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Ernest Newman
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Ernest Newman (Lancaster, November 30, 1868 – Tadworth, Surrey,July 7, 1959) was an English music critic and musicologist.
Biography
He was born on 30 November 1868 at 16 Waterhouse Street, Lancaster. The only child of a late second marriage from both parents: a Welsh master tailor Seth Roberts and Harriet Sparks. Entirely self-taught in music, he studied at Liverpool University (but did not graduate) before entering the Bank of Liverpool as a clerk in 1889.
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Encyclopedia
Ernest Newman (Lancaster, November 30, 1868 – Tadworth, Surrey,July 7, 1959) was an English music critic and musicologist.
Biography
He was born on 30 November 1868 at 16 Waterhouse Street, Lancaster. The only child of a late second marriage from both parents: a Welsh master tailor Seth Roberts and Harriet Sparks. Entirely self-taught in music, he studied at Liverpool University (but did not graduate) before entering the Bank of Liverpool as a clerk in 1889. Christened William Roberts, he adopted the pseudonym Ernest Newman whilst still working for the Bank of Liverpool because he saw himself as a "new man in earnest". Whilst in this job he trained himself in literature and philosophy and learning nine languages. Having contributed articles to The National Reformer and other magazines from 1889, he published his first book, Gluck and the Opera, in 1895, followed by A Study of Wagner in 1899. After that, he decided to leave the bank job and take up musical writing full time.
His first marriage to Kate Woolett on 3 February 1894, sister to one of his very few boyhood friends, Francis Woolett. They lived together initially at Grove Street, Liverpool. The conductor Granville Bantok persuaded Newman to take up a position on the staff at the Midland Institute in Birmingham in 1904, teaching music theory and singing. He left Birmingham in 1905 when he was offered the post of music critic to the Manchester Guardian. However, this position did not last long as he was enticed back to Birmingham to write for the Daily Post over three fixed-term contracts lasting in total some thirteen years (1906-1918). Kate died on 13 October 1918 after five years of ill health where she was mainly bed-ridden. Newman met his second wife-to-be Vera in 1916 in Birmingham.
For a short period he was weekly critic for the The Observer for which he made the moved to London. In January 1920, Newman received a letter from the Editor of the The Sunday Times offering him a initial five-year contract as music critic of that paper at a salary of £850 a year. He remained with the Sunday Times until his death. He also contributed to the New York Evening Post, the Glasgow Herald and Cassell's Weekly (all around 1923-1924).
Publications
Newman's approach to criticism was dominated by the attempt to be logically rigorous and by the scrupulous sifting of relevant background knowledge. He is the doyen of all Wagner biographers; he said of Wagner in the introduction to Wagner as Man and Artist: "There has probably never been a more complex artist, and certainly never anything like so complex a musician". His magnum opus was his four-volume study The Life of Richard Wagner, on which he worked from 1928 until 1947. It is still indispensable as a guide to Wagner's art, although at the time it appeared, neither Newman nor any other writer had full access to the Cosima Wagner diaries, which were not released until 1974.
The Man Liszt (1934) was a result of his studies in Wagner and was a study of Franz Liszt as a personality rather than a critique of his music. Newman saw Liszt as "perhaps the most elusive psychological problem in all music". The book helped to elucidate the somewhat erroneous image of Liszt as a romantic legend, and demonstrated the dualism in his nature.
Hugo Wolf (1907) was a successful attempt to popularise the Austrian songwriter in the English-speaking world. Newman saw Wolf as taking the art-form of Lied to its zenith.
Two of Newman's books on opera, Opera Nights (1943) and Wagner Nights (1949) are still in print and provide very informative, if opinionated, guides for the opera-goer to the standard repertoire. His study of the player-piano (1920) was not a book he greatly enjoyed writing, having said in a letter to his wife Vera: " The pianola book is finished; I wish it would get burnt in Grant Richard's office". He was often critical of his own works, usually seeing them as labours of love.
Bibliography
Original Works
1895 'Gluck and the Opera.' A study in Musical History
1899 'A Study of Wagner'
1904 'Wagner'
1904 'Richard Strauss' With a Personal Note by A. Kalisch
1905 'Musical Studies'
1906 'Elgar'
1907 'Hugo Wolf'
1908 'Richard Strauss'
1914 'Wagner as Man and Artist' (revised 1924)
1919 'A Musical Motley'
1920 'The Piano-Player and Its Music'
1923 'Solo Singing'
1925 'A Musical Critic's Holiday'
1927 'The Unconscious Beethoven'
1928 'What to Read on the Evolution of Music'
1931 'Fact and Fiction about Wagner.' A Criticism of the 'Truth about Wagner' by P.D.Hurne and W.L.Root
1934 'The Man Liszt.' A study of the tragi-comedy of a soul divided against itself.
1933-47 'Life of Richard Wagner.' 4 vols.
1940 'Wagner' (Novello's Biographies of Great Musicians)
1943 'Opera Nights'
1949 'Wagner Nights'
1954 'More Opera Nights'
1956-58 'From the World of Music' (3 vols)
Translations
1906 [N.E. 1925] 'On Conducting' by Felix Weingartner
1911 'J.S. Bach' by Albert Schweitzer
1912 ff. Wagner Libretti: 'The Flying Dutchman','Tannhauser','The Ring','Tristan','The Mastersingers','Parsifal'
1929 'Beethoven the Creator' by R. Rolland
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