Henry Wylde
Encyclopedia
Henry Wylde was a conductor, composer, teacher and music critic.
Henry Wylde was born at Bushey, Hertfordshire, the elder son of Henry Wylde (1795–1876) and Martha Lucy née Paxton. His father, then the organist
at St Mary's Watford, was himself a music teacher. Henry, the father, one of the Children of the Chapel Royal was for many years the vicar choral of the Chapels Royal
and cantor
there and he was a soloist at the marriage of Queen Victoria.
Young Henry's mother's Durham based Paxton family included the 18th century musicians Stephen Paxton
(c.1734-1787) and his elder brother William Paxton (1725-1778). Both, originally cathedral choristers, became cellists and composers. William remained based in Durham but the better-known Stephen had moved to London by 1756 and the next year was elected a member of the Royal Society of Musicians
.. Not as well known but also active in London were Frances, a church organist and the brothers' nephew (d. 1779) also a cellist.
The vicar of Watford was the genial Hon. William Robert Capel
(1775–1854), cricketer for Homerton
and W R Capel's XI, later a chaplain to Queen Victoria. Capel, who might reduce his sermon to a very few minutes to be sure of catching a train to a foxhunt, wished to encourage a revival of the then moribund art of church music
and its use in services. Capel stood sponsor at the baptism of Henry's younger brother, James, and may be safely presumed to have been a strong influence in young Henry's early career. About 1832 a new room was added to the Wylde house at Stone Grove and the Cassiobury House
music library brought to it.
. Cannnons was the short-lived house of James Brydges, Duke of Chandos, where Handel had been house composer 1717-1719. While Handel was at Cannons
the ducal chapel was still being constructed, but Brydges had already rebuilt the local parish church, St Lawrence, Whitchurch, to his baroque taste. Here Handel's church music was performed, the Chandos Te Deum and the Chandos Anthems. At the east end of the church is the organ used by Handel, the organ case carved with cherubs and pea pods and attributed to Grinling Gibbons.
When a boy, Henry Wylde was educated privately and at Westminster School
. He became a pupil of Ignaz Moscheles
at the age of sixteen and studied under Cipriani Potter
at the Royal Academy of Music
, where he was later appointed Professor of Harmony.
From 1844 to 1846 he was organist at the Wren church, St Anne and St Agnes
, in Gresham Street. He resigned in order to take up his teaching post at the Royal Academy of Music.
Wylde had previously been admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge
and his degree of Doctor of Music was conferred on 4 April 1851.
In 1852 he encouraged and participated in the founding of the New Philharmonic Society, and from 1858 to 1879 directed their concerts. Rehearsals were thrown open to the public from 1859. These concerts were not limited to classical music and they acquired a reputation for novelties. Berlioz was their first conductor but he soon fell out with Wylde, whose attitudes to the playing were considered by the musicians to be excessively academic. Wylde was the first to provide programme notes to the audience. After the first season Berlioz moved on and attendances fell. Later performances were conducted in conjunction with Lindpaintner
and Spohr
and after Wylde's retirement, under Wilhelm Ganz. It was at one of these concerts that Wagner's Lohengrin
was heard for the first time.
as the Royal Academy
's Gresham Professor of Music
in July 1863 holding that post until his death. In 1867 he founded and was principal of the London Academy of Music. He wrote several books on music and composition, and served as the music critic of the Echo newspaper.
Dr Henry Wylde married Jane, only child of Captain Henry Shuttleworth RN of Bayswater at St Peter's Notting Hill on 28 January 1858. His wife was able to assist in the funding of his public concerts. They had one son, Henry, who showed no special musicianship but who married and died in Melbourne Australia; and two daughters: Edith Baroness von Verschuer, wife of a German army officer and Amy Carmichael, wife of a London stockbroker. His younger brother, James, emigrated to New Zealand in July 1853 taking his harp with him.
After a short illness Henry Wylde died of bronchitis, intestate, aged 67, at 76 Mortimer Street, Regent Street, London W1. He may have parted from his wife. His widow married Alexander Ritchie Leask in 1894.
See the links to online copies below.
His compositions include:
Three of his books may be read online at the Internet Archive:
Henry Wylde was born at Bushey, Hertfordshire, the elder son of Henry Wylde (1795–1876) and Martha Lucy née Paxton. His father, then the organist
Organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
at St Mary's Watford, was himself a music teacher. Henry, the father, one of the Children of the Chapel Royal was for many years the vicar choral of the Chapels Royal
Chapel Royal
A Chapel Royal is a body of priests and singers who serve the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they are called upon to do so.-Austria:...
and cantor
Cantor (church)
A cantor is the chief singer employed in a church with responsibilities for the ecclesiastical choir; also called the precentor....
there and he was a soloist at the marriage of Queen Victoria.
Young Henry's mother's Durham based Paxton family included the 18th century musicians Stephen Paxton
Stephen Paxton
Stephen Paxton was an 18th century cellist and composer. He is remembered along with his brother, William Paxton , for the composition of numerous pieces for the cello, most notably glees...
(c.1734-1787) and his elder brother William Paxton (1725-1778). Both, originally cathedral choristers, became cellists and composers. William remained based in Durham but the better-known Stephen had moved to London by 1756 and the next year was elected a member of the Royal Society of Musicians
Royal Society of Musicians
The Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain is a charity in the United Kingdom that supports musicians. It is the oldest music-related charity in Great Britain, founded in 1738 as the "Fund for Decay'd Musicians" by a declaration of trust signed by 228 musicians, including Edward Purcell ,...
.. Not as well known but also active in London were Frances, a church organist and the brothers' nephew (d. 1779) also a cellist.
The vicar of Watford was the genial Hon. William Robert Capel
William Capel (cricketer)
The Honourable & Reverend William Robert Capel , sportsman, Vicar of Watford, Hertfordshire, Rector of Raine, Essex, and a chaplain-in-ordinary to HM Queen Victoria.-Family:...
(1775–1854), cricketer for Homerton
Homerton Cricket Club
Homerton Cricket Club was based in Homerton, Hackney and was recognised as a first-class cricket team during the first decade of the 19th century. The club had been established in the 18th century and it first came to notice in 1800 when it played the strong Montpelier team...
and W R Capel's XI, later a chaplain to Queen Victoria. Capel, who might reduce his sermon to a very few minutes to be sure of catching a train to a foxhunt, wished to encourage a revival of the then moribund art of church music
Church music
Church music may be defined as music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclestiacal liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. This article covers music in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. For sacred music outside this...
and its use in services. Capel stood sponsor at the baptism of Henry's younger brother, James, and may be safely presumed to have been a strong influence in young Henry's early career. About 1832 a new room was added to the Wylde house at Stone Grove and the Cassiobury House
Cassiobury House
Cassiobury House was a country house in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, now demolished.-History:The house was started in 1546 by Sir Richard Morrison. On the marriage of his granddaughter it passed into the ownership of the Capel family, later Earls of Essex. It was demolished in 1927. The...
music library brought to it.
Youth
When aged thirteen young Henry was organist of Whitchurch, St Lawrence, Little Stanmore, near his parents' house at Stone Grove, Edgeware on the edge of the small park that 100 years earlier had held the mansion of CannonsCannons (house)
Cannons was a stately home in Little Stanmore, Middlesex built for James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos between 1713 and 1724 at a cost of £200,000 but which in 1747 was razed and its contents dispersed....
. Cannnons was the short-lived house of James Brydges, Duke of Chandos, where Handel had been house composer 1717-1719. While Handel was at Cannons
Handel at Cannons
George Frideric Handel was the house composer at Cannons from August 1717 until February 1719. The Chandos Anthems and other important works by Handel were conceived, written or first performed at Cannons....
the ducal chapel was still being constructed, but Brydges had already rebuilt the local parish church, St Lawrence, Whitchurch, to his baroque taste. Here Handel's church music was performed, the Chandos Te Deum and the Chandos Anthems. At the east end of the church is the organ used by Handel, the organ case carved with cherubs and pea pods and attributed to Grinling Gibbons.
When a boy, Henry Wylde was educated privately and at Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
. He became a pupil of Ignaz Moscheles
Ignaz Moscheles
Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso, whose career after his early years was based initially in London, and later at Leipzig, where he succeeded his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as head of the Conservatoire.-Sources:Much of what we know about Moscheles's life...
at the age of sixteen and studied under Cipriani Potter
Cipriani Potter
Philip Cipriani Hambly Potter was a British composer, pianist and educator.-Life and career:Born in London, the son of a piano teacher named Richard Huddleston Potter, Cipriani was named after his godmother...
at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, where he was later appointed Professor of Harmony.
From 1844 to 1846 he was organist at the Wren church, St Anne and St Agnes
St Anne and St Agnes
St Anne and St Agnes is a church located at Gresham Street in the City of London, near the Barbican. While St Anne's is an Anglican foundation, it has been let since 1966 to a congregation of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain.-History:...
, in Gresham Street. He resigned in order to take up his teaching post at the Royal Academy of Music.
Wylde had previously been admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
and his degree of Doctor of Music was conferred on 4 April 1851.
Public life
Dr Henry Wylde was appointed one of the musical jurors representing England for the Great Exhibition.In 1852 he encouraged and participated in the founding of the New Philharmonic Society, and from 1858 to 1879 directed their concerts. Rehearsals were thrown open to the public from 1859. These concerts were not limited to classical music and they acquired a reputation for novelties. Berlioz was their first conductor but he soon fell out with Wylde, whose attitudes to the playing were considered by the musicians to be excessively academic. Wylde was the first to provide programme notes to the audience. After the first season Berlioz moved on and attendances fell. Later performances were conducted in conjunction with Lindpaintner
Peter Josef von Lindpaintner
Peter Josef von Lindpaintner was a German composer and conductor.Born in Koblenz as the son of a tenor, he studied with Peter Winter and Joseph Graetz. From 1819 onwards he was based in Stuttgart...
and Spohr
Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Born Ludewig Spohr, he is usually known by the French form of his name. Described by Dorothy Mayer as "The Forgotten Master", Spohr was once as famous as Beethoven. As a violinist, his virtuoso playing was admired by Queen Victoria...
and after Wylde's retirement, under Wilhelm Ganz. It was at one of these concerts that Wagner's Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
was heard for the first time.
Academic life
He succeeded Edward TaylorEdward Taylor (music writer)
Edward Taylor was an English singer, writer on music, and Gresham Professor of Music from 1837.-Life:The son of John Taylor, he was born at Norwich on 22 January 1784. From 1808 to 1815 Edward Taylor was in business at the corner of Rampant Horse Street, Norwich...
as the Royal Academy
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
's Gresham Professor of Music
Gresham Professor of Music
The Professor of Music at Gresham College, London, gives free educational lectures to the general public. The college was founded for this purpose in 1596 / 7, when it appointed seven professors; this has since increased to eight and in addition the college now has visiting professors.The Professor...
in July 1863 holding that post until his death. In 1867 he founded and was principal of the London Academy of Music. He wrote several books on music and composition, and served as the music critic of the Echo newspaper.
Dr Henry Wylde married Jane, only child of Captain Henry Shuttleworth RN of Bayswater at St Peter's Notting Hill on 28 January 1858. His wife was able to assist in the funding of his public concerts. They had one son, Henry, who showed no special musicianship but who married and died in Melbourne Australia; and two daughters: Edith Baroness von Verschuer, wife of a German army officer and Amy Carmichael, wife of a London stockbroker. His younger brother, James, emigrated to New Zealand in July 1853 taking his harp with him.
After a short illness Henry Wylde died of bronchitis, intestate, aged 67, at 76 Mortimer Street, Regent Street, London W1. He may have parted from his wife. His widow married Alexander Ritchie Leask in 1894.
Publications
Wylde's books include:- Music in its art-mysteries (London, Booth,1867);
- Harmony and the science of music: Complete in one volume (Cramer, 1871);
- Occult principles of music (A.S. Mallett, 1871);
- The evolution of the beautiful in sound: A treatise, in two sections. Tracing up the origin, history, and gradual evolution of the modern series of musical ... the most ancient ages to the present time.(J. Heywood, 1888)
See the links to online copies below.
His compositions include:
- When Gathering Clouds, after an air by Handel, with parts for piano and singing;
- wrote a setting of Paradise Lost and a cantata Prayer and Praise
External links
- Gresham College http://web.archive.org/web/20041019231900/http://www.gresham.ac.uk/special/professors.htm list of Professors
- Berliozhttp://www.hberlioz.com/London/BLfriends.htm#wylde in London, friends and acquaintances
Three of his books may be read online at the Internet Archive:
- Music in its Art-mysteries, 1867 http://www.archive.org/details/musicinitsartmy00wyldgoog
- Harmony and the Science of Music, 1872 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021751635
- The Evolution of the Beautiful in Sound, 1888 http://www.archive.org/details/evolutionbeauti00wyldgoog