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On Musical Journeys: William Sterndale Bennett’s Diaries, 1836–1842

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2016

Bettina S. Mühlenbeck
Bettina S. Mühlenbeck*
Affiliation:
Honors College – Grand Valley State University, Michigan Email: bettinamuehlenbeck@yahoo.com
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Abstract

The present article explores the travel diaries William Sterndale Bennett kept on his three extended journeys from London to Leipzig between 1836 and 1842. In the autumn of 1836 the young pianist and composer embarked on the first and longest of ultimately three residencies in Leipzig. Invited by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, he came to the burgeoning centre for instrumental music in order to spend productive time in the artistic circle surrounding Mendelssohn. Bennett began keeping a diary, in which he recorded his experiences – from mundane to musical – and which de facto evolved into a silent travel companion. He repeated this process on his subsequent two travels. The diaries offer valuable first-hand accounts of the Leipzig Gewandhaus concerts under Mendelssohn’s leadership (who served as its Kapellmeister from 1835 to 1847) as well as the semi-private soirées in the prestigious salons of the city. In the privacy of the personal journal, Bennett did not shy away from making bold statements concerning compositions, performance practices, the quality of musical instruments or socio-cultural idiosyncrasies. Especially intriguing is the congenial connection he made with Robert Schumann. The two artists shared an ad hoc, allusive affinity and community of solidarity that has been overlooked in the past. All of this is the more revealing in light of his otherwise soft-spoken and reserved personality, particularly since Bennett’s journaling also offers a view into his own compositional and creative process during this important phase of his career. Apart from tracing musical opinions expressed, aesthetic positions maintained and cultural differences observed, this article follows the artistic bond between William Sterndale and Robert Schumann.

Type
Research Article
Information
Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , December 2016 , pp. 221 - 232
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 Bennett, James Robert Sterndale, The Life of William Sterndale Bennett. By his Son (Cambridge: University Press, 1907), 29 Google Scholar.

2 William Sterndale Bennett: Von fernen Ländern und Menschen. Reisetagebücher 1836 bis 1842. Critical edition with an introduction by Bettina S. Mühlenbeck (Hannover: Wehrhahn Publishers, forthcoming January 2017).

3 Bennett, Sterndale, The Life of William Sterndale Bennett, 41f Google Scholar.

4 Letter of William Sterndale Bennett to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, dated 2 October 1836, in the private collection of Barry Sterndale-Bennett.

5 Bennett witnessed the time and preparations leading up to the founding of the Leipzig Conservatory in 1842–1843.

6 Hotel de Bavière, a renowned hotel in Leipzig which had existed since the fifteenth century and from 1768 to 1887 under this name.

7 See Robert Schumann. Tagebücher, Volume II 1836–1854, ed. Gerd Nauhaus (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1987), 29.

8 Robert Schumann. Tagebücher, II: 30.

9 Robert Schumann. Tagebücher, II: 30.

10 Eduard Franck (1817–1893), composer and music pedagogue, 1834 pupil of Mendelssohn’s.

11 Johann Benjamin Groß (1809–1848), violoncellist and composer, 1830 1st solo cellist of the Gewandhaus orchestra.

12 Café Français, a popular coffee house in Leipzig which existed from 1835 to 1943; 1914 renamed as Café Felsche.

13 ‘Dann ist noch ein junger Engländer William Bennett in unsern täglichen Kreisen, Engländer durch und durch, ein herrlicher Künstler, eine poetische schöne Seele, vielleicht bring’ ich auch den mit’ and on 17 April 1837: ‘Meine geliebte Therese, / Eine schöne Idee habe ich; weiter enthält der Brief nichts. / Wir wollen Dich nämlich in einem Wagen abholen, Bennett, der junge Goethe und ich. Da wir aber, wir großen Männer, nicht viel Zeit haben, so schlagen wir dieses vor’, in Schumanns Briefe in Auswahl, 2nd edn, ed. Karl Storck (Stuttgart 1906), 80 and 86, respectively.

14 Robert Schumann. Tagebücher, II: 30.

15 Cf. Schinkel, Andreas, ‘... der Freiheit reinste That, und auf das eigne Sein des Menschen allein gerichtet’. Die Freundschaft in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Eine soziologisch-historische Untersuchung (Hannover, 2002)Google Scholar.

16 Letter from William Sterndale Bennett to Schumann from Mainz, 20 June 1837. Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków: Korespondencja Schumanna, Corr., Vol. 5, No. 651. I hereby would like to express my gratitude for having been permitted the use of all microfilms of the autographs of Schumann’s correspondence with William Sterndale Bennett made for the Schumann Research Centre Düsseldorf.

17 William Sterndale Bennett, Overture The Najades, Op. 15 (1836–1837).

18 Letter from Bennett to Schumann from Cambridge, 26 August 1837. This letter was obviously of very special importance to Schumann, as he kept it in his so-called ‘Familienkassette’. Boetticher, Wolfgang, ed., Briefe und Gedichte aus dem Album Robert und Clara Schumanns, 2nd rev. edn (Leipzig, 1981), 33 Google Scholar.

19 Schumanns Briefe in Auswahl, 94.

20 Letter from Bennett to Schumann, dated London, 18 April 1838, Siehe Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków: Korespondencja Schumanna, Corr., Vol. 7, No. 933.

21 Schumanns Briefe in Auswahl, 132.

22 Schumanns Briefe in Auswahl, 136.

23 Letter from William Sterndale Bennett to Schumann; dated Cambridge, 13 August 1838. Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków: Korespondencja Schumanna, Corr., Vol. 7, No. 1065.

24 Robert Schumann. Tagebücher, II: 77.

25 Robert Schumann in a letter to Clara Wieck from Vienna, quoted after Boetticher, ed., in Briefe und Gedichte aus dem Album Robert und Clara Schumanns, 229.

26 Cf. Temperley, Nicholas, ‘Schumann and Sterndale Bennett’, 19th-Century Music 12/3 (Spring, 1989), 207–220 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 NZfM 6/1 (3 January 1837).

28 Letter from Bennett to Robert Schumann, Cambridge, 26 August 1837, in Schumann’s ‘Familienkassette’. Boetticher, ed., Briefe und Gedichte aus dem Album Robert und Clara Schumanns, 34.

29 Letter to Schumann from William Sterndale Bennett, London, 18 April 1838. Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków: Korespondencja Schumanna, Corr., Vol. 7, No. 933.

30 Letter from Sterndale Bennett to Robert Schumann, dated Leipzig, 11 November 1838: Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków: Korespondencja Schumanna, Corr., Vol. 8, No. 1138.

31 Letter from William Sterndale Bennett in Leipzig to Robert Schumann in Vienna, dated 23 January 1839. Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków: Korespondencja Schumanna, Corr., Vol. 8, No. 1201.

32 Letter from William Sterndale Bennett in Leipzig to Robert Schumann in Vienna, dated 23 January 1839. Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków: Korespondencja Schumanna, Corr., Vol. 8, No. 1201.

33 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, Monologe (Weltansicht), www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Schleiermacher,+Friedrich/Monologen/III.+Weltansicht

34 Letter of William Sterndale Bennett to Robert Schumann from London, 18 April 1838. Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków: Korespondencja Schumanna, Corr., Vol. 7, No. 933.

35 Letter from Bennett to Robert Schumann, Cambridge, 26 August 1837, in Schumann’s ‘Familienkassette’. Boetticher, ed., Briefe und Gedichte aus dem Album Robert und Clara Schumanns, 33.

36 See Erinnerungen an Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Nachgelassene Aufzeichnungen von Robert Schumann. Ed. Städtisches Museum Zwickau, Georg Eismann (Zwickau, 1947), 11, 13, 19.

37 Diary entry for 20 January 1837. See Robert Schumann’s review of Bennett’s debut in: NZfM VI/16 (24 February 1837), 64f.

38 Diary entries for 27 December 1838.

39 Diary entry for 28 December 1838.

40 Józef Brzowski (1805–1888), Polish cellist, conductor and composer; 1836–1837 engaged on concert tours in the German states and France.

41 Diary entry from Berlin for 18 February 1842.

42 William Sterndale Bennett, Sonata for Piano in F minor Op. 13, dedicated to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

43 William Sterndale Bennett, Allegro Grazioso for Piano Solo Op. 18 No. 3 (1838).

44 Most likely the first of Bennett’s Three Diversions for Two Pianos Op. 17 (1838).

45 William Sterndale Bennett, Sechs Gesänge mit deutschem und englischem Text Op. 23 No. 2 (1834–1842). In February 1842 Heinrich Hugo Pierson provided the English translation for the 1815 poem Maienthau by Johann Ludwig Uhland (with the English title May dew). The second set, op. 35, was the continuation of this project (1837–1844).

46 William Sterndale Bennett to Robert Schumann from Cambridge, 26 August 1837, in Schumann’s ‘Familienkassette’. Quoted after Boetticher, ed., Briefe und Gedichte aus dem Album Robert und Clara Schumanns, 34.