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Sterndale Bennett: The Solo Piano Works

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Geoffrey Bush
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Extract

‘Bennett is a pianist above all things’ wrote Schumann. Of his compositions with opus numbers nineteen are for piano solo, and a twentieth is for piano duet. There are a further seven piano solos without opus number. He also published five concertante works for piano and orchestra, discarded a sixth and postponed publishing a seventh. The three chamber works all employ a piano, and the first of these, the Sestet op. 8, is virtually an eighth piano concerto with string accompaniment.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 91 , 1964 , pp. 85 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © 1965 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 Robert Schumann, Music and Musicians, tr. Ritter, London, n.d. vol. I, p. 223.Google Scholar

2 As opposed to four compositions for chorus and orchestra, three sets of songs and duets, some miscellaneous short pieces (mostly choral), and seven orchestral works (plus seven unpublished symphonies and overtures written when he was a student).Google Scholar

3 A MS copy of thirty-six bars of this work, at one time in the possession of Kellow J. Pye, actually bears the title Concerto: see J. R. Sterndale Bennett, Lιfe of W. S. Bennett, Cambridge, 1907, p. 456.Google Scholar

4 Hadow, W. H., English Music, London, 1931, p. 136.Google Scholar

5 Ernest Walker, A History of Music in England, and edn., London, 1924, p. 280.Google Scholar

6 Schumann, op. cit., vol. I, p. 286. Discussing the same subject in an earlier article (op. cit., vol. I, pp. 142, 143) Schumann admits the ‘remarkable family resemblance’ between the works of Bennett and Mendelssohn, but after listing several virtues common to both—‘beauty of form, poetic depth yet clearness, and ideal purity’—he adds significantly ‘but with a difference’.Google Scholar

7 An article in the Musical Tunes for June 1964 by Gerald W. Spink seems (if I have understood it correctly) to contain an ingenious variant of this argument: Bennett is a bad composer—Schumann is a good critic—therefore Schumann didn't praise Bennett as much as we all imagined.Google Scholar

8 Westrup, J. A., An Introduction to Musical History, London, 1955, pp. 43, 44. The full text of the article which provoked Professor Westrup's disapproval will be found in Schumann, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 212–214.Google Scholar

9 See article on Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, Schumann, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 302–307.Google Scholar

10 Wagner, My Life, authorised English translation, London, 1963, pp. 385–6.Google Scholar

11 J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., p. 195. Bennett did in fact write one major work during this period, a cello Sonata for one of his own chamber-concerts. This was done in such a desperate rush between spells of teaching, that although he stayed up all the previous night the work was still not ready when the soloist called to rehearse it two hours before the concert: see J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., pp. 211–2.Google Scholar

12 It is quite possible to argue that in terms of service these last years at Cambridge, and at the Academy (of which he became Principal in 1866), were the most valuable of his life.Google Scholar

13 ‘There was no suggestion … that the British music market could support him as a pianist or composer’: J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., p. 84. For tributes to Bennett's piano-playing from Spohr, Hiller and others see Arthur O'Leary, Proceedings of the [Royal] Musical Association, vol. 8, p. 136, and C. V. Stanford, Interludes, London, 1922, p. 169. On one occasion at least, Bennett's interpretation of Mozart was considered superior to that of Chopin.Google Scholar

14 J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., p. 148. Stanford, op. cit., p. 178 adds that ‘within three years he was called to the front as pianist no oftener than four times’.Google Scholar

15 Eliot, T. S., Tradition and the Individual Talent, Selected Prose, London, 1953, p. 23.Google Scholar

16 Henry Purcell, 1659–1695: Essays on his Music, ed. Imogen Holst, London, 1959. P. 43.Google Scholar

17 Bennett's sense of isolation must have been intensified by the sudden death of Mendelssohn in 1847.Google Scholar

18 J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op cit., p. 175.Google Scholar

19 Schumann, R., op. cit., vol. 2, p. 119: similar advice but differently expressed can be found in vol. I, pp. 285–6.Google Scholar

20 J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., p. 103.Google Scholar

21 In a letter to the author.Google Scholar

22 Bennett usually called movements in abbreviated sonata-form Rondo or Rondeau.Google Scholar

23 Written before opus 10, according to J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., p. 456.Google Scholar

24 Schumann, op. cit., vol. I, p. 221. According to a catalogue of Bennett's works given in the Musical Times for August 1903, the finale of the early (unpublished) Symphony in G minor is an orchestral version of this last study.Google Scholar

25 Ernest Walker, op. cit., p. 279.Google Scholar

26 Schumann, op. cit., vol. I, p. 143.Google Scholar

27 Schumann, op. cit., vol. I, p. 285.Google Scholar

28 An advance on the Impromptus and the Musical Sketches, not on the Sonata: Schumann, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 216–7.Google Scholar

29 Mendelssohn's exclamation on hearing the composer play through on the piano his Overture The Woodnymphs, opus 20: J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., p. 88.Google Scholar

30 Eric Blom, Music in England, London, 1942, pp. 143–4; Henry Davey, History of English Music, London, 1895, pp. 467–470; Ernest Walker, op. cit., p. 279; W. H. Hadow, op. cit., p. 136.Google Scholar

31 Schumann, op. cit., vol. I, p. 218.Google Scholar

32 Schumann, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 119.Google Scholar

33 Probably they were originally intended for a collection edited by Moscheles (Etudes de Perfectionnement). For a brief discussion of this point see J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., p. 457.Google Scholar

34 Schumann, op. cit., vol. I, p. 286. Stanford, op. cit., pp. 174, 180, agrees with Schumann's estimate of the Suite, and, to a lesser extent, of the Sonata, the Romances and the Fantasia.Google Scholar

35 J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., p. 224.Google Scholar

36 Ernest Walker, op. cit., p. 280.Google Scholar

37 Written after opus 38, according to J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., P. 458.Google Scholar

38 Bennett was invited to write the ‘Toccata’ by the Netherlands Society for the Encouragement of Music, and the ‘Rondeau à la Polonaise’ by Messrs. Payne of Leipzig: J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., pp. 235, 458.Google Scholar

39 Others were projected and themes sketched, but none were completed: J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit., p. 460. The surviving Sonatina is far superior to most pieces designed for beginners.Google Scholar

40 He began work on it as early as 1869: J. R. Sterndale Bennett, op. cit. P. 390.Google Scholar