he sent your box last week via
Hamburgh to you, I hope accordingly that it will reach or
has reached you safely. I have made all those alterations in
my Symphony which I intended (two principal ones in the
ist movement and some other trifles in all four) but I need
not make any remarks about them, or give new directions,
it goes all by itself. I hope you will keep your kind
promise and superintend the rehearsal as paternally as
possible. * * * Thanks also for your very welcome
letter from Mayence ; you know what pleasure it will
always give me to know your new things earlier than other
people1, and although I am usually but very indifferent a
corrector I will on this occasion screw up my capacities to
an extraordinary pitch and hope to drive Kistner mad with
wanting flats and sharps which I shall find out. But till
now I have not got them ; he writes in his letter from
yesterday that he will send the proofs ' nachstens.' I am
very anxious to get them and play them over again and
again. — You see in this letter that I am in a dreadful bustle
and have thousand unmusical things in my head (for you
use2 to know it whenever you look at my face, and therefore

1 It seems strange that Bennett should not have played or shown his ' Suite
de Pieces' to Mendelssohn whilst he was in Germany.

2 'you use,' i.e. 'you are wont.' Mendelssohn has employed this obsolete
present tense in other correspondence.

ix] Correspondence with Mendelssohn 139

I believe it will be the same with my letters) businesses,
and Concerts, and Quartetts and everything. * * *
And now enough. We are all quite well ; Cecile sends her
best compliments, anticipates much pleasure from her
intended visit to your country, and has English lessons
and reads English books, Marriage in high life, &c.,
with a vengeance. Remember me kindly^ ; write the days
of the Philharmonic, farewell, and excuse the stupidity of
this letter and of its author

Yours always,
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.

Bennett to Mendelssohn.

April 25, 1842.
42 UPPER CHARLOTTE STREET,

FITZROY SQUARE.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

Your kind letter of the i5th inst. I received
on Saturday last and as to-morrow is foreign post-day I
herewith send you the dates of the remaining Philharmonic
Concerts. * * * You will see by this that you will
have plenty of time to do as you like at Diisseldorf and
still be with us at the sixth Concert, or if this does not
agree with your plans, then you can in any case be with us
for the two last and help us through with your aid to finish
the season well. I cannot tell you how glad I am that your
coming to my country amounts now to a certainty, and you
know how happy the musicians here will be to welcome you
and none more than myself. The box has not arrived but
I hope to hear of it every day and immediately I get your
Symphony, we will have a good and serious rehearsal. We
played your Midsummer-night at the last concert (which
Mr Potter directed) and I never heard it better played in
England. They played it dreadfully slow at the rehearsal,
but I hinted to Mr Potter as to the Leipzig time and he
adopted my suggestions. Molique played at the last
concert and has also brought a new Symphony which is to
be played at the 5th concert. They have also asked me
to play but I wish very much not to play until you come
and the night you give your Symphony I should like to

1 i.e. to Miss Wood.

140 The Philharmonic Society [CH.

be of the party, as at Leipzig. But will you let me know
whether you will play first or whether you will have the
Symphony and then play at the succeeding concert ?
Everything shall be as you wish, at least I am sure the
Directors will arrange all to your satisfaction. I regret
much that our Directors are at variance with Moscheles
and I will tell you the whole affair when I see you. We
are not able at present to give Spohr's new Symphony
in consequence. Entre nous I am not at all satisfied with
my colleagues and fear you will not find us very much
improved in spirit and enterprize. I have kept very quiet
because I could find no good opportunity of giving my
opinion of their general arrangements which are far from
being good, but all this when I see you. I am much
obliged to you for your kindness in consenting to correct
my proofs and hope you will not have too much trouble
although my fear outbalances my hope. Then in three or
four weeks I shall see you and you know how happy I shall
be. Many thanks for all things. I think you will find me
making love to a vast extent. I know you will wish me to
prosper in all such happy affairs and although I shall retain
my liberty some time longer, I begin to feel that I could
give it up without much hesitation. With best compliments
to Mrs Mendelssohn and your family,

Believe me, ever and a day,
Yours very truly,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

In one of the letters which he had recently written to
Miss Wood from Germany, Bennett mentioned that he had
just been buying a good deal of music for his library. He
had perhaps received from Kistner a little money for his
compositions which he could invest in that way. One day
in Berlin he walked into a music-shop and ordered straight
off, 'all the works of Bach;' but when he related this
incident in after-life, it was not with reference to a well-
filled purse, but to the scarcity at the time of published
works by that composer. When he was leaving for
England he placed his new purchases in a box, which
he asked Kistner to send after him as soon as the orchestral

ix] The Scotch Symphony 141

parts of the Scotch Symphony for the Philharmonic were
ready to be packed in the same. Kistner despatched the
box in the early days of April to travel via Hamburg.
As the weeks passed and Bennett saw no box he became
very uneasy, the more so because in the course of the time
a terrible fire had broken out and raged for some days in
Hamburg. By the middle of. May the matter was serious.
The performance of the Symphony was fixed for the sixth
Philharmonic concert on the 3Oth ; Mendelssohn, after
conducting a Festival at Diisseldorf, would only reach
London in time for a final rehearsal on the 28th, and
Bennett had pledged his word that he would himself pre-
pare the Symphony in advance. Happily, however, the
music had escaped the flames ; and, though the disordered
state of Hamburg had caused long delay, the precious
box arrived just in time for a score of the Symphony to be
copied from the parts, and for a special rehearsal to be
called, which rehearsal Bennett conducted on the 26th. He
thus kept his promise to his friend, and had for himself the
satisfaction of co-operating in the production of the new
work. It would, of course, mean a great deal to him,
to appear as Mendelssohn's representative before the
Philharmonic orchestra at this rehearsal, and it would
help to confirm his position as one of the Society's con-
ductors, in which capacity he had appeared, for the first
time, ten days before. It was, however, now known that
the Symphony would not be wanted for performance till
the seventh concert. Mendelssohn, exhausted by the
fatigue of the Diisseldorf Festival, had asked for a respite
and postponed his journey. This postponement was a
disappointment to Bennett, for he played his F minor
Concerto at the sixth concert and had hoped that
Mendelssohn would be conducting. When the Scotch
Symphony was given on June 13, he was 'not one of
the party, as at Leipzig,' which he had wished to be.

Of his personal intercourse with Mendelssohn during
this visit to England there is little to be said, save that he
shared with a host of others the wide-spread pleasure
of the time. Mendelssohn had arrived by June 2, on
which day he attended an orchestral concert, given by
Miss Dorrell and her brother, which Bennett was con-

142 The Philharmonic Society [CH.

ducting. William Dorrell remembered that as the conductor
was leaving the artists' room to enter the concert-room
Mendelssohn ran after him, saying, ' Here, Bennett, I
have forgotten something,' and that he then took a little
case from his pocket and presented, in the name of
the Gewandhaus Directors, a valuable diamond pin.
Mendelssohn wrote to Kistner on June 5 : — ' I gave
Bennett his pin during a concert, he stuck it in, thereupon
immediately conducted an overture of mine, was vastly
delighted, and all the performers were mightily impressed
by your beautiful gift. They said, they too would like to
come to Leipzig.'

Mendelssohn had brought his wife to see England and
to visit relations and friends ; his social engagements were
innumerable ; but he was ubiquitous, and A. C. Johnson
remembered him as often running into Charlotte Street to
find Bennett. Thalberg would also sometimes be there, and,
when playing to Mendelssohn and Bennett, would not mind
their rallying him about certain features of his music or
performance ; but would himself jest back, and enjoy what
they said in the most good-humoured way. The Philhar-
monic season, with Mendelssohn's assistance at the last two
concerts, ended brilliantly on June 27. A finishing touch,
however, was still wanting. It appears that there had been
a hope that the musical circles of London would combine
to celebrate Mendelssohn's presence in their midst by some
public festivity ; but there was a lack of unity, and the
failure to carry out such a scheme, when once it had been
proposed, had a sorry look. The Philharmonic Society,
anxious to perform their own duty of hospitality, at the last
moment hurriedly arranged a whitebait dinner at Green-
wich. Mendelssohn, on receiving their invitation, came to
Charlotte Street on Wednesday, July 6, and wrote on a
sheet of Bennett's music-paper : —

At the end of the London stay in 1842.
July 6th.

DEAR BENNETT — I am so very sorry not to find you at
home! We leave England on Saturday or Sunday and I
must beg you to excuse my not coming to Greenwich on
Friday with the Directors, as it is so near to our departure
and the principal reason is that they asked me to play the

ix] To Speed the Parting Guest 143

Organ in Exeter Hall for the distressed manufacturers on
Friday also and I declined it because I was going, and
therefore I think it would not do to accept of any other
engagement. So pray make my apology and give my best
thanks to the Directors, and may health and happiness be
always with you and with all whom you love and vice-versa.
(There is also some selfishness in this wish you see.) And
so good-bye, auf gutes Wiedersehen.

Always yours,

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.
I like the red room ! !

Bennett, on reading the above, must have rushed off to
consult his colleagues and to get the impossible Friday
altered to Saturday on the chance of Mendelssohn's
postponing his departure. A fresh invitation must have
been immediately sent, and Mendelssohn wrote next
day: —

DEAR BENNETT,

Our journey is postponed and so I will certainly
come and dine with you at Greenwich. But tell me where
and when we meet on Saturday.

Always yours in dreadful haste,

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.

Thus the Philharmonic saved its character for hospitality,
and at the dinner on the 9th, Mendelssohn — according to
The Musical World — assured his hosts that he would do
all in his power to promote the interests of their Society.
This was not a mere post-prandial ' sentiment,' but a real
promise afterwards fulfilled. Then on their way home
from Greenwich Mendelssohn and Bennett made another
appointment. Miss Wood was still cloistered in Tenterden
Street for her last term, and there had been no opportunity
for introducing Mendelssohn to her. A concert or
rehearsal at the Academy on the coming Monday would
give such a chance, and this explains the following
affectionate letter1.

1 The original is in German.

144 The Philharmonic Society [CH. ix

LONDON, July utk, 1842.
MY VERY DEAR BENNETT,

I had hoped till the last moment to be able to
come to the Academy, and now it is late at night and I
have not been ! I am terribly sorry, please do not be angry
with me.

I enclose cards, my wife's and my own, for Miss Wood.
If she thinks as I do, she will not care for them in the least,
but I trust she will care somewhat for our warm good wishes
for her happiness and prosperity, and these will be her
faithful companions now and always — of that I hope that
she feels no doubt.

These wishes are also at the same time wishes for you,
dear Bennett. Your two persons are united, and wishes for
you may be united too. Good-bye, my English visit is at
an end once more — it was a happy one. Good-bye, may
we continue as close friends as ever, and meet again soon.

Ever yours,
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.

CHAPTER X.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH MENDELSSOHN.

August, 1842 — December, 1843.
set. 26, 27.

IN August, 1842, while Bennett was staying 'in the
house of Mr J. W. Davison1,' — which probably means that
he was, at the time, enjoying rural pleasures at Davison's
parental home in Brixton — he wrote one of his best known
pieces for the pianoforte, first called ' Rondo Grazioso,' but
afterwards called ' Rondo Piacevole.' This was ' the little
P.P. Rondo in E major' which he referred to in his next
letter to Mendelssohn.

SOUTHAMPTON, October gth, 1842.
MY DEAR MENDELSSOHN,

I shall avail myself of a quiet hour at this place
to write you a few lines to ask you how you are, to find
out where you are, and when I am likely to hear anything:
about you. I am here since Thursday evening and am
going back to-morrow (Tuesday) ; you may imagine that
these few days are passing happily enough, and I find it
such a relief from the bustle of London to put myself in
the railway carriage and come and walk on the Pier, not
alone I assure you. I have heard nothing of you since you
left our shores which were so very sorry to part with you.
My Mama-in-law has your picture, which is now before
me looking as happy and as gay as ever, as I trust you are.

1 So stated by Davison himself in the programme of a Monday Popular
Concert ; but Davison had no house of his own at the time.

S. B. 10

146 Correspondence with Mendelssohn [CH.

I have still my liberty and shall keep it still some time, but
I do begin to agree with you and could now heartily sing
with you ' Hang the liberty.' I wonder when I shall see
you again and whether I shall be myself or not. I often wish
to transport myself to the Thomas-Muhle and run up your
staircase, but I hope all this will come again some day. I
am writing to-day to Kistner to tell him that I cannot agree
with Miss Birch, as she wishes to remain in London during
the months of January, February and March. I have only
just received her answer and I am not very well pleased at
the indifference she displayed after the trouble I had given
myself to ask your Directors to make her an offer. What
think you of Miss Dolby, if she would come ? and I think
she would. * * * I remain in London this winter and
am determined to work and send you over some new things,
amongst others an Overture which must be for the
Gewandhaus and which I hope to send you before the
year is out. I am doing much to my Oratorio and have
written just now a long Chorus, which I am rather satisfied
with. My little P.P. Trio in A major I must also publish,
and I have a little P.P. Rondo in E major the proofs of which
are ready and I am wanting to send it to Kistner, which
I hope you will like, not a very grand fellow nor a very
merry one, but has something about it, which I think would
please you. I will send you the English copy of my ' Suite
de Pieces ' whenever I have an opportunity and thank you
once more for correcting the German edition. Spohr's new
Oratorio ' The Fall of Babylon ' according to the news-
papers has made a sensation in England. I have neither
heard nor seen a note of it, nor heard any opinion which I
could have faith in or value. Edward Taylor is now at the
head of Music in England and so you know what our
hopes must be. I cannot give you any Philharmonic news,
but I think we shall make some important changes next
season, at any rate we shall have our eight concerts as
usual. I suppose this letter will find you at Leipzig
although I have heard nothing as to your plans.
Do write to me when you have time ; you know my dear
friend what pleasure it always gives me to hear from you
and what you are doing, and what is the musical state of
Leipzig, if healthy as ever. Shall we have you next year

x] Chamber-Music 147

for the Birmingham Festival ? I hope you will tell me what
new things you have done and for my sake send us some-
thing for the Philharmonic next year. Pray give mine and
Miss Wood's best compliments to Mrs Mendelssohn and
kiss your children for me. Let me hear that you are really
well and happy, remember me to the Schuncks, Davids,
Schleinitz, &c., &c., and hoping to hear from you very soon,
believe me, my dear Friend,

Yours most sincerely,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.
Vergessen Sie nicht die noten von Bach fur mich.

In November, Bennett announced a scheme of 'Classical
Chamber Concerts,' a title which he later changed to
4 Performances of Classical Pianoforte Music,' as being a
closer description of their speciality. He was about to
extend his work, and to do his duty, as a pianist, in a
direction little tried so far by others in England. Chamber-
music in which the pianoforte takes part had not yet found
much place in concert-rooms. The Philharmonic Society
had from the first included it in their programmes, but
generally in the form of a Septet or Sestet. Similar works
for a smaller combination of instruments such as P.F. Trios,
and Sonatas for pianoforte and violin had been seldom played
in public. The violinist Dando, and others following his
example, had for a few years past given concerts of string
Quartets. A P.F. Trio was a usual item on their schemes,
so that just a few of such works had lately been brought to
a hearing ; but a vast number of masterpieces were quite
unknown except to professors and a few highly-cultivated
amateurs. A great pianist could gain at the time little
distinction and certainly no money, by taking part in
concerted chamber-music at a concert ; and yet if such
music was ever to gain the appreciation it deserved,
pianists of high order were wanted to illustrate its beauty;
men who would be patient in looking for even an educa-
tional result, without thought of material advantage, and
who were willing to lend their powers to the furtherance of
Music in her serious aspect, foregoing the applause given to
ad captandum feats of virtuosity. Bennett was such a

148 Correspondence with Mendelssohn [CH.

pianist, and there were none too many like him in his
earlier days.

Of solo-performance on the pianoforte, only two forms
were at this time recognized by the concert-audiences of
England. Pianists were heard in Concertos with orchestra,
or if they played without accompaniment, were expected
to exhibit themselves in astonishing tours-de-force. The
'Recitals' by Moscheles in 1837 and 1838 may be
quoted as striking exceptions sufficiently rare to prove
the general rule. In Bennett's case, from the day in 1831
when he had first attracted notice at a students' concert,
he was for about eleven years heard in Concertos with
orchestra ; and up to his twenty-sixth year the only solo-
pieces played by him before a London audience were the
above-mentioned Sonatas given in Coventry's rooms, and a
selection from the ' Lieder ohne Worte,' at a concert of
T. P. Cooke's. The modern ' Fantasia ' was the only sure
passport to the platform, or to the aristocratic salon.
From Leipzig in 1842 he had written home about the
Chamber-concerts lately added by the Gewandhaus
Directors to their syllabus. Even there he found ' a
small audience,' but he noticed with satisfaction the great
attention paid to such music, and was delighted because one
of the movements from the Violin Sonata, in B[7, of Mozart,
which he played with David, set ' all the old ladies nodding
their heads.' Then, too, for the first time, though nearly
twenty-six years old, he was invited to play Solos of his own
composition. He wrote of this fresh experience to Miss
Wood : ' It is something quite new for me to play in this
manner, for I do not very much like to play without the
orchestra.' Yet he was pleased with the result. ' I stepped
up [at the end of the concert] and played first one of my
new pieces in E minor and afterwards my Sketches which
the people applauded very much.' Thus encouraged abroad,
after his return to his own country, he gave his first series
of three concerts at the beginning of the New Year, 1843,
in his drawing-rooms at Charlotte Street, before an
audience of about 100 persons ; introducing Trios, Violin
and Violoncello Sonatas, playing Preludes and Fugues,
Sonatas, and new compositions of his own. On March 3
he wrote to Mendelssohn : ' In the month of January I gave

x] Concerts and Courtship 149

three little chamber-concerts in my own rooms and played
a great deal from a great many authors. I played amongst
other things your Violoncello Sonata, your Prelude and
Fugue in E minor and your Seventeen Variations, some
of Handel, Bach and Scarlatti, Sonatas of Beethoven and
Spohr's new Trio.' As a concert-giver, he always took
great interest in the selection of the vocal music, suggesting
to his singers songs in keeping with the general character of
his programme. In accounts of his concerts this point was
often noticed in his favour. At the third concert of this
first series he asked Miss Masson to sing Beethoven's
'Lieder-Kreis/ which had not, as far as he knew, been heard
before in this country. After telling Mendelssohn about
the concerts, he continued his letter with a change of
subject : — ' Now then let me talk a little on domestic
affairs and thank you for your kind mention of Miss Wood
(my dear Mary, as I call her). I saw her a fortnight
since, and in another fortnight I hope I shall be with her
at Southampton again. I generally pay a visit once every
month and remain two or three days. She is indeed
a dear girl and promises everything for my happiness,
and I now can scarcely believe that you and I ever argued
about losing liberty, for I am now as anxious to lose
mine as you were in 1837. I think I shall be married next
Christmas and shall be so delighted to introduce my little
wife to all my good friends at Leipzig and I hope they will
be hers. She studies your language with great persever-
ance. You must forgive me for talking in this love-strain,
but I know you can appreciate my feelings and I assure
you I am more in love than ever, hang the liberty.'

Mendelssohn replied on March 10 : — 'Thank you for
your very kind and welcome letter which I received
yesterday and which gave me such a pleasure ! Particularly
the passage which relates to the liberty and its hanging.
God may give you so much happiness as I enjoyed those
six years since I am married. I cannot wish you more for
I believe there can be no more in the world. And give
(not write) my kindest regards to Miss Wood (your dear
Mary, as you call her), and write my wife's with them, and
tell her, she must soon come and visit your German friends,
who are hers.'

150 Correspondence with Mendelssohn [CH.

The Philharmonic season of 1 843 was now approaching.
The Directors had hoped that Mendelssohn would again
assist, and had sent him a formal invitation ; but in writing
to Bennett on the subject, he referred to the recent loss of
his mother, as the cause of abandoning all idea of coming
to England this year. The Society's prospects were now
very gloomy, and the best that Bennett could write about
the disappearing capital was, 'We still have a little to lose.'
He has been credited with suggesting to his colleagues, at
this juncture, that they should apply to Spohr, and the
application was successful, Spohr consenting to come over
towards the end of the season. Bennett himself took
part in two concerts. He conducted the fifth, at which the
' Lobgesang ' was given, and at the sixth he played a new
Concerto in A minor (unpublished), on which he had been
engaged for eighteen months. It was the sixth and last
Concerto he wrote. His first idea was to limit the work to
two movements, and he named it not Concerto, but Concert-
Stuck. After playing it at the Saturday rehearsal he
changed his mind, and composed a slow movement for the
Monday concert, with an orchestral accompaniment suffi-
ciently simple to be played without rehearsal. The
Musical World described the Allegro as ' full of passion
and grandeur,' and the Finale as a 'rondo presto of
untameable spirit and untiring energy.' Spohr arrived in
London just in time to grace with his presence a ' Soiree
d'artistes,' which Bennett gave in Charlotte Street, and
which, according to Davison, attracted ' a brilliant galaxy
of celebrities.' It was certainly an interesting evening.
Spohr was a grand ' lion ' who had not been seen in
London for twenty years. Dreyschock, whom Bennett
had met at Leipzig, and whom he thought ' a very wonder-
ful player as far as difficulty was concerned,' was in the
company; but there was also a pianist of very different
character, the boy, Charles Filtsch, who was spending in
London two months of his short life, and, though only
thirteen years of age, was influencing musical taste ; for he
was the first to make the music of his master, Chopin,
properly understood by some of the musicians in this
country. Charles Halle, who was to give his first concert
in London a few days later, was another guest ; and

x] Spohr in London 151

Moscheles brought with him Ernst, the violinist, who had
arrived the day before on his first visit to England, and at
this gathering in Charlotte Street made his entree into
English musical society. A third great violinist was asked
and he accepted, but named a fee of fifty guineas, so that
poor Bennett, whose annual income at the time scarcely
exceeded four times that amount, was placed in the
awkward position of having to withdraw his invitation.

On July 3, Spohr played and conducted some of his
works at the Philharmonic, and on the 13th the Society
gave an extra concert by royal command, the Queen
attending and Spohr directing the whole performance. The
Directors could congratulate themselves on another success-
ful close of a year's work, but there was still cause for
anxiety. A stroke of good fortune, which would have some
lasting effect, was sorely needed.

In August, Bennett was in country lodgings near
Southampton ' composing very hard;' finishing an Overture,
which he christened ' Marie du Bois,' in allusion, it may be
assumed, to the name of his future wife. He was also
making some revision of his new Concerto, which he
allowed Coventry to advertise as in the press. He wrote
to Kistner in the autumn : ' I have ready for the engraver
my new Concerto, which I performed last season at the
Philharmonic Society and which I have since altered.'
The Overture ' Marie du Bois ' (afterwards used for ' The
May-Queen') and the Concerto (or Concert-Stuck) in A
minor were two works which he continued to like him-
self, and he made second editions of both ; but, though
Kistner still pressed for music, Bennett held back, kept the
Overture in manuscript for fifteen years, and never published
the Concerto, though he was thinking of doing so up to the
time of his death.

In October he found himself at Portsmouth, climbing
the side of H.M.S. Tortoise, replying to the challenge
of a sentry, and being conducted to the cabin of Captain
Wood, who had just returned from New Zealand. ' It
was rather a nervous appearance for me to make,' he wrote
to Mendelssohn, ' but it is all happily over, and there is
another step to our marriage.' In the same letter — dated
November 6th — he unfolded to Mendelssohn a scheme

152 Correspondence with Mendelssohn [CH.

which he had proposed to his Philharmonic colleagues :—
'Now then for business, and I hope to explain myself
distinctly for I have an important subject to write upon.
I write in strict confidence. The Directors of the
Philharmonic have privately charged me to write to you
on the subject of their concerts next year. They feel the
great and lasting advantage the Society derived from your
presence at their season in 1842 and they further wish to
express this by again securing your appearance amongst us
next season. We much wish if possible to have one
Conductor and it would be all and everything to us for
you to be that Conductor. I do not know how your
arrangements and plans are ordered at Berlin, but could
you be with us as Conductor of our entire season ? I will
at once answer that every arrangement shall be framed to
meet your views. Our first concert will be on the
25th March and the last on the 8th July. We will
endeavour to make your sojourn in England as comfortable
and happy as possible. Let me know your opinion upon
the subject as soon as possible, but I do not wish you by
any means to say "Yes" or " No" immediately, but let us
know what hopes there are.'

Mendelssohn, unable to foretell how his duties at the
Prussian Court might shape themselves, could not at once
write the words ' Yes, I come,' as he wished to do ; for he
chose to regard the invitation as a great honour. The
Philharmonic Directors were quite content to wait four
months for a definite reply, hoping to secure his services
for at least part of their season. ' Let us have as much of
Mendelssohn as we can get of him,' was the message
they sent him through Bennett.

In a further letter of December 9, Bennett submitted
to Mendelssohn, in delicately chosen phrases, the business
details of the Philharmonic appointment. He then broached
another subject : — ' Now, my dear friend, I must take
advantage of this opportunity to tell you that I have pro-
claimed myself a candidate for the Musical Professorship
at Edinburgh which Sir Henry Bishop has just resigned,
and I should be so glad and obliged if you could give me
a testimonial which I might send to the Authorities at the
University.'

x] Testimonials 153

Similar requests were cordially responded to by the
Earl of Westmorland, Sir George Smart, Dr Crotch,
J. B. Cramer, Cipriani Potter, Moscheles and others ;
Spohr and Reissiger testified to a high reputation in
Germany ; and Mendelssohn, who was one of the earliest
to reply, wrote in his brotherly way : ' I send you here the
letter about the Edinburgh professorship. Really, I felt
ashamed while writing a testimonial for you ; / for you.
I think you do not want such a thing from anybody — how-
ever you wished me to send it, and there it is. I wish you
may have the success you deserve — you will then get that
situation and more.'

This was the testimonial : —

BERLIN, 17 December, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

I hear that you proclaimed yourself a Candidate
for the musical Professorship at Edinburgh and that a testi-
monial which I might send could possibly be of use to you
with the Authorities at the University. Now while I think
of writing such a testimonial for you I feel proud and
ashamed at the same time — proud, because I think of all
the honour you have done to your art, your country and
yourself and because it is on such a brother-artist that I am
to give an opinion — and ashamed, because I have always
followed your career, your compositions, your successes
with so true an interest that I feel as if it was my own
cause, and as if I was myself the Candidate for such a place.
But there is one point of view from which I might be
excused in venturing to give still an opinion, while all good
and true musicians are unanimous about the subject : perhaps
the Council of the University might like to know what we
German people think of you, how we consider you. And
then I may tell them, that if the prejudice which formerly
prevailed in this Country against musical talent of your
Country has now subsided, it is chiefly owing to you, to
your Compositions, to your personal residence in Germany.
Your Overtures, your Concertos, your vocal as well as
instrumental Compositions are reckoned by our best and
severest authorities amongst the first standard works of the
present musical period. The public feel never tired in

154 Correspondence with Mendelssohn [CH. x

listening to, while the musicians feel never tired in per-
forming your Compositions, and since they took root in
the minds of the true amateurs my Countrymen became
aware that music is the same in England as in Germany
as everywhere, and so by your successes here you destroyed
that prejudice which nobody could ever have destroyed but
a true Genius. This is a service you have done to English
as well as German musicians, and I am sure that your
Countrymen will not acknowledge it less readily than mine
have already done.

Shall I still add that the Science in your works is as
great, as their thoughts are elegant and fanciful ? that we
consider your performance on the Piano as masterly as
your Conducting of an Orchestra1 ? That all this is the
general judgement of the best musicians here, as well as
my own personal sincere opinion ? Let me only add that
I wish you success from my whole heart and that I shall
be truly happy to hear that you have met with it.

Always yours sincerely and truly

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.

One may be sure that so delightful a document, reaching
Bennett on Dec. 23, would make the last days of 1843
happy ones for him.

1 Mendelssohn had occasionally asked Bennett to conduct the orchestra in
the Gewandhaus on evenings when he himself was to play the pianoforte.
The critic Davison, in after years, often quoted this fact as an instance of
Mendelssohn's confidence in Bennett.

CHAPTER XL

MARRIAGE.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH MENDELSSOHN.

1844—1846.
aet. 27 — 30.

THE year 1844 opened with exciting prospects for
Bennett. His marriage was now imminent ; he had a
chance of election to the Edinburgh professorship ; and
he could look forward to a musical season which would
probably be brightened by the presence of Mendelssohn.
On Jan. 8 he resumed his concerts in Charlotte Street, and
on the loth he was at Crosby Hall in the City, where he
had been engaged to direct, during the winter, monthly
performances of chamber-music. On the i3th he set out
for Edinburgh, anxious to obtain, in view of marriage, an
honourable post with a fixed stipend, and likely to bring
in its train more employment than he could as yet find in
London. In addition to his testimonials he had obtained
good personal introductions. Mendelssohn — though this,
Bennett himself may never have known — had written
on his behalf to influential Scotch friends. He was wel-
comed by a section of the electors as the best-equipped
musician in the field. Of the other candidates one alone
was a formidable opponent. This was John Donaldson,
who, though he had abandoned the profession of music
for that of the law, was well known in Edinburgh, where
he resided, as a man of considerable ability, and as one
who had studied the physical side of musical science. A
few of the electors, regarding Donaldson as too little,
and Bennett as too much, of the practical musician, were

156 Marriage [CH.

reluctant to support either, and the question was how this
third party, if prevailed upon to vote, would turn the scale.
Bennett remained in Scotland a fortnight ; he paid a flying
visit to his young friend A. C. Johnson, who had just
settled in Glasgow as a teacher of music ; and he returned
to London with the impression that the votes for the
Professorship, as far as they were promised, were equally
divided between Donaldson and himself. The election
was not to take place till the end of March.

On March 3, Mendelssohn found himself able to accept,
in part, the Philharmonic conductorship. He wrote next
day to Bennett : — ' Since yesterday I have the certainty of
being able to come over to you ; and this morning I receive
Mr Watts' official letter. There is superstition for you and
for me. I have written to him with how great a pleasure
and how thankfully I accept the honor the Philharmonic
Society will do me, and that I shall come — if possible in
time for the 2 Qth April — if not, certainly for the last
5 Concerts, and that I anticipate such a treat, such a happy
time from my stay in England! The same I must write to
you, and thank you ! And do that from my heart !

1 Now let me ask a favour ; it is to correspond very
regularly with me during the 6 or 7 weeks of my stay here,
as there are many, many things which I should set right
before my departure and which depend on your answer and
letters. So pray write me always at least 2 or 3 days after
you receive my letter ; I will do the same, and I hope that
you will be kind enough to grant me that favour, and
perhaps we may thus do some good to your Society.'

Long letters accordingly passed about programmes and
the chance of introducing unknown works. Mendelssohn,
having first asked what English music would be available,
undertook to find German novelties. Timely news reached
him that fourteen MSS. pieces by Beethoven — music to
'The Ruins of Athens' and 'King Stephen' — had just
been found at Vienna. He at once procured for the
Philharmonic an offer of the copyright of this music with
the right of first performance in England for the modest
sum of ^15. He suggested the two earliest Overtures to
1 Leonora' and a MS. Finale from the same ; a Suite by
Bach ; Schubert's Symphony in C ; a Symphony by Gade ;

xi] Joseph Joachim 1 57

and ' other good new things ' from which a ' choice ' could
be made. Last, but not least from the English point of
view, he hoped to be ready with music of his own. All
this, coupled with the expected advent of many eminent
artists, foretold a memorable season. One of its most
interesting episodes was heralded by the following letter
from Mendelssohn to Bennett : —

BERLIN, \Qth March, 1844.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

The bearer of these lines, although a boy of 13,
is one of the best and dearest friends and of the most
interesting acquaintances I have made since long. His
name is Joseph Joachim, and he goes to London to visit
his uncle, Mr Figdor, a merchant ; he is born at Pesth in
Hongaria. Of all the young talents that now go through
the world I know none that is to be compared to this
Violin-player. It is not only the excellence of his first-rate
performance, but the positive certainty of his becoming a
first-rate artist, if God grants him health and leaves him
as he is, which makes me feel so much interest in him.
In fact while I write to you I think the impression his
performances made on me very much like the one I still
have of your Concerto at the Hanover Square Rooms,
when you wore the green jacket. He is not so far advanced
in Composition yet, but his performance of Vieuxtemps',
Beriot's, Spohr's Concertos, his playing at sight (even the
2nd Violins of difficult Violin-quartetts I heard play'd
by him in the most masterly manner), his accompanying
Sonatas &c. &c. is, to my opinion, as perfect and as wonder-
ful as it may be. Besides he is an intelligent, well-educated,
good-natured fellow. I think he will become a yeoman in
time, as both of us are. So pray, be kind to him, tell him
where he can hear good music, play to him and give him
good advice, and for everything you may do for him be
sure that I shall be indebted to you as much as I can be.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Very truly yours,
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.

Pray introduce him to Blagrove, if you think he will be
kind to him !

1 58 Marriage [CH.

On March 30, the Edinburgh electors found themselves
unable to decide on the choice of a Professor. Bennett,
having already postponed his wedding, to await their de-
cision, did so no longer. Easter placed a few days at his
disposal. He was teaching in London the day before Good
Friday, and was married at All Saints Church, Southampton,
on Easter Tuesday April 9, being within a few days of his
twenty-eighth birthday, while his bride was just nineteen.
They were driven with postilions, on the first stage of their
journey, according to the usage of those days, and they then
took train from Winchester, en route for the City of London,
where Bennett had a concert engagement in Crosby Hall
next day. He was in no position to put off any work, and
at once returned to Mrs Johnson's house, where his first
year of married life was spent. On May 2, Mendels-
sohn wrote : — ' I shall leave Frankfort for London on
Monday next and hope to arrive on board the Antwerp
steamer on Thursday morning. Thank you for all the
pleasure I anticipate from this visit ; Bennett married, and
plenty of music, and spring-time — Hurrah ! Auf Wieder-
sehen ! '

At the Philharmonic Concert on May 13, which was
the first of five that Mendelssohn conducted, Bennett played
his own C minor Concerto, and The Musical Examiner
wrote: — 'The superb Concerto of Sterndale Bennett, perhaps
the masterpiece of its composer, was enthusiastically re-
ceived. Bennett never played better, his tone sounded at
the further end of the room as full and clear as if we had
been seated at his side ; in this particular — in what an
eminent pianist who was present happily termed a dignified
composure in executing passages of any extent of difficulty
— and last not least in a noble, fervid, and unaffected style
of expression this great English pianist has no superior
and but few rivals : we were delighted to hear him achieve
so great a success in the presence of his warm friend and
admirer, Mendelssohn, who conducted the Concerto with
evident interest and unflagging attention.'

Bennett had married on a small income, and he would
afterwards refer to the economy which it was necessary to
practise in Charlotte Street. His young wife refused to
attend the interesting concerts now going on ; for though

MRS W. STERNUAI.E BENNETT

From a water-colour drawing

XI]

A Brave Suggestion

159

admission to them was free to her, conveyance to and from
the concert-room was not. However, they gave their first
dinner-party, though perhaps only to one guest. Mendels-
sohn had apparently been asked to name his own day, and
the following letters were written on Friday, May 17.

v_//t-«^£ J tf-fvt^ M -
to /7*^<x£r 0

/f<rt/*~

t*^*

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yiir*** t* 4~A**~w\,

To which Bennett replied : —

160

Marriage

[CH.

y

4^%

fl

s

A^&C

t/tn*

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s

t£*^r

to

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xi] The Decision at Edinburgh 161

Mendelssohn and Bennett must have had some joke
between them about the formalities of English committee-
meetings. A letter of Mendelssohn's drawn up in form of
a Resolution will be given later. The negotiations which
Bennett, in the name of the Philharmonic Directors, con-
ducted with Mendelssohn, were confirmed by the official
circulars of Mr Watts, Secretary of the Society. Hence
the allusion in Bennett's postscript.

The election at Edinburgh had come to a dead-lock, but a
fresh candidate now came forward. This was H. H. Pearson
(a friend of Bennett's)1, a young graduate of Cambridge,
son of the Dean of Salisbury, a student of medicine as well
as of music, and destined under the name of Pierson to
become a composer of mark both in England and Germany.
He was acceptable to those who would vote for neither
Donaldson nor Bennett, and in the eyes of Bennett's sup-
porters, was, as a musician, preferable to Donaldson. Some
one must obviously now give way, and Bennett was asked
to do so. Mrs Bennett wrote to her husband's aunt on
June 3 : — ' I am sure you will be anxious to hear who is
the successful candidate for the Professorship at Edinburgh.
My dear husband resigned his claims on Thursday last,
through the advice of his excellent friend and warm sup-
porter, Professor Jameson, who feared that his interest had
been much divided by the new candidate, Mr Pearson,
who has from Sterndale's resignation gained the vacant
chair. My dear husband I am happy to say [? bears] the
disappointment much better than I expected, and begged me
to tell you he is perfectly contented to remain in London,
where he is sure better things are waiting for him.'

On the same day that this was written, just eight weeks
after her marriage, Mrs Bennett met with a terrible accident.
'Her husband' — so writes A. C. Johnson — 'was out at
a concert, and she had gone to a press in her bedroom with
a candle, and in some way set fire to her clothes. She
came screaming down the stairs, when fortunately my
mother and brother who were in the dining-room rushed
to her assistance, putting out the flames that were sur-
rounding her. She was very much burnt and confined to

1 He translated Uhland's 'Maien-Thau; (May-Dew) for Bennett when the
latter set music to it.

S. B. II

1 62 Marriage [CH.

bed for a month. It was of course a great shock to her
husband on his return from the concert.' Her recovery,
if recovery it could be called, was slow. Bennett was
assured at the time that he need not ' fear any ultimate
injury to her constitution ; ' but he, later in life, believed
she had suffered such injury, for she never again enjoyed
the same health as before. In relating the accident to his
Aunt, he wrote : ' You may be assured that with all this,
Edinburgh has cost me very little thought.' His pleasure
in the musical season was checked. He cancelled what
engagements he could, to sit, as he told his aunt, with his
' dear invalid,' but he was necessarily in attendance at
certain concerts. At the Philharmonic, on June 10, his
Overture, 'The Naiads,' was played, and he was presented
for the first time to Prince Albert. He gave his annual
morning concert on June 25. Mendelssohn contributed
a novelty to the programme in the shape of an extended
version of his Variations in B(? (Op. 83) re-arranged as
a Duet1, which he played with Bennett from the manuscript.
Mendelssohn had undertaken to conduct the whole concert.
A contretemps which occurred was, for him, nothing but
a chance seized to show further kindness. When the
audience arrived there was no band. Costa had detained
the players over-time at an Opera-rehearsal. Mendels-
sohn saved the situation by starting Bennett's concert with
the vocal music, and himself accompanied on the pianoforte,
from the full score, several pieces which should have been
sung with the orchestra.

The Philharmonic was now enjoying its stroke of good
fortune, and taking a new lease of life. The Musical
World wrote : — ' It was a lucky thing that Sterndale
Bennett was chosen a director. He saw that only great
efforts could rescue the Society from annihilation. He
infused new spirit into its endeavours. He brought over
Mendelssohn in 1842. He brought over Spohr in 1843.
He has persuaded Mendelssohn to come again in 1844,
and these wise proceedings have saved the Philharmonic.

1 The Duet was published posthumously as Op. 833. The following note
appeared on the English edition. ' Originally composed for one performer,
but subsequently re-composed for two, and performed by the Author and
Mr W. S. Bennett at the concert of the latter in 1844.'

xi] Motive of Mendelssohn s Visits 163

Bennett has been zealously seconded in his endeavours by
Mr Anderson, a director whose indefatigable perseverance,
excellent judgment and admirable business habits have
been of inestimable service. To these gentlemen we are
inclined to think the Society is mainly indebted for its
happy restoration to health and vigour. Bennett has sug-
gested— Anderson1 has carried out his suggestions. The
judicial and executive forces of the Society are concentrated
in their two persons.'

The writer of the above would have been more exact, if
he had used the word ' persuaded ' in connection with the
year 1842. The persuasion which Bennett, for some reason
or another, was obliged to use in the first instance did not
seem wanted in the second. Still, these two memorable
visits of Mendelssohn to London can be set down chiefly,
if not entirely, to Bennett's agency. Mendelssohn did not
come the less readily from having a trusted friend on
the Directorate who would do his best to have everything
arranged in consonance with his wishes. When he received
the second and more important invitation, offering him
what was virtually a new office, viz. the conductorship of
the Philharmonic for an entire season, he wished, as it has
been said, to accept at once. But he did not do so without
making some preliminary enquiries of Bennett. The letter
in which he made them is lost ; but Bennett's reply shows
how particularly Mendelssohn desired an assurance that
he would not, by accepting a professional appointment in
London, be interfering with the interests of others, or be
doing anything contrary to the wish of the English musical
profession. Without such assurance he could not count on
fulfilling the main purpose for which he came to London on
these two occasions — the unselfish and generous purpose of
lending a helping hand to English musicians. But on this
subject a word or two more will be said later.

Bennett advertised his new Overture, ' Marie du Bois,'
for his morning concert in 1844, but he withdrew it, and
in the summer made a new edition. He doubted its suit-

1 G. F. Anderson served the Philharmonic, as Honorary Treasurer, from
1840 to 1876. He was Master of the Queen's Private Band, and both he and
his wife, an eminent pianist, had considerable influence in the musical pro-
fession. He came to rule the Philharmonic with an almost despotic sway, but
with unremitting zeal and with no small measure of success.

ii-

164 Marriage [CH.

ability for a concert-piece ; told Mendelssohn that he could
not bring himself to like it (i.e. as a Concert-Overture for
the Gewandhaus) ; wrote of it to Kistner as being a theatre-
work ; and therefore, no doubt, thought he had found the
right place for it, when he used it, as he afterwards did, for
his Cantata ' The May Queen.' Towards the end of the
Overture he has written on the score : — 'August 6th, 1844 —
The Tower Guns firing for the birth of a Prince or Princess
— Tuesday morning one o'clock (just at these bars).' Later
in life he became known to the musical Prince, H.R. H.
the Duke of Edinburgh, whose birth at Windsor is thus
recorded on the pages of ' The May Queen.' To convey
such intelligence to London, the electric telegraph was
used that night for the first time.

There is nothing else to notice in the first year of
Bennett's married life except that, as it passed on, the
amount of his teaching began, by very small degrees, to
increase. Then, with some assistance from his wife's
parents, he furnished a house in Russell Place1, Fitzroy
Square, and moved to it in March, 1845. He was close
upon twenty-nine years of age. Account-books continue
to tell the tale of very narrow circumstances.

The Philharmonic Society, keeping to their new arrange-
ment of having a single Conductor, appointed Sir Henry
Bishop for the season of 1845. Something, it may be
assumed, went wrong, and he retired after the third concert.
Bennett's pupil, W. S. Rockstro, was starting for Leipzig,
as a student, and in a letter introducing him to Mendels-
sohn, Bennett wrote on May 9 : — ' * * * I want sadly to
hear from you, it is a long time since I saw your hand-
writing. Moscheles has been elected to conduct the five
remaining concerts of the Philharmonic this season, Sir
Henry Bishop having resigned. I am very glad that it has
been so settled for the concerts have been very bad hitherto.
: * * I send by Rockstro to Leipzig a Sestett for P.P.
and stringed instruments. I wish you would find some
opportunity to try it when it is printed and tell me how

1 Russell Place, now called Fitzroy Street, is a continuation northwards of
Charlotte Street. Bennett's house, then No. 15 but now No. 19, in which he
lived for 14 years, is on the west side, and is the third house south of London
Street. Daniel Maclise, the painter, lived next door in the second house from
London Street.

FROM THE OVERTURE TO 'THE MAY QUEEN :

xi] A Sestet 165

you like it. I wrote it long since in 1835, but have been
renovating a bit. I have really some new things just
finished. My concert takes place on the 24th June. I shall
indeed wish you with me as on the last occasion. My wife
is only pretty well. I fear she has never recovered her sad
accident. '• '' * I have got a new house close to my late
residence and should so like to see you in it. Let me hear
from you soon, do pray ! I think of you much and hope
you do not forget me. I will write to you soon again, if
I do not hear from you, and tell you plans I have for visiting
Germany next year. Now for the present Good-bye.'

Mendelssohn wrote1 from Frankfort on May 26 : —
< # # * Many thanks for the letter which Mr Rockstro
brought me. He is a nice young man, but is very home-
sick, and was very nearly becoming quite melancholy here.
* * * I could not resist my curiosity and asked him to show
me your Sestett, even before its publication in Germany. It
has been a very great treat to me, and I thank you for the
pleasure I have had from merely reading it through. As
soon as it is published I hope to play it and then get to
know it more thoroughly. At present, merely from reading
it, the Andante is my favourite part. "Sehr Bennettisch."
And how much I am looking forward to the new things you
promised ! And most of all to your plan of visiting Germany
with your wife ! Do carry that out and tell me more about
it soon. It is most unfortunate that your dear wife is still
suffering from the consequences of that terrible accident.
So bring her to Germany, try the effect of change of air,
of a different doctor, of the many friends you have here.
I trust that this will do her more good than any Baths or
other cure-systems. With us all is well again, thank God.

•?? *fi? 'T?"

' What I hear of the management of the Philharmonic
concerts does not particularly please me. I am afraid that
neither Moscheles nor any one else can permanently im-
prove matters there. But enough for to-day. ''

A visit to Germany was nothing to Bennett now but
a pleasant dream. To make a living and develope a
teaching-connection demanded his continuous attention

1 The letter is in German.

1 66 Marriage [CH.

throughout the year. If he spared a few days for a
holiday at Cambridge or Southampton, he would come up to
town in the course of it to give a single lesson rather than
disappoint or offend any one pupil. He was now coming
into greater request as a pianist, and was playing at many
important concerts. He ceased for two years to give
Chamber concerts in his own name, probably could not
afford to give them ; but he was engaged to direct long
series of the same at Greenwich, in a Lecture Hall which
was under the management of Mr (afterwards Sir) John
Bennett. He continued to murmur to Mendelssohn about
the Philharmonic, writing on July 24: — 'We had the
annual meeting the other day and chose new Directors for
next year. * * * I am not at all glad to have anything
to do with them but at any rate I was not able to decline.
I am sure next year there will be a great uproar about who
is to conduct.' Then again he wrote in November : —
'The Philharmonic Directors have engaged Costa to conduct
their concerts with which I am not very well pleased,
but I could not persuade them to the contrary, and am
tired of quarrelling with them. They are a worse set
this year than we have ever had.'

Bennett had promised to send his Overture ' Marie du
Bois' for performance at Leipzig, and in April, 1846, he
wrote to Mendelssohn from Southampton : —

' * * * I should have written to you and sent you my
overture according to promise, but I really could not make
up my mind to like the overture and think it good enough
for the Leipzig Public who have always been so kind to
me and are certainly entitled to the best I can do whatever
that is ; and I do not despair of renewing my friendship
with them if I have health and strength and more time
to devote to composition than I have just now, but you
know what England is, and how we must work to keep up
our houses, and living even on the most economical scale.
* * * And now about the Philharmonic, I dare say you
have seen all the flaming accounts in the newspaper about
Costa and our grand doings, but if you were here and able
to judge for yourself, you would not say that he was the
greatest Conductor in the world. I am quite alone in my
opinion upon these matters in the Direction and am sick

xi] Wanted at Leipzig 167

to death with the Public who pretend to be so clever. But
I want you to come to England and let me get some good
spirits by talking to you and then I want to try to come to
Leipzig next year. * * * And now may I not talk to you
about my little boy^ now nearly four months old and a dear
fellow. ^ * * I was going to write to you soon after he
was born but I found out that you knew all about it and I
was disappointed that I could not tell you first myself. * * *
Now then good, dear friend — Good-bye. The sea is roaring
at my windows. Write soon to me. * * * '

Mendelssohn to Bennett*.

tjl<rnr-i+*i <*J .

F r 1

I played the above last night, saying to myself at the
same time, I must write to him at once and tell him : —
The principal thing in your welcome letter, and for which
I thank you most, is and remains that you mean to come to
Germany next winter and to come here. That is the very
best thing that could happen to us, and I think that for
yourself and your dear wife also, it will be good and
pleasant — or must she stop at home with the baby ? ^
And just next winter, not a bit later, your coming, and
your playing, and your conducting would be exactly what
is wanted. Therefore, come, come — that is the main object
of this letter.

If anything can be done to make your stay, either here
or in Germany generally, easier or pleasanter, and if it is in
my power to contribute anything towards that end, I hope
that I need not tell you how glad I should be to do it.

1 His first child, Charles Sterndale Bennett. A second son born in 1847,
and a daughter in 1848, completed his family.

2 The original letter is in German. The music is the opening of the
Barcarolle from Bennett's 4th Concerto, the MS. of which is headed ' Rowing
Time.'

1 68 Marriage [CH. xi

Think over this, for you know this country almost as well
as your own, and we often say with pride that you are half
at home with us. If all is well, I hope to see and talk to
you in England in August, but it will only be for a short
time, for my wife cannot come with me, she wants to stay
with the children, and I do not like to leave her and them
for long. * * * I hope also to have my new Oratorio ready
to bring with me — how glad I should be if it pleased you.

But do come to Leipzig again next winter. That is the
principal thing, as Cato of old would say.

You need not write to me any more about the Phil-
harmonic. The few words in your letter were more than
sufficient for me, and I had always thought that it must be
so. Bad enough, and it makes me feel sorry for your
countrymen.

' Hang the liberty ' how is the little boy? Has he got
a tooth ? Is he like you, or like his mother, or like both ?
Does he cry enough ? (I consider that a very important
point according to my experiences.) Is he already obliged
to do conjuring- tricks1 ? (I hope not!) What are his
Christian names ? Is he fair or dark ? Blue or black-eyed ?
I ought to be able to tell my wife all these particulars.

But come here next winter, says Cato2.

Your friends here are well : David, Schleinitz, the
Preussers, Julius Kistner &c. When they hear W. St.
Bennett mentioned their hearts seem to enlarge ; they are
one and all your loyal and attached friends. Fancy what it
would be if I could say to them : He is coming here next
winter !

Therefore do come ! And give a thousand kind messages
to your dear wife and the little boy, and keep your friendly
feeling for

Your

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDV.

1 Mendelssohn would have in his mind Bennett's own conjuring-tricks.

2 Cato, by the persistent use of his famous dictum ' Delenda est Carthago '
kept a prime duty before the Romans. Mendelssohn imitates this by reiterating
the main idea of his letter, viz. that Bennett must come to Leipzig.

CHAPTER XII.

THE UNFORESEEN STROKE.
1846—1847.

£Et. 30, 31.

BENNETT'S position at the Philharmonic, as long as it
had given opportunities of association with Mendelssohn,
had brought him both pleasure and pride. It was now
bringing him into a very different relationship. Much
advantage was likely to accrue and in the end did accrue
to the Society by the appointment of Costa as conductor.
The Directors would have been glad to get him sooner
if the Manager of the Italian Opera would have allowed
him to come. At the Opera, where he was as yet best
known, he had acquired a great name and had won the
confidence of the largest and most influential section of
the musical Public. With the complete equipments of
a musician, he had also the attributes of a ruler of men ;
and, while firmly establishing his own place, gained absolute
control over a set of players who soon learnt the lesson
that their livelihood depended upon their loyalty and
obedience to their chief. Difficulties which had previously
arisen between conductors and the Philharmonic orchestra
would surely vanish when he came on the scene. Never-
theless, Chorley and other critics raised an objection to his
being chosen for this particular post. They thought that an
Italian, a conductor and composer of Italian Operas, a com-
poser who had gained his chief, as yet, success in the higher
forms of Ballet music, might be — they probably knew that
Costa avowedly was — out of sympathy with much, and
with some of the finest of the music he would have to

i jo The Unforeseen Stroke [CH.

conduct at the Philharmonic. This was the ground on
which Bennett opposed his election. Earlier personal inter-
course between Costa and himself had been of a friendly
kind ; though there could be little artistic sympathy between
the one who did not admire Beethoven, and the other who
seldom entered the Italian Opera House. Costa would be
sure to hear of the single vote given against him at the
Philharmonic. As the concerts under his direction went
on, Bennett did not join in the chorus of unqualified
approval. He said so in the last-quoted letter to Mendels-
sohn. Any words of criticism which may have passed his
lips would not lose force when they were passed on from
the tongues of the mischief-makers, of whom there were
plenty about, to the ears of the conductor. Then, again,
Bennett himself was thought by some to be the man who
ought to have been chosen. Musical papers had pressed
his claims. Moscheles, when he heard of Sir Henry
Bishop's appointment in 1845, wrote in his diary: — 'How
is it possible to prefer him to Bennett, who is so immeasur-
ably his superior?' It may be imagined that Costa might
regard Bennett, though his junior by eight years, as a
possible rival. He might suspect, since re-election of
a conductor took place annually, that some opposing party
would attempt a change. One here conjectures the seeds
of that hatred which Costa ultimately felt towards Bennett,
the virulence of which is scarcely to be accounted for by
the spark that, as will presently be seen, caused the ex-
plosion. Bennett, however, had never expected the office
for himself. He mentioned no such hope in his letters to
Mendelssohn, but named Lucas, who was, like Costa, eight
years older than himself, as one likely to be appointed.
From the English point of view, Bennett, however well-
qualified in other respects, was too young to expect a public
position of importance in the musical world. He must,
with patience, wait his turn. As a well-timed encourage-
ment, however, he now received a valuable testimony to
his qualifications. In the first year of Costa's conductor-
ship at the Philharmonic, when the Italian seemed to be
carrying all before him, Moscheles was on the point of
leaving England after a residence of twenty-three years.
He invited Bennett to conduct his ' Farewell ' concert.

xii] Birmingham Festival 171

The direction of important Benefit concerts, when an
orchestra was employed, had always been regarded as one
of the rights of the leading conductor of the period, so that
Moscheles, by departing from custom on this occasion, was
thought to be paying Bennett a significant compliment.
Davison described the concert as a ' leave-taking ' which
brought with it ' many cheers and many tears ; ' and he
wrote of Bennett's association with Moscheles on this day
as ' something to be remembered with pride by every
Englishman.'

On August 23, Bennett wrote to his aunt : ' Mendels-
sohn was with us yesterday, and I am going on Tuesday, if
all be well, to Birmingham to hear his new oratorio.' It was
no common occurrence for Bennett to attend a provincial
Festival. He was only present at five or six of them in his
life, and then (except in the case of a Festival that he con-
ducted himself) only for the sake of attending one or two of
the performances. When young he could not easily afford
such excursions. Later he disliked, probably had never
liked the excitement incident to large gatherings. He did
not, however, miss the crowning event of the century in
the annals of our musical Festivals. He was not off duty
this August, but after teaching five hours on the Tuesday
he went to Birmingham with his pupil, William Rea,
and heard the ' Elijah ' on Wednesday. He met the
composer. Sir Charles Stanford has heard the tale of a
happy supper-party at the ' Woolpack ' hotel, where his
father, Mr John Stanford, and Joseph Robinson, of Dublin,
merrily entertained Mendelssohn and Bennett ; Rea did
not forget an early walk taken with his master and
Mendelssohn on Thursday ; and Bennett's then prompt
return to work is recorded in his teaching-books.

Bennett's German friends were still hoping that he
might fulfil his project of spending with his wife the
coming winter at Leipzig. So when Mendelssohn returned
to Germany he wrote once more. With charming delicacy
he here resorts to a joke in order to veil the generosity of
his intention. Desirous of removing any difficulty which
ways and means might present to the Bennetts, he offers
them the hospitality of his own house during the whole
time of their visit.

172 The Unforeseen Stroke [CH.

LEIPZIG, 28 Sept. 1846.
MY DEAR BENNETT,

I have come home very happily and found my
wife and children in perfect health, and everything looking
as well as I might have wished, and now as I am comfort-
ably settled again since the last few days I called a meeting,
consisting of Cecile and myself, and we passed the following
Resolution :

Resolved

That Mr and Mrs Bennett are most earnestly, sincerely,
and heartily requested by Mr and Mrs F. Mendelssohn
Bartholdy to accept of a very small room at the Konigs
Strasse No. 51 for their residence from December to April
next (if possible) in order to afford the aforesaid Mendels-
sohn Bartholdys the opportunity of seeing as much as
possible of the aforesaid Bennetts during the aforesaid
residence ; and that, as this small room has an entrance of
its own, and no communication with the remainder of the
lodging, the said Bennetts will be quite at liberty to go
out when they like, and to come in again when they like,
and to see whom they like, without giving trouble to, or
experiencing trouble from, the other inhabitants ; and that
it would be considered by Mr and Mrs M. a very great
pleasure to come if Mr and Mrs B. would say yes, and
come and stay with them as long as they can stay in
Germany.

The favour of an Answer is requested.

I see I have not been able to make out the true Style
of an English Resolution, and the end is very much like
the 'invitation a la danse.' But never mind; you under-
stand what I mean by the stupid jest, and that I should
be so very happy (in good and best earnest) if you and
Mrs Bennett would accept of our invitation and spend
some time with us, and that Cecile joins most sincerely
in this invitation ! Now try what you can do ! I might
have sent a round Robin if I had allowed Monicke, and
the Schuncks, and the whole Concert- Direction, and the
Voigts, and I do not know whom not to subscribe them-

1 Mendelssohn's house is generally given as No. 3. Perhaps the offered
room was in an adjacent house.

xn] Disappointment 1 73

selves to a petition to you ; but I wanted to have it all
by myself, and I hope you will consider of it ! As this
letter is not only directed to you but also to Mrs Bennett,
I wish you would talk the whole matter over with her, and
settle it, and write, ' We come on such and such a day ' the
very same hour when this note arrives at your house. * * *
And now my dear friend let me have a favorable answer,
and with many good wishes to Mrs Bennett, and to young
Bennett (meaning not you but the stout boy)

I am and shall be always yours,

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.

Madame Mendelssohn added her own words of invitation
at the end of her husband's letter, so that Mrs Bennett may
very likely have written to her some temporizing answer
pending the decision. Otherwise, the date of the following
reply from Bennett is later than might be expected.

Bennett to Mendelssohn.

Nov. 1 6, 1846,

LONDON, 15 RUSSELL PLACE,
FITZROY SQRE.

MY DEAR GOOD FRIEND,

How often have I postponed writing this letter,
do not think me ungrateful for your kindness, this is not
the case and never will be. I wish I could write to you
in real happiness to say that I proudly accept your warm
invitation ifor Christmas, but circumstances will otherwise and
I must submit, although more reluctantly than I have ever
done to any circumstances in my life before. I have been
hoping for weeks past so to arrange matters of business
and see my way clear for a happy holiday with you at
Leipzig, and my wife has joined me in my happy anticipa-
tions, but we are obliged to forego all at present. I cannot
tell you how much we feel this disappointment, and nothing
but an assurance from you that you do not think us un-
grateful to you and Madame Mendelssohn will in any way
relieve us. If I were near you now I would not hesitate
to let you know the many reasons which oblige us to
remain at home for the present and so enjoy a holiday
with more comfort at a future time, and will you believe

174 The Unforeseen Stroke [CH.

me that no trifling reasons keep me from that happy roof
in the Konigs Strasse. My business at this time is much
increasing and requires my constant attention, and as I am
becoming a family man, I dare not longer rely upon chance
and I fear that were I absent at the beginning of the new
year, I might lose much ; but all this appears to me, as
I am now writing it, so dreadfully worldly, and so ungenial
to all I ever feel upon these matters, that I will not write
another word about it, save from my heart to thank you
again and again for the proof of your valued friendship
which you have given me — which if I live to be an old
man I will even then think of as vividly as I do now—
and so God bless you. And now, are you coming to us
in April ? and will David come ? Alas, poor Alsager has
suddenly left this world and will take no more interest in
the Beethoven Quartett Society for which amongst other
things I understand David was coming. '•'' * * But why
do I write such a miserable letter, for indeed I ought to
be happy and thankful for all I enjoy. Remember me
to all my kind friends in Leipzig

and ever believe me

Yours sincerely
WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Bennett's ' business,' as he called it, which had been
slightly but perceptibly increasing each half-year since his
marriage, had in the autumn of this year taken a sudden
leap. The departure of Moscheles from London might
well account for this. The problem of bread-winning had
demanded Bennett's patient attention for seven years. Its
solution was at hand. His obvious duty, at this juncture,
was to remain at his post and to secure the new connection
of pupils placed within his reach. He could not close his
regretful letter to Mendelssohn without some expression
of thankfulness for material benefits. His prospects were
bright and he could at least hope to see Germany again
in the near future, and thereby gain stimulus to his artistic
pursuits. But it was not to be. Mendelssohn's words,
'Just next winter, not a moment later' proved only too true.

In April, 1847, Mendelssohn again came to England

xn] Death of Mendelssohn 1 75

for performances of ' Elijah.' Returning from one of these
at Birmingham, Davison was his travelling-companion to
London. Their conversation in the railway-carriage was
much about Bennett and his position as a composer in
England. ' Ah/ said Mendelssohn, ' he ought to come out
with some large work, and say, "Here I am, I &fa Bennett" \*
then after singing the second subject of the last movement
of the ' Suite de Pieces,' he added, ' For he is so gifted.'
This was the more impressed on Davison's memory, because
Mendelssohn, being at the time careworn and depressed,
was talking in so serious a tone. Schumann in his criticism
of the same ' Suite de Pieces ' had urged Bennett to similar
effort, but the latter did not put the same value on his
own powers, and having at length placed his unfinished
Oratorio on the shelf, for the future took the view that
works of colossal proportions should be left to the greatest
masters of the art. Moreover, two events were approach-
ing to cast shadows, for a time, both on his private and his
artistic life. The one event brought grief, the other injury.
He was to lose a friend, and find a foe.

'A quiet hour' on Sunday afternoon, May 2, which
Mendelssohn appointed to spend at Bennett's house, was
the last that they are known to have passed together. Six
months later, the intelligence of Mendelssohn's death came,
with the full severity of suddenness, to his English friends.
Bennett's pathetic letters written at the time to Ferdinand
David and Kistner contain passages which cannot be re-
handled here. The beautiful reply in which David de-
scribed Mendelssohn's last hours has already been published.

Among those who had lived in artistic and personal
sympathy with Mendelssohn, there were some — Ferdinand
David was certainly one, and Bennett another — who could
not, in after life, bring themselves to talk freely about him.
Time never dimmed their mental picture of a great person-
ality. The same change, noted with curiosity by Bennett,
which used to pass over his companions and himself when
the living Mendelssohn came into their midst, was still
to be observed when, after his death, he entered their
minds. Nothing could more powerfully reflect Mendels-
sohn's greatness, as it had appeared to men who were
themselves not without distinction, than their restraint of

176 The Unforeseen Stroke [CH.

manner and speech at the mention of a name which was in
use by others as a household word. Mendelssohn's nature
repudiated that open obeisance which has not proved
displeasing to some remarkable musicians. He was very
strict about the observance of such forms of courtesy as are
due from one man to another, but in his intercourse with
his brother-artists he liked to be treated on terms of musical
equality, and he allowed no reference to be made to intel-
lectual superiority. Nevertheless, the deference which is
compelled by, and is a proof of superlative greatness of
mind and character was paid to Mendelssohn quite as surely
as if it had been expressed by outward acts of homage.
Bennett would say that Schumann was one who, in his
quiet way, uniformly showed reverence to Mendelssohn.
In this innermost circle there was no parade of adulation.
The ranters and sentimentalists who after Mendelssohn's
death swelled the crowd of his worshippers in England
were not of the true Mendelssohnian pattern. They would
have felt quelled in the presence of Mendelssohn's real
friends.

Bennett outlived Mendelssohn twenty-seven years. So
long a time did not pass without his writing something
about him as a musician, or without his occasionally intro-
ducing an anecdote about him in conversation with favourite
pupils or at his own fireside. He referred to him in lectures,
though more briefly than to some other musicians. He had
to curb feelings, some of them injured ones, when speaking
in a public place. Mendelssohn's death had opened the
door to virulent attacks upon his reputation by certain
leaders of musical thought in Germany, and this had given
great pain to those who were mourning the loss of ' a just
man made perfect.' Bennett had by some means acquired
the notion that the Germans had not treated Mendelssohn
in any too generous a manner during his life-time. He
was, however, not to be drawn into controversy ; so that,
though bold in asserting Mendelssohn's absolute merit, he
did not go the length of illustrating that merit by naming
contemporary musicians and making comparisons. Writing
some ten years after Mendelssohn's death, he dismissed
Germany with the single remark, ' I do not scruple to
assert that Mendelssohn was more thoroughly appreciated

xn] England's Debt to Mendelssohn 177

by the English than by his own countrymen.' At the same
time, he was not quite content with the view taken of
Mendelssohn in England. He thought it was not suf-
ficiently comprehensive. He admitted, in 1858, that in
Oratorio, Mendelssohn had * taken a place in the hearts
of the English, second only to Handel;' but he wanted
more acknowledgment of the manifold nature of Mendels-
sohn's work, urging that he had proved himself ' grand
in all departments of the art,' and that he had contributed
'such glorious and finished masterpieces to the art in all
directions/ In this variety of successful achievement he
could see one feature of resemblance between Mendelssohn
and those great musicians whom he placed highest, and
could perhaps contrast him or hope that others might con-
trast him with contemporaries who were either specialists, or
who had not shown themselves so successful as Mendelssohn
in so many branches of composition. His conviction that
Mendelssohn deserved to rank as one of the chief repre-
sentatives of the classical school was unalterable. The last
words which the present writer heard him speak on a musical
subject were in reply to the question whether he remained
firm in his belief that Mendelssohn was one of the great
masters. He then solemnly attested his faith, saying
slowly and with much seriousness, ' Certainly, one of the
greatest'

More than once, when lecturing, he referred in grateful
terms to the services which Mendelssohn had specially
rendered to the English. He wrote, in 1858, of the unique
influence which Mendelssohn's music — he was alluding
more especially to chamber and pianoforte music — was
exerting in English homes : — ' Even young ladies who
steadily adhere to the superficial music of the present day
find place in their repertoire for many of the works of this
illustrious man. This fact amidst all my grumbling consoles
me and leads me to hope that the mind and heart that can
feel and love Mendelssohn will cease to enjoy the ephemeral
and unintellectual music which is so abundant and for
which I cannot disguise my utter contempt.' He did not
hope in vain. High authorities have since traced in the
successful appeal which Mendelssohn's chamber compo-
sitions both vocal and instrumental, made to the English,

s. B. 12

178 The Unforeseen Stroke [CH.

the origin of that wide appreciation which gradually came
for the similar works of his great predecessors and contem-
poraries.

Bennett also spoke of ' the gain to English art by the
never-too-often repeated visits of this great man,' and of
the love which, to his own knowledge, Mendelssohn had
entertained for England ; a love that so distinguished him
(as Bennett well knew, though this he did not publicly say)
from many other foreign visitors who showed their aversion
to everything pertaining to this country except its money.
Prince Albert, who was well-placed to observe, and well-
qualified to comment on existing musical conditions, called
Mendelssohn, in 1847, 'a second Elijah * * * encompassed
by idolaters of Baal.' No wonder that the few musicians
in England on the classical side valued the actual presence
in their midst of this great prophet of their own creed.
There are full records of his Birmingham and Philharmonic
triumphs ; he has himself described his gracious reception
by Queen Victoria and her Consort ; but it must also be
remembered that this much-feted man, in what he called
a 'time-eating country,' spent hours in humbler places
giving a helping hand to musicians who were striving to
do good, though little noticed, work. Dando, the violinist,
treasured to a ripe old age the memory of this noble yet
lowly minister of Music having played for him at his little
Quartet-concerts in the city ; and a study of Mendelssohn's
doings during the nine weeks he spent here in 1844 reveals
other like acts of encouraging support, many more of which,
done privately, have passed into oblivion. Bennett could
not speak at length on such matters, while thinking of his
own connection with them. He drew his pen through the
words, 'ever ready to cheer and encourage the young artist,'
and wrote instead, 'Had I not known him so intimately,
I might have trusted myself to talk more of his vast claims
upon our affections.'

In course of time he saw with disapproval that the
English idea of Mendelssohn was being corrupted by
sentimentality and romance, and he wrote in 1858, 'One
would greatly welcome a faithful biography of Mendels-
sohn.' Shortly after his own death in 1875, a lacty gave
the following reminiscence. ' He (Bennett) was not an

xn] His Remembrances of Mendelssohn 1 79

enthusiastic man. In speaking not long ago to the writer
of these pages1 of his friend Mendelssohn and all that had
been written of him, he said, "I knew and loved the man
himself too well to like to see him so absurdly idealized.'"
Some of Bennett's little stories about Mendelssohn seemed
to be told with the express object of reducing him to a
reality. Two of them, though he told them as against
himself, he often repeated, because he admired the sharp
decisive manner in which Mendelssohn answered questions
which he deemed needless. On first going to Leipzig,
being under the impression (which was probably, in general,
a correct one) that Handel was less familiar to the Germans
than to the English, he asked Mendelssohn whether he
knew a great deal of his music, and Mendelssohn snapped
at him with the reply, 'Every note.' So, too, when relating
how his surprise at Mendelssohn's organ-playing had led
him to enquire by what means it had been attained, Bennett
would always give the answer, 'By working like a horse,'
in the tone of a tart rebuke. Then he would talk of
Mendelssohn's manly vigour, as e.g. of his strength as
a swimmer, without mentioning the more feminine graces
which rhapsodists had attributed to their ideal musician.
He said, again, that he had often been struck with Men-
delssohn's practical business qualities, which he could not
understand his possessing. He would sometimes qualify
his statements, in the one direction or the other, in order
to give the real Mendelssohn. Of this Mr W. Crowther
Alwyn, who, in Bennett's later days, studied composition
under him at the Academy, records the following
instances : — ' On discussing one morning, during the
Composition class, an impromptu characterization of Men-
delssohn's pianoforte-playing, with which he was in pro-
found disagreement, he said, speaking very earnestly and
with deep feeling : "It was not playing that could be
criticized. At times it seemed to send a thrill through every
fibre of my body — but he did not always play alike, for, after
all, he was human." Again, he said that Mendelssohn's
personal appearance was often insignificant, not such as
would attract passers-by in the street — but that, at other
times, he had the appearance of an angel'

1 Eraser's Magazine, July 1875.

12 — 2

180 The Unforeseen Stroke [CH. xn

Although Bennett's musical tastes, and principles as
an artist were determined quite early in life, and were
causes rather than effects of his congenial association
with Mendelssohn, yet it is certain that he was much
strengthened, at the outset of a career which his con-
science made a hard one, by the fellow-feeling and appro-
bation of this elder brother. When he wanted counsel,
Mendelssohn, who was not only older but who had been sur-
rounded from his youth up with a greater variety of educa-
tional and social advantages, was able and ready to give it.
Bennett acknowledged his debt, when he wrote in 1844:
' How much all my professional life has been influenced
by your friendship;' but the friendship, as their letters
have shown, was no mere professional alliance. They
shared, as Mendelssohn wrote, 'not only musical pleasures
and sorrows, but also the domestic ones on which life and
happiness depend.' Bennett would sometimes quote adages
and maxims which Mendelssohn had received from his
father for the guidance of life, and which the son had
recommended to the use of another ; and when doing this
he would reproduce the pious reverence of tone in which
the son had uttered his father's sayings. This gave the
impression to his hearers that his conversations with
Mendelssohn must often have taken a very serious turn,
and that music was not, perhaps, the greatest thing that
bound them together. When Bennett, after hearing of
Mendelssohn's death, wrote to David and Kistner, he
expressed himself mindful of the many valued friendships,
including their own, which still remained to him ; but,
without fear of being misunderstood or of hurting feelings
which were sure to agree with his own, he could write of
Mendelssohn, ' I have lost the dearest and kindest friend
I ever had in my life.'

PART III

A HARSH REBUFF. QUIET SPHERES
OF ARTISTIC USEFULNESS

CHAPTER XIII.

RUPTURE WITH COSTA AND THE PHILHARMONIC.
OCCUPATIONS AS A TEACHER.

1848.
set. 32.

MENDELSSOHN, after writing ' Elijah ' for England, was
accepted here, without further hesitation, as a great master
of Oratorio. He had given music in this case not to a
musical sect or confraternity of connoisseurs, but straight
off to the heart of a whole nation whose musical sentiment,
in its widest and most genuine form of expression, he
thoroughly understood. Wherever Handel was known, he
was now admitted, and if not before his death, then at least
very soon after it, his name attained a celebrity in England
more far-reaching than that of any other modern composer.
So great and secure a fame, won by a culminating master-
piece, gradually drew more attention to his other achieve-
ments, and the ultimate appreciation of his work, on its
many sides, balanced if it did not outweigh the vulgar
prejudice permeating English society against music de-
scribed, and oftener than notjeeringly described as 'classical.'
But the war between real and inane music lasted for many
long years. It was not during Mendelssohn's life-time that
his instrumental chamber-music made any great way here.
His pianoforte Solos were not much taught and they were
very little played in public. Statistics of Bennett's career
as a pianist help -to prove that. From the time of his
settling down in Portland Chambers in 1839 to the time
of Mendelssohn's death in 1847, ne played at eighty-three

184 Rupture with Costa [CH.

concerts in London and the suburbs. Twenty-five of these
were orchestral, fifty-eight of them chamber concerts. Of
the latter, sixteen were not of sufficient importance for
musical papers to record them, or for the programmes to be
preserved ; they are only noted in his engagement-books.
But the remaining forty-two gave him as much opportunity
of introducing good music as was afforded to any other
classical pianist, and he would be as much disposed as any
one, when he himself chose the music for his own per-
formance, to pay a fair share of attention to Mendelssohn.
What was the result ? In the nine years, but chiefly within
the last four of them, he took part in Mendelssohn's concerted
chamber-music ten times, and he played Solos, or groups
of Solos of his composition on eleven occasions. This was
all that the circumstances of the time permitted him to do
for Mendelssohn in that particular direction, and it is not
to be discovered that others did nearly so much. Shortly
before Mendelssohn's death, Davison, when referring to a
performance of his music by Bennett, wrote : — ' In the
absence of Mendelssohn himself, our young countryman is
his fitting representative, and indeed the influence he has
had in diffusing a knowledge of and creating a love for the
works of the greatest of modern composers is only calculable
by those who, like ourselves, have watched his career from
earliest boyhood up to the present epoch.' Davison would
here refer not only to influence as a public performer, but
also to Bennett's private exertions in student-days, and
later among pupils, to win adherents to classical music.
Old companions, who got some of their earliest impressions
of the works of great masters through the agency of his
playing, might well retain a special remembrance of his
introducing Mendelssohn's music to them as it arrived.
Certainly they retained the wish to get from him such first
impressions. Mr J. S. Bowley has written of interesting
evenings spent in Berners Street with G. A. Macfarren
who, in bachelor days, would get Bennett to his lodgings
when any new works of Mendelssohn's reached England,
so that the old ' set ' might know them through his playing
— his ' singularly beautiful playing,' as Sir George Macfarren
himself summed up his memory of Bennett's pianism when
he wrote or spoke about it in after life.

xin] Pianoforte-Playing 185

In the last weeks of 1847, and in the early part of the
New Year, concert-givers naturally devoted themselves to
paying tribute to Mendelssohn's memory. From this time
may probably best be dated the beginning of the more
quickly spreading influence of his music. Bennett, as a
public performer, did not identify himself with Mendels-
sohn's music — except perhaps, with a single volume of it
— more than with that of other great masters. But with
the wish to make his playing a part of his teaching, he
made use of some of Mendelssohn's simpler strains to
attract a song-loving public to a deeper love for the piano-
forte and for legitimate pianoforte music, than that which
had been awakened by the Fantasia with its substratum of
Italian Opera Airs. He early saw in the ' Lieder ohne
Worte ' the most potent philtre to use. The first time he
played a Solo at a London concert, in 1838, he introduced
a selection of these pieces. It was a novel and a bold idea
to venture on to a public platform with music apparently
so simple ; and Davison, who had perhaps been sceptical,
wrote : ' The performance of these " Songs without words,"
as they are called, told better than we expected.' Bennett
had no further chance of playing an unaccompanied Solo in
London, till he started his own Chamber concerts. In
1844 he played the 3rd book of the 'Lieder' in Charlotte
Street; in 1847 the 4th book in the Hanover Square
Rooms ; and in the same year he still further tested the
effect of such music, by introducing the 5th book as a relief
to the heaviness of a long orchestral concert. After Men-
delssohn's death, he played a selection of the ' Lieder ' at
a ' memorial ' concert given by himself, and was then
immediately invited to do the same at five such ' memorial '
concerts given by others. John Hullah asked him to do it
in Exeter Hall. Some of Bennett's friends wondered at his
being ready to attempt delicate solo-work in so large a
building, and tried to dissuade him ; but he was determined
to take part in the concert, and the fears of others were
really groundless, for indeed, by the distinctness of his
playing, he could produce as telling an effect as any pianist
of his time. Violinists who accompanied him in Concertos
spoke afterwards of the pleasure it used to give them to
combine with one whose meaning was always so clearly

1 86 Rupture with Costa [CH.

defined, while critics wrote of the exceptional ease with
which they listened to him from the back of a concert-room.
Then, too, his tone and attack were quite per se, surprising
those who heard him for the first time. Advanced students
of composition who worked under him in later days found
their attention 'arrested and compelled,' when he went to
the pianoforte to give short illustrations in the course of
his teaching. About this, one of them now writes : —
1 An indelible impression was left upon my mind by the
playing of a few bars of a Sonata of Mozart on a single
occasion.' A clergyman who, as an undergraduate, had
heard him play in Cambridge spoke in later life of never
having heard ' a piano sound like it,' and the surprise of
this anonymous critic was also felt by Mr R. S. Burton,
the well-known organist and chorus-director of Leeds, who
independently used the very same words, ' I had never heard
a piano sound like it,' when he was recalling the moment
at which he was seized by the sound of the opening of the
'Duetto' from Mendelssohn's ' Lieder.' Kellow Pye remem-
bered ' the tone of his touch as marvellous.' H. C. Banister,
a man of acute sense and fine musical intelligence, when
describing to the present writer his first meeting with
Bennett, said : ' I was standing near him in a window, and,
while thinking of something he had said, did not notice
that he had left my side. Suddenly I was startled and
could not, I assure you, realize what had happened. He had
gone to the pianoforte and touched the keys. I had not
the least idea, on the first impression, what the instrument
was. It might, for all I knew, have been an organ or any-
thing else. The sound produced was quite new to my
experience.'

To return now to Mullah's 'memorial' concert in Exeter
Hall. On a bench, some distance behind that which
Mrs Bennett and her friends were occupying on the occa-
sion, sat a burly countryman whose enthusiasm for the vocal
music was unrestrained, and whose comments were made in a
stentorian voice/n? bonopublico. When Bennett's turn came,
this loquacious gentleman let every one know that he had not
come there to see 'a fellow twiddling his fingers on a piano.'
Mrs Bennett's party were, of course, anxious as to what
might happen next ; but they were soon relieved. When

xni] Pianoforte-Playing 187

Bennett touched the instrument there was immediate
silence. Then by degrees came little grunts of satisfaction
from the bench behind, which continued to increase in in-
tensity, till the end of the performance came, and the lusty
lungs of a new convert to the pianoforte led the cheers
which acclaimed Mendelssohn's music as interpreted by
Bennett.

On May 15, 1848, Bennett played at the Philharmonic
concerts for the thirteenth and, unluckily, for the last time.
No harbinger of ill-fortune appeared that night to warn him
that his career as a Concerto-player was virtually at an end.
He was at the height of his powers and achieved a success
as marked as on any previous occasion. He chose Mozart's
D minor Concerto, contributing his own Cadences and
adding the necessary embellishments with rare taste and
discretion. ' His performance,' wrote Ayrton, ' was in true
keeping with so noble and dignified a composition. His
feeling taste, so opposed to the prevailing style of most of
the pianists of the present day, reminds us of a great retired
performer. That the mantle of J. B. Cramer has fallen
upon our countryman is the general opinion. May he long
continue to wear and deserve it.'

Ayrton had been predicting for some years that this
mantle would fall on Bennett. By clothing him with it
this evening, he probably paid the very highest compliment
he could imagine, and paid it to a man with whom he had
little personal acquaintance, and of whose musical efforts, un-
less they concerned the pianoforte, he had written with a pen
always cold and sometimes cruel. From Cramer, Bennett
may have inherited, with other things, his legato-playing.
In a notice of one of his Chamber-concerts, written some
years later than this, Davison said : ' Surely no such legato-
playing has been heard since the days of Dussek and
Cramer.' But there was another quality on which Davison
always laid great stress in reviewing Bennett's performances.
Among the numerous critiques upon them which he has left,
there is scarcely one to be found, which does not contain
one of the words 'energy,' 'fire,' 'animation,' or a combi-
nation of two or all of them. Ferdinand Hiller's recollec-
tion, that his playing was ' full of soul and fire,' has already
been given, but may be repeated here to support Davison.

1 88 Rupture with Costa [CH.

A month or two before Ayrton gave Bennett the mantle
of Cramer, Davison had written, in reference to his playing
Fugues by Bach and Mendelssohn : — ' The legato which is
so eminent a feature in his style was employed to advantage
in the Bach, and the fire which makes him as unlike John
Cramer (the model to whom critics will insist upon com-
paring him) as one pianist can be unlike another, was mar-
vellously well bestowed upon the Mendelssohn.' Davison,
however, when thus disagreeing with Ayrton, does not seem
to do more than insist upon adding something to his view,
and one cannot afford to put out of count an equality with
so great a pianist as Cramer, when the suggestion of that
equality comes from a critic who must have heard that
master in his prime, which Davison can scarcely have
done.

On May 14, the day before the Philharmonic per-
formance, Mr Otto Goldschmidt called at Russell Place
with a letter of introduction from Bennett's old school-
fellow, C. A. Seymour of Manchester. Bennett gave
Mr Goldschmidt a ticket for the concert. A few years
after Bennett's death, his friend and former pupil, Mr Arthur
O'Leary, read a Review of his master's life before The
Musical Association. Mr Goldschmidt contributed a re-
miniscence, which Mr O'Leary related as follows : — ' An
eminent musician, now resident in London, who happened
to arrive here a day or two before he [Bennett] played
Mozart's D minor Concerto at the Philharmonic, in 1848,
was recently speaking to me of this performance. Passing
through Paris he had just heard, with delight and enthu-
siasm, Chopin, at the last famous concert given by that
composer on the eve of the February revolution. This
notwithstanding, the finish of the English pianist, his
exquisite tone and touch, combined with masterful con-
ceptions of the composer's intentions, was for him a new
revealment, the memory of which is still fresh in his mind.'
Here Bennett's name occurs by the side of another great
master of the pianoforte, not exactly by way of comparison,
but at any rate as worthy to be used in the same sentence.
Mr Otto Goldschmidt often confirmed this remembrance,
in conversation with the present writer, and a few weeks
before his death cordially sanctioned its being recorded

xin] Biisy-Bodies 189

here in Mr O'Leary's words. He also desired to add that
he retained a particular recollection of the warmth of
Bennett's playing, as well as of the grace and propriety of
the embellishments which he introduced where necessary
in the Concerto.

But Bennett was to play no more Concertos of Mozart.
The twenty volumes of their scores, which a copyist in
Germany had transcribed to his order, were to remain idle
in his library. Now comes a story which must be told at
full length, in fairness to others concerned as well as to
himself. The occurrences which it relates had a serious
and lasting effect throughout the rest of his life.

A fortnight after he had played the Mozart Concerto,
with Costa of course conducting, his Overture to 'Parisina'
was down for performance at the Philharmonic concert of
Monday, May 29. He did not himself attend the rehearsal
on the previous Saturday. Davison, who was present at
that rehearsal, has thus recorded what happened : — ' The
overture was tried through twice by Mr Costa, who took
great pains with it, * * * but busy-bodies * * * went to
Mr Bennett the same evening [Saturday], and buzzed in
his ear that his overture had been ill-rehearsed, which was
untrue, and taken too slow, which was true.'

Now considering how easily Bennett was satisfied, at
any rate in later life, when the performance of his own
works was in question, it does not seem quite characteristic
of him, that the report of the ' busy-bodies ' should have
troubled him as it did. One day at the Academy, years
afterwards, a friend told him that a Professor was giving
his pupils a reading of the ' Rondo Piacevole ' quite at
variance with precedent. Bennett only laughed and said,
as he ran out of the house, 'Oh, let them play it as they
like.' It was perhaps a pity that he did not apply the same
philosophy to the pace of ' Parisina.' But for the fate of
this Overture he may have felt a special anxiety. From
the number of editions and autograph scores that he made
of it in the few years succeeding its appearance, it may be
inferred that he set some value on it himself, and had
spared no pains to perfect it to the best of his ability. ' It
has not/ wrote one critic, ' the sparkling beauties of its
more graceful sister, "The Naiads," or the inimitable

190 Rupture with Costa [CH.

variety of its other sister, " The Wood-nymphs," but it is a
composition of graver style and deeper thought.'

Nine years had passed since the Overture had been
played at the Philharmonic, and it was therefore on a fresh
trial as a comparatively unknown work. If, by its graver
character, it was less likely than his other compositions to
gain quick appreciation, a careful and sympathetic rendering
was a necessity to its success, so Bennett's uneasiness was
natural ; but the rehearsal was over, and it was late to devise
any means of influencing the performance of the music.

So Sunday passed. On the Monday afternoon he was
busy with a long spell of lessons at the Academy. He
may have been intending to go to the concert, but, if so,
certainly not in time for its commencement. As evening
drew on, his anxiety increasing, it occurred to him that he
might ask Charles Lucas, who lived close by, and who, as a
member of the Philharmonic orchestra, was sure to be at
the Hanover Square Rooms in good time, to make a
suggestion to Costa about the ' tempo ' of the Overture.
Lucas was a Director of the Society, and it was certainly
not without precedent that the interpretation of the music
should form an occasional subject of friendly conversation
between the Directors and their Conductor. Lucas, especi-
ally, on account of his wide knowledge of orchestral music,
and because he was one of Costa's most valued colleagues at
the Opera, was an authority from whom Costa took advice
as to the interpretation of any instrumental works with
which he was unfamiliar. Bennett accordingly wrote to
Lucas a note, somewhat hastily worded, but clearly written
in pencil on a double sheet of note-paper, and neatly folded
in three-cornered shape. He did not despatch it in hot
haste. When his work at the Academy was over, he took
the note home. Mrs Bennett then took it to Lucas's house
and placed it in his hands as he was putting up his violon-
cello in its case, and was on the point of starting for the
concert.

This note, which caused endless mischief, was afterwards
kept, though presumably mislaid, by Anderson. After his
death in 1876 it was found. Meanwhile spurious versions,
injurious to Bennett, had appeared in public journals. It
therefore seems expedient to reproduce the original.

/

ffi/s

K

// f.

J

I

Unliiim

LA

L ti/

J4

xin] The note reaches Costa 191

Lucas, acting for Bennett in the simplest way that
suggested itself, showed this note1 to Costa. The Musical
World, when reviewing, a few years later, the occurrences
of the evening, attacked Lucas severely for taking this
course. ' The letter,' the writer of the article insisted, 'was
not meant to be shown to Mr Costa, and never should
have been shown.' The contents, however, read by them-
selves, without knowledge of collateral circumstances, seem
so innocuous, while time for consideration must have been
so short, that there is something to be said for Lucas.
His action, however, proved unfortunate. A verbal hint,
based on his own previous knowledge of the music, might
have been accepted ; or even a suggestion made in the
form of a message from Bennett — whose absence from, or
delayed arrival at, the concert would have accounted for
the intervention of a third party — might have been listened
to ; but when a letter was handed to Costa, at a busy time,
on rather a delicate subject concerning his own professional
work, and he found it addressed, for no motive that he
could be expected to grasp at a moment's notice, to a
person other than himself, some feeling of annoyance seems
not altogether unnatural.

Now, when Bennett wrote, and Lucas showed the
letter, they were unaware that Costa was already in a state
of irritation about the Overture. The conductor when
accepting office had stipulated with the Directors (of whom
Bennett was one) that all music should be sent to him for
study at some stated time before it was to be performed.
The story goes that the score of Bennett's Overture did
not reach Costa's house till the evening before the rehearsal.
If sent by Bennett, a note would no doubt accompany it
explaining or apologising for the delay. These orchestral
works were as yet in manuscript ; when lent for perform-
ance they were not always returned ; and when wanted
again it was not always easy to find them. The Phil-
harmonic librarian may have been the person at fault.
Still the fact remains that Costa's condition was not fulfilled
in this case. It was said that he saw the score for the first
time, when it was handed to him with his other music

1 The original note is now in the possession of Charles Lucas's repre-
sentatives who kindly lent it for reproduction here.

192 Rupture with Costa [CH.

through the window of his carriage as he was starting from
his house to the rehearsal.

Thus predisposed to imagine disrespect, Costa was in
no mood to place any but the worst construction on the
incident of the letter. Tales have been told of the effect
produced upon him at the sight of it, how he burst
out into a frenzy of rage, how he raved and stamped,
and ground the poor little missive to dust beneath his
feet. This, however, was not all true. The note, at
all events, is still intact. But there is no doubt that he
was terribly angry. He was greatly incensed with the
words ' all fast,' written above the music, which he mistook
for some insulting expression. He used strong language
with regard to Bennett ; seized upon the ambiguous phrase,
' but you have often done it ' (by which Bennett meant that
Lucas had often made suggestions to Costa), and settled
the matter by saying to Lucas, ' If you have often done it,
you shall do it now.' He refused to conduct the Overture,
and Lucas was obliged to take his place.

On May 30, the day after the concert, Bennett wrote
to Lucas : — ' I scarcely know how to act. If I move at all
it will certainly be to complain, and that I am unwilling to
do if it can be prevented. My conscience tells me that I
have nothing to answer for, but I cannot quietly submit to
any such inconsiderate conduct as I at present think
Mr Costa has evinced not only to me but the Society at
large. If it can be shown me that I am in any way at
fault, it will be my only satisfaction to offer the most ample
apology, and on the other hand it appears to me that some
explanation should be offered on the part of Mr Costa. I
will not be too precipitate in the course I take, and I
should be glad, if possible, that Mr Costa and myself
should meet through the intercession of yourself or some
other mutual friend. Otherwise it would perhaps be better
for my colleagues to meet upon the subject, without either
the presence of Mr Costa or myself, and fully consider the
matter. The simple circumstances which gave rise to the
unpleasant affair are as well known to you as to myself, and
you will much oblige me by considering all the details and
giving me your advice.'

On receipt of this letter, Lucas wrote to Anderson,

xin] Mediators 193

who agreed that the best course would be for Costa and
Bennett to meet, when misconceptions could be cleared
away viva-voce.

Bennett again wrote : —

15 RUSSELL PLACE, June 2nd, 1848.

MY DEAR LUCAS,

Many thanks for your trouble in this affair.
I am still willing to receive and give an explanation, but
cannot at present move further than I have done, and it is
now for Mr Costa to express himself as anxious as I
am for a meeting. Any slight which he may think I have
put upon him is at the most imaginary ; that which he has
put upon me has been real. There has been time since
Monday for him to have moved as well as myself, and still
the matter may be, as I wish it to be, amicably arranged, in
which case I would meet Mr Costa by his wish at the
Hanover Rooms at one o'clock on Sunday with you and
Mr Anderson. Otherwise, and with the fullest thought
upon the matter, I must officially appeal to the Directors,
and take my stand. * * *

Yours very truly obliged,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.
C. Lucas, Esq.

There is no account of the further efforts made by
Lucas and Anderson to mediate, but at any rate they had
no success. From a few letters which Bennett had occasion
to write subsequently to the Society, it is gathered that he
had expected the Directors, after his proposal for a meeting
with Costa met with no response, to give him some formal
explanation of, or opinion upon, his treatment by the
Conductor, but that such explanation, when he asked for
it, was not forthcoming. There was now only one course
left for him to take. He withdrew from the Society,
ceasing to be a Director, and thenceforth, for eight years,
refusing the annual invitation, which the Society continued
to send him, to play at the concerts.

Since his twentieth year, the Philharmonic had been the
centre of his public musical life in London. A rupture in

s. B. 13

194 Rupture with Costa [CH.

his relations with it meant not only a withdrawal as a
pianist and composer from the arena where high distinction
could, in his case, most readily be gained, but also a sever-
ance of ties of the strongest kind, and the loss of such
musical associations as he most highly prized. There is no
doubt that he was deeply hurt, very little doubt that he did
not emerge from the trial, if it was sent him as a trial,
without showing something of a rebellious spirit. In re-
viewing his career as a composer, the blow seems to have
fallen at a critical time. With his worldly position fairly
secure, he had again been turning his thoughts to com-
position, which he could not, or did not, pay much attention
to for the two or three years during which his teaching-
connection had been so largely increasing. Early in
1848 he made a fresh start, wrote Sacred Duets, re-con-
structed and re-scored his 6th Pianoforte Concerto for his
annual concert, and about the same time asked H. F.
Chorley to write him the libretto, not of an Opera or
Oratorio, but of a secular Cantata of moderate proportions
for the concert-room.

But now, a smart stroke having laid him low, the critics
hit him when he was down. In a fit of despondency, he
tore the score of ' Parisina ' into fragments, thus destroying
his final edition of the work. Now, too, it may have been
that he registered a vow that he would compose no more ;
for later in life he hinted that he had come to such deter-
mination, adding the words : — ' I gave them nothing for
ten years.' Nearly ten years did pass after Chorley wrote
the libretto of ' The May Queen,' before Bennett produced
the music. It is not, however, literally true that he wrote
nothing for so many years ; though, as a composer, he did
retire into a quasi-private life. With the exception of a
Violoncello Sonata for Piatti, he wrote nothing specially
for public performance ; but he quietly issued a series of
pianoforte and vocal pieces, which, though they did not
appear so often as to attract attention at the time to what
he was doing, in the aggregate ultimately formed a material
addition to the catalogue of his works. When speaking,
many years afterwards, of some of the pieces which he had
written at this time, he said he thought they were about the
best things he had done, and that he was satisfied with

xni] Dejection 195

them, because they did not seem to want any of their notes
altered.

At the end of the London season of 1848, he went
with his wife, not as usual to stay with her parents at
Southampton, but, for the sake of greater retirement, to
the sea-side village of Littlehampton. There he com-
pletely broke down. The death of Mendelssohn, to him
the cause of deep and silent sorrow, was still an open
wound. At the time of the Philharmonic trouble, he had
just lost the best friend in whom he could have confided,
whose advice, sympathy and encouragement would have
been so affectionately tendered, and would have been so
helpful. Mrs Bennett was seriously alarmed at the
apparently utter collapse of his strength and spirits. He
was just of the age at which his father had almost suddenly
succumbed to illness, and though he soon returned to his
work, he was so slow in becoming his usual self, that his
wife's anxiety was of long duration. But if not robust, he at
least possessed a sound constitution. Doubt might be felt
whether the amount of his strength would prove commen-
surate with the amount of his work, yet from this time forth
for about twenty-five years, illness only prevented his ful-
filling his engagements for a few single days occurring at
long intervals. When speaking of an arrangement he had
made of his Songs as pianoforte Solos he said, ' I did them
one day when I stopped at home for my annual cold ; ' but
by the time he made this remark, even the annual cold was
only a treat of by-gone days.

Since the completion of his thirtieth year his employ-
ments had assumed, both in nature and extent, the form
from which in future they little varied. One year serves
as the pattern of many that followed. In the first six
months of 1 848 he taught the piano for 950 hours ; gave
four concerts of his own ; played or conducted at eleven
others. He took part in the organization of the new
Queen's College in Harley Street. There he delivered an
Introductory Lecture on 'Harmony' in the spring, before
taking classes twice a week in that subject. Continuing to
teach in July, in August also, except for the fortnight's
illness at Littlehampton, he had, by the end of December,
brought up the total hours of teaching to 1632, without

13—2

196 Rupture with Costa [CH.

counting his classes at Queen's College. These figures,
however, do not at all represent the time entailed. Towns
such as Maidstone, Ipswich, Brighton, in all of which he
taught in turn, were not in those days easily accessible ;
while the villages in the neighbourhood of London could
not yet be called suburban ; but Bennett still had to take
his work wherever he could find it.

On the Brighton day, a policeman, on his beat, rang
the door- bell at 4 a.m., and continued his peal till Bennett
from his bed-room window answered the signal. Then
there was a long drive to London Bridge to catch the
6 o'clock train. Eight or nine hours' lessons were given
at one school in Brighton, and home was reached about
1 1 p.m. This was done for very many years, and he never
forgot to bring back from a Brighton confectioner the cakes
and sweetmeats for the weekly supply of his family. On
ordinary days he left home at 8.30 and returned at 9 or 10
in the evening. In the London season days had to be
lengthened. Charles Steggall, who was his pupil for the
pianoforte, harmony, counterpoint, and composition for
four years (1847 — 1851), took many lessons from him in
Tenterden Street during summer months at 7 a.m. Steggall,
on seeing whither his master next repaired, used to wonder
how any inhabitant of Portland Place could be ready to
take a lesson as early as 8. Bennett would often afterwards
tell, in praise of the young lady who did so, that before
receiving him, she had already attended to the breakfast of
her brother, a future Lord Chancellor, who went very early
to his Chambers.

Though hours were long and his life laborious, hard
work, as long as it was free from worry, by habit became
congenial. ' 1 have not,' he wrote to Charles Salaman
towards the end of the year 1848, 'ten minutes in the week
for my own amusement.' Nevertheless, he was patient
and content. He seldom left home without saying or
doing something of a playful kind, which started the day
cheerfully for those around him, and he would run out of
the house in the highest of spirits, whenever it was only
teaching that he had to think of. Again, Mr William
Dorrell often told the writer how much he had been struck
by finding Bennett, after returning from a long day's work,

xin] His Wife's Assistance 197

always in such a good temper, and so merrily talking to his
wife or to any old friend who took the last hour at night as
the only chance of seeing him.

That such a life was possible, was largely due to the
fact that Mrs Bennett, who had been trained in her girl-
hood, with a somewhat Spartan severity, to habits of industry,
had worked conjointly with him since their marriage, by
degrees relieving him almost entirely of correspondence
and business matters. He took great pride in showing to
his brother-professors the time-table in her handwriting of
his day's work ; then he would say, ' I have nothing to do
with it, I only have to give the lessons.' Then, again,
though for some time it seems to have been necessary to
work almost continuously throughout the year, it was not
always at high pressure. Lastly, the Sunday of those times
was a day of absolute rest ; a day of such stillness that you
could, through many hours of it, have heard a pin drop in
the bye-streets of London. The pianoforte in Bennett's
house was not touched on Sundays ; the only music he
heard that day were the Chants and Hymns and Jackson's
inevitable ' Te Deum ' in the Charlotte Street Church.

He had written to his mother-in-law in May, 1847 : —
' I am very busy. I wake early in the morning, and have
to begin the day immediately, and only wish for the
evening to come as soon as possible — and then we are all
fatigued and want to go to rest again. Polly is my faithful
Secretary, she has much to do for me and directs me what
to do in the day, for I trust to her written plan, which I
carry in my pocket. * * * My little Charlie is a good
dear little boy, and begins to love me very much, and I
want him to love me more than he loves his mother, but
you know there are many things in the way of this, his
mother gives him oranges and cakes, and I never have
these things in my pocket.

' My concert is coming on ! Heaven help me ! Every-
body seems afraid of any speculation this Season — never-
theless, I do not fear. Thank you for the spears, arrived
quite safely, and you will be pleased to see the way in
which we have slung them up in the hall. I am delighted
with my collection. * * * And now I come to the fourth
page, and my report to Professor Moseley is still unwritten,

198 Rupture with Costa [CH.

and to-morrow will be Monday, and till next Sunday I
shall be the property of the world at large, so " Good-
Night."

One morning he unexpectedly found a hired brougham
at his door, which his wife had taken the responsibility of
ordering, and on the future use of which she insisted. He
demurred, saying that it could not possibly be afforded; but
he had to give way, and in the little carriage which he, soon
after, bought for himself he spent a great part of his life.
In the long drives to his work, it served for his reading-
room, full of newspapers and sometimes books. In it he
studied counterpoint ; tried to learn Latin ; prepared lec-
tures; and mentally practised the pianoforte — that being
the only method, as he afterwards said, which circumstances
allowed him for perfecting some of the most difficult music
to be played at his Chamber-concerts. In this carriage
he composed or sifted his musical ideas probably as
much, if not more, than in any other place. It served
him, too, for a dressing-room and even for a dining-
room. Foot-warmers, hot plates, and a bull's-eye lantern
were constant accompaniments. The lantern was often
wanted on his return journey from Miss Lowe's school at
Southgate, which journey, in the foggy season, he took on
foot by the side of his horse. At least half his week was
spent in rural places, and this added to the brightness and
healthfulness of his life. In the spring and summer he came
home with his carriage full of flowers, and the country-
schools vied with each other to be the first to present him
with his favourite lilac-blooms.

And the pianoforte-teaching itself, to which in those
days so many applied no other word than 'drudgery,' was
by him considered a high calling. How mean the occupa-
tion was in the eyes of the world must at times have forced
itself to his notice ; but Bennett's work lay much at the
Academy, at colleges and schools, and among professional
pupils. He was never a fashionable music-master. His
other private pupils were, as a rule, real music-lovers, who
engaged him because they wished to work seriously at the
best music ; who knew something of his value as a musician,
so that they looked up to him and treated him with courtesy
and respect. He spent his days not only in the society of

xiii] Pianoforte-Teaching 199

the countless number of pupils whom he influenced, but also
in continuous association, through the medium of the music
he taught, with the great masters of his art. He taught
school-girls who were almost beginners ; but, as far as could
be seen, he took the same interest in them as he did in
advanced students whom he was preparing for the concert-
room. When he was selecting teaching-music from its
special bookcase before starting on his rounds, he would
often speak of the beauty of some small and simple work of
one of the great masters as he put it in his portfolio for one of
these younger pupils. In a school where he taught for many
years, and for many consecutive hours at a sitting, it was
found ' impossible to gather from his manner which was the
most or the least clever pupil, so thoroughly did he interest
himself in each individual1.' One who worked with him for
some time has written : — ' From the zest with which he
went into every special beauty of the composition which
was being studied, it would have been difficult to realize
that he was not just entering a new and enchanting region
instead of (as was the case) walking over well-trodden old
familiar ground1.'

His patience, a quality which even the youngest scholar
can appraise, was proverbial amongst his pupils. One, and
she not the least distinguished of them, looking back on her
own career of twenty-five years as a teacher, said : 'In hours
of irritation, I used to think of Bennett, and so possessed
my soul in patience.' He was found strict, at times even
severe. Personally he was thought by many to be rather
difficult to approach. There is little recorded of any definite
systems of instruction. Music, rather than the playing of
it, seems to dwell in the memory of his pupils. ' He taught
me to like Beethoven ' has been said or written by many.
Not a few have gone much further and sinking music alto-
gether have preferred to speak of the strong influence for
good that their music-master had upon their lives.

In 1848, the Rev. F. D. Maurice drew up the syllabus
of studies for the new Queen's College, Harley Street,
introducing subjects which had so far found no place in a
woman's education. Bennett had no need to urge the claims

1 Vide My Musical Experiences, by Bettina Walker.

2OO Rupture with Costa [CH.

of music in general. Professor Maurice had a strong
conviction that, however desirable the new departure
might be, it ought not to be taken at the expense of
Art and Music. Bennett, however, was anxious, as he
always had been, that instrumental music should have
some recognition in this country analogous to what was
given to vocal music. In view of writing to Professor
Maurice and pressing this point, he set down in a pocket-
book some memoranda, which admit of being arranged as
follows. It may be explained that such jotting in a
pocket-book or on the backs of letters was one of the
occupations of his carriage-life.

' The Pianoforte master has his share in educating the
mind of his pupil. The disposition of a pupil cannot be
concealed even in a Pianoforte lesson. If you describe
pianoforte-playing as an extra study in your prospectus, you
will give the impression that it does not take its place in the
general course because it is a light study, which it is not.
It is not right that it should suffer in esteem with other
subjects of education, simply because it is necessary to teach
it individually and not in classes. The Pianoforte does not
yield to the voice in its power of expression, and it is fully
as capable of exciting great and noble feelings when legiti-
mately used. The instrument has been chosen by the
greatest masters as the sole exponent of many of their
greatest works. If I had the time to undertake the duties,
I should consider the post of Professor of the Pianoforte in
your College, of equal honour to that I hold for Harmony
and Composition.'

At the outset of Bennett's career, it was assumed by his
advisers and by himself that there was no other way open
to him for making his bread than as a teacher. In
the end he was said to have sacrificed himself too much.
Some blamed him for this, but not all. The Rev. H. R.
Haweis wrote ' In Memoriam ' of him, in 1875 : — ' 1° these
days our young men complain of drudgery. They are
poets and have to keep accounts ; they are men of genius
and sensibility and pass their time in turning over other
people's money. Remember then that Sterndale Bennett
passed the greater part of forty years in incessant drudgery.
He the master — the worthy friend and brother-in-art of

xni] Lowly Duties 201

Mendelssohn and Schumann, with a reputation as wide as
the civilized world, and a commanding genius the lustre of
whose work does not grow pale beside those of the greatest
gods of music — this man spent habitually about eight or more
hours every day of his life in teaching children and all kinds
of pupils the rudiments of music. Some regret this, and
from an artistic point of view it is to be regretted, but from
a moral point of view it is not. His example rebukes the
idle, the discontented, the conceited grumblers to be found
in all grades of society. He taught once more the lesson
left us by the Divine Man, who was called the Carpenter's
Son — the importance of lowly duties — the power of un-
palatable toil — the Grace of Common Work.'

CHAPTER XIV.

THE BACH SOCIETY. CHAMBER CONCERTS.

1849—1855.
a*- 33—39-

THOUGH Bennett's works were heard no longer at the
Philharmonic, they now gained a footing elsewhere. New
orchestral societies were being established and his Overtures
came into great request. ' The Naiads ' was played at the
Gloucester Festival in 1847 I was repeated at Worcester
and Hereford in the next two years; and in 1848 was
placed on a programme at Windsor Castle, a compliment
rarely paid to British music. In 1849 he was summoned
to Court, where he had not been seen since boyhood, and
he played, by Prince Albert's wish, two movements from
his F minor Concerto, and his ' Three Musical Sketches.'
In the course of the next few years other pianists began to
play his pianoforte music. Special mention may be made
of Alexandre Billet, who gave a prominent place to Bennett
on his programmes and brought to light some of the earlier
works which the composer himself had never played in
public. So now Bennett, whether by express intention or
not, left his interests as a composer in the keeping of others,
while he lent his services almost exclusively to the music of
the Great Masters. He abandoned the old-fashioned plan
of giving an annual orchestral concert. He gave the last
in 1849. Securing greater patronage than usual, he handed
the profit of ^80 to 'The Governesses' Benevolent Insti-
tution,' that being an institution in whose work both he and
his wife were deeply interested. The tales of distress
heard within its walls prompted the desire to equip young

CH. xiv] A Worthy Ambition 203

women more completely for a calling which often came to
them as a necessity and found them ill-prepared. This
movement for the higher education of women was started
by the foundation, in which Bennett took part, of the
Queen's College, Harley Street.

On Thursday evening, October 18, 1849, as Bennett
was leaving the Academy he asked his pupil, Charles
Steggall, to join him in his walk home. As they walked,
he unfolded a project which he said had been in his mind
for some time. He pointed out that while the Organ and
Clavier works of Sebastian Bach were well known to many
English musicians, few knew, few seemed even aware that
there existed the great works for chorus and orchestra
left by that master. He went on to speak of the ' Grosse
Passions-Musik ' and other works possessing the character
and proportions of Oratorios, and expressed his conviction
that such works would surely find acceptance in England if
once they could be made known. It was his ambition, he
said, to initiate some movement which would arouse interest
in this unknown music. As a first step, he asked his pupil
to undertake the duties of an honorary secretary. A few
days later, he saw Steggall again and asked him to invite
certain musicians, whom he named, to a meeting at which his
project might be discussed. On October 29, E. J. Hopkins,
Robert Barnett, Oliver May and F. R. Cox met Bennett
and Steggall in Russell Place, when the following resolu-
tions were passed : —

' That a Society be formed to be called " The Bach
Society " having for its primary objects :

'(i) The collection of the works of John Sebastian
Bach, including as far as practicable all the various extant
editions, also copies of all authentic MSS., and all bio-
graphical works relating to him and his family, with a view
of forming a library of reference for the use of members.

' (2) The furtherance and promotion of an acquaintance
with his works amongst musical students and the general
public by such legitimate means as may from time to time
present themselves.'

The subject of musical performance was thus kept
in reserve, but some more definite promise was after-

204 Bach Society. Chamber Concerts [CH.

wards deemed necessary to attract members. When the
prospectus appeared in print, mention was made of 'per-
formances, the frequency and extent of which must be
governed by the means at the Society's disposal." The
promise of these performances proved very difficult to keep.
In forming his Committee, Bennett looked to his Academy
colleagues ; also to organists, who were so far the chief
exponents of Bach in England. Besides those present at
the preliminary meeting, W. H. Holmes, W. Dorrell,
John Goss, George Cooper, H. J. Lincoln, Henry Smart,
C. E. Horsley, John Hullah, and the violinist Dando
joined in the movement. Sir George Smart and Cipriani
Potter, as representatives of seniority, were asked to set
their stamp of approval by accepting office as Honorary
Auditors. By the close of the year, regulations had been
drawn up, and a room attached to the Hanover Square
Rooms had been taken in which to hold meetings and store
a library. Then the prospectus was issued and applications
for membership were invited. There was no rush of ap-
plicants. The name of Bach, at the time under notice, was
not one to conjure with. Indeed it was very little known,
as was soon shown by the varieties of pronunciation which
English tongues gave it. Bake, Back, Batch, Bash, Baitch,
and Bortch were only a few of the first attempts. Mr Punch
did not get it quite right, when he honoured the Society,
soon after its institution, with a specimen of his amiable
raillery.

'A BACK-HANDER.

' In this country there is a strong tendency in things to
start up the more you put them down, and in fact if a thing
is really good there is no quizzing it out of its vitality. We
have occasionally indulged in a good-humoured joke at the
expense of our rusty fusty friend BACH, the great composer
of innumerable Ops, and whose sundry Schezzi in A, B, or
C, are anything but ABC work to those who conscientiously
try to " render them." Such however is the tenacity with
which the virtuosi keep in what may be called the BACH
ground of the musical world, that a "BACH Society" has
sprung, or rather toddled, into existence. This Society we
believe invites an audience, and has such a thorough-going

xiv] Volunteers 205

way of BACH-ing its friends, that there is nothing to be
heard but BACH during the whole evening. We shall ex-
pect to find the BACH enthusiasm ultimately reaching such
a height that the BACHITES will be satisfied with nothing
less than a BACH attic in which to hold their meetings.'

The first candidate for election to the Society was a
young lady, then in her eighteenth year, who had been an
amateur pupil of Bennett's for the pianoforte and the theory
of music for the past two years. Her name was destined to
become prominently associated with the Bach movement
in England. She wrote to Mr Steggall : —

8 ST JOHN'S WOOD ROAD,

Dec 22, 1849.
DEAR SIR,

Mrs Bennett has just informed me that ladies are
admitted as life-members of the Bach Society. I beg to
enclose my subscription, and shall be glad to feel myself
among the early subscribers if you will do me the favour to
insert my name.

I remain,

Yours very truly,
HELEN FRANCES HARRINGTON JOHNSTON.

Miss Johnston headed a list of six members elected on
January 24, 1850. The next lady to follow her example
was Miss Dolby, who proved a pillar of strength to the
Society in its earlier efforts. She lent a great mind as well
as a rich voice. When the Society reached the stage of
public performance, Miss Dolby was the English singer
who could from the very first render Bach's difficult Solos
so that they touched the hearts of the uninitiated. The
Society hoped to announce itself in some special way on
March 21, the anniversary of Bach's birth. A suggested
banquet was opposed as an extravagance, and as having
no touch with the memory of a man who had not himself
known much of the pleasures of the table. A festival
performance of music was then decided upon, and a
sub-committee undertook to arrange it. But the pioneers

2o6 Bach Society. Chamber Concerts [CH.

did not as yet realize the difficulties in front of them. To
obtain performers, or to find music to perform, for any
concert on a large scale proved hopeless. So, as Mr Punch
said, the Bachites had to be content to 'toddle into
existence.' But they kept the birthday. Chappell lent
them a room in Bond Street, where, on the evening of
March 21, they had their first 'trial' of music. Henry
Smart conducted ' The Motet.' Dr Steggall told the
writer that this Motet had been edited by Angel of Exeter
under the title, ' Honour, Glory and Blessing,' and that it
was the only vocal work of Bach with English words which
could be found in print at the time. Doubt has since been
expressed whether Sebastian Bach ever wrote the Motet
which represented him at this opening ceremony. The
Society, with no fixed abode, save the ' Bach-attic ' for its
library, wandered round from Chappell's to Coventry's,
thence to The Hanover Square Rooms, and on to St Martin's
Hall, thus continuing its work throughout the musical season.
There were thirty-five members when the practices began ;
of ladies, there were only four ; but the assistance of Academy
students was obtained, and, before long, the Rev. Thomas
Helmore gave willing and active aid, bringing with him
the children of the Chapel Royal, who lived under his
charge. Two more Motets were arranged with English
words. Their rehearsal gave great trouble. Henry Smart
conducted, while Bennett supported the Chorus by re-pro-
ducing the scores on the pianoforte with a completeness
and facility which surprised the musicians around him.
The conductor, however, was at times in despair at the
frequent break-downs of his forces. On one occasion,
having laid the blame, in turn, on each section of the eight-
part chorus, he at length threw down his baton, and crying

out, ' Bennett, I do believe its your piano,' provoked

a roar of laughter, and restored good humour.

The centenary of Bach's death fell on July 28 of this
year. The day of the week was Sunday, so the Society
solemnized the occasion on the next evening. They gave
a private concert at St Martin's Hall with the following
programme, which does not enter very closely into par-
ticulars.

xiv] Six Motets 207

Part I.

Choral, 'God my King.'
Duet, Violin and Pianoforte.
Motet (E mi), No. 5.

Part II.

Choral, ' Farewell, thou orb of splendour.'
Concerto, Two Pianofortes.
Duet, ' Et in unum,' Mass in B minor.
Chaconne, Violin and Pianoforte.
Motet (B flat), No. i.

At this concert the performers, whether enrolled as
members of the Bach Society or not, gave their assistance
as amateurs. Their names do not appear on the programme.
Molique was the solo violinist, Bennett and Dorrell were
the pianists, Henry Smart conducted, and stringed instru-
ment players came forward to accompany the Concerto.
There was no sale of tickets. On the evening before
(Sunday), the Germans in Leipzig had marked the cen-
tenary by founding another Bach Society, which had for its
object the gigantic task of publishing all the Master's works.
The London Society now took one step in the same direction.
They negotiated with Messrs Ewer for a publication of the
Six Motets. The issue of these under the editorship of
Dr Steggall, with English text by Bartholomew, gave great
impetus to the practices. Eminent musicians, who had not
sung since boyhood, joined the ranks. The volume of
Motets was issued in June, 1851; monthly 'trials' were
then appointed, and were regularly continued, during winter
and spring, for many years. The untiring exertions of the
youthful Miss Johnston ensured no further lack of material
for study. She framed the course of her life in view of this
special work ; diligently learnt German at the new Queen's
College ; persevered with her study of musical theory under
Bennett and Steggall ; learnt the organ ; and perfected
herself in the art of lithography. She gradually produced,
consulting Bennett at every stage of her progress, an
English version of the St Matthew 'Passions-Musik.' She
set up a lithographic press in her house at St John's Wood,

2o8 Bach Society. Chamber Concerts [CH.

and prepared with her own hands all the parts necessary for
the practice and at last for the performance of the great work.
The size and weight of the Bach portfolio which she had
herself constructed, with many a cunning device for the
better storing of her treasures, and with which the en-
thusiastic girl was constantly trudging between St John's
Wood and Russell Place, stood for measures of her labori-
ousness and endurance. At the practices, whether as leader
of any voice part within her compass, or as stage librarian,
she was indefatigable and ubiquitous. Rather eccentric in
appearance, with eyes beaming through large spectacles,
and with her own ideas of dress, her youth was somewhat
disguised. A violinist, unversed in musical chronology,
attending the rehearsals for the first time, and astonished
at the enthusiasm she displayed, seriously enquired of his
neighbour, ' Is it Mrs Bach ? ' At one time later in life,
she was summoned to India to fetch home her father, a
Commander in the Royal Navy, who had been attacked
with serious illness. She took her portfolio with her and
got up a branch Bach Society among the sailors. That
Bach should go into competition with Dibdin tickled
Bennett's sense of humour1. Probably, however, a few
Chorales were all that Miss Johnston would use in her
appeal to the Navy ; and it was part of Bennett's own
creed that Bach's music was not for the cultivated musician
alone. When he had been holding rehearsals of the B minor
Mass in St Martin's Hall, he told his friend, the Rev.
W. T. Kingsley, that it had been a great satisfaction to
him to hear the street boys in Long Acre whistling the
melody of the ' Sanctus.' But the Bach Society must now
be left for a while, giving their occasional concerts on a
still small scale, celebrating their master's birthdays, collect-
ing, through the generosity of others and by their own
expenditure, a valuable library, and struggling with the
difficulties of the St Matthew ' Passions-Musik.' Bennett
afterwards wrote of this music : — 'Its introduction was
effected bit by bit, one portion rehearsed over and over
again, until performers and listeners began to find their
way in it, and then some other portion ventured on.'

1 No disrespect to Dibdin was implied. Bennett often instanced the
bestowal of a Pension upon Dibdin as a remarkable recognition of the services
rendered by a song-writer to his country.

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT
AET. CIRCA XXXV

Front a Daguerreotype

xiv] Success of Concerts 209

Bennett's Chamber Concerts had now for some time
been recognized as a feature of London music. Such
concerts were not at first fashionable enough to find a
place during the London season. He gave three in the
early part of the year, and after abandoning, in 1849, his
annual orchestral concerts, he ventured on a fourth Chamber
Concert in the month of June. It is evidence of progress,
that as the years passed the dates changed and he ended
by giving the series of three in the height of the season.
The Hanover Square Rooms did not require a very large
audience to fill them. For smaller concerts, a screen was
dropped over the orchestra for acoustical reasons, and a
platform was placed at the centre of the north wall, on to
which the performers stepped from George the Third's
tea-room. With these arrangements one found oneself
in the drawing-room or music-room of some princely
mansion, such a place as Haydn or Mozart must often have
appeared in to play their Trios or Sonatas. It was a
custom of the time for a concert-giver to send out invitations
to brother-artists. If they accepted and came in large
numbers, it was taken as a sign that the concert was im-
portant, and dclat was rightly thought to be added to the
proceedings. By conforming to this custom and by secur-
ing about 150 subscribers, Bennett always had a sufficient
audience. He engaged the best artists both vocal and
instrumental, and did not expect to gain anything for
himself. At first he incurred a slight loss, but, as time
went on, interest grew and additional tickets were sold.
Of a concert in 1852, The Musical World wrote: —

'The Hanover Square Rooms were densely packed
with such an audience of connoisseurs and professors as,
perhaps, Sterndale Bennett alone is able to collect together.
Success was never more thoroughly merited. Sterndale
Bennett was the originator (in 1842)' of these performances
of classical Chamber-music, by the great composers for the
pianoforte, to which the art and its professors are so much
indebted, and which, of late years, have been so greatly in
vogue. The best pianist, and the best composer for the
pianoforte that this country has probably known, no one

1 The scheme was advertised in 1842 but the first Concert was given in
Jan. 1843.

S. B. 14

2io Bach Society. Chamber Concerts [CH.

could be more fitted to set the example ; and if works once
confined to the student's library, although acknowledged
superior to anything else belonging to this special and im-
portant branch of the art, are now widely diffused and
popular, it is certainly due to Sterndale Bennett, who was
not only the first to venture on producing them in public,
but, now that ten years have passed, remains without a
superior among the foreign and English pianists who have
followed in his steps.'

With a slight reservation the above tribute may be ac-
cepted. Moscheles and Charles Neate had both given one
or two series of somewhat similar concerts in advance of
Bennett. They did not continue to give them. Bennett
took the work up again, and persevered with it. There
is no hesitation in claiming for him that within a certain
period (1843 — J^5^) he was able to accomplish more than
any predecessor or immediate contemporary, in awakening,
by the beauty of his playing and his interpretative power,
an appreciation in this country for the masterpieces of
concerted Chamber-music in which the pianoforte takes
part. He was no self-assertive pianist. A point admired
by Schumann in his Concerto-writing, and often noticed by
Davison in his Concerto-playing, was his rare power of
uniting the pianoforte to the orchestra with due regard to
the claims of each. In his playing of Chamber-music the
same attitude was constantly referred to as something ex-
ceptional. The faculty of combination was one in which
the pianist-composer had the advantage over the mere
virtuoso, and over those who, in days when performances
of Concertos and Chamber-music were far rarer events
than they became later, had little chance of gaining such
faculty by experience.

The violinists who helped him most frequently at these
concerts were Blagrove, Molique, Sainton and Ernst.
Vieuxtemps and Joachim also appeared. Dando took the
viola when that instrument was wanted. Piatti, who joined
him in 1849, remained from that time his constant colleague,
and during a period of seven years there was no musician
with whom Bennett seemed to have closer artistic sympathy.
With such help, he produced the Violin Sonatas of Bach,
playing them much with the fine musician Molique. Of

xiv] A Sonata for Piatti 2 1 1

Mozart : three of the Violin Sonatas, one Trio, the Quintet
with wind-instruments, and the Trio with clarinet were con-
stantly played. Of Beethoven : all the published Trios, all
the Violin and Violoncello Sonatas, the Quintet with wind-
instruments and the Horn Sonata were included. The works
of Mendelssohn for pianoforte and stringed instruments
had been used, on their first arrival, to supply the special item
in which the pianoforte took part at String-Quartet concerts,
so that there is no particular interest attaching to Bennett's
producing them, as he often did, at his own. Similar works
by Dussek, Weber, Spohr and Hummel found occasional
place. To sum up : He gave forty concerts ; he drew from
a repertoire of forty-five concerted works ; and very few of
these works, save those of Mendelssohn, had been played
in public in England at the time he introduced them.
Amateurs may have played them in private with great en-
joyment to themselves; but it is a well-established fact that
amateur instrumentalists who could give pleasure to others by
the performance of such music were few and far between in
those days. Classical Chamber-music to win its way to full
appreciation required an introduction by first-rate artists.

Bennett himself was represented on his programmes by
a ' Chamber Trio,' which modesty did not prevent him
from often repeating ; also, by a Sonata Duo for pianoforte
and violoncello. He wrote this Sonata for Piatti in 1852.
On the eve of the concert for which it was promised, he
told his wife that he could not possibly finish it. She
begged him to make an effort to keep faith with the Public,
and sat with him through the night while he worked. Next
morning he went out to his pupils and, after six hours'
teaching, returned in the afternoon to complete his task.
A letter from Signer Piatti (dated Jan. 12, 1882) to the
present writer, refers to the composition and performance
of the Sonata: —

< # # # Certainly my recollections of the friendly re-
lations between your esteemed father and myself are very
pleasant, and his genial character was so sympathetic to me,
that I always felt very happy in his company, and I believe
he felt so at ease with me, that a child could not have been
truer and more natural in his conversation. '' : I had
many and many a pleasant walk with him, and I must say

14—2

212 Bach Society. Chamber Concerts [CH.

that I have always found him the same good, kind and
congenial companion and friend. * * * He did me the
honour of writing a Sonata expressly for me, and I can't
forget the hearty laugh he gave when, on the evening of
the concert that it was to be performed, on my going to
rehearse it, he informed me that it was not quite finished.
That was about two hours before the concert. His piano
was already gone to the concert, at least I think so, because
he invited me to go downstairs in the Housekeeper's room,
where there was a little cottage-pianoforte, and there he set
at work to finish it and I to learn it. We could not rehearse
it, being now the time to go to the concert. However, it
went off very well and it pleased the Public very much.
On this particular occasion he reminded me more than ever
of the fine, crisp, diamond-like touch of Mendelssohn, and
he never played better, nor the Sonata go so well as that
night.'

The ' hearty laugh ' with which Bennett greeted Piatti
can only have been a cloak to underlying anxiety. One of
the audience said, fifty years later, that he happened to pass
the composer a few moments before he stepped up to play
the Sonata and thought his appearance was that of a pain-
fully nervous man. He passed him again half-an-hour later,
and saw his face sparkling with gaiety. The marked con-
trast had fixed the evening in the observer's memory.
Bennett often alluded to this occasion, in remembrance of
Piatti's masterful readiness in musical performance, and of
his matter-of-fact way of accepting a situation in which he
could help a brother-artist out of a difficulty. Piatti played
his part in the Sonata from the manuscript, while the com-
poser trusted to his memory.

At these concerts, as also elsewhere, Bennett liked to
introduce music for four hands on the pianoforte, or duets
for two pianofortes. His friend Dorrell used to imitate the
plaintive tone in which he had once said : ' Ah, Dorrell,
how I wish I could do something for Mozart.' When the
public performance of instrumental music began to spread
in this country, and when the music of two or three genera-
tions was presented simultaneously for a first hearing, the
works of Beethoven, of Spohr, or of Mendelssohn seemed
to appeal more readily to the popular ear than those of

xiv] Duet-Playing 213

Mozart. In the case of Chamber-music and Solos for the
pianoforte this was particularly noticeable. In the duet-
playing, however, Bennett found a special and most fasci-
nating aspect in which to present his own model musician.
He understood that Mozart had himself invented the duet-
playing on one pianoforte. The Duet in F minor, one of
the two said to have been written for a musical clock,
Bennett described, in a lecture at Cambridge, as 'the essence
of music.' He placed it on many programmes of concerts
and lectures in the course of his life. The Sonata in
D major for two pianofortes gave a splendid opportunity of
illustrating Mozart's genius not only in Hanover Square,
but to less instructed audiences in Finsbury or Greenwich.
Mendelssohn's Andante con Variazioni (Op. 83a) was
another favourite item, recalling to his mind his own con-
cert in 1844 when the composer had contributed the piece
as a novelty, and had played it with him. Schumann's
Andante with Variations (Op. 46) was produced, and perhaps
heard for the first time in London at one of his latest concerts.
In this duet-playing he was associated with other eminent
artists. It enabled him to invite Moscheles, Cipriani Potter,
Stephen Heller and Madame Schumann to assist him; also
Robert Barnett, a pianist whose style was considered almost
a facsimile of Bennett's, but whose nervousness prevented
him from gaining eminence. Bennett, in after life, would
often speak of the painful nervousness that had, in his own
case, attacked him before public performance, but he said
that it left him altogether when he seated himself at the
pianoforte, and with such a suddenness that he seemed to
feel it go, as if it were lifted by an unseen hand.

The music for his own solo-playing at the Chamber
Concerts was not selected with a view of exhibiting his
technical skill to its full extent ; though the choice was no
doubt sufficiently comprehensive to show what Sir John Goss
termed ' his extraordinary power of illustrating the various
styles of the Great Masters on the pianoforte.' In analysing
a list of the Solos he played, it is found that Bach and
Handel were the composers whose works he played the
oftenest. Mozart and Beethoven were so well represented
on his programmes by concerted music that he did not
select largely from their Solos. Of Beethoven's Sonatas

214 Bach Society. Chamber Concerts [CH.

he limited himself to five. Of Mozart he played Sonatas
in F ma. and A mi., a Romance in A flat, and a ' Tema e
Variazioni ' in F. Of Mendelssohn, the Preludes and
Fugues were his great pieces. Mendelssohn played them
to him in Leipzig a day or two before he sent them to a
publisher, and in the same week wrote about them to
Ferdinand Hiller and expressed a doubt whether they
would be much played. One may imagine that he would
make the same remark to Bennett, and that the latter
would determine that it should be no fault of his if they
were not well known. The Prelude and Fugue in E minor
became a favourite cheval de bataille. The boldness of the
acceleration with which he worked up the Fugue was enough
to alarm some of his listeners. William Rea and Dr Steggall
in the course of one such performance turned to each other
and said simultaneously, ' He'll never do it.' Late in life,
and when he had for many years entirely abandoned piano-
forte-practice, he took it into his head one day to sit down
in his Academy class-room and try his old favourite, for the
sake of a student who was going to play it the same evening.
Mr William Shakespeare, who heard him do this 'so
magnificently,' gained thereby the impression that, 'as a
pianist he must have been of the greatest,' and noticed that
he still possessed ' a remarkable firmness of touch, splendid
accent, wonderfully clear technique, and a style of phrasing
as pure and fastidious as his own music.'

His playing of the ' Lieder ohne Worte' seems to have
been regarded as an almost necessary sequence to his
appearance at a concert. His object, when he first adopted
them for public performance, has already been explained.
He either played one of the books complete, or else three
or four numbers which he would allow his friends in the
artists' room to select before he went on the platform. He
was generally obliged to play three or four more, and was
seldom allowed to escape till the ' Duetto ' had been
heard.

Of other composers, Scarlatti, Paradies, Haydn, dementi,
Cramer, Potter, Moscheles, Fanny Hensel and Schumann
were drawn upon, but to no large extent. For himself he
did not do much. By an audience numbering many pupils
and friends he was of course expected to contribute some-

xiv] Repute as a Pianist 215

thing of his own. By their choice, probably — the words
by desire being often appended — he constantly played, from
his earlier pieces, the ' Three Musical Sketches,' and, from
his later ones, 'The Rondo Piacevole.' These he repeated
to the exclusion of other of his works which he might, with
advantage, have made known through his own renderings.
It would, however, have been at variance with the main
purpose of his Chamber Concerts to put forward the piano-
forte too prominently as a solo instrument, or to draw
disproportionate attention upon himself among the artists
with whom he worked.

He continued the concerts till the year 1856. Then
new duties, as will later be explained, obliged him to
abandon them, and he ceased altogether to play in public.
Other occurrences up to that date will be noticed in another
chapter, but leave may here be taken of him as a pianist.
His retirement, when it came, was marked by no 'Farewell '
demonstrations. His work in this direction had for some
years been singularly unpretentious and his greater days as
a performer had long since passed away. The premature
check to his career, caused by the wretched contretemps at
the Philharmonic, was a source of much after-regret to his
admirers. Schumann had written of him that he was
'Clavier-Spieler vorzugsweiseV To others who had taken
the same view, regret would naturally come that Bennett,
in his thirty-third year and in the fulness of his powers,
should have discarded, to so great an extent, the branch of
his musicianship on which, may be, his individuality was
most clearly pronounced. Nevertheless, the thirteen years
that included his more notable performances sufficed to gain
for him an honoured name both in England and Germany,
though not, perhaps, one of those long-lasting reputations
which the verdicts of successive generations help to accu-
mulate. A wide-spread fame he never sought. With no
innate desire for prominence on any platform, he was not
the man to seek for wider recognition by extending his
travels in strange lands. His visits to Leipzig were not
undertaken with public performance as their prime object.
It is true that his mind was at one time set upon a tour

1 F. R. Ritter translates Schumann's words : ' Bennett is a pianist above all
things.'

216 Bach Society. Chamber Concerts [CH.

through some of the other musical centres in Germany, but
though Mendelssohn and the publisher Kistner encouraged
the scheme he did not carry it out ; while to a definite offer
that he should go to Paris as an artist he at once turned a
deaf ear. However, even if he had wished to travel, few
were the places that would have welcomed or defrayed the
expenses of an instrumental performer who was not ready
to concede something, in his choice of music, to prevailing
fashion, and to consider the interests, at least in some
degree, of the sight-seeing section of a concert-audience.
That fact can be seen in black and white, on the programmes
of the period to which he, as a player, belonged. Nor is
it certain that his playing, by the nature of its sentiment,
would have appealed successfully to the temperaments of
various nationalities. His very personality was not, perhaps,
of that order which commands the vast and parti-coloured
assemblage. The simplicity and unaffectedness of bearing
which added charm, in English eyes, to the performances
of his boyish days remained with him to the end, or only
gave place, as years went on, to a grave dignity which
befitted manhood. But such characteristics would not
have helped him far in his way through Europe or the
New World. It is better to think of him as stationed
just where and just when men of his stamp were scarce
and sorely needed, but also just where and when the ways
of greatest usefulness could not all lead to high distinction.
Still, whatever can or can not be said about his worldly
fame, ample testimony remains, of which perhaps enough
has been recorded in these pages, that he was a remarkable
master of the pianoforte. His playing had for many that
same magnetic attraction which had drawn the old Sergeant
of the Guards to watch over his practice at the Academy.
He possessed a marvellous faculty for revealing the grandeur
or the grace of music to the uncultured and for converting
the thoughtless to a belief in what he himself revered. No
child could fail to realize the majesty of some ancient Chorale,
as the broad impressive tones rose from his instrument and
set the whole atmosphere of his house in vibration. But far
away, on the other hand, he was no less able to captivate
the sympathetic interest of some of the most illustrious
musicians of his time. Schumann, writing to Simonin de

xiv] Repute as a Pianist 217

Sire in 1839, extolled Mendelssohn as the foremost of then
living musicians. He made a special reference to his playing
and then added : — ' Next to him comes Bennett. And in
what a way do they both play the pianoforte, like angels
and with no more assumption than children.'

CHAPTER XV.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE SCHUMANNS.

GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851.

REVIVAL OF THE PHILHARMONIC TROUBLE.

CONDUCTORSHIP OF GEWANDHAUS CONCERTS.

PRODUCTION OF BACH'S ' PASSIONS-MUSIK.'

1850— 1855*.
a*. 33—39-

FOR the three years succeeding Mendelssohn's death,
no letters, of which this writer is aware, passed between
Bennett and his German friends, except one, carefully
preserved, written to him by Madame Mendelssohn. There
was, however, no lack of opportunity for exchanging news
between London and Leipzig. Julius Kistner and Monicke
visited him in Russell Place ; Mrs Bennett corresponded
with Miss Annette Preusser ; and there was now a con-
stant passage of musical students between this country and
the Leipzig Conservatorium. Bennett, when he at last
took up his pen, did so with a very interesting object. He

wrote to Diisseldorf.

LONDON, 15 RUSSELL PLACE,
FITZROY SQUARE,

Dec. 15, 1850.
LIBBER SCHUMANN,

Kennen Sie meine Handschrift ? Are you
really so near to old England ? and will this letter find
you in Dusseldorf ? I want to know how all goes with
you, and to make some plan to bring you and your good
wife into our Land. Will you not come to our grand

1 This chapter and the foregoing one supplement each other, both
traversing nearly the same period of time.

CH. xv] Correspondence with Schumann 219

Exhibition ? and will you not come to exhibit yourselves
to some very sincere and good friends !

I wish Madame Schumann to come and play to our
English people who will listen to her, and applaud her
with all their hearts — and if she will come, I will make
some Concerts and arrange beforehand (voraus), all that
is necessary. It is my present intention to have some
new Concerts next Season, beginning in May and 14 days
between each ; perhaps you would come and your good
wife would play at two Concerts, and I would give some
of your compositions, and this could all be done in little
time, and then if you liked still to remain in England
longer, you would find many friends to interest you, and
Madame S. would find many good engagements.

I must now be a man of business. Will you tell me
(senza delicatezza) what Madame Schumann would receive
for performance at two Concerts in London in May next,
e.g., 14 May and 28 May, with condition that between those
periods (zwischen der Zeit) she should not perform else-
where in London, and that she should first appear at my
Concerts ? Let me know this immediately. If it were
more convenient to you I could arrange for June, but
I would rather have you in May.

If you will come, I will endeavour to give these
Concerts and introduce your compositions, and renew our
acquaintance, which (to me) will be the best thing of all.

Pray answer this letter immediately. If you do not come,
I shall not give these Concerts, and pray mention distinctly
the terms.

I want to see you and Madame Schumann and have
some good music. This is the second letter which I ever
sent to Diisseldorf, the first, I wrote to Mendelssohn in
1836.

Greetings from my Wife and self to your Wife and
self.

Ever thine heartily,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

22O 1 8 5° — x^55 Retraced [CH.

Schumann to Bennett^.

DiJSSELDORF, January the 2nd, 1851.

DEAR BENNETT,

Your letter of Dec. I5th only reached me
the day before yesterday, as a good ending to the year.
What pleasure it gave me, to recognize your hand-writing ;
for often and always have I thought of you, and of the
many delightful hours I have passed with you. We have
the greatest desire to visit England, and we shall probably
come. But first one thing : A musical Festival will be
celebrated here on June 8th and, as it is the turn for
Dtisseldorf this time, the direction will be in my hands.
Now this fits quite well with the dates given by you, the
1 4th and 28th of May. We would arrive in London in the
beginning of May, and could be back again by the ist of
June, so that I should still be in time to direct at least
the full rehearsals. The question now is, could we in so
short a time earn enough to cover the cost of journey and
living, which we estimate at ^100 at least ? If you think
so, we should wish for nothing further.

Another thing I should like to mention. You will
think it natural and you also touch upon it in your letter,
that I should not like to remain idle at my wife's side, but
should also like to show myself as a musician, namely as
a Conductor, which is my greatest desire. Now could you
negotiate this, as for instance with the Philharmonic
Society, so that there might be some chance of bringing it
about? I have many works, which I believe might find
favour in England : ' Paradise and the Peri,' an Overture
and incidental music to Byron's Manfred, a new Symphony
lately completed, and much besides, which to you above all
I should have such great pleasure in showing.

Would it perhaps be possible for you to fix the days
of your concerts eight days earlier, upon the yth and 2ist
of May, so that in the time between the 22nd of May
and the ist of June we could still undertake something,
my wife perhaps play at a Philharmonic concert, or obtain
other engagements.

Now will you turn this over in your mind, dear Bennett ?
We have, as I say, the greatest desire to come, and will

1 Original letter is in German.

xv] Exhibition of 1851 22 1

do so, if only there is a reasonable prospect of our not
being losers by it.

And still a few questions : Are the concerts, which you
give, with Orchestral How many times would my wife
have to play at each of them ? On which days are the
Philharmonic concerts fixed ? Do you think I could bring
about a performance of the Peri, if not in May, perhaps
later on, if Mdlle. Lind would sing in it?

A thousand such things I should like to ask, and others
too of a more ideal kind, and also how you fare yourself,
and whether you are as happy in your life as I should
wish you to be, and of myself I should have much to tell
you, of my home happiness, and of my five children, and of
my joyous impulses towards composition which are ever
and ever prompting me. That must be spared for another
letter ! The greetings which you send us from your wife
we heartily reciprocate as I myself do yours.

Your old friend,

R. SCHUMANN.

The continuation of this correspondence cannot be
found. Bennett only gave his usual Chamber Concerts
in 1851. He may have been advised that the year of the
Great Exhibition would be unfavourable to musical enter-
prize, as did prove to be the<case. It is known that the
arrangement with the Schumanns was postponed till the
following year, but again failed of accomplishment. Finally,
ill-health prevented Schumann from fulfilling his desire
to visit England. As will be seen, Bennett was able later
to take part in carrying out some of the wishes expressed
in Schumann's letter.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was opened with a
ceremony in which music found some place. Sir George
Smart, in virtue of his office as Organist and Composer
to the Chapel Royal, directed the musical proceedings,
conducting the National Anthem himself, but gracefully
resigning the baton to Sir Henry Bishop for the ' Halle-
lujah ' Chorus. The performances on the exhibited organs,
which afforded continuous music as the Queen's procession
passed round the building, were announced to be ' under
the superintendence of Mr W. Sterndale Bennett.' Any

222 1850 — /(?55 Retraced [CH.

recognition on a great public occasion was of value to a
man whose name was, as yet, little known outside musical
circles. Musicians found further work assigned to them
by the scheme of the Exhibition. They hailed with pleasure
an opportunity, which seldom came their way, of appearing
as useful citizens side by side with the representatives of
other arts and sciences. As judges of musical exhibits
they entered upon their work with zeal. Bennett, who
had been appointed a Juror, was constantly across Hyde
Park and at the doors of the Exhibition by 6 a.m., the
earliest hour at which he could gain admittance. Com-
mittee-meetings and the drafting of reports heavily taxed
the time of his colleagues and himself. The satisfaction
of joining in public service promised a sufficient recompense,
but in the end they thought their labours had been ill
requited. Their recommendations for the award of medals
were not accepted in some important cases by a superior
Committee of non-musical men, who were perhaps un-
prepared to consider improvements in the manufacture of
pianofortes as of much importance to the progress of nations.
Then came a long correspondence between Sir George
Smart, Sir Henry Bishop, Cipriani Potter, the Chevalier
Neukomm and Bennett, and a protest was sent to the
Commissioners signed by six out of the ten musical Jurors.
The question at issue appears to have been how far any-
thing connected with a musical instrument could claim a
high award as an invention. The protesting musical Jurors,
whether they had just cause or not, were offended at being
considered incompetent to decide that point. Added to
this came another grievance.

For the ceremony at the closing of the Exhibition, the
services of the Sacred Harmonic Society were accepted,
but the Commissioners neglected to engage a Conductor.
At the last moment Costa was applied to. He was out
of town and wrote, that, even had it been possible for him
to come, he would not have interfered with the prerogative
of Sir George Smart. Little care seems to have been
taken at the time in the treatment of musicians. The
Commissioners accepted the services of a volunteer who
put himself forward, and the feelings of those who had
taken part in the ' Opening ' proceedings were not worth a

xv] Position as a Teacher 223

thought. On the day after the ' Closing,' Sir Henry Bishop
wrote to Bennett: — 'Sir George Smart, yourself, and I
have been grossly insulted by the musical arrangements of
yesterday. It is a question whether they were under the
control of the executive committee or not. No matter by
whom organized the insult is the same.'

Thus, on the whole, the Exhibition proved rather a
disappointment to Bennett, notwithstanding much interest-
ing work, and a deluge of invitations to hospitable functions
in the City, Birmingham, Paris and other places.

His position as a teacher now seemed quite secure.
Mrs Bennett had for some time been constantly refusing
applications for lessons. In 1851, he being then 35 years
old, she insisted on raising his terms for new .clients.
Timid of the consequences, as he afterwards said, it was
with great reluctance that he gave way to her wishes ; but
she proved right. As old engagements gave place to new
his income gradually increased ; though so lasting were
many of his connections that it took at least twelve years
for his wife's idea to take full effect. Meanwhile the 1650
to 1700 lessons which he gave in the year furnished com-
fortable means for a small family, with a margin for
generosity and a little margin for saving. He was also
able to keep clear of money considerations in any other
musical occupations in which he wished to engage. The
scheme of life originally suggested by his old friend,
Mr Holdsworth, was being followed to the letter. His work
was still continuous throughout the year. He could not
get ten days in succession for a holiday, even in the summer.
Private pupils often kept him in town till the first few days
of August had gone, and the middle of that month brought
the young ladies back to their schools after the Midsummer
holidays. In the summer of 1852, he took lodgings for
his family at Windsor, going himself to and fro for a few
weeks, and getting odd days free. From Windsor he dated
several numbers of the ' Preludes and Lessons ' (Op. 33),
a work which he finished at Southampton at Christmas
time. One of the ' Lessons,' in G minor, he had written
for the album of Miss Wood in 1842, when he had just
become engaged to her, but the others were probably quite
new. The collection was said to be made for the pupils
of Queen's College, Harley Street, and to them it was

224 *85° — z^55 Retraced [CH.

dedicated. Several of the ' Lessons ' are very short, and
Davison was quite angry about this, saying to Mrs Bennett
that the book was a 'murder' of valuable ideas. Never-
theless, the little pieces are quite perfect as they stand ;
they were very welcome to many amateurs of the day ;
and Bennett himself used to play selections from them
with telling effect.

The season of 1853 revived the Philharmonic trouble.
Since 1848, the year of its occurrence, one work of Bennett's
had been played, under exceptional circumstances, at a
concert of the Society. Miss Kate Loder (Lady Thompson)
selected for her performance in 1850 his Caprice in E major.
Costa, at the entreaty of Mr and Mrs Anderson, whose
niece Miss Loder was, agreed to conduct it, and did so.
Towards the end of 1852, the Society elected Bennett as
one of the Directors for the 1853 season. Anderson ex-
pressed himself confident that, after a lapse of nearly five
years, the misunderstanding with Costa could be removed ;
so with this assurance, and with the knowledge that he
had been elected a Director by an unusually large number
of votes, Bennett consented to serve. But he soon found
himself in the wrong place. Costa, far from fulfilling
Anderson's expectations, refused to renew his engagement,
unless a clause was inserted giving him liberty to decline
conducting any work to which he might take exception.
This condition was granted. Early in the season (1853),
Miss Arabella Goddard was invited to make her debut,
and she selected Bennett's Concerto in C minor. Costa
refused to have anything to do with it. The Directors
then asked Miss Goddard to choose a work by one of the
great masters. Her first invitation had laid no restriction
on her choice of music ; as the change might seem to imply
a slight on Bennett's reputation, she refused to make it,
with the result that her engagement was cancelled. This
incident, which caused much remark, and the old quarrel to
which it was the sequel, were thus referred to in Punch1 :

'Sterndale Bennett was Indignant with Costa
For not playing Bennett's composition faster ;
Costa flew into Excitement with Lucas,
For showing him Bennett's Order or Ukase,

1 Mr Punch's comments on musical events, some of which are quoted in
this book, were generally attributed to Shirley Brooks.

xv] Miss Goddard as Bennett's Champion 225

Haughtily Resigned the Seat which he sat on,

And Contemptuously told Lucas himself to Take the baton,

Moreover Stipulated this year with the Directors

That Nobody was to read him any more Lectures :

Also, he made it a Condition Strict,

He was Only to conduct what Pieces of Music he lik'd,

Whereby this year Costa doth Prevent

Any performance of Music by Sterndale Benn't :

Likewise excluding the young and gifted Miss Goddard

Whom with Admiration all the Critical Squad heard : —

All to be Deplored, and without more Amalgamation

The Philharmonic will Tarnish its Hitherto Deservedly High Reputation.'

Miss Goddard straightway went off and played the
C minor Concerto, under the baton of Lindpaintner, at
' The New Philharmonic,' a recently formed institution
which was bidding fair to become a formidable rival to
the older Society. In June, Bennett was asked to play
a work of his own at another rival establishment, ' The
Orchestral Union.' He had not been heard of as a
Concerto-player for some years, and this exceptional ap-
pearance proved his last in that capacity. The Musical
World records a ' magnificent performance ' of his Concerto
in F minor, and a 'reception, by an audience filling the
Hanover Square Rooms to overflow, which was a sig-
nificant expression of public opinion about a recent event
which has made much noise in the musical world.'

But Bennett now followed his quiet way, without being
much exposed to the jars of public life. He was happy
with his Bach Society, his Chamber Concerts, and in the
composition of his pianoforte pieces. He enjoyed the work
with his pupils, and his personal association with the host
of old and young friends who clustered round him. His
domestic life was delightful. Though he was much away
from home, his wife managed to keep him in touch with the
many who desired access to him. Weeks of comparative
leisure came sometimes, when, if he could not leave London,
he could pay a little attention to the duties and pleasures
of society. A formal dinner-party would be given at least
once a year ; but there were also occasional evening parties
in Russell Place when young people were gathered and
at which his Academy pupils were made very welcome.
On such occasions he took his full share in the entertaining.
Impromptu dances would be proposed, very much for the

s. B. 15

226 1850 — 1855 Retraced [CH.

Immense Attraction !

The Pure Drama Restored ! /

RUSSELL THEATRE

_ JPitzray Gardens. _

WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 13th, 1B53.

MR. BENNETT

H*» UM honor to aanounc* that, after great inconvenience and mucli distress of mind, he ha* at length
prevailed upon

THE CELEBRATED

TENTERM COMPANY

TO PERFORM

FOR GIVE NIGHT ONLY ! f

At tbe above Theatre ; and, regardleti of expense, hw »lw been fortunate enough, bjr no cod of great
penua«oi) and promUw of pa/ men t, and at the risk of incurring an Action from a rival Establish meat.

THE CELEBRATED SCOTTISH ACTRESS,

MISS AUGUSTA THOMSON,

To awiit th« abort Ctlebricei in penonifyinjahe wdl-lnown icraching Firce of THE

SPITALFIELDS
WEAVER.

Harry Brown > Mr. JAMBS THOMSON.

Darrille - Mr. WILSON.

Dawion . (o Butler) - Mr. CUSINS.

Simmons - - Mr. SHARPE,
Adcfe • Mis* AUGUSTA THOMSON.

Principal Footmen . Messrs. BENNETT and BARNKTT.

n* r»»ni AiMMtMT i»»«»««ui«« br
_ Mesdames FERRARI and BENNETT. _

THE ORCHESTRA

Will b* on u uauiiull/ imill Kolt, much inclining to the nnwr, Mid il it to t» hoped «i'h

*HV», Vrant-w^MI-tbna,
In ur e»»ae«T aot mnlal,

Signor FERRARI.

LIST WIDE OPEN!!!
CRITICS SUSPENDED ! !
Manifestations of delight not forbidden ! !

ABBUBMON - OT THE GRAXD CTAXROASK.

.S*o<« preitrr*d, but not varranitd It keep throughou

xv] Relaxation 227

sake of hearing him extemporize graceful dance-music.
This side of his musicianship, according to Sir George
Macfarren, had given pleasure to his friends in quite early
days. He would invent musical games, and, with the aid
of Arthur O'Leary, or some other favourite pupil for an
accomplice, would, by his playing, accomplish thought-
reading sufficiently miraculous to the lay mind. Charades
were much in vogue at the time and his friend Ferrari was
always ready to direct them. They together arranged a
more ambitious performance and collaborated in the pro-
duction of a full-sized play-bill here printed on a smaller
scale.

Bennett had been cast for the Butler, but could not,
perhaps for want of time, master his part, so resigned it in
favour of his pupil, W. G. Cusins. His silent role, how-
ever, proved no sinecure. Hair-powdering and the donning
of a gorgeous livery brought the nervous Robert Barnett
to the verge of stage-fright. Bennett, by his merry en-
couragements, at last succeeded in pacifying him, and the
entrance of the ' Principal Footmen ' laden with trays and
decanters of wine evoked a loud burst of the unforbidden
'manifestations of delight.'

A few days after this diversion, some friends in Leipzig
wrote to tell Mrs Bennett that they might require her
husband's holiday address. They hinted, at the same time,
that a surprise, which they hoped might bring pleasure, was
probably in store for him. The address for his brief vaca-
tion in August was to be Southampton ; but, before going
there, Bennett spent a few days, with his wife, in Derby-
shire, on a pilgrimage to scenes and spots about which he
had, in his youth, heard much talk at his grandparents'
fireside. He now passed through, for the first time, the
village of Ashford-in-the-water, the home of his forefathers.
He played on the little organ in the church where they had
worshipped, and was more than satisfied with his visit when
he came across an old villager, sitting by the wayside, who
well remembered his dear grandfather. This excursion
delayed his receipt of an important letter which he found
lying at Southampton when he arrived there.

15—*

228 1850 — 7c?55 Retraced [CH.

LEIPZIG, iqth July, I8531.

The Concert-Direction of Leipzig
to Mr William Sterndale Bennett, Southampton.

The undersigned Concert-direction still remembers with
pleasure the time of your long residences in Leipzig and the
active service you rendered as well as the kind feeling you
showed to the Gewandhaus Concerts.

For these concerts, the direction of which has up to
this time been taken by Capellmeister Rietz and Concert-
meister David and Capellmeister N. W. Gade of Copen-
hagen, we are now anxious to obtain, for the next winter's
season, an able conductor. The considerable fame which
you, Dear Sir, enjoy in the musical world, and the abiding
favour always accorded to you by the public here, make us
wish and herewith to express the hope, that it may be
agreeable to you to undertake in the coming winter the
direction of our twenty subscription concerts, and of two
extra ones the first of which, as you will probably still
remember, is given by us for the benefit of the poor, and the
second for the Pension fund founded for distressed musicians.
As honorarium we offer you the sum of 1,000 thalers.

Although we cannot but see, that the granting of our
request would entail many sacrifices on your part, among
which the change of domicile for so many months would
not be the least, nevertheless we hope, that the friendly
remembrance of the time you passed here, and the fact,
that in our concerts we still have, as before, the furtherance
of true art as our object, may possibly lead you to lend an
ear to our proposal.

Should our hope be realised, we should then count upon
seeing you at the head of our orchestra from the middle of
September of this year until the end of March, or beginning
of April, 1854.

We shall hope as soon as possible for the news of your
consent and please may we ask another favour, whether you
can recommend an English singer whom we might be able
to secure for our next season or for part of it ? We should
especially like to hear from you whether Miss Louisa Pyne,
whom we have before invited, would be able to come and

1 Original is in German.

xvj A Tempting Offer 229

allow us to hear her, and do you think she would obtain
favour here ?

Accept the assurance of our very great esteem and
attachment, with which we remain

In the name and by the order of the Concert- Direction,

DR WENDLER.

Bennett to Dr Wendler.

13 HANOVER BUILDINGS,
SOUTHAMPTON,

August 8tk, 1853.

DEAR SIR,

Being from home on a journey, I did not re-
ceive your kind and flattering letter of the 29th of July until
yesterday. It is difficult for me, even in my own language, to
thank the Concert- Direction of Leipzig for the very high
compliment they have paid me in inviting me to conduct
their Concerts of next Season. Would my arrangements
allow me to accept this invitation, I feel that such a circum-
stance would give me a new existence, and independently
of the opportunity afforded me of mixing myself more with
the poetry of my art, it would again enable me to enjoy the
satisfaction of renewing those friendships which I had the
good fortune to enjoy in former times. I have always
looked back upon Leipzig as a second home, and indeed
how could it be otherwise, when I found such kind friends,
and amongst all enjoyed the protection of the illustrious
man whose removal from the world we all alike deplore.

Your invitation must, however, remain unanswered for
two or three days. I will write again on Wednesday next,
and if I am obliged to decline the greatest wish of my heart,
be assured that I shall regret it all my life in many respects.

I will not forget to give you my best advice about a
Singer. I shall go up to London on Wednesday and make
enquiries.

Believe me,
Dear Sir,

Yours very truly,
WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Dr Wendler,

Concert-Direction,
Leipzig.

230 1850 — 1855 Retraced [CH.

13 HANOVER BUILDINGS,
SOUTHAMPTON,

August 11, 1853.

DEAR SIR,

According to my promise I write again to you
upon the subject which has so entirely engrossed my thoughts
since the receipt of your letter. Unfortunately, however,
I must now write contrary to my sincerest desire, and with
the utmost regret decline the very kind and generous in-
vitation of the Concert-Direction of Leipzig to conduct their
Concerts next Season.

Since my last communication, I have been in London
to look into my affairs, and find it impossible to release
myself from engagements already made ; indeed many
parties with whom I had so engaged myself are now absent
from the country and therefore cannot be made aware of
the position in which your kindness has placed me.

I wish I could fully express how much I appreciate this
new act of kindness on the part of my Leipzig friends, and
how sorrowful it makes me to be compelled to decide so
thoroughly against my inclinations. I do not despair how-
ever of being able to pay Leipzig a short friendly visit
during the Season, and supported by this hope I must
conclude with a thousand thanks to the gentlemen of the
Direction, and hearty wishes for the continued prosperity
of the Gewandhaus Concerts.

Allow me, Sir, at the same time to thank you personally
for the handsome terms in which your communication was
couched.

Believe me,

Dear Sir,
Yours faithfully and obliged,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Dr Wendler,

Concert-D irection,
Leipzig.

P.S. I shall see Miss Louisa Pyne on Tuesday next,
and will then write to you on that subject.

xv] Obstacles 231

Mrs Bennett wrote (Sept. 2nd, 1853) to Miss Annette
Preusser, of Leipzig : —

! and my husband was so completely over-
whelmed with the feelings of joy and pride at the receipt of
such a testimony of friendship and good feeling, that he
could have accepted at once, but at the same time came
many business letters for the half-year, and then came the
consideration of whether he was not pledged in honour to
the large schools to attend himself up to Christmas at least,
then, many of the Principals of these establishments were
away and he could not hold communication with them, also
having most responsible situations in the R.A.M. and
Queen's College, all of which were recommencing in about
a fortnight after the date of the invitation. You can well
imagine how these things perplexed us, my husband im-
mediately came to London, and then his difficulty increased
by finding our friend, Cipriani Potter, away in Germany,
and that heavy family affliction would meet him on his
return home (from the death of his son by drowning on his
first voyage to sea and of which Mr and Mrs Potter would
be ignorant until their return as their whereabouts are not
known by any one here). Mr Potter would have been the
only one able to have assisted my husband in teaching for
him during his absence, and this obstacle occurring seemed
to be insurmountable. * * * I must assure you that it
was a great, great grief to my dear Husband when he
considered that it was his first duty to remain in England,
for it was his fond wish to have come to Leipzig. ^

To the above obstacles, Mrs Bennett added others of a
domestic kind, and wrote at great length in her anxiety to
prove that her husband was not ungrateful. His Leipzig
friends, however, were much disappointed. They had
counted upon his coming. The Preussers had gone so far
as to secure the first refusal of a residence for himself and
his wife. There can be no doubt that he, too, was genuinely
sorry to decline. So pronounced, so unique an honour,
paid to an English musician by Germany, would have an
additional value to a man who had, as yet, been offered no
such position in his own country. Pecuniary loss, the
temporary disturbance of his London career, might have

232 1850 — 1855 Retraced [CH.

been balanced by the prestige which such a connection
would have given him on his return. But probably all was
ordered for the best. Musical thought in Germany was
already taking new directions, and it is difficult to conceive
that Bennett could have adapted himself to or felt happy
under the changed circumstances. A short visit paid to
Leipzig twelve years later sufficed to convince him that the
same unanimity of feeling on musical questions which had
existed in the Leipzig of his young days had disappeared.
On that visit he was most cordially received by the public ;
his old friends seemed scarcely to know how to make
enough of him. Conrad Schleinitz said to him, in the
Directors' box at the Gewandhaus, with serious earnest-
ness, ' Ah, Bennett, you were the one we wanted, you ought
to have come to us.' When he was leaving, delighted with
the main circumstances of his visit, a crowd of well-wishers
assembled at the station, and then it seemed so curious that,
as the train moved out of their sight, his first words should
be, 'Thank God, I never went there.'

If it may be said that Bennett was wanted in Germany,
it can also be said, though this may not have been apparent
at the time — that he was wanted at home. The winter
which he might have spent in Germany ' mixing,' as he had
written, ' with the poetry of his art,' but also perhaps, as he
afterwards thought, entangling himself in its party strifes,
was marked by artistic work in London of much interest
and of abiding value.

The members of the Bach Society, after keeping the com-
poser's birthday in 1852 by a public concert of Motets and
Concertos, devoted themselves entirely to the preparation
of the St Matthew 'Passion.' In the winter of 1852 — 53,
progress in the choral music was made; in April, 1853, a
set of solo-singers accepted an invitation to take part in the
practices ; and in the autumn Bennett settled down in a
determined way to get the work ready for performance in
the spring of 1854. Meetings which had so far been called
'trials' were now styled 'rehearsals,' and were held con-
stantly for six months. A volunteer orchestra was enrolled
and studied assiduously with the chorus and soloists. In-
strumentalists found no less difficulty than vocalists, and
accidentals flew about in all directions. Bennett's friend,

xv] Bach Society 233

Mr Charles Sparrow, who represented the amateur element
in the violin-department, looks back to the time with the
words, 'How we did work!' The chorus of over TOO voices
(considered a large one for the Hanover Square Rooms), as
well as the orchestra, consisted almost entirely of busily oc-
cupied professional musicians and students. The amateurs
had never taken kindly to the Motets and few had remained
faithful. Bennett wrote of eminent Professors who viewed
the reception of such music in England as hopeless. Davison
looked on with great sympathy, but with no confidence.
He wrote, as follows, in The Musical World: —

' A body of men, artists and amateurs commingled,
banded together in pursuit of some beloved study, which,
in its very nature, postpones, well-nigh indefinitely, all
prospect of reward or public fame, — yielding unflinchingly
time, labour, and talent, solely to a conviction of right-
doing in the cause of art, is ever a gratifying subject of
contemplation. We may criticise its efforts as inadequate
to their purpose, we may consider its measures ill-chosen,
we may even think its object chimerical ; but we must
always admit the sincerity of its devotion, and respect in
it that unquestionable element of the artist character — un-
fortunately, yet but slow of development in this country —
the abstract love of whatever is deemed great, apart from
all question of its popularity and profit. In this favourable
light does the Bach Society present itself to notice. The
task that it has chosen is almost Herculean, its fulfilment
lies far off in the future, and its reward, we fear, is anything
but secure.'

Miss Stainer brought a little brother with her to sing at
these rehearsals and at the performance. Thirty years later,
Sir John Stainer — as the boy, in after-life, was known —
referred, at a meeting of The Musical Association, to the
important work which Bennett had done in laying the
foundation of the study of Bach's music. He said : — ' As a
small boy I had the honour of being admitted as a member
of the first [Bach] Society, and I can assure you that I
have a most vivid recollection of the very great pains that
Bennett used to take at rehearsals. I fancy, as far as my
memory serves me, we used to meet at Tenterden Street

234 -T&SO — /<?55 Retraced [CH.

for the rehearsal of Bach's ' Passion,' and sometimes in the
music-room in Store Street. I remember the immense
trouble and pains he took about it, and knowing how very
often the day had been passed in very fatiguing work, this
shows his great self-sacrifice to the cause of music, thus to
have devoted his evenings to such laborious practice. In
those days he had all the labour and anxiety of a pioneer.'

The undertaking was beset with financial as well as
musical difficulties. The Bach Society had by this time,
on paper, a list of 150 enrolled members. The majority of
these had paid an entrance fee of two guineas, in return for
which they had been promised life-membership. This fee
was fixed, at the time when the prime objects of the Society
were the formation of a library, and meetings of members
for private study of music. The capital thus collected had
been gradually spent on these objects. Annual subscriptions
from other members had dwindled. A library could be no
attraction to those who had retired in despair from the
Motets. At the beginning of 1854, the Treasurer reported,
that the Society's little capital was exhausted, and that he
had heard nothing of any subscriptions. Thus the per-
formance of the ' Passions-Musik,' on April 6, had to be
self-supporting. Doubt must have been felt as to how
many people would pay five shillings to hear it ; the strictest
economy was necessary in making the arrangements ; no
additional help could be called in at the last moment to
supply defects in the orchestra and chorus. The performance
reached no high standard of excellence ; but the feat of
getting through the work continuously was at least accom-
plished ; and had the effort not been made, the Society
could have held together no longer. As it was, interest
was aroused. Even at the first hearing much of the music
was greeted with 'loud bursts of applause and encores,' out
of place, perhaps, but at any rate encouraging. Bennett
had obtained a copy of the book of words as used by
Mendelssohn for the centenary performance at Berlin in
1829. This he followed, except that he replaced a few of
the omitted Chorales, and the two Contralto Airs, ' Ah,
Golgotha,' and ' See the Saviour's outstretched arm.' The
difficulty of finding Contralto singers in Germany may
account for Mendelssohn having omitted these Airs. As

xv] Holland 235

sung by Miss Dolby, at this and subsequent performances,
they were always redemanded.

Satisfied on the whole with the reception of the work,
and wishing to have it heard again, before the awakened
interest waned, Bennett decided on a second venture. A
few professional friends joined him in guaranteeing the
expenses ; fresh rehearsals were started in the autumn ; and
a second performance of the ' Passions-Musik ' was given in
November. After these accomplishments, satisfactory as a
first step, but too crude to convert certain eminent English
musicians to a belief that Bach's choral works would ever
find acceptance in this country, the Bach Society retired
for a while to their private studies, continuing their winter
practices and gradually getting into debt.

In July, 1854, Bennett attended, as an invited guest,
a musical festival at Rotterdam. He crossed over with a
party of friends, one of them being Miss Dolby who
was engaged to sing at the festival. His name was known
in Holland. At Leipzig he had enjoyed the friendship of
Verhulst, who became the leading musician of the Nether-
lands, and who, according to Davison, retained to the end
of his life a very special liking for Bennett's pianoforte
music. As early as 1839, Bennett had been elected a
member of the Society for the Encouragement of Music in
the Netherlands, a Society which aimed at assisting young
composers of that nationality, and he had subsequently, as
a member, taken his share in criticising compositions sub-
mitted to the Society for publication. When asked by the
same Society to contribute a pianoforte Solo of his own to
an Album which they published, he responded in his most
finished style by writing for them early in 1854 his
'Toccata' in C minor, Op. 38, which has generally been
reckoned one of the most successful of his minor works,
and which was, at all events, a grateful offering to Holland
and his Dutch friends. As a recognition from another
foreign country, he received, in 1851, a request signed by
Berlioz and other French musicians to become an Honorary
member of a new Philharmonic Society which they had
recently founded in Paris. Attentions of this kind were
consoling to an English musician of Bennett's time. He
preserved and valued such diplomas, though he confined
their exhibition to the walls of his dressing-room.

236 1850 — /<?55 Retraced [CH.

A year now passed (Nov. 1854 — Nov. 1855) leaving no
events to record, out of the usual course, in Bennett's life.
There is, however, one letter of his, preserved by Madame
Schumann, which belongs to the time and cannot be over-
looked. When he wrote to the Schumanns in 1850, he
invited them to concerts of his own. It might, therefore,
be hinted that he had some business interest in the matter.
The following letter is inserted because it can bear no such
construction, and because there seems something to admire
in the fact of one pianist1 pressing another to come and
enter his own preserves, while he merely asks for himself
the privilege of preparing her way.

I am flattered to think that a letter from me
might be acceptable to you, and that you would not refuse
to listen to my persuasions that you would soon pay England
a visit and give the English people the benefit of your
acquaintance and your eminent talent. I can tell you with
the very greatest confidence that you would be received
with enthusiasm and I think you would in every way be
satisfied that you had at last paid a visit to London. For
my own part it would be a great pleasure to me to be of
the least assistance to you in your previous arrangements, and
to make your stay in England as comfortable as possible —
and if you will excuse me also saying one word upon business,
I think you would make a very profitable journey. I should
be glad if you would tell me when you would come and how
long you would stay, and if you would give me leave to
accept engagements for you, and how much for each Concert
et cetera — then I would take care to have a good business
prepared for you. Pray write to me this very soon — and if
you will come first to our house, until we can get you a nice
Lodging, it will give us very great pleasure to see you.

And now, I hope you will be able to tell me that my
dear friend, Rob. Schumann, is recovering from his dis-
tressing illness. I have never ceased to think of this sad
trouble and to make every enquiry, and latterly I was

1 Bennett was still playing in public at the time.

xv] Madame Schumann 237

delighted to receive better news of him. It will give me
so much satisfaction, if you will not fail to tell me all you
can upon this subject — and now, my dear Madam, with the
kind regards of my Wife and myself, believe me

Ever yours sincerely,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Madame Schumann gave favourable consideration to
the proposal ; but, as to the result, The Musical World of
March 10, 1855, wrote thus: —

' CLARA WIECK-SCHUMANN. — A letter has been received
by Mr Sterndale Bennett, with whom this eminent pianist
was to have stayed as a guest during her proposed residence
in England, stating that, in consequence of the precarious
state of her husband's health, she has decided, in obedience
to the advice of his medical counsellors, upon not visiting
London this season.'

Madame Schumann's first appearance in England was
destined to be more conspicuously associated with Bennett,
than it would have been if it had occurred in 1855. The
circumstances of his life now underwent a change, and at
last, in his fortieth year, he was called forward to hold
public positions of importance.

PART IV

CALLED TO THE FRONT

CHAPTER XVI.

PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS.

1855—1856.
set. 39, 40.

COSTA, after having held the conductorship of the Phil-
harmonic for nine years, resigned it at the end of 1854.
His reasons were not published, but thenceforth he was
completely estranged from those who governed the Society.
His position in the musical world had become so high, and
his following amongst amateurs so large and influential,
that a diminished subscription list seemed a certain sequel,
unless some very distinguished musician could be found
to succeed him. The Directors searched the Continent
and, after several disappointments, Anderson travelled
to Zurich and secured the services of Richard Wagner.
Sainton has been credited with suggesting this. Wagner
came over, entered upon his work with great zeal, acknow-
ledged the esprit de corps among the English players, and
admired the wonderful tone of the stringed instruments.
It was found, however, that neither his name, nor his
conducting, nor as yet his works, were attractive to the
English public. He had no chance, in the short hours
allotted to rehearsals, of changing, to the extent he wished
to do, the style of the orchestral playing. The band did
not respond to him, while the Directors argued with him
about his readings of the Symphonies. George Hogarth,
who, as Secretary of the Society, was behind the scenes,
wrote some years later that the Philharmonic season of
1855 'was on the whole neither pleasant nor satisfactory,'
and that at its close ' Mr Wagner hastened to take his
departure from England.'

s. B. 16

242 Public Appointments [CH.

The Society was now in serious difficulties. The mem-
bers met, altered laws, reduced the number of annual concerts
from eight to six, and relieved the Directors of the power
or of the responsibility of nominating a Conductor. At a
general meeting of members held on November 19, 1855,
Bennett was elected to the vacant office. He accepted it,
though not without hesitation. Past grievances might be
forgotten, but he was being asked to take the helm of what
many people thought a sinking ship. Davison wrote : —
' If Mr Sterndale Bennett makes a failure as conductor of the
Philharmonic concerts, he does neither more nor less than
peril his status as the most eminent Professor of music in
this country. * * * The question is, can he succeed and in
such an arena ? We are inclined to think he cannot, and
therefore regret that he should have consented to accept
the post. * * * It is indisputable that the members of the
orchestra will not (we don't say cannot) pay the requisite
attention to any other conductor than Mr Costa. * * * This
was painfully felt by Herr Wagner last season, since who
in his senses can deny * * * the shameful inattention of the
band under his direction ?'

The Athenaum and other journals added their com-
ments on the disorganized state into which the band had
drifted, as also on the secession of some of the leading
violinists, owing to a dispute with the Directors over the
positions assigned to them in the orchestra ; and considered
that Bennett was taking office at a most inauspicious time.
Wagner had been rejected, and the shout of ' Costa aut
nullus ' grew the louder.

Notwithstanding these dismal prognostications, the
1856 season eventually proved very interesting from an
artistic point of view, and successful from a financial one.
Bennett, immediately after his election, was admitted to the
confidence of the Directors and he eagerly entered into the
plans of a new campaign. His interest in the Society was
by no means limited to the special duty for which he was
engaged.

The re-appearance in England of Madame Jenny Lind-
Goldschmidt towards the end of 1855, after an absence of
more than five years, and the announcement of a series of
Oratorio and miscellaneous concerts which were to be

xvi] Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt 243

given by her during the winter months, aroused much expec-
tation, while concert-managers viewed with some alarm the
effect that so powerful an attraction might have upon their
undertakings. At the Philharmonic, it was wisely seen
that possible advantage rather than the reverse might be
derived from her presence in this country, and the Directors
made bold to ask her to appear at one of their con-
certs. This, after due consideration, Madame Goldschmidt
generously agreed to do ; ' but, why did she agree ? ' wrote
Davison, ' I can tell you. It was because her husband,
Herr Otto Goldschmidt, himself an admirable musician,
entertained a high respect for the genius and talents of
Professor Sterndale Bennett who is more of a prophet in
Germany than in his own country. For this reason and
for no other (I have it from the best authority, that
of Herr Goldschmidt himself) Madame Jenny Lind
consented to sing for the Philharmonic Society.' When
the announcement, couched in somewhat ambiguous terms,
was made, that the great singer would help the Society,
and rumour spread the idea that she would appear on more
than one evening, the subscription list began to lengthen.
Her absence on a provincial tour, during the earlier weeks
of the London season, heightened the interest attaching to
the few farewell performances to be given in June, before
her final retirement, and the knowledge that one of these
last appearances would be at the Philharmonic, with the
constant promise of it on the programmes of the earlier
concerts, kept the subscribers in a state of pleasurable
excitement throughout the season. Madame Lind-Gold-
schmidt, having once consented, did not spare herself in
fulfilling her promise. She did not limit herself to the
one or two vocal pieces usually given at the concerts.
Her singing, a few months before, in a performance of
Schumann's ' Paradise and the Peri ' at the Lower Rhine
Festival, had made a deep impression upon her hearers,
and it was now suggested, in the first instance by Mr Otto
Goldschmidt himself, that this work should, with her
assistance, be produced at the Philharmonic. The idea was
at once seized upon. In close connection with it, another
interesting musical event took place, by which a desire that
Bennett had felt for years was at length gratified.

16 — 2

244 Public Appointments [CH.

LONDON, 15 RUSSELL PLACE,
FITZROY SQUARE.

January 21, 1856.

MY DEAR MADAME SCHUMANN,

You will receive by this post a letter from the
Directors of the Philharmonic Society to ask if you have
the intention to visit England this summer. I am now
the Music-Director of these Concerts, and I am so very
anxious that you should perform at them.

Also I am very anxious to give the ' Paradise and the
Peri ' if Madame Jenny Lind will sing in it, and the
Directors will invite her. Altogether it will be a very
happy thing to see you in London, and I think you will
be very satisfied with your visit. Would you also write a
letter to Madame Lind to use your influence with her to
sing in ' The Peri.' Pray let me know your plans as soon
as possible, and believe me,

Yours very sincerely,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

I do not forget to think of my friend Robert. Do let
me know if there is any improvement. What a beautiful
work is ' The Peri.'

Again, a week later, he wrote to Madame Schumann :
' You must write and tell me when you can come, it would
be very good that you should make your debUt in England
at the first concert on April 14. * * * We have a Conferenz
at the Philharmonic Society next Saturday, and I wish
to say that you will come. Write me all your ideas and
questions and I will be sure to answer them, but be sure to
come to England in April, and make your first appearance
at the Philharmonic.'

Bennett conducted his first rehearsal on Saturday,
April 12, and the first concert on April 14, his fortieth
birthday occurring on the intervening Sunday.

xvi] An Opening-Night 245

UNDER THE IMMEDIATE PATRONAGE OF

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT.

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS OP KENT.

PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY.

FIRST CONCERT, MONDAY, APRIL 14, 1856.

PART I.

Stnfonia in C minor (dedicated to the Philharmonic Society) - - Mendeluohn.

Recit. l"E Susanna non viene"J Madame CLARA NOVELLO (Le Nozze di
Aria ^"Dovesono" \ Figaro) - Mozart.

Concerto in E fiat. Pianoforte, Madame CLA&A SCHUMANN (her firet

appearance in England) • - Beethovtn.

Overture (Don Carlos) • .... Maefarrea.

PART II.

Sinfonia in A, No. 7 « Beethoven.

Recit. ( " Si, morir " ) Madame CLARA NOVELLO ( Corno Inglesc,

Aria I " Ma negli eetremi ietanti " ) Mr NICHOLSON) D Giuramento - Mereadante.
Solo, Pianoforte (17 Variations Serieuses) Madame SCHUMANN - • Afendeletolia.

Overture. •• Preciosa " - - - - - - Webtr.

Conductor— Professor STEKNDALE BENNETT.

*,' To commence at Eight o'clock. Doon mil be open at Half-pan Seven o'clock precisely.

THE SECOND CONCERT WILL TAKE PLACE ON THE «8rn INST.

' The new conductor ' — wrote The Morning Herald —
' was received both by orchestra and visitors with warm
and cordial recognition, from which it may be inferred that
the appointment has been agreeable to the patrons of the
Society. The office upon which Mr Bennett enters is one
of responsibility and onerousness, but he is already well
versed in its functions, although he has not of late been
called upon to discharge them. It is time, however, that
English interests should prevail, and that the foreign re-
proaches that we have no conductor worthy of the name,
should be gainsaid by proof. * * * Mr Bennett, who was
probably somewhat nervous, nevertheless acquitted him-
self well, and the reading of the music was everything

246 Public Appointments [CH.

that could be desired. The players seemed anxious to
second the indications of the conductor by every possible
attention.'

Madame Schumann had arrived a few days before
the concert, and had taken up a temporary residence at
the Bennetts' house in Russell Place, where she found a
sympathetic welcome awaiting her. The illness of her
husband, and her anxiety on his account, were distressing
accompaniments to a sojourn in a strange country. Within
an hour or two of entering the house, she betook herself to
Bennett's pianoforte and played many pieces to Mrs Bennett
and her family. The front dining-room, with a grand
pianoforte from Broadwood's, was reserved for her own
use. Old servants, living in the house at the time,
remember how they were asked by the Bennetts to pay
special attention to a distinguished lady who was coming
to stay with them, and who was in great trouble. One
of them remembers being sent all over London by her
mistress to procure some lilies-of-the-valley, which proved
to be the last birthday souvenir sent to Robert Schumann
by his wife. Mrs Bennett was able to give great assistance
to Madame Schumann in getting up her first pianoforte
recitals and in securing a good audience, such being work
that she had always done in connection with Bennett's own
concerts. Thirty-three years later, when Madame Schumann
addressed a letter, on the subject of Bennett's musician-
ship1, to the present writer, she added a remembrance of
Mrs Bennett in the words : ' Besides this, I never shall
forget how kind your parents both were to me when I first
came to England.'

Bennett's prediction of the favour with which Madame
Schumann would be received in England was well fulfilled.
The author of the article on Madame Schumann, in the
first edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
had been misinformed when he wrote : — ' Her reception
in this conservative country was hardly such as to en-
courage her to repeat her visit, and many years passed
before she returned.' As a matter of fact, she came the
very next year, as also in 1859. Moreover, from the first

1 The letter contains the words : ' My husband spoke so often of him
[Bennett] as one of the Pianists he most admired.'

xvi] British Music at the Philharmonic 247

she was greeted with respect and admiration by the leading
critics and with enthusiasm by the audiences. Schumann's
music may have wanted time to make its way, but it was
not left to a later generation of music-lovers to appreciate
Madame Schumann as a pianist. The Morning Herald,
after her first performance, wrote : — ' It would be difficult
to describe the effect Madame Schumann produced. It
amounted to a positive sensation, even among those who
are moved with difficulty, and are excited only when the
illustrative genius is of the highest order.'

As the concerts of this year progressed, The Athenceum
enquired why no music of Bennett's was introduced, seeing
that the reason for excluding it no longer remained.
Bennett, throughout the time in which he held the con-
ductorship, frequently asked the Directors not to introduce
compositions of his own. He would, indeed, have made
some condition on the subject, as Mendelssohn is said to
have done at Leipzig, only they would not listen to him.
For one thing, the works of other British composers were
seldom placed upon the programmes, and he would not
like, whilst he was Conductor, to have a prominence given
to his music if his fellow-countrymen did not share the
honours. Constant complaints can be found in the writings
of those times about the musicians of this country not
combining, and seizing opportunities to further each others'
interests. It is not so easy to find where such opportunities
arose. Sir George Macfarren has written of Bennett in
this connection : — 'Somewhere about the year 1840 he had
a concert in Hanover Square which, for some reasons I
forget, was more notable than those previously given, and
because it was so he asked to have a work of mine included,
to mark our dear and old connection. In the same spirit in
1856, when appointed Philharmonic conductor, he specially
urged the insertion of an overture of mine at the first
concert.' It will be told how and why Bennett soon ceased
to influence the choice of music at the Philharmonic ; but it
is worth notice that while he did so, he could put in a word
for a compatriot. Another English overture, the 'Antony
and Cleopatra' of Cipriani Potter, was heard at the third
concert. Then a work of Bennett's did appear, but with
an exceptional reason for its performance. Miss Arabella

248 Public Appointments [CH.

Goddard, by playing his Concerto in C minor, carried the
point on which she had insisted three years before, when
Costa's condition, to conduct no work that he objected to,
had led to the cancelling of her engagement.

The series of concerts closed with the performance of
the 'Paradise and the Peri' on June 23. The work had
been already performed on February 10 and March 8,
1854, under the direction of William Glover, in Dublin.
It was now given for the first time in London. The
German version of the poem, to which Schumann had
set his music, had been retranslated for this occasion by
W. Bartholomew, Moore's words being used by him as far
as possible. Madame Schumann, who sang in the chorus
at the concert, had actively assisted Bennett during the
long and laborious rehearsals, upon which both he and all
concerned had bestowed great pains. The better to rivet
the attention of the audience, he had arranged a thematic
programme. This may, at the time, have been thought an
eccentricity, for it was not then printed \

The singing of Madame Lind-Goldschmidt was by
itself sufficient to attract ' one of the largest and most
brilliant assemblages' that George Hogarth had ever seen
in the Hanover Square Rooms. ' The Queen and Prince
Albert, with the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, and
the Princess Alice were present, together with the Prince
of Prussia, Prince Oscar of Sweden, and a numerous and
splendid cortege of English and foreign nobility and gentry.
Most of the musical celebrities now in London were among
the audience.' The performance was praised by the critics;
but three hours of music in a style as yet unfamiliar to
English ears failed to hold the audience, and the work
was very coldly received. 'With many beauties,' wrote
Hogarth — that kindest and most cautious of judges — 'it
was on the whole laboured and heavy2.'

Bennett has been credited, on the authority of many
of his musical acquaintances, with a limited appreciation of

1 The writer has the MS. with the names of Madame Lind-Goldschmidt and
other singers who took part in the 1856 performance appended to the pieces
they sang. It was printed and circulated with the programmes at a later
performance which Bennett conducted in 1866.

2 See Note, in Appendix A, on the conditions under which this performance
took place.

xvi] A Vacancy at Cambridge 249

Schumann as a composer. To this point some reference
may be made later. Meanwhile it is a pleasure to record
the care and interest he took in an early effort to introduce
to this country the noble-hearted musician whom he always
so lovingly spoke of as 'my own dear personal friend.'

The members of the Philharmonic Society, at their
next general meeting, passed a unanimous vote of thanks
to their Conductor for his 'zealous and able services.'
The Directors addressed him the following encouraging
letter : —

HANOVER SQUARE ROOMS,

June 28, 1856.

DEAR SIR,

We the undersigned Directors of the Philharmonic
Society, at the close of a highly gratifying season, beg
to congratulate you on the very great success which has
attended your labours, and to thank you most cordially
for your great and able exertions which have been of such
essential benefit to the Society.

We are, with much esteem,

Your sincere friends,

G. F. ANDERSON,
&c., &c.

A few weeks after Bennett's appointment to the Phil-
harmonic conductorship, and before he had entered upon
its duties, the chance occurred of trying for another im-
portant post. By the death of Thomas Attwood Walmisley
in January, 1856, the Professorship of Music in Cambridge
University fell vacant. In past times this office had usually
been bestowed, by an unopposed ' Grace ' of the Senate,
upon some eminent musician already connected with the
University. Walmisley's death created a void which could
not be filled up so readily. During the latter part of his
life he had discharged all the chief musical duties in the
University, playing on the Sunday at as many as eight
services in the chapels of the three principal Colleges and
at the University Church1. Cambridge had therefore now

1 As a ninth duty of the day, he regularly conducted a performance of sacred
vocal music in the Hall of Trinity College.

250 Public Appointments [CH.

lost its sole musical representative, and there was no one at
hand who could be regarded as his natural successor in the
Professorship. It was therefore announced that the choice
would on this occasion be made by open poll of the Senate,
and an opportunity was thus given for free competition.
Such a chance had previously occurred but once during at
least a hundred years. No less than forty candidates made
preliminary enquiries. Dr Whewell, the Vice-Chancellor,
wrote on January 25, 'I am perfectly overwhelmed with
applications for the Professorship of Music, and for the
organist's place.'

Bennett took counsel with his valued mentor, Sir
George Smart, but got no encouragement from him.
Charles Edward Horsley was already in the field, and
Sir George held that the influence which would support the
member of so distinguished a family must prove irresistible.
Bennett, nevertheless, decided to take his chance. He
corresponded with Horsley, and a friendly rivalry was
agreed on. ' Whatever may be the result of this election,'
wrote Horsley, ' I am quite sure that it will make no
difference in our friendly feeling towards each other, but
rather cause us to rejoice that either should have succeeded
in obtaining any position he desired.'

Bennett was, of course, not unknown in Cambridge.
A man with so tender a regard for old associations was not
likely to lose touch with the home of his early youth. It
had remained one of the few places out of London where
he had from time to time appeared as a pianist. This was
mainly due to his friendship with Thomas Wood, a well-
known music-seller in the town, and organizer of local
concerts. About the year 1850, Wood had introduced
performances of classical Chamber-music in ' The Alder-
men's Parlour' at the Guildhall, and Bennett from that
time had gone up once or twice a year to support his friend
in the scheme, taking with him the artists with whom he
usually played in London. ' The audience ' — writes the
Rev. W. T. Kingsley — ' was small but appreciative, and
the concerts were, without exception, the most enjoyable
I ever attended.' Bennett's playing, and especially the
interpretation of Beethoven's Trios with Molique and
Piatti, are remembered both by Mr Kingsley and Mr A. D.

xvi] Supporters 251

Coleridge to have been the subject of much remark among
the small coterie which in those days clustered round
Walmisley, and learnt from that many-sided man to admire
the higher forms of secular instrumental music. Walmisley,
though best known as an organist, was also a skilful and
charming pianist, with much interpretative power. One
day, when he was called upon to play at a concert of
Wood's, he said very modestly to Mr A. D. Coleridge : 'It
is hard upon me to have to play this music so soon after
Sterndale Bennett.' Walmisley and Bennett probably met,
or at least heard of each other very early in life, for they
were both favourites of Attwood. They certainly knew
each other in 1836 and 1838, when the young Cambridge
Professor — a Professor of the University while still an
undergraduate reading for mathematical honours — was a
constant visitor at the cottage in Grantchester, where
Bennett was writing his works for Leipzig. Walmisley
always retained a warm appreciation of Bennett's musician-
ship, and took pleasure in introducing his compositions to
the notice of Cambridge amateurs.

It was these disciples of Walmisley that now saw in
Bennett the most desirable successor to their lamented
friend. Among them were the Rev. W. T. Kingsley,
Fellow and Tutor of Sidney, and three others who held
high positions in Trinity, the Rev. F. Martin, the Rev. A.
Thacker, and the Rev. W. C. Mathison. Another valuable
supporter was Mrs Frere, widow of a former Master of
Downing, noted for the fine style of her singing and for
other musical accomplishments, of which her ready reading
from score or figured bass was not the least remarkable.
In her husband's life-time she had presided over an artistic
salon at Downing Lodge, and, though now advanced in
years, she had lost none of her vigour or of her position
in the University as an authority on musical matters.
Bennett's beautiful singing, in his earlier student-days, of
Handel and Mozart, remained a tradition in Cambridge
families. The writer has met men whose grandmothers
had often talked to them about it. Mr Frank H. Henslow,
in a letter from Madras in 1870, recalled his Cambridge
friends of forty years before, and reminded Bennett of

252 Public Appointments [CH.

dramatic1 and musical performances at Downing Lodge.
' I remember you,' he wrote, ' as a happy merry boy in a
round blue jacket. * * * How well I remember your
singing " Una voce poco fa." ' There can be no doubt
Mrs Frere's appreciation of Bennett dated from those early
days.

His friends found it no easy task to explain their
candidate to the Cambridge dons. As the sequel showed,
some interest was excited, but no great number of resident
electors went to the poll. A large majority, unversed in
musical matters, would, if it were merely a case of choosing
the best musician, leave the decision to those who had
special knowledge ; but there were other claims than mere
musicianship which, if advanced, might lead to a more
general expression of opinion.

Sir John Herschel wrote : ' I hear great things of
Mr S. Bennett as a composer who will not be led out of
harmony and melody by fiddle-de-dee, and moreover that
he is in very high esteem as a master of composition, a very
different thing from a " music-master." On these grounds
he is sure of a certain support at Cambridge, but on these
alone I should hardly feel quite clear that I ought to meddle
with his election as Professor of Music at Cambridge.

' But if he is really disposed to raise that very low
nonentity the Musical Professorship into a worthy and
efficient position — by giving lectures in which the principles
of the physical science of sound shall be made (as at a
scientific University they ought to be) an integral feature
(though of course a subordinate one), to illustrate these
lectures by experiments, both physical and artistic (so far
as a reasonable consideration of expense will enable him),
to do, in short, for Cambridge what Donaldson is doing for
Edinburgh ; then in that case all I can do to forward his
election, I will.'

Sir John Herschel's ideal candidate, able to do what
Professor Donaldson had done, and at the same time to
show himself a masterly composer, could scarcely have been
found in England. But if a scientific man with some
knowledge of music had come forward there might have

1 Mrs Frere counted Mrs Siddons amongst her friends.

xvi] Canvassing 253

been, as at Edinburgh twelve years before, a warm con-
troversy in Cambridge. Another question did arise which
gave trouble to Bennett's supporters. A certain candidate
came forward as the champion of religious music. He
issued a florid address, advocating, in English church
music, a reformation which the authority of a University
Professor could do much to promote ; disparaging secular
music as a worldly amusement and sensual enjoyment ; and
descending to an electioneering artifice by mentioning ' a
kind of patchwork church service selected from Mozart's
Masses which he had heard, and which he understood was
called " Bennett1 and Mozart in El?." Here was a 'party-
cry' which might appeal to clerical tutors, the great majority
of whom, when outside a college chapel, had no notion of
music other than that of a siren luring undergraduates to
their destruction. Walmisley's old friends, who happened
to know something of the extent of the candidate's musical
acquirements, viewed with some alarm the progress he was
making. He had a plausible policy. On the other hand,
Bennett, the secujar composer, the pianist, the ' music-
master,' could not be said to have the usual qualifications
which precedent associated with the Professorship. He
was not known as a church composer. He had not even
concocted the medley church service, the * Bennett and
Mozart in El?,' for which his religious rival wished the
electors to credit him. In due course, however, it proved
possible to convince many that the candidate was not
sufficiently versed in his profession to ' champion ' or
' reform ' any branch of Music, and when Walmisley's
friends succeeded in proving this, he retired.

The electors included non-resident members of the
Senate. Many of these were reached through Bennett's
past and present pupils. Here Mrs Bennett left no stone
unturned to help her husband, spending a month over
continuous correspondence. To press his claims, Bennett
himself did not do much. He issued a short address, and
circulated the testimonials, without additions, which he had
used twelve years before at Edinburgh. As the election
drew near, he was persuaded to go up to Cambridge to do
a little personal canvassing, and was supplied with a large

1 Not Sterndale Bennett, but very likely to be mistaken for him.

254 Public Appointments [CH.

number of electioneering cards with which to introduce
himself. He endured two or three interviews. At the
last of them the lady of the house expressed her desire for
'a more classical musician.' He then lost heart and went
home.

In the end, the choice was known to lie between
Horsley, Bennett, and Dr Elvey, Organist of St George's
Chapel, Windsor. It was impossible, owing to the un-
certainty of the non-resident vote, to gauge the chances,
and the result was looked forward to with some curiosity.
Bennett and his wife understood that the Horsley party
were very sanguine of success. Dr Whewell wrote from
Trinity Lodge on February 24 : ' We are here growing
more and more eager about the- election of a Professor of
Music. I have fixed Tuesday, the 4th, for the election.
Mrs Frere is very zealous for Mr Sterndale Bennett ; and,
by way of falling in with her humour, I have asked her to
come and stay with me here1, and canvass the College and
the University to her heart's content. I think too Lord
Monteagle will come and vote, though I hardly know for
whom. It is wonderful what a stir this election makes in
London.'

Bennett went up to Cambridge to be present at the
election, leaving his wife in a state of great anxiety.
March 4, in Russell Place, was spent in dead silence until
Mrs Bennett's tension was relieved by the receipt of a
telegram from her husband's friend, Wood : ' Professorship
of Music, March 4th, 3 p.m. — Close of the poll. Bennett
one hundred and seventy-four2; Elvey twenty-four; Horsley
twenty-one.'

Bennett's friends had come from all parts of the country.
Members of the Goold family had crossed from Ireland.
Mrs Frere made one of her last appearances in University
precincts. Surrounded by a group of friends, she stood
leaning on her crook-stick and watching with keen interest
the progress of the voting in the Arts' School. When she
subsequently spoke a few kind words, by way of consolation,

1 Mrs Frere lived a few miles out of Cambridge.

2 The identical number of votes which he had secured when he once before
went to the poll (see p. 35). Newspapers, however, reported his votes at
Cambridge as 173.

XVI]

The Bells of St Mary's

255

to Dr Elvey, she added : ' I am eighty-five years of age,
but I can still sing up to A.'

The majority which Bennett had obtained by the middle
of the day caused surprise on all sides, because a close
contest had been expected. Suspense, however, continued
till the arrival from London of another train which surely
would, it was thought, bring up more voters for the other
candidates. A rush was made to the Bull Hotel to meet
the omnibuses from the railway-station. Only one drew up,
and the Bennett party were greatly relieved to see, as its
sole occupant, the somewhat diminutive Charles Steggall,
who had come up in the hope of being among the first to
congratulate his master. The bells of St Mary's were
pealed in those days in honour of a new University Officer,
so Bennett, when he had cheerfully done his duty by the
Bell-ringers, retained, as a little souvenir of a red-letter
day, the card which they had left upon him, and without
further delay, returned to his work in London.

__._

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CAMBRIDGE PROFESSORSHIP.

AFTER Bennett's election at Cambridge was announced
in the newspapers, few hours elapsed before he was reading
letters in which the writers mingled their congratulations on
his success with their hopes of being the first to satisfy his
requirements for a degree in music, and in the course of the
next month or two he found himself besieged with enquiries
as to the conditions on which such degrees were granted.
In a book kept for copies of Cambridge correspondence,
no drafts of replies to these earliest applications are entered.
He was not as yet prepared to do more than acknowledge
their receipt. Authorized information on the ' Proceedings
in Music ' as given in The Cambridge Calendar and a few
other books was scant and vague. It would be necessary
for him to submit doubtful points to the consideration of
University authorities, and to draw precedents, if possible,
from the rulings of his predecessors.

Meanwhile it was thought advisable that he should
take a degree himself, and on June 16 Dr Whewell wrote :
— ' On your composing an Anthem for Commencement
Sunday to be performed in St Mary's Church, I have reason
to believe that the University will grant you the degree of
Doctor of Music. I shall be most happy to forward the
proceeding as far as it depends upon me.' The next day
Bennett was in Cambridge making the needful arrange-
ments for the performance of the as yet unwritten music.
During the same week occurred long rehearsals of Schu-
mann's 'Paradise and the Peri' in London. In the next
week, on Monday, June 23, he gave seven hours' lessons,
also took his classes at Queen's College, and conducted the

CH. xvn] An Anthem and a Degree 257

'Paradise and the Peri' at the Philharmonic in the evening.
Tuesday he spent with his pupils at Brighton. Then the
Anthem for the following Sunday had to be considered.
Limiting his teaching on Wednesday and Thursday to
thirteen hours between the two days, he gave the rest of
his time to composition, Miss Johnston being at hand to
superintend the copying. On Friday he only gave one
lesson, and on Saturday afternoon the Anthem in several
movements1, with parts copied for a large double choir,
was rehearsed in Trinity College Chapel under his own
direction.

The Cambridge Chronicle thus referred to the music
after it had been sung on 'Commencement' Sunday in the
University Church : — ' An anthem composed by Professor
W. S. Bennett, as an exercise for the degree of Doctor of
Music was performed. Mr Hopkins, organist of the Uni-
versity Church and of Trinity College, presided at the
Organ. The subject of the Anthem was taken from the
1 5th Psalm "Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle?"
The conception of the composition is original and effective,
the question " Lord, who shall dwell, &c." preceding each
of the verses in recitative answered by a double choir. In
one of the movements is introduced the English chorale
" St Mary's," the University Church bearing that name.
The placid character of the chorale is strongly contrasted
by a declaration of the choir to another subject in strong
unison. This is followed by an elegant movement of a
pastoral character, which breaks into a massive original
chorale at the conclusion to the words of the " Gloria
Patri."1

The Anthem, though not musically elaborate, was
designed on a scale showing due respect to the im-
portance of the occasion, and it may be said, on the
authority of the Rev. J. R. Lunn, that it made a favour-
able impression on those who were judging Bennett, as
a writer of sacred music, for the first time. On the next day
the Senate passed a ' Grace ' authorizing the Senior Proctor
to present Professor W. S. Bennett for the degree of Doctor
of Music.

As an explanation of the fact that, in those days, the

1 The Anthem is published, but in an abbreviated form.
S. B. 17

258 The Cambridge Professorship [CH.

conferment of a degree was reported twice over on succes-
sive dates in University Intelligence, Bennett made the
memorandum : — ' I took my degree of Mus.D. on Monday
June 3Oth in the afternoon, and was "created" the next
morning at half-past ten o'clock. The latter is a form
seldom gone through by musical graduates.' Dr Whewell
wrote on July i : — 'To-day * * * and * * * have been to the
Senate House together, to see the great show of the Com-
mencement, when the prize poems are recited, and all the
ladies collect. The Senate House was full without being
too full, and the gentlemen had the grace to let the ladies
have the seats, so the house looked prettier than I ever
saw it look before. Among the new Doctors we had
Mr Sterndale Bennett, but he did not appear in the
beautiful "singing-robes," as Milton calls the poet's official
dress, which poor Professor Walmisley used to wear.'

The fine specimen of a Doctor of Music's gown which
had belonged to Professor Walmisley, and before him to
Professor Clarke Whitfeld, was later purchased by Bennett,
and occasionally worn by him in the Senate House, or
when conducting exercises for musical degrees. On this
occasion, however, he wore the 'congregation-robe' of a
Doctor of Laws. In so doing, as well as by suggesting,
which he himself did, that he should be presented by the
Senior Proctor, he was observing old traditions1. This was
of a piece with the care he took in other ways, while trying
to regulate the ' Proceedings in Music,' to avoid taking
liberties with the few enactments he could discover.

The latest and fullest information about musical degrees,
and about the Professor's connection with them, was con-
tained in the following paragraph which is taken from a
Report (published 1852) of the University Commissioners.
It was probably contributed by Walmisley, for his name
appears in the Report in connection with other information
therein given.

'The University confers the degrees of Bachelor and

1 Graduates in Music were not members of the Senate and had no
'Congregation-robes' assigned to them. When required in the Senate House,
a Grace had to be passed, first, to admit them, and secondly to allow them to
wear the robe of another Faculty. An old enactment, originating probably
from the scarcity of Graduates in Music, provided that when no Doctor of Music
was at hand the Senior Proctor should make the presentation.

xvn] Proceedings in Music 259

Doctor of Music. The conditions for both degrees are
the same, namely that the candidate be a member of
some College, and that he satisfy the Professor of Music
as to his proficiency in the art, more especially^ by com-
posing a solemn piece of music to be performed, at the
appointment of the Vice-Chancellor, before the University.'
Bennett's correspondence shows how well he weighed
each phrase of the brief text, and how he tried to make the
most of it. The four points he took into consideration
were as follows : —

(1) The nature of the 'solemn piece of music/ or
' Canticum ' as it was elsewhere described.

(2) The relationship, if any, between the degrees of
Bachelor and Doctor.

(3) Other tests of proficiency which the Professor
might apply in addition to the Exercise ; the use of the
words more especially indicating that something else had
been required.

(4) The construction to be placed on the condition that
'the candidate be a member of some College.'

In settling the nature of the composition required, he
had the advantage of an old friendship with his predeces-
sor's father, who had written to congratulate him on his
election, and had, at the same time, offered any assistance
in his power. The writer well remembers being present at
a pathetic interview in the house of T. F. Walmisley at
Westminster, when the veteran musician — a noted vocal
composer — gave personal mementoes of his ' dear son ' to
Bennett, together with correspondence which had passed
between Professor Walmisley, shortly before his death, and
certain candidates for degrees. So in September (1856)
Bennett was able to write to an applicant : —

' It is required of a candidate for a degree in music
at Cambridge that he compose a "Canticum" which shall
exhibit his mastery in the Art to the entire satisfaction of
the Professor. The exercise hitherto exacted from the
candidates for the degree of Bachelor is an important com-
position for five voices with full orchestral accompaniment.'

Then, again, in reply to a candidate's suggestion that, in

1 These words are underlined by the present writer.

17-2

260 The Cambridge Professorship [CH.

respect to the Doctor's degree, he was acting arbitrarily,
and exceeding the conditions hitherto imposed, he wrote : —
4 It is not doubtful that the Professor can adopt any test that
he may think desirable, to assure himself of the requisite
attainments of candidates for degrees in music at Cam-
bridge. I do not dispute for one moment that your impres-
sions consequent upon your interview and conversation with
my predecessor, Dr Walmisley, are as you state them, still
I must tell you that his rule (which I cannot wish to relax
but would rather tighten) was to require from those wishing
to become Doctor in Music, that they should write an im-
portant exercise for eight voices, with an accompaniment for
a full orchestra. I have these directions in his own hand-
writing added to the testimony of the last Doctor made, a
pupil of my own. In my opinion a degree in music in a
University should be gained with great effort, and be the
result of a series of successful works, the candidate exhibiting
great research in the theory, and great facility in the
practice.'

In the same letter Bennett announced his intention of
advising candidates to apply for the degree of Bachelor
before that of Doctor. No regulation connected the two
degrees. The Cambridge Calendar reprinted from year to
year an old statement: 'A Mus.D. is generally Mus.B. ;'
but even this had ceased to be true. The possibility
of proceeding at once to the higher degree had in course of
time lowered any value attaching to the other, and when
Bennett became Professor the Bachelor's degree had not
been taken for fourteen years. He determined to increase
its importance, persevered, and succeeded in doing so.
Apart from the traditional form of the ' Exercise,' it rested
entirely with himself to determine the standard of musical
merit, and this, from the first, he made sufficiently high
for young men to feel content if they could satisfy him
for the Bachelor's degree. He never disguised the fact,
but clearly set it down in his syllabus of information that
the senior degree could be taken alone. Nevertheless, when
it became common knowledge that he was a difficult man
to approach, the way in which he wished to be approached
seemed also generally understood, and, as it turned out, no
one, during the nineteen years of Bennett's Professorship,

xvn] Proceedings in 'Music 261

took the Doctor's degree who had not previously taken
the other.

On two other doubtful points he first consulted the Rev.
Joseph Romilly, the University Registrary, who had very
courteously offered to place at Bennett's disposal the know-
ledge he possessed of University procedure.

LONDON, October 5, 1856.
DEAR SIR,

You gave me permission to trouble you upon
any points connected with my Professorship. * * * With-
out referring to what has been customary, I wish to ask
your opinion upon the following matters:

(1) Ought I not to examine the candidates themselves
as well as their exercises, or at any rate examine their
exercises in their presence?

(2) Could I not fix a day for my examination at Cam-
bridge, and should not the candidate have previously entered
a College ?

To this the Registrary cautiously replied : — ' I think you
may demand of the candidates that they submit to a
personal " viva-voce " examination over and above the
exercise, as a test that they are really the composers of
it. It seems to me that the examination should be subject
to your approval of the exercise. 1 think you should
arrange with each individual approved candidate to call on
you, in London or Cambridge, according to the circum-
stances of his case.

' I do not approve of your idea that a candidate should
be a member of some College. Such a regulation can only
be made by the University, and I doubt extremely the
University being willing to make such an enactment.'

But Bennett again wrote : —

' The University of Oxford has lately passed a Statute
respecting degrees in Music, a copy of which I will procure
and transmit to you. I am anxious that our degrees in
Music at Cambridge should be equal in reputation to those
of the sister University.

' I really cannot think it just, that candidates should be

262 The Cambridge Professorship [CH.

entitled to examination without having paid any fees to the
University (this is not the case in any other faculty as far as
I am aware). Were they first obliged to enter a College, I
believe they would reflect much more upon the chances of
failure, and make themselves much safer. As it is, I am
receiving so-called exercises from mere beginners, who try
their strength with the chance of a very small penalty,
viz., a confidential letter from me advising them to get
instruction in the rudiments of the art, and there ends the
matter ; not, however, without much loss of time to me, and
which time I cannot even have the satisfaction of feeling is
spent in the service of the University. From Gunning's
" Ceremonies " (I do not know how far this book is an
authority) it would appear that the first step is to enter
a College.'

The Registrary — whose letters cannot be quoted at
enough length to show the great courtesy and considera-
tion with which he treated the Professor of Music — still
maintained that membership of a College was only neces-
sary on the eve of taking a degree, i.e. after the candidate
had been approved by the Professor. Bennett, therefore,
waited for some fresh opportunity of pressing his point.
He was, in the meantime, glad to get approval of his
examination ; but he was determined that this should be
held in Cambridge, and that London should be no alterna-
tive place as suggested by the Registrary.

In the musical profession, University degrees had for
some time been regarded as of no great value, by some even
as things to be avoided. Scurrilous suggestions had often
been admitted into musical papers, and those who mixed in
musical circles often heard doubts expressed in conversation
as to the methods by which such distinctions had been
obtained. The whole subject had become somewhat ' un-
canny.' Goss, the organist of St Paul's, when asked at
this time by a lady-pupil why he was not a Doctor of Music,
replied : ' Because I would rather not be one.'

It was therefore obviously desirable that the Professor's
negotiations with candidates should be conducted with a
certain amount of public formality. The University was
evidently not prepared to lay down any scheme for musical
procedure so definite as that which had just appeared at

xvn] Aspirants for Degrees 263

Oxford. Bennett was limited to making the best of present
conditions and within such limits the authorities were not
unwilling to support his efforts.

He had to guard himself from fruitless work and
unwarrantable intrusion. He could, in his preliminary
correspondence, sympathize with, and write kindly to, the
poor clerk, 'sick of the thraldom of the desk/ who begged
to be excused ' the scores for separate instruments,' and to
be allowed to present his ' accompaniments ' in the form
adopted in ' Novello's Oratorios ' because it happened to be
' such a very busy time at the office.' He could be gentle
and write of ' the great love of music ' discernible in a ' first
attempt at composition ' sent him by one who had been ' a
sailor for the last nine years,' but had received twenty-four
lessons on the organ when a boy. On the other hand, he
could not open his heart to the 'self-taught musician' just
beginning to write music ' with a rapidity which astonished
both his friends and himself.' He shrank from the gentle-
man who proposed to spend a day in Russell Place, bring-
ing with him from the country not only the 'solemn
Canticum ' but also comic Operas on which he would like
an opinion ; nor did he eagerly respond to the candidate
who was looking forward to ' a good long chat on church-
music in general.'

So, on October 21, he wrote to Dr Whewell : — ' Out of
several musical exercises which I have received from those
wishing to be graduates in music, one or two are likely to
prove successful, but before I pass them I am anxious to
examine the candidates themselves, and to issue a notice
after the manner of other Professors. I therefore ask your
permission to name the Public Schools under the Library
(close to which there is a small room used as the music-
library) as the place of meeting.'

Dr Whewell saw 'no objection' to the proposal; and
the first examination was accordingly held in the Arts'
School on November 15. A few days later Bennett wrote
to Dr Philpott, who had just succeeded Dr Whewell as
Vice-Chancellor, informing him that Mr E. Bunnett had
passed the examination for the degree of Bachelor of Music.
To this he added : —

' I shall await your pleasure as to the time and place of

264 The Cambridge Professorship [CH.

Mr Bunnett's exercise. I suppose that prior to such per-
formance he should enter his name at a College.

'This leads me to offer as a point for your consideration
whether I should not in future be justified in declining to
examine any candidate before receiving a certificate of his
having entered a College. I cannot think that the authori-
ties would require me to examine any but those who had in
some way connected themselves with the University, and I
shall be very grateful to you for your opinion on this subject,
or if you should think fit, would you be kind enough to
bring the matter before the Council ? '

The Vice-Chancellor at once replied : — ' I have no diffi-
culty in answering the question you propose. The Pro-
fessor of Music cannot be called upon to examine any
person who is not a member of the University, and though
in some cases, from kind feeling, the late Professor may
have examined the exercises of persons who were not
members of the University, the proceeding is irregular and
ought not to be drawn into a precedent.'

Thus, before the end of the year, Bennett had a plan of
action sufficient for his purpose. He then compiled a cir-
cular containing all needful information about entrance into
a College, musical exercises and their performance, and the
expenses of the degrees. Sir Henry Bishop, as Professor at
Oxford, had suffered from the quantity of letters he was
obliged to write to 'enquirers' from whom he heard nothing
further. Bennett's circular proved a safeguard, not only to
his time, but to his feeling of proper pride in his office.
When, however, a man, as a member of the University,
became a bond-fide candidate, Bennett spared no trouble,
acting in all respects as if he were a College tutor, advising,
if needs be, on the direction further studies should take to
ensure success, and even at times giving something like
actual instruction. Any such work for Cambridge he did
most cheerfully. At a later period, when the publication of
distinguished musicians' letters was coming into vogue in
this country, he would laugh and say that the letters he had
received from one candidate alone, during a series of years,
would supply two good-sized volumes.

There was no stipend attached to the Professorship
during the first twelve or thirteen years he held it, but

xvn] Emoluments 265

before his time fees were paid by the graduate to the
Professor in consideration of the latter having to conduct
the performance of the ' Exercise.' At one time the
Bachelor had paid five shillings and the Doctor twenty-
five shillings, but these fees had afterwards been raised and
in Walmisley's days they stood at five and ten guineas, sums
more in accordance with those received for similar services
by Professors of other faculties. Bennett may have ac-
cepted these payments from the first two graduates of his
time, but it is certain that he returned them to the third, and
then to all that followed, or destroyed their cheques ; for the
custom was so far established that, though it was not men-
tioned in his circular, the fees were generally sent to him.
His reason for this course cannot be given with certainty.
If the writer's memory is correct, Bennett was unable to
find any enactment by which the fees were authorized ; but
apart from that, at a time when persons could still write of
musical degrees as obtainable by purchase, he may have
thought it well that at least the candidates themselves should
know that he took no pecuniary interest in the matter. To
them it had the advantage of reducing a rather heavy
expenditure.

The Professor of Music might be called upon to furnish
the music for an Ode when a new Chancellor was installed,
an event which did not happen on the average oftener than
once in twenty years. Otherwise, his only prescribed duty
was in connection with degrees, and the discharge of it
gave no great prominence to music, or to himself, within
the precincts of the University. Much of it lay with
unsuccessful candidates and was therefore invisible. But
even those who became graduates, unless they were College
organists, were practically aliens. Their degrees gave them
no place in the Senate. At the Colleges where they entered
their names, but never resided, they were unknown. There
was a little flutter of interest when their Exercises were
performed ; but after receiving their titles as a mark of pro-
ficiency they departed, and were seldom seen again. A non-
resident Professor, who attended to their wants alone, might
remain almost as great a stranger as themselves.

Bennett wished, if possible, to be identified with music
in Cambridge itself, hoping — as he had written in his

266 The Cambridge Professorship [CH.

address to the electors — to be found 'active and useful,
not regarding his office as merely nominal, but remember-
ing that the interests of a great art had been entrusted
to his care.' The time was favourable to his purpose, for
music during the past two or three years had been making
distinct progress in the University, and his place was well
prepared for him. In December, 1850, Walmisley had
reported to the University Commissioners : — ' Music is not
cultivated to any great extent by members of the Uni-
versity, but I believe a taste for the art is rapidly increasing
amongst us.' At the time this was written there is little
doubt some change had begun to take place throughout
the country in the attitude of educated men towards music.
Among many general and individual influences to which
this change might be attributed, one may be selected which
would be very likely, in time, to reach a University. Years
of hard work spent by such men as John Hullah, his sup-
porters and followers, in pressing upon the clergy and
schoolmasters the importance of music as a branch of educa-
tion, may have already taken effect upon the rising genera-
tion of students. In 1853 the members of the University
Musical Society were turning their attention to more im-
portant music than that which had so far generally appeared
upon their programmes, and under the conductorship of
Mr W. Amps, an undergraduate of Peterhouse, and a former
pupil of Walmisley's, were practising great choral and in-
strumental works. When Bennett became Professor, three
years later, there were in Cambridge, especially among the
junior fellows of Colleges and the undergraduates, a goodly
number of men with serious intention in their musical pur-
suits, who were capable of taking their measure of a
musician, who were ready to appreciate Bennett, and to
welcome his presence among them.

It being the custom for resident members of the Uni-
versity, including the students reading for honours, to stay
up for two months of the Long Vacation, Bennett, in the
first year of his Professorship, took advantage of this,
engaged a furnished house in Addenbrooke Place, and
spent his summer holidays in Cambridge. These holidays,
for the past two years, had become much longer than
before, owing to a change of arrangements at the schools

xvn] A Long Vacation 267

where he taught. The short term of residence in Cam-
bridge, though it involved some sacrifice of the needed rest
and retirement which he could only enjoy at that season of
the year, served a useful purpose. In the course of a few
weeks he made many new acquaintances, and laid the
foundation of many close and life-long friendships. The
proverbial hospitality of an English University helped him
on the way. For the time being he conquered his usual
reluctance to play in private society, and readily assisted at
musical parties designed for the purpose of ' lionizing ' him.
Music-meetings of another kind he forthwith arranged him-
self. Of these the Rev. H. T. Armfield afterwards wrote :
' The first start of Bach in the University was in a walk
which I took with him in the Long (1856). Talking of
"The Passion," he said: "If you'll go round and get the
men, I'll go to London and get the parts and we'll rehearse
it." — This we respectively did, and two or three times a
week we rehearsed it under him in a Trinity lecture-room
all through the Long. This led to a Bach Society of which
I was Director. We gave a concert, and with a mad
enthusiasm played actually four Concertos of his for two or
three pianofortes in one evening.'

It must, however, be said that Walmisley had already
diligently brought Bach to the notice of his amateur friends,
and had prophesied a future for his choral works in this
country. Another zealot was the Rev. J. R. Lunn, a young
Fellow of St John's College, who in this same ' Long' was
finishing a small manuscript copy of the 48 Preludes and
Fugues as a pocket-companion for evening parties ! and
who also, with the aid of the diagram of a pedal-board
painted on the floor beneath his pianoforte, was vigorously
practising the Organ Fugues, to the mystification and
distraction of the pupils of an eminent mathematical 'coach'
in the rooms below.

During this Cambridge holiday Bennett made a further
essay at sacred composition. In the Anthem which
Dr Whewell had asked him to write, as a preliminary to
taking a degree, he made no display of the academic learning
which might be looked for in a diploma work. The Uni-
versity had not wished to examine their Professor or to ask
him to prepare an 'Exercise.' Now, however, as if to show

268 The Cambridge Professorship [CH.

his skill in more elaborate form, he began an eight-part
Motet to the words, ' In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust,'
borrowing for it the opening bars of the first Symphony
which he had written for Dr Crotch in his boyhood at The
Royal Academy of Music. It was probably while he was
weaving in his mind this intricate texture, that he woke up
one day from a reverie, to find himself seated in a room the
surroundings of which were unfamiliar to him. The three
houses in Addenbrooke Place were of the same pattern, and
in a fit of abstraction he had entered and settled himself
down in the wrong one.

The minute-book of the University Musical Society
records a conditional promise on his part that he would
annually conduct one of the concerts. The organists who
had recently arrived to supply Walmisley's places were
young men who had as yet no vested interests which Bennett
could injure, while Mr W. Amps, the appointed conductor
of the Society, a musical enthusiast whom Bennett at one
time often spoke of as his probable successor in the
Professorship, was so modest and retiring that he, perhaps
more than any one else in Cambridge, was from the first
only too glad to have the Professor's support. Bennett
for some time continued to conduct the more important
concerts and to take some part in others. Later, unless he
received some very special invitation, he preferred to leave
such work in the hands of the resident musicians.

To engage in performances when the amateur element
so strongly preponderated was a new experience for him.
The band and chorus of the University Musical Society
presented, at the time, rather a motley crew. College choirs
were at hand to assist ; good solo-singers were generally
attainable ; among the members were men of intellectual
ability, to whom the study and practice of music seemed to
present little difficulty ; the north of England, from which
Cambridge draws so many of her students, contributed
its due share of musical fervour. General culture and
enthusiasm were, however, far in advance of actual per-
formance, which was, and remained for many years, rough
and imperfect. Music was a disturbance to the established
routine of College life. Tutors and reading-men could ill
afford time taken from the evening hours of teaching and

xvn] Among the Amateurs 269

of study. Rehearsals were irregularly attended. The con-
stantly changing ' personnel ' of a University prevented any
steady improvement from year to year. Periods of
prosperity and depression came in turn, according to the
zeal and musical ability of the men of each period.

It often seemed strange that a man so sensitive, so
noted for perfection of detail in his own performances,
could find it tolerable to assist in such haphazard music-
makings. ' Poor Sterndale Bennett,' the Rev. H. R.
Haweis called him, when he wrote his reminiscences of
these early concerts ; and, as time went on, there were
others who felt incongruity in so refined a musician taking
part with them in their badly-balanced and imperfectly-
prepared exhibitions. He was not in complete sympathy
with the amateurs of the day in their public performances.
He did not approve of the reckless way in which they
attacked music far beyond their executive powers. When
he congratulated his young friend, Armfield, on being
elected President of the University Musical Society, he
wrote: 'Hurrah! now we will have Haydn;' for the
Cambridge orchestra preferred to lay bare its shortcomings
in the Symphonies of Beethoven, to experiment on Schu-
mann, and to give even Wagner his chance. But in such
matters Bennett did not really interfere. He smiled, but
only with great good humour when he spoke of them ; and,
indeed, he watched with keen delight the awakening of a
love of music in a rising generation of Englishmen. His
nature disliked any exuberance of expression, but he could
make allowance for it in others when the feeling which
prompted it was genuine. Late in life he paid a little
tribute to enthusiasts in the words : ' When I hear the
young men talk, I begin to wonder whether I myself was
ever fond of music at all.' But whatever he felt or thought,
when he was taking part in these concerts he certainly
threw his whole energy into what he was doing, and he
proved himself a most capable leader of irregular forces.
After the first concert which he conducted, ' an old guest
of the Musical Society' wrote to the newspaper: 'It was
truly delightful to see the talented Professor of Music
presiding over the band ; his forces seemed animated with
something of his own vigour, for rarely, if ever, have

2 jo The Cambridge Professorship [CH.

they more distinguished themselves than on the present
occasion.'

There was a seriousness of manner, bordering upon
severity, inseparable from Bennett when practising his art
in public. Upon amateurs who found themselves for the
first time under the influence of his musical personality the
impression was very forcible. The presence of a master
was felt. Easy-going enjoyment, ultra-expression of indi-
vidual sentiment so dear to the heart of the half-trained
amateur performer, vanished at the first stroke of his baton,
and the sight of his rigidly set face. Davison once wrote
of him, after he had been playing a Concerto with a very
unsteady orchestral accompaniment : ' The devil himself
could not disturb the equanimity of our young countryman
when he has once set out upon his path.' It was this
equanimity, coupled with a determined insistence, which
gave confidence to uncertain performers. A particular
example of the wonderful control he had over himself was
given by these concerts. When other musicians were
occasionally invited to Cambridge to conduct their own
works, their looks of anguish when they heard the or-
chestra strike up were involuntary and natural, but very
alarming to the poor performers. Bennett's face, stern as
it was, never betrayed the least sign of displeasure, or of
his having taken any particular notice of failures and im-
perfections past remedy. No individual performer was
ever disconcerted by any special recognition of what he
was doing.

When the music was over he appeared in another
aspect. He had the faculty, strengthened no doubt by
long experience with pupils, of finding a few expressive
words of temperate approval or encouragement. These
never approached to flattery, seldom to unqualified praise.
They were often humorous, or seasoned with a sprinkling
of raillery. They were never twice alike, but adroitly
adapted to the individual case, while they had a ring of
truth about them that drove them home, fixing them as
little treasures in the memory of those to whom they were
addressed. He had no conventional epithets ready for use.
He would probably have found himself quite unable to offer
satisfactory congratulations to a great prima donna ; a cele-

xvn] Expenditure of Time 271

brated pianist, who often played his music, once reproached
him for his coldness of manner ; but where less was needed
his little sayings were happily conceived. A young school-
girl sending home her first impression of her new music-
master wrote of him : ' When he speaks, he always seems
to say something.'

To the musical amateurs of Cambridge, one of the
places most closely associated with their remembrance of
him would be the Sidney Combination-room, which the
members of the Fitzwilliam Musical Society used as a
green-room when they gave their concerts in the College
Hall. There one could watch him, surrounded by many
admirers competing for the chance of a word with him, or
could notice how in corners of the room the attention of
those who did not know him personally was rivetted to his
face. The Rev. Arthur Beard, the conductor of the
Society, who loved him with a brotherly affection, would
gently place his hands on Bennett's shoulders and chat to
him, content in return with the gentle laugh or expressive
smile which would, as often as not, supply the place of
words in his conversation. One evening a very young
singer made his debut on the concert-stage in a performance
of ' The May-Queen ' in Sidney Hall, and Mr Edward
Lloyd, for he it was, had not forgotten at the end of his
brilliant career the kindly words which Bennett, with a rare
prescience, had spoken to him at the start of it.

When Bennett was elected Professor, The Athenceum,
in reporting his appointment, admitted that there was little
to say against it, but suggested that he was adding fresh
duties to those which already, if report could be trusted,
gave him full occupation. This far-fetched objection would
apply to most men chosen for important posts, and Bennett,
like others, could rearrange his plans to suit new needs.
He was quite prepared to make sacrifice of more lucra-
tive employment in return for the honour and pleasure
which his connection with the University brought him.
Details of the first eleven years — after which steps were
taken towards requiting his services — will be sufficient.
Between March 4, 1856, and March 4, 1867, entries occur
in his teaching-books — where they are placed to account for
the omission of lessons — of 133 days spent in Cambridge,

272 The Cambridge Professorship [CH. xvn

and there were times of the year when he could pay
additional visits of which no entry in those books was
necessary. He at least gave up, on the average, four of
his regular working days in each term to Cambridge. In
the earlier years the amount of time spent on the journey
would not in these days be credited. If he went for a
single day, an early start and a return by the night-mail were
generally necessary. The hours he spent in Cambridge
enabled him to do everything required, beyond what he
could do by correspondence, in connection with musical
degrees ; to assist or be present at concerts ; to appear at
University functions or at such social gatherings as he was
invited to in the Colleges. He certainly became as familiar
a figure in Cambridge as any other non-resident officer.

As years went on he became well-known far beyond the
limits of any musical circle. Striking changes, or rapid
developments in the musical life of the University did not
perhaps occur under his regime ; but the degrees came to
be regarded as desirable honours difficult to obtain ; and,
again, at a time when respect for music itself among the
members of a learned society was only advancing by slow
degrees, no man could be better qualified than he, even
without any apparent effort of his own, to disarm prejudice
and win converts. He moved in Cambridge with modesty,
dignity and grace, an attractive impersonation of the art he
professed.

CHAPTER XVIII.

DIFFERENCE WITH THE PHILHARMONIC DIRECTORS;

BACH SOCIETY; THE EARL OF WESTMORLAND

AND R. A. OF MUSIC.

1856—58.
ast. 40 — 42.

THE year 1856, bringing to Bennett the appointments
at the Philharmonic and at Cambridge, dates a distinct
epoch in his career. Seventeen years had gone by since
he had settled down to regular work in London, and during
that time, which proved in the end to represent nearly half
his professional life, he had not found it easy to keep
himself before the musical world. What he had done for
the advancement of music, beyond the wide and wholesome
influence as a teacher, had been chiefly the outcome of
private enterprise and had been limited by the slender
pecuniary resources at his command. Of the causes
and extent of the discouragement which he felt as he
approached and passed through middle life little can be
said ; for though he himself afterwards alluded to such
feelings, he gave no sufficient explanation of their origin.
There had certainly not been much at hand to brighten
and stimulate the life of an Englishman holding the views
he did. He had walked in a narrow path with few
companions.

Now, however, at the age of forty, he found himself as
well placed in his profession as he could desire to be, and
he may be deemed fortunate, seeing how few were the
appointments, except for organists, which this country had
to offer to its musicians, to have obtained promotion, with

s. B. i 8

274 1856 — 1^5^ [CH-

the attendant encouragement, at the time he did. In one
way, however, his new appointments made little difference
to him. The fees received for the conductorship did not
quite balance the expenses incident upon performing his
honorary duties at Cambridge. For his livelihood, there-
fore, he had still to depend entirely upon teaching.

In the year 1856 he gave his usual series of Chamber
Concerts. At the second, on May 6, Madame Schumann
played with him her husband's Duet for two pianofortes
and four numbers of the Opus 85. At the third, on
June 3, he made his last appearance as a pianist in London.
Early in 1857, Mrs Bennett wrote to one of his pupils, that
it would be very difficult for him to manage concerts of his
own concurrently with those of the Philharmonic. As he
was by this time quite willing to give up playing in public
altogether, he took that step, and later in life never seemed
to regret having done so.

In anticipation of his second season at the Philharmonic,
he was as anxious as he had been during the first for
additions to be made to the Society's repertoire. When,
in earlier years, he served on the Directorate himself, he had
always urged this upon his colleagues. Thus The Musical
World wrote in 1844 : 'As a Director of the Philharmonic,
Mr Bennett's influence has for the last three years acted
most beneficially on the politics of that prominent musical
body. We have observed immense improvements in the
general character of the programmes.' Bennett, however,
was now Conductor, not a Director, and his efforts to infuse
some new spirit into the Society's doings met with a check,
by means of some indiscreet tale-bearer.

Some time before the 1857 season began, he had
written suggesting Beethoven's music to 'Egmont' and some
other works as suitable for the Directors' consideration.
A report then reached him that his letter had been received
with strong marks of ill-favour. When he made inquiries
as to what had really happened, Mr McMurdie, one of the
Directors, wrote : —

' When your letter was read, it was agreed una voce
that we must not establish a precedent for taking our
Programme from the Conductor, whilst at the same time,
we should be most ready to act on his suggestions, and

xvni] Amantiwn Irce 275

meet his wishes. We then wrote to Joachim1, and gave the
order for the parts of " Egmont." On the following Saturday
it was ruled that "Egmont" would be rather heavy for a first
concert. (I gave no opinion myself, not knowing the
work.) * * * Rest assured that you have the respect and
esteem of one and all of our body. * * # '

Bennett replied on April 3 :

' I am much obliged to you for your kind note, but it
confirms my suspicions that the Directors are annoyed at
my suggestions (for they were only suggestions, if you will
have the note read again), and really this makes me feel
most uncomfortable. '•'' * * The Philharmonic has a very
ready method of turning a warm-hearted active friend
into a lukewarm machine. I am still undecided what to
do. * * * PS. I trust in any case I may not have to conduct
Masaniello. Is it not too un- Philharmonic and noisy ?
Pray help me and the concert in this respect.'

The same day, Bennett prepared the draft of a letter
tendering his resignation, but did not send any such letter.
The Directors, hearing what was in his mind, took steps
to reassure him. The Overture to 'Masaniello' was laid
on the shelf for a time, by the side of the music to
' Egmont/ though Bennett ultimately conducted both works.
A resolution was carried that no programme should in
future be finally passed without his having seen it, and the
Directors changed their hours of meeting to the morning
of the rehearsals, so that he could have easy communication
with them. His 'suggestions' also seem to have been
re-considered ; for a critique on the third concert mentioned
that ' Bach's fine suite of movements was an innovation,
and a welcome one. It was famously executed, and keenly
relished by the connoisseurs. Professor Bennett seems to
have registered a vow that the great John Sebastian shall
be familiarised in this country. All musicians will respect
him for his zeal in a cause so sacred to art.'

So Bennett said no more of resignation, and during
the long series of years that he continued to act for the

1 Bennett, therefore, had probably suggested an invitation to Joachim who
had not been heard in London for some years. Joachim, however, did not re-
appear at the Philharmonic till the next year, 1858.

1 8— 2

276 1856—1858 [CH.

Society nothing further occurred to disturb the harmonious
relations between the Directors and himself. He did not
try again to influence the choice of music, but the orthodox
Philharmonic programmes of the day were almost entirely
made up of the works of those composers with whom
he was most in sympathy. There were certain operatic
Overtures occasionally introduced which he did not like for
performance at the Philharmonic, but he made no further
appeal on the subject. The orchestra which he conducted
had received far the greater part of its training at the
Italian Opera. Bennett would say, ' When they dash into
one of their favourite Overtures in their operatic style, at
the end of my rehearsal, any effect I have been trying to
make on them through the morning is scattered to the
winds.' It was not altogether that he demurred to the
compositions. There were Overtures of Mozart which he
disliked conducting with his Italian Opera players almost
as much as 'Masaniello' or 'Zampa.'

In the midst of growing public responsibilities, he did
not forget old pledges, and though the demands upon his
time were rapidly increasing, he could still discover hours
in which to work as a volunteer in the service of music.
The Bach Society, since the production of the St Matthew
'Passion' in 1854, had continued its winter practices but
had given no public performance. The interest of non-
performing members had vanished. The Society welcomed
the co-operation of students and choristers, from whom,
however, no contributions to its funds could be expected.
Towards the end of 1857 the Treasurer reported a debt
of ^75, and an income for the current year of ^14
collected from 150 nominal subscribers. Bennett was
already preparing for a reproduction of 'The Passion' on
a larger scale than before ; but the Committee, consider-
ing their financial prospects hopeless, called a general
meeting in December to raise the question of immediate
dissolution. This crisis was happily averted, and early in
1858 Dr Steggall, the honorary secretary, issued a circular
announcing that ' Professor Bennett has undertaken the
performance of the "Passions-Musik" on the 23rd of March
entirely upon his own responsibility, and has decided to
present to the Society any surplus as an acknowledgment

xvin] He posts a Letter 277

of the promised co-operation of a great majority of the
members.'

Many fresh recruits enlisted. The chorus, according
to The Illustrated News, was 300 strong. At the final
rehearsals a quite remarkable enthusiasm was displayed as
the beauty of the still unfamiliar music shone through the
mist of difficulty. The chorus had now the advantage of
singing from printed parts, which Messrs Leader and Cock
had published at Bennett's request. St Martin's Hall, which
John Hullah used for his singing-school, and also for
concerts intended to popularise good music, was the locale
chosen for the Bach performance. It was thought, and, as
it proved, rightly thought, that the ' Passions- Musik' was
more likely to find immediate favour with a non-critical
and unprejudiced public. The prices of seats were fixed at
five shillings, half-a-crown, and one shilling. Mrs Bennett
took control of the business arrangements, and was able to
dispose of half the number of seats by her own exertions.
Though no attempt was made to attract a fashionable
audience, a happy idea struck Bennett, about a week before
the concert, that there was one amateur of high rank who
would surely be interested in the production of a German
masterpiece. Members of the Royal Family did not often
attend concerts. An annual visit to the Philharmonic was
all that was customary. Bennett summoned up courage
to write to the Prince Consort. He had a good case to
present and no doubt pleaded well ; but as he could not be
sanguine of the result, he told no one what he had done.
In referring to the matter later, he would say, ' I went out
and posted the letter myself.' A few hours brought the
reply : ' Major-General Grey presents his compliments to
Professor Bennett and is commanded to inform him that
H.R. H. the Prince Consort will have much pleasure in
attending the performance of Bach's Grosse Passions-Musik
at St Martin's Hall on Tuesday evening next.

'Buckingham Palace, March 17, 1858.'

Bach's birthday, March 21, fell this year on a Sunday.
The 23rd was therefore chosen instead, and The Musical
World relates that on that evening ' an immense concourse
flocked to St Martin's Hall, numbers being unable to

278 iSrf—lSjS [CH.

obtain admission ;' and again, that 'a crowd, gathered from
all ranks of society, were rushing to the Hall with as much
zeal as is evinced by a holiday-mob on a boxing-night.'
These circumstances were noticed because they caused
surprise where Bach's music was concerned.

Bennett had been to Buckingham Palace in the after-
noon, and had been instructed that the Prince would come
for the commencement of the concert. His Royal Highness
duly arrived, accompanied by the Duchess of Sutherland,
and Bennett was quite touched by a graceful apology which
he made between the parts for having been Jive minutes
late ! The Prince followed the music with close attention
from a full score, probably lent him by the Earl of Cawdor,
a patron of the Bach Society, who sat beside him. When-
ever he lifted his eyes from the book, his face revealed so
fascinating, so individual an expression of interest and
enjoyment, that no one who watched him from the chorus
that night would ever cease to regard him as the ideal
amateur of music. Both the Prince and Lord Cawdor
afterwards gave solid proof of their appreciation. The
Earl had valuable scores of Bach's works in his library,
and after the concert he sent some of them to Bennett as a
present. The Prince, a year later, returned the invitation,
and the Bach Society gave the St Matthew 'Passion' at
Windsor Castle.

In the preface to the English edition of the work
(published in 1862), Bennett refers to this performance in
1858 as being the first given in England, and there seems
to have been at the time an understanding between the
critics and himself that the two earlier performances in
1854 were to be remembered as mere preliminary trials.
The rendering in 1858 was at least sufficiently accurate
and effective to satisfy the critics. It was recorded, as if
specially noteworthy, that the attention of a vast audience
was completely held, and that no one left the room till the
last bar had been heard.

Next day, Bennett's pupils found him in a grateful
mood, and there was reason for it. Comparison between
what was written in 1854, and again in 1858, shows that
this memorable evening of the latter year saw a great
change of opinion as to the possibility — and that had been

xvin] Yorkshire claims him 279

the chief point at issue — of Bach's choral music finding a
home in this country. When Mrs Bennett made up her
accounts, she found that ^186. 14^. 6d. had been received,
and ^153. 17^. id. spent. Bennett's bank-book shows that
he had the pleasure, within a week's time, of sending the
Bach Society a cheque for ^"32. 17^. 4^.

The same day that he did this, another pleasing thing
happened. His position at the Philharmonic had, of course,
brought him into notice as a conductor. In the winter of
1857 — 58 he had been summoned to Manchester to conduct
some Lancashire Festival Concerts, and now came a letter
from Mr Kitson of Leeds, offering him the conductorship
of a Festival to be held in the autumn, in connection with
the opening of a new Town Hall by Queen Victoria. No
musical office could be more desired than the conductorship
of one of these great meetings, and the invitation was
doubly welcome as it was quite unexpected.

The Committee in making their final choice had decided
to invite Bennett rather than Costa. Since much was said
in those days of the preference shown to foreign musicians,
it is interesting to know that in this case an Englishman
was preferred because he was an Englishman, whilst a
further sentiment, arising from the fact that he was born
in Yorkshire, helped to turn the scale. The historians of
'The Leeds Festivals' describe Bennett's letter of reply to
the invitation as one calculated to go to the hearts of all
Yorkshiremen. Repeating what he had written under
similar circumstances to the Philharmonic Directors, he
made a point of saying that he imposed none of those
preliminary conditions now becoming the fashion with
conductors, but that he trusted entirely to the hearty
co-operation of the managers in his efforts. Being asked
to name his terms he did so, but wrote that he had no
experience to guide him, and the Committee then voted a
much higher remuneration than he had asked for. The
Festival was fixed for September, and in the meantime he
was asked to assist in the engagement of the performers.
The following quaint appeal, on behalf of a few local
aspirants, reached him through Mr R. S. Burton, the
Chorus-master :

' H. M. presents his kind respects and would be glad to

280 1856—1858 [CH.

receive an engagement for the Festival, and one for his

daughter, and I hope you will give one to Billy P ,

and one to Billy W Tenor singer. Billy P is a

Bass singer. I have found them useful at many times,

anybody knows them. P has had a copy of Rossini's

Stater Mater a long time. I cannot give you any reference
to myself. I sing Tenor when I cannot get a job for the
fiddle. Excuse an old stager.

Yours,

H. M.

' N.B. — If you will give us a job, I will have them up
to the mark.'

The preference shown by the Leeds Committee to a
fellow-countryman was counterbalanced by something which
occurred in London at the same time, and which seemed
to cast a slight on British musicians in the very Academy
where their feelings ought to have been least liable to
injury. Bennett was quite the patriot, but in musical
international politics he favoured free-trade. The reader
will have seen that, far from grumbling, as many others did,
at the incursion of foreign artists, he used what influence
he had to encourage their coming when he thought it
would lead to the expansion of our musical knowledge in
the right directions. ' The visits of illustrious musicians to
England ' was the subject of one of his lectures delivered
at the London Institution and elsewhere, and it is remem-
bered what interest he took in dilating upon this theme,
1 reflecting/ as he wrote, ' with pride and pleasure on
our country's reception and appreciation of these great
men.' Among the musicians of foreign birth who made
England their home, or who visited it, during his life-time,
he numbered many of his best- valued artistic associates,
many of his most intimate friends. He was, however, now
in the front of the English musical profession, and when
necessity arose, which happily it did but rarely, he could
fight to guard his own position, and champion the interests
of those he represented.

The Earl of Westmorland, when he founded the Royal
Academy of Music in 1822, saw 'the disadvantages which
the English laboured under in their professional career, the

xvin] A Charity Concert 281

many drawbacks they had to contend against and the
struggles which checked their progress.' Thirty-six years
had not entirely removed the drawbacks and disadvantages.
Any encouragement which could be given to English
musicians would still have been welcome. It is therefore
all the more strange that the founder of the Academy
should have cast the following slight upon his own founda-
tion. In the season of 1858, Lord Westmorland planned
a concert, as a means of raising funds for the Academy,
to be given in the new St James's Hall. Queen Victoria
promised to honour it with her presence, so that there
was every prospect of a wide patronage, and of the prime
object being realized. Here then might be seen a rare
opportunity of displaying before the Court and an influential
public the fruits of so many years' work at the Academy.
If past and present students had been allowed to combine
in a spirited movement, material could certainly have been
found for an interesting concert. There happened, for
instance, to be lying at the moment in Tenterden Street
a MS. Overture just sent over from Germany by a recent
student of the Academy, a work in which Davison found
'an independent way of thinking which in one so young
looked well.' If Arthur Sullivan could have been granted
a hearing on this occasion, some credit would surely have
accrued to the Institution in which he had so lately been
studying. But Lord Westmorland, when arranging his
concert, started by entirely ignoring the Academy, except,
of course, as the recipient of charity. He placed a Mass
of his own composition as the chief item of the programme.
To this no objection would or could have been raised, had
he not, apparently in order to give tclat to the production
of his Mass, secured the services of the staff of the Royal
Italian Opera with Costa as conductor of the orchestra.
Bennett cordially hated the dominating influence of the
Italian Opera as checking the progress of music in other
directions, and, of course, the introduction of Costa, who
had nothing to do with the Academy, was to him in-
tolerable. It was not enough for him that Lucas, the
regular conductor of Academy concerts, had acquiesced in
the arrangement. He felt obliged to protest against the
reflection which he saw cast on the Academy Professors
as a body. He wrote to Cipriani Potter, the Principal,

282 1856—185$ [CH-

explained his views in a letter which Potter considered
' very pithy,' and asked him to convey to Lord Westmorland
his resignation as a teacher, and, what was more serious,
a request that his name should be erased from the list of
Associates of the Academy. Then Lord Westmorland,
who appears to have concluded that Bennett had expected
to conduct the concert himself, sent him two messages :
one, through Lucas, asking him to name a work of his own
to be placed on the programme — a proposal which came
too late to be regarded as anything but an afterthought ;
and the second through Potter who had been ordered to
write verbatim what Lord Westmorland had said to him
in conversation. This message was to the effect that the
resignation could not be accepted ; but when it contained
such expressions as, ' Surely he cannot have the pretension,'
and again, ' at a concert composed of the first foreign
artists,' it only gave emphasis to Bennett's exact objections.
He stood firm. The press took the same view that he
did. The Times and other newspapers commented severely
upon Lord Westmorland's concert-scheme, and considered
Bennett's resignation as the proper and necessary sequel.
He could ill be spared at the Academy. Everyone felt
that. His name, if only as a pianoforte-teacher, stood
very high. Potter had, for many years, assigned him the
best pupils on the male side. But the Principal also valued
his old pupil's personal influence, and liked to have him
by his side. In 1853 Potter had got Lord Westmorland
to make a post for Bennett as ' Inspector of Musical
Discipline,' and when in 1857 Bennett had found himself
too busy to sit any longer on a ' Board of Professors,'
Potter had written, ' In my opinion, the charm of our
Board has vanished.' Potter now wrote : — ' You may well
imagine how much I am grieved with your decision, since
it must be the forerunner of other important events, as
well as lead to changes which can never be congenial to
my feelings. * * * I am persuaded that my Lord's act was
more to gratify his own vanity than with any intention of
insulting the Professors of the Institution. I perfectly
sympathise with your feelings on the subject of "The
Grand Concert," and hope nothing will ever destroy the
mutual good feelings between us.'

Again Potter wrote : — ' I wish I could persuade you to

xviii] A Patriotic Protest 283

alter your decision, to waive your feelings on the subject,
which you might do without giving up the principle (in
which I fully concur). You would be acting most kindly
to the Institution : as the old, the present, and the future
students will naturally look to you in case anything happens
to me, or that I wish to relinquish my duties, and will
all flock around you and expect you to respond to their
wishes.'

Lord Westmorland had expressed himself to Potter as
' surprised ' at Bennett's attitude. When his messages
brought no result, he himself wrote two letters urging
Bennett to call upon him. One letter is as follows : —

CAVENDISH SQUARE,

May 25, 1858.
MY DEAR BENNETT,

I am very sorry your engagements at Cam-
bridge prevented your coming to me to-day, but as I am
very anxious to see you, I leave it to you to respond to my
anxiety and to come when you can. I am always at home
until one o'clock.

Yours very sincerely,

WESTMORLAND.

By avoiding or postponing an interview with Lord
Westmorland, Bennett acted with discretion, and with a
just regard to the debt which he, in common with other
English musicians, owed to the Founder of The Royal
Academy of Music. The circumstances to which he ob-
jected were past remedy, while their further discussion
would involve the danger of painful and useless conflict
with one whose age and position demanded all possible
consideration. Bennett did not make his protest by an
open rupture with Lord Westmorland, though others, later,
seemed to conclude that the protest had taken that form.
He made it by withdrawing his name from an Institution
which submitted too patiently, as he thought, to a severe
slight. Though fully appreciating foreign alliances, he
showed English musicians, at this juncture, that there was
one, at least, of their number, who would jealously guard
national interests. When the Earl of Westmorland passed

284 l8$6 18$8 [CH. XVIII

away, eighteen months later, Bennett was invited to return
to the Academy. He did not, however, consider that Lord
Westmorland's death gave a timely opportunity or a sufficient
reason for withdrawing his protest. Sir George Macfarren
has written that Bennett's old friends at the Academy
repeatedly urged him, as time went on, to rejoin the staff
of Professors ; but, that they could neither persuade him to
listen to their solicitations, nor elicit from him any reason
for his continuing to hold aloof. His connection with the
Academy was severed for eight years.

CHAPTER XIX.

LEEDS FESTIVAL. 'THE MAY QUEEN.'

1858.
xt. 42.

FOR the approaching Leeds Festival Bennett had been
asked to furnish a new composition. Up to this time of his
life he had received no commission to write a Festival work.
The libretto of a Pastoral entitled ' May Day/ written by
H. F. Chorley, had long been in his hands. He now
proposed to make use of it for Leeds. In reopening the
subject with the librettist, to whom some explanation of the
delay was obviously necessary, he appears to have referred
to discouragement which he had met with as a composer,
for Chorley, in his reply, wrote : 'It amuses me that
you should use the word disheartening to me. Only I
suppose that musicians imagine that those who furnish
them with ideas for works come into the world to be
disheartened. However this " May Day " business —
solicited from me nine years ago when I was in no humour
to attempt creation, is perhaps as royal a case of neglect
and want of consideration as could be cited.'

Bennett had not neglected the libretto on first receipt
of it. The discoloured music-sheets on which one of the
earlier numbers in the score is written show that the
number was penned many years before the rest of the
work, while a musical phrase in this movement proves that
he had fixed, when writing it, on an already composed
Overture as a Prelude to the Pastoral and as a source from
which he would gather musical material for it. Moreover,
his marginal notes on the original libretto show that he had
approached the work as a whole by determining, in advance,
the tonality of the several movements. His failure to
continue may have been due to dilatoriness, or possibly he

286 Leeds Festival. ' The May Queen ' [CH.

did not care very much for the libretto ; but his plea of
discouragement may also be taken into account. If any
one person more than another had contributed to such
feeling that person was Chorley himself. It may be
imagined that the neglect of his libretto had something to
do with the adverse tone which that critic had long adopted
in The Athenaum when writing of Bennett as a com-
poser or in any other capacity. On the other hand such
constant attacks made against the musician's character as
an artist might well have damped any further interest in
setting Chorley's text. Fortunately their renewed negotia-
tions, lasting until the Pastoral was published and well
started on its career, were conducted in a conciliatory spirit.
Chorley pointed out one difficulty which delay had created.
Macfarren, with the librettist Oxenford, had lately produced
a Cantata with the same title, ' May Day.' The two
librettists, however, had treated the subject very differently,
and when Chorley had altered his title to 'The May Queen,'
the two works were no longer likely to be confused.

Bennett at this time expressed a doubt to his wife of his
ability to write an extended composition. 'It is so long,'
he said, ' since I did anything of the kind.' Mrs Bennett
insisted on an early close to the summer- term's work. Here
a little incident occurring at the time interrupts for a moment
the story of ' The May Queen.' On Saturday, July 3,
Bennett was in Cambridge with Joachim as his guest at
' The Bull,' the hotel at which he always stayed throughout
the years of his Professorship. It happened to be the
' Commencement ' week, the town was full of visitors, and
he suddenly conceived the idea of giving an impromptu
concert with the aid of his friend, who had not been in
England for some years, and was almost a stranger in
Cambridge. At 5 o'clock he set printers to work, and
circulated an announcement the same evening. On Monday
afternoon the concert of music for violin and pianoforte took
place, 105 tickets were sold, and £21. los. was handed to
Addenbrooke's Hospital. Thus did the great violinist
generously render his first service to the University which
in later years has been proud to count him as a member.
On July 15 the Bennetts repaired to Eastbourne, quartering
themselves at 'The Gilbert Arms,' an old-fashioned hostelry

THE GILBERT ARMS, EASTBOURNE

From a water-colour drawing by IV. Chalmers Masters

xix] In a Bow-Window 287

where they had already spent a short summer holiday the
year before. In a remote corner of the rambling building
there was a secluded room, and in a bow-window over-
looking a large walled-in garden, Bennett placed his table
and set to work. Direct from the house there were four
ways in which he could start on the short walks which he
liked constantly to take while composing : a path across
the fields to ' Mill-Gap,' on the way to Willingdon ; the
two shady avenues towards Old Eastbourne and South-
bourne ; and the road, then bordered by wheat and clover
fields, leading to the sea. Opposite the house was the
small railway-station with a telegraph office, to which he
kept running across to transact Leeds Festival business.
In due course he had written all his music except a Chorus
with Soprano solo, to the not very inspiring words, ' With
a laugh as we go round.' As this movement concerned the
chief character in the piece it was important, but Bennett
failed for some time to get any idea for it that suited him.
One day, at his invitation, his wife prepared herself to take
a walk with him, and was surprised, after they had gone a
few yards from the house, by his suddenly turning round
and saying, 'We can go back now, the May Queen is
finished.'

At the end of August he went to the Birmingham
Festival to hear some of the music which he was himself to
conduct the following week, and on September 5 he was
in Leeds at the house of Walker Joy, one of the chief
promoters of the Festival, with whom he now had the
pleasure of starting a most congenial friendship. The new
Town Hall was opened by Her Majesty on the 7th, and the
Festival commenced next day with a fine performance of
' Elijah,' which, in the opinion of The Times, followed
Mendelssohn's own readings more closely than any that
had been given in England since his death. A selection
from Bach's St Matthew ' Passion ' was another feature of
the Festival. ' The May Queen ' was produced at the first
evening concert. The solos were sung by Madame Clara
Novello, Miss Palmer1, Sims Reeves and Weiss. Davison
wrote that the general execution of the work was by no
means faultless ; this, probably, because the composer would
not like to apportion much of the rehearsal-time to his own

1 In the absence of Miss Dolby whose name appears on the programme.

288 Leeds Festival. ' The May Queen ' [CH.

music. In referring to the occasion many years later,
Bennett said, ' The May Queen went off very well at
Leeds, but there was nothing out of the way about its
reception.'

The Leeds Festival was reckoned a great success.
The acoustic properties of the new Hall and the magnifi-
cent chorus were subjects of general congratulation ; but the
English conductor also won some laurels. It was the first
important occasion on which he had appeared as an Oratorio
conductor, and of course he had to submit to comparison
with Costa. The historians of ' The Leeds Festivals '
remember that in such comparison there was a ' divergence
of opinion.' There were many at Leeds, as at the Phil-
harmonic, who gave the palm to Bennett for his readings
whether of Oratorio or of Symphony. On the other hand,
as a ' chef d'orchestre/ Costa, with his vast experience and
consummate mastery held a well-nigh impregnable position.
It is then no little evidence of Bennett's remarkable natural
capacity, that, limited as his chances were of displaying it,
he should have been found comparable to Costa at all.
Dando, the violinist, who was closely associated both with
Costa and with Bennett in almost all their musical under-
takings, and who had great respect for both, when talking
of them as conductors — without, of course, referring to the
Italian Opera — used to say, ' My ideal would be reached, if
they could be combined, Costa beating the time, and Bennett
telling him how to do it.'

Bennett was duly appointed Conductor, when another
Leeds Festival was expected in 1861, and he was invited
to supply a new sacred work for the occasion. He was
summoned to Leeds early in that year to confer with the
Committee, and the scheme of the Festival was well
advanced, when differences arose between the local Choral
Societies which proved impossible to adjust, and which
prevented the organization of a chorus. The meeting,
therefore, had to be abandoned, to the great disappointment
of Bennett. The Festivals were not resumed till 1874.
By that time he had long retired from conducting, and was
within a few months of his death ; but he had always looked
back to his connection with Leeds as a happy one, nor has
that connection been forgotten in the place itself, where
room for his works has been found, from time to time, on

xix] The Pastoral Travels 289

the programmes of later Festivals. The baton with which
he conducted in 1858 was preserved as a relic by his
friend, Walker Joy, and is now in the possession of
Mr Fred. R. Spark, the Honorary Secretary of the
Festivals.

'The May Queen,' after its production at Leeds, was
soon published. It was heard in London in December at
two concerts in St Martin's Hall under the direction of
John Hullah. On the first day of the New Year (1859) it
was sung at Windsor Castle. Later in the same year
Bennett himself conducted it at the Philharmonic. At the
rehearsal for this performance, Sims Reeves being unable
to attend, Bennett sent for one of his Cambridge friends,
Mr A. D. Coleridge, Fellow of King's College, who
remembers the pleasure of singing with Clara Novello and
the Philharmonic orchestra. Bennett also conducted per-
formances at Liverpool and Cambridge. The Pastoral was
given in Edinburgh by Mr C. J. Hargitt, in Belfast, and
before long almost everywhere. ' It is as individual,'
Chorley wrote to Bennett, 'as it is graceful and delicate.'
Yet its refinement did not prevent the appreciation by
uncultured listeners, and it had a long run at ' The Canter-
bury Music Hall ' in the Borough. Amateur vocal societies
greeted it with enthusiasm. Many such societies in the
provinces who had been content up to that time with
miscellaneous programmes of detached pieces, would cer-
tainly look back to ' The May Queen ' as the first work on
an extended scale — with the exception, perhaps, of Locke's
music to Macbeth — which they had undertaken. It seemed
at the time to be suitable alike to the grand concert-
hall and the village school-room. Finally, its appearance
and its reception attracted many others to compete in the
same field. It acted as a great incentive to modest
achievement. Yet the countless Cantatas which immedi-
ately followed in its wake, however welcome and useful
they may have been, certainly accentuated the absolute
merit and unique character of 'The May Queen.'

Bennett's friends now seized the opportunity which this
success gave them, and urged him to continue writing.
' Great pressure,' Mrs Bennett afterwards said, ' was put
upon him after the Leeds Festival.' He had shown his

s. B. 19

290 Leeds Festival. * The May Queen ' [CH. xix

ability to gain the ear of a larger class of music-lovers than
that to which his previous compositions had appealed. A
livelihood by writing, perhaps even wealth, were thought
by his advisers to lie within his reach. But the induce-
ments, such as Chorley, for one, with good intent, put
before him, did not attract him. They had indeed a
contrary effect ; for either by natural instinct, or by some
simple principles which he had adopted early in life for the
guidance of his career, he put a very restricted value on
worldly fame or popularity ; and, again, though his refusal
to consider composition as a possible source of income may
have been due to a certain timidity which he showed in
dealing with worldly concerns, yet, apart from that, there
was a positive shrinking from coupling art with money in
his thoughts. Some years after this, Davison brought him
a message from one of the great music -publishers. Well
acquainted, no doubt, with Bennett's views, he delivered it
with some hesitation, but the gist of it was that Bennett
might name his own terms if he would wholly devote him-
self to composition. Davison did not seem surprised when
Bennett at once changed the subject. Next morning, when
one of his family, who had been present the night before,
referred to the matter, he said, apparently with some effort,
' Nothing shall induce me to place myself in the hands of
men of business.' As to writing works in succession to
' The May Queen/ repetition in the same groove is not
always successful, and, except in the case of the greatest
men, does not always add to, though it often detracts from
an already gained reputation. His own publishers planned,
as best they could, a method of sounding him on the subject
of another Cantata. They engaged one of the most eminent
librettists of the day to prepare a new libretto. It was
written. Lamborn Cock took it down to Eastbourne in the
summer of 1859 and showed it to Bennett in the little room
where ' The May Queen ' had been composed the year
before. There were others looking on with some anxiety
to see whether it might interest him. He took it up,
glanced for a few moments at the first page, and without a
word, or without any look which could betray what was
passing in his mind, gently laid it down on the table and
quietly walked out of the room.

CHAPTER XX.

THE CHORALE BOOK FOR ENGLAND.

1859 — 1862.

ast. 43 — 46.

GREAT interest had been aroused in this country by the
appearance, in 1855 and 1858, of two volumes, entitled
Lyra Germanica. They contained translations, by Miss
Catherine Winkworth, of German hymns. In February,
1859, Messrs Longmans announced that a musical edition
of this work, 'containing some of the fine old German
Chorales, would shortly be completed, under the superinten-
dence of Professor Sterndale Bennett.' It may be said that
Bennett had already taken one step in this direction, by
editing in short score for the pianoforte the Chorales from
the St Matthew ' Passion.' By the end of the summer of
1859, his share in the work proposed by Messrs Longmans,
as far as he had seen his way to deal with it, was ready
for publication. He had confined himself to the use of
J. Sebastian Bach's versions of the Chorales. Miss Wink-
worth, in her translations of the hymns, had very frequently
departed from the original metres ; but Bennett had been
able to select about fifty examples in which words and
music could be blended with strict regard to historic
association. The collection would no doubt have proved
interesting, and by its means another step would have been
taken on the road of introducing Bach to this country,
in which, as has been seen, Bennett was profoundly
interested.

The unsatisfactory state into which the music of the
Lutheran Church had been allowed to fall in Germany had
in recent years necessitated a reformation. A conference
had been held at Eisenach in 1853, and, with the object of

Ip 2

292 The Chorale Book for England [CH.

establishing uniformity, a new musical service-book had
been ordered, and had been printed in 1855. The subject
of Church music had therefore been brought prominently to
the minds of German musicians. Mr Otto Goldschmidt,
who took up his residence in England in 1858, had con-
ceived the idea, which seemed justified by the deep
impression caused by the Lyra Germanica, that German
hymnology might be widely acceptable for congregational
use in the Church of England. Mr Goldschmidt, having
set his heart on devoting himself to this cause, was
disappointed to find that another was before him. Bennett,
his senior by several years, was one whose position in the
musical world he had, in his own student days at Leipzig,
learnt to regard with the highest respect. Now, therefore,
he neither saw his way to carrying out his project in-
dependently, nor to approaching Bennett with a view of
combining. However, a third party, who sympathised with
Mr Goldschmidt, took an opportunity of sounding Bennett
privately, when he found him only too glad that the work
he had been doing should assume a larger form with a
wider object, and that he should gain the help of one
willing and able to devote more time than he could himself
spare. The task, for its thorough performance, demanded
great research, and research which, apart from the question
of time, lay more naturally within reach of a musician of
German nationality.

The partnership between Mr Goldschmidt and Bennett
over this work dated from an interview at Messrs Longmans
in November, 1859 ; their own meetings began in the first
days of the New Year, 1860 ; and exactly three years elapsed
before the publication of The Chorale Book for England.
The first eighteen months were spent in seeking the sources
of the melodies, and obtaining them in their purest and most
original form. Mr Goldschmidt went to Germany to consult
authorities, collected a large library of reference, made the
work, for the time being, his chief occupation, and prepared
everything for discussion with his colleague. Bennett gave
up so much of his time and passed so many hours, in the
midst of his other engagements, in Mr Goldschmidt's study
at Wimbledon — a study which, he would tell his pupils, was
carpeted with Chorale books open for reference — that to-

xx] Otto Goldschmidf s Tribute 293

wards the end of eighteen months Mrs Bennett took fright
and spoke of the impossibility of his continuing this work
for an indefinite time. It was therefore proposed that the
two editors should spend the summer vacation of 1861
together. Mr Goldschmidt went with his family to East-
bourne, and by continuous work lasting several weeks the
harmonization of the melodies, and the musical portion of
the work generally, made rapid advance. Later, Miss
Winkworth proved a most generous coadjutor. She had
known all along that her translations would in places require
alteration to suit the music, and had agreed to attempt it ;
but her task grew, and did not end till she had translated
quite afresh a very considerable number of the hymns.

Of Bennett's work on Tke Chorale Book, Mr Gold-
schmidt thus spoke in 1882 at a meeting of The Musical
Association of London : —

' This much I would wish to impress upon the meeting,
that, although it was probably the busiest time of his life,
when his hours and minutes were precious in a mundane
sense, he most readily and without the least stint or grudge
of objection, sacrificed hours and hours month after month
to compile a work from which no great credit could be
added to his name or fame, and did so simply from the love
of what he thought beautiful and pure. And certainly his
love for that kind of music was very great. I can hardly
say whether the study of Sebastian Bach led him to his
great love for those simple strains, or whether the chorales
led him to an increased love for Sebastian Bach, but never
have I come across any one who, with so great a knowledge
of his art, was able to enter so precisely, so readily and yet
so intellectually into the simplicity of the ancient modes and
tones, and into those simple strains which he helped to bring
home to England in the Chorale Book.'

The book when issued was welcomed, and had a good
circulation which, after more than forty years have passed,
has not entirely ceased. As a complete collection, it was
brought into use in but few churches ; but it is a storehouse
of beautiful things, and so much of it has been drawn upon
by the compilers of Hymn-books for the Established Church
and other religious denominations, that the original object
of the editors has gone far towards accomplishment.

CHAPTER XXL

HIS POSITION AT THE PHILHARMONIC ASSURED.
WITHDRAWAL OF THE SOCIETY'S ORCHESTRA.

1859—1861.
aet. 43—45-

IN the course of these years, when pianoforte-teaching
and public engagements ever continued to make full de-
mands upon Bennett's energy, whilst hymnology filled up
the crevices of his time, there was no lack of exceptional
incidents to vary the theme of his ordinary life. Before
passing to those incidents, it may be mentioned that, in the
autumn of 1859, he left Russell Place, which had been his
home for fourteen years, and migrated to Bayswater, where
he remained, though not always in the same house, for an
equal period. He first bought one of the smaller houses in
Inverness Terrace1, the purchase-money representing his
savings up to the time.

He had now been conducting at the Philharmonic for
four years (1856 — 59). The members of the band had,
from the very beginning, made it clear that his appointment
pleased them, and that they meant to support him. He had
not allowed himself to count upon their favour as a certainty.
In earlier life when, as one of the Directors of the Society,
he had been behind the scenes, he had observed conductors
failing to obtain the good-will of the players. Confidential
references to this appear in his letters to Mendelssohn.
Certain musicians in the Philharmonic orchestra stood high
in their profession by virtue of other qualifications than that
of orchestral playing. They were among the most promi-
nent members, not only of the orchestra, but also of the

1 Then no. 50, now no. 47. On the west side, the 4th house northwards
from Inverness Place.

CH. xxi] The Society s Approval 295

Society. Until such time as a restrictive law was passed,
they were favourites for the office of Directors, in which
capacity they rose superior to the conductor, taking part in
his election and choosing the music that he had to conduct.
They had a voice, too, in engaging their colleagues in the
orchestra. It followed that they were leaders of musical
opinion within the ranks, and that a conductor whose
musicianship and personality were not acceptable to such
authorities would have a poor chance of success. It will
now be understood why Bennett, on the occasion of his first
rehearsal in 1856, set less store on a loud ovation than he
did on some generous and assuring words spoken to him
by a few individuals, one at least of whom might reasonably
have expected the conductorship for himself. As a result,
he went home able to tell his wife that doubts which he
had previously confided to her were already dispelled. Nor
did he, later, ever find occasion to speak in any but the
most grateful terms of the orchestra's attitude towards him.
The Society's approval, and the continuance of that
approval, were shown in a direct way. The Members
reserved to themselves for some little time the right of
expressing their opinion, and for four years he successfully
stood the test of an election at their general meeting. He
had set at rest the fears formerly felt by some that no one
save Costa could surmount the difficulties of the situation,
and the Members, as if acknowledging that the question of the
conductorship was permanently settled, now replaced in the
hands of the seven Directors the duty of nomination, which>
prior to Bennett's appointment, had rested with them. The
sufficiently prosperous condition of the Society at this time
was in more ways than one due to Bennett's presence. No
musician in this country had more absolutely devoted him-
self to the cause of classical music, or had secured a larger
following among those amateurs who belonged to the same
party in musical politics. Such a following might not have
crowded any large arena, but it certainly made some
accountable addition to the Philharmonic audience. His
past and present pupils were always well represented
wherever he appeared in public, and the Society's concert-
room during his regime presented one feature of exceptional
interest from an educational point of view. Many benches

296 The Philharmonic Orchestra [CH.

were reserved for the long rows of young girls who were
brought there to supplement the instruction which he gave
them at their schools.

At the time of his appointment in 1856, the Society,
being in straitened circumstances, had reduced the number
of concerts given each year from eight to six, thus es-
caping a pecuniary loss which invariably attended the two
concerts given before the commencement of the London
season. This retrenchment had not been made without
some sacrifice of pride, nor without foreseeing that it would
open the way for hostile comments on the Society's decline.
A few successful years now made it possible to remove this
outstanding reproach, and at the end of 1 860, when Bennett
had conducted for five seasons, it was resolved to announce
the full number of concerts for the year 1861. He under-
lined the news in a letter written to one of his children in
November : ' We are to have Eight Philharmonic Concerts
next year, so my prospects are busy, what with Leeds and
other things.' Little time, however, was allowed for exult-
ing over this happy restoration. Serious trouble was at
hand ; the well-being of the Philharmonic was not desired
by everybody ; and the month of December revealed a
transaction which stirred up grave suspicions. The Society's
concerts were given on Monday evenings. About two-
thirds of the orchestra, forty-two out of a total of sixty-six,
also played at the Royal Italian Opera. When the Directors
sent out the usual letters to engage their orchestra for 1861,
these forty-two players replied that they were unable to
accept, because they had found in their Opera-engagements
a new clause, which bound them to attend at the theatre, if
required, on an additional night, viz. Monday. Now, of
course, it would have been absurd to expect a great institu-
tion like the Royal Italian Opera, with such enormous
stakes at risk, to forego, out of consideration for others or
from sentimental regard to tradition, any real chance of
promoting its own interests. But Monday had never been
an Opera night, and it was not believed in Hanover Square
that the Managers had any bond fide intention of making it
one, whereas the use of the band on that evening had long
been regarded as a prescriptive right of the Philharmonic.
The Directors, and Bennett with them, felt convinced that

xxi] A Dilemma 297

this new proceeding was a malicious act of antagonism on
the part of Costa, who conducted at Covent Garden. If
they were right, it does not follow that the act was directed
against Bennett or, rather, against him alone, because there
had been a quarrel between Costa and Anderson, the
leading Director, of a more recent date, and of a much more
serious kind than that between Costa and Bennett. An
incident, with similar circumstances, had occurred a year or
two before, when the chorus of the Sacred Harmonic
Society, over which Costa presided, had suddenly with-
drawn its aid a few days before the annual performance of
'The Messiah' by the Royal Society of Musicians, leaving
Bennett, who was the conductor for the latter Society, and
Anderson, who as treasurer was its chief officer, very little
time to collect another chorus of 500 voices.

Whatever may have been the object or origin of such
acts — the opinion held by those whom they affected is all
that the writer can vouch for — the Philharmonic Directors
were, in any case, now confronted with a difficult dilemma.
They must either lose two-thirds of their orchestra, or they
must change their night of performance. In neither
direction were they likely to escape injury. On the one
hand, the members of the old orchestra were the established
favourites of concert-goers. Some of them seemed to enjoy
a unique position, holding, as it were, the monopoly,
granted by public opinion, of performance on their par-
ticular instruments. The substitution of other players,
however competent, would jar upon the feelings of the
Public, who ever expect, and did so no less in the days
of small concert-rooms, to enjoy their music amidst
accustomed surroundings. Mrs S. C. Hall, the authoress,
wrote at this time : ' The members of the old Philharmonic
are more like a band of brothers ; you know exactly
where to look for the old familiar faces.' Certainly,
where music is concerned, such sentiment cannot be dis-
regarded, and the Directors could not face so conspicuous a
change of personnel without much misgiving. On the other
hand, to abandon the Monday night, which had been their
own since the Society's foundation, was a step from which
they no less recoiled. Here, again, the subscribers might
be greatly disturbed. The retention of the Monday night

298 The Philharmonic Orchestra [CH.

would no doubt tell in favour of rival Societies. The New
Philharmonic and The Musical Society of London, who
gave their concerts later in the week, would still have at
their command the old band with its unrivalled prestige.
But the interference with their night by those who, as they
believed, did not want it for themselves, was the main
grievance of the Philharmonic authorities, and to alter it
would be an admission of defeat. The Directors, therefore,
decided to keep their cherished Monday, to engage a new
band, and to make themselves, once for all, independent of
Covent Garden.

The difficulty of supplying the places of those players
who, much against their will, were obliged to submit to the
new conditions laid down at the Opera, was not insuperable.
At a no very remote time, it would have been said that
there was only one available orchestra in London. In the
days when Bennett gave concerts for which he wished to
employ a band, he, like others, only knew of one place to
find it. Its headquarters during the season were at the
Opera- House, and its engagement occasioned trouble and
uncertainty, which some concert-givers would doubtless
have spared themselves if there had been any alternative.
The exigencies of Opera-rehearsals, the doubt as to the
time they would last, gave the players little freedom to
promise their services for the afternoon. Costa's favour
could alone make the fulfilment of such promise a certainty.
He did not readily extend that favour to concerts conducted
by others than himself, though he had the power to stretch
a point when he had the wish. It has already been seen
how a concert of Bennett's, which Mendelssohn conducted
in 1 844, was nearly wrecked by the late arrival of the band.
On the other hand, William Dorrell would often relate how
he had called upon Costa in 1842 with the object of pre-
ferring two requests. He was about to give a Morning
concert. He had invited his friend Bennett to conduct it ;
but in doing this, he had left the beaten track ; for though
Bennett had just appeared as one of the Philharmonic
conductors, he was young, according to the notion of the
time, for such a position, and the conducting of orchestral
concerts had so far been a privilege of seniors. Dorrell
now asked Costa whether he would permit him to engage

xxi] A Monopoly 299

the band. The situation was awkward ; for why, to begin
with, should Costa go out of his way to accept for his band
an invitation from which he was himself excluded ? The
refusal Dorrell met with was so prompt and decisive, that
he was quite disconcerted, and he could not venture for
some little time to put his second question. At length he
told Costa that he was wishing to secure the services of his
brother, Raphael Costa, as a singer at the concert. Now
Costa, being very fond of his younger brother, and desirous
of his advancement, did not conceal the pleasure this
proposal gave him, for his face at once relaxed from its
previous sternness. He then chatted on very pleasantly
with his visitor, and as the latter was leaving the room
without having mustered up courage to revert to the chief
object of his visit, Costa held his hand, saying : ' Good-bye,
Mr Dorrell — and — I will see that you have the orchestra.'
This story is not told as against Costa. On the contrary,
it is a pleasure to present him in the character of a good
brother. It was told by Dorrell simply as an illustration of
the difficulty in obtaining the one band.

The time, however, came when this single orchestra
could no longer supply every need. Then it was suddenly
discovered that London, or London with a little help from
the Continent, was equal to the emergency. The secession
of great singers from Her Majesty's Theatre in 1847, and
the establishment of a rival Opera at Covent Garden, for
which Costa and the hitherto sole orchestra were secured,
necessitated the formation of a new band for the old House.
This second force, on its appearance, caused considerable
surprise ; first, by the mere fact of its existence, and,
secondly, by the efficiency which, under Balfe's direction, it
soon displayed. Jullien's monster concerts gave, in their
turn, further proof of the increasing number of clever
executants, native and foreign, who were residing in
London. Nevertheless, as the years went on, nothing
occurred outside the confines of the theatrical world to
disturb the general impression that the famous old orchestra
stood by itself. It continued to be seen and heard at all
the sacred and secular performances of prime importance
throughout the country. As far as regarded the class of
music presented at the Philharmonic, it was the only

300 The Philharmonic Orchestra [CH.

organization which possessed, through long experience, the
already acquired knowledge so indispensable in the days of
long concerts and comparatively short rehearsals. Thus,
when the Society was bereft of its assistance, any new
combination, however abundant the materials from which
its elements might be selected, must, for the special purpose
intended, be an entirely untried one. The Directors took
infinite pains in filling the vacancies, and in this business
they certainly allowed Bennett, who was full of anxiety as
to the result, to take an active part. It was afterwards
assumed, on a rough estimate, that the new orchestra at
the Philharmonic was identical with that of Her Majesty's
Theatre, but the Directors were not satisfied to follow so
simple a course. They took a wide survey of possibilities.
Even two Opera- Houses no longer accounted for all the good
stringed-instrument players in London. A three-months'
engagement at the theatre, with protracted rehearsals and
very late hours, disturbed any plan for continuous work
throughout the year in other directions. Some preferred
to emancipate themselves, and to follow the regular life of
a professor of music, teaching the pianoforte, playing the
organ, and of course giving lessons to, or leading quartets
for, the few amateur stringed-instrument players of the day.
These men were open to concert-engagements, and could
not be left out of count in the formation of an orchestra.
Then, again, there were a few whose prominence as soloists
had absolved them from orchestral-playing, but who, it was
thought, might be willing to make an exception in favour
of the Philharmonic. If the Directors could have had free
choice of the talent to be found at Her Majesty's Theatre
and elsewhere, their path would have been a smooth one ;
but there is such a thing as a Table of Precedence in an
orchestra, and they accordingly found themselves baulked
at every turn by conflicting claims. Of the former orchestra,
twenty-four members remained, representing the contingent
which had always been drawn from Her Majesty's private
band. These naturally looked for promotion under a fresh
arrangement. The negotiations spread over many weeks,
and demanded delicate diplomacy. It is well remembered
how much time was spent over finding the best possible
successors to Lucas and Ho well, who, as leaders of the

xxi] An Adjustment 301

basses, had for years been in the front of every orchestral
scene, just as Lindley and Dragonetti had been in the
previous generation. Bennett worried himself immensely
over the question whether he could approach his friend
Piatti, without hurting the amour propre of one who had
long ceased to play in orchestras. There was a prolonged
search for a first double-bass player, till at last A. J. Row-
land, who had settled at Southampton as an organist and
pianoforte-teacher, agreed to come up for the rehearsals and
concerts, and did so as long as Bennett held the conductor-
ship. In process of time, gentle persuasion brought per-
formers to see that they could not all occupy front places, and
upon agreement that a few of the more eminent should sit
at the chief desks in rotation, the combination was adjusted,
and Hogarth, the Secretary and Historian of the Society,
has recorded that 'when the concerts of the 1861 season
commenced it was unanimously admitted that the Phil-
harmonic orchestra had suffered no loss of the qualities by
which it had gained its high and European reputation.'
Bennett, when anticipating this change, said to one of his
pupils that the prospect troubled him, and that he would
have to begin his work all over again. He did not scruple
to mention, at the same time, the name of the man to whom
he imputed the injury. The severance of a friendly associa-
tion with the old orchestra was bound to be painful, but
from a musical standpoint he became reconciled to the
change. He discovered, for one thing, that he could more
easily influence those who had no preconceived and firmly-
rooted notions. He had now to deal with some who,
though fine executants, were conscious of their inexperience
of classical music. These were glad to learn from him, and
to submit themselves to the guidance of a conductor always
so considerate for their feelings. To give a particular case, a
member of the band, who was known to be one of the most
skilful performers in Europe on his particular instrument,
would often consult Bennett on the interpretation of
passages, and the latter would speak most sympathetically
of the delightful humility with which this man, who could
by his solo-playing astonish crowds, came to him to be
privately coached in a passage of accompaniment to Schu-
mann's Pianoforte Concerto, admitting that he could not,
by himself, master the rhythm.

302 The Philharmonic Orchestra [CH. xxi

This new band worked with Bennett most loyally for
six years. Critics, other than Hogarth, did not allow
that it was equal to the old one. Davison, who was» never
quite in accord with the Philharmonic, and who did not go
far out of his way in order to write anything in its favour,
sometimes disappointed Bennett very much by little things
he wrote or did not write about the orchestra. On one
occasion, however, he paid the conductor a pretty and well
appreciated compliment by saying : ' I can't make out,
Bennett, why it is, that though the other Societies have the
best band, the Symphonies always go best at the Philhar-
monic.'

CHAPTER XXII.

THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF 1862.

1861—1862.
ast. 45, 46.

BENNETT was still engaged on the Chorale Book, when
certain forthcoming events demanded his services as a
composer. By a strange coincidence, a Chorale of his own
was the first thing asked for.

INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1862.
July 17 th, 1 86 1.

SIR,

I am directed by Her Majesty's Commissioners for
the Exhibition of 1862 to inform you, that at the opening of
the Exhibition on the ist of May, it is their wish to have
four new musical compositions, each by a different composer,
representing France, Germany, Italy and England.

Her Majesty's Commissioners, having regard to the
position which your name occupies in connection with the
music of this country, desire me to enquire whether you
would kindly represent her on this occasion.

The Commissioners do not wish to have the copyright
of the Music, but only the permission to have it performed
on the occasion of the opening; and they are of course pre-
pared to pay the expenses of copying the music.

The Class of Music contemplated is :

(1) An Anthem, of about the same length as Handel's
Coronation Anthem.

(2) A Chorale — for voices only.

(3) A Triumphal March.

(4) A March for Wind Instruments only.

304 The International Exhibition of 1862 [CH.

The Commissioners would ask you to undertake the
composition of the Air for the Chorale, the words of which
they hope will be furnished by the Poet Laureate. All
means of adequate execution will be provided to the best
of their resources ; and they will feel obliged by an early
answer to this letter.

The Commissioners in working out this part of their
plans have applied to Mons. Meyerbeer to represent
Germany, Mons. Auber to represent France, and Signer
Verdi to represent Italy.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,
Your obedient servant,

F. R. SANDFORD (Secretary].

W. Sterndale Bennett, Esq.

There was an air of novelty about this scheme. At
a grand international festival, music was to be introduced,
not as a mere handmaid to ceremony, but for its own sake,
and with a prominent place assigned to it beside other arts
which it was an object of the Exhibition to display. Here
might be imagined a sign that respect for music was increas-
ing in this country among those who were not necessarily
concerned in cultivating it themselves. The plan was far
in advance of anything that had been thought of at the time
of the 1851 Exhibition, and it gave great satisfaction to all
those who had the interests of music at heart. Bennett was
evidently pleased to receive the invitation, though he felt
the responsibility of the task. ' I thought Balfe would be
asked,' he quietly said ; and, after that, he scarcely spoke
about the subject, except, as will be seen, in reference to
Costa, who had been appointed to conduct the music.
When, later on, any pleasure he felt was spoilt by attendant
circumstances, and when a universal excitement was aroused
on his behalf, he showed remarkable restraint, and allowed
few words to escape his lips.

In November, 1861, Tennyson sent him a message to
the effect that he had written something, that he felt
nervous about it, and would like to talk it over with him.

xxn] The Poet Laureate 305

Thereupon Bennett went to the chambers in the Temple
where Tennyson was stopping with a friend. He was
fascinated by the quaint occupation in which he discovered
the poet completely absorbed, viz. that of drying tobacco on
the hobs of the grate ; he thought, as a listener, that the
reading of the poem was curiously monotonous ; but when,
before leaving, he ventured to confide his own anxiety and
spoke of public criticism as sitting at his elbow when he
tried to compose, then the words of sympathy which followed,
and Tennyson's assurance that he himself knew that feeling
only too well, went to his heart.

When Bennett made a study of the words, he thought
them too elaborate to be set to a simple Chorale and to
be sung entirely by unaccompanied voices, according to the
original wish of the Commissioners. Indeed, with regard
to one section of the Ode, he felt doubtful how it would
yield to his musical treatment at all. When, in the course
of composition, he found it manageable, then he was relieved,
and would afterwards playfully say that he had set ' The
Exhibition Catalogue ' to music ; for the nineteen lines in
question contained the poet's enumeration of the ' marvels '
gathered within ' the long laborious miles of Palace.' To
illustrate such a poem Bennett desired an orchestral accom-
paniment. An orchestra was to be used by the other
composers, so he asked and was granted permission to
employ it. This was settled in December. In the same
month, the death of the Prince Consort occurring, the Poet
Laureate made a very important addition to his Ode, and of
this he wrote to Bennett : —

FARRINGFORD, FRESHWATER,

I. OF W.

Jan. \$th, 1862.

MY DEAR SIR,

I wish you would come down and see me, you
know you promised to come, pray do.

As to the inauguration poem — when our good Prince
left us, I thought it was absolutely necessary to notice his
loss and therefore inserted four lines. Afterwards I heard
that the Queen did not wish any allusion made to Her loss—
so I would not trouble you with the lines. Now I hear

S. B. 20

306 The International Exhibition of 1862 [CH.

(none of my instigating) that Lord Granville showed them
to H. M. and she wished them to be included.

Pray come if you can, you start by 1 1 o'clock train from
Waterloo and take your ticket for Lymington — then in half-
an-hour the boat crosses.

Yours always,

A. TENNYSON.

The additional lines, the first of which is now so well-
known through its constant quotation in references to the
Prince Consort, were : —

' O silent Father of our Kings to be,
Mourn'd in this golden hour of jubilee,
For this, for all, we weep our thanks to Thee ! '

together with another new line —

'The world compelling plan was Thine' —

with which to open the next section of the poem.

The first message from Tennyson, which had taken
Bennett to the Temple, and the above letter, which resulted
in a short visit to Farringford, show the poet anxious to
confer with the musician ; but for what purpose, beyond
that of conveying to him his own emphasis of the words by
reciting them in his presence, is not clear. Bennett men-
tioned in one of his letters to the Commissioners that there
were still many things on which he must consult Mr
Tennyson before parting with the MS. of his music.
Tennyson, perhaps, invited him to suggest difficulties which
particular words might present. Bennett did make some
suggestions of that kind, because he afterwards said that
he had found Tennyson very inflexible about changes.
One change at least was made. In the original MS., which
lies in Bennett's album, the Ode opens with the line, ' Up-
lift a hundred voices full and sweet,' and it was at Bennett's
request that Tennyson substituted the word ' thousand ; for
' hundred.' Certainly, his association at this time with the
Poet Laureate, ending, as it did, with a charming letter
from Mrs Tennyson when the music was published, re-
mained as one of his few pleasing recollections of this
Exhibition. In the following year, 1863, when Tennyson
wrote his Ode of Welcome to the Princess Alexandra (now

xxn] Costa shows Interest 307

Her Majesty), Bennett hoped to renew such a connection.
He at once asked and obtained the poet's permission to set
the Ode to music. Unfortunately, however, another com-
poser, without waiting to obtain the same permission, hastily
set the words in the form of a popular song, and this upset
Bennett's project.

In the third week of January, 1862, the composer had
the complete poem for the Exhibition in his hands, and it
was about this time that he was overheard to strike up on
the pianoforte, with that decision and finished effect which
made such a delightful impression on those privileged to hear
his music for the first time, the unaccompanied Chorale with
which the Ode was to open. Mrs Bennett, who was one of
the listeners outside his room, and who failed at the moment
to recognize the evident connection between his strains and
the words of the Ode, would not believe that he had made
so early a start with the work ; but this was so, and as it
still wanted fifteen weeks to the first of May, no anxiety
was felt at home about his being ready in time. Five weeks
later, however, a needless and irritating pressure was put
upon him to produce his score. This was quite unfair,
because it must have been very well known that the poet
had taken his full share of the period available for the joint-
work.

Bennett had assumed that the time had now come for
bygones to be bygones between Costa and himself. He
took for granted, and expressed himself pleased to think,
that Costa was going to conduct his work. The letters
which next arrived did nothing to disturb that impression.
They could only tend to confirm it. Thus, the Secretary to
the Commissioners wrote on February 20 : —

' Costa called here to-day and was anxious to know
whether I had received your contribution to the musical
part of the opening Ceremony. I told him that I was
expecting to hear from you very soon' The Secretary
wrote again, on March 3 : — ' I have just had Costa here,
very uneasy as to the Music for the opening. When may
I hope to have your part of the work ? ' Bennett replied on
March 5 : — 'You need not be uneasy with respect to my
contribution, which I shall soon have the pleasure to hand
over to you. You are perhaps aware that the Ode is on

20 2

308 The International Exhibition of 1862 [CH.

a much larger scale than was first suggested to me as to be
illustrated by a Chorale, and the composition has given me
much thought — added to which Mr Tennyson has since the
death of the Prince Consort put in some extra lines in the
middle of his work which, much as I admire them, has
caused a reconstruction of much of the music. I will not
be later than ten days or a fortnight, and I should be glad
to wait upon Mr Costa in the meantime, if he wishes to see
me — being very glad that he has undertaken the care of my
humble work.'

The last paragraph in this letter appears to have caused
a little delay. The Commissioners now discovered, perhaps
through forwarding Bennett's message to Costa, that there
was a flaw in their preliminary arrangements. Bennett
heard nothing further for ten days. Then the Secretary
wrote : — * When you are ready , as I hope you will be soon,
will you kindly communicate with Mr Bowley, of the Sacred
Harmonic Society, in whose hands all the working arrange-
ments of the musical part of the opening ceremony are
placed. He will be able to settle as to the rehearsals for
which you may wish, the arrangement being, as I believe
you are aware, that you should conduct your own composi-
tion.'

Bennett replied : —

March igth, 1862.

MY DEAR SIR,

I have already learnt from Mr Bowley the probable
arrangement for rehearsals, &c., and will take care to be
quite ready although it is still necessary for me to consult
Mr Tennyson upon several points before parting with
my MS.

Allow me to say that I have never had the idea that
I was expected to conduct my work at the opening cere-
monial ; this you will readily see from my letter of the 6th
inst. wherein I expressed my satisfaction that Mr Costa
would take charge of my work. I also offered in that same
letter to wait upon Mr Costa and talk the work over with
him. It disappoints me then to find no reply to this
intended courtesy on my part. I certainly should consider
that my position should entitle me to have direct communi-
cation with the chief Director of the music, and feel assured

xxn] Cost as Proviso 309

that you as the organ of Her Majesty's Commissioners can
wish me nothing less.

I must now most respectfully and distinctly decline to
conduct my work on the occasion of the opening of the
Exhibition, as by so doing I should place myself in a very
false position with the public, who would certainly wonder
that I should interfere with Mr Costa's duties.

Believe me, My dear Sir,

Yours very faithfully,
WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.
F. R. Sandford, Esq.

Sir Wentworth Dilke, one of the Commissioners,
now courteously offered to call upon Bennett at any time
convenient. He came, and then explained that Costa,
when engaged as conductor eight months before, had made
it a condition of his services being available, that he should
not be expected to conduct any work by Bennett in the
event of the latter being asked to furnish one. Now, the
Commissioners, when inviting Bennett to compose, had
stated that ' all adequate means of execution would be pro-
vided ; ' but they had either forgotten to arrange for the
work being conducted, or if they had made any such
arrangement, had neglected to make Bennett acquainted
with it. It was not usual in those days for a composer,
when his works were played, to take the baton from the
regularly appointed conductor. The foreign representatives
had not been invited to do so, and Bennett had nearly
finished his composition before he became aware that any
exceptional circumstances were to attend its production.

The Commissioners, however, from this point, threw the
onus of an omission, the importance of which they pretended
to ignore, on to Bennett's shoulders, and he was now asked
to conduct his music himself or to name some one to take
* his place.' But it was not his place, and he would have
nothing to do with supplying it.

April 4, 1862.

MY DEAR SIR,

According to my former note I do most distinctly
yet respectfully decline to conduct my own composition at

3io The International Exhibition of 1862 [CH.

the opening of the Exhibition, nor do I feel it at all within
my province to name any gentleman to supply the place
of Mr Costa in that which he declines to undertake. Of
course I cannot help feeling disappointed that it should be
proposed to present my work in a different manner to the
works of other Composers invited to write for the occasion.

I remain, Dear Sir,

Yours very faithfully,
WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.
F. R. Sandford, Esq.

A few days passed, and then only three weeks remained
before the Opening ceremony. Bennett's music was finished
and he understood that it was being printed. On April 10,
the Secretary wrote : —

' I am directed by Her Majesty's Commissioners to say
that they cannot take the responsibility of naming a con-
ductor for your music. They must therefore request you to
name one, as you refuse to conduct it yourself. It will
otherwise be impossible for the music to be performed,
Mr Costa having as you are aware declined. The Com-
missioners are prepared to invite any one you name.'

This letter caused some consternation in Bennett's
household. He himself showed no sign of being disturbed
by it, and he wrote the following reply : —

April ii, 1862.

MY DEAR SIR,

I cannot on any consideration undertake to name
a conductor of my music in the place of Mr Costa, and as
your letter of yesterday leads me to infer what the decision
of Her Majesty's Commissioners will be in that case, I have
only to say that I shall bow to their decision with the utmost
respect.

Believe me, My dear Sir,

Faithfully yours,
WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

xxn] The Ode in Jeopardy 3 1 1

Before the Commissioners thus threatened a withdrawal
of the work, it would appear that their musical advisers or
agents had already been scheming in that direction. On
March 15, Bennett had been asked to communicate, as soon
as his work was complete, with the Secretary of the Sacred
Harmonic Society. This was in view of arranging
rehearsals, and of sending the vocal parts, for preliminary
practice, into the provinces, whence 1400 of the chorus
singers were to be drafted. When Lamborn Cock, Bennett's
publisher, towards the end of March, was starting to engrave
the parts, the Secretary of the Sacred Harmonic Society
called upon him and urged that the said Society should be
entrusted with the engraving, as they had at their command
resources which would ensure a maximum of speed. Lam-
born Cock naturally liked to manage Bennett's affairs
himself. He therefore demurred, but he was pressed to
give way, and at length, though with much reluctance,
parted with the manuscript. A fortnight passed. Then,
within three or four days of the music being actually
required, the score was returned to Lamborn Cock, without
explanation, and without a single note of it having been
stamped. When a protest was made, the Secretary of the
Sacred Harmonic Society said that he had received instruc-
tions not to print the work, as it was not going to be
performed. It then proved exceedingly difficult to get it
ready for rehearsals, but this was done by Lamborn Cock's
strenuous exertions, so that there should be no excuse for
its non-performance on the ground of its not being ready in
time.

When it became generally known that the Ode was in
jeopardy, the Press took the matter up with great vehe-
mence. A storm was brewing. The Commissioners, at
last, had the thing shown to them in a new light, and they
approached Bennett again. The Secretary wrote on
April 15:—

'I am desired by H. M. Commissioners to say, in
answer to your letter of the i2th inst., that though they are
at a loss to understand why you will neither conduct your
own work or name any person except Mr Costa to act for
you, they are so unwilling that it should not be performed

312 The International Exhibition of 1862 [CH.

that they have decided on suggesting two names to you and
asking you to select one — M. Sainton and Mr Mellon.'

Bennett consistently declined to take part in such
selection, and the matter was finally settled by the Com-
missioners themselves appointing a conductor. The
Secretary wrote on April 23 : — ' I have the pleasure, by
desire of H. M. Commissioners, to forward you copy of
a letter just received from Mr Sainton, whom they have
asked to conduct your Cantata.'

From the rehearsal on April 29, at Exeter Hall,
Bennett absented himself. Feeling was running very high,
and he disliked anything like a demonstration. At this
very rehearsal, when Costa observed a few members of the
chorus leaving the Hall, and called out in a brusque tone,
' Turn those women back,' he was vigorously hissed by those
who habitually submitted to his rule without a murmur.
Davison came to Bennett's house the same evening,
upbraided him for not being present to support Sainton in
a rather trying position, and obtained from him a promise
of attendance at the final rehearsal in the Exhibition Build-
ing next morning. Bennett accordingly went, and any
soreness of feeling that remained was greatly soothed by the
marked courtesy which Lord Granville, the President of the
Commissioners, showed him on the occasion. His recep-
tion by the performers, who numbered 2400, was so
extraordinary, that Meyerbeer, wrho must have been well-
versed in such proceedings, was quite astonished and turned
to Davison for an explanation. The incident was thus
reported in The Times : — ' After the Ode had been gone
through once, a general cry for " Bennett" was raised, and
the Professor, at length making his appearance was led into
the orchestra by M. Sainton. The greeting he received
was such as he will possibly never forget. We remember
nothing more hearty, nothing more spontaneous. There
was one universal burst of cheering, accompanied by waving
of hats and handkerchiefs, the thousand ladies of the chorus
being conspicuous in their manifestations of enthusiasm.
About the extraordinary popularity of Professor Bennett, if
there had ever been a doubt, this would have dispelled it.'
Next day the Exhibition opened. The Prince Consort's

xxn] The Opening Ceremony 313

death had been the cause of general and deep depression.
The absence of the Royal Family on this occasion with the
mournful reason for it, gave to the proceedings a dull and
perfunctory character which nothing could be expected to
brighten. At the same time all the music specially written —
as far as the public were allowed to hear it ; for alas ! Verdi's
contribution had been rejected by the Commissioners, in
spite of his willing response to their request — was much
admired. The English choral work was thought to stand
out in bold relief between the brilliant orchestral pieces by
Auber and Meyerbeer. Reserved seats for those officially
connected with the Exhibition and their friends were
numerous. Bennett had no place assigned to him. He
listened to his music, as well as he could, standing at the
back of the crowd. He had felt a special desire to judge
of its effect, because in view of a monster performance in
a building sure to present acoustical disadvantages, he had
deliberately aimed for simplicity and breadth of treatment
when preparing his score. His wife, now a great invalid,
stood by his side, participating for the last time in anything
that publicly concerned her husband's artistic life.

The Ode was published, and numerous performances of
it were given both in London and the provinces. It had
a ' run ' at ' The Philharmonic ' — not the classic temple in
Hanover Square, but a Music Hall in Islington — where it
was reverently sung by a choir of some twenty voices to the
accompaniment of a pianoforte and harmonium. It was
interesting to watch the attentive faces of the audience,
who nightly encored the Ode and listened to a repetition
of the last movement.

The Commissioners, for their treatment of Bennett, and
Costa for the condition he had made with them, were
attacked on all sides with great severity. The incidents
were discussed at full length not only in musical journals, or
in the columns specially devoted to music in daily papers,
but as matters of some national concern. Punch made
several caustic references, showing himself specially bitter
against Costa. One of the references headed ' Amiable
Excuses ' ran thus : —

1 We don't think that STERNDALE BENNETT has a right
to complain that Mr COSTA will not conduct him at the

3 1 4 The International Exhibition of 1862 [CH.

Inauguration. Costa sometimes does not even know how to
conduct himself. Besides he perhaps wanted to show, by
making the exception, that he was not an omnibus conductor
— in spite of what might have been inferred, from his
manners touching this matter.'

The Daily Telegraph chose the circumstances as the
subject of a leading article, this probably being an early if
not the first instance of a musical matter finding such place
in an English newspaper. After referring to the position
which Costa enjoyed in this country and the generous treat-
ment that he had always met with at the hands of England
and the English people, the writer1 of the article added : —

' Suddenly he [Costa] turns round upon us and won't
play Professor Bennett's music, or wave the baton to a note
of his cantata. Feted and feasted for years and years on
English soil, he has interposed his contemptible private
bickerings on this solemn occasion. The spoiled child of
the easy English public, he slaps its sensibilities in the face
upon this exigency. The man whom we have made some-
thing from nothing, famous from obscure, selects the
moment when we show him our greatest favour, to show us
his greatest arrogance. M. Costa, it is ill done of you! it is
ungratefully done ! it is done unlike an artist and the inter-
preter of art! It is enough to cure us of the mania for
foreign music so profitable to you and to your fellows. It
is almost enough, though the idea will be as horrible to you
as a discord, to make us ask henceforward whether England
can do without M. Costa, since M. Costa can so easily
affront England ! '

This was hard-hitting, but it was no more than an
expression of the general feeling at the time. The day after
the article appeared, Costa wrote a letter to the Commis-
sioners taking for his text the first word, ' suddenly,' of the
passage quoted above. He was justified according to the
strict letter of the law in throwing the responsibility of what
had happened on those who had engaged him. However
discreditable the public might consider the condition that he
had made with regard to their compatriot's music, after all,
the discredit really rested with those who had accepted that
condition. The Commissioners, however, now made their

1 Presumed, at the time, to be Campbell (afterwards Sir Campbell) Clarke.

xxn] Cost as Explanation 315

position far worse by introducing Bennett into their reply to
Costa, thereby trying again, as they had all along tried, to
make him the scapegoat for their own mistakes. Costa
published his correspondence with them in the news-
papers : —

59 ECCLESTON SQUARE, April 26, 1862.

DEAR SIR — My attention has been called to several
statements in the public newspapers, reflecting upon me as
to the performance of Dr Bennett's music at the opening of
the Exhibition ; and as it appears to be the object of the
writers to induce the belief that I have through caprice or
some other unworthy motive, created embarrassment by
1 suddenly ' declining to conduct Dr Bennett's composition,
and virtually violated an engagement previously made
between me and Her Majesty's Commissioners, I must
request that you will favour me by recalling to the recollec-
tion of the Commissioners that, at the very outset, when
I was first consulted on the subject of the musical arrange-
ments, early in July last, I made it a distinct condition of
my services being available, that I should not be expected to
conduct any work of Dr Bennett, if he should be invited to
furnish one for performance on the occasion of the opening,
as I must, for reasons which were explained to the Com-
missioners, positively decline, with their complete assent, to
do so.

Under these circumstances, I shall esteem it as a favour
if the Commissioners will relieve me from the imputation
now cast upon me, by admitting the facts to be as I have
stated above. — Believe me, dear Sir, &c., &c.

M. COSTA.
F. R. Sandford, Esq., &c., &c.

EXHIBITION BUILDINGS, April 28, 1862.

DEAR SIR — In reply to your letter of Saturday, Her
Majesty's Commissioners desire me to express their regret
that you should have experienced any annoyance from the
unfounded reports to which you refer, and to state that
your letter gives a perfectly correct account of the condition
which you laid down with respect to any work by Dr
Bennett at the opening of the Exhibition, when you kindly

316 The International Exhibition of 1862 [CH.

undertook to direct the musical arrangements for that
occasion.

I am to add that Dr Bennett, when applied to by Her
Majesty's Commissioners, declined either to conduct his own
chorale, or to name any one whom he would wish to do so,
or finally to state whether he would prefer that his work
should be entrusted to Mr Alfred Mellon or to M. Sainton,
when the Commissioners offered to invite either of these
gentlemen to fill his place in the orchestra.

Under these circumstances, the Commissioners, knowing
the confidence that you place in Mr Sainton, and the posi-
tion which he fills in your staff, invited him to conduct Dr
Bennett's work ; and they have much satisfaction in think-
ing that it is now in the hands of one so well qualified to do
justice to its merits.

I am, dear Sir, &c., &c.,

F. R. SANDFORD.
Michael Costa, Esq., &c., &c.

The Daily News thus commented on the above letters : —
' * * * Mr Costa certainly shows that there has been no
ambiguity or vacillation on his part. As early as last July
he announced his intention not to conduct any music of Dr
Bennett's, and he has consistently adhered to it. This, as
we read his letter, is all the merit he claims.

' Mr Sandford, on behalf of the Commissioners, accepts
and confirms Mr Costa's representations, and adds an
explanation which does not seem to be called for by any-
thing in Mr Costa's note, but is apparently put in for the
benefit of the Commissioners themselves. The Commis-
sioners are anxious to make it known that having made
a secret arrangement to the prejudice of Dr Bennett, they
subsequently tried to make him a party to the arrangement.
It cannot, we think, surprise any one that Dr Bennett
declined their invitation to name a conductor and left the
responsibility on the right shoulders.'

When the Commissioners' letter to Costa appeared in
print on April 29, Bennett immediately went off to see their
Secretary. He, too, had now some questions to ask. A few
days later, he was requested to send his questions in writing.
This he did, adding : — ' I put these questions in a formal

xxn] Bennett asserts himself 317

manner according to the wish of Her Majesty's Commis-
sioners. The answers to them are necessary to me, as
I find the public have derived an erroneous impression,
prejudicial to me, from your letter to Mr Costa which he
published in The Times of the 29th ult. My feelings were
certainly not considered in that letter, as I have really done
nothing more nor less than the Commissioners invited me to
do, and am in no way responsible for anything disagreeable
which has happened.'

The Commissioners did not reply to Bennett's questions
with the same alacrity that they had shown in the case of
Costa. They did not give to the one the same chance, if
he was wishing to take it, as they gave to the other, of pub-
lishing a pair of letters while public interest was still rife.
Until Bennett pressed them for a reply, they did not
answer him at all. Three weeks after his interview with
the Secretary, he received the following halting apology : —

EXHIBITION BUILDING,
May, i862l.

DEAR SIR,

In reply to the enquiries contained in your letter of
the 6th inst. I am directed by Her Majesty's Commissioners
to state that they regret that it would appear that you were
not made acquainted with the condition, under which
Mr Costa had accepted the post of conductor of the musical
performances, when you were invited to compose a chorale
for the opening ceremony — and that it would seem that
until the day named by you, you did not receive any inti-
mation that you would be expected to conduct your own
piece, although a statement to that effect appeared in some
of the public journals in the month of July, 1861.

I am, Dear Sir,

Yours very truly,

F. R. SANDFORD.
Professor Sterndale Bennett.

1 The letter does not give the day of the month, but Mrs Bennett endorsed
it as received on May 20.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A YEAR OF CONTRASTING IMPORTS.

INSTALLATION OF THE CHANCELLOR AT CAMBRIDGE.

JUBILEE OF THE PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY.

DOMESTIC BEREAVEMENT.

1862.
set. 46.

THE year 1862 was very interesting to those who desired
Bennett's advance towards a still wider recognition. Up to
this time — he was in his 47th year — he had only received
one commission to write music for an important public
occasion, viz. for the Leeds Festival in 1858. It was con-
trary to his nature to canvass for opportunities of publicity
as a composer, and he had not been drawn out by the
invitation of others, to prepare works wanted at fixed times.
But the calls which now came to him, and the readiness
with which he responded to them, led his friends to hope
that such calls might for the future reach him more fre-
quently, so that the act of composition might be less at his
own discretion than in the past. This hope, however, was
not realized. He only received in later years one other such
invitation. Therefore the time now passing remained, in
this respect, exceptional. It had another feature, which
marks it as a serious period of his life. The season of 1862
provided him with a very closely-knit series of engagements.
From March 3, the date of the first Philharmonic rehearsal,
until the beginning of August, his time was measured by
minutes rather than by hours. This was a dispensation by
which his mind was relieved from the full pressure of a more
painful burden. A cloud of sorrow was gathering above his
hearth, and as he worked, he was all the while conscious that

CH. xxm] IVork at High Pressure 319

the year, before its close, must prove the saddest he had
known.

While finishing his music for the Exhibition, he was
constantly superintending rehearsals of the St Matthew
' Passion ' for a performance on May 24. That perform-
ance, as compared with those previously given, gained much
through the masterful rendering of the Tenor part by Sims
Reeves. The singer found here an opportunity of displaying
his genius and his highly cultivated musicianship to an extent
which surprised many who thought themselves already well-
acquainted with his powers. In view of the same occasion,
Bennett saw through the press, and wrote a Preface for his
English edition of Bach's work1. Proofs of ' The Chorale
Book for England ' were at the same time passing to and
fro between Mr Otto Goldschmidt and himself. He con-
ducted the eight ordinary concerts at the Philharmonic,
with an extra one given to celebrate the Society's Jubilee.
He also conducted the annual performance for the benefit
of the Royal Society of Musicians, a concert for the Society
of Female Musicians, and the Grand Matinee given by
Mrs Anderson on her retirement. His old pupils valued
his assistance at their concerts, and he liked to give it ; so
this year he conducted his Exhibition Ode for W. G. Cusins,
and played, with Joachim, Bach's Sonata in E major for
Harold Thomas. In the course of the same season,
business called him to Cambridge on nine days. The
musical arrangements for the Installation of a new Chan-
cellor of the University, which included a performance in
the Senate House and a concert in the Guildhall, were
entirely in his hands, and it is well-remembered that the
engagement of eminent singers and of an efficient orchestra
for two days in Cambridge, during the height of the
London season, gave him much personal trouble, and
involved late visits to the Opera House after his day's
work was done. As a judge of musical instruments at the
Exhibition he attended many meetings. He gave much
consideration to composition. An Ode for the Installation
at Cambridge followed closely upon that which he wrote for
the Exhibition. The Jubilee of the Philharmonic Society
claimed another work from his pen. Though with all this

1 For later proceedings of Bach Society, see Note, Appendix A.

320 The Year 1862 continued [CH.

his usual time-table was no little disturbed, he managed, in
the twenty weeks between the dates named above, to teach
the pianoforte for exactly 600 hours. The reader is asked
to excuse the details. They may help to upset a tradition,
the result of false report, that ' Sterndale Bennett was such
a lazy man.'

The Duke of Devonshire was elected to succeed the
Prince Consort as Chancellor of the University of Cam-
bridge. The preparations for his Installation brought
Bennett into a close and delightful association with Charles
Kingsley, whose acquaintance he had first made in 1848 at
Queen's College, Harley Street, and whom, since 1856, he
had occasionally met in Cambridge. It was now Bennett's
province to set music to the Ode which Professor1 Kingsley,
at the request of the University, had undertaken to write
for the ceremony of Installation. The obligation of furnish-
ing music for poetry which a composer does not choose
himself, and which he must accept without demur, is no
light one. That Bennett, on the one or two occasions
when he had to face this duty, should feel some anxiety is
not to be wondered at. But it might cause surprise, and it
came as a surprise to himself, that a distinguished poet of
that time should look round the question, and try to consider
it from the musician's point of view as well as from his own.
Extracts from Charles Kingsley 's letters to Bennett will
show his careful consideration for the composer, his un-
conventional idea that the work should, as far as practicable,
be the work of two minds acting conjointly and concurrently,
and his generous wish to bend his thoughts in any direction
suggested by his fellow-worker. Bennett was soon relieved
of any preliminary fear as to the form or character which
the Ode might take. He was not asked to find pompous
strains. Charles Kingsley shrank from what he called the
'high-felutin2' panegyrics of earlier Odes. Poetry and
Music had no need to remind the members of the Uni-
versity, on the day they welcomed their Chancellor, of the
almost unparalleled Academic distinctions which he, as
Mr Cavendish, had gained at Cambridge. Bennett found
the ideas, the metres, and the words of his colleague quite

1 Regius Professor of Modern History.

2 This expression, on its first introduction, was variously spelt.

xxin] A Poefs Modesty 321

congenial to his own modes of expression, while the letters
which came with them from Eversley Rectory were very
inspiriting. He later said that if anything would induce
him to write an Opera, it would be the possibility of
another partnership with Charles Kingsley.
On March 5, Professor Kingsley wrote : —

* I believe it better to find the music first and set
the words to them, as dear Tom Moore did, and that I should
like to have done. But as you can understand my words ;
and I cannot understand your music — unless I had you at
my elbow to render it as you had conceived it — which is
unfortunately impossible — I fear that I must write, and you
must set to music afterwards.

' But if you, on thinking it over, have any clear and
strong conception which you would wish embodied ; I would
come up to you, or — which I should much enjoy — you could
come down and visit me ; and you would find me most glad
to do what I am told — which most poets are not.

Mind, I am not a poet ; and therefore I do not demand
absolute right to have my thoughts stand exactly as I put
them, as poets do now-a-days. If you choose to enter into
partnership with me — (and I think that so we might do
something worthy) I can give to the firm an ear practised
in all sorts of metres and in the meaning thereof — having
made Time a study, which I have often hoped to reduce to
a science. I can give the power of finding a sonorous word
or vowel whenever you want one ; and, I hope sense worthy
of us and our audience. But Poetry in its present meaning
of fancy I possess in a very small degree. I can sing (in
words not with voice) : but I cannot write poetry.

' Will you, then, kindly tell me your conception of what
we ought to say, and I will tell you mine after a few days
thought. * * * '

Bennett could think very little about the Installation till
the Exhibition was off his mind. A few days before the
Opening ceremony on May i, he completed his duty to the
Commissioners by correcting the instrumental parts of his
Ode for the final rehearsals. He then turned his attention
to the next composition, and went to Eversley Rectory on
April 26 for a consultation with his colleague. He returned

s. B. 21

322 The Year 1862 continued [CH.

to London a day or two later much refreshed by the
excursion. When trying to relate to his family the in-
cidents of a walk through the village, the look of wonder
on his face told more clearly than words, how deeply he
had been impressed while observing the cordial relations
that existed, and while listening to the interesting con-
versations that passed, between the parishioners of Eversley
and their Rector. He probably promised to send, on his
return home, some suggestions for the Ode.

On May 14, Charles Kingsley wrote: — 'Are you still
alive? Have you had a fit after the brilliant success of
your May-day Ode ; or has Costa pistolled you in despair
of harming you by any less direct means? If not, dont you
think you can subvenire misero, and tell me what I am to
do for you about the Ode ? Did you receive that first
scene, and the letter I sent with it ? Pray give me the
order for so many yards of bad verse, and you shall have
them : but give it soon, for I am going fishing, * ' * and
can easily finish the Ode when the trout wont rise.'

Bennett did make at least one suggestion for his own
sake. Water-music was a favourite theme with him, and
he asked if the river might be introduced on the scene.
Charles Kingsley adopted this idea, extended it by carrying
on the river to the sea, and thereby wrote one of the most
striking sections of the Ode. On May 16 he wrote to
Bennett : — ' Your welcome letter passed mine on the road,
and here is the first result.

' Will this make a water-song ? I have put it into
quatrains ; and made it end with the words with which it
began, to make it complete. If it wont, send it back and
I'll do something else. Of course leave out the 4 last
lines of 3, or anything else you like; for — "Anything for
a quiet life " is my motto at this moment. I am writing a
fairy tale, your ode, a sermon ; seeing after the parish, and
going a fishing all at once — so where the quiet life is to
come I dont quite see.'

The Installation was fixed for June 10. On May 26,
Bennett left his pupils, went to Brighton, and returned
home on the 3Oth, with the music written for the opening
Chorus. On the same day he received the last instalment

xxni] An Installation Ode 323

of the words. Charles Kingsley wrote : — ' I may alter the
last six lines but not in metre only in words. So that
your music will do for it quite as well.' The last six lines
referred to ran thus1 : —

The composer, however, could not as yet echo the poet's
joyous tone. In the next week (June i — 7), when the
Philharmonic concert on Monday evening was over, Bennett
gave nearly all his time to composition. The Ode com-
prised five Choral numbers, two Airs, and four long
Recitatives. He voluntarily interpolated an orchestral
movement. On the morning of Monday, June 9, he went
up to Cambridge as the guest of the Master of St John's.
On arriving at the Master's Lodge, he at once retired to
his room, wrote a Tenor Song — a lament for the Prince
Consort — and engaged a copyist to prepare the band-parts.
The Ode was then complete, and ready for the rehearsal
in the afternoon. In the evening he conducted a grand
concert in the Guild Hall with the London orchestra and
the singers engaged for the Installation.

Next morning when he appeared in the Senate House
in his figured-silk robes, and took his place in the gallery to
conduct the orchestra, he received an embarrassing ovation.
The undergraduates were quite in their element when
expressing their opinion on the Costa and Bennett con-
troversy. They hailed their Professor of Music with an
uproar of shouting and applause of so long a duration, that
Bennett, who hated being conspicuous, became very dis~

1 This facsimile reduces the size of the handwriting.

324 The Year 1862 continued [CH.

concerted. Mdlle Titiens, who sat by his side, observing
this, but not understanding University etiquette, asked him
why he did not ' turn round and bow and have done with
it.' At length ' Groans for Costa ' having been called for,
and given with keen relish, the Chancellor's procession
entered to the strains of the March from 'Athalie.' The
music to the Ode was full of melody, and Bennett was
warmly congratulated by the Cambridge connoisseurs.
The poet fully shared the honours, though, to the great
disappointment of all, he modestly absented himself.
Bennett wrote to him without delay to tell him of the
' Three ringing cheers for Professor Kingsley.'

Bennett intended to publish the music. He reserved a
numbered place for it in the catalogue of his compositions,
and he corresponded for some little time with Charles
Kingsley on the subject. A Minuet, suggested by the lines

'Alma Mater * * * *
********

Like stately matron gay
Gladly leads the dance adown,'

was issued as a pianoforte Duet, and a Part-Song for male
voices, ' Health to courage firm and high,' reached the
stage of being engraved ; but he took no further steps.
The Minuet, with a Trio added to it, was later placed in
his Symphony in G minor.

A few days after his return from Cambridge, his wife had
an alarming attack of illness. A physician had been con-
sulted early in the year, and had then said that she was
suffering from heart-disease at an advanced stage. Her
husband's anxiety on her account had been intense, and this
more acute seizure, now occurring, caused a delay in his
setting to work on another composition which he had been
asked to write. The Philharmonic Society was to celebrate
its Jubilee by a grand extra concert at St James's Hall on
July 14. On this night the subscribers were to come as
invited guests. Mdlle Titiens, Santley, Joachim and Piatti
promised their assistance. The veteran pianist, Mrs
Anderson, was to make it the occasion of her last appear-
ance in public. Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt, as
a personal tribute to Bennett, postponed an intended
journey to Stockholm, in order to take part in the concert.

xxin] The Philharmonic Jubilee 325

The band was to be largely augmented to give effect to
music in a room which, though already in use for
Chamber-music, was regarded by many as too large even
for orchestral performances. A long programme of thirteen
items was drawn up. Extra rehearsals were necessary, and,
in the preparation for so important an event there was, of
course, plenty to occupy the Conductor.

But Bennett, according to promise, had the further duty
of writing a new work for the occasion. In the first days of
July, he began a descriptive orchestral piece (afterwards
styled ' Fantasie-Overture '), taking Moore's ' Paradise and
the Peri ' for its subject. He did not feel sure that he could
write it there and then, but he was determined to keep his
promise, and said that if he could not get on with that
particular work he would lay it aside in time to write at least
a Festal March. He used every spare hour, and was obliged
to give up a few days' teaching. Mrs Bennett was at this
time entirely confined to her room. He wrote much of
the Overture at a table placed by the side of her couch.
The music is certainly not far off from being the most
beautiful he ever conceived. Maybe, the circumstances of
the time lent themselves to that result. A bystander one
day watched a great tear slowly collecting in his eye until it
suddenly dropped on his score whilst he continued to write.
He calculated the hours at his disposal with accuracy. His
manuscript is subscribed, 'July I4th, 7 a.m.' Then the
engravers completed the orchestral parts in time for a long
rehearsal of the Overture and other works, over which he
presided later in the day. What remained of the afternoon
sufficed for him to give two pianoforte lessons, and the same
evening he conducted the Jubilee Concert which lasted till
midnight. That was a long and arduous day for a so-called
' lazy man.'

The end of the season found him in the possession of
a silver salver presented by the Philharmonic Society, and
of an equally beautiful gift which had been subscribed for in
Cambridge as a thoughtful return for his trouble in arranging
the Installation Concert. The Duke of Devonshire, in due
course, wrote a full expression of thanks for the music to
the Installation Ode, and according to established precedent
enclosed a handsome 'honorarium.' Bennett would have

326 The Year 1862 continued [CH.

been justified in expecting, though he never mentioned the
subject, that the Commissioners of the Exhibition might
find time to append their signatures to some document
acknowledging what he had done for them. They did,
however, direct their Secretary to act for them, and he
accordingly wrote a short and polite note of eight lines.

Bennett remained in London till the middle of August
to make up arrears of lessons. Then, as his wife seemed
a little better, he was advised to take her to Eastbourne.
Thence she wrote on August 18. ' Dear Sterndale's
holiday is a dull one, but he will not allow this, and says he
enjoys the rest and being able to nurse me.1 In the middle
of September, it became doubtful whether she could ever
return home, but an invalid carriage was obtained, and
a very anxious journey accomplished. At the end of the
month Bennett wrote to his Aunt : —

' We are very much obliged to you for your kind letter.
My poor Wife is indeed in a very bad state, but we are safe
at home again which is a very great comfort. My wife's
mother is with us, which allows me to follow my usual life,
feeling I have some one responsible at home when I am
obliged to leave the house. Nevertheless, my life is one
of great anxiety. I nurse1 till nearly five o'clock in the
morning, and leave home before half-past eight, and am
obliged to remain out many hours. If you could fix a day
to come up and see us, my wife would be delighted to see
you, as she often talks of you. We have the best advice,
and I sincerely trust things may be alleviated, but you will
see a great invalid when you see my poor wife. * * * How
many will miss her when she is taken ! '

Mrs Bennett died on October 17, in her thirty -eighth
year. For more than eighteen years of married life, she
had, without neglecting any family or domestic duty,
assiduously yet very unobtrusively done all in her power to
help her husband forward in his professional career. It was
her habit to spend hour after hour every day, during his
prolonged absences from home, in arranging and supple-
menting what he himself did. She conducted a large

1 This was actual nursing ; the patient requiring to be carefully supported
in order to obtain any continuous sleep.

xxin] Death of his Wife 327

correspondence, and interviewed the ever increasing stream
of former pupils and other visitors who came for his advice
or assistance. She so completely identified herself with his
concerns, the charm of her personality so clearly reflected
his own, her disposition was so generous and helpful, that
few failed to accept her in place of her husband, or to take
from her the counsel that they could not get from him. She
attracted the confidence of influential persons whose path
she crossed when managing her husband's affairs, and
thereby her own influence was strengthened. She worked
zealously for charitable objects. She also did much to
aid young people, musical or otherwise, on their first start in
life, establishing what Bennett used to call her 'agency.'
She had correspondents amongst her husband's friends in
Germany, who looked for her help and returned their help to
her, in such negotiations. Full of sympathy, full of anxiety
for others, when failing health, long before her death, clearly
asserted itself, no persuasion of others could induce her to put
on one side, while any strength remained, even the slightest
of those duties which she had always, with so great
a thoroughness, discharged. The words, ' How many will
miss her when she is taken ! ' which Bennett wrote to his
Aunt, and again the words ' Many knew and loved her '
which he placed on her tombstone, were used, with concise
expression but comprehensive meaning, and were used by
a man who, at a time of great grief, could think of others as
well as of himself. But it may be added that though loved
for her own sake, her well-known devotion to her husband,
and her partnership in his laborious pursuits gave an inde-
pendent cause for the wide respect she gained. A letter of
condolence from the Philharmonic Society will illustrate the
general feeling of Bennett's professional brethren about her,
and about the loss they well knew he would sustain by her
death.

LONDON, Nov. i$th, 1862.
DEAR PROFESSOR BENNETT,

We the Directors of the Philharmonic Society
for the last and the present year desire to join, as your sincere
and affectionate friends, in expressing our deep sympathy

328 The Year 1862 continued [CH. xxm

with you in the great calamity with which you have been
afflicted, the loss of your excellent wife. We all know how
long and happy your union has been, and how much your
happiness was the fruit of her amiable character, good
sense, and beautiful performance of every duty, and we can
therefore understand how strongly you must feel so sad a
bereavement.

But we also know that you will bear it like a man and
a Christian, that you will not mourn like those who are
without hope, and that you will (if possible) redouble your
exertions for the sake of those dear pledges whom she has
left to your care and protection.

Trusting that you will not regard this expression of our
feelings as an intrusion on the sacredness of your sorrow,

We are with every respect and esteem,
Your most sincere friends,

G. F. ANDERSON.
[&c., &c., &c.]

Bennett's Aunt at Cambridge, though proud of her
nephew on his own account, said with emphasis in her
old age, and long after he had passed away : — ' It was his
marriage that was the making of him.' He himself would
have made no reservation, either by word or by thought,
to that opinion. After his wife's death he sealed up, as a
sacred symbol of his indebtedness, the ' teaching-book ' in
which her last entries were made, and then wrote on the
first page of a new one, ' May I never forget all the help
and affection I have ever received from the best and dearest
of wives.'

CHAPTER XXIV.

HE FACES SORROW.
A SYMPHONY IN G MINOR.

VISIT TO LEIPZIG.

THE PROFESSORSHIP OF MUSIC AT EDINBURGH.
HE RESIGNS THE PHILHARMONIC CONDUCTORSHIP.

1862—1866.
set. 46 — 50.

BENNETT bravely faced the altered position in which his
wife's death placed him. He sought solace in a determined
effort to make her presence felt, and to keep his memory of
her as a pervading influence of his life. He spoke of her
constantly, at first with effort, but soon naturally and with-
out reserve. He resolved, as he said, to remain grateful for
a happy past. He felt additional responsibility as a parent,
and though it could not be possible to increase the affection
he had always shown to his children, he now gave much
thought to the plans for their education, increased the in-
surances on his life, and, as far as he could, the hours of his
work, so that during the next two or three years, notwith-
standing the loss of his wife's services, he managed to in-
crease his income. He was his own housekeeper during
those years. He parted with his daughter, then very young,
and placed her for her education in a clergyman's family at
Oxford, but it so happened that, nearly to the end of his
life, one or other of his three children in turn resided with
him, and his wife's mother, Mrs Wood, usually visited him
for six months of each year. The arrangements of his
house had always been a hobby with him, nor did he find
minor domestic duties beneath his notice. He strove to
keep everything in the same order in which his wife had
left it. Faithful servants were always found anxious to
study the wants of a gentle and considerate master.

Though his house could no longer be the rendezvous for

330 1862 — 1866 [CH.

many, his intimate friends vied one with another in showing
him attention. Madame Lind-Goldschmidt, in a letter in-
viting himself and his children to spend a quiet Christmas at
Wimbledon in 1862, wrote : — ' I have all1 since your great
sorrow came upon you had a great desire to see you and
shake hands with you, but — as I have not been able to be
out for these last seven weeks — I have not had my desire
fulfilled. But I have often and warmly thought of you ! it
is but natural that I should so feel towards you for more
than one reason, for a nature like yours has a deep attrac-
tion for me ; add now to this the kind delicacy with which
you have treated my husband these three years — your co-
operation with him in a work that so profoundly touches the
most religious and musical chords of my soul, and you will
find the key to the whole of my sincere regard and friend-
ship for you. Therefore, I ask if you would not let me
have this longed-for shake of hands on Xmas eve or on
Xmas day.'

The writer possesses a memento, touching by its sim-
plicity, of the friendship between Madame Lind-Gold-
schmidt and his father. When Bennett was at Ashford
in Derbyshire, in 1860, he entered the village shop, and,
before speaking about his own forefathers to the old man
who kept the shop, made a purchase of a bundle of rather
large lead-pencils. These proved to be of very good
quality, and he afterwards used them for teaching purposes,
making each pencil last out a year. At the end of the year
he would present the remaining stump to one of his family,
or to some intimate friend as a kind of humorous keepsake.
One of the first must have been given to Madame Gold-
schmidt. She may, perhaps, have asked for the funny little
souvenir, and so have given him the idea of presenting the
same to others in later years. After her death the pencil
was found amongst her things wrapped in paper on which
she had written in Swedish, ' Dr Bennett's pencil, which
he used when at work on The Chorale Book'

On removing to Inverness Terrace in 1859, Bennett
made the acquaintance of a neighbour, Mr Robert Case,
a member of the London Stock Exchange. Mr Case had
spent the greater part of his life in Liverpool, where, as an
amateur of music, he had mixed with some of the first

1 sic ; a word may have been omitted.

xxiv] The Athenceum Chib 331

artists of the day. He understood Bennett's position as a
musician, and was already an admirer of his music. The
kindness shown by Mr and Mrs Case during Mrs Bennett's
illness was unremitting, and Bennett now found in their
friendship great present comfort and the beginning of much
future happiness. Of older family friends, the Ferraris also
lived near, and never ceased to show their affection, while
his schoolfellow, William Dorrell, and his publisher, Lam-
born Cock, spent their Sundays with him and often accom-
panied him on the weekly visit to his wife's grave.

In February, 1863, the 'Athenaeum,' under their well-
known Rule II1, paid honour to music and to Bennett by
electing him a member. This was a recognition which a
musician could value in the interests of his art, as well as on
his own account, and Bennett had good reason to be proud
of it. Mr George Richmond, R. A., who proposed Bennett's
name to the Committee, wrote to him after the election : —
' It was very near my heart that our Club should be en-
riched by a musician, and it was fortunate that I was able
to point to one whose reputation none can doubt, for it is
more than probable that among the twenty-four members of
the Committee, not one would be fully capable of estimating
the claims of a great musician. I frankly disclaimed that
power myself, so that you are indebted for your election by
the Committee simply to your great reputation as an Artist,
and if I may be permitted to say so much, to your high
character as a gentleman.'

The year 1863 passed without any incident that could
disturb Bennett in a time of sadness. The season brought
its usual round of duties but none of an exceptional kind.
The death of the Prince Consort, and the necessarily retired
life of Her Majesty, shed for some time a certain sombre-
ness on all public proceedings. The Philharmonic Society,
however, welcomed a new Patroness in the Princess of
Wales, who, with the Prince, attended two consecutive
concerts. A second visit in one season was unusual, but
it was understood at the time that the Royal party paid it
expressly to hear Beethoven's music to Egmont. This
was the work which had been the cause of disagreement
between the Directors and Bennett some years before. The

1 Under Rule II, the Committee of the Club annually invite nine men of
distinction to become members without the usual Ballot.

332 1862 — 1866 [CH.

present production was due to the influence of the late
Prince Consort, who, before his death, had named it as a
work he should desire to hear at the next concert of the
Society which he might attend. The words, ' By Special
Desire,' heading the programme, had, therefore, on this
occasion, something beyond their conventional meaning.

In noticing the concerts of this season, The Times made
several references to the progress of the new orchestra,
giving the Conductor the credit of having ' created ' it.
The following passage concisely expresses the difficulty
which the Philharmonic had encountered when their old
orchestra was withdrawn : — ' Professor Sterndale Bennett
deserves infinite credit for the manner in which he has dis-
ciplined what, two years ago, was, for the major part, little
better than an army of raw recruits.' On May 25, Bennett
took the orchestra to Cambridge and conducted a ' Univer-
sity Subscription Concert.' The success of the concert
given the year before at the time of the Installation had
raised a hope that a similar one might become an annual
occurrence. It was found, however, that the time was not
ripe, and no subscription adequate for such a purpose was
forthcoming in the University and town. The failure of
the experiment was a great disappointment to Bennett, as
also to his friend and ever staunch supporter, the Rev.
T. P. Hudson1, Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, who
was for many years justly regarded as the chief represen-
tative of Music among the resident members of the
University.

The summer found Bennett on the Rhine, reviving old
memories, and with his thoughts reverting to Leipzig. A
visit there would involve writing new music. He could not
go empty-handed. Soon after his return from the holiday
on the Rhine, he began to play on the pianoforte the open-
ing section of an orchestral movement in G minor, the first
phrase of which he called 'the waves of life.' This became
the principal movement of a Symphony which he soon after-
wards completed. The tone of the movement reflects the
seriousness of the days in which he first conceived it. Some
of his sacred Anthems belong to the same period.

In the early months of 1864, he wrote and delivered a

1 Afterwards, through change of name, Canon Pemberton.

xxiv] An Orchestral Composition 333

second course of four lectures at the London Institution,
taking for his subject, ' The music for the theatre composed
by natives of Belgium, Italy, France and Germany.' These
lectures, as well as an earlier course in 1858, were much
appreciated, and in subsequent years he was often pressed
to appear again in the same place. He took great pains
over the selection of musical illustrations. He wrote con-
cisely and clearly. His voice was singularly expressive,
and he had an excellent delivery. He always rehearsed his
lectures by reading them aloud to his friend George Hogarth.
His opinions, however, on music and musicians were given
with his habitual restraint, and for that reason the lectures,
which he left in manuscript, are unsatisfying. They give
the impression that he often checked himself just as he
was on the verge of letting out something very interesting.
There are sentences scratched out which confirm this im-
pression. In conversation about music, he often gave similar
disappointment.

While writing this course of lectures, he was also en-
gaged with Mr Otto Goldschmidt in editing, at the request
of Messrs Longmans, a collection of English Hymns and
Hymn Tunes to be published as an Appendix to The
Chorale Book for England. As the Philharmonic season
advanced, he decided to complete the above-mentioned
orchestral work in G minor. The Directors arranged for
its performance at the last concert of the year on June 27.
In his teaching-book, he accounts for lessons missed during
the week before the concert by writing : ' This was a bad
week, as I wrote the whole of my G minor Symphony in it.'
This was nearly true as regards music-paper and penmanship,
but not so as regards the composition itself. To the first
movement he had certainly given much previous thought,
and though, towards the end of the. time at his disposal, he
discarded a very taking second subject in favour of another
which he said was 'more workable,' the movement was
complete in his head and already sketched on paper, as the
subscribed date on the score proves, eight days before the
concert. An engagement then took him to Cambridge. On
his return, he was met at King's Cross, and he then said
that he had just composed a last movement in the train
and could write it out when he got home. The rhythm
derived from the motion of the train may be fancied when

334 i86* — 1866 [CH.

listening to the music, but he said that a rustic fair was in
his mind, and that some pathetic bars, in which the oboe is
prominent, portrayed a disconsolate maid who had lost her
lover in the crowd. For a middle movement he made use of
a Minuet from the Cambridge Installation Ode, to which he
now added a Trio for the brass instruments. In the days of
small concert-rooms these instruments, when used in com-
bination with others, were played in very subdued tones.
When Bennett was considering the effect of his new Trio, he
said in advance: — 'It will surprise the audience to find that
there is a full brass band in the orchestra.' He connected
his three movements together by short ' Intermezzi,' and in
that form the work was played at the Philharmonic. He
had not intended to call it a Symphony, and had written to
Davison begging him not to describe it as such in any pre-
liminary announcement in The Musical World. He added,
' It is little more than a long Overture on a Symphony
plan.' After the rehearsal George Hogarth strongly urged
that it should bear the more important title on the concert-
programme. ' It is a Symphony,' he said, ' and a very fine
one too.' Bennett did not seem to care to argue the point,
and gave way. The concert at which it was played was a
brilliant one. The Prince of Wales was present and warmly
congratulated the Conductor on his composition. The
Princess of Wales witnessed the highly successful debut in
London of her young compatriot, Mr Fritz Hartvigson.
Joachim produced a new Violin Concerto of his own com-
position. Bennett naturally treasured the following letter
— it lies in his album — from his old master.

3 CRAVEN HILL, HYDE PARK,

June 29, 1864.
DEAR BENNETT,

I must congratulate you on your transcendent
success last Monday, not more than you deserved. I was
perfectly charmed with your Symphony, for the beauty of
Composition as well as the truly happy instrumentation. I
thought it went admirably ; no doubt we shall hear it again
early next season with another movement.

I remain,

Ever yours sincerely,

CIPRIANI POTTER.

xxiv] A Grateful Society 335

The Directors of the Philharmonic wrote their thanks
for his ' beautiful ' Symphony, and for his ' liberal and
generous conduct with regard to it.' They perpetuated their
appreciations by engraving them on a silver claret-jug. At
their first meeting in the following autumn they resolved to
ask him to compose another work of the same kind. This
he declined to do, probably feeling that his name had
already sufficiently appeared on the programmes of concerts
which he himself conducted. What he wrote on the subject
may be gathered from the Secretary's reply.

Dec. I4//&, 1864.

MY DEAR SIR,

Your letter of the 8th inst. was duly laid
before the Directors of the Philharmonic Society, who have
desired me to express their satisfaction at your acceptance
of the office of conductor for the ensuing season, and their
deep sense of your generous devotion to the Society in re-
fusing remuneration for the two usually unprofitable con-
certs before Easter. The Directors fully appreciate the
delicacy of the motive which, unfortunately for art, has
actuated you in declining to bring out a new Symphony of
your own during the season, and cannot but consent, how-
ever reluctantly, to abandon for the present the idea of
inducing you to enrich the world of music with another
contribution from your pen. They feel, however, that
they are not justified, in the interests of the Society which
they represent, in acceding to your request that no work of
yours shall be performed during the season, and, indeed, it
is out of their power to give any pledge to that effect.

I remain,

&c., &c.,

CAMPBELL CLARKE (Secretary).
Professor Sterndale Bennett.

Bennett was now planning his intended visit to
Germany, and was in correspondence with his old friend,
Ferdinand David, the Concert- Meister at Leipzig.

336 1862—1866 [CH

LONDON, 50 INVERNESS TERRACE,
November 22nd, 1864.

LIEBER DAVID,

Do not think me ungrateful that I have not written
sooner in answer to your most kind letter. I have been
confused in my plans. My music-publishers have dissolved
their firm and I have been very anxious to know how
I could get my ,symphony (Orchester-stimmen) ready for
Leipzig, and also I have some work at Cambridge which
will keep me in England until the end of the year.

Aber ! I want to see you very much and all my Leipzig
friends, and I could come (I hope and believe) the second
week in January, and in the holidays will make the little
corrections in the symphony which I wish to make, and
send you the Partitur and Orchester-stimmen before then.

I dream always about seeing dear old Leipzig again.
I hope it may be. I dreamt the other night that I had
arrived in the middle of one of your rehearsals, but I could
not find you before the dream was over. You will find me
an old man, but true to you and all my dear friends in
Saxony. If I cannot come, will you still play my Symphony?
It is a very small work, but it would be a great happiness to
me to hear it played by your orchestra.

And now let me thank you vom Herzen for your kind
' Einladung.' Tell Madame David how much it will
delight me to come and abide at your house. I hope you
will forgive me for not having written before. I hope the
Directors will be so kind as to give my Symphony after
Christmas. I will write again soon. Please say everything
kind to Madame David for me, and hoping to see you in
January,

I am, dear David,

Ever your friend,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.
Everything good to
Schleinitz, Kistner, &c.

Bennett started from London on January 6, 1865, and
reached Leipzig on the loth. Many of his friends there
had not seen him for twenty-three years. Their reception

xxiv] At Leipzig once more 337

of him is fixed in the memory of the writer, who had the
privilege of accompanying him, because it was so different
from what he had been expecting to see. The meeting with
David, for instance, at the railway station would have given
no idea of warmth of feeling on either side had it not later
been realized that suppression of feeling was at the moment
necessary to both. David immediately took refuge in
talking about Bennett's music, and between the railway
platform and the cab it was agreed that a final bar must be
repeated, and that the title ' Allegro, Menuetto, and Rondo
Finale/ was preferable to that of Symphony. Other friends
as they one by one met him, seemed to eye him with a
gentle and affectionate curiosity, but words of greeting did
not come easily. His presence among them touched a
tender chord. They associated him with a broken past.
They had never seen him before, save by the side of a
man whom they had lost. An almost silent hour at the
house of Conrad Schleinitz, during which manuscripts of
Mendelssohn were being reverently handled by their owner,
by David, and by Bennett, was singularly impressive. Then
some idea could be formed of the blank that the death of
Mendelssohn had left in the lives of these men.

At t;he rehearsal in the Gewandhaus, Bennett, as a
distinguished visitor, was greeted, according to a pretty old
custom, by a fanfare of trumpets, and at the concert, when
he appeared to conduct his work, the audience received
him with the applause which they strictly reserved as a
compliment to the well-known. He had not been over-
confident about the fate of his music. 'It is a different
matter here to what it is in London,' he said in the train
as he was nearing Leipzig. Nevertheless, he thought this
Symphony one of his best works. Both at the Philhar-
monic and at the Gewandhaus, the arrangement of seats
enabled any one who wished to do so to watch faces and
get some idea of the effect music was making on an
audience. Of applause, Bennett always got his full share,
but there were other signs at the early performances of this
work that it was very effective and gave genuine pleasure.
Whether the composer heightened the effectiveness, when
he later added a fourth (slow) movement, has been ques-
tioned.

s. B. 22

338 1862—1866 [CH.

He passed six days full of interest at the Davids' delight-
ful house in Quer-Strasse. He attended a Ball given by
Madame Brockhaus ; played Sonatas with David to Julius
Kistner, then a confirmed invalid ; made the acquaintance
of Capellmeister Reinecke (who three years later spent
a month with him in Bayswater) ; and paid a flying visit to
Dresden, where he found Julius Rietz. The Students of
the Conservatorium had prepared a concert for him with
a programme selected from his own works. On the last
day, Herr Carl Voigt, who had so often entertained him in
earlier times, invited a large party to meet him at mid-day
dinner. In the afternoon, Moscheles contributed to the
amusement by his grotesque tricks on the pianoforte, and
then the whole company followed Bennett to the railway
station, where a crowd of other well-wishers had assembled
with the object of giving him a good send-off. He stopped
at Cologne, passed a few hours with the genial Ferdinand
Hiller, and heard a performance of 'Joshua.' The playing
and singing was rather spiritless, and Bennett said in
explanation, ' Ah, yes, but they don't understand Handel
here.' The Directors of the Gewandhaus, ' in grateful
remembrance of his presence in Leipzig,' sent him the com-
plete edition of Beethoven's works which had just been
issued by Messrs Breitkopf and Haertel. In the inscription
which the donors placed in the books, they paid a well-
conceived tribute to the Englishman by styling him ' the
zealous fosterer of German music.'

In the autumn of 1865, the house in Inverness Terrace,
in which he had lived very comfortably for six years, was,
perforce, taken from him by the Metropolitan Railway
Company. Houses in Bayswater were difficult to find at
the time, and he had no choice but to buy one larger than
he required in Queensborough Terrace. The removal
caused a good deal of trouble and expense. If this had not
happened, he might have considered a fresh scheme of life
which was suggested to him a few weeks after he had
settled down in his new home. It is some evidence of his
success as Professor at Cambridge, or at least of the respect
in which his name was held there, that he should now be
approached by another University at the suggestion of
a distinguished Cambridge mathematician. Professor

xxiv] The Chair of Music at Edinburgh 339

Donaldson, after holding the chair of music at Edinburgh
for twenty years1, had just died. The Professorship was of
greater value than any similar musical post in England, and
was now sought for by many eminent musicians. Professor
Tait, a Cambridge man who held a chair of Mathematics in
Edinburgh, sounded Bennett on the subject, and then Sir
David Brewster, Principal of the University, wrote :

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH,
October 6lh, 1865.

SIR,

I was about to take the liberty of writing to you
to ask your opinion of some of the leading candidates for
the chair of music in Edinburgh — confidentially, of course,
and for the guidance of myself and other patrons, when
I received a letter from Professor Tait stating that you
would ' delight in the honour of being Professor of Music in
Edinburgh.'

Professor Tait will no doubt write to you again on the
subject, but in the meantime you would oblige me by letting
me know if you would accept the chair if offered to you.

I am, Sir,

Ever yours most truly,

D. BREWSTER.

LONDON, October igth, 1865.

SIR,

Allow me to say that I feel highly gratified that
you should have taken the trouble to write to me in regard
to the vacant chair at Edinburgh.

I certainly did write to my friend Professor Tait that
I should delight in the honour of being Professor of Music
in the University of Edinburgh, but I added at the same
time a broad reason for my not coming forward as a candi-
date, that I feared the risk of failure.

Not believing for a moment that the chair could be
obtained otherwise than by open competition, I failed to
think of many smaller impediments to any change of my
professional life. Since the receipt of your kind note,

1 H. H. Pierson, who obtained the Chair when Donaldson and Bennett
stood for it in 1844, resigned in the following year and Donaldson succeeded
him.

22-

340 1862 — 1866 [CH.

I have tried to come to some decision on the matter, and
with great reluctance say, that even should the University
pay me the high compliment of offering me the chair,
I should from many private and professional reasons, which
I cannot at present control, be obliged to decline it.

Any service which I can offer to you, according to the
commencement of your note, is most heartily given. I have
the consolation of thinking, that in losing the chance of
becoming Professor of Music in Edinburgh, I am not inter-
fering with the hopes of many among the candidates for
whom I have the warmest esteem.

I am, Sir,

Most truly yours,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Sir David Brewster,

Principal of the University of Edinburgh.

x

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
SIR,

Professor Tait and I much regret your decision,
though we are not surprised at it.

You would oblige us greatly if you could give us an
opinion, which of course will be confidential, of the principal
candidates for our chair. * * *

I am, Sir,

Ever most truly yours,

D. BREWSTER.
W. Sterndale Bennett, Esq.

A move from London to Edinburgh would have been
a bold stroke on Bennett's part. The idea of it was attrac-
tive, because he was at this time desiring to escape from
that side of his work which entailed appearance on concert-
platforms, but at the same time, to remain on active service
in any other direction that presented itself. He had long
ago fixed a time-limit to his duty as a conductor. He would
often say that he did not intend to resign his place at the
Philharmonic till he had held it longer than any of his pre-

xxiv] Reticence about Schumann's Music 341

decessors. When he said this he mentioned no names, but,
as a matter of fact, only one predecessor had remained any
length of time. Costa conducted for nine years. When
Bennett finished his tenth season in 1865, he said that his
period of office was complete, and that he felt justified in
retiring. The Directors took his resignation sadly. He
had not the heart to resist their entreaties, so he compro-
mised by agreeing to conduct for one more season.

Bennett's retirement from the concert-room coincided
closely, in point of time, with the general acceptance by this
country of the music of Robert Schumann. In this connec-
tion something may be said about Bennett's attitude or,
rather, his supposed attitude towards that composer. In
days when the taste for Schumann's music was so rapidly
developing here, there was a natural curiosity to discover how
far his English friend shared the enthusiasm. As a result,
Bennett's friends, acquaintances and pupils appear to have
agreed unanimously that he felt little or no love for
Schumann's music. This opinion, however, when the
present writer has seen or heard it expressed, has been
based upon what Bennett could not be got to say rather
than upon any definite statements that he made. Silence
may be construed into disapproval, but with no certainty
in Bennett's case. He was under no obligation to satisfy
curiosity, and was, when under cross-examination, a most
unwilling witness. Schumann happened to be the modern
composer about whom he was most persistently approached,
but enquiries would have found him, at least in his later
years, no less reticent about other contemporaries. A like
caution in earlier life was the probable origin of an erroneous
statement that he lacked appreciation for Chopin, a com-
poser for whose music he undoubtedly had a genuine,
though, may be, not an unbounded admiration1. If he spoke
or wrote about art, he used, as a rule, strictly temperate
expressions — not such expressions as would appeal to
enthusiasts in the hey-day of a new and fascinating cult.
On the other hand, his sayings in praise of music or of
musical performance often betokened, to those who under-
stood his manner, an intense warmth of feeling, while their
brevity and directness served as a guarantee for their abso-

1 See note in Appendix A.

342 1862 — 1866 [CH.

lute sincerity. Mendelssohn was one of those who recog-
nised this and valued not alone his appreciations but also
his occasional reservations. When therefore Bennett, in
his letters to Schumann, wrote that he had been playing the
' Etudes Symphoniques ' 'a great deal and with much enjoy-
ment ; ' when he quoted the bar of ' very great beauty '
which he was repeating ' a hundred times a day ; ' when he
wrote from Leipzig, ' I have seen here for the first time
your Fantaisie Stiicke and they greatly delight me ; ' when
he found the Davidsbiindler ' very charming ; ' and when,
many years later, he wrote to Madame Schumann, ' What
a beautiful work is the Peri ; ' he meant each word he said.
His tongue or pen might at times refuse to express his
feelings, but they never expressed anything he did not feel,
and the above words need no discount because they were
addressed to the composer himself or to his wife. After all
then, even if he were unable, probably on some technical
grounds, to assign to Schumann a place among the greatest
masters of music, the recent discovery of these letters brings
something to set against the idea that Bennett could feel no
love for Schumann's music. As for the silence of his later
life, there was one circumstance which, in relation to
Schumann, specially tied his tongue. In the years when
he was expected to speak, there were few persons who
could keep Mendelssohn's name out of any conversation
about Schumann. Bennett, as the intimate friend of both,
recoiled from disputants who could say little in favour of
the one save at the expense of the other. This fact, of
itself, goes far to explain why Bennett's precise estimate of
Schumann as a composer was and must remain a sealed
letter.

When occasion arose, Bennett took his part in the
performance of Schumann's music with all the affectionate
interest that might be expected. After the first year of his
Philharmonic conductorship, he abandoned, for a reason
already given, any attempt to influence the Directors in
their choice of music. Therefore while he could claim no
further credit for the introduction of new or unknown works,
he had, on the other hand, nothing to do with their exclu-
sion. The cold reception of the ' Paradise and the Peri ' in
1856 may have deterred the Directors from attempting

xxiv] Resigns the Conductors hip 343

other works by the same composer, though in this respect
Schumann did not stand alone. The scant time for re-
hearsal was a strong bar to the satisfactory introduction
of new music, and especially of music in an unfamiliar
style. From 1856 Schumann's name was seldom, if ever,
seen on Philharmonic programmes, until in 1864 his
Symphony in C major was brought forward. The Times
then wrote : ' Professor Bennett took infinite pains with the
Symphony, it was magnificently played, and favourably
received by a large number of the audience.' In 1865,
Madame Schumann revisited England, after some years'
absence, and played her husband's Concerto in A minor at
the Philharmonic. Her visit gave great impetus to the
appreciation of Schumann's music, and The Times, when
reviewing the musical events of the next year (1866),
remarked that Robert Schumann had been the ' sensation '
composer of that year with the directors of concerts. The
Philharmonic took a prominent part in this movement.
The ' Paradise and the Peri ' was again produced under
Bennett's direction, and at the last concert of the season
Alfred Jaell played the A minor Concerto so delightfully,
that the audience was moved to an exceptional display of
approval. This was the last Concerto that Bennett con-
ducted. The Times, in a critique on the concert, wrote :
' Professor Bennett received a loud and unanimous call at
the end, and his reappearance provoked an enthusiastic
demonstration, the feeling of which was in a great measure
derived from the announcement that the learned and popu-
lar Professor is about to retire from the conductorship of
the Society.'

The record of Bennett's career as a conductor needs no
peroration. Tradition gives him no position on this side
of his work comparable to that which it gives him as a
pianist. He was not called to the regular exercise of a
conductor's duties till he was forty years of age, and the
six or eight Philharmonic concerts which he then annually
conducted for eleven years could not nearly represent the
amount of work associated with the notion of a great chef
(forchestre. Nevertheless, he went to the Philharmonic
with a knowledge of and a feeling for the music with which
he had to deal, of an order higher than could be claimed

344 Z2 — /( [CH. xxiv

for other conductors who were doing similar work else-
where in London at exactly the same time. This ad-
vantage may have lost its full effect, because a musician
of high ideals who aimed for the nicer subtleties of inter-
pretation, had in those days a limited chance of riveting
his refinements upon an orchestra which he only met once
a fortnight, for a few months of each year, at rehearsals
which were not much longer than the corresponding
concerts. In any case, however, few denied Bennett very
high rank, while many assigned him the foremost place
among contemporary conductors of classical music in this
country.

The following passage is taken from an obituary notice
of Bennett in The Daily Telegraph : —

' How far his reign [at the Philharmonic] was a success,
and in what degree he brought to the discharge of his
duties the mingled strength and delicacy of a perfect
chef d'orchestre, are questions which, if propounded, would
receive a variety of answers. True it is, assuredly, that in
nice perception of a composer's meaning, and in sympathetic
appreciation of the methods by which it was conveyed, few
conductors could equal Sterndale Bennett. He may have
lacked — nay, he did lack — the firmness, energy, and power
of command that enable a chef d orchestre to animate every
subordinate with his own spirit ; but, assuming that these
merits could not be found united, he at least possessed the
more essential.'

What the Philharmonic Society itself thought of him,
after his work of eleven years, is thus recorded on their
minutes. The Directors met in November, 1866, when
they drafted a long resolution, containing a proposal that if
he would remain, they would appoint an assistant-conductor
to relieve him from any part of the work that he would
name, and a request that he would allow them to announce
that ' at the earnest solicitations of the Directors Professor
Bennett had undertaken to conduct the concerts of the
ensuing season.' But Bennett did not revoke his decision.
Indeed, before he conducted his last concert in 1866, he had
accepted another appointment which substituted new work
for old.

PART V

REPAYMENT OF A DEBT TO
ALMA MATER

CHAPTER XXV.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC.
BENNETT IS APPOINTED PRINCIPAL.

1866—1867.
aet. 50, 51.

IN his last years, Bennett became so closely associated
with the Royal Academy of Music, and the connection so
materially affected the circumstances of his life, that no
account of him can be complete which does not borrow freely
from the history of the Academy itself. It fell to his lot to
save the place from annihilation, to guard and to guide it,
with much discretion, during a critical period of its existence,
and by a devotion and self-sacrifice the extent of which no
one at the time can have realized, to repay fully the debt
he owed to the home of his early life. A long effort, which
severely taxed his powers of mind and body, was at last
crowned with a success for which he alone paid the penalty.
Nothing in his life better deserves record than the self-
denying way in which he ended it.

It was in December, 1864, that the question was first
broached of his returning to the Academy as its Principal.
Charles Lucas, who had succeeded Potter in 1859, was, by
reason of failing health, meditating retirement. Bennett's
replies to one of the Directors who approached him on the
subject show that he was not then eager for the appointment.
He wrote : ' I have yet sufficient interest in the R. A. M.
to be of any service I can, and at any rate to entertain any
proposal you think fit to make me, altho' I say this without
committing myself to a promise.' He wrote again : ' I could
not answer your letter without much more thought. * * *

348 Royal Academy of Music [CH.

You had better not consider me in your plans, but let me
help you as far as possible, when I have time to think.'

The fortunes of the Academy were at a low ebb.
The interest which Lord Westmorland had been able to
excite forty years before had now all but vanished, and
with it most of the subscriptions on which so much had
depended. Poverty had affected the educational results of
the Institution, a fact which was openly admitted by its own
members. Lists of pupils, and the subsequent achieve-
ments of many, prove that at no period were there wanting
some students of exceptional promise ; but as the funds
from which assistance could be given when needed dimin-
ished, such students became fewer, whilst others had to
be admitted for the sake of their fees, without regard to
their ability. Many were withdrawn who could not afford
to complete their course, and could not, therefore, bring
credit on their teachers. The numbers had decreased.
Foreign Conservatoires were attracting, and rival schools
had been started in London. It would have taken a bold
man to believe that in the office of Principal, where he
would be allowed no voice in the general management of
the Institution, he could do much towards its revival.

On the other hand, the Academy had recently met with
one stroke of good fortune. This particular circumstance
was destined to affect Bennett very considerably. In 1863,
a Board of Professors, on which Lucas and G. A. Macfarren
were the most prominent members, drew up a petition for
State aid, and submitted it to the Directors. The Professors
had nothing whatever to do with matters outside their class-
rooms, and such a proceeding, under Lord Westmorland's
rule, would have been regarded as an intolerable liberty.
The present Directors, however, approved of this petition,
and it was forwarded to Mr Gladstone, then Chancellor
of the Exchequer, with the result that a Grant of ^500
was placed on the estimates for 1864. The understanding
was that this money should be spent on the rent of the
Academy house. Government support of music was a
startling novelty ; the Academy's success in obtaining it
attracted notice ; and those who had been long wishing to
establish a national school of music on another site thought
the time had come to bestir themselves.

xxv] The Society of Arts 349

Early in 1865, the Society of Arts, at the suggestion of
Mr (afterwards Sir) Henry Cole, who had since 1852 been
Secretary of the Science and Art Department at South
Kensington, formed a special committee of its members to
enquire into and to compare the state of musical education
at home and abroad. This enquiry, which was spread over
nearly a year, was exhaustive. Many musical experts,
including representatives of the Academy, were examined.
One of the chief questions raised was whether a national
school of music should be started de novo, or whether
the Academy should be adopted as the basis of a larger
Institution. The majority of those examined were in
favour of the latter course ; but the representatives of the
Academy, in giving their evidence, harped, more than it
was wise of them to do, on their own drawbacks and
defects, thus playing into the hands of one or two very
hostile witnesses who spoke of the Institution as 'rotten'
and as 'an old coat past patching.' The evidence, as a
whole, might well give to unbiased judges the impression
that there was little of the Academy worth preserving
except its name. Even this last point was thought open to
question, and witnesses were asked whether they deemed
it advisable for the new Institution to adopt the title of the
old one. Now though the Academy might be regarded as
'moribund,' the term applied to it a little later by Mr Cole
himself, there was one very potent reason for incorporating
it, at least nominally, in any new scheme. It had a Royal
Charter, the Royal Family had always been its Patrons,
and the Prince of Wales, in allowing his name to be used
as President of this Committee of enquiry, had stipulated
that nothing should be done hostile to the Royal Academy
of Music. Mr Cole, during the enquiry, expressed the
opinion that the system now proposed by him for a general
Institution of musical education was compatible with the
existing Charter of the Academy, and that it would be
more desirable to enlarge the action of that Institution than
to form a new one. ' I think,' he added, ' as we have an
Academy with a Royal Charter, and the Queen as its
Patron, and many noblemen connected with it, it would
be an ungracious act to attempt to entirely supersede the
present Institution, until its revival was utterly hopeless. I

350 Royal Academy of Music [CH.

for one should not be disposed to take any part adverse to
the Royal Academy of Music.'

Before the end of the year (1865) Mr Cole was in
correspondence with Sir George Clerk, the Chairman of
the Academy Committee, about a removal of the I nstitution
to South Kensington. The proposal was to give temporary
accommodation at the South Kensington Museum for three
years, during which time subscriptions might be raised for
a special building, or the promise obtained of a permanent
home in the projected Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences.
The reception of the Academy at Kensington required the
sanction of the Commissioners of the 1851 Exhibition, as
also of the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council
of Education. On February 7, 1866, Mr Cole obtained
Lord Granville's consent, and on February 24 the Academy
made formal application for the accommodation. It was
agreed that some changes were to be made in the working
of the Institution, and Sir George Clerk promised that any
changes suggested should be made, as far as the limited
means at the disposal of the Directors would allow.

Much was said during the Society of Arts' enquiry
about the appointment of a Musical Director for the new
or enlarged school, and about the necessary qualifications
of such an official. In February, 1866, Mr Cole obtained
Sir George Clerk's authority to offer the Principalship
to Costa. This shows that Mr Cole was, at the time,
regarding the removal of the Academy to Kensington as
a foregone conclusion ; for, otherwise, he would scarcely
have concerned himself with the choice of its officials.
Costa accepted the post, naming ^1200 a year and a
residence as his terms. This negotiation appears to have
been quite confidential between those who conducted it.
The poverty of the Academy can be taken as sufficient
reason for its failure. The Directors then approached
Mr Otto Goldschmidt, who had for nearly three years been
working for them as a Professor of the pianoforte ; but he,
instead of considering the Principalship for himself, urged
its being offered to Bennett. The latter, after withdrawing
from the Academy in 1858, had listened to none of the
requests sent him to rejoin the staff, and the overtures
made to him in 1864 with regard to the Principalship had

xxv] The Office of Principal 35 1

come to nothing. The Directors were now in no mood
to apply to him again, but Mr Goldschmidt pressed his
point, urged them to allow him to interview Bennett on the
subject, and at last obtained their consent to his doing so.
For a man in Bennett's position the Principalship could
scarcely be regarded as a preferment. No immediate
honour or substantial emolument could attach to it. But
the invitation was not such an appeal ad misericordiam as
that which had reached him fifteen months before. The
removal to South Kensington was now counted on as a
certainty. The development of the Academy into a more
important Institution might follow, so that there was some
prospect of the office now offered becoming in due time a
desirable one. Meanwhile, the duties as at present pro-
posed did not threaten the disturbance of other important
work or of the private teaching on which the security of his
livelihood depended. The Academy could not afford to
ask for much of his time. He was to set aside, for regular
attendance, six hours a week to be spent in supervising
musical arrangements and in giving some instruction. His
presence at concerts and examinations would also be
necessary. A fixed salary of ^150 a year, in addition to
fees for class-teaching, was all that could be offered to him
at the outset. The scheme, as regards hours, would have
been imperfect, had not the Directors supplemented it by
introducing a Vice-Principalship. This office Mr Otto
Goldschmidt consented to fill. The Vice-Principal in the
absence of the Principal would act as his representative,
and one or other of them would be on the spot at stated
times every day. The arrangement promised to be feasible,
and Bennett, in accepting the appointment, saw no reason
either for grave consideration, or on the other hand, for
any congratulatory excitement. He expected that his work
would be of a quiet kind, while a public position which
involved no concert-room appearances struck him as being
a good substitute for the Philharmonic conductorship. It
would have been unwise at the time of life which he had
reached — his fiftieth birthday occurred in the week during
which he was considering the Academy's offer — and after
years of continuous toil, to accept an additional duty if it
promised excessive strain. He foresaw nothing of the

352 Royal Academy of Music [CH.

kind. On the contrary, he had already begun to talk of a
time soon coming, when, if he could not be independent,
he might at least reduce his work, and have more freedom
in the choice of hi&r occupations. For three or four years
he must still go on at high pressure, but chiefly for the
sake of his family, as a letter written just then to South-
ampton will explain : —

THE ATHENAEUM, Feb. \$th> 1866.

MY DEAR SIR,

Accept my best thanks for your kind invitation
to visit you in Easter week.

How much I should like to see your house and your
pictures and the many other attractions which you offer
me ; but alas ! I am in harness ever. My two boys, one
at Oxford the other at Cambridge, come and meet me in
London at the only breathing-time allowed in my incessant
work. It was very kind of you to send me your Hartley
Institute lecture, which I have read through with great
interest, and have forwarded to my brother-in-law, a young
clergyman who takes immense interest in the subject.
What a labour it must have been to you.

Dear old Southampton, I was married there — to one of
the best creatures God ever made — I am getting old now,
looking forward with earnest hope to seeing her again.

If you ever come to London come and find me out at
my new abode 38 Queensborough Terrace Kensington
Gardens Bayswater

Ever yr truly obliged

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

In May, the Lords of the Committee of the Privy
Council on Education gave their consent to the reception
of the Academy at Kensington, on condition that the con-
templated changes in the working of the Institution should
be satisfactory to the Lord President when explained to
him. The same Lords had named two special conditions :
first, that they themselves were to have no financial
responsibility ; and secondly, that the Academy was to
offer scholarships of such amount as would correspond to
the rental value of the premises assigned to it. Indirectly,

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.7 2

xxv] Preparations for Removal 353

therefore, rent was to be paid, and this was a hard bargain,
because the Lords of the Council had ascertained, that the
Lords of the Treasury saw no objection to the removal,
but would, if it took place, withdraw the ^500 per annum
which had been granted as a provision for rent. If, how-
ever, the Academy was ever to find itself included in the
grand schemes floating in the air, this was no time for
hesitation ; so the Directors, on the chance of indefinite
future advantage, passed a resolution on May 31 (1866),
' that the offer of accommodation at South Kensington be
accepted.'

Room could be found at the Kensington Museum for
eighty-four students. Mr Kellow Pye, a Director of the
Academy 1, now drafted a scheme in which it was promised
that twelve of these students should be educated as free
scholars. It was decided that the present thirty-seven Pro-
fessors, an unwieldy body in relation to the proposed number
of students, should all receive notice that their services might
no longer be required. Suggestions which had been made
by Mr Cole and others before the Society of Arts were
adopted. Local examinations were to be held in the
provinces to secure a wide choice of candidates for scholar-
ships. A three-years' course of instruction was to be the
shortest on which a certificate could be granted. Some pro-
vision was to be made for the training of Church musicians
and military bandmasters. The musical executive was to
include a Principal, Vice- Principal, and Chief Professors of
the most important branches of study, and small salaries
beyond tuition fees were to be assigned to these Chief
Professors. The Academy was making itself responsible
for as much as it dared, and for quite as much as could
have been expected by the Kensington authorities, who of
course knew that the institution was not endowed, while
their own condition with regard to free scholars would limit
the number of paying students to seventy-two.

On June 8, Lucas resigned the office of Principal, giving
as his reason that precarious health unfitted him for carry -

1 The Earl of Wilton, the President, Sir George Clerk, Bart., Chairman of
the Committee of Management, and Mr Pye were almost the only members
of the Governing Body who showed active interest at this time in the affairs
of the Academy.

S. B. 23

354 Royal Academy of Music [CH.

ing out the new measures incident on the removal to
Kensington.

At a Directors' meeting on June 22, it was moved by
Lord Wrottesley, and seconded by Mr K. J. Pye, that Dr
Sterndale Bennett be appointed Principal, and Mr Otto
Goldschmidt Vice- Principal. Madame Jenny Lind-Gold-
schmidt, when announcing her husband's appointment to
a friend, wrote : — ' I could only bear to see him under
Bennett, and B. is certainly the only man in England who
ought to raise that institution from its present decay.'
Twenty years later, Sir George Macfarren said to the
Academy students : — ' With the renown that Bennett had
gained as a student and with the interest that gathered
round him as Principal, his holding the highest position at
the Academy proved to be the most propitious event for its
welfare that has ever occurred.'

The new officers were engaged to enter upon their
duties in September, but preliminaries demanded their
immediate attention. They had to draw up a report, to be
submitted to the Privy Council, of their new scheme of
work, and, in connection with this, they had before them
the delicate task of reconstructing the Staff of Professors.
All went well for a month, and an appointment was made
for July 25, when the Principal and Vice- Principal were to
go with some of the Directors to inspect the accommodation
at the South Kensington Museum.

Then the first blow fell : —

July 24, 1866.

MY DEAR BENNETT,

The appointment for to-morrow for South Ken-
sington is put off by Mr Cole.

Yours ever,

K. J. PYE.

The appointment was cancelled only in so far as
Bennett and Mr Goldschmidt were concerned. Mr Cole
on the day named did receive Lord Wilton and Sir George
Clerk, who once more expressed themselves willing to make
any change in the working of the Academy which the Duke
of Buckingham, as President of the Council, might desire.
The Duke received the Directors on July 31, when the

xxv] A Sudden Check 355

removal was further discussed. Great was the surprise and
disappointment at the Academy, a few days later, when
Lord Wilton received from the Duke the following
announcement :—

' I regret to state that the means to secure the efficiency
of the Academy do not appear sufficient to secure per-
manence and success for the altered system. There is
every desire to afford temporary accommodation at South
Kensington Museum as soon as circumstances may permit
it, but it would lead to serious inconvenience and misappre-
hension if the Academy were established even temporarily
at the Museum until the permanence of the new system and
organisation had been really secured. Such a course would
inevitably give rise to a public impression that Govern-
ment had become responsible for the management of the
Academy.'

The Directors did not understand this. The original
offer would have had no meaning unless Mr Cole had stated
the authority on which he made it, and had been able to
explain the immediate improvements which the institution, its
poverty being considered, would be expected to make in its
arrangements. It was thought that an agreement had been
arrived at, and that the removal had only waited for the
formal sanction of the President of the Council. Sir George
Clerk now wrote to Mr Pye of ' the change of determination
on the part of the Privy Council,' and wished to learn the
reasons of it. Both Lord Wilton and Sir George Clerk,
when they saw later that nothing further was to be done in
the matter, felt aggrieved, as will presently appear.

Bennett had no means of finding out what had occurred
by way of hindrance. The postponement of the appoint-
ment for him to see the rooms at Kensington, without any
explanation following, was of itself an injury to his feelings.
In the last conversation which he ever had with Sir George
Macfarren he still spoke of it, although he was then refer-
ring to the treatment of the Academy rather than of himself.
A probable explanation of the sudden check to the negotia-
tions is to be found in a fact which is stated in the Life of
Sir Henry Cole. It appears that Lord Granville, acting for
the Commissioners of the 1851 Exhibition, had consented

23—2

356 Royal Academy of Music [CH.

to Mr Cole's plan of receiving the Academy at Kensington,
but had only done so on the condition that Costa was to be
appointed Principal ; and therefore it can be assumed that
the appointment of Bennett had much to do with, if it did
not entirely account for, the apparent change of front which
Sir George Clerk did not understand. If this was so, it also
follows that it would not be easy to explain the circum-
stances to Bennett, and they never came to his knowledge.
That his appointment did not meet the views of the pro-
moters of a new institution, is confirmed by a broad hint
given by the Society of Arts, who, in forwarding to the
Academy Directors, a month after Bennett had been made
Principal, the Report of their enquiry, solicited special
attention to 'Paragraph 12,' which paragraph urged the
necessity of appointing a musical director of 'proved
administrative ability.'

Bennett was afterwards accused of obstructing schemes
for placing the Academy at Kensington. In the beginning,
at any rate, this was not the case. On the contrary, the
removal being now uncertain, the prospects which had
induced him to accept office were altered, and both he and
Mr Goldschmidt drew back. The Directors, however,
believing at first that the removal was only postponed,
arranged with their landlord for a quarterly tenancy, and at
length prevailing on the new Principal and Vice- Principal
to stand by them, decided to re-open at Tenterden Street
in September. The Directors continued their meetings
and correspondence throughout August. Bennett almost
entirely missed his summer holiday. He remained in town
till the middle of August, while for the rest of the month —
according to a memorandum of his own — he was only ' off
and on at Eastbourne.' Mr Otto Goldschmidt remembered
long days spent this summer at the Academy with Kellow
Pye and Bennett, and how difficult it was to get the
Principal to attend to anything in the shape of lunch. One
evening as they were leaving, the ' posters ' were just
announcing the formation of a new Conservative Ministry.
The fresh list of the Academy Professors was not quite
complete at the time, and Bennett, as he shook hands with
Mr Goldschmidt, laughed and said : ' Well, Good-bye, we

xxv] A United House 357

will go on forming our ministry to-morrow.' He could not
foretell that the change of Government would prove no
laughing matter to the Academy or to himself.

The new prospectus, when drawn up, contained the
names of many eminent native and foreign musicians. It
ought surely to have commanded the confidence of those
who continued to talk, from time to time, of adopting the
Academy. While new names were introduced, old associa-
tions were duly regarded. Lucas, the retiring Principal,
accepted an invitation to remain as a teacher. Bennett
happily invented an office for his old master, Cipriani
Potter, prevailing upon him to regard himself as the
' Honorary Visitor' of the Institution. In accordance with
this idea, Potter, for the last six years of his life, regularly
attended the students' concerts, sitting at Bennett's side,
while — as the writer has been told — the young people in the
orchestra would whisper to each other that they were in the
presence of a friend of Beethoven.

At the Academy itself, Bennett's appointment, whatever
may have been thought of it elsewhere, was unanimously
approved. All rallied round him, as Potter had predicted
in a letter already quoted. He would himself tell a tale of
the confidence placed in him by one of the humbler officials,
an eccentric caretaker whose oddities of speech and
manner did not escape Bennett's ready powers of mimicry.
Benjamin Badman had, in earlier years, ingratiated himself
with Bennett by bringing him cups of tea during afternoon
lessons, and had gone so far as to entrust him, and him
alone, with the secret of his surname. Not long after
Bennett's election to the Principalship, and at a time when
the Directors had decided to close the Academy, he met
the old retainer in the vestibule and said to him, ' Well,
Benjamin, we're all going to be ruined.' But Benjamin
replied, ' No, no, Mr Bennett, if you'll stick by us, ze/tfV/pull
it through.'

The opening of the winter session under the new
arrangements, in September, 1866, found the Directors, or,
to speak more precisely three of them, busily continuing
their efforts to gain external aid, as extracts from their
correspondence will show. Bennett, as Principal, had no
actual part in this ; nor did he, for some little time to come,

358 Royal Academy of Music [CH.

allow himself to take much interest in schemes of doubtful
issue. After the first check in the Kensington negotiations,
his feeling was that the Academy had been slighted, his
confidence in its ever being adopted was shaken, and he
trusted to efficiency within the walls of the Institution as
giving surer promise of future prosperity than indefinite
proposals of outside help. It was no time for day-dreams.
There was plenty at hand to do, work which could be done
with certainty of thereby improving the existing state of
things. Here is an illustration of the simple course he set
himself to pursue. Soon after his election the Directors
summoned him to one of their meetings. They were rather
in the clouds at the time, with a panorama before their eyes
of glittering castles in which they hoped they might reside.
Bennett startled them by begging them to vote, ' that the
Committee- Room1 be cleaned, the ceiling whitewashed and
an estimate obtained for a cheap papering of the walls.'
There was a freshness in the idea. The Academy had not
for years paid attention to such details. The Directors
laughed, but agreed.

Removal to other premises was, however, now their
chief thought. The following is an epitome of their corre-
spondence.

Oct. i, 1866. Sir George Clerk is anxious for the Academy
to be established in the basement of Burlington
House.

Oct. 3. Sir G. C. has been led by Mr Cole to believe that
the Commissioners of the Great Exhibition would
give assistance.

Oct. 24. Sir G. C. thinks that Mr Cole should make some
distinct proposition, and should be told that he had
caused an increased expenditure at the Academy by
holding out hopes of external aid.

Nov. 29. Lord Wilton thinks that the Academy has been
placed in an unmerited position.

Dec. 3. Sir G. C. thinks that the idea of Burlington House
must be given up, the philosophers dreading the

1 The room in which parents and other visitors were received. Mr Otto
Goldschmidt told the writer that the house had been allowed to drift into a
most disreputable state.

xxv] A Round of Appeals 359

proximity of the R. A. M. as Babbage does the
barrel-organ.

Dec. 24. Sir G. C. thinks that Mr Cole should give notice
whether there is any prospect of accommodation at
South Kensington.

Jan. 17, 1867. Directors write to the Commissioners of the
1851 Exhibition asking for ^10,000.

Jan. 21. Lord Derby replies that a site might be given,
but not money.

Jan. 28. Sir G. C. thinks it would be well to see Mr Cole
and get something definite out of him.

Feb. 14. Sir G. C. thinks that all Mr Cole's fine promises
will produce very little.

April 4. The Directors write to the Exhibition Com-
missioners, and would be glad to have some definite
proposition from them whereby progress might be
made for the establishment of the R.A.M. on their
estate.

May 9. The Commissioners, in reply, suggest that the
R.A.M. should continue negotiations with the Com-
mittee of the Royal Albert Hall.

May 20. Sir G. C. begins to despair of getting any assist-
ance through Mr Cole, from the Commissioners of
the Exhibition or from the Treasury, and thinks it
may be absolutely necessary to close the Academy
before the vested capital is quite exhausted.

May 31. Mr Kellow Pye writes a Memorial (adopted by
the Directors) to be sent to Mr Disraeli, who had
replaced Mr Gladstone as Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, setting forth the claims of the Academy and
asking for the present grant of ^500 per annum to
be increased to ^2000.

The result of this last venture was not known for five
months. Meanwhile an Academical year of spirited musical
work was drawing to a close. The memorandum-books
kept by Bennett and Mr Goldschmidt, in which from day to
day, at their alternate attendances, they made their reports
to each other, furnish evidence not only of how well they

360 Royal Academy of Music [CH. xxv

worked together but also of the enthusiasm of the other
Professors and their pupils. The Directors, at the end of
the summer term, went out of their way to address to the
Staff a grateful acknowledgment of their services, and
specially referred to the Principal and Vice- Principal having
consented to retain their offices notwithstanding the failure
of the Kensington scheme. Mr Goldschmidt, as one of his
duties, had taken control of the students' orchestral and
choral practices. On July 24 he conducted a very interest-
ing Prize concert, at which the pupils both as composers
and executants showed to good effect. A special feature of
this concert was a revival of Handel's ' Ode for St Cecilia's
Day ' which Mr Goldschmidt had lately introduced into
Germany at the Lower Rhine Festival. Musically speak-
ing, the house in Tenterden Street was already brightening,
and the doings of the Academy, for the first time for many
years, received favourable notice from the Press.

On July 26, Bennett was at Eastbourne, looking pale and
worn. He had enjoyed no proper holiday for two years ;
nor could he take one now, for he had to complete a sacred
work which was to be performed at the approaching Bir-
mingham Festival.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CAMBRIDGE PROFESSORSHIP.
'THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.'

1867.
set. 51.

THE year 1867 brought from Cambridge gratifying
recognition of Bennett's services. He had held his Pro-
fessorship for eleven years. Among the amateurs who had
gathered round him at the time of his election, some had
now risen to high positions in the University, and wished
to use their influence in placing the proceedings of the
musical faculty on a more settled footing, and also in doing
something for the Professor himself. As the first result of
this movement, the following letter came from the Vice-
Chancellor : —

CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
May u, 1867.

MY DEAR PROFESSOR,

It has been pointed out to me some little time
ago, to my great surprise, that no fee or pecuniary con-
sideration was assigned by the University to the Professor
of Music.

As the Professor has duties to perform of a laborious
kind in regard to degrees in Music, I think such an anomaly
should be rectified, and I would wish, with your permission,
to submit a proposition to the University on the subject,
not that I wish to mix you up in any way with the proposi-
tion, for I think it is an act of justice which ought on
general grounds to be done.

Very truly yours,

JAMES CARTMELL.

362 i86j [CH.

Musical degrees were in more than usual evidence
during the May-term in which the above was written. Two
of the chief resident musicians, J. L. Hopkins, organist of
Trinity, and G. M. Garrett, organist of St John's, were
both proceeding to the degree of Doctor, which had so
far been granted only once during Bennett's Professorship.
The performances of the important exercises required for
the senior degree aroused a great deal of interest, and the
College chapels on both occasions were densely crowded.
It was Bennett's duty to conduct the compositions in the
presence of the Vice-Chancellor and other University
officials.

Pending the decision as to the emoluments of the Pro-
fessorship, a rare distinction was conferred upon him by
the University. The holding of a Professorship did not
give complete membership of the University, and it was
now proposed to grant him the status of a member of the
Senate, and accordingly the Vice-Chancellor wrote to offer
him the M. A. degree. This was conferring, so to speak, the
freedom of the University. A large party of his London
musical friends, including Cipriani Potter, were present in
the Senate- House when he took the degree. Bennett
greatly appreciated the spirit of this friendly act on the
part of the University. When others congratulated him
upon it as an honour he would at once correct that idea,
saying, 'No, it was not an honorary but a complete degree,'
by which he meant that the membership of the Senate was
the main point. The Public Orator in his Latin speech on
the occasion made graceful references to Bennett's musician-
ship, but he gave the real explanation of the award in this
particular case when he spoke of the Professor's 'diligent
and effectual performance of his honorary duties.'

A Syndicate was appointed to report on the ' Proceed-
ings in Music.' This appears to have been the first time
that the University gave any serious consideration to the
subject. The Report, when issued at the end of a year,
did not go very far beyond confirming the course which
Bennett had hitherto pursued, but the personal examination
of candidates was now established by authority ; 'after much
deliberation,' it was found desirable to dispense with the
performance of the Bachelors' Exercises ; and it was ruled

xxvi] In Touch with The Philharmonic 363

that the ' solemn canticum ' could not be construed as re-
ferring alone to sacred music, but that secular compositions
could be submitted by the candidates. The University was
not as yet prepared to disturb the arrangement by which
the Doctor's degree could be granted without that of
Bachelor having previously been taken. The Syndicate
suggested that the Professor should be asked to give
lectures before the University, and recommended that a
stipend of ^100 a year should be assigned 'as long as
Professor Bennett held the chair,' because they considered
' that his services could not with propriety remain any
longer unrequited.'

As in Cambridge, so also at the Philharmonic, the work
of eleven years was gratefully remembered. Though
Bennett was no longer Conductor of the concerts he was a
member of the Society, and remained its faithful ally. The
Directors begged him to do something for them, in the
season succeeding his resignation, to show the public that
he was still in friendly accord with them. His Symphony
in G minor was to be played in course of the season, and
they asked to be allowed to announce that he would add a
slow movement to the work for the occasion. This he did,
developing the piece from a song which he had recently
composed, but had laid aside, owing to some difficulty about
the words. The opening lines of the first verse,

' Tell me where, ye summer breezes,
Are the friends that passed away,

may perhaps be taken as a motto for the slow movement
of the Symphony. He now assigned the melody to the
violas. He went to the Hanover Square Rooms to hear
the movement rehearsed under Cusins, who had succeeded
him as Conductor, and listened from the end of the room ;
but so little fuss did he make over the performance of his
own music that he did not criticise at the time. Afterwards,
he said at home that the violas had not given enough
prominence to their part. A hint, on such a point, might,
one would think, have been given on the spot, but what-
ever he might have done when younger (as, e.g., in the
case of ' Parisina,') it had long ceased to be his way to
influence the playing of his own works.

364 1 86? [CH.

Composition on a larger scale was now occupying his
thoughts. In October, 1864, he had been asked to pre-
pare a sacred or secular work for the Birmingham Festival
of 1867. His first reply begged time for consideration. A
work for Birmingham, of all places, could not be easily
promised. Since the time of Mendelssohn, few composers
had entered the lists. In 1851, an attempt was made, and
was later renewed, to induce Meyerbeer to come forward.
He entertained the proposal, wrote about the difficulty of
finding a subject, and decided that if he did compose a
work, it should be a short one to take up only one part of a
programme. This intention, though Meyerbeer did not
carry it out, might have been quoted as a precedent, when
Bennett was later blamed for not contributing an Oratorio
of the standard length.

To satisfy the requirements of a grand occasion, and at
the same time to tread modestly in the domain of the great
masters of sacred music, would present a great difficulty to
Bennett. It was therefore no dilatoriness, but rather a
justifiable hesitation, that caused sixteen months to pass
before he accepted the invitation. In February, 1866, he
wrote to Colonel Oliver Mason, the Secretary of the
Festivals : — ' If blessed with health, the only condition I
make with your Committee, it will give me great pleasure
to produce a new work at your next Festival. I have found
it impossible to resist the invitation which has through your-
self been given so kindly and thoughtfully upon all points.'
The original invitation, although it made no direct reference
to Costa as conductor of the Festival, was so worded as to
anticipate any difficulty that Bennett might feel on that
ground. The production of the work was to be entirely
under his own direction and control, and he was begged to
give careful consideration to a request which was ' made
with all sincerity. * * * :

Before accepting, he had found in the Scriptural episode
of ' The Woman of Samaria ' a subject which he thought
suitable for his musical treatment. If he wished to write
a reflective and devotional rather than a dramatic work, his
choice was surely a good one. There was one powerful
attraction in it. Sustained conversations in which our Lord
takes part are so rarely recorded in the New Testament,

xxvi] ' The Woman of Samaria ' 365

that few musical works except the great 'Passion' oratorios
have been written, in which His presence and teaching
form the great feature. Before Bennett began his composi-
tion, he said to a former pupil, ' I have had the subject in
my mind for a long time, and think I can manage it, for it
will not require grand Choruses.' If the solemn utterances
of our Lord could be set, the most serious part of the com-
poser's work would be accomplished. Bennett's contem-
poraries, in the result, acknowledged his power of treating
the sacred text with impressive reverence1.

A year before the Festival, his publishers engaged an
eminent writer to prepare the book of words. The librettist
had interviews and correspondence with the composer, but
gave little practical assistance. After some delay, when
he found that Bennett had himself made three successive
editions of a libretto, he expressed his approval of the
result, and retired. No offence was given or taken by
either party, but Bennett was disappointed, for he had
relied upon obtaining some help. It was fortunate, how-
ever, that he had not entirely done so. When the Academy
closed in the summer of 1867, and he settled down at
Eastbourne on July 26, twenty-eight days of hard work lay
before him. Some of the most important numbers of the
score were already written, the subject was well in his mind,
and by the time of the London rehearsal on August 16, all
the music for orchestra and chorus, except a final Fugue,
was engraved. The rest of his time was ample for com-
pleting the other portions of his work. A manifest anxiety
which burdened him during the first few days at East-
bourne, quickly disappeared as the music began to engross
him. He showed no signs of haste, spent much time in
the open air, retired early to rest, and in the first hours of
the summer mornings would work recumbently, though
always up and about in good time. One morning, when
called, he was wide awake and seemed in very good spirits,
but begged for a little respite, saying, ' I am getting on
with my Fugue.'

The Birmingham Committee had appointed Cusins to
conduct the work. This arrangement was most agreeable

1 Vide, specially, W. S. Rockstro's article on 'Oratorio' in the first edition of
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

366 1867 [CH.

to Bennett. Cusins had been one of his most favourite
pupils and was very delighted, as he told the present writer
at the time, to have the opportunity of rendering this par-
ticular service. Cusins went to Eastbourne to go through
the music, and Bennett did not think it necessary to attend
the London rehearsals, but he went to Birmingham in time
for the final rehearsal on August 26. All care seemed to
have been taken for his reception. When Costa had
finished his share in the morning's work, he called for
Cusins and leaving the orchestra retired to the President's
gallery, from which he listened to Bennett's music with
earnest attention. ' I suppose you remember,' writes
Mr Stockley, the Birmingham Chorus-master, ' that your
father at the rehearsal was heartily summoned to the
orchestra by band and chorus, although with characteristic
modesty he wished to remain in the body of the hall.'

The performance of ' The Woman of Samaria ' took
place on the morning of August 28. The deep impression
it made on the audience could be observed, and was duly
noticed by the press. Without the power, or may-be with-
out the desire, of exciting listeners to a high pitch of
enthusiasm, Bennett could cast a spell and rivet attention,
and on this day his hold was complete. The sea of faces
upturned towards the President, Earl Beauchamp, at the
end of almost every number made it no easy task for him to
decide what should be repeated. The soloists were Mdlle
Titiens, Madame Sainton-Dolby, W. H. Cummings, and
Santley. Madame Sainton caused a great sensation by her
singing of the contralto Air, ' O Lord, Thou hast searched
me out. ' Bennett had composed this song on his journey from
Eastbourne to London on the previous Saturday morning.
On his arrival in Birmingham next day he at once took it
to Madame Sainton. She received him rather coldly, as she
had naturally wished to see the music sooner. When, how-
ever, she had sung the song to his accompaniment, she was
so affected by it, that she could not help embracing him.
Both he and Cusins returned to ' The Stork Hotel ' much
touched by her display of sympathy. At the performance,
this number, as also the tenor Air, ' His salvation is nigh
them that fear Him,' sung by Mr W. H. Cummings, and
a six-part Chorus, ' Therefore they shall come and sing,'

xxvi] Costa Implacable 367

which Bennett had borrowed from his early Oratorio ' Zion,'
were redemanded by the President. ' At the conclusion
of the performance, rules and regulations to the contrary
notwithstanding, loud applause broke out from every part of
the hall, in response to which Dr Bennett at length appeared
for a moment at the top of the stairs, and then vanished
with characteristic alacrity.' Although several critics more
or less disapproved of Bennett's choice of subject, they all,
save one, wrote most appreciatively of his music, and this
the same writers or their successors were still doing twenty-
one years later, when ' The Woman of Samaria ' came of
age at a Hereford Festival.

A small party of Bennett's intimate friends went down
to Birmingham for the day, expressly to hear the new work.
Charles Lucas was one of them. As he had been con-
cerned, nineteen years before, with the unfortunate quarrel
between Costa and Bennett, he now desired to seize a
chance, which the present proximity of the two men seemed
to give, of effecting a reconciliation. After the performance
of ' The Woman of Samaria,' he went to the artists' room
and begged Costa to shake hands with Bennett. The only
reply was, ' Lucas, remember 1848.' Costa looked exceed-
ingly angry when he was making ready to go up and con-
duct the rest of the morning's programme, and the writer
has been told that the mere mention of Bennett's name in
his presence was sufficient to produce that effect. He re-
mained consistent to the end. At the time of Bennett's
death, he would not listen to Sir George Macfarren's
earnest appeal that he should sign a petition for an inter-
ment in Westminster Abbey. He delegated the baton to
Sainton, when the ' Dead March ' was played ' in
memoriam ' at a concert of the Sacred Harmonic Society.
Time, which hardened Costa, softened Bennett. On one
occasion, the latter was being pressed by others to express
some opinion on Costa. At last, he said, ' He is an im-
placable man,' and there he stopped. As a rule, if any
conversation to Costa's disadvantage went on in his hear-
ing, he would only join by harking back to the early
days when they had frequently met at the house of the
Seguins, and he would often close such a conversation with
the set phrase, ' All I know is that when I was young, I

368 1867 [CH. xxvi

used to think he wrote very pretty music.' He certainly did
not allow those who lived with him to inherit from himself
any animosity against his foe. Whether Costa's hostility
to Bennett was based entirely on the incident of ' Parisina '
in 1848, is open to some doubt. Weist Hill, the first
Director of the Guildhall School of Music, but previously
a leading member of Costa's orchestra, told one of Bennett's
former pupils, that he knew the malign influences which had
been at work to keep Costa and Bennett apart.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A CRISIS AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC.

1867—68.
set. 51, 52.

AFTER the Birmingham Festival, Bennett was able to
indulge in a fortnight's holiday. This he much enjoyed,
spending the time with his daughter at Eastbourne and
Brighton. Mr W. C. Stockley, the Birmingham Chorus-
master, came across him in Eastbourne, and found him
very grateful for the fine performance of ' The Woman
of Samaria.' This holiday, though none too long, was
opportune. It was a breathing-space between the fulfil-
ment of a duty as a composer and the arrival of trouble
from another source.

When the Academy re-opened in September, 1867, the
Directors were expecting an answer to their petition for
increased aid from the Government. In a circular sent
by them to the Professors during the vacation they stated,
that while they had feared the necessity of closing the in-
stitution, a deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
had met with a reception so favourable as to lead them to
expect the larger Grant. Their hope, however, was not
realized. In October the news came that the present
allowance of ^500, instead of being increased, would be
withdrawn. The Lords of the Treasury wrote in explana-
tion that they were about to consider what steps should
be taken ' to establish a cheap system of musical instruction
under some department of the Government.' Since advice
on a musical question would probably reach Mr Gladstone
and Mr Disraeli from different sources, it is conjectured

S. B. 24

370 A Crisis at the Academy [CH.

that the change of Ministry had turned the scale in favour
of those who regarded the Academy as a stumbling-block
in the way of new schemes. The Academy authorities
only saw one issue, as regarded themselves, of Mr Disraeli's
decision. Lord Wilton considered it ' the death-blow to the
Academy.' Sir George Clerk wrote, 'The Academy must
be closed without delay.' The Directors met on Nov. 20,
and, though too few of them were present to form a
quorum, resolved, ' that in consequence of the Treasury
letter, the Academy would be closed in March [1868],
and that a letter should be addressed to the Queen placing
the Charter at Her Majesty's disposal.' A few days later,
Lord Wilton wrote to a fellow-Director : 'If anything
could be more annoying than, under the present greatly
improved position of the Royal Academy of Music, to be
obliged to close the institution, it is the circumstance of
the want of interest or necessary absence of the Directors
at such an important crisis in its affairs rendering it in-
cumbent upon those few who were present to take the
responsibility of action in the matter.'

At this extremity, Bennett came to the rescue. He
had been invited to attend the Directors' meeting. A few
days after that meeting, he wrote : —

38 QUEENSBOROUGH TERRACE.

November 24, 1867.

MY DEAR PYE,

As a very old friend I cannot disguise from
you that I feel myself to have been in the wrong position
at the Directors' meeting on Wednesday. When I was
invited to meet the Directors, according to the Secretary's
note of some three weeks since, I certainly thought it
probable that I should be asked to take part in the dis-
cussion whether the Academy should close or not. Instead
of that, I was called into the Committee-room when the
deliberations were over, to have the bare fact announced
that the Academy was to be given up. I am still of
opinion, though I stood alone at the meeting, that the
Academy could be kept going on until July, so as to give
further time for reflection. It is a consolation to me that
even the smallest opportunity occurred to allow me to

xxvn] Praying for a Respite 371

raise my voice in favour of the old place. Your activity
and zeal I know full well, and you will not believe this
personal. I have been obliged to write, to get the thing
out of my mind, as far as I can.

Believe me, My dear Pye,

Ever yours sincerely,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Bennett could not get the thing out of his mind. He
saw and seized a chance of saving the Academy. The
Directors, of themselves, were really powerless to avert its
doom. With them it was a simple question of how long
funds would last out. Bennett called the Professors to-
gether, and found them ready to follow his lead by offering
their services for the summer term, without regard to
remuneration, if the Directors would consent to postpone
the closing from March to July. The Directors demurred
to accepting the Professors' offer. They knew that there
was a strong feeling among some members of the staff, that
the Academy should be entirely under professional control.
Lord Wilton thought that if the Professors were allowed
to take any share of financial responsibility, the manage-
ment must to some extent pass into their hands. He
thought this would not answer, while at the same time he
doubted whether it lay within the power of the Directors
to allow such a change. Bennett then suggested to the
students that they should send up a petition for a respite.
The Directors had already been troubled about the injury
which the students might suffer from an abrupt dispersal.
The case of those who had been elected to the new
scholarships — initiated, by the way, to satisfy the demands
of the South Kensington authorities — was very hard to
deal with. The Directors found the students' petition
irresistible, and, at a meeting on Feb. 15, 1868, they re-
solved that, in consequence of the proposal of the Professors,
and the interest shown by the students in the Institution,
the R. A. M. would be continued till July. This same
meeting had, in another respect, a rather important bearing
on the future of the Academy. It has not yet been necessary,
for the purpose of this narrative, to refer to the constitution

24 — 2

372 ^4 Crisis at the Academy [CH.

of the Academy's Governing Body. Its management had
lapsed into the hands of a few individuals, who have so far,
been mentioned by name, or called Directors. But the
actual management of the Academy was vested in a Com-
mittee, a Committee which might or might not be selected
from the Directors, but which, as a matter of fact, had been
almost invariably so selected. The Committee was, in fact,
though perhaps not intended to be so by the Charter, a
sub-committee of the Directors. In the Charter, the office
of Chairman of the Committee had been reserved to Lord
Westmorland for his life, and it was as Chairman that he
found the power of ruling the Institution with an almost
absolute sway. The Presidency of the Directors, which he
did not hold, had more the nature of a titular distinction.
When he died, in 1859, Sir George Clerk, Bart., who had
been connected with the Academy since its earliest days,
and who had acted as deputy during Lord Westmorland's
long absences as Ambassador, succeeded him as Chairman.
Tradition gives Lord Westmorland the credit of having
managed the Academy with a personal interest so keen,
as to discourage others, when he was on the spot, from
rendering him any assistance. At any rate, whatever
the reason may have been, the Committee had gradually
dwindled away, and at the time to which this story relates
was scarcely existent. Sir George Clerk died just before
this meeting in Feb. 1868. Two active officials remained.
Lord Wilton was already President of the Directors, and
Mr Kellow Pye naturally took the vacant Chairmanship.
A Committee was wanted, but where was it to be found ?
Sir George Clerk had tried his hardest, but had admitted
his inability, to obtain fresh members. At this meeting,
the Principal, Vice- Principal, and two other Professors to
be nominated by them were placed on the Committee
of Management. The introduction of the professional ele-
ment was a new departure1, but, for the time being, seemed
imperative.

The intention to close the Academy still held good.
The dissolution was merely postponed from March to July.
The Directors had sent away the Charter. Bennett was

1 Mr Kellow Pye, previously mentioned in this book as a musician, had,
early in life, left the musical profession.

xxvn] Meeting of Subscribing-Members 373

able to get privately from a high legal authority an opinion
upon the right of the Directors to surrender the Charter.
The opinion was that, according to the terms of the Charter
itself, the ' Subscribing-members ' constituted the Corpora-
tion, and that the Academy could not be dissolved if any
one member dissented. But the Charter was returned to
the Directors for another reason. It could only be annulled
by Act of Parliament. This would involve cost, and the
Academy had laid nothing by to pay its own funeral
expenses. Sir Henry Cole (as appears in his Biography)
described this as an unsuccessful attempt on the part of
the Directors 'to clear the way for new action.' But the
Directors, as their correspondence shows, thought them-
selves forced to close the Academy. They did not sur-
render to oblige opponents. The attempt at a clearance
must be credited to Mr Disraeli's advisers.

The Directors made use of the further time, which the
postponement gave them, to appeal again to the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. An unfavourable reply reached them
in April, and they then called a general meeting of the
Subscribing-members. They, too, had taken counsel's
opinion and had found that they could not act by them-
selves. Sir John Pakington (afterwards Lord Hampton),
as one of the Directors of the Academy, presided at this
meeting on May 2. He then said ; ' In this report the
Directors have placed in a few words the whole situation.
The insufficiency of funds for its support leaves us no
alternative but to close the Royal Academy of Music.'
Sir John Pakington, who was at the time a Cabinet
Minister, had probably been able to convince the Directors
that there was no hope of a renewal of the Grant by the
present Government. When he left the chair, a supple-
mentary meeting was held. Bennett, smarting under a
sense of injury, and imagining that the Ministry were really
about to propose a system of cheap musical education, threw
aside all reserve, made a long and telling speech, referred
to the treatment of the Academy at the time of his election
as ' a deception,' ridiculed the idea of setting up ' a gigantic
school of music in Hyde Park ' with Mr Cole as the ' national
music-master,' and prophesied a sure future for the Academy,
if his hearers would but agree that it should exist. He

374 ^ Crisis at the Academy [CH.

carried the meeting with him. Mr George Wood moved
the appointment of a special committee to consider the
means for continuing the Academy, and to communicate
the result to the Directors. Several sums of ^50 were
subscribed in the room.

The various reasons for withdrawing the Grant, which
were given by the Lords of the Treasury in correspondence
with the Directors, as well as in answer to questions put
in the House of Commons, were never twice alike. The
impossibility of getting any satisfactory explanation, or of
finding what influence hostile to the Academy was at work,
severely tried Bennett's patience. He had no experience of
the intricacies of diplomacy and statecraft. Even a small
argument was not to his taste. On one occasion, when
asked to explain an admired modulation in a composition of
his own, he is said to have avoided discussion by taking
down a box from a shelf and saying, ' Try one of these
cigars.' Meetings, speech-making, letter- writing on impor-
tant subjects, were not to his liking, and it would take
a great deal to rouse him to controversy ; but he now
entered upon a campaign from which, though it worried him
terribly, he did not flinch. He wrote at great length to
The Times ; he sent letter after letter to the Treasury ; he
demanded, but very respectfully, an explanation from the
Prime Minister of his statement in the House, that ' after
examination the Academy had been found in an unsatis-
factory condition ' and pressed for a withdrawal, which after
much persistence he obtained, of what he considered a
groundless imputation on the Professors of the Academy.
This was but the beginning of a kind of work which came
to him quite unexpectedly, when he was well on in life with-
out having acquired any habitual facility for it. There was
a great deal more of it in store for him. He did it con-
scientiously, and it lay within his powers to do it very well,
but not without a great expenditure of time and thought.
Exceeding caution regulated its performance, and kept him
always on his guard. Having once taken up the Academy
he gave his heart and soul to it. Its grievances and troubles
became his own personal grievances and troubles, and they
greatly affected so sensitive a man.

The special Committee appointed at the meeting of

xxvn] Bennett appointed Chairman 375

May 2 found, without much difficulty, new Directors, in-
cluding the Earl of Dudley as President. On June 27, the
majority of the old Directors, after taking part in the election
of their successors, retired.

For reasons which were not published, the Academy
now lost the services of Mr Otto Goldschmidt. It was
known that the creation of the Vice-Principalship, a new
office carrying authority over others, had not been regarded
with favour by some prominent members of the staff, and
without full support and allegiance the duties of the office
may at length have appeared impracticable. The letters
passing between Bennett and Mr Goldschmidt at the time
show, that though there was some difference of opinion
between them on an important question relating to the
functions of the ' Chief Professors,' this at any rate caused
no breach in their friendly relations. Mr Goldschmidt's
last act was to conduct the Prize Concert in July. Lord
Dudley, the new President, who attended the concert, took
the opportunity of begging the Vice- Principal to reconsider
his decision, but without result. Bennett had previously
suggested that he should at least retain the conductorship of
the orchestra, but this was scarcely to be expected. The
students, when parting from Mr Goldschmidt, showed their
gratitude by presenting him with a handsome silver testi-
monial.

Mr Kellow Pye, at the same time, vacated the Chair-
manship of the Committee. Bennett could not persuade
him to the contrary. Mr Pye had recently written to
a friend : ' The case of the R. A. M. is now quite hopeless,
and I should hardly think the Professors will persevere in
their attempt to carry it on without external aid.' The
other lay-members of the Committee followed Mr Pye's
lead, and their places were almost entirely filled by Pro-
fessors. As a result of this the Principal was elected
Chairman, and Bennett thus became the chief manager of
the Academy, in relation not only to music but to general
business. The current of events had carried him rapidly
into a position very different from anything which he had
anticipated when he accepted the Principalship two years
before, but he did not look back.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CAMBRIDGE LOCAL EXAMINATIONS.

ADDITIONS TO 'THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.'

ASSOCIATIONS WITH GERMANY. UPPINGHAM SCHOOL.

1868.

S£t. 52.

WHEN the Cambridge Local Examinations were insti-
tuted in 1858, the 'Grammar of Music' was introduced as
an optional subject. Any fresh sign of music being
respected as a serious study by educational authorities was
gratifying to an English musician. Whether school-boys
would be found willing to take up such a subject must at
first have seemed uncertain. Bennett was interested in the
experiment. He was asked to examine, and did so for six-
teen years.

Ten years earlier, in 1848, when Queen's College,
Harley Street, was founded, he had started Harmony-classes
there, being possibly the first person to teach the subject in
this country to classes of young ladies not intending to
become professional musicians. He wrote, at this time,
portions of a Text-book on Harmony ; also, and with more
completeness, 'A Companion to the Harmony Book.' In
the latter, with the view of impressing on the mind of
students the individuality of each chord and of each inver-
sion, he culled, from the works of great musicians, examples
of their use which, to quote some of his" own words, he
thought 'bold,' 'beautiful/ 'happy,' 'telling,' 'charming,'
' fresh,' or ' independent ' ' master-strokes.' Though he did
not complete these books, he may have used them in
manuscript for teaching ; and at any rate he carried them to

CH. xxvin] Local Examinations 377

a further point than the pupils of the College are likely to
have reached. The young ladies did not absorb much
Harmony. After some years, when he passed on this work
to others, he admitted that the results had been most dis-
couraging. Difficulty in realizing the sound of written
notes may at first have come to him as a surprise. In other
ladies' schools with which he was connected he would urge
and sometimes induce the Principals to engage a teacher of
Harmony, so that his own pianoforte pupils might be in-
structed in the Theory. When their exercises were brought
for his occasional inspection, he would say, ' It looks very
nice on paper, but I hope they have got it in their heads.'

The boys' papers, on their first arrival at Cambridge
were, as might be expected, very poorly done ; and this
remained the case for a few years. Bennett, however, paid
great attention to them, without stint of time. As years
passed, and improvement gradually came, he was much
pleased. The arrival, at length, of a paper perfect in every
detail, was an event which so delighted him, that he often
referred to it, and still had it on his mind when he again
crossed the path of the successful boy1 some years later.
He would look forward to the week at Christmas time which
he gave to this examination. It was a change for him, and
he would mention it in letters, as one of the events of an
approaching holiday. He would linger over a harmony-
exercise of a few bars and become so absorbed in it, that
when ten or fifteen minutes had passed, it would be neces-
sary to disturb him and to tell him that he must get on.
Then he would say, ' Yes, yes, give him his marks ' ; for he
liked some one by his side to register the results, not him-
self caring for arithmetical details. He was, however,
always anxious to hear the total of the addition, and very
sympathetic if it nearly, but not quite reached the prescribed
minimum.

The week thus spent, and a few days at Brighton
represented, in these years, the usual extent of his Christ-
mas holidays. In January, 1868, the Brighton days were
occupied in beginning an additional Chorus, ' Therefore
with joy shall ye draw water,' for ' The Woman of Samaria.'

1 Richard Pendlebury, afterwards Senior Wrangler, and Fellow of St John's
College, Cambridge.

378 i868 [CH.

This Chorus he finished on his return to London. Lamborn
Cock, who was now publishing the work, was also arrang-
ing for two performances of it at St James's Hall in
February and March, in order to introduce it to a London
audience. For the first of these, Bennett had the new
Chorus ready. On the eve of the rehearsal he wrote the
unaccompanied Quartet, 'God is a Spirit.' Dr W. H.
Cummings, who took part in the Quartet, has said that when
the copied parts were handed to the singers on the platform,
the ink was not yet dry.

A lady, who just at this time was taking lessons from
Bennett, asked him if his surroundings influenced him when
composing. ' I do not know,' he replied, ' but I get an idea
sometimes while staring at a brick wall.' A small sitting-
room at the back of his house in Queensborough Terrace,
had its window facing the side wall of the next house, and
the table stood in front of the window. He never had any
room of his own which he styled a 'study,' and when com-
posing he was so absorbed that others could sit near him or
go quietly in and out without his minding. When he was
writing ' God is a Spirit,' one of his family, on opening the
door to enter the room, was struck with his appearance.
He was not at the time facing the brick wall. His head
used to turn round, with a very gradual movement, when
music was in it, as if he were listening for a distant sound ;
and at this moment had reached the full extent of its swing,
and he was looking, with a very beautiful expression on his
face, directly towards the door. His large eyes were, there-
fore, full on the intruder, who was only a few feet from
him, and feared that interruption had been caused. But
this was not so. He was not conscious of any one's
presence, and when his head had finished its short period
of rest, it gently took its backward swing, and the hand
began to move on the music-paper.

To set the seal of approval on a sacred work written for
a Festival, a performance of it by the Sacred Harmonic
Society was in those days generally looked for ; but that
Society, being one of Costa's strongholds, was not likely to
favour Bennett. ' The Woman of Samaria ' had to be con-
tent with the two performances mentioned above, another
by the National Choral Society under G. W. Martin, and a

xxvui] Signs of Strain 379

fine rendering at the Crystal Palace under August Manns,
to start it on its way. It soon found its place with
provincial choral societies, and excerpts were adopted as
Anthems.

Bennett's work for the past two years or more had
been well-nigh incessant. So-called holidays had been
disturbed by Academy business, or closely devoted to com-
position. His anxiety as to the fate of the Institution
which he was so bent on preserving had become intense.
This had not been without effect upon his health and
happiness ; but so cheerful was he by nature, so inclined
towards the bright side of things, so patient by long habit,
that no murmur escaped his lips. A note written in the
luncheon-hour of a long day spent with pupils gives as
much as he would ever say about the hardness of his life.
The note will serve another purpose by presenting him in
the character of a parent.

SOUTHGATE,

June 10, 1868.

MY DEAR JEMMY,

I must write you a few lines to send you my best
love and congratulations on your majority to-morrow. It
will be a day of great interest to me and I shall think of you
very much. What interest would your dear lost mother not
have taken in such a day ! I must try that you do not suffer
too much by her loss.

If you had not been such good children to me, I hardly
know how I could have got through the last two or three
years, and now things look a little brighter.

Ever your fond father,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Among the pleasures of his life, the recollection of
Leipzig ever remained one of the greatest. His short stay
there in 1865, and the proof he then received of his friends'
continued affection, increased, as far as that was possible, his
grateful feelings. Julius Kistner, whom he had found an
incurable invalid, wrote to him a few months afterwards :
' Remembrance that is the last help in my misfortune, and
so I often think of the happy hours in which I saw you.'

380 1868 [CH.

Retrospect became the chief feature in Bennett's love for
Germany. His house, in his later years, was no rendezvous
for musicians coming with musical purposes. After he
resigned the Philharmonic conductorship, he had no longer
any fixed opportunities of coming into contact with foreign
artists of a younger generation who visited this country.
Those, however, who had known him earlier, still regarded
him as the chief worker, amongst English musicians, in the
cause of German art ; and he was never happier than when
a letter of introduction from Germany brought to his doors
some young foreigner, to whom he could render service.
Of his own contemporaries, Ferdinand Hiller, with whom
he had, in earlier life, only a slight acquaintance, came to
England more frequently in these later years, and lost no
chance of cultivating his friendship. Hiller afterwards
wrote : ' As a man, Bennett was extremely simple, un-
affected, open, honourable, good-tempered, cheerful and
sociable. German musicians found in him a truly heart-felt
welcome.' Bennett, when young, expressed, in writing, his
contempt for those English artists who, after a tour on the
continent, aped foreign manners, and even pretended to
forget the pronunciation of their own language. But, from
old associations, he retained a love for the sound of the
German tongue, thoroughly enjoyed to speak with it him-
self, and when in the society of Germans to show himself,
as far as possible, the German. He would amuse them and
himself by comparing the customs of their country and his
own, would take care that some attempt should be made to
introduce German dishes on his dinner-table, or would order
such English ones as would give his foreign visitors a new
experience. Many a laugh would go round at his loyal
effort to show a keen relish for Sauer-kraut, and he would
watch with lively interest the faces of those who suspiciously
tasted mint-sauce for the first time.

Before his departure for Leipzig in 1865, the Rev.
Edward Thring, Headmaster of Uppingham, commissioned
him to find some one to take charge of the music at that
school. Bennett referred this matter to Ferdinand David,
who mentioned his own son. Mr Paul David accepted the
appointment, and from that time became a frequent visitor,
during the school holidays, at Bennett's house in London.

xxvni] German Visitors 381

In the summer of 1868, Ferdinand David was expected
in England on a visit to his son, and it was arranged
that he should spend part of the time in Queensborough
Terrace.

ATHENAEUM,

July 5, 1868.
MY DEAR DAVID,

I am looking forward with great pleasure to
your visit to us. I also hope it is certain you will bring
your two daughters with you. We have plenty of zimmer.
Let me know when you come. Cannot you persuade
Schleinitz to come with you ? He must bring the score of
the ' Meerestille ' with him, that will keep him well, if he
leaves out the middle movement1. I have plenty of room
for him. Write soon.

Ever your friend,
WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Bennett postponed his Eastbourne holiday and remained
at home in the beginning of August to receive David, his
daughter, and Mr and Mrs Paul David of Uppingham.
This was a rare treat for him. It was no unusual thing for
him to have intimate friends staying in his house, but as a
rule he could himself see little of them. He now said that
he could not remember ever spending a whole week in his
own house entirely free from work and under circumstances
of greater enjoyment. He always asked German visitors
to go with him to Cambridge, taking much pride in showing
them an English University. He had occasionally been
vexed when his persuasion had failed, and when he had
been unable to convince one or other of such visitors that
they would find something different from the many Univer-
sities they had seen in their own country. David's appre-
ciation of Cambridge entirely satisfied him. He would
afterwards relate how upon entering King's College
Chapel, David was so taken aback by the beauty of the
interior, that he seated himself and, after a few minutes
silence, said with great seriousness : ' Bennett, you must let

1 Schleinitz probably possessed the original score of Mendelssohn's Overture
which would account for the reference.

382 i868 [CH.

me stay here, I must see nothing after this! Bennett's
own love for the Chapel was so intense that his companion
could not have touched a more responsive chord. This
was his last reminiscence of Ferdinand David, who was on
the point of leaving Cambridge for Uppingham. They
never met again. The following affectionate letter illus-
trates the warm place which Bennett had retained in the
hearts of his German friends.

EISENACH, Aug. 24, 1868.
MY DEAR BENNETT,

I got back here happily eight days ago, and
must now no longer delay to thank you a thousand times
for all the love and goodness which you have shown to
myself and my daughter. Never shall I forget it, and
happy shall I be if any opportunity arises to show my
gratitude.

But you will be tired with my German feelings, and I
will try to say the rest in my bad English. * * * Here in
Eisenach I found my wife pretty well. She is quite geriihrt
iiber Ihre Gute fur mich und meine Tochter. I always
think with the greatest pleasure of my stay with you in
England. I understand the country and everything much
better than before and I am returned a great admirer of
your country, your countrymen, your institutions and of
everything. That day in Cambridge was one of the most
interesting to me, and very often I read in that book which
you were kind enough to leave for me.

Good-bye, dear Bennett. God bless you in every
respect.

Believe me, for ever,

Your friend,

FERDINAND DAVID.
My wife sends her

herzlichste Griisse dem guten Bennett.

Bennett took great interest in Mr Paul David's work at
Uppingham. He went down twice every year to examine
the music of the school. As time went on he was specially
pleased at the progress made in instrumental music, which

xxvui] Music at Uppingham 383

was beyond what he had thought possible at a public school.
' I can account for their chorus-singing,' he would say when
he returned home, ' but to learn an instrument is a different
thing, and the results of teaching the violin and pianoforte
surprise me.' Mr Thong made him very welcome and
acquired a sympathetic regard for him. When speaking of
him and of his hard life to the present writer, he said, ' I wish
I were King of England, so that I might do something for
your father.' After Bennett's death he wrote : ' I honour
myself in remembering that your honoured father was
friendly to me and I feel privileged to bear witness to the
greatness of his pure and gentle character/ There was no
true place for him in England, and while I am glad for the
sake of others that the nation has given him some of his
due now he is gone, I cannot but feel how little it makes
amends for the "weariness of the journey," and I mourn
that England has no place left for men who put their life-
work first and turning neither for fame nor money, aim with
high hearts to bring out truth. Such was your father.' Mr
Thring and Mr Paul David paid tribute to Bennett's
memory by saying, when he died, that they would have
no more music-examinations, as they did not wish to see
any one else in his place.

CHAPTER XXIX.

GOVERNMENT GRANT RESTORED TO THE R.A. OF MUSIC.
THE R.A. OF MUSIC AND THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.

1868—69.
aet. 52, 53.

IN September, 1868, when Bennett entered upon the
third year of his Principalship at the Academy, with the
duties of Chairman of the Committee of Management now
added, the new Committee reported 'that the Professors'
sacrifice of their fees during the summer term had cleared
the institution from debt, that the Principal had altogether
resigned his salary, and that new donations and subscrip-
tions had been received.' On the other hand, the Directors'
determination to close the institution in the previous sum-
mer, had made it difficult to admit new pupils in the earlier
part of the year, and the number of students, which had
risen in 1867, had again decreased. No one, at this time,
who watched from outside, had any belief that the institu-
tion would survive the crisis.

The year 1869 opened with a graceful display of good
feeling towards Bennett in his native town. At a meeting
held in Sheffield during the previous autumn, it was resolved
to invite him to spend a few days amongst his friends and
former pupils resident in the town. The invitation bore
many signatures ; he accepted it ; and went down for five
days in January as the guest of William Howard, his
father's friend, whose house had sheltered him as an orphan
fifty years before. As an episode of the visit, a compli-
mentary concert was carefully prepared. The programme,
drawn from his own music, included ' The Woman of

CH. xxix] The Tide Tttrns 385

Samaria/ and the P.P. Concerto in F minor played by his
pupil, Miss M. H. Parkes. The conductor, Walter Ibbotson,
and the organist, Percival Phillips, had both been his pupils
at the Academy. The orchestra, led by H. J. Freemantle,
included several members of Halle's Manchester band.
The Concert Hall was specially decorated for the occasion,
and when the guest of the evening, accompanied by Mr
Howard, entered, the audience rose en 'masse and gave their
fellow-townsman a Yorkshire ovation. This was not the
last occasion on which his connection with Sheffield received
recognition. When he was knighted his friends and ad-
mirers in the town sent him a handsome address of con-
gratulation. After his death they subscribed liberally for a
marble bust, the work of M. Malempre, which they presented
to the Cutlers' Hall, and which was unveiled by Stirling
Howard, son of William Howard, in December, 1875.

Now, in 1869, came a turn of the tide in the fortunes
of the Royal Academy of Music. The policy of 'waiting'
and of defying discouragement proved sound. The fall of
the Conservative Government, in December 1868, gave an
opportunity of re-opening the question of the Grant, and
Bennett appealed to the new Prime Minister, Mr Gladstone,
who had, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, first bestowed
the Grant five years before.

H CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE,
March 5, 1869.

SIR,

I have not neglected the subject of your letter
which reached me some time back, and a further enquiry
shall be made into the circumstances by the Chancellor of
the Exchequer.

I have the honour to be,

Your obedient servant,

W. E. GLADSTONE.
Dr Sterndale Bennett.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer had, apparently, no
difficulty in judging the circumstances which had prompted
the withdrawal of the Grant. The above letter was imme-
diately followed by another announcing that the ^500, as
an allowance for rent, would be replaced on the estimates.

s. B. 25

386 Royal Academy of Music [CH.

The good news, when received at the Academy, gave occa-
sion not so much for open rejoicing as for solemn thanks-
giving. The stigma, which the withdrawal of the Grant
had cast upon the Institution, was at length removed, and
the machinations of unknown foes had been overturned.
The ^500 came back with a greatly increased value. No
event connected with Bennett's later life was more satisfy-
ing to him than the restoration of this Grant. As Chairman
of the Committee, he himself received the order, annually
sent, for the money. The last time it reached him was a
few days before his death. It was one of the last things he
handled, and he showed a somewhat painful reluctance to
relax his grasp of the paper. A custom of the Academy
was to ask some lady to distribute the prizes to the students
at their summer concert. From the time the Grant was
restored, Bennett always asked Mrs Gladstone to preside
on these occasions, and she very kindly consented for some
years in succession. This gave her an opportunity of hear-
ing the pupils' performances, as also the Principal's Report
and the announcement which he was now annually able to
make of a continuous increase in the number of students.
Mrs Gladstone's constant appearance on these days was
much appreciated. She showed lively interest, and took
her part in the ceremony with charming grace. Moreover,
there was a general feeling that her presence symbolized
a link between the Academy and the statesman who had
befriended it.

History now repeated itself. The Academy was again
enjoying the patronage of the Government, and the pro-
moters of a new scheme thereupon renewed their overtures.
The musical Committee of the Society of Arts had just
recommenced its sittings, and Mr Cole still found the desire
remaining in influential quarters that a new Institution
should be a development of the old one. The Society of
Arts now proposed that the Academy should join them in
a petition for state-aid towards a music-school on a large
scale. The Academy, having so recently secured what it
wanted from Government, wisely shrank from asking for
anything further. The experience of eighteen months ago
was dead against such a course. One of Mr Disraeli's
various explanations for having withdrawn the Grant,

xxix] The Society of Arts 387

indeed by far the best he gave, was, that if the Directors
required, as they told him they did, ^2000 a year for
the upkeep of their Institution, ^"500 could be of no use
to them. Since, however, a new or enlarged school was
now, again, being confidently talked of, the Academy was
obliged to give careful consideration to the Society of Arts'
proposal, and for four months Bennett was in doubt as to
the attitude he ought to take.

Sir John Pakington, who had remained on the Directorate
of the Academy when most of the old Directors had retired
in 1867, and who was also on the Council of the Society of
Arts, undertook to negotiate between the two Commit-
tees. The following memorandum dated April 24, 1869,
was sent by Bennett to be read at an Academy meeting
which he was unable to attend.

' On receiving the documents from Sir John Pakington
(all of which I send), I sent to know when I could see him.
The appointment was made for the same day at 12 o'clock.
I was with Sir John Pakington for nearly an hour. It
appears he had had two interviews with the Society of Arts'
Committee, and at the first meeting, according to Sir John's
impression, they did not seem aware that the grant of ^500
had been restored to us, but at the second they were in
possession of the fact.

' I asked Sir John whether he would be surprised if the
result of the petition would be to annihilate the old Institu-
tion and rear a new one. He then said that he would be
both surprised and indignant, for his only idea was that the
Committee of the Society of Arts would help to make the
present Institution the nucleus of a larger one. I, however,
renewed my suspicions. Sir John told me to dismiss them.
He behaved with the greatest courtesy throughout, and I
thanked him in the name of the Committee. His note to
me of the same day [April 22] will show that he did not
leave the matter resting and found out the best arrange-
ment for us to make with regard to calling a meeting of the
Directors. In the meantime no harm can take place.'

The Directors of the Academy met in June and July.
They resolved to postpone their decision about the pro-
posed joint-petition until the autumn and to ask for a
conference with the Society of Arts at that time. Mr Cole
wrote of finding Bennett and Lord Dudley, the President

25—2

388 Royal Academy of Music [CH. xxix

of the Academy, so opposed to union with the Society
of Arts that the prospects of any successful issue grew
smaller and smaller. They were certainly opposed to,
and in the end declined, union over this particular venture.
To sign the petition, drafted by the Society of Arts, which
exhibited the present Institution as failing to satisfy the
requirements of a national school of music, was in their
opinion decidedly impolitic. They could not again place
in jeopardy the recovered support of the Government.
How could they count on its continuance, if they appended
their names to a petition which prayed for a Grant towards
' a proper Academy ' ?

When the Society of Arts sent in their petition to the
Government, it was backed by another one emanating from
a private Institution entitled 'The London Academy of
Music.' This second appeal urged the foundation of a
' Government School of Music and National Opera.' The
suggestion of the Opera ensured the signatures of many
leading operatic artists, so that the document was likely to
carry weight. The foundation of a Government School
would scarcely benefit 'The London Academy of Music/
but the downfall of ' The Royal Academy of Music ' might
do so, and therefore the prime object of this petition
seemed to disclose itself in a paragraph which advised the
Government that any further help to the Royal Academy
of Music would prove ' equally discreditable to the country,
and wasteful of its funds.'

It was well for the Academy that it did not participate
in these movements. They were unsuccessful, and the old
Institution did not risk the loss of the only assistance which
the Treasury was prepared to give to higher musical educa-
tion. With a Royal Charter, Royal Patronage, prestige
attaching to Government recognition, now also with an
increasing number of students to bring fresh spirit to its
work and to help its finances, the Academy was in a fairly
strong position. The Institution was not too proud to
hope for further assistance from outside, but could wait
until such time as that assistance might come in a more
definite shape than had yet been the case. The main duty
of the Academy was, in Bennett's opinion, to concern itself
with the present.

CHAPTER XXX.

COMPOSITIONS.
SOME CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS PRIVATE LIFE.

1869 — 1870.
a*- 53, 54-

IN May, 1869, Bennett was associated with an im-
portant ceremony at Cambridge. St John's College, of
which he was a member, was holding high festival on the
occasion of the consecration of a new Chapel, and had
gathered within its walls some thousand of its own alumni
and distinguished visitors including the Chancellor of the
University. Bennett had been asked by Dr Bateson, the
Master of St John's, to write the Anthem for the Consecra-
tion Service. After ascertaining that his doing this would
be agreeable to Dr Garrett, the Organist of the College,
he gladly consented. He wrote at considerable length to
words selected by Dr Bateson and himself. The Anthem,
' Now, my God, let I beseech Thee,' with its grave
and reverent measures, was valued as a very appropriate
accessory to an event which saw the result of much self-
sacrifice on the part of many members of the Foundation
and which was regarded by them as one of deep solemnity.
The day, however, was also celebrated with much outward
rejoicing.

The members of the College Musical Society, with the
assistance of London artists, gave a concert in the Guild-
hall, which was attended by the Chancellor and other
guests of the College. Bennett, with Carl Reinecke of
Leipzig sitting by his side, showed a wide-awake interest in
the proceedings. At a supper-party later, he congratulated

390 1869 — 1870 [CH.

the undergraduate performers on the soothing effect of
their strains, and upon the number of Bishops whom he
had watched gradually sinking, under its influence, into
slumber.

Except for one short Praeludium, in B flat, written at the
request of a favourite pupil, Harold Thomas, for perform-
ance at a concert, Bennett had not, for many years, added
to his pianoforte music. So long ago as the beginning of
1856 he was contemplating a series of pieces illustrative of
the months of the year. He chose mottoes from the poets,
also pictorial illustrations which were engraved as vignettes
for the title-pages, and probably set himself the task of
writing one number each month as that year went on.
He finished ' January ' and ' February' ; but in March he
was elected to the Cambridge Professorship, and the con-
ductorship of the Philharmonic immediately followed. He
abandoned*playing in public, and, possibly as a natural con-
sequence, ceased for some years to write for the pianoforte.
By the summer of 1869, however, he had made some ad-
vance with the principal (the 2nd) movement of a Sonata,
which he christened ' The Maid of Orleans.' The writer
remembers a day at Eastbourne in that year, when he was
shown a passage beginning at the 53rd bar, and in their
walk the same afternoon father and son sang together several
times, as a piece of fun suggested by Bennett, the two parts
written in contrary motion. But this movement took some
time to complete. In nothing that he wrote could he have
taken more interest, yet he seemed quite content to let the
music, as it came to him, regulate its own progress. About
the publication of his works he showed the same caution as
ever. In this year he had quite a long correspondence
with his German publishers about printing the score of his
seven-year-old Overture, ' Paradise and the Peri.' He kept
his Symphony in G minor in manuscript till it had reached
the same age. As another instance of caution, he would,
in his later life, get his London publisher, in the case of
smaller works, to engrave them, so that he might see how
they looked in print, and he would then keep them to him-
self in that form. If he lent them to his friends for private
performance, they would find the words ' Proof as MS.'
stamped upon the copies. One of these was an eight-part

xxx] Decrease of Income 391

Motet, ' In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust,' which now
ranks as one of the best of his vocal compositions. He
wrote the two movements of this Motet in 1856 and 1857.
The first of them was engraved in 1864. He asked his
friend, Dr Steggall, to arrange for its being sung in
Lincoln's Inn Chapel, that he might judge of its effect.
He often, later, played the movements to himself on the
pianoforte, but they did not reach the stage of publication
in his lifetime.

The years following his appointment at the Academy —
where he had anticipated no excitement or disturbance of
his affairs — not only brought a burden of responsibility in
connection with its management, but also a great change in
his private circumstances. His habit had been, after his
wife's death, to add up at the end of each year the income
derived from teaching. This reached its maximum in the
year preceding his election to the Principalship. It then
began to decrease, but there was to be a payment from the
Academy as a set-off. After he resigned his stipend as
Principal, and ceased to place any fixed limit on the time
spent in performing his duties, there was at once a great
shrinkage of his income. At the end of 1869, after making
his calculation, he added, as was his wont, his few words of
thanks to the Almighty ; but the figures were in front of
him, and he must have noticed how serious matters were
becoming. He seems, however, to have wished to banish
from his mind the sacrifice he was making ; for he never
added up his income again. The cheques which he received
from the Academy, in return for all the work he did there,
were drawn, term after term, for six-and-a-half guineas.
This sum must have represented some reduced fees for
the teaching of composition. The other Professors, after
voluntarily allowing their fees to be taxed for a term or
two in 1868, had then been paid in full, but Bennett must
have declined to receive, or perhaps, as Chairman, to award
himself the higher fee. Balancing what he received against
what he lost through decrease of other work, the writer has
carefully calculated that during the eight years from the
time of his election to the Principalship in 1866 to the time
when he was again assigned a salary in 1874, his position
at the Academy cost him an annual average sum equivalent

392 i86q — i8jo [CH.

to twenty-seven per cent, on the income he was making
when he accepted the appointment. In January, 1870, he
wrote to his Aunt at Cambridge on the subject of some
family obligation for which they had made themselves
jointly responsible. He then mentioned his difficulties, but
without referring to, and perhaps without thinking of, the
Academy as being the cause of them. ' I do not tell you
these things,' he wrote, 'to make you unhappy, but to show
you what a critical time of my life this is/

In the same January his daughter was happily married
to Mr Thomas Case, then Fellow of Brasenose College,
Oxford, and the second son of Mr Robert Case. Since
leaving school in 1865, she had worked very hard for her
father, and, especially as a secretary, had made herself
almost indispensable. ' She is just like her mother,' was
his favourite phrase about her. Her new home was at
Oxford, but fortunately he was still able to see her for long
spells of time. University terms were short, and she with
her husband spent vacations in Bayswater, where their
parents continued to reside as close neighbours. Never-
theless, letters written soon after her marriage show how
seriously Bennett felt the loss of her assistance. He
determined to take a decided step towards lessening his
anxieties. Immediately behind the house in Queensborough
Terrace lay a cottage, which happened to be vacant, in
Porchester Terrace. He let his own house furnished, and
moved into this cottage. He could not leave his Penates,
even temporarily, without a pang ; but the change enabled
him to continue his costly work at the Academy without
further pecuniary troubles. Moreover, the cottage with its
garden just large enough to contain a pear tree and a fine
mulberry tree was a pretty place. Madame Clara Novello
had at one time occupied it.

A letter to his friend, Alfred G. Price, of Gloucester,
with whom he spent a few days at Easter, was written from
his new home.

1 8, PORCHESTER TERRACE,

April 29, 1870.

MY DEAR PRICE,

I ought sooner to have thanked you for all the
pleasure my visit to you at Gloucester gave me. I had a

xxx] A New Home 393

very pleasant journey home, stayed an hour in Porchester
Terrace, and then on to Brighton, where I arrived at 6 p.m.
I set to work at my overture and sent it off to Leipzig. Of
all the Cathedral towns I know, Gloucester seems to me the
most cheerful and happy. Places like Ely, Winchester,
Salisbury, &c. seem to me like Malines where old Dussek
was organist for three years. How about the Raven and
Edgar Poe ? I think if I had the chance of getting a real
piping-bullfinch free of expense, I would break a pane of
glass and welcome the intruder. Seriously speaking, I
think some family in Gloucester would be glad to welcome
the renegade. Why not advertise ? I send the sketch of
the Bench. With best regards and many thanks for my
treat last week.

Sincerely yours,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

P.S. I am now writing under the shadow of my pear-
tree, the blossom just saying 'Adieu ' for the season.

CHAPTER XXXI.

BENNETT WITH THE ACADEMY STUDENTS.

1866—1874.
aet 50 — 58.

MANY of Bennett's friends who were outside the
Academy circle, and who studied his interests rather
than those of that Institution, thought it a great pity
that he should cling to a position the drawbacks of which
were so apparent, while the advantages were so vague.
Pecuniary sacrifice on his part was not the only point
they considered. A School so slenderly endowed, and of
necessity rather mean, at the time, in its visible equipments,
could not, by any stretch of imagination, be regarded as on
a par with the Institutions of London where other arts and
sciences, more fortunate than music, were fostered. Bennett's
connection with the place could not raise his already acquired
standing among the men of his time. Those near him
regretted that he should wear himself out over an under-
taking which seemed to them unlikely to bear any fruit
within his life-time at all commensurate with his labours.
He, however, knew what he was doing. He had accepted
a commission, and was evidently bent on executing it, with-
out counting the cost or looking for a return. He turned
away from all hints that he ought to consider himself,
whether those hints came from without or from within. A
letter, written to a colleague who was wishing to be relieved
from teaching at the Academy, gives a slight but pertinent
reference to the subject : —

CH. xxxi] Responsibility as Chairman 395

2 ADELAIDE TERRACE, EASTBOURNE,

August 3, 1870.
MY DEAR DORRELL,

I received your letter, as you will believe, with
great regret. We can ill afford to lose the services of an
old and sincere friend and fellow-worker at this time, just
as everything seems as promising as at any period since
1822. You have often heard me say that I should like to
escape from my heavy duties and anxieties at the Academy,
but I have never had the courage to do so, although my
health and pocket would point to that course. Now, my
dear old friend, I have often been lucky in staving off
disasters to the old place (I take no merit for the same),
and firstly I will beg you to reconsider your present
resolution and stay with us for one year at least. If that
cannot be, then I sincerely beg that you will not give up
your pupils, until they have finished their course. * I

wish you would come down for a day or two and have a
long talk. I only got here yesterday.

Ever most sincerely yours,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

As to the future of the Academy, there was one
paramount anxiety which burdened Bennett's mind for at
least seven years. This was caused by the harassing
uncertainty of the relationship which the Institution would
be allowed to have with the projected School of Music
at Kensington. The protracted negotiations with the
promoters of the new scheme greatly increased his responsi-
bility as Chairman of the Committee of Management. It
was in that capacity that he represented the Academy in
those negotiations. Meanwhile, he never lost sight of his
duties in his other office as Principal. Let it be granted
that, up to the time of his election, he had given no proof
to the world at large of the ' administrative ability ' on
which the Committee of the Society of Arts, with Costa in
their eye, had laid so much stress. These pages do not
desire to claim for Bennett distinction as a man of business.
Suffice it to say, that when he was put to the proof he did,
as Chairman, administer the affairs of the Academy with
discretion, and with some advantage to its financial position ;

396 Bennett with the Academy Stiidents [CH.

while, in the office of Principal his characteristics and his
long experience in a special direction were found of great
value. Respect for his musicianship, combined with a trust
in the simplicity of his motives, brought hearty allegiance
from his colleagues on the Staff. One or other of them
may have imagined him too timid when it seemed his
province to adjust their differences ; too prone to wait and
to try the effect of pouring oil on troubled waters ; too deaf
to discords. But the Academy was passing through a
crisis. The Principal's ' peace-loving and peace-promoting
propensities were invaluable1 ' at a time when the survival
of the House greatly depended upon the union of its inmates.
* Where he could not satisfy he at least soothed1.' Sir
George Macfarren wrote, in special reference to Bennett's
dealings with the Professors : ' He had a peculiar power of
drawing the love of those with whom he had commerce ; it
is true he shrank from the utterance of harsh words, and
evaded on all occasions the performance of functions that
would be painful to those to whom they would have been
directed ; but this, far less than a sympathetic manner,
a positive more than a negative quality, rendered him the
centre of affection.'

But Bennett had another qualification, of a very positive
kind, for presiding over a place of education. He had spent
the greater part of his previous life in teaching and in-
fluencing young people, in studying their characters and
dispositions, in sympathizing with their successes or dis-
appointments. Simple discourses which he committed to
writing and delivered in schoolrooms, when he wished to
say something to his pupils of rather deeper import than
what they could read in a musical Grammar, give a clue to
the serious view he took of his calling. His private pupils
have spontaneously acknowledged the strong influence for
good which he, using music as the means to an end, spread
among them. The Academy students were not slow to
appreciate their Principal. One of them wrote, soon after
his death : 'His interest in the progress and careers of the
students was unfailing1.' The numbers never rose so high
in his time as to make individual attention on his part
impossible, though he lived to write* of the Academy as

1 frastr's Magazine, July, 1875.

xxxi] His Regard for their Interests 397

growing ' very large,' and ever making greater demands
upon his time. He did not limit himself to the supervision
of studies. He talked to the students of their future, of
the various openings in the musical profession, and of the
direction in which, according to their special abilities, they
might look for success. He had seen plenty of difficulty
and distress, especially amongst orchestral players, in days
when concert-engagements were scarce, and when amateur
pupils, except for pianoforte and singing, were all but un-
known. iFor many years of his life he seldom went to church
without having first listened to some tale of distress on the
only morning that he could be found at home. As late as
the time of his Principalship, he still demurred, save in case
of very marked ability, to students taking as their chief
study any orchestral instrument, even were it the violin.
His evidence before the Society of Arts in 1865 showed
him opposed to the idea of training large numbers for the
profession. The supply, he thought, might soon exceed
the demand. Though he had himself received a free
education, he doubted the expediency of giving much
encouragement by scholarships such as Mr Cole was
proposing. He thought that fees, fixed as high as practic-
able, would provide a safeguard against an overcrowded
profession. As Principal of the Academy, he steadfastly
held the view that an educational establishment should feel
some responsibility in respect to the worldly prospects of
its pupils.

He had a fatherly concern for the health of the students,
and would watch for any signs of overstrain. At entrance
examinations, even when additional pupils were badly
wanted, he would consider the question of admission in
the interests of the candidate. He would say to parents :
' She seems nervous, and not strong enough ; take her
back into the country and let her go on quietly with her
present teacher for another year ' ; and this would be said
in the presence of other Professors who thought a clever
pupil was being lost. ' There is a story told of how he found
a very small boy crying over the intricacies of chromatic
chords and enharmonic modulations. "Ah," said he, "I
see what you want, my little fellow, it is pudding ! " and he
took him straight to his own house where he was regaled

398 Bennett with the Academy Students [CH.

for a fortnight, and perhaps got a little assistance in his
musical difficulties1.'

The monthly concerts gave him special opportunity of
observing the results of work, students being encouraged
to take part in these at a comparatively early stage of their
course. ' No concert ever took place without his presence,
so quiet and undemonstrative, and yet felt so distinctly
throughout the room as to make the uppermost thought in
every performer's mind as he or she ascended the platform,
"Will Sir Sterndale like this?" No Academy student in
Sir Sterndale Bennett's time will ever forget him as he
appeared month after month at these concerts. They will
be able to recall all their lives the slight spare figure, the
attitude of motionless attention, and the deeply-knitted
brow, which gave his face an expression of displeasure but
which they understood to denote only the concentration of
thought with which he listened to each performance. The
moment the sonata or song was over, his face would relax,
often into a smile of satisfaction, for though rigid and
unflinching as regards the music to be performed at these
concerts, as to the performance of it he was always ready
to be pleased if possible1.'

His class for composition, to which he devoted a few
hours every week, kept him in close touch with many of
the senior students. He had been reluctant to undertake
this class, but Mr Otto Goldschmidt, at the time of their
joint election, had urged the necessity of his taking some
share in definite teaching, and he had given way. Mr
C. H. Couldery, who was in the class, remembers his
saying that though he had often been offered more than
his usual terms as an inducement to take a private pupil
in composition, he had refused, because he so disliked the
idea of teaching the subject. He had, at various times,
taken a few professional pupils for composition ; of whom
may be mentioned, Edward Bache, Charles Steggall,
W. S. Rockstro, and W. G. Cusins ; but he generally
advised applicants for lessons to study under Macfarren or
Molique, who both made a speciality of teaching the
subject. He gave some lessons in Knightsbridge Barracks

1 Eraser's Magazine, July, 1875.

xxxi] Reminiscences of Pupils 399

to Hon. Seymour Egerton (afterwards Earl of Wilton),
the conductor of the amateur orchestral society known as
'The Wandering Minstrels.' This is remembered, because
at one of the lessons he took exception to a horn-passage,
as being too difficult, in the score submitted to him ; and
he afterwards liked to relate how his clever pupil, who could
play all the instruments in the orchestra, there and then
took down a horn hanging on the wall and played the
passage admirably. At the request of Mr Gambier Parry,
he gave some private lessons to his son, and of the son's
gifts he spoke warmly to others at the time; but though
Sir Hubert Parry remembers him as ' extremely kind and
sympathetic,' he found him 'too sensitive to criticize.' A
similar view was taken about the same time (i.e. in the
early days of Bennett's class at the Academy), by Mr W.
Crowther Alwyn, who, in response to certain questions
submitted to him by the writer, has kindly supplied the
following reminiscences :

' From the time of my entering the Academy in March,
1867, to the time of my leaving it at the end of July, 1869,
I was Sir Sterndale's pupil for composition. I have a most
vivid recollection of the time and of himself. Shakespeare,
Kemp, Couldery, Wingham and Joseph Parry were my
fellow-pupils. He paid close attention to the compositions
brought to him, generally reading them through at the
table, but sometimes asking us to play them, and occasionally
playing portions of them himself. When reading them
through he became wholly absorbed, few words escaping
him, — I remember that some of the fingers of his right
hand habitually covered his mouth, — and there appeared
to be an atmosphere about him that debarred you from
asking questions or made you feel that questions would be
unwelcome. When we played our compositions he did not
seem so absorbed, and I can remember watching him as he
was listening with great animation and evident delight to
the first movement of a sonata by Shakespeare, and saying
to himself, "charming," "beautiful." I can recall how
tenderly anxious he was that we should not play our com-
positions as if we were ashamed of them. He encouraged
us to discuss one another's works in his presence, and,
speaking for myself, I was more sensitive to the criticisms

4oo Bennett with the Academy Students [CH.

of my fellow-students than to any he made. In fact, his
comments were few, briefly expressed, and, at least in my
own case, he did not correct or suggest much. On rare
occasions he would leave his seat, and standing with his
back to the fireplace would unbend, talking to us and
answering our questions. Then he would send down to
the library for music, — I remember thinking what a quantity
he knew, — and point out passages which haunted his mind
on account of their surpassing beauty. Of such examples,
I remember three bars (52nd~54th) from the Andante in
Beethoven's G major Concerto ; four bars (53rd~56th) from
the Adagio in Beethoven's Sonata (Op. 106) ; and a passage
in Mendelssohn's Capriccio in A mi. (Op. 33, No. i), be-
ginning in the 5ist bar from the end. "Such things," he
would say, " everybody ought to know by heart."

4 To gauge the actual progress made at the time in
composition, or to estimate how far such progress was due
to his influence is impossible. Students possessing such
temperament as to be susceptible of and capable of being
infected by his own qualities could scarcely fail to be
influenced thereby in their work. Intercourse with him
stimulated and heightened the ideal and made you more
sensitive to and appreciative of beauty, but it did so
because he was what he was ; no apparent effort of his own
had anything to do with it. And, indeed, in my memory,
questions of composition teaching or progress in composition
fade away to nothing in comparison with the impression
produced upon me by the man himself. I cannot connect
him, as I knew him, with such words as " system " and
"detail." He appeared to me to stand very high, and
mists may have shut out the view of things below.

' We were very much struck at the readiness with which
at first sight he played our scores on the piano, grasping
their form and contents and exhibiting an apparent fami-
liarity with them, in spite of our defective and, in some
cases, almost illegible manuscripts. When at times we
could not refrain from some expressions of wonder at his
unparalleled facility in reading at sight, he would say, " Ah,
but I have lost the power now. When I was younger, I
did not fear anything."

'I remember him [1867 — 1869] as a serious, reserved

xxxi] Reminiscences of Pupils 401

man with bright moments but rarely more than plaintively
gay, whose life was apparently saddened by sorrow, or
harassed by anxiety. I can recall the remarkable smile
with which he used to greet us, the peculiarly gentle manner
with which he always treated us. Occasionally, he would
go so far as to enter into private conversation, and would
speak of something out of the ordinary course which had
happened in his own family, but at all times there seemed
a long bridge between him and myself which I could not
cross, notwithstanding the strong attraction towards him.
There was an indefinable fascination, a delicacy, a refinement
about him that was palpable and akin to the refreshment
derived from intercourse with another nationality.

' Soon after leaving the Academy, I asked him to let me
continue my studies under him as a private pupil, and
received the following reply : —

ATHENAEUM,

November 13, 1869.

MY DEAR ALWYN,

How glad I shall be to have you as my pupil
again but I don't know how to manage it unless you come
into my class at the Academy. Could not this be managed ?
We begin now at 10 o'clock. I don't think I should like to
teach composition except in a class, where so many things
crop up (musically) to talk about.

Ever yours sincerely,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.'

Those students who remained in the class for several
years or who entered it at a later date, vouch for Bennett's
definite instruction in composition. When he could no
longer avoid this branch of work, he settled down to it, and
became very interested. This was noticed in his own
house, where, as a rule, he said little about pupils or teaching.
As time went on, he would talk of his composition-class in
a happy vein, and as if he was pleasurably surprised at the
occupation proving so congenial. He would mention his
young composers by name, and evidently enjoyed his
musical and personal association with them.

Mr William Shakespeare writes : ' I have never ceased
s. B. 26

402 Bennett with the Academy Students [CH.

to think of Sir Sterndale as a most excellent and thorough
teacher of composition. His insistence on the study of
form on the part of his pupils made his teaching so useful
in after years. He was much more particular than any
other Professor I have met as to the necessity of acquiring
continuity of matter, character in the first subject, contrast
between the two subjects, the middle development or
working, the necessity of holding as precious the key of the
composition, the avoidance of the repetition of keys. Our
dear master was most particular, passed nothing by, corrected
much himself, clearly expressed suggestions for improve-
ment, cutting down or lengthening the work. I remember
we were always reminded of the study and analysis of the
classics. He was strict, but kind and encouraging, troubled
when we were idle, a little cold and severe at times, yet so
loving and noble that we all revered him. I had no special
opportunity of seeing him read at first sight other than by the
extraordinary way he would play our attempts at composition
on the pianoforte.'

Among the pupils of Bennett's later life, none showed
him greater devotion or remembered him with more reverent
affection than the late Thomas Wingham, for many years
Director of the music at The Oratory, Brompton. Already
well advanced in musical studies when he entered the
Academy, he at once found a place in Bennett's class,
and in it he remained for no less than seven years. His
Symphonies and other orchestral works were in due course
performed, and they attracted considerable attention in the
best musical circles. Shortly before his own death, he gave
this account of his master's teaching : —

'As far as I can state them, Sir Sterndale's methods
were as follows. Careful study and analysis of the works of
the great masters. He recommended pupils always to take
some work as a model till they had a complete mastery of
the subject of "form." He would frequently send down to
the library for some work and make one of the pupils play
it and then explain its plan and what points of interest were
specially worth noticing. When pupils were more advanced
he would allow them more freedom, but even then would
recommend them to study and even copy out and learn from

xxxi] Reminiscences of Pupils 403

memory large portions of the scores of the great composers.
He once required me to learn an intricate portion of Mozart's
G minor Symphony and to write it out from memory in his
presence. He impressed upon us the importance of the
opening of a composition. He used to say that a work
ought to be known by its very first chord and would give
any number of examples from Mozart, Beethoven, etc. He
was particular about points of imitation, canon, etc., and
again inversion. "Remember," he used to say, "that by
inversion you not only add greatly to the interest of your
composition, but you double its length." Then he gave
us great assistance in the choice of subjects, pointing out
what would make effective contrasts, what could or could
not be worked, and what could be combined/

These young men meeting Bennett week by week, year
after year, were permitted to discover that he was not
always a serious man. They heard, and have retained the
echo of his laugh, and even became familiar with his
humorous stories. Mr Louis N. Parker, the eminent
dramatist, who began life as a musician and received his
musical education at the Academy, speaks of mirthful
moments in composition hours. He remembers that on one
occasion when he arrived without his work and explained
that he had left it in the train, Bennett did not readily pass
the matter over, but continued for some time to make
tender enquiries after ' The District Railway Sonata.1
Mr Parker has given the following picture of Bennett as he
appeared in his latter days to one of his latest pupils : —

' There was a door labelled " Committee Room" on the
first landing of the Academy House, which, in the early
days of my sojourn there, I, in common with other junior
students, regarded with profound veneration. Through it
we saw our seniors passing twice a week on their way to
evolve masterpieces under the eye of the Principal, and the
sight was one which aroused feelings of the bitterest envy.
To this day I have no idea how I ultimately got into the
class. I leave it to others to hint that my promotion was
due to transcendent merit. In my own opinion it was due
to cheek. But, somehow I got in, and I think when I was
safely installed, I became duly humble and duly grateful,

26 — 2

404 Bennett with the Academy Students [CH.

and did my best to make myself as inconspicuous as possible.
Now, you must imagine a long table covered with an
official green baize ; at the head sits Sir Sterndale ; on each
side his pupils : Joseph Parry, Eaton Faning, Roberts, the
handsome and accomplished Arthur Jackson (a lovable
fellow destined to an early death while still a student),
Stephen Kemp, Tobias Matthay, and last, but not least,
Thomas Wingham, who, by reason of his undoubted genius,
of the authority he exerted and the noble example he set,
was regarded as the doyen of the students of his time.
Over this group Sir Sterndale presided with a certain
indefinable grace and dignity which marked him as a being
set apart, as, in short, a great man. The recollection of him
is as clearly before me now while I write, as though I was
speaking of yesterday and not of — Ah ! do not ask me how
many years ago. A spare man, not tall, yet giving some
impression of height by the proportion of his build and by
the extraordinary impressiveness of his head. Graceful
hair, black streaked with grey. A fair broad forehead with
a certain feel of strain about it, as though there were
constant neuralgia. Dark, piercing, yet kindly eyes with a
merry twinkle and sympathetic and humorous wrinkles in
the corners. The great beauty of the face lay in the finely
chiselled mouth. A touch of pain and sadness about that too,
but wonderfully sensitive lips, mobile to every impression,
and now and again melting into a smile which lighted up
the whole face and made you love the man without a word
spoken. The influence of his mere external personality
over the impressionable young artists who surrounded him
is indescribable. I believe there was not one of us who
would not gladly have died for him, who did not worship
him and look up to him as a being set apart. To me, at
any rate, he seemed holy, beautiful, adorable. It was
enough to sit and watch him, to watch his hand with its
graceful, sensitive fingers drumming on the table-cloth, to
watch his face, as he studied the score submitted to him by
some student, light up when he came to some passage less
than usually stupid and jejune.

' How did he teach ? I think he taught chiefly by
personal influence, by the outflow of his exquisite mind.
You lost certain things when you came before Bennett by

xxxi] Reminiscences of Piipils 405

the mere fact of being in the same room with him.
Vulgarity, for instance, and roughness. You felt you were
in the presence of a man, who, without any cant about art
with a capital A, did really and truly move in a higher
sphere than the ordinary man, and that here was a man for
whom the best was not too good. He taught, again,
by examples drawn from the great masters of old. His
memory was a storehouse of all music, and the range of his
knowledge embraced every composer from Palestrina to
Weber and Spohr. If a student brought him something
which touched a responsive chord in his imagination, which
was good enough to be considered actual music as dis-
tinguished from a mere exercise, he shirked no trouble in
analyzing it, in pointing out its merits to us others who
had brought up our club-footed sonatas and wooden-legged
fugues. Then he would often make the contents of such a
work the basis of his reference to the classics. " Play me,"
he would say to one of us, " such and such a passage from
Weber," or " Show me what Beethoven would have done in
such a case " ; and we were expected to remember the points
in question. If we did not, then he himself would go to the
piano and play them, and one led to another in a wonderful
series of illustrations until the possibilities of that particular
modulation, imitation or enharmonic change were completely
exhausted. I fear we often led him by judicious wiliness
and exaggerated ignorance to go to the piano ; for, to hear
him play, to watch those delicate fingers coaxing music out
of the instrument, to see his face light up, as now Mozart,
now Haydn, now Beethoven, now Gluck, now some half-
forgotten worthy such as Scarlatti or Buononcini forced his
way into his memory, was an experience never to be
forgotten.

' He had, with all his tender gentleness, a power of irony
about him, which inspired one with wholesome terror. He
had only to look at you in a certain way, and for the rest of
that day you felt you had ceased to exist. He had an
excellent wit, and a gift of kindly and yet scathing satire.
Many a time have I wished myself unborn as he has recalled
the original authors of my most treasured melodies. But
his most cutting things were always said so kindly that they
never discouraged you, but, on the contrary, spurred you on

406 Bennett with the Academy Students [CH. xxxi

to try again. When by some fortunate chance there
happened to be anything good in your work, a passage, a
bar, even a single chord, his praise was so generous, that
the glow at your heart very much more than counteracted
any chill his sarcasm may have previously left there.

'As the Head and Director of a public Institution his
manner was absolutely perfection. His charm conquered
all hearts ; yet his dignity, not assumed, not arrogated, but
inherent, gave him a personal supremacy to which all alike
bowed. I have met many men in the course of much
wandering. I have never met one who impressed me so
peculiarly at first sight as a great man, or whose every word
and movement seemed so completely in harmony with an
exquisite mind and a lofty soul.'

CHAPTER XXXII.

HONOURS AND REWARDS.

1870 — 1872.
aet. 54—56.

STERNDALE BENNETT received in due course a fair share
of this world's honours. There is no desire here to lay
stress on the titular distinctions of a man who may be
deemed worthy of remembrance by his plain names. But
some of the recognitions that reached him may still possess
an interest because they were granted to music in his
person for the first time. They were among the signs that
the art was growing in esteem, and regaining a position
of dignity, which at some time or another it had forfeited.
The works and letters of great writers such as Macaulay
and Thackeray convey the impression that the brilliant
vocalists and pianists who represented Music in Society
failed to present the art in a favourable light to reflecting
minds. If the improved attitude which was now to be
observed, came through the efforts of musicians themselves,
then credit may be claimed for a band of workers, of
whom Bennett himself was not the least conspicuous figure.
Many of his contemporaries, towards the end of his life,
expressed the opinion that both by what he had done,
as well as by what he had not done, he had helped to
raise the status of music and of the musical profession in
England.

His election in 1863 by the Committee of the Athenaeum
as the representative of a so far excluded art, has already
been mentioned. Another circumstance which attracted
some attention a little later was the appearance of his name

408 Honours and Rewards [CH.

on the list of guests at the annual banquet of the Royal
Academy of Arts. This may appear at first sight an
incident of no exceptional importance, but it meant a great
deal to an English musician who had longed to see music
placed in his own country, as he had seen it placed in
Germany, on an equality with other arts. A compliment
of similar significance followed a few years after. In 1870
the Marquess of Salisbury was elected Chancellor of the
University of Oxford. A new Chancellor, at the first 'Com-
memoration' after his election, himself nominates the re-
cipients of honorary degrees, and Bennett was one of fifty to
whom he offered the degree of D.C.L. in June. Bennett's
name appeared last on the printed list. Thus it may be
inferred that music was the last thing considered ; but at
any rate it was admitted, and admitted for the first time
in connection with an honour reserved for the highest
forms of distinguished attainment. The Chancellor must
have been convinced by the reception accorded to the
musician in the Theatre that his act was generally appreci-
ated. ' Finally,' wrote The Daily News, 'William Sterndale
Bennett, Professor of Music in the University of Cambridge,
was rapturously hailed as "a priest of Apollo and the
Muses." ' Canon Liddon received the great ovation of
the day, but according to The Morning Post and other
papers, ' Mr Sterndale Bennett appeared to rank next in
popularity.'

After passing an uneventful year at his cottage in Por-
chester Terrace, there came a sudden change, and Bennett
found himself beset with excitements of a kind quite new
to him. One afternoon in March 1871, when he was
teaching in a school at Clapham, a special messenger, who
had enquired for him at Porchester Terrace, arrived with
a letter from Mr Gladstone offering him the honour of
knighthood and requesting his presence at Windsor next
morning. The offer came so suddenly and unexpectedly,
without the connection which any special event might have
given, that he had some hesitation in believing it genuine.
'It was a relief to me,' he afterwards said, 'as I entered
Paddington Station to catch sight of Benedict on the
platform. Then I felt it was all right, and Mr Gladstone
soon came forward and spoke to me.' Another friend of

xx xn] Knighthood 409

Bennett's, W. Boxall,R.A., Director of the National Gallery,
had also been summoned, and on arrival at Windsor it was
found that Dr Elvey, organist of St George's Chapel, was
to share the honours. Costa had been knighted two years
earlier, Goss was similarly honoured a year later, and this
generous bestowal of distinction was regarded not so much
as a mark of favour shown to individual musicians, but
rather as a proof of Queen Victoria's desire to encourage
and advance the musical profession in England. It may
be added that Her Majesty had already, early in her reign,
conferred this honour on Sir Henry Bishop, and that up to
the time now referred to he was the only musician who had
thus been distinguished by a British Sovereign1.

When Bennett was next in Cambridge, he entered
King's College Chapel during Service time. As the con-
gregation issued from the Choir, at the conclusion of the
Service, and as Dr Okes, the Provost, was nearing the
door of egress, he saw Bennett standing aside in the
opposite corner of the Ante-chapel. He left the head
of his procession and crossed over to congratulate ' Sir
Sterndale.' There was no more dignified or ceremonious
man in Cambridge than Dr Okes, and Bennett was surprised
at this departure, on his part, from official routine, saying
of it afterwards, ' He actually came right across the Chapel
to speak to me.' Dr Okes would see in Bennett the
chorister who had become the knight. He chose a time
and place, under ordinary circumstances inappropriate, to
insinuate, in the presence of many who would observe and
understand his graceful act, the special significance which
Bennett's promotion had within those walls. Dr Okes
survived Bennett, and showed further interest in the latter's
early connection with the College, by kind correspondence
with the writer and by personally hunting up the particulars
of the choristership. He found out that the boy had been
admitted two months before the statutable age of eight,
and the laxity of this proceeding, though fifty-seven years
had intervened, seemed to trouble the mind of the strict
disciplinarian.

Simultaneously with knighthood Bennett gained another

1 Sir John Stevenson and Sir George Smart were knighted by the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland

4io Honours and Rewards [CH.

reward, of a very different kind though it came quite as
unexpectedly. It was merely a sum of money, in return
for past work, not a very large sum, and not of itself
requiring any special notice here. But the incident of this
payment, — the writer is alone responsible for calling it a
reward, — has suggested the telling of the whole tale to
which it was the conclusion ; the tale, that is, of Bennett's
career as a composer from the commercial point of view.
The connection between money and his musical com-
positions seems only twice in his life to have been brought
prominently to his notice, and at neither of these times by
his own act. The first occasion came when his early
publisher Coventry failed, about the year 1850; and the
second came in 1871, when Messrs Lamborn Cock & Co.,
owing to some change in their business arrangements,
desired to settle a cross account which had been running
between their firm and Bennett for some twenty years.
When Coventry failed, Bennett's published works, twenty-
eight in number, were put up to auction and sold in one lot
to Messrs Leader and Cock for ^503. It may be said,
in passing, that this was considered a high price at the
time, and that, though Coventry had a varied catalogue of
saleable works, those of Bennett, in proportion to their
number, realised more than those of any other composer
save Mendelssohn. In connection with this sale a com-
plication arose. Coventry had borrowed money on the
security of Bennett's works, but had so borrowed from an
intimate friend who was not a business man and who had
probably made no enquiry as to the publisher's legal claim
to them. Certainly in the case of most of these works,
probably in the case of all, there were no deeds of assign-
ment from the composer to the publisher. Coventry, how-
ever, was able to state that he had paid Bennett for the
first thirteen of the twenty-eight works. With regard to
the first eight, he was unable to mention the price paid for
each, but said that he had paid ^80 or more in toto. His
memory may have exaggerated the true sum, for his state-
ment places a higher value on the music than on that which
he next published, though there is nothing in the nature
of the works themselves to account for the difference. He
was able to name the separate prices paid for the next

xxxii] Proceeds of Composition 411

five pieces, so that the total amount given for them, viz.,
^31. ios., may be accepted as accurate. At the time of
Coventry's sale, Bennett had received no payment for the
remaining fifteen of the twenty-eight works, and, as there
were no legal assignments of them, he was advised that
they were his own property. Why he did not claim them
is not known. Perhaps, had he done so, he would have
placed his old friend Coventry, from whom he had received
much personal kindness, in an awkward position. He con-
sented to assign the works to the new purchasers. It is
the deed of that assignment which recites the chief of the
particulars given above. Bennett cannot have taken this
step without compunction. It is noticeable that he delayed
signing the deed for three or four years. Long afterwards,
when speaking of the first set of Six Songs, he said in a
regretful tone : 'Ah, I was obliged to give those away, they
ought really to be mine.' Accepting Coventry's figures, it
follows that when Bennett had reached his thirty-fifth year
and had published twenty-eight works, which represent in
number about two-thirds of his complete publications, he
had only received £111. ios. for the copyrights.

With his next publishers, Messrs Leader and Cock1,
he fared better. He left it to them to assign prices, and
they did it liberally according to the valuation of the day
set upon the class of music he wrote. The accounts kept
were cross ones, including, on the one side, music which he
bought for his pupils or himself, and, on the other, sales
of tickets for his concerts, fees for his editions of Bach,
Beethoven, Mendelssohn, etc. and for his own compositions.
These accounts were only made up at long intervals through
the course of twenty years. There was no appreciable
balance on either side of them, and for that reason, perhaps,
no actual settlement was considered necessary. It is
probable that in his wife's life-time Bennett never even
looked at them. In 1871, a resumd of the whole account,
which he had not asked for, was sent to him. It is not
surprising to find in this resumd that two or three of his
pieces were accidentally omitted. He would not himself
be likely to notice it after a long lapse of time. One or
two Anthems, published in his life-time, he gave away

1 Afterwards Messrs Lamborn Cock & Co.

412

Honours and Rewards

[CH.

to Collections of such works. In this final account — he
saw no further one — he was credited with the following
amounts : —

For 7 Pianoforte Pieces
2 Sacred Duets
6 Songs (2nd Set) ...
Preludes and Lessons
'The May Queen'
Exhibition Ode
Overture, 'Paradise and the Per
Symphony in G mi.
Anthem, ' Now, my God ' .
Part-Song, 'Sweet Stream'
'Woman of Samaria'

Add Coventry's payments

£ *

4i 5

10 10

47 5
'5°

25

25

25

10 10

500
;£ii99 io

III 10

He also received money for his compositions from Kistner
of Leipzig, and perhaps also from a Paris publisher who
printed several of his pianoforte pieces. All his instru-
mental works that were published in England (except two
early Concertos), as well as his twelve songs and 'The May
Queen,' were also published in Germany, but he preserved
no accounts of the payments made. A quotation from a
letter will illustrate him when dealing, as a composer, with
business. Here, again, was the case of a cross account
about which nothing had been said for some years. He
wrote to Julius Kistner in 1847: — 'You write about my
account with the firm of your good departed brother. I
do not know how he arranged this. You will know the
money he gave me and the compositions he received, and
I beg you will balance the account and let me know if I
am still your debtor. Since I was last in Leipzig I have
sent Rondo Piacevole, Scherzo, Trio, and before I left I
gave him the Six Songs and the Suite de Pieces, but make
the reckoning just as you please. We never made any
specific arrangement together. I have never received any
money from him without giving a receipt, and you will
therefore know how much he has given me and what my
compositions have been worth.'

xxxn] Royal Society of Musicians 413

Enough has been said to show how little attention
Bennett can have paid to this one side of money-earning.
When the account from Messrs Lamborn Cock & Co.
reached him in 1871, he was completely surprised to find
that there was a balance of nearly six hundred pounds in
his favour. Had he given any previous thought to the
matter, he might have foreseen that, as he had long given
up providing music for his pupils, except at one or two
schools, the account would gradually turn in his favour.
He was exceedingly pleased. The prize came opportunely.
A good Providence, may be, had held it in reserve, and
awarded it to this non-mercantile musician at a time of his
life when it seemed to be wanted.

Immediately after he was knighted, the Royal Society
of Musicians invited him to preside at their annual Festival
dinner. The Secretary, in a circular addressed to the
Patrons of the Society, drew attention to the fact that the
Chair had never before been occupied by a musician. No
other Society so comprehensively represented the national
profession of music, and British musicians could not, at the
time, have devised a more signal way of acknowledging
Bennett as the head of that profession. He performed
what was to him a novel and therefore trying duty with
success but not without effort.

ATHENAEUM,

April 29, 1871.
MY DEAR J.,

I have been very unwell all the week about
the dinner business, but it is all now well over. It was
considered a success. Look at The Times if you can. In
great haste,

Ever your affectionate father,

W. S. B.

For the next three months he found it difficult to
keep pace with the flattering consequences of his new
distinction. Levies, garden-parties at Buckingham Palace
and Maryborough House, other social functions too im-
portant to disregard, entangled themselves with lectures
at Cambridge, examinations at the London University,

414 Honozirs and Rewards [CH.

Uppingham and Queen's College, and the already fixed
engagements which the London season always imposed on
the substratum of heavy work at the Academy and with
private pupils. The personal attentions now paid to him
were gratifying, but they taxed his time. He referred to
them, in a letter to his Aunt, as 'the crust which must be
taken with the crumb '; and at the end of July, he wrote to
his son, ' I am so tired/ a species of remark in which he
had, so far, seldom indulged. Early in August he was at
Eastbourne, with his daughter, her husband, and a little
grandson who joined the sea-side party for the first time.
A fortnight later he had recovered himself, and was on his
way, in high spirits, to the Beethoven Festival at Bonn.
On this, his last visit to Germany, as on the first visit in
1836, Davison, whom he now very rarely met in London,
was his travelling companion. Mrs Davison with her two
sons and Bennett's son-in-law and son were also of the
party, and they were no little astonished, as two long days
in a railway carriage passed on, at the continuous unflagging
merriment with which the two old friends infected one
another. Ferdinand Hiller conducted the Bonn Festival.
He welcomed Bennett with great cordiality. One night,
when a large company was assembled for supper at a Club
which had been placed at the disposal of the Festival
Committee, Hiller, having Bennett at his side, made a
graceful little speech, bidding a number of young students
who were sitting near him to take a good look, while they
had the chance, at the great English musician. At this
Festival Bennett met the Danish composer, Niels Gade,
whose connection with Leipzig had been similar to his own,
but who had never been there exactly at the same time.
Another composer who was present, in whose music Bennett
had taken great interest when writing lectures on ' The
Opera,' and whom he had great pleasure in now seeing,
was the learned M. Gevaert of Brussels.

The honour conferred upon him by the Queen was the
subject of much rejoicing at the Academy. The students,
with generous impulse, straightway purchased a grand
silver cup, and presented it to their Principal with all
due formality. Sir George Macfarren afterwards wrote of
the lasting impression which Bennett's words of reply to

xxxn] A Presentation 415

Mr Stephen B. •Kemp, the senior scholar, must have made
upon his hearers ; words ' so graceful, so modest, and so
encouraging to the students, who could all, he said, surely
meet with such success as had fallen to his lot.' The Pro-
fessors followed suit, called a meeting, and decided to open
a subscription-list with a view of perpetuating Bennett's
memory by founding a scholarship, at the Academy, to
bear his name. The presentation of a parchment, on which
the list of subscribers was enrolled, was made the occasion
of a public ceremonial, and on April I9th, 1872, a few days
after his fifty-sixth birthday, Bennett was called upon to face
a large concourse of people who met in St James's Hall
to pay him honour. The Philharmonic orchestra offered
tribute to their former conductor by playing his Overture,
' The Naiads.' Henry Leslie brought his famous choir,
which filled the balcony at the back of the Hall and sang
two of Bennett's Part-songs. One of them, ' Sweet Stream
that glides through yonder Glade,' had been recently written
for a concert at Buckingham Palace. The Attorney-General,
Sir John Coleridge, presided over the meeting and was sur-
rounded ' by the most eminent native and foreign musicians
in London at the time.'

It was a trying ordeal for Bennett. He not only had
to endure, while his career was being described by the
speakers, a conspicuous personal prominence on the day
itself, but the proceedings were so exceptional that they
naturally attracted great attention, and in the course of the
week he became the subject of much written comment. His
reputation bore the test to which, in this day of reckoning,
it was put. It is impossible not to observe some feeling
of disappointment, among those who commented upon him,
that a man, universally acknowledged as one of the foremost
on the roll of British composers, should not have written
more music and should not have produced, in later life,
more works on a large scale. But it was not as a composer
alone that Bennett had gained his position in England, and
the respect of his musical brethren. His character and
principles as an artist stood for a great example. ' He has
aimed at the highest,' said Macfarren at this meeting, ' not
only in his musical works, but in his life,' and none who

1 Afterwards, Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice.

416 Honours and Rewards [CH. xxxn

spoke or wrote of him at this time failed to emphasize the
fact that his days had been spent in furthering the highest
interests of his art in his native land. Sir John Coleridge,
who knew Bennett personally, spoke of 'a long and laborious
career,' and added : — ' Whether we are musicians or not,
we can all admire the simple, unpretending and manly
character of our friend. We can all congratulate him that
the Queen has thought fit to confer dignity upon a man
who dignifies and adorns the noble profession which he
practises.'

CHAPTER XXXIII.

COMPOSITIONS. THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC
AND THE ALBERT HALL.

1872—1873.
a?t. 56.

IN the season of 1872, Bennett finished an Overture
which had been in his mind for the past year or two.
This Overture was the first instalment of an intention
to set music to the Ajax of Sophocles. A translation of the
Choruses had been sent to him, many years before, by the
Rev. Herbert Snow1, then Assistant-master at Eton. He
had disappointed some of his Cambridge friends, by his
hesitation in undertaking a work the idea of which had
originated from themselves. He had lately been pressed
by them to reconsider the matter, and having written the
Overture he desired its immediate performance, in order to
prove to those interested in the matter that he had made a
start with the work. The ' Prelude ' — as he called it — to
Ajax was accordingly given at the Philharmonic. It was
finished a fortnight before the performance, but certain ex-
citements such as that caused by the 'Testimonial' meeting,
and fresh agitations with regard to the future of the Academy,
had tired him very much, and he was unable to attend either
the rehearsal or the performance of his new work. When
it was played, after his death, at the Crystal Palace,
Sir A. Manns spoke of it warmly as 'a real inspiration,' but
on its first hearing it created no visible impression. The
Times considered that it was too short to be played as a
concert-piece. Bennett, on hearing that it had been coldly
received at the Philharmonic rehearsal, seemed a little upset.

1 Now the Rev. H. Kynaston, D.D., Canon of Durham.
S. B. 27

4i8 1872 — 1873 [CH.

When asked if he thought the music was on a level with his
other Overtures, he said, ' Yes, I'm quite sure of that ' ; but
he was conscious that others did not, at the time, think
the same. As soon as he found himself at Eastbourne
in the beginning of August, he said, ' Now I must finish
my Sonata. I want something to show to them at the
Academy when I go back.' Disappointment about one
work acted as the incentive to another. The Sonata in
question was 'The Maid of Orleans.' He did not finish it,
as he hoped to do, in that same holiday ; but he completed
the principal movement, prefaced it with an introductory
movement of a pastoral character, and wrote on August
24, ' I shall, I hope, send the first two movements of my
Sonata to London to-morrow.' The slow movement, which
depicts the Maid of Orleans ' In Prison,' was added early
in September, while he was staying for a few days with
his son at Sherborne in Dorsetshire, but the Finale, his
holiday being over, moved slowly. Six months now came
during which the Royal Academy of Music monopolized
his thoughts.

The condition of affairs at the Academy had been
steadily improving. At the end of 1869, the Committee
had reported a balance beyond expenditure of a substantial
sum. By the end of 1870 this margin had been more than
doubled, while in the same year the number of students
rose to 121, comparing favourably with the number 66 at
the end of 1868. By the spring of 1872 the total reached
176. The Institution had now attained its fiftieth year and
could celebrate a Jubilee with rejoicing, and with gratitude
for increasing prosperity. The Society of Arts again came
forward. The fresh negotiations which they now opened
with the Academy had an additional importance owing to
the fact that the Duke of Edinburgh had joined their
musical Committee and was taking active interest in their
suggestions upon musical education. Representatives of
the Society and of the Academy met at Clarence House,
the Duke's residence, on July i, 1872. On July 3, the
Academy gave a Jubilee dinner at Willis's Rooms, where
Mr Cole announced in the course of the evening that
scholarships to the value of ^5000 could be offered to
the Academy, ' if it remodelled its administration.' The

xxxm] A Glittering Offer 419

present administrators of the Institution, who were Mr Cole's
hosts, did not understand their guest's remark, nor was it
subsequently explained to them. On July 9, the Duke of
Edinburgh came with Mr Cole to inspect the Academy
House in Tenterden Street. On July 1 7, the Duke met the
Academy Committee at the Royal Albert Hall. ' Accom-
modation ' was there shown, which Mr Cole said could be
placed rent-free at the disposal of the Academy. This
offer required grave consideration, and remained under
discussion till the following spring. The accommodation
was part of a vacuum between the circular exterior and
elliptical interior of the building. The Academy was now
asked to erect, within this space, the required class-rooms,
and to defray the expense of their erection. The Trustees
of the Albert Hall explained that they were in a state
of great impecuniosity, and had not a shilling to spend.
To be housed in a fine and finely situated public building
was a prospect not without strong attraction to the Academy.
Sir George Macfarren, referring to the circumstance many
years later, wrote : ' It was a glittering proposal.' More-
over, if the offer was not accepted the Academy would
perhaps sacrifice their chance of being connected with the
projected music-school at Kensington.

The empty shell was to be rent-free, but then, as a con-
sequence, the Treasury would withdraw the Grant which
had been expressly assigned for the payment of rent. The
removal, therefore, would be of no pecuniary advantage ;
while the countenance of the Government, which gave
much prestige to the Academy, would be lost, or, at the
best, exchanged for the uncertain patronage of others who
had not yet matured their own plans for musical education,
and who were unable to state definitely the conditions under
which they would make the Academy the centre of their
future scheme. The term ' promoters of the new scheme '
has been adopted to serve the purposes of this narrative ;
but except in the case of Sir Henry Cole, whose great
interest was throughout apparent, the term has little refer-
ence to known individuals. The Society of Arts, the
Conservative Ministry when in office, the Commissioners
of the 1851 Exhibition, the Trustees of the Albert Hall,
might all in turn advise, or give hopes of assistance to

27 — 2

420 1872 — 1873 [CH.

musical education ; but throughout the negotiations de-
scribed in these pages no Committee was formed to carry
a new scheme through, no organized body appeared with
whom the authorities of the Academy could deal securely
and from whom they could obtain pledges for the future.
' I do not know where I am ; ' Bennett would privately say,
' if the Prince of Wales would come forward, I should have
no more hesitation.'

It was noticed, that when Bennett presided over the
Academy Committee, he did not himself take a prominent
part in the debates. If, at the end of a discussion, he gave
any opinion, he would express it in very few words. His
colleagues, however, had such faith in his judgment that
they were generally content to accept what he said, even
though his reasons were not forthcoming. Sir George
Macfarren remembered that there was much curiosity at
the Academy, while the negotiations about the Albert
Hall were pending, to know what was passing in Bennett's
mind. Up to the time of the final conference, he was very
reserved, and gave no sign of the attitude he was likely
to take. Representatives of the Society of Arts, of the
Albert Hall, and of the Academy met at Clarence House
on March 8, 1873. As the meeting drew to a close,
something was said about the expense which the Academy
would be likely to incur in erecting the class-rooms. The
representatives of the Albert Hall estimated this at about
^2000. The proposed structural alterations implied a
building operation of an exceptional kind, and some one,
on the part of the Academy, suggested that this estimate
might easily be exceeded. The cost of removal and re-
furnishing had also to be provided for. The Academy
had known all along that this expense was a necessary
condition of the scheme, and made no serious objection to
it ; but the introduction of the subject at this meeting gave
Bennett the chance of raising a question which had so far
not been considered. ' If we incur this expense,' he said,
' what guarantee can we have of security of tenure ? '
Mr Cole at once replied, 'We can give no guarantee';
upon which Bennett as quickly added, ' Then, I fear, we
must decline the offer.'

The raising of the required money might have given

xxxin] The Offer Declined 421

the Academy no trouble, but Mr Cole's reply to Bennett's
question put a new complexion on the whole matter. The
Academy authorities could not abandon their at present
improving position, could not risk any fraction of their
independence, could not surrender the privilege of Govern-
ment recognition, for the sake of a new arrangement, which,
however alluring it might at first sight appear, was known
to be terminable at any moment by the other party. As
Bennett was leaving Clarence House after the meeting,
Mr (later, Sir) Charles Freake said to him, 'Sir, you will
live to repent this.' The Academy authorities, however,
notwithstanding some disappointment, agreed that Bennett
was right. A fortnight later, the Directors passed a
resolution 'approving the course adopted by their special
Committee in declining the proposition to go to the Albert
Hall.'

CHAPTER XXXIV.

SOME PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

BEFORE presenting the closing scenes of Bennett's life,
an attempt will be made to recall some personal character-
istics which have failed to find a place in the foregoing
narrative, to add something about his tastes and occupations
other than musical, and even something about the few
amusements allowed to so busy a man.

On March 8, 1873, the day of the important Confer-
ence at Clarence House mentioned in the last chapter, he
wrote to his son : — ' I am sorry I have not written to you
before. One thing is decided, that we do not go to the
Albert Hall — (I mean the Royal Academy of Music) so I
am freed from meetings of that kind for the present. We
declined. * * * I am pretty well and have a lunch here
to-morrow expecting Joachim, Millais, Barlow, Case, at
one-thirty. * * * '

Three of the guests mentioned in this letter were con-
cerned in the production of a portrait of Bennett which was
being finished just at this time. The portrait owes its exist-
ence to the generous heart of Mr Robert Case and to his
devoted regard for his friend's musicianship and personality.
When at Mr Case's house, where he was as much at home
as in his own, Bennett, in these later years, would often seat
himself voluntarily at the pianoforte and play short pieces,
— a certain Mazurka of Chopin is remembered as a constant
item of his little programme. One evening towards the
end of 1872 when he was thus engaged, Oldham Barlow,
the engraver, was watching him, and whispered to his host,
' There ought to be a portrait of him.' Mr Case seized the

CH. xxxiv] A Portrait 423

idea ; he was a man of prompt decision ; and before the
music ceased he had commissioned Barlow to speak to
Millais on the subject. The great artist consented to paint
the portrait for Mr Case, and Bennett referred to its com-
pletion in a letter, dated March 16, 1873, to his daughter,
'Just a line to say we (Charlie and I) are quite well. I have
been at home all day, the weather being so bad, also alter-
ing the Exhibition Ode, the piano part only, for a small
shilling copy. All Tom's1 corrections have been made in
" The Woman of Samaria." The Sonata has made some
little progress but is not yet finished. The Academy busi-
ness of moving to the Albert Hall has taken much of my
time and thought. My picture is nearly finished and I
believe my last sitting takes place to-morrow.'

The portrait appeared at the Exhibition of the Royal
Academy of Arts in 1873. It represents Bennett, towards
the close of his fifty-seventh year, arrayed in robes he
seldom wore, seated at a table and looking up from the
occupation, in his case certainly a rare one, of reading the
score of a composition of his own. The Doctor of Music's
gown was introduced as an afterthought, the artist finding a
difficulty as he proceeded owing to Bennett's head being, in
his opinion, large in proportion to the spare figure. The
chair, which is in keeping with the idea of showing him as
a University Professor, did not belong to Bennett ; but the
engraving of ' The Apotheosis of Handel,' the inkstand,
the original score of ' The May Queen ' lying open before
him, and a printed copy of ' The Woman of Samaria,' which
appeared in the picture, were chosen and sent by his eldest
son, in response to the artist's wish that accessories should,
as far as possible, have a real connection with the person
portrayed.

The original picture, now the inherited possession of
Mr Robert Case's son1, the President of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford, gives a marvellously satisfying resem-
blance. Bennett himself is there, in the serious mood
habitual to him as a musician. The attitude, in its every
detail, is one in which he was constantly to be seen. Old-
ham Barlow, who first suggested the portrait, himself en-

1 Bennett's son-in-law.

424 Some Personal Characteristics [CH.

graved it. He took infinite pains to preserve the likeness,
and no doubt did so with all the accuracy which the art he
practised could reach. A reproduction of his work has
been adopted for the frontispiece of this book1.

A few facts may supplement what pictures already
tell. Bennett was five feet seven inches in height. His
head, as Millais noticed, was certainly on a large scale in
relation to his whole figure. This would account, as Mr
Louis N. Parker has suggested above, and as Miss Bettina
Walker has also suggested in her reminiscences, for his
appearing at times taller than he was, or at any rate for his
actual height escaping notice. His hair was black, his eyes
of a deep blue colour. His complexion was clear, and had
warmth of colour, but no floridness. He looked his best in
the height of summer. The thermometer could never be too
high for him, and he thrived beneath a burning sun which,
though it tanned him but little, acted as a tonic and gave
him the maximum of health. On the other hand, when he
came before the public as an artist, his face was remarkable
for its extreme pallor.

His large eyes often attracted attention by reason of the
intense and prolonged earnestness of their gaze. In a
summer holiday of 1861, he was daily playing Bach's first
Prelude, restudying, with a solicitude that could not fail to
excite curiosity, a piece of music which he must have known
since boyhood, and must have taught to countless pupils.
He did not only play it, but from time to time sat peering
into particular bars of the printed music, as if consider-
ing the exact shade of tone which he would choose for each
note. Davison told the writer that Bennett's unwearying
industry, as a young man, over minute details, was one of
the secrets of the individuality of his playing, and that the
result was alone sufficient to differentiate him from many
eminent pianists of his time. In another holiday, some
years later, he was often watched, while he sat motionless
at his pianoforte absorbed in the silent examination of one
and the same page of a slow movement by Mendelssohn.

1 The original picture does not lend willingly to photography, a process
under which it parts with many of its details and seems, even as a likeness of
Bennett, to sacrifice its superiority over the engraving. The eminent engraver's
version of the portrait can be reproduced with precision.

xxxiv] A Pianist's Hands 425

On such occasions, the appearance of his wide-opened
eyes, with their strongly fastened but eagerly searching
look, would fascinate a bystander however familiar with
him he might be.

When recalling the personality of a pianist, hands and
fingers claim their share of the remembrance. The key-
board of a pianoforte was perhaps the last place at which to
observe any peculiarity in the contour of Bennett's hands.
There they only showed themselves as exactly fitted for the
work they were doing, and as a perfectly adjusted con-
stituent of the instrument's mechanism. It was, rather, when
they were otherwise employed, that something uncommon
about their general appearance caught the eye. The separate
parts of the hands were shown with distinctness when he was
performing little feats and tricks for mere amusement. The
hand, with the fingers open, gave the impression of being a
large one. The fingers were long, so too, perhaps, was the
hand ; but the back of the hand, when he doubled the
fingers under it, at once looked surprisingly small. It was
almost triangular in shape, and, probably as a result of
physical training, scarcely any flesh was visible beyond the
bones that bounded the sides. The fingers were slender,
as a ring which he wore on the third finger, but which few
men could wear on the fourth, remains to prove. The
fingers, however, by their agile movements, by their capa-
city of wide extension, and by the clear articulation of their
joints, gave at all times a striking look to the hand as a
whole and, through occupying a large space, no doubt
deceived the eye as regards actual size. The finger-tips by
reason probably of continued pressure had become flat and
broad, as if the flesh of the upper finger joints had been
drawn up and collected into the form of padded cushions
nearly coinciding in breadth with the white keys of a piano-
forte. This alteration did not reach the stage of unsight-
liness, but it did bring him one special discomfort which
gave evidence of its reality and extent. When he was
obliged to wear kid gloves, a pair large enough to admit
his fingers lay quite loosely over his hand and wrists. Sir
Arthur Sullivan, as a boy, took lessons on the pianoforte
from him, and recollected in after-life that his attention had

426 Some Personal Characteristics [CH.

often been distracted from his work, because he could not
help looking at his master's hands, and wondering what
amount of practice it had taken to induce such a result.

The fingers were very strong. Miss Bettina Walker
wrote of him in this connection : — ' He often said, that
when the fingers are tired, it is a sign that one has practised
well ; and he constantly warned me from letting any other
part of my body become engaged in the work — It took, he
said, " from the strength that ought to be in the fingers."
In one of the little feats above mentioned he clearly, though
unintentionally, exhibited his own possession of this
strength ; also the power he had of regulating that strength
so that each of the five fingers should have an equal share
of it ; and, further, he gave evidence of how close a coun-
terpart the left hand, whenever he wished it to be so, was
of the right. This last quality would doubtless have great
value on some sides of pianoforte playing. Sir George
Macfarren, in a ' Memorial ' lecture upon Bennett, specially
referred to the fact of his two hands having possessed, to a
very exceptional extent, equality of effectiveness.

When his mind was not absorbed with music or with
other serious thoughts he was full of vivacity. Rapidity
of bodily movement was natural to him, and had in it no
appearance of hurry or precipitancy. His visible alertness
was in correspondence with the no less certain quickness of
his mind, though in nearly all he did, whether of major or
minor importance, control was noticeable. He excited the
surprise of others by the apparent suddenness of some of
his physical acts and mental impressions. His comprehen-
siveness of sight was in evidence to those who witnessed
him instantly transfer to the pianoforte unfamiliar pages of a
manuscript score. He showed something of the same gift
of sight in other ways. His household marvelled at the
celerity with which he could survey his house and its con-
tents, as he passed through it when he came in for a few
moments from his work. The house in Queensborough
Terrace was a high one ; his book-cases were on landings,
as well as in most of the rooms. If an inmate when read-
ing a book, heard his carriage drive up, he or she would
know that very few moments would elapse before Bennett

xxxiv] Sudden Acts and Impressions 427

would be enquiring for the particular volume. This, though
a frequent incident, continued to cause surprise, and to
baffle average understanding.

As an example of what may be called his instantaneous-
ness, Thomas Sparrow, an amateur pianist and for some
years his pupil, was one day playing at high speed a passage
consisting of a close cluster of semiquavers. Bennett,
sitting quietly by his side, said, ' Play it again ' ; and then
the pupil, before he was conscious of any time elapsing,
found one of his fingers held, as in a vice, on a false
note, while Bennett was ejaculating, ' I've got it now.'
Sparrow, when relating this some thirty years afterwards,
said, that it had always remained as a miracle to him, how
Bennett could have thrown his hand from a position of rest
and caught the erring finger, on one particular note out of so
many, in such a flash of time. A companion story was told
by Kellow Pye, a man who was himself noted for activity
and for quickness of musical perceptions. Bennett visited
him at Exeter when they were both young men, and one
afternoon they approached the Cathedral during the time
of Service. The customary arrangement of baize-covered
doors guarded the entrance. As Pye touched the handle
of the outer door, he being as yet unconscious of any sound
within the building, Bennett startled him by saying, ' What
a curious key to have a Service in.' The organ had
recently been tuned to a high pitch and therefore a Service
of Attwood's which, after entering, they found was in pro-
gress, did sound in an extreme key, but Pye told the writer
fifty years later, that Bennett's instantaneous impression,
which came before the door was open more than an inch,
had always lingered in his mind as something inexplicable.

Much used to be said by those who had known Bennett
in his early life about his wonderful memory, perhaps, how-
ever, only shown in any remarkable way in relation to
music. The great quantity of music which he recollected
surprised, as has already been seen, the pupils of his later
days. One striking instance of his power of recollection
will suffice here. Shortly before his death, he was con-
versing with W. H. Holmes, the pianist, in a class-room at
the Academy. Holmes had known him in his boyhood,
had taught him for seven years, had always followed his

428 Some Personal Characteristics [CH.

career with affectionate and admiring interest and naturally
thought that after a friendship of nearly fifty years his
knowledge of him was complete. But there was still a
little margin for fresh experience. At this interview he was
fairly astonished, — so he told the writer a few years later,
— when Bennett sat down to the pianoforte and played long
extracts from a MS. Concerto of his (Holmes's) composi-
tion, which he could not possibly have heard more than
once, and that many, many years before.

Of Bennett's mental activity in other directions than
music, or of any results arising from it, there is nothing very
definite to say. His own views on such a subject act as a
caution to its discussion here. He would not have forbidden
the statement that his early training lay, rather exclusively,
in a single direction ; but he would strongly have resented
any credit being placed to his account, for the subsequent
attainment of more varied knowledge. He inveighed
against the free use of expressions like ' self-improvement '
or 'culture,' thinking that such matters should go without
saying, and that the mention of them savoured of conceit.
He sternly rebuked a young man who, when applying for
an appointment, accounted for time that had elapsed since
leaving college, by writing that he had employed it in con-
tinuing his studies. 'You must never mention such a
thing,' he exclaimed, 'everybody does that.' A man, in his
opinion, might pride himself on what he had learnt from
others, but must court no acknowledgment of what he had
added himself. 'Self-educated men,' he would say, 'are too
often vain men.' He had a very marked respect for
eminent scholastic learning approached by the stepping-
stones of an early liberal education. He was nurtured in
the atmosphere of a University, where he would start by
hearing of, and by, no doubt, admiring heroes of learning.
Even amongst his own playmates there were Cambridge-
bred boys destined for a college career. With these he
continued to associate when he went home from the Aca-
demy for his holidays, and at length saw them taking a
share in the coveted honours of a University. This con-
nection with Cambridge accounted for and intensified an
after-regret that his own education could not have been
of a more liberal kind. His reverence for great scholars

xxxiv] Early Education 429

seemed, at times of his later life, to be excessive, considering
his own distinction. This was noticed, and even thought to
be a pity, by some of his Cambridge friends. He did not,
however, openly show any thirst for knowledge, nor did he
attempt by any settled course of study to become a scholar
in the sense in which he read the word. He wrote from
Germany, in 1842, to his future wife: — 'You must know
very well what an Academy education is, and I often wish
that I knew less of music and more of other things. How-
ever, I try to make up by experience and by coming out in
the world for the want of a first-rate education.' As a
comment upon what he thus wrote about himself, it may be
noted, that a first-rate education, such as he meant, was not
in his young days attainable in England by many. It must
not be assumed that there was, in this respect, any disability
peculiar to a young musician. Bennett always remained
grateful for the benefits he had received at the Royal
Academy of Music. Towards the end of his life, he said
at a public meeting, ' I can never repay the debt I owe to
the old place.' Within its walls he had not only been
taught music, but he had come under the daily personal
influence of men of fine character, of great mental ability,
of wide and varied interests. During the ten years of his
residence as a student, he enjoyed educational advantages
probably of a higher type and certainly of a much longer
duration than those which fell to the lot of most English
youths of that period. With intellect and taste cultivated
by a deep study of his own art, and with appealing graces
of manner and disposition, he lacked nothing afterwards at
any time to make him congenial and companionable to
men whose education had been on different lines to his
own. If his early training had been too much in one
special direction ; if his thoughts were centred, as there can
be little doubt they were, upon music, he seldom betrayed
this in his intercourse with others. It was the occasion of
no little remark that in the course of general conversation
he not only refrained from introducing music or musical
events as a topic, but, in his own house at least, discouraged
others from doing so. A fellow-artist once remarked that
he thought it would be possible to stay in Sterndale Ben-
nett's house for several days without discovering that he

43° Some Personal Characteristics [CH.

was a musician. One day some musical matter was being
discussed at his table. When the time came at which he
might be expected to say something, he smiled at the
young German lady sitting by his side, who had just come
to England well instructed in his artistic position, and
astonished her by saying, 'Ah, you see, /am not musical.'
G. Augustus Sala was dining at Bennett's house on an
evening when the party was chiefly composed of musicians.
In the course of the dinner, he said to his host and another
guest, ' I like sitting between you two men, because you
talk of other things than music.'

Bennett accumulated a well-assorted library, and one
which might be considered large for a man who, during
the greater part of his life, could not spare much time for
reading. When he first took a house and was apportioning
under different heads a modest sum of money, — this is told
by an old pocket-book, — he wrote down ^"30 for additions
to the contents of his book-shelves as against £$ for the
furnishing of his kitchen. Henry G. Bohn, the publisher,
who made his acquaintance about the year 1848, admired
his choice of books, and would often afterwards send him
presentation copies of such publications of his own as had
exceptional interest. With the highly cultivated and genial
George Hogarth, a friend of Sir Walter Scott and the
father-in-law of Charles Dickens, Bennett lived on terms
of the closest intimacy, and with him he delighted to con-
verse on literary subjects. Hogarth would examine the
book-shelves, and when the regret was expressed, ' I have
so little time,' would console by saying, ' Ah, but you have
the books, and there is much to be learnt on their mere
title-pages.'

Bennett had a good knowledge of English poetry, and,
though a little shy of showing it, would enjoy a quiet talk
over one of his favourite poets with his neighbour in the
Combination-room of a College or in his own house with
some literary friend of wider reading than his own. At a
late period of his life he had — probably it had always been
his habit to have — a few books, or one book, to which he
would remain constant for many months together. He
could, for instance, be seen evening after evening, month
after month, reading The Deserted Village ; apparently

xxxiv] A student of Poetry 431

studying it as a work of art with all the earnestness which
he had applied to Bach's first Prelude. At night-time, long
and tiring as the day might have been, he sat up in his
chair with his back straightened — for he never lounged —
and, if reading, would hold his book on a level with his
eyes, forgetting the pipe which he had meant to smoke.
There is a letter to him from E. S. Dallas, a critic on the
staff of The Times, answering an enquiry on the authen-
ticity of some lines in The Traveller, which gives the idea
that Bennett, as far as he went, aimed at thoroughness
in his literary pursuits. Cowper and Gray he read in the
same constant way as he did Goldsmith. Byron, Moore,
and Burns he had studied in earlier life, and they lent their
inspiration to some of his music ; but his interest in poetry
was independent of musical considerations. He did not
think, and he lived at a time when it had scarcely been
discovered, that important works of great poets could be
illustrated by a musical setting of their actual words. As
a teacher of composition, he went so far as to recommend
students to postpone the use of words and to acquire the
habit of gaining their musical ideas without reliance on the
suggestions which words might give.

Of the fine arts he was no professed critic. It is
curious, in relation to his views on music, that he thought
classical architecture cold and was little touched by its
beauty ; though he would say of the two great churches
in the High Street at Oxford that when he saw them side
by side he could not help preferring the classical one. He
covered the walls of his house with pictures and engravings.
In their possession he took a delight which was always
manifest though seldom expressed in words. Amongst his
books a prime favourite, and one he constantly read or
consulted, was Sir Joshua Reynolds' Lectures on Painting.
In proportion to his means, he allowed himself a generous
indulgence in his various tastes as a collector ; and this
was the more possible, because those pleasures of a more
transient kind which contented him involved little expense.
The value of his musical library, considering the price of
music at the time he bought it, probably tallied very nearly
with what he received during his life-time for his own
compositions. The general charm of his personal pos-

432 Some Personal Characteristics [CH.

sessions was enhanced by their ever graceful arrangement,
which did not bend to convention, but showed a refreshing
individuality. The appearance of his rooms would often
prompt his visitors to speak their admiration. A few
days after his death his friend Davison, going through the
passages of his house stopped before one of the pictures
and said with great feeling, ' He was a man who always
loved to have beautiful things about him.' Of the distin-
guished artists of his time, Bennett knew the Landseers,
and set great store on a charming water-colour sketch that
Sir Edwin had painted in his album. He was on intimate
terms with Mulready and Creswick. Charles Kemble, the
actor, was often at his house in Russell Place.

He is reported, on good authority, to have said at the
Academy in his last days, ' I do not like books.' These
words seemed to contradict what has been said above,
but they reappeared without any context which might
explain them. Even in the same house and at about the
same time he took a keen personal interest in forming a
small library to provide profitable employment for students
while waiting for music lessons. He did, however, make
reservation about the use of books. Thus, as a teacher
of music, he cautioned pupils against an excessive reliance
on theoretical text-books, suggesting to them, in illustration
of his meaning, that they should try to reduce the rules of
Harmony within the compass of a card or sheet of note-
paper. Then again, he often said, and said it as if it were
a conception of his own, though of course it is not original,
' I believe there can be too much reading and too little
thinking.' Sometimes he would say this against himself in
reference to his own newspaper reading, which he thought
he had allowed to grow into an excessive indulgence to the
detriment of forming independent opinions. Long hours
in his carriage gave the opportunity for this reading and
especially for the study of a favourite subject.

Up to middle life he took a keen interest in politics,
inclining to the Liberal side. This recalls his valued
friendship with Wyndham Goold, an Irish landowner and
M.P. for the county of Limerick, who first came to him
early in 1847 for letters of introduction to Leipzig whither
he was going in order to place his young friend, Arthur

xxxiv] Interest in Politics 433

O'Leary, in the Conservatorium. Bennett was already in
the good graces of Mr Goold's sisters, the Countess of
Dunraven and Lady Gore Booth, whom he described to
Mendelssohn as 'two of our best amateurs.' Wyndham
Goold, himself a most attractive and lovable man, was
immediately drawn towards Bennett, and thenceforward
when Parliament brought him to town, he spent much time
at Russell Place, in no formal way, but catching his busy
friend when he could, and seeking his intimate companion-
ship. He became a fresh medium of communication be-
tween Bennett and Leipzig, for he continued to visit that
place, and was so appreciated there, that the remembrance
of him was treasured in German families long after his
death1. He liked to hear Bennett play Bach's Fugues,
but he also liked to draw him out upon politics. He
corresponded with him, and, if the one letter preserved is
a sample of the others, the political situations of the day
were the chief subjects of the correspondence. He once
told Mr Arthur O'Leary that he had been surprised at
Bennett's interesting and seemingly original views on
politics, and that he had been puzzled as to how they had
been acquired. Bennett would not be likely to satisfy
enquiries on that point. Those who knew him later used
to hear him enunciate quaint and fresh-sounding theories
on a variety of subjects, which marked him as a man of
curious thought or observation ; but he was a little irritating
sometimes when he declined to state the premises by which
he had arrived at his opinion. However, by one of his
theories — as he himself called them — he would often start
lively conversations at his own table, which it would amuse
him to listen to, but in which he would take no part. He
did not care to argue. It was noticed that with regard
to music he did not try to give or want to hear verbal
explanations of uncommon effects. He probably felt that
beauty lost some of its charm in the process of analysis.
This same disposition of mind was shown when he went,
as he much liked to do, to conjuring entertainments. He
wanted to preserve the idea of the mystery of the thing ;
and it spoilt his simple enjoyment to hear any suggestion

1 Mr Wyndham Goold died very suddenly in 1855, just as he was on the
eve of starting to see a relative who was on service in the Crimea.

S. B. 28

434 Some Personal Characteristics [CH.

about the ways in which the tricks were done. His concern
for politics was shown in later life, though not by a de-
clared adherence to any particular party. On one occasion
he went the length of becoming an electioneering agent in
Liberal as against Radical interests. He put off his pupils,
and volunteered to conduct Colonel Romilly, a candidate
for Marylebone, round the many organ and pianoforte
factories in that borough. A strong opinion which he held
on one subject is well remembered, because it led him to
adopt an adverse and, as some thought, a too restrictive
view of a great public character. The 'peace-loving and
peace-promoting propensities ' which were noticed in his
management of the Royal Academy of Music, were not
inconsistent with abhorrence of the doctrine of 'peace-at-
any-price.' He would, in consequence, listen to no word
of praise or defence of John Bright as a statesman. About
this extreme attitude, his friend Mr Robert Case, a warm
admirer of Bright on general grounds, often teased him
in a good-humoured way, and Bennett in the same spirit
habitually closed his strict censure of the politician with a
laugh, whilst exclaiming, 'Well, at any rate I could not
sit at the same table with him.' Bennett, however, had to
eat these words. In the last years of his life he annually
dined with the Attorney- General, Sir John (afterwards
Lord Chief Justice) Coleridge. Coming home from one of
these dinners, he called in at the house of the Cases, and,
with a demure look upon his face, asked them to guess
who had been his vis-a-vis at the dinner-table. The riddle
was instantly answered, and this peaceful meeting with
John Bright was for some time a subject of much raillery
between Bennett's friends and himself.

He had but a scanty chance of amusing himself in the
day-time, and yet his amusements lay rather without than
within doors. They were much the same as he might
have enjoyed when a boy or even when a child, though,
one might be inclined to say, in some respects a peculiar
boy or child. Sir George Macfarren has noticed this in the
following reminiscence : ' Always as a youth he had the
sense of humour which characterises every person of genius,
and this never left him ; he was always quickest to perceive
a jest, and never unready with a pertinent saying ; but he

xxxiv] Amusements 435

had some notions of fun which few but himself could enjoy.'
He found great pleasure in watching the movements and
noting the characteristics of his fellow-creatures. When
living in Bayswater, if he took a walk, he did not stroll into
the Kensington Gardens, which were close at hand, but
went off to Praed Street or the Edgware Road, where he
could see more of the activity of life ; for a walk in London,
was a rare treat which he must make the most of. His
attention would be attracted by minor incidents which the
ordinary passer-by would leave unnoticed, and about which
a companion, if he happened to have one, could not share
or understand his curiosity. He took advantage of its
being permissible in a busy thoroughfare to watch without
discourtesy what people in the humbler class of life are
doing and to hear what they are saying. He would thus
collect miscellanea which he retained in his memory and
which furnished him with a fund of lively anecdote, the
interest of which he could heighten by his ready mimicry.
He would join a knot of spectators, listening eagerly to
their comments on what was happening, and sometines
putting in a word himself. He would become so interested
in proceedings which did not immediately concern him, as
to involve himself in them, and to interfere if he saw wrong
being done. On more than one occasion he nearly got
himself into trouble thereby. He was followed home one
day and threatened by some hawkers of wretched German
prints, because they had overheard him advising a likely
purchaser that better English pictures could be bought at
the price. He said afterwards that he could not stand
by and see a poor person throwing away money on such
rubbish. On the cricket-ground at Eastbourne he publicly,
and with great dignity, rebuked a professional cricketer
whose career he had for some time watched with pleasure.
The man had lost his temper at the umpire's decision, and
used bad language on his return to the pavilion. Bennett
had no official connection with the club authorising him to
do this. His action made him very conspicuous, and the
issue of it seemed for a few moments very doubtful ; but his
manner of doing it happened to meet with general approval.
The delinquent accepted the reproof, and Bennett said
later, ' I couldn't help myself, because I like the fellow.'

28—2

436 Some Personal Characteristics [CH.

For the last seventeen years of his life he spent his
longer holidays at Eastbourne, and those who passed them
with him had a better chance in that place than elsewhere
of observing his choice of amusements. He never missed
a cricket-match, and on the old ground near the railway
station he passed many happy days. Where his interest
exactly lay was never discovered, but probably he had in
boyhood caught something of that enthusiasm for cricket
for which the town of Cambridge was always noted. No
competent critic of the game watched it more intently
than he did. He was always very anxious for the success
of the Players, whose cause he espoused as against the
Gentlemen, maintaining that the best result ought to be
produced when livelihood was at stake. Dr W. G. Grace,
who had already at that time made his mark, was a great
thorn in his side as an upset to his theory. As a spectator
he showed much nervousness at exciting moments, so that
he almost invariably missed any final issue ; in fact, the
least shock, as when the bat touched the ball, would
generally cause his eyes to blink, nor could he keep them
open to see if a catch were held or not, but would say
under his breath, ' What's that ? ' or ' What happened ? '
He would, when in London, drive off to ' Lord's/ if he
ever got the chance, for the sake of seeing even a quarter-
of-an-hour's play, but this happened very seldom, as the
cricket-season came at the busiest time of his year.

An annual event at Eastbourne which he anticipated
with boyish delight was the arrival of a circus. The cara-
vans generally reached the town in the night ; he would be
on the spot early in the morning, and would stand for some
hours outside the paling of the field, watching the company
as they pitched their camp, cooked their meals, watered
their horses, and set up the circus-tent. No companion
had the patience to remain by his side, but periodical visits
in the course of the morning would find him rooted to the
same spot, his face still beaming with pleasure and interest.
He said that he admired the unceasing industry of the
people and their methodical plan of work, and therein, no
doubt, was one cause of his fascination. When he lived in
Queensborough Terrace, house-building was in progress
there. If an expected pupil failed to appear, he would

xxxiv] At Eastbourne 437

go out and stand in a fixed position on the pavement, for
three-quarters of an hour, looking up at the bricklaying,
and following with his eyes the workmen as they ascended
and descended the ladders. On returning to the house,
he would show some special knowledge of the processes
and materials, of the different grades of the work and the
etiquette attached to them by the men.

His usual morning walk at Eastbourne was through the
town ; in the afternoon he turned towards the country,
sometimes going long distances. On Sundays he often
went to the Churches of Willingdon, East Dean, Jevington,
or Westham near Pevensey, for the morning Service. He
went little by the sea, but he always turned that way on
the days of an exceptionally high tide. He would be in
the crowd on the Grand Parade, to share the excitement
and amusement caused by the adventurous spirits who
hazarded a run round a narrow part of the esplanade at the
risk of being deluged by one of the greater waves. In his
morning walk he would look in at the shops, not always as
a purchaser, but to chat with some characteristic person.
He usually spent half-an-hour in the confectioner's shop at
the junction of the Terminus and Sea Side Roads, not to
eat anything, but because he was amused by the inde-
pendent manner in which Mrs Morris, the proprietress,
treated her customers. The cares of business often ruffled
Mrs Morris's temper, but he could always propitiate her,
and both herself and her daughter came to appreciate his
morning call and to miss him much when he died. Another
friend, of humbler rank, was Philadelphia Hollebone, an
aged vendor of vegetables, who lived in the village of
Willingdon and drove her donkey-cart into the town every
day. Bennett had no business dealings with her, but often
conversed with her on his morning round, and would repeat
her quaint sayings on his return to his lodgings. No one,
however, had realized the extent of this curious friendship
until a day of his later life when a companion joined him for
an afternoon walk. He was at first preoccupied, appeared
to be composing, and his mood was gloomy. He emerged
on the high road above Old Eastbourne without having so
far uttered a word. Suddenly he woke, his face lighted
up, and pointing with his stick, he cried out, ' There she

438 Some Personal Characteristics [CH.

is, there she is!' He had espied ' Philly,' as the old
dame was called, on the road before him, driving home
to Willingdon. He quickly overtook her, and the pleasure
of meeting was mutual. They chatted to each other with
ease, and with a pretty courtesy on both sides, till they
reached her cottage, where Bennett proved to be quite at
home. Philly sat down to rest in her high-backed chair,
whilst he showed his companion all the arrangements of
her little dwelling, opening cupboards, lifting the lids of
lockers, and explaining in her hearing where she kept her
cooking-utensils and her food, and how by certain methods
of economy she managed to make ends meet. The hostess,
smiling and chuckling, watched him with great delight,
nodding from time to time in approval of his statements.
She did not appear to know exactly who he was, nor did
she call him by name ; her manner precluded any idea that
she was beholden to him for charities ; it was evidently the
man himself that made her so happy, and as he led the
way out of the cottage, she said to his companion, ' Dear,
dear, what a merry fellow he is.'

Bennett found good and true friends in all sorts and
conditions of life. Nor must it be forgotten that he owed
much to the companionship of the dogs who in turn became
members of his household. One of these, a half-bred pug,
came to him in 1858, and it can be said with certainty that
the faithful creature did much, a few years later, to help
his master through a time of sadness. ' Pug ' was full of
character and intelligence, and, though he led an inde-
pendent and nomadic life, spared a great deal of time for
his master, generally accompanying him on his long drives
into the country, and invariably keeping himself free from
other engagements on the particular days reserved for
teaching at Southgate. He was much liked by Bennett's
friends, he paid his calls upon them with a polite regularity,
and always knew where to find a late dinner — for he was a
bit of a gourmet — when there happened to be none at his
own house. There was, however, one of his master's best
friends of whom he lived in terror. When Bennett came
home from a concert, Pug would rush to the front door to
meet him ; but if Joachim, with violin-case in hand, also
appeared on the threshold, he instantly turned tail and made

xxxiv] A Favourite 439

a bolt for the kitchen. After supper, Joachim would go to
the top of the kitchen-stairs and begin to play, while poor
Pug's pathetic howls would respond from the furthermost
recesses of the basement. But the criticism was acute in
more senses than one, for Pug paid very little attention to
violinists of a less exalted order. The king of them could
alone make him crouch. Bennett had two portraits of his
favourite painted, one for himself and another as a wedding-
present for one of his maidservants. He was very grieved
when Pug died, but other dogs came and did their best to
fill the vacant place. There were times in his later life
when these little companions cheered many an hour which
would otherwise have been a solitary one.

CHAPTER XXXV.

LAST DAYS.

1873—1875-
at*. 57, 58.

IN February 1873, Bennett reappeared as a conductor.
Somewhat to the surprise of his friends, he accepted an
invitation from Mr W. Kuhe to direct a performance of
' The Woman of Samaria ' at the Brighton Festival. This
was the sole occasion on which he conducted an important
rendering of the work. Then, again, on May 20, he took
a share in directing a Festival Service, for the benefit
of the Choir Benevolent Fund, in the Chapel of King's
College, Cambridge. A week later he again went to
Cambridge, though this time not without effort. ' I have
been so bewildered with one thing or another/ he wrote
a few days before, when mentioning the coming engage-
ment to one of his family. However, he kept his promise,
and conducted ' The May Queen ' for the University
Musical Society. The concert had a special claim to his
presence. The Society was enjoying a fresh and vigorous
existence under the inspiriting guidance of Mr C. V. (now
Sir Charles) Stanford, and on this particular evening a
notable departure was made by the introduction, for the
first time, of ladies into the chorus. The occasion has a
second interest here, because it proved to be Bennett's
farewell to the concert-stage. On the same spot he had
given his first concert a little more than forty years before.

After spending two years at the cottage in Porch ester
Terrace, Bennett had returned, in March 1872, to his house
in Queensborough Terrace; but in the summer of 1873
he was able to let it on lease, and found another in St John's

CH. xxxv] Peaceful Prospects 441

Wood Road, of smaller size, but large enough to hold his
principal belongings. The house was on two floors, de-
tached, well set back from the road, with a good-sized
garden behind, amply stocked with shrubs and fruit-trees.
Everything wanted in way of renovation, both of house and
furniture, was attended to, all was cheerful and comfortable,
and on his return from Eastbourne, in September 1873, he
settled down very happily in his new home.

His anxiety as to the external policy of the Academy,
which had lasted for seven years, was now off his mind.
He had the satisfaction of seeing the Institution supporting
itself and rising in repute. His association with it promised,
for the future, to bring him nothing but pleasure. Of other
occupations, if he found it were desirable to reduce them or
alter them he could afford to do so, for he had no longer
anyone entirely dependent upon him. In January 1874,
the Academy Committee, when he was absent from a
meeting, voted that a salary of ^300 per annum should
be assigned to the Principalship, and this would add to
his resources without increasing his work. By the ready
assistance of Mr H. R. Eyers, a young Professor, who
had for the past few years acted as Private Secretary to
the Principal, he was able to keep pace with the growing
details of official business. He had reached the threshold
of that quieter and less burdensome life which he had often
spoken of and had hoped might be in store for him.

By this time, however, his friends were beginning to
realize that his strength had been too severely taxed by
the work and the cares of the past years, that his health
had gone almost beyond hope of recovery, while at times it
could not escape notice that his mental powers were to a
certain extent already affected. He was, in fact, a worn-
out man ; but so elastic was his temperament and so often
was he still found merry and entertaining in his ways and
conversation, that he could himself, from time to time, allay
the fears that others had on his account. Though he was
now nominally living alone, many intimate friends kept in
close touch with him. Mr Robert Case's youngest son,
George, would come over from Inverness Terrace, and
stay for weeks together at the St John's Wood house to
bear him company. His daughter and sons were able to

442 Last Days [CH.

spend long holidays with him, and the visits from Oxford
of his little grandsons, for the elder of whom he invented
games in the garden, and for whose future use he wrote a
Sonatina, were a great delight to him.

'Macfarren and I,' he would say, 'have now found a
subject which does not lead to argument — we talk about our
grandchildren.' Sir George Macfarren was a keen debater,
which Bennett was not. Their dispositions were in many
respects strongly contrasted, but their early personal attach-
ment remained firm to the end. Bennett came home to
St John's Wood one day much touched by the generosity
of something that Macfarren had said in one of their last
conversations on the door-steps of the Academy. Possibly
Bennett had been talking of his own career. 'Well, Bennett,'
was Macfarren's remark, 'you are the one of us all who
has done nothing you need repent.' At the ' Testimonial '
Meeting in St James's Hall, Bennett had said, ' I thank
my old school-fellow, Mr Macfarren, for the kind manner
in which he has expressed himself to-day, not for the first
time, not for the twentieth — I can't count up the number
of times in which he has so spoken of me.' After Bennett's
death, Sir George Macfarren, whether as Professor at
Cambridge, or as Principal of the Academy — in both these
capacities he followed Bennett — never lost any opportunity
of paying graceful tribute to the memory of his brother-
musician.

Before the year 1873 had ended, Bennett had the
satisfaction of knowing that his new Sonata, ' The Maid
of Orleans,' was making its way. It was first played by
Miss Channell, at a concert given by Madame Rebecca
Jewell. Madame Arabella Goddard1, to whom the composer
dedicated it, was, at the time, on a tour through the
Colonies ; but Charles Halle, Lindsay Sloper, Dr Hans von
Biilow, and Mr Franklin Taylor produced it at important
concerts. In December, Bennett wrote to his son : ' I
shall look forward to seeing you on the i/th. I am pretty
well and in good spirits. Shall be glad when the holidays
come. They have printed 1150 copies of the Sonata.'

1 For twenty-one years, Madame A. Goddard (Mrs J. W. Davison) had
been playing Bennett's pianoforte-music with the greatest constancy.

xxxv] His Pianoforte 443

Halle, Hans von Billow, and Mr Franklin Taylor all
came to St John's Wood to play the Sonata to the composer
before they performed it. This, of course, gave him great
pleasure. Mr George Case remembers that on the occasion
of Dr von Billow's visit, Bennett first played a few bars of
each movement, and then the visitor took his seat. The
latter had scarcely started playing when he raised his hands
off the keys and with a surprised look said to Bennett,
' However can you manage to play on this piano ?' The
pianoforte, though in excellent preservation, was twenty-
two years old, and had the very deep and resisting touch
of the Broadwood Grands of its day, which touch Bennett
himself liked for his own playing. The black keys, more-
over, were narrower than in later instruments. It was
certainly a very difficult pianoforte to play on, and Dr von
Billow was not the first great pianist from abroad who
had found it so. Bennett had preserved it, by using it
moderately, and by annually giving it a long period of rest.
It was his habit, during the London season, when it would
have been liable to harder usage, to send it into retreat
at Broadwood's and to have a new one as a temporary
substitute.

At Christmas time, 1873, he was at Eastbourne for a
fortnight. The old inn ' The Gilbert Arms/ where he had
stayed during his earliest visits to the place, was about to be
destroyed, and as a memento he secured the bow-window
of his favourite room, built a summer-house, expressly for
the window, at the bottom of his garden at St John's Wood,
and in this summer-house he spent many of his last hours.
He had sat in the same bow- window when he was com-
posing 'The May Queen.' Since his death, house, garden,
and summer-house have all vanished ; for they stood exactly
over the cutting made by the Great Central Railway.

In February 1874, Mr Henry Guy sang, at the Monday
Popular Concerts, two songs, ' Maiden Mine,' and ' Dancing
Lightly,' which Bennett had written to words furnished
him by his son-in-law, Mr Thomas Case. He was, at this
time, still hoping to complete the music to Ajax for the
next series of Philharmonic Concerts, but those who
watched him saw that he was no longer capable of so
great an effort. He went through his daily work by the

444 Last Days [CH.

force of long habit, but in a somewhat mechanical way.
Yet he still wished, as of old, to add voluntary services to
fixed duties. Thus he spared five days in March and spent
them in Cambridge, where he had undertaken the general
direction of a concert though no share as a performer.
The musical circle in the University gave this concert,
with the valuable co-operation of Joachim, in aid of a fund
for raising a memorial to Sebastian Bach in Eisenach, and
with such a movement Bennett was, of course, proud to be
associated. This final reference to his connection with
Cambridge affords an opportunity which he himself would
most certainly have wished to see taken, of acknowledging
how much he owed, during the later years of his Professor-
ship, to the personal kindness and attention always so
affectionately shown to him by the late Gerard Francis
Cobb of Trinity College. Another Fellow of Trinity,
Mr Sedley Taylor, was also a friendly ally. He delivered
lectures on Acoustics at The Royal Academy of Music
during Bennett's Principalship and dedicated to him his
well-known treatise, ' Sound and Music,'

In the summer of 1874, at Eastbourne, working little
by little, Bennett extended to a considerable length a
Funeral March, which he had begun in the previous year,
for the projected music to Ajax. ' How long do you
think I may make it ?' he would say; for he had in his mind
the remembrance of the Duke of Wellington's funeral in
1852, and he wanted to produce the effect of fresh bands
striking up, as the sounds of others died away in passing.
He finished the orchestral music, up to the point at which
the chorus was to enter, and set the words : —

" But come, all ye who would attend
The last departure of a friend,
Hither in solemn procession throng
Bearing the solemn bier along,
Following the dead for a little way
Out of the light of the glaring day
To the threshold of Pluto's gloomy portals ;
Following him whose virtues were known
Through life to his faithful friends alone,
Who was always the bravest and best of mortals."

This was a 'swan-song' of beautiful chords and progressions;
but the subject was gloomy for one who may have felt that
he himself had not long to live. Quietly, and with apparent

xxxv] Closing Scenes 445

resignation, he said in the garden of his Eastbourne lodging,
' The night has come, when I cannot work.'

He visited his daughter at Oxford twice in September,
and then began his work at the Academy, writing thence
on Sept. 28 :

MY DEAR DOLLY,

We had an extremely pleasant and short journey
to London. I went straight off to the Academy and did
nearly two hours work in opening letters and examining
new students. My visit to Oxford did me good, I am
quite sure, and I thank Tom and yourself for your kindness
to me. The Academy did not receive the letter which you
wrote for me yesterday to Mr Eyers — this was by accident,
and I was all the better pleased to be there five minutes
before my usual time.

With kind love to you all,

Ever your affectionate father,

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

In December, Bennett, on hearing that the Hanover
Square Rooms were to be used no longer for music, but in
future for the coffee-room of a club, expressed a wish that
the Academy students should give the last concert there.
A special performance was accordingly arranged for Dec. 19.
One of the students afterwards wrote of Bennett's connection
with this occasion : —

' His conservative spirit made him grieve over the loss
of the Hanover Square Rooms, sacred with musical tra-
ditions of the past * The very last concert in the
Rooms was given by the students of the Royal Academy
of Music just before Christmas 1874, and strangely enough
it was the last concert he ever attended. Many who were
present noticed that he had a sad far-away look that night.
Possibly the idea was in his mind that such changes could
not affect him long. Twice during that evening he left the
concert-room expressing his intention of going home, and
each time returned, as if he did not know how to tear him-
self away though he felt unequal to remaining1.'

1 Eraser's Magazine, July 1875.

446 Last Days [CH.

He continued to take a few pupils up to Christmas,
and began with them again through the first three weeks
of January 1875. On the other hand he was evidently
unable to examine, when he tried to do so, the compositions
which had been sent by candidates for musical degrees.
Dr Garrett, of Cambridge, afterwards wrote of a visit which
he paid him on Jan. 12. 'I was with him the whole after-
noon. He was very weak, but cheerful, and the afternoon
being very fine and warm, he would take me out in his
garden to show me the bow-window from his old Eastbourne
lodging with which he had been presented when the house
was destroyed. He talked hopefully too, of the future he
was never to see, and was most kind and delightful.'

On Thursday, Jan. 21, he attended the entrance exami-
nation at the Academy. On Saturday the 23rd, he took
two private pupils in the morning, but declined Mr Robert
Case's proposal to drive him to the Crystal Palace, where
his Symphony in G minor was to be played. On occasional
excursions to Sydenham, where he would like to go, if
there was a concert on the anniversary of Mendelssohn's
death, or if he could hear a Symphony of Schumann's, he
had always preferred to go by road, passing through the
beautiful village of Dulwich ; but he did not allow himself
the treat on this afternoon. He had another engagement.

Of this, the Rev. Thomas Darling wrote, a fortnight
later, to The Guardian : 'It was his wont to finish his
week's labour by giving a free lesson to three girls from
the Clergy Orphan School, the house of which lay hard by
his own dwelling place in St John's Wood. The lesson
thus given on Saturday Jan. 23, proved to be the last act
in his vocation and ministry.' This was again mentioned
by Dean Stanley, from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey,
as a fitting close to his life's work.

The next morning, Sunday, when he was called, he said
he should not get up just yet. This sounded unusual ; but
it was only as the day wore on, and he showed no sign of
moving that a fear about him began to be felt. In the
dread of a complete failure of mental power, those near him
had lost sight of the possibility of the less painful solution
of his trouble coming so soon. His family were seriously
considering a plan of his living in his daughter's house at

xxxv] Death and Burial 447

Oxford. They had overcome the difficulty involved in
proposing it to him, and he had not shown himself so
unwilling to retire as they had expected. But from the
time, on this Sunday evening, when medical assistance was
summoned, it was known that recovery was impossible and
that the end was imminent. Death laid a gentle hand upon
him. There was no apparent pain or discomfort, and, after
lingering a week, he passed peacefully away, dying of
disease of the brain, shortly after noon on February i,
within ten weeks of completing his fifty-ninth year. ' The
sad tidings,' — thus wrote his former pupil, Mr O'Leary,
— 'soon reached the Academy, where the classes were in
full activity. The message went from room to room,
quelling all sounds of study, until as if with a dying
cadence from afar, all was stilled in death-like hush.'

A meeting of the Academy Committee was at once held,
to consider what steps should be taken to pay the last
tribute of respect. A petition was prepared, which the
Duke of Edinburgh was the first to sign, and to which
the names of many distinguished persons, including repre-
sentatives of science, art and literature, were appended,
asking the Dean of Westminster to grant interment in the
Abbey, ' as a fitting tribute to the genius and worth of
a gifted Englishman who was unquestionably at the head
of the musical profession in the country, and on more public
grounds as a just recognition of the Art of which he was so
distinguished an ornament.' A similar step was taken at
Cambridge, and in reply to a private letter from Professor
Kennedy, Dean Stanley wrote : —

DEANERY, WESTMINSTER,
Feb. 3, 1875.

MY DEAR CANON,

The request — preferred from various quarters
— to bury Sir Sterndale Bennett in the Abbey has already
been granted. The funeral will probably be on Saturday.

Yours sincerely,

A. P. STANLEY.

It is a great pleasure to think that he was not only so
eminent a musician, but so good a man.

448 Last Days [CH.

The Royal Academy of Music, the Royal Society of
Musicians, and the Philharmonic Society joined in making
the arrangements for the Funeral, which took place at
noon on Feb. 6. As the time approached, Hanover Square
was lined with carriages, among them those sent by the
Queen and the Royal Family, awaiting the arrival of the
hearse from St John's Wood. Not the least solemn
episode of the day, probably conceived by the tender-
hearted Macfarren, was the resting of Bennett's remains
for a few silent moments at the door of the Academy,
before starting on the last stage of the journey. The
Abbey was crowded with so large a congregation, that
Dean Stanley afterwards said he had seen no such gather-
ing, on a like occasion, save at Lord Palmerston's funeral.
Twelve pall-bearers were chosen from among those who
had been his fellow-students, and the coffin was followed
by representatives of the University of Cambridge, including
the Vice-Chancellor, the Master of St John's, and the Pre-
centor of King's ; by the Earl of Dudley as President of
the Royal Academy of Music with the Directors and Pro-
fessors of that Institution ; by a deputation from the Royal
Society of Musicians led by the veteran Sir John Goss ;
by the Directors of the Philharmonic and other musical
Societies, and by members of the German Athenaeum.
Among the wreaths placed upon the coffin was one sent
from the University of Edinburgh as if in remembrance
of how nearly, twice in his life, Bennett had been within
reach of a connection with that University.

The music was, according to precedent, that of Purcell,
Croft, and Handel, but one piece of Bennett's own compo-
sition was added. James Turle, the Abbey Organist, was
assisted by Dr Steggall, Dr Stainer, E. J. Hopkins, George
Cooper, and J. Hopkins of Rochester. The Abbey Choir
was augmented by contingents from St Paul's, the Temple,
the Chapel Royal, the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn, and
then numbered fifty-four singers. The Quartet ' God is
a Spirit,' from ' The Woman of Samaria,' was sung by
Master Beckham, Messrs Foster, Carter, and Lawler, the
full choir entering on the repetition of the first subject,
' That is Music,' whispered Arthur Sullivan to his neighbour
Davison, as the strains of the Quartet died away. ' It was

xxxv] Westminster Abbey 449

hard enough to bear I can tell you,' — so wrote Dr Garrett
to the Rev. J. R. Lunn, — ' and when in the middle of the
service, unexpectedly, the soothing strains of his own " God
is a Spirit " were heard (most exquisitely rendered), there
were few dry eyes. It was almost too much to see the
flower-covered coffin before us, and remember that we
should see his face no more. I confess it broke me down
utterly, but no one was much better, and many of his old
friends and colleagues were deeply affected.' ' Crowded
as was the Abbey,' Sir George Macfarren said to the
Academy students a few years later, ' there could not
have been a tearless eye among the many hundreds who
congregated to pay the tribute of love and admiration to
the friend and the artist.' The grave, the site of which
was chosen by Dean Stanley, is in the North Choir Aisle,
just below one side of the Organ, and in close proximity
to the graves of Purcell and Croft.

The funeral sermon was preached next day by Dr Wood-
ford, Bishop of Ely.

'Yesterday/ he said, 'the great Under-Congregation of
the Dead within these walls received an additional member
upon whom the thoughts of many present will fall.*
There was laid in the grave, side by side with another
great musician whose solemn strains welcomed his brother
home, one of high name and honour, not only in this country,
but beyond the sea. His was one of those lives which it
does good to note, a life beginning in obscurity, ending
in a wide repute. The chorister-boy of King's Chapel,
Cambridge, advancing to the Professorship of Music in that
University, gathering round him, as he grew in years, the
esteem of the whole earth, and laid to rest at last amidst
those whom this country has for centuries delighted to
ennoble, he reads a lesson which we can never too often
learn — how to those who do not waste the life which God
gives, or dissipate or leave uncultured the inspirations which
He has breathed into them, there is assigned, even in this
world, a sure reward.

' I rejoice that it has fallen to me to speak thus of
one so distinguished in the University which it is the boast
of my diocese to contain within its borders. Let me say
but one word more. I have nothing to tell of the inner

s. B. 29

450 Finis [CH. xxxv

spiritual life of him who was yesterday laid in the grave.
But this fact is in the common possession of all : he was
the professor of one of the sublimest sciences — a science,
perhaps more than any other, in its noblest developments,
the offspring of the Christian civilization.* * * That science,
like literature and painting and sculpture, may be made to
serve ignoble uses, to fan the flame of passion, to minister
to dissipation and excess. As far as I know, the great
musician whom we lament, in whatsoever he wrote, main-
tained to the full the moral dignity of his Art, and so is
to be numbered amongst those who use God's gifts of this
nature in such wise as to promote His glory, and vindicate
their nature as indeed divine.'

THE NORTH CHOIR AISLE

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

Appendix 45 1

APPENDIX A.

FOUR NOTES.

(1) Annals of the Bach Society.

Oct. 27, 1849. The Society instituted; see p. 203, (where, by a much-
regretted mistake, the date is given as Oct. 29).

March 21, 1850. First 'Trial' of music ; see p. 206.

July 29, 1850. Centenary Performance ; see pp. 206, 207.

June 1851. Bach's six Motets published in London; see p. 207.

March 22, 1852. Performance of Motets, Concertos &c., in the Concert-rooms
in Store St ; see p. 232.

April 6, 1854. ist performance in London of the ' Passions-Musik' (St
Matthew) ; see pp. 232-234.

Nov. 28, 1854. 2nd performance of the same; see p. 235.

March 23, 1858. 3rd „ „ „ ; see pp. 276-278.

April 23, 1859. 'Passions-Musik' (St Matthew) at Windsor; see p. 278.

June 21, 1859. Bach Concert, miscellaneous, vocal and instrumental.

July 24, 1860. Bach Concert (with 11 movements of Mass, B minor).

June 13, 1861. ist performance of 'Christmas Oratorio,' Parts I and II.

March 1862. English edition of Bach's 'Passions-Musik' (St Matthew)
published ; see p. 319.

May 24, 1862. 4th performance, in London, of the same ; see p. 319.
Apart from public performances, for which the Society was not founded,

and for which its financial schemes had made no provision, the Bach Society,

from 1850-62, gave regular opportunity, for six months of each year, for the

practice of Bach's choral music. This is certified by a minute-book and by

correspondence preserved by the Hon. Sec., the late Dr Steggall. The Society

was formally dissolved on March 21, 1870, by which time it had accomplished

the object for which it was founded, and could see the growing results of its

pioneering labour. The library was presented to the R.A. of Music.

(2) Bennett placed among the opponents of Chopin.

On the authority of his friend the late Mr A. J. Hipkins, Bennett has gained
an unenviable, and it is here thought an undeserved niche in so important a
work as the Life of Chopin by Professor Niecks. Mr Hipkins's memory of the
attitude taken by the musicians and amateurs towards Chopin's music appears
to refer to a period starting in 1848 and lasting for several years. Professor
Niecks wrote : 'Mr Hipkins told me that he had to struggle for years to gain
adherents to Chopin's music while enduring "the good-natured banter of
Sterndale Bennett and J. W. Davison."' These words might be construed as
no very grave accusation ; but the particular pages on which they occur take a
serious view of the musical aspect of London in 1848. It seems hard upon
Bennett that he should be mentioned in close connection with 'hostilities'
against music of a high purpose, when his own ' battle' in life was from first to
last waged from the opposite side and merely against the frivolities of his time.

29 — 2

452 Appendix

The reminiscence given by Mr Hipkins was not brought to the notice of the
present writer till long after its appearance, and when it was late in the day to
collect rebutting evidence. Mr Hipkins may, in his early days, have been
misled, when he found his own enthusiasm disappointed by Bennett's more
guarded expression, or parried by his 'good-humoured banter.' Further, he
might fail to notice that Bennett was out of sympathy not with Chopin, but with
many pianists of the Paris school, who while they were ready to introduce that
composer to England, introduced him among the composers of Fantasias rather
than by the side of classical writers. For that reason Bennett would not at first
be much associated with the phalanx of Chopin's admirers.

Bennett did not choose pianoforte-music as the title of any lecture. He has
left no mention of Chopin in writing. It is admitted that he never played his
music at his own Chamber-concerts ; but it has been shown in the proper place,
that he did not make solos for the pianoforte a special feature of those concerts.
Moreover, a pianist, in public performance, is not expected necessarily to extend
his repertoire in all directions.

Fortunately it is still possible to refer to his work as a pianoforte-/<?#r^r ;
to follow a thread of evidence, slender but fairly continuous, now stretching back
some sixty-five years ; and to gain thereby some knowledge of service rendered
to Chopin, knowledge suggestive of that service having been considerable. An
analysis of music distributed to pupils in 1839 and 1840 has been given on
p. 94. Chopin's name does not occur in it. The next available reference is to
the teaching-books kept by Mrs Bennett from the beginning of 1845. For the
first six months she entered in these books, not only the lessons, but also such
music as was supplied to the pupils direct from the house. She has thus left a
proof that at least as early as Jan. 24, 1845 (*•*• more than three years before
Chopin's visit to England, the event which appears as the starting-point of
Mr Hipkins's reminiscence) her husband was teaching Chopin's music. Of the
pieces entered during the six months, Chopin contributed 8 per cent., with a
ratio, to the pieces on the same list by Beethoven, of 5 : 9. The next information
comes from Mr Arthur O'Leary, who in the early fifties studied the pianoforte in
Bennett's class at the Academy, and who remembers that Chopin's Etudes were
prescribed for all pupils who joined that class. Writing of a little later time,
1858, or thereabouts, Miss Bettina Walker mentions that she studied music
of Chopin under Bennett. She formed, in the process, the impression that
her teacher had no such love for Chopin as for certain other great masters.
Her impression was probably quite correct. Nobody who knew Bennett
would for one moment have imagined that his appreciation of Chopin
approached his appreciation, e.g. of Beethoven. But another pupil, the late
Miss M. H. Parkes of Sheffield, gained by the same means as Miss Walker an
impression of a different kind, an absolute rather than a relative impression.
Miss Parkes, who before studying under Bennett had been a pupil of Dr Wesley
at Winchester, became an accomplished pianist, and as a lady of great character
and general attainment her opinion should have the same weight, at least, as
that of Miss Bettina Walker. Miss Parkes wrote in 1902 : —

'My lessons with your father were from the autumn of 1866 until Easter
1868. * * * Once he said, "Madame Clara Schumann has been playing
Chopin's Polonaise in A flat to everybody's admiration. You had better study

Appendix 453

it and bring it at your next lesson." At that time, not being very familiar with
Chopin's music, I made a mistake and got the Andante Spianato and Polonaise
in E flat instead. Bennett, however, said, " That was not the one I meant, but
play it all the same," and greatly he seemed to enjoy the dreamy Andante with
its lovely peasant dance, often playing scraps of the slow part of the Polonaise
himself with the most loving touch, and remarking on the fairylike beauty of —
shall I call them? — the grace-notes. Every lesson for the rest of the term
I finished by playing that "Andante Spianato and Polonaise" of which the
master never seemed to weary. Towards the last I was invited to play at a
concert of an important German Sangverein in London, and on my asking
what piece I should select, he answered, "The Andante Spianato and Polonaise
in E flat, by all means." Thanks to Bennett's careful tuition, I gained an
encore at the end of my performance of it. So please do not allow people to
say your father disliked Chopin's music, because it is not true.'

Miss Parkes's memory of the ' loving touch ' will recall to others the grace
and the warmth with which he played, and played so constantly, in his last
days, one of Chopin's Mazurkas.

Lastly, an account (dated 1872) for 295 pieces of music, by 29 composers
most of whom are of the highest rank, supplied by a music-shop in one term to
a large school, has escaped destruction, and shows Bennett teaching Chopin's
music to the end of his life. When the 29 composers mentioned on this
account are arranged in order, according to the number of pieces which
Bennett selected from each composer, Chopin stands sixth on the list.

Counting from the date, given above, of Mrs Bennett's first entry, Jan. 24,
1845, to the date of the last lessons which Bennett gave, Jan. 23, 1875, the
result shows that he taught Chopin's music, probably as soon as any other
teacher in this country, and after that, almost certainly without cessation, for
thirty years. The writer claims for him that he was a supporter rather than an
opponent of Chopin's interests.

(3) On the order in which Schumann reviewed some of Bennett's -works.

Of the more important works which Bennett wrote and published between
1838 and 1842, Schumann reviewed at great length and with much favour: in
1839, the Overture ' The Wood-nymphs ;' in 1840, the Concerto in F mi. Op. 19 ;
and in 1842, the 'Suite de Pieces' Op. 24. In the last of these critiques he
wrote : ' Bennett's works have continued to increase in originality.' If by the
side of this there is anything which might suggest the absence of complete
satisfaction, Schumann only expresses it by urging Bennett to write more
music, and to aim, on the strength of what he has already done, at achieve-
ments on a grander scale. Since this Suite was the latest important work by
Bennett that Schumann reviewed, it might be assumed that the great critic, up
to the time that he abandoned criticism, was content with Bennett's progress
and fairly hopeful for his future. It is, however, necessary to notice that in
1843 he reviewed the Caprice with orchestra, Op. 22, and apparently did so as
if he thought it was a new work, whereas it was by that time five years old and
older than any of the three works mentioned above. No wonder, therefore,
that Schumann failed to trace in it the continued development of originality
which he desired, and that he should even have thought it showed a decline of

454 Appendix

inventive power. If this Caprice had reached him in its proper chronological
order he would not have handed down the unfortunate impression that he was,
in the end, a little disappointed about Bennett's advance as a composer.

(4) The production, in 1856, of Schumann's 'Paradise and The Peri1 by the
Philharmonic Society.

As this performance failed to create a favourable impression of Schumann
as a composer, and as the failure appears to have retarded the acceptance of
his music as a whole, it seems only fair to those who took part in the per-
formance, as well as to those who judged Schumann by that performance, to
observe that there were physical reasons sufficient of themselves to render
success on the particular evening well-nigh hopeless. The limits of the
Hanover Square Rooms were stretched beyond endurance. The body of the
Hall, together with the Royal balcony (divided into three Boxes) which Queen
Victoria did not use, could seat, with little margin allowed for comfort, 600
persons. This can be seen on a plan of the concert-room, now before the
writer, with the seats numbered and reserved for a Philharmonic concert. In
the 1856 season, the Members, Associates and Subscribers numbered 604, and
would therefore by themselves fill the room. On very attractive occasions,
such e.g. as some of the appearances of Mendelssohn, 100 extra tickets are said
to have been sold. There is a newspaper report of one Philharmonic concert
which estimates the audience at 800, but if this was near the truth, many must
have been content to stand in corridors and on stairs. The night on which the
' Paradise and the Peri ' was produced under the aegis of Royalty, and with the
assistance of the greatest and most attractive singer of the age, saw, according
to every account, one of these overcrowded gatherings. The advent of the
Royal Family with their Royal visitors, who came in an unusually large party,
necessitated ample room being reserved for themselves and their attendants in
front of the orchestra, and considerably reduced the space otherwise available
for the audience. On the orchestra matters were as bad, and had more
immediate effect. The stage, with its organ, looked well-filled when occupied
by the band alone. When 80 chorus-singers were added, and six Soloists
occupied seats in front, inches had to be counted before the stringed-instru-
ment players could use their bows. The immediate proximity of Royalty
naturally caused a certain restriction on the ease of performance. The con-
ductor was not allowed to take up his usual position, and awkwardly faced his
forces at the ' half-turn.' The Philharmonic Society had often performed choral
works, but seldom any that lasted over more than one part of a concert. The
performers of the 'Paradise and the Peri' underwent a species of martyrdom
for three long hours. Mr Otto Goldschmidt remembered that Madame Lind-
Goldschmidt sang the part of the Peri under great personal discomfort. There
was no method of ventilation in the Hanover Square Rooms other than by the
opening of large sash-windows, a proceeding which was, of course, always
violently resented by a section of the audience. The critic Davison, in his
denouncement of the ' Paradise and the Peri' outdid himself in the direction of
forcible expression, but he was not beyond bounds when he wrote of the poor
audience being, as the oppressive evening wore on, half of them suffocated and
the other half asleep.

Appendix 455

APPENDIX B.

LIST OF WORKS

arranged, as nearly as can be determined, in the order in which they were
written. Titles of published works are given in capitals. References are
given to the pages where the works are mentioned in this book.

OPUS

Fairy Chorus, ' Now no more in dells we sleep,' for Solo, Chorus and

Orchestra; 1828; see p. 16.
Canons, Chants, Fugues, &c. Academy Exercises; approved specimens,

dated 1829 — 32, entered in a note-book; see pp. 16, 19, 21.
String-Quartet, G mi.; 1831 ; see p. 22.
Canzonetta (Metastasio), ' Ch'io speri ! padre amato,' with accompt. for

P.F. and Horn.
Symphony for Orch., E flat; finished Ap. 6, 1832; see p. 26.

1 CONCERTO, P.F. and Orch., D mi.; 1832; see pp. 27 — 30, 157.
Symphony for Orch., No. 2, D mi.; 1832 — 33; see p. 28.
Overture to 'The Tempest;' Dec. 29 — 31, 1832; see p. 28.

4 CONCERTO, P.F. and Orch., No. 2, E flat; July 6— Nov. 4, 1833; see

PP- 32, 37-
Overture, without title, D mi. ; perhaps first intended for opening movement

of a 3rd Symphony; Oct. I — 12, 1833.
Symphony for Orch., No. 4, A ma. ; 1833 — 34 5 see P- 34-

2 CAPRICCIO, for P.F. ; written, according to Sir G. Macfarren, early in

1834; see p. 36.

Overture to 'The Merry Wives of Windsor;' May, 1834; see p. 36.
CANZONET, ' In radiant loveliness,' with Orch. ; June, 1834; see p. 36.
SONG, 'Gentle Zephyr;' 1834; see p. 36.
9 CONCERTO, P.F. and Orch., No. 3, C mi.; Aug.— Oct. 31, 1834; see pp. 36,

37, 40, 41, 54, 56, 158, 224, 225, 247, 248.

3 OVERTURE to 'PARISINA;' March, 1835; see pp. 37, 45, 59, 189—192,

194, 224.

Concerto for 2 P.F.s, i movement only, written jointly with G. A. Macfarren,
whose memory dated it about May, 1835; see p. 39.

456 Appendix

OPUS

n Six STUDIES, in form of Capriccios, for P.F. ; according to Davison and
Macfarren, 4th Study in F. mi. written some time before the others,
probably therefore in 1834; 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th early in 1835; 2nd»
E ma., in summer of 1835; see pp. 36, 39.

SONG, 'Resignation,' probably 1835, for The Sacred Melodist, published
Jan. i, 1836; unknown to present writer when he made the statement
on p. 36, 1. 36.

10 THREE MUSICAL SKETCHES, ' The Lake, The Millstream and the Foun-
tain,' for P.F.; probably 1835; see pp. 39 — 41, 118, 148, 202, 215.
8 SESTET, P.F. and Strings, F sharp mi. ; begun, probably in summer of 1835,
while staying at Southernhay, Exeter, with K. J. Pye, who preserved
a MS. of 36 bars headed Concerto. Last movement subscribed Dec.
1835; see pp. 39, 164, 165.

Dramatic Overture, score not filled up; 1836; see p. 40.

Concerto, P.F. and Orch., No. 4, F. mi.; first movement headed Feb. 12,
1836; third movement subscribed 'Sketched April 13, score filled up
May 4, 1836;' see pp. 40, 42, 69, 75, 76.

12 THREE IMPROMPTUS, for P.F. ; according to Davison, soon after May,

1836; see pp. 47, 52, 109.

N.B. The foregoing -works were written before Bennett left the R.A. of
Music in July, 1836.

15 OVERTURE, 'THE NAIADS;' finished Sept. 1836; see pp. 41, 44, 45, 57,

58, 62, 63, 67, 88, 162, 189, 202, 415.
N.B. Bennett went to Leipzig, for the first time, Oct. 1836.

13 SONATA for P.F., F mi.; begun, according to Davison, in London; first

movement, in MS. at Leipzig, dated (? finished) Jan. 24, 1837. Work
completed about March 28, 1837; see p. 60.

14 THREE ROMANCES for P.F. ; No. i, uncertain; No. 2, Ap. 10, 1837;

No. 3, Leipzig, May 3, 1837; see p. 61.

16 FANTAISIE for P.F., A ma., 4 movements; Leipzig, 1837; see p. 61.

22 CAPRICE, P.F. and Orch., E ma. ; first played on May 25, 1838; see pp. 46,
69> 70, 72, 118, 122, 224, 453.

19 CONCERTO, P.F. and Orch., No. 5, but published as No. 4, written in

England, before leaving for Leipzig in Oct. 1838; see pp. 42, 70, 72,
75— 79, 88, 127—129, 131, 141, 167, 453.

20 OVERTURE, 'THE WOOD-NYMPHS,' Leipzig, Nov. 1838; see pp. 72, 76,

86—88, 109, 190, 453.
18 ALLEGRO GRAZIOSO for P.F. ; Leipzig, Dec. 16, 17, 1838; see pp. 72, 118.

17 THREE DIVERSIONS, Duets for P.F. ; Leipzig, Xmas 1838; see pp. 72, 78.
Chorale, Voices and Orch., May 19, 1839.

26 CHAMBER TRIO for P.F., Vln, and V.Cello, A ma., London, 1839; see

pp. 104, 146, 211, 412.

GENEVIEVE for P.F., London, Nov. 10, 1839; see p. 100.
SONG, 'The Better Land,' advertised under ' New Music,' Nov. 1839.
SONG, ' Stay, my Charmer,' date unknown, but not likely to be later than

1839; published posthumously.

Appendix 457

OPUS

WALTZ, Album piece for P.F., in 6-8 time, given, for publication in The
Harmonist, to J. W. Davison, who, as he told the writer, entitled it
' Waltz.'

Oratorio, 'Zion.' Orchestral Introduction, Adagio, Assai Moderate ; Chorus,
'Ah, sinful nation ;' Aria (Bass), 'If ye be willing and obedient ;' Chorus,
'Oh Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness;' Recit. (Tenor),
'Make ye mention to the nations;' Chorus, 'Hear, O earth, behold
I will bring evil upon the people;' Aria (Tenor), 'The Lion is come
up from the thicket;' Chorus, 'Flee, save your lives' [Score not filled
up]; Chorus, 'And her gates shall lament;' Chorus, 'Therefore they
shall come and sing;' Air (Soprano), 'I will love Thee;' Chorus, ' Trust
ye in the Lord.'

The MS. Score, closely written, numbers 112 pages. The Oratorio was
begun in 1839; see pp. 98, 99, 146.

PSALM TUNE, Boulcote, ' To my complaint, O Lord my God,' for Hackett's
National Psalmist; March 22, 1839.

Fandango for P.F., written in G. A. Macfarren's Album ; June 22, 1840.

24 SUITE DE PIECES for P.F., 6 nos. ; Mrs Anderson accepted their dedica-

tion, and consented to hear Bennett play them, in a letter of Nov. 28,
1841 ; see pp. 118, 129, 130, 138, 146, 148, 175, 453.

23 Six SONGS, ist Set: (i) 'Musing on the roaring ocean;' (2) 'May Dew,'
probably written at Leipzig, 1842; (3) ' Forget me not;' (4) 'To Chloe
in sickness;' (5) 'The Past;' (6) 'Gentle Zephyr,' written in 1834, and
first published as a separate Song. The set published 1842 ; see
pp. 36, 104, 127, 195, 411, 412.

25 RONDO PIACEVOLE for P.F. ; summer of 1842 ; see pp. 145, 146, 215, 412.
Concert-Stuck or Concerto, P.F. and Orch., No. 6, A mi., begun in 1841;

the earliest score now known is headed London, 1843, with Finale
subscribed June 2, 1843; advertised in 1844 to be published as Op. 27.
He made another edition in 1848; see pp. 125, 150, 151, 194.
OVERTURE, 'MARIE DU BoiS;' 1843; another edition, ultimately used for

'The May Queen,' 1844; see pp. 151, 163, 166.

29 Two CHARACTERISTIC STUDIES, L'Amabile e L'Appassionata, for P.F. ;
published as above in 1848; probably both written and printed earlier;
W. C. Macfarren in his edition of Bennett's works traces them to the
Etudes de Perfectionnement, a collection of Moscheles. They are not
in the first edition (1841) of that collection, but possibly in a subse-
quent one. Bennett played the first Study in 1844.

27 SCHERZO for P.F., mentioned in letter to Kistner, Oct. 6, 1845.

28 (No. i) INTRODUZIONE E PASTORALE for P.F., received at British Museum,

May 3, 1846.
PART SONG, 'Come, live with me;' for Hullah's Part-Music; probably

1846; reviewed in Athen&um, Jan. 1847.
N.B. For some explanation of slender output noticeable at about this time,

see pp. 1 66, 174. In June, 1847, Bennett finished, for the Handel

458 Appendix

OPUS

Society, an edition of ' Acts and Galatea] on which he had worked
with great interest and care.

30 Six SACRED DUETS, composed expressly for the Misses Williams, who

sang No. I at the Hereford Festival in 1849 : (i) ' Remember now thy
Creator,' April, 1848; (2) 'Do no Evil,' 1849; (3) 'And who is he that
will harm you?' Thanksgiving Day, 1849; (4) 'Cast thy bread upon
the waters,' perhaps 1850, first appeared in Haycraft's Sacred Har-
mony, 1851. The intended set of six not completed; see pp. 194, 412.

31 TEMA E VARIAZIONI for P.F. ; advertised under ' New Music,' April, 1850.
28 (No. 2) RONDINO for P.F. Not received at British Museum, unknown at

Stationers' Hall ; without evidence to contrary, various facts suggest
1850 — 51.

33 PRELUDES AND LESSONS for P.F., in all major and minor keys. Several of

these were also issued as separate pieces; 1851 — 53; see pp. 223, 412.

32 SONATA Duo, P.F. and V.cello, finished March 16, 1852; see pp. 194,

211, 212.

28 (No. 3) CAPRICCIO for P.F., Easter, 1853. Op. 28 was dedicated to
Miss Catherine Jameson, daughter of Professor Jameson who sup-
ported Bennett at Edinburgh in 1844; see p. 161.

PSALM TUNES, 'Day of Wrath,' for Dawson's Psalmody, Nov. 1853;
Russell Place, 'Praise the Lord Who reigns above,' for Rev. P.
Maurice's Psalmody, Jan. 1854.

38 TOCCATA for P.F., Jan. 13, 1854; see p. 235.

MINUETTO ESPRESSIVO for P.F. ; received at British Museum, Aug. 16,
1854; arranged for full orchestra by Ferd. Praeger.

34 RONDEAU, 'PAS TRISTE, PAS GAI,' for P.F., Nov. 1854.

35 Six SONGS, 2nd Set: (i) 'Indian love,' (2) 'Winter's gone,' both sung,

first time, by Mrs Lockey, March 13, 1855; (3) 'Dawn, gentle

flower,' dated Oct. 1853; (4) 'Castle Gordon;' (5) 'As lonesome

through the woods I stray;' (6) 'Sing, maiden, sing.' The set was

completed in 1855. No. 4 had been published separately by Coventry

some years before ; see pp. 195, 412.
ANTHEM, 'Remember now thy Creator;' consisting of the Duet, Op. 30,

No. I, with an added Chorus, dated Brussels, Aug. 1855.
37 RONDEAU A LA POLONAISE for P.F., first published in a Musical Album

of Messrs Payne, Leipzig. Bennett mentions the invitation to write

it, in a letter of Nov. 4, 1855.
'JANUARY,' 'FEBRUARY,' for P.F. ; 1856; published posthumously; see

p. 390.
ANTHEM, 'Lord, who shall dwell in Thy tabernacle?;' 1856; posthumously

published, but with omission of a portion which he had used in a later

work; see pp. 257, 267.
MOTET, 'In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust,' 8 voices, ist movement

begun at Cambridge, Aug. 1856, subscribed London, Oct. 1856; 2nd

movement, Hampstead, 1857; published posthumously; see pp. 26,

267, 268, 390, 391.

Appendix 459

OPUS

39 'THE MAY QUEEN,' A Pastoral, for Soli, Chorus and Orch. ; 1858; see

pp. 194, 285—290, 412, 423, 440, 443.
N.B. From 1859 to 1862, Bennett gave much time to Hymnology ; see

pp. 291—293, 319.
ANTHEM, for St Thomas's Day, 'Oh that I knew where I might find

Him;' contributed to Vol. I of Ouseley's Anthems for certain Seasons

and Festivals of the Church of England; published 1861.
SONG, 'Maiden Mine,' Eastbourne, 1861, lost, and the music rewritten,

Eastbourne, Aug. 1866. The present words adapted later, published

posthumously ; see p. 443.
Song, ' Tell me where, ye summer breezes,' written, lost and rewritten at

same dates as the preceding one ; see p. 363.

40 ODE, Chorus and Orch., for Opening of Exhibition, 1862 ; see pp. 303 — 317,

319, 321,412-

Ode, Soli, Chorus and Orch. for Installation of Chancellor at Cambridge :
(i) Orchestral Introduction and Chorus, 'Hence awhile, severer
Muses;' (2) Recit. (Tenor), 'So go, for in your places;' (3) Minuetto;
(4) Song (Sopr.), 'Then let the young be glad;' (5) Part Song, ' Health
to courage firm and high!' (6) Recit. (Sopr.), 'Yet stay awhile,
severer Muses, stay;' (7) 'Come, Euterpe, wake thy choir;' (8) Recit.
(Tenor), 'Then let the young be gay;' (9) Air (Tenor), 'Can we forget
one friend?' (10) Chorus, 'Severer Muses, linger yet;' (11) Recit.
(Sopr.), 'Nay, let us take what God shall send;' (12) 'So shall Alma
Mater see;' see pp. 320 — 324, 334.

42 FANTASIA-OVERTURE, 'PARADISE AND THE PERI,' 1862; see pp. 325,

39Q> 393, 412.

PRAELUDIUM for P.F., B flat, May or June, 1863.
ANTHEMS: (i) 'Great is our Lord,' for a Meeting of Choirs in Southwell

Minster, May, 1863, published posthumously; (2) 'The fool hath said

in his heart, There is no God,' for Novello's 31 Anthems by modern

composers, published April, 1864.
HYMN TUNES: (i) 'God Who madest earth and heaven;' (2) 'Holy, Holy,

Holy;' both for a Supplement to The Chorale Book for England;

1864.

43 SYMPHONY for Orch., G mi.; Allegro; Menuetto e Trio; Rondo Finale,

1864; Romanza added in 1867; see pp. 332 — 337, 363, 390, 412, 446.
HYMN TUNE, 'Peace be to this habitation,' Christmas morning, 1866,
published posthumously.

44 'THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA,' Sacred Cantata, 1867; see pp. 364 — 367,

378, 384, 423, 440, 448.
44 CHORUS and QUARTET, added to above, 1868; see pp. 377, 378.

SACRED SONG, ' Lord to Thee our song we raise,' 4 female voices, for the

Inauguration Ceremonial of British Orphan Asylum, Slough, June 24,

1868.
ANTHEM, 'Now, my God, let, I beseech Thee;' May, 1869; see pp. 389,

412.

460 Appendix

OPUS

ORGAN VOLUNTARY, Adagio a 4 voci, published in The Village Organist,
Jan. 1870.

Introit, 'The Lord bless thee and keep thee,' for the wedding of J. Lamborn
Cock, 1870.

HYMN TUNES: (i) Inverness, 'From all Thy Saints in warfare,' for
Dr Steggall's Hymns for the Church of England, Aug. 1870 ; (2) 'The
radiant morn hath passed away,' for Dr E. G. Monk's The Anglican
Hymn Book, Aug. 13, 1870.

PART SONG, 'Sweet Stream that glides,' 1871; see pp. 412, 415.

SONATINA for P.F., C ma., Aug. 1871; see p. 442.

HYMN TUNES: (i) 'Courage my sorely tempted heart;' first set to words
dated Nov. 1871 ; published posthumously; (2) 'Jesu, solace of my
soul,' for The Hymnary of Messrs Novello, Jan. i, 1872.

Prelude to Ajax for Orch. ; finished June, 1872 ; see p. 417.
46 SONATA, 'THE MAID OF ORLEANS,' for P.F. ; 1869 — 73; see pp. 390,
418, 442, 443.

Two SONGS: (i) 'Dancing lightly comes the summer;' see p. 443;
(2) ' Sunset,' also belonging to his later years ; both published posthu-
mously.

Part-Song, 'Of all the arts,' for a concert given by the Fitzwilliam Musical
Society, Cambridge, on Dec. i, 1873.

Funeral March, Orch. with Chorus, for the music to Ajax, 1873 — 74; see
P- 444-

Bennett left little unfinished music. Belonging to his earlier life, there
remain: Some movements of a String-Quartet; part of an Evening Service;
and a small parcel of music-sheets which give the beginnings of a few songs
or themes for instrumental pieces. From about the year 1850 he used a quire
or two of music-paper stitched together in a paper-cover, and in such books
(one of which he lost) he entered most of his minor compositions, but no
fragments. For the last nine years of his life he adopted as constant com-
panions two bound octavo musical note-books, brought to him from Germany
by his friend Gerard F. Cobb, of Cambridge. Acquiring a fresh habit — so it
seems to have been in his case — he did make use of these as s&eh'h-books.
Many pages were written with pencil, probably in his carriage. Besides
fragmentary sketches for works afterwards published, they contain part of a
Te Deum, the opening of a Soprano solo which he intended to add to ' The
Woman of Samaria,' and some subjects for movements of other Sonatinas
which he thought of joining to the one written in 1871.

Appendix

461

APPENDIX C.

PUBLISHED WORKS IN THE ORDER OF OPUS-NUMBERS.

P.F. Concerto, D mi.
Capriccio P.F.
Overture to 'Parisina.'
P.F. Concerto, No. 2, E flat.

I
i
3

4

51

6 y Vacant1.

8 Sestet P.F. and Strings.

9 P.F. Concerto, No. 3, C mi.

10 Three Musical Sketches, P.F.
it Six Studies, P.F.

11 Three Impromptus, P.F.

13 Sonata, ¥ mi., P.F.

14 Three Romances, P.F.

15 Overture, 'The Naiads.'
1 6 Fantaisie, A ma., P.F.

17 Three Diversions, P.F. Duets.

I 8 ' Allegro Grazioso,' P.F.

19 P.F. Concerto, No. 4, F mi.

20 Overture ' The Wood-nymphs.'

II Vacant*.

22 Caprice, E ma., P.F. and orch.

23 Six Songs, ist set.

24 ' Suite de Pieces,' P.F.

25 'Rondo Piace vole,' P.F.

16 Chamber Trio, P.F., Vln., V. cello.

27 Scherzo, P.F.

28 Introduzione e Pastorale, Rondino,

Capriccio, P.F.

29 Two Studies, 'L'Amabile' e 'L'Ap-

passionata,' P.F.

30 P'our Sacred Duets.

31 Tema e Variazioni, P.F.

32 Sonata Duo, P.F. and V.cello.

33 Preludes and Lessons, P.F.

34 Rondeau, 'Pas Triste, Pas Gai,' P.F.

35 Six Songs. 2nd set.

36 Vacant3.

37 Rondeau a la Polonaise, P.F.

38 Toccata, P.F.

39 Pastoral, 'The May Queen.'

40 Ode for 1862 Exhibition.

41 Vacant4.

42 Overture, ' Paradise and The Peri.'

43 Symphony, G mi.

44 ' The Woman of Samaria.'

45 Vacant5.

46 Sonata, 'The Maid of Orleans,' P.F.

1 In view of publishing other works of his Academy period.

2 Possibly for his unfinished Oratorio.

8 The German publishers placed the 'Minuetto Espressivo' (which was not numbered
in England) as 35 and the Six Songs (Op. 35 here) as 36. Bennett, by skipping to 37,
would resume agreement with the German order.

* For Cambridge Installation Ode, one No. of which was published (see p. 324).

6 For music to Ajax.

462 Appendix

PUBLICATIONS WITHOUT OPUS-NUMBERS.

FOR P.F. : Romance 'Genevieve;' Waltz, see p. 456; Minuetto Espressivo ;
'January' and 'February;' Praeludium in B flat; Sonatina.

For Organ : Adagio a 4 voci.

VOCAL: Canzonet 'In radiant loveliness;' Songs: 'Resignation,' 'The Better
Land,' ' Stay, my Charmer,' ' Maiden mine,' ' Dancing lightly comes the summer,'
'Sunset;' Part-songs: 'Come live with me," 'Sweet Stream that glides,' ' Of all the
arts.'

A Motet (8 voices), 6 Anthems, A Sacred Song (4 female voices), and 12 Hymns
are now published in one volume by Messrs Novello and Co.

DEDICATION OF WORKS.

Opera (2) and (4), to Cipriani Potter; (3) H. Field; (8) C. Coventry; (9) J. B.
Cramer; (10) J. W. Davison ; (n) G. A. Macfarren ; (12) W. P. Beale ; (13) Men-
delssohn; (16) Schumann; (19) Moscheles; (22) Madame Dulcken; (24) Mrs Anderson;
(25) R. Barnett; (26) K. J. Pye; (27) John Suett; (28) Miss C. Jameson; (32) A. Piatti;
(46) Madame A. Goddard ; Without Opus Nos. : Minuetto Espressivo, to J. Turner
Hopwood ; Prseludium, to Harold Thomas ; Song ' Maiden Mine,' to Mrs Robert Case ;
Sonatina, to his grandson, T. B. Case.

Appendix 463

APPENDIX D.

TABLE OF COMPOSITIONS ARRANGED IN PERIODS.

PERIOD I. APRIL 1832 — APRIL 1836. AGED 16 — 20.

Orchestra: Unpublished Symphonies and Overtures written while studying
under Crotch and Potter ; Overture to ' Parisina.' P.P. and Orchestra : three
published Concertos, D mi., E flat, C mi.; one, F mi., MS.; one for 2
P.F.s, MS. Chamber Music: String- Quartet, MS.; Sestet, P.F. and Strings.
P.F. Solos: Capriccio ; 6 Studies ; 3 Musical Sketches. Vocal: 2 Canzonets ;
Songs, 'Gentle Zephyr,' 'Resignation.'

PERIOD II. MAY 1836— APRIL 1843. AGED 20 — 27.

Orchestra: Overtures 'The Naiads;' 'The Wood-nymphs.' P.F. and
Orchestra: Caprice, E ma.; Concerto No. 4, F mi. Chamber Music: Trio,
P.F., Vln., V.cello. P.F. Solos: 3 Impromptus; Sonata, F mi.; Fantaisie,
A ma.; 3 Romances; 'Allegro Grazioso;' 'Genevieve;' Waltz (see p. 456);
'Fandango;' Suite de Pieces; 'Rondo Piacevole.' P.F. Duets '3 Diversions.'
Vocal: Unfinished Oratorio; Songs, 'The Better Land,' 'Stay, my charmer;'
6 Songs (ist set) one of them written in Period I.

PERIOD III. MAY 1843 — APRIL 1851. AGED 27 — 35.

[N.B. During the early years of married life Bennett paid close attention to
securing a position by teaching^

Orchestra: Overture 'Marie du Bois' (two editions). P.F. and Orchestra:
Concert-Stuck, or Concerto, No. 6, Ami., MS. (three editions). P.F. Solos:
2 Studies, ' L'Amabile e PAppassionata;' Scherzo ; ' Introduzione e Pastorale ;'
Tema e Variazioni ; Rondino, E ma. Vocal: Additions to unfinished Oratorio ;
4 Sacred Duets ; Song, 'Castle Gordon ;' Part-song, 'Come live with me.'

PERIOD IV. MAY 1851— APRIL 1859. AGED 35—43.

Orchestra and Voices: 'The May Queen.' Chamber Music: Sonata Duo,
P.F. and V.cello. P.F. Solos: Capriccio, A mi.; Toccata; ' Minuetto
Espressivo;' Rondeau, 'Pas Triste, Pas Gai ; ' 'Rondeau a la Polonaise;'
Preludes and Lessons; 'January and February.' Vocal: 6 Songs (2nd set),
one written in Period III ; Anthems, ' Remember now thy Creator' (see p. 458),
' Lord, who shall dwell in Thy tabernacle ?' 8-part Motet, ' In Thee, O Lord.'

464 Appendix

PERIOD V. MAY 1859— APRIL 1866. AGED 43—50.

[N.B. For the first three years of this period Bennett devoted much time to
German HymnologyJ]

Orchestra and Voices: Ode for 1862 Exhibition ; Ode for Cambridge
Installation. Orchestra: Overture, 'Paradise and The Peri;' Symphony,
G mi. P.F. Solo: Praeludium in B flat. Anthems: 'Oh, that I knew where I
might find Him;' 'Great is the Lord;' 'The fool hath said in his heart.'
Songs : ' Maiden mine,' ' Tell me where, ye summer breezes.'

PERIOD VI. MAY 1866— SEPTEMBER 1874. AGED 50—58.

Orchestra and Voices : ' The Woman of Samaria ; ' Funeral March, for
music to Ajax. Orchestra : Prelude to Ajax. P.F. Solos : Sonata, ' The
Maid of Orleans;' Sonatina. Organ: Adagio a 4 voci ; Vocal: Anthem,
'Now, my God, let, I beseech Thee;' Sacred Song (4 female voices), 'Lord to
Thee our song we raise;' Introit, 'The Lord bless thee, and keep thee;'
Part-songs: 'Sweet stream that glides,' 'Of all the arts;' Songs: 'Dancing
lightly,' 'Sunset.'

INDEX.

Adelaide, H.M. Queen, 29

Albert, H.R.H. The Prince Consort, 162,

178, 202, 248, 277, 278, 305, 306, 308,

312, 320, 323

Alwyn, Mr W. Crowther, 179, 399-401
Amps, Mr Wm., 266, 268
Anderson, G. F., 163, 190-193, 224, 241,

249, 297
Anderson, Mrs G. F., 113, 118, 224, 319,

324, 462

Antient Concert, The, 133
Armfield, Rev. H. T., 267, 269
Ashford, Derbyshire, i, 227, 330
Athenaeum (club), The, 18, 331
Attwood, Thos., 18, 25, 31, 37, 40, 41,

47. 48, 251
Ayrton, Wm., 86, 88, 187, 188

Bach, C. P. Emanuel, 33

Bach, J. Sebastian, 92, 120, 130, 140, 267,

275. 424» 444' 451
Bach Society (London), The, 203-208,

232-235. 276-279, 319, 451
Bache, Edward, 398
Badman, Benjamin, 357
Bakewell, Derbyshire, 3, 4, 6
Banister, H. C., 186
Barlow, T. Oldham, A.R.A., 422-424
Barnett, Robert, no, 112, 203, 213, 226,

227, 462

Bartholomew, W., 207, 248
Bateson, Rev. W. H., D.D., 389
Beale, W. P., 109, 462
Beard, Rev. Arthur, 271
Beethoven, 33, 34, 51, 53, 134, 156, 199
Benecke, one of two brothers, F. W. and

V., probably the latter, 60, 62
Benedict, Sir Julius, 408
Bennett, Elizabeth (nee Donn), W. S. B.'s

mother, 5-7

Bennett, Sir John (Sheriff of London), 166
Bennett, John (W. S. B.'s grandfather),

3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 19, 20, 26, 27, 46
Bennett, Mr Joseph, musical critic, 22
Bennett, Robert (W. S. B.'s father), 3-10

Bennett, Sarah, later Mrs J. Glasscock

(W. S. B.'s aunt), 7, 9, 20, 28, 63, 65,

136, 161, 326, 328
Bennett, Mrs Wm. Sterndale (nee Wood),

113, 115-128, 136, 143, 144, 149, 157,

159, 160-162, 165, 195, 197, 231, 277,

279' 3'3. 324-328, 452, 453
Bennett, Wm. Sterndale

Composer, As a, 16, 17, 21, 24-28, 34,
36, 39-42, 44-46, 60, 61, 69, 70, 72,
78, 79> 85-88, 95-108, 145, 146, 151,
163-165, 175, 194, 21 r, 212, 256, 257,
267, 268, 285-287, 289, 290, 303-
310, 322, 323, 325, 332-334, 363-367,
377. 378> 389-39*> 4'°-4i3. 4i7, 4i8,
442-444. 45°, 455-464

Compositions. — For references to men-
tion, in this book, of particular works,
see Appendix B, 455-460

Composition, As a teacher of, 196, 398-
406

Concerts, Chamber, no, 147-149, 166,
209-215

Concerts, Orchestral, 69, 70, 162, 165,202

Conductor, As a, 58, 100, 134, 141,
150, 154 note, 170, 171, 228-230,
242-249, 268-270, 274-276, 279, 287-
289, 294-302, 319, 323, 325, 331,

332, 335. 337. 342> 344
Letters of, to, Alwyn, Mr W. Crowther,
401 ; Anon., 352 ; Bennett, Sarah (later
Mrs Glasscock), 28, 65, 136, 171, 326;
Brewster, Sir David, 339 ; Case, Mrs
Thos., his daughter, 423, 445; David,
Ferd., 336, 381 ; Davison, J. W.,
44, 49, 77 ; Dorrell, Wm., 395 ; 1862
Exhibition, The Commissioners of,
307-310, 316; Kistner, Fr., 98, 100,
102, 104, 151; Kistner, Julius, 412;
Leipzig, Concert- Direction of, 229,
230; Lucas, C., opp. p. 190, 192,
193 ; Maurice, Rev. F. D., 200 ;
Mendelssohn Bartholdy, F., 46, 66,
68, 70, 98, 136, 137, 139, 145, 148,
149, 151, 152, 160, 164, 166, 173;

S. B.

3°

466

Index

Philharmonic Society, 275 ; Philpott,
Rt Rev. H., D.D., 263; Price, A. G.,
392 ; Pye, Kellow J., 370 ; Romilly,
Rev. J., 261; Schumann, R., 63, 72,
76, 218; Schumann, Clara, 236, 244;
Son, his, 379, 422, 442 ; Voigt, Carl,
109; Whe'well, Rev. W., D.D., 263;
Wood, Mary A., later his wife, 115-
128, 429

Letters to, from, Bishop, Sir H., 223;
Bennett, John, 19 ; Brewster, Sir D.,
339. 34° 5 Cartmell, Rev. James,
D.D., 361; Chorley, H. F., 285, 289;
Exhibition of 1862, Commissioners of,
3°3> 3°7. 3°8, 310-312, 317; Davison,
Mrs, 90; Gladstone, Rt Hon. W. E.,
385 ; Goethe, W. von, 73 ; Hamilton,
Rev. F., 43; Henslow, F. H., 251 ;
Holdsworth, Thos., 83; Horsley, C.
E., 250; Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 320-
323; Kistner, Fr., 99, 105, 106; Leip-
zig, Concert-Direction of, 228 ; Lind-
Goldschmidt, Madame, 330 ; Men-
delssohn Bartholdy, F., 48, 66, 98,

I38. 142-144. 149. !53. 156, 158,
159, 165, 172 ; Philharmonic Society,
249. 274, 327, 3355 Philpott, Rt
Rev. H., D.D., 264; Potter, Cipriani,
282, 334 ; Richmond, George, R.A.,
331 ; Romilly, Rev. J., 261 ; Schu-
mann, R., 220; Smart, Sir G., 109;
Tennyson, Lord, 305 ; Westmorland,
Earl of, 283

Organ-playing, 35, 36

Pianoforte- playing, First teachers, 10,
15; Debut at R.A.M., 16; Other
early performances, 21, 28, 29;
Studies under Potter, 32-34 ; Debut
at Philharmonic, 37 ; Sight-reading,
39 ; Debut at Gewandhaus, 55-57 ;
2nd appearance at Gewandhaus, 76—
79; Industry as a pianist, 21, 108,424;
Last performance at Gewandhaus,
127-129, 131 ; Mendelssohn's Lieder
ohne Worte, 185-187 ; Last appear-
ance at the Philharmonic, 187, 188;
Playing at his own Chamber-Concerts,
209-2 1 5 ; Opinions on his playing by
Wm. Ayrton, 88, 187 ; H. C. Bani-
ster, 186; J. W. Davison, 184, 187,
188, 424; John Field, 21; Otto
Goldschmidt, 188, 189; Ferd. Hiller,
78; G. A. Macfarren, 184, 426;
Mendelssohn, 56, 154, 157; Musical
Examiner, 1 58 ; Piatti, 212; Pye,
K. J., 186; Mr W. Shakespeare, 214;
Schumann, 40, 56, 61, 129, 215, 216;
His retirement, 215-217, 274

Pianoforte-teaching, 36, 68, 83, 84, 88,
89» 9r~94. 174. 195-201, 223, 231,
274, 320, 446

Residences in London, 68, 135, 164,
294. 338, 352, 392, 44°

Singing, 18, 251, 252

Violin and Viola playing, 15-17, 18, 21,

26

Berlin, 122-124, 126, 127, 136, 140
Berlioz, H., 235
Billet, A., 202
Birch, Charlotte A., 36, 146
Birmingham, 65, 66, 109, 171, 17*, 223,

.287, 364-368
Bishop, Sir H., 134, 152, 164, 170, 221-

223, 264, 409

Blagrove, H., 66, 157, 210
Bohn, H. G., 430
Bonn, 414

Bowley, J. S., 23, 87, 184
Bowley, R. K., 308
Boxall, Sir Wm., R.A., 409
Breitkopf u. Haertel, 76, 122
Brewster, Sir David, 339
Bright, Rt Hon. John, 434
Brighton, 196, 377, 440
British Musicians, Society of, 37
Brizzi, Scipione, 17, 18
Broad wood, H., 40

Broad wood and Sons, Messrs, 39, 76, 122
Brockhaus, Heinrich, 52, 53, 75
Biilow, Hans von, 442, 443
Bunnett, Dr E., 263
Burghersh, Lord, 12, 14, 29, 30, 113. See

also Westmorland, Earl of
Burton, R. S., 186, 279

Cambridge, 4, 9-11, 20, 23, 27, 28, 32,
36, 44, 63, 120, 213, 249-272, 274, 286,
289, 3I9-325. 332, 338, 361-363. 376,
377. 381, 3»9. 409. 44°, 444. 449

Cartmell, Rev. J., D.D., Master of Christ's
College, Cambridge, 361

Case, Mr George, 441, 443

Case, Robert, 330, 422, 423, 434, 446

Case, Professor Thos., President of C.C.C.,
Oxford, 392, 423, 443

Case, Mr Thos. B., 462

Canterbury Music Hall, 289

Cassel, 74, 114, 116-119

Cawdor, Earl of, 278

Channell, Miss A. A., 442

Chopin, 150, 341, 451-453

Chorale Book for England, 291-293, 319,

333

Chorley, H. F., 194, 285, 286, 289, 290
Clarke, Sir Campbell, 314 note, 335
Clarke Whitfeld, Dr J., 4, 5, 258
Classical P.F. music, republication of, 92,

93

dementi, 32, 93, 94, no, 214

Clerk, Sir George, Bart., 350, 353 note,

355. 356, 358, 359. 37°. 372
Cobb, Gerard F. , 444, 459
Cock, J. Lamborn, 277, 290, 311, 331,

459
Cole, Sir H., K.C.B., 38, 349, 350, 353,

354. 358, 359. 386, 418-421

Index

467

Coleridge, Mr A. D., 250, 289
Coleridge, Sir John (later Lord), 415, 416,

434

Cooke, Grattan, 13, 15, no, in
Cooper, George, 204, 448
Costa, Sir Michael, 96, 162, 166, 169,

170, 189-193, 224, 225, 241, 242, 248,

279, 281, 288, 295, 297-299, 304, 307-

317, 322, 324, 341, 350, 356, 364, 366-

368, 409

Cotterill, Rev. Thos., 7
Couldery, Mr C. H., 398, 399
Coventry, Charles, 39, 44, 47 note, 63,

64, 92> 93' 95, 109, no, 148, 151,

410, 411, 462
Cox, Miss Frances, 112
Cox, Frank R., 203
Cramer, J. B., 12, 32, 39, 88, 94, 110,

153, 187, 188, 214, 462
Cramer, Fra^ois, 29
Creswick, Thos., R.A., 432
Crotch, Dr Wm., 12, 21, 22, 26, 27, 153,

268

Crystal Palace Concerts, 417, 446
Cummings, Dr W. H., 366, 378
Cusins, Sir Wm. G., 226, 227, 319, 363,

365. 366

Dallas, E. S., 431

Dando, J. H. B., 147, 178, 204, 210,

288

Darnall, nr. Sheffield, 7
Darling, Rev. T., 446
David, Ferd., 49, 51, 52, 65-67, 75, 78,

79, 84, 89, 113, 121, 122, 147, 148,

168, 174, 175, 180, 228, 335-338, 380-

382
David, Mr Paul (son of above), 121, 380-

383

Davison, James W., 18, 19, 24, 26, 33,
34. 36, 39-41, 44, 45, 48, 49, 61, 68,
69, 77, 79, 89, 9°, 92' 94, 96. I03,
105, no, 130, 145, 150, 171, 175, 184,
185, 187-189, 210, 224, 233, 242, 270,
287, 290, 302, 312, 424, 432, 454, 456,
457, 462

Davison, Mrs, n£e Duncan (mother of
above), 89, 90

Devonshire, Duchess of, 3

Devonshire, Dukes of, 7, 320

Dibdin, Charles, 208

Dilke, Sir Wentworth, Bart., 309

Dirichlet, Gustav, 131

Disraeli, Rt Hon. B., 369, 370, 373, 386

Dohler, Theodor, 94

Dolby, Charlotte H., 146, 205, 235, 287.
See also Sainton, Madame

Donaldson, Professor John, 155, 156, 161,

252, 339

Donn, James (W. S. B.'s maternal grand-
father), 5, 46

Dorrell, Wm., 26, 27, 34, 37, no, 115,
116, 141, 142, 196, 204, 207, 212, 331

Dresden, 126
Dreyschock, Alex., 150
Dudley, Earl of, 375, 387, 447
Dulcken, Madame (nee David), 462
Dunraven, Countess of, 433
Dussek, 1 6, 39, 93, 94, 110, 187, 211
Diisseldorf, 39, 40-42, 46-48, 68, 141,
218-220

Eastbourne, 286, 287, 290, 293, 360, 365,

39°

Ecclesall, 7
Edinburgh, 152-155, 158, 161, 289, 339,

340, 448
Edinburgh, H.R.H. The Duke of, 164,

418, 419, 447
Edmonton, 36
Egerton, Hon. Seymour (later Earl of

Wilton), 399
Ella, John, 15, 96
Elvey, Sir George, 254, 255, 409
Ernst, H. W., 9 note, 151, 210
Eversley, 321, 322
Ewer and Co., Messrs, 207
Exeter, 93, 427, 456
Exhibition of 1851, 221-223
Exhibition of 1862, 303-317, 319
Eyers, Mr H. R., 441, 445

Faning, Dr Eaton, 404

Fantasia, The P.F., 91, 185

Farringford, 305, 306

Ferrari, Adolfo, in, 112, 226, 227

Fetis, F. J., 17, 32

Field, Henry (of Bath), 462

Field, John, 21

Filtsch, Charles, 150

Finsbury, 213

Franck, Dr Eduard, 49, 56, 58, 60

Frankfort, 63, 165

Freemantle, H. J., 385

Frege, Madame, 128

Frere, Mrs, 251, 254

Gade, Niels W., 156, 228, 414

Garrett, G. M., Mus. D., 362, 446, 449

Gevaert, F. A., 414

Gewandhaus Concerts, see Leipzig

Gifford, Miss, 10

Gladstone, Rt Hon. W. E., 348, 385, 408

Gladstone, Mrs W. E., 386

Gloucester, 202, 392

Goddard, Madame Arabella (Mrs J. W.

Davison), 224, 225, 247, 442, 462
Goethe, Madame von, 52, 53, 62
Goethe, W. von, 52, 53, 58-60, 64, 71-73
Goldschmidt, Madame Jenny Lind-, 242-

244, 248, 324, 330, 354, 454
Goldschmidt, Otto, 188, 243, 292, 293,

333, 35°, 35', 354. 356, 359, 360, 454
Goold, Wyndham, M.P., 433
Gore- Booth, Lady, 433
Goss, Sir John, 204, 213, 262, 409, 448

30—2

468

Index

Governesses' Benevolent Institution, 202
Grace, Dr W. G., 436
Grantchester, nr. Cambridge, 40, 44, 70, 75
Granville, Dr, 18
Greatorex, Thos., 12
Greenwich, 142, 143, 166, 213
Grove, Sir George, C.B., 33, 121
Guy, Mr Henry, 443

Hackett, C. D., 457

Haertel, Dr, 51-53

Haertel, Madame, 52, 122

Halle, Sir Charles, 9 note, 150, 442, 443

Hamburg, 49, 75, 138, 141

Hamilton, Rev. F. , n, 13, 15, 29, 43

Hampstead, 102, 458

Handel, 3, 10, 27, 33, 55, 97, 98, 130,

*33, 149. !?7, 179- l83, 213, 251
Hargitt, Mr C. J., 289
Hartvigson, Mr Fritz, 334
Hasper, Dr, 49, 60
Hauptmann, Moritz, 116
Haydn, 6, 16, 23, 51, 93, 94, 130, 133,

209, 214, 269

Haweis, Rev. H. R., 200, 269
Heller, Stephen, 213
Helmore, Rev. Thos., 206
Hendon, 36
Hensel, Madame (nee Mendelssohn Bar-

tholdy), 126, 127, 131, 214
Henslow, Frank H., 251
Hereford, 202, 458
Herschel, Sir John, Bart., 252
Hill, Weist, 368

Killer, Ferd., 78, 187, 214, 338, 380, 414
Hipkins, A. J., 451, 452
Hogarth, George, 241, 248, 301, 302, 333,

334, 430

Holdsworth, Thos., 83, 84, 89, 108, 223
Holland, 235

Hollebone, Philadelphia, 437
Holmes, W. H., 13, 15, 16, 18, 32, 204,

427, 428

Hopkins, E. J., Mus.D., 203, 448
Hopkins, J., 448

Hopkins, J. L., Mus.D., 257, 362
Hopwood, J. Turner, 462
Horsley, C. E., 204, 250, 254
Horsley, W., 12
Howard, Stirling, 385
Howard, William, 384, 385
Hull, 109
Hullah, John, LL.D., 105, 185, 186, 204,

266, 277, 289, 457
Hummel, 21, 94, 211

Ibbotson, Walter, 385
Ipswich, 196
Islington, 313

Jackson, Win., 101, 197

Jackson, Arthur H., 404
aell, Alfred, 343

Jameson, Professor, 161

Jameson, Catherine, 457, 462

Jansen, Gustav, 54 note, 74

Jasper, Fraiilein, 74

Jay, John, 108

Jewell, Madame Rebecca, 442

Joachim, Joseph, 157, 210, 275, 286, 319,

324, 422, 438, 439, 444
Johnson, A. C., 44, 70, 136, 142, 156, 161
Johnson, Mrs (mother of above), 136, 158,

161

Johnston, Helen F. H., 205, 207, 208, 257
Joy, Walker, 287

Kalkbrenner, F. W., 94

Kemble, Charles, 432

Kemp, Mr Stephen B., 399, 404, 415

Kennedy, Rev. Prof. B. IL, D.D., 44?

Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 320-324

Kingsley, Rev. W. T., 250, 251

Kistner, Friedr., 49, 52, 55, 60, 61, 63, 65,

98—100, 102, 104, 105, 108, 114, 121,

137, 138, 140-142, 146, 151, 164, 216
Kistner, Julius, 49, 65, 175, 180, 218,

336, 33.8, 379' 4"
Kitson, Sir James, 279
Klengel, Dr, 34
Klingemann, Carl, 40-42, 48
Kuhe, Mr W., 44o
Kynaston (formerly Snow), Rev. Canon

H., D.D., 417

Landseer, Sir Edwin, R.A., 432

Leader and Cock, Messrs, 277, 410, 411

Leeds, 279, 280, 285, 287-289, 318

Leipzig, 34, 46-62, 66-68, 70-79, 87, 88,
101, 113, 121, 122, 124-131, 146, 148,
154 note, 166-168, 171-173, 214, 215,
218, 227-232, 235, 335-338, 379, 4"

Leslie, Henry, 415

Liddon, Rev. Canon, D.D. , 408

Lincoln, H. J., 204

Lind-Goldschmidt, Madame Jenny, see
Goldschmidt

Lindpaintner, 225

Lipinsky (or Lipinski), 48

Liszt, 112, 123, 127

Littlehampton, 195

Liverpool, 47, 289

Lloyd, Mr Edward, 271

Lockey, Mrs (nee Williams), 458

Loder, Kate, see Thompson, Lady

Logier, J. B., 8

London Institution, 333

London, University of, 413

Longmans, Messrs, 29 r, 292, 333

Lowe, Miss, 198

Lucas, Charles, 15, 16, 19, 21, 32, 134,
170, 190-193, 224, 225, 281, 282, 300,

347, 348, 353, 357- 367
Lunn, Rev. J. R., 257, 267, 449

Macfarren, Sir George A., 18, 21, 24, 28,

Index

469

32, 36-39* 79» "2, 184,227,245, 247,
284, 286, 348, 354, 355, 367, 396, 398,
414, 415, 419, 434, 442, 447, 449, 455-
457. 462

Macfarren, Walter C., 457

Maclise, Daniel, R.A., 164 note

Macmurdie, J., 274

Maidstone, 196

Mainz, 63, 104, 137

Malibran, Maria F. (nee Garcia), 47

Malzburg, Madame de, 116, 117, 119

Manchester, 8, 9 note, 47, 279

Manns, Sir August, 379, 417

Mapleson, J. H., 96

Marschner, H. A., 50, 61, 102, 117

Martin, Rev. F. , 251

Martin, G. W., 378

Marylebone Literary Institution, 100

Mason, Colonel Oliver, 364

Masson, Miss E., 149

Mathison, Rev. W. C., 251

Matthay, Mr Tobias, 404

Maurice, Rev. F. D., 199, 200

Maurice, Rev. P., 458

May, Oliver, 203

Meerti, Elise, 121, 122

Mellon, Alfred, 312, 316

Mendelssohn Bartholdy, J. L. Felix, 23,
24, 27, 30, 31, 33, 37, 39-42, 46-52,
56-61, 63-68, 70-72, 75, 84, 86-89, 92~
95. 97' 98, 109, 117, 120, 122-131, 134-
180, 183-188, 195, 201, 211-214, 216-
219, 234, 245, 287, 298, 337, 342, 446,
454, 462

Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Cecile (nee Jean-
renaud), F. M. B.'s wife, 57, 66, 67,
126, 137, 139, 140, 142, 144, 147, 172,
173, 218

Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Fanny, F. M. B.'s
sister, see Hensel, Madame

Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Madame, F. M.
B.'s mother, 123, 126

Meyerbeer, 131, 304, 312, 313, 364

Millais, Sir J. E., Bart., P.R.A., 422-424

Molique, Bernhard, 139, 207, 210, 250,

398
Monicke, C. H., 49-51, 59-61, 65, 75,

121, 172, 218

Monk, E. J., Mus.D., 460
Montgomery, James, 6 note
Mori, Nicolas, 85

Mori, Frank, son of above, u6, 117
Morris, Mrs, 437
Moscheles, Ignaz, 46, 64, 92, 134, 140,

148, 151, 153, 164, 165, 170, 171, 174,

210, 213, 214, 338, 457, 462
Mozart, 6, 16, 22-26, 33, 50, 51, 55, 69,

92-94, 96, 97, no, 120, 125, 129, 130,

148, 186-189, 209, 211-213, 245, 251,

276

Mulready, Wm., R.A., 432
Musical Association of London, 188, 293
Musical Society of London, 298

National Choral Society, 378

Neate, Charles, 210

Netherlands, Society for Promotion of

Music in the, 235
Neukomm, Chevalier S., 222
Niecks, Professor Frederick, 451
Novell!, A. A., 121
Novello, Madame Clara A. (Countess

Gigliucci), 66, 67, 245, 287, 289, 392
Novello, J. A., 48
Nunn, Wm., 10

Okes, Rev. Richard, D.D., 409
O'Leary, Mr Arthur, 128, 188, 189, 227,

432, 433' 447- 45*
Orchestral Union, 225
Oury, James, 15
Oxford, 261, 263, 264, 392, 408, 445

Pakington, Sir John, Bart, (later Lord

Hampton), 373, 387
Paris, 216, 223

Parker, Mr Louis N., 403-406, 424
Parkes, Marie H., 385, 452, 453
Parry, Sir Hubert, Bart., 399
Parry, John, 112
Parry, Joseph, Mus.D., 399, 404
Pearson (or Pierson), H. H., 121, 161,

339 note
Pemberton (formerly Hudson), Rev. Canon

T. P., 332

Pendlebury, Richard, 377 note

Philharmonic Music Hall, 313

Philharmonic Society of London, 37, 40,
70, 85, 86, 88, 123, 132-135, 137-143,
150-152, 156, 158, 161-166, 187-194,
215, 220, 224, 225, 241-249, 274-276,
289, 294-302, 319, 324, 325, 327, 328,

331-335. 340-344. 363> 4i5. 41?. 448
Philharmonic Society, The New, 225,

298

Philharmonic Society of Paris, 235
Phillips, Percival, 385
Phillips, Lovell, 18
Philpott, Rt Rev. H., D.D., 263
Piatti, Alfredo, 194, 210-212, 250, 301,

324, 462

Pickering, J. A., 70-72
Pierson, H. H., see Pearson
Pinto, G. F., 39, 110
Portsmouth, 151
Potter, Philip H. Cipriani, 16, 17, 27, 28,

32. 33. 36- 37 note, 65, 85, 92, no,

134, 139, 153, 204, 213, 214, 222, 231,

247, 281, 282, 283, 334, 347, 357, 362,

462

Pratt, John, 10

Preussers, the, 75, 168, 218, 231
Price, Alfred G., 392
Punch, 204, 224, 313
Pye, Kellow J., 93, 186, 353, 354, 359,

370, 427, 456, 462
Pyne, Louisa (Madame Bodda), 228, 230

Index

Queen's College, Harley Street, 195, 199,

200, 203, 223, 256, 320, 376
Queisser, Carl T., 51

Rea, William, 171, 214

Reeves, J. Sims, 287, 319

Reinecke, Carl, 338, 389

Reissiger, Carl G., 153

Reuss, Count, 62, 71, 113, 124, 125

Rhine, The, 41, 68, 332

Richmond, 102

Richmond, George, R.A., 331

Rietz, Julius, 228, 338

Robinson, Joseph, 171

Rochlitz, Friedrich J., 74

Rockstro, W. S., 164, 165, 393

Rogers, Robert, 9

Romilly, Colonel, 434

Rotterdam, 63, 235

Rowland, A. J., 301

Royal Academy of Arts, 408

Royal Academy of Music, 12-43, 65, 85,
88, 113, 143, 144, 190, 196, 280-284,
347-360, 369-375, 384-388, 391' 392>
394-406, 414, 415, 418-421, 429, 441,

445-447. 452, 456

Royal Society of Female Musicians, 319
Royal Society of Musicians, 297, 319, 413,

448

Sacred Harmonic Society, 222, 308, 311,

367. 378

Sainton, Prosper, 210, 241, 312, 316
Sainton, Madame, 366. See also Dolby,

Charlotte A.
Sala, G. Augustus, 430
Salaman, C. K., 196
Salisbury, Marquess of, 408
Salmon, Mrs, 6
Salomon, J. P., 7, 133
Santley, Mr Charles, 324, 366
Scarlatti, Domenico, 130, 149, 214
Schleinitz, Conrad, 66, 67, 147, 168, 232,

336. 38 *

Schneider, Friedr., 126, 131

Schonberg, Princesses of, 62

Schumann, Madame Clara (nee Wieck),
50, 122, 124, 125, 213, 218-221, 236,
237. •244-248, 274

Schumann, Robert A., 40, 49, 51-65, 67,
7*-73> 76-78, 85-87, 91, 103, 105, 121,
122, 124, 125, 129, 130, 175, 176, 201,
210, 213-216, 218-221, 236, 243, 244,
246, 248, 269, 301, 341-343, 446, 453,
454, 462

Schumann, Madame Therese, 62, 64

Schuncks, the, 66, 67, 75, 125, 126, 147, 171

Seguins, the, 96, 367

Seymour, C. A., 188

Shakespeare, Mr Wm., 214, 399, 401

Shaw, Mrs Alfred (nee Postans), 73, 77,
124, 125

Sheffield, 3, 5-9, 384, 385

Slack, Samuel, 3, 4

Sloper, Lindsay, 442

Smart, Sir George T., 12, 15, 27 note,

69, 109, 134, 153, 204, 221-223, 250,

409 note

Smart, Henry, 204, 206, 207
Smith, Rev. Sydney, 101
Snow (later Kynaston), Rev. H., 417
Southampton, 136, 145, 149, 151, 158,

223, 227, 352
Southgate, 1 98
Spagnoletti, — , 15
Spark, Mr Fred R., 289
Sparrow, Mr Charles E., 233
Sparrow, Thomas, 427
Spohr, Louis, 23, 74, 86, 87, 114, 116-

122, 131, 134, 140, 146, 149-151, 153.

157, 162, 211, 212

Spontini, 122, 131

Stainer, Miss, 233

Stainer, Sir John, 233, 448

Stamaty, Camille M. , 49, 51, 64

Stanford, Sir Charles V., 171

Stanford, John, 171

Stanley, Rev. A. P., Dean of Westminster,

446-449
Steggall, Charles, Mus.D., 196, 203, 205-

207, 214, 255, 276, 391, 398, 448, 451,

460

Sterndale, John, 7
Sterndale, Wm., 7
Stockley, Mr W. C., 366
Storace, Stephen, 129
Suett, John, 462
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 97, 425, 448

Tail, Professor P. G., 339, 340

Taubert, W. C. G., 127, 131

Tauchnitz, Dr (later Baron), 53

Taunton, 27

Taylor, Edward, 146

Taylor, Mr Franklin, 442, 443

Taylor, Mr Sedley, 444

Tennyson, Alfred (later Lord), 304-308

Tennyson, Mrs (later Lady), 306

Thacker, Rev. A., 251

Thalberg, Sigismund, 64, 91, 100, in,

142

Thomas, Harold, 319, 390, 462
Thompson, Lady (nee Loder), wife of Sir

Henry Thompson, Bart., 113, 224
Thring, Rev. Edward, 380, 383
Tides well, 3

Titiens, Therese, 324, 366
Turle, James, 448

Verdi, 304, 313

Verhulst, J. J. H., 121, 124, 235

Victoria, H.M. Queen, 248, 279, 287, 305,

331, 409, 448
Vienna, 17, 58, 71, 72 note, 76

Index

Vieuxtemps, Henri, 67, 157, 210

Vince, Rev. S. B., 10, n

Vocal Concerts, The, 69

Voigt, Carl, 53, 55, 64, 75, 109, 122, 126,

i?2, 338
Voigt, Madame Henriette, 52, 53, 55, 60,

64, 72, 74

Wageman, Thos., 6, 9, 10

Wagner, Richard, 241, 242, 269

Wales, H.R.H. Prince of (H.M. King

Edward VII), 248, 331, 349, 420
Wales, H.R.H. Princess of (H.M. Queen

Alexandra), 306, 331
Walker, Bettina, 93, 112, 199 note, 424,

426
Walmisley, Professor T. A., Mus.D. , 249,

251, 258-260, 266, 267
Walmisley, T. F., father of above, 259
Wandsworth, 35, 254 note
Watts, W., 156, 1 60, 161
Weber, Carl M. von, 15, 60, 66, 87, 94,

134, 211, 245
Weimar, 71, 73, 74

Weiss, W. H., 287

Wendler, Dr, 229, 230

Westmorland, Earl of, 281-284, 348> 3/2.

See also Burghersh, Lord
Whewell, Rev. Wm. , D.D., 250, 254,

256, 258, 263, 267

Wieck, Clara, see Schumann, Madame
Williams, the Misses, 458
Willingdon, 287
Wilton, Earl of, 353 note, 355, 358, 359,

370-372

Wimbledon, 292
Winchester, 158

Windsor, 28, 202, 223, 278, 289, 408
Wingham, Thos., 399, 402, 404
Wood, George, 374
Wood, Mary A., see Bennett, Mrs W.

Sterndale

Wood, Thomas, 250, 254
Woodford, Dr, Bishop of Ely, 449

Yorkshire Choral Concerts, 6
Zwickau, 54, 62, 64

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