William Sterndale Bennett
(1816-1875)
Piano Works Vol. 3
“I think
him the most promising young musician I know,” Mendelssohn wrote in 1836 and
added with intriguing prescience, “...I am convinced that if he does not become
a very great musician, it is not God’s will, but his own.” A few months later in
the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik Schumann
declared that if there were many more artists like Bennett, the future of music
would be secure. The first edition of Grove’s Dictionary in 1878 called Bennett
the only English composer since Purcell who achieved individuality and produced
works that could be considered classics. The
New Grove Dictionary of 1980 still characterizes him as “the most
distinguished English composer of the Romantic school”. Why, then, has his
music virtually disappeared from the repertoire? Mendelssohn’s words echo in
our thoughts, and we look to Bennett’s life and career for answers.
Bennett was
born to a musical family in Sheffield on 13
April 1816. He was named after William Sterndale, a poet and family friend
whose verses were set in six songs the year before by Robert Bennett, the
composer’s father. Orphaned in 1819, young William and his two sisters went to
live with their paternal grandparents. John Bennett enrolled his eight year old
grandson as a chorister at King’s College, Cambridge. The boy was soon pronounced a
prodigy and sent to the newly founded Royal Academy of Music in London before his tenth
birthday. Because of his beautiful voice, he was chosen to sing at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
By the
summer of 1831 the piano had replaced the violin as Bennett’s principal study.
Soon he gained a fine reputation for his brilliant, exciting playing. When Cipriani
Potter succeeded William Crotch as his composition teacher in 1832, Bennett made
rapid strides. By November of that year he had completed his piano concerto in
D minor and had played it at a public concert in Cambridge. The concerto showed astonishing
mastery, and the Royal
Academy published it at
its own expense. Bennett was invited to Windsor
Castle to play it for the king and queen,
and he performed it again in London
in the spring of 1833. Mendelssohn was present at that concert and invited
Bennett to visit Germany,
not as a pupil but as a friend.
In the
three years before that visit took place, Bennett kept up a correspondence with
Mendelssohn, continued at the Academy and composed five symphonies, two more
piano concertos and the overture Parisina.
During this time he developed the delicate, placidly beautiful manner that
distinguishes his shorter piano pieces. At a Philharmonic Society concert in
1835 he performed his second piano concerto in E-flat major, and its pianistic style
leaves no doubt why he came to be regarded as one of the finest pianists in Europe.
In May 1836
he made his first trip to Germany,
where he saw Mendelssohn in Düsseldorf. The following October he began an
eight-month visit to the continent. Mendelssohn introduced him to Leipzig’s musical élite,
and soon Bennett and Schumann became fast friends. Schumann’s extravagant
praise of his new friend in the Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik brought accusations that he was playing the role of
musical prophet. In fact, the twenty-year-old Bennett was then at the height of
his powers, and after another three years his flame would never again burn so brightly.
In January 1837 his third piano concerto in C minor met with universal acclaim
at the Gewandhaus, and his reputation was established abroad. In the winter of
1838-39 he journeyed again to Leipzig
and played his masterpiece, the fourth concerto in F minor.
Between the
second and third visits to Germany
Bennett had begun a teaching career at the Royal Academy of Music, and he
resumed his duties there after the second triumph in Leipzig. It was then that, as one observer put
it, the “stultifying influence” of academic life caused the onset of his
decline as a composer. He supplemented his income by editing classical piano
sonatas for publication and had little time left for performing or composing.
After a fourth and final visit to the continent in 1842, he assumed the
directorship of the Philharmonic Society and organized an annual series of
chamber music concerts. Marriage in 1844 and the necessity of supporting a
family led him to take on increased academic burdens. In 1849 he founded the
Bach Society. As the undisputed leader of the English academic musical world
from 1856 onward, he continued to gather honours and responsibilities: as
conductor of the Philharmonic from 1856-66, professor of music at Cambridge from 1856 and
principal of the Royal Academy of Music from 1866. He was granted a knighthood
in 1871. He continued teaching, composing and performing occasionally until his
death in London
on 1 February 1875.
Of all
Bennett’s compositions the piano concertos reign supreme. They are acknowledged
as among the finest embodiments of the classical spirit between the concertos
of Beethoven and those of Brahms. The works for solo piano reveal Bennett as a “pianist’s
musician”, who realized the instrument’s natural potential. He used the
keyboard’s percussive quality to create fabric of nuanced tone colour, and he
intended his personal harmonic language less for the public than for the connoisseur.
Ferdinand Hiller found Bennett's playing technically perfect, extraordinarily
nuanced, yet filled with soul and fire. Except for a few didactic pieces, the
writing lies beyond the abilities of all but the truly accomplished pianist.
The Praludien und Studien fur
Pianoforte componirt zum Gebrauch am Queen’s College London, thankfully, are not an assemblage
of academic pieces. The students for whom they are ostensibly intended are
advanced, and the cycle amounts to a musical smorgasbord, setting out various
technical challenges as a delectable feast. There are 30 paired preludes and
etudes, some only a few bars long, which manage to cover all the keys and a
number of stylistic and technical issues. Several of the etudes are
outstanding, and two in particular (No. 5, The
Butterfly, and No. 25, Zephyr)
are positioned to balance the cycle’s overall scheme:
No. 1. Allegro brillante / Moderato semplice
No. 2. Espressivo / Allegro
No. 3. Legato espressivo / Molto tranquillo
No. 4. Piano ed agitato / Moderato
No. 5. Pianissimo / Der Schmetterling. Allegro
scherzando
No. 6. Moderato / Minuetto - Quasi andante
No. 7. Soave e gentile / 9/8
No. 8. Agitato / Moderato con punto
No. 9. Soave e gentile / Moderato con grazia
No. 10. Lento e grave / Lento sostenuto
No. 11. Moderatol / -
No. 12. Lento / Allegretto
No. 13. - / Allegretto amabile
No. 14. Lento maestoso / Gemuthsbewegung. Presto agitato
No. 15. Riposatamente / Sostenuto armonioso
No. 16. Adagio sostenuto / Alla marcia
No. 17. - / 2/4 [a study in 64th notes]
No. 18. - / Agitato
No. 19. Tempo giustol / Aria. Assai moderato
No. 20. Allegro deciso / Caprice
No. 21. - / Moderato
No. 22. - / Lamentevole
No. 23. Andante amabile / Armonioso amabile
No. 24. - / Plaintivo
No. 25. - / Der Zephyr
No. 26. - / Il penseroso. Moderato con sentimento
No. 27. - / Andantino
No. 28. Cantando / Presto
No. 29. Leggierissimo / Scherzetto
No. 30. - / 6/8
Clearly
Bennett’s failure to rise to greatness as a composer cannot be blamed entirely
on an overburdened academic and professional life. The music itself provides
further insights. On the surface his piano music, particularly such pieces as
the Capriccio in D Minor, composed around 1834, resembles Mendelssohn's, but on
closer inspection it reveals its true kinship with Mozart. Bennett subscribed to
the London Piano School of Clementi and Cramer, which followed the “old masters”
and decried the perceived frivolity and shallowness of the contemporary Viennese
and Parisian styles. Refined, sensitive and inward by nature, he steadfastly
resisted commercialism and vulgarity, which in his view included the virtuosic
flashiness of Thalberg and Liszt and even the romantic utterances of Chopin and
Schumann. While straddling the classical and early romantic esthetics, the
Three Impromptus of 1836, the Three Romances of 1837 and the rest of his solo
piano works were eclipsed by the richer romanticism of his contemporaries. His
resistance to the spirit of the times was deliberate, and therein lies a
possible interpretation of Mendelssohn's remark that Bennett’s potential for
greatness lay entirely within himself.
Returning
one last time to the question of promise unfulfilled, the psychological evidence
suggests that on a basic emotional level Bennett, once the child prodigy and
feted virtuoso, needed the continuing admiration of his public and colleagues, a
stimulus that was denied to him particularly in England. Gradually his
self-confidence eroded along with his creative powers. It is true that between
1858 and 1873 he experienced something of a creative resurgence, but his
admittedly accomplished late works lack the fresh inspiration of his youth.
Still, Bennett's contributions to English music cannot be dismissed lightly.
The early music, fresh with promise, remains a legacy to be rediscovered and
cherished. Finally, his endeavours in the academic and public arenas set the course
of British musical life in the romantic age and laid the ground work for the true
renaissance that was to flower in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
David
Nelson
