Ivor Newton CBE  was an English pianist who was particularly noted as an accompanist to international singers and string players. He was one of the first to bring a distinct personality to the accompanist's role. He toured extensively to all continents and appeared at music festivals such as Salzburg and Edinburgh. His career lasted over 60 years.

Biography

He was born in Limehouse

Limehouse

Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. His studies were with York Bowen

York Bowen

Edwin York Bowen was an English composer and pianist. Bowen’s musical career spanned more than fifty years during which time he wrote over 160 works. As well as being a pianist and composer, Bowen was a talented conductor, organist, violist and horn player...

, Isidor Snook in Amsterdam, Raimund von zur-Mühlen

Raimund von zur-Mühlen

Baron Raimund von zur-Mühlen was a celebrated tenor Lieder singer who also became a famous teacher of singing, instructing many famous artists...

, Conraad van Bos in Berlin, and Victor Beigel in London.

In 1926 he persuaded William Primrose

William Primrose

William Primrose CBE was a Scottish violist and teacher.-Biography:Primrose was born in Glasgow and studied violin initially. In 1919 he moved to study at the then Guildhall School of Music in London. On the urging of the accompanist Ivor Newton, Primrose moved to Belgium to study under Eugène...

, then a violinist, to study with Eugène Ysaÿe

Eugène Ysaÿe

Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...

, who, in turn persuaded him to take up the viola, the instrument that made him famous.

In 1940 he organised a concert at the UK Embassy in Washington in aid of British War Relief. He was also a member of concert parties entertaining troops in Egypt, Iraq, Iran and the Persian Gulf.

Kirsten Flagstad

Kirsten Flagstad

Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad was a Norwegian opera singer and a highly regarded Wagnerian soprano...

 was known for never changing her mind once it was made up. However, Ivor Newton managed to persuade her to come out of retirement for a Prom Concert

The Proms

The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...

 in 1957 honouring the 50th anniversary of the death of her countryman Edvard Grieg

Edvard Grieg

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...

.

In 1966 he published an autobiography, At the Piano: the world of an accompanist (London: Hamish Hamilton). He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (CBE) in 1973.

Ivor Newton died in Bromley

Bromley

Bromley is a large suburban town in south east London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Bromley. It was historically a market town, and prior to 1963 was in the county of Kent and formed the administrative centre of the Municipal Borough of Bromley...

 in 1981. He bequeathed his estate to create the Ivor Newton House, a retirement home for musicians in Bromley. It was run by the Musicians' Benevolent Fund

Musicians' Benevolent Fund

The Musicians' Benevolent Fund is a United Kingdom charity offering help and support to working and retired musicians, other professionals in the music industry, and their dependants....

, which announced in 2008 its intention to close Ivor Newton House in October 2009. Notable occupants had included Vilém Tauský

Vilém Tauský

Vilém Tauský CBE was a Czech conductor and composer.-Life:Vilém Tauský was from a musical family: his Viennese mother had sung Mozart at the Vienna State Opera under Gustav Mahler, and her cousin was the operetta composer Leo Fall.Tauský studied with Leoš Janáček and later became a repetiteur at...

, Stanford Robinson

Stanford Robinson

Stanford Robinson OBE was an English conductor and composer, known for his work with the BBC. He remained a member of the BBC's staff until his retirement in 1966, founding or building up the organisation's choral groups, both amateur and professional.Between 1947 and 1950, Robinson was Assistant...

, Roy Henderson, and Richard Arnell

Richard Arnell

Richard Anthony Sayer Arnell was an English composer of classical music. Arnell composed in all the established genres for the concert stage, and his list of works includes six completed symphonies and six string quartets.-Biography:Arnell was born in Hampstead, London...

.

Associate artists

The artists Ivor Newton appeared with included Isobel Baillie

Isobel Baillie

Dame Isobel Baillie DBE was a Scottish soprano, popular in opera, oratorio and lieder. She was regarded as one of the 20th century's great oratorio singers.Isobel Baillie was born in Hawick, Scottish Borders, in 1895...

, Jussi Björling

Jussi Björling

Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th Century, Björling appeared frequently at the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as well as at other major European opera...

, Dino Borgioli

Dino Borgioli

Dino Borgioli was an Italian lyric tenor. Praised by critics for his musicianship, he was particularly associated with roles in operas composed by Mozart, Rossini, and Donizetti....

, Maria Callas

Maria Callas

Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...

, Pablo Casals

Pablo Casals

Pau Casals i Defilló , known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time...

, Feodor Chaliapin

Feodor Chaliapin

Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.During the first phase...

, Giuseppe Di Stefano

Giuseppe Di Stefano

Giuseppe Di Stefano was an Italian operatic tenor who sang professionally from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. He was known as the "Golden voice" or "The most beautiful voice", as the true successor of Beniamino Gigli...

, Robert Easton, Emanuel Feuermann

Emanuel Feuermann

Emanuel Feuermann was an internationally celebrated cellist in the first half of the 20th century.-Biography:...

, Kirsten Flagstad

Kirsten Flagstad

Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad was a Norwegian opera singer and a highly regarded Wagnerian soprano...

, Elena Gerhardt

Elena Gerhardt

Elena Gerhardt was a German mezzo-soprano singer associated with the singing of German classical lieder, of which she was considered one of the great interpreters...

, Beniamino Gigli

Beniamino Gigli

Beniamino Gigli was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism...

, Frederick Grinke

Frederick Grinke

Frederick Grinke was a Canadian-born violinist who had an international career as soloist, chamber musician and teacher...

, Ida Haendel

Ida Haendel

Ida Haendel, CBE is a British violinist of Polish birth.- Career :Ida Haendel was born in Chełm, a small city in Eastern Poland. She took up the violin at the age of three and as a seven-year-old was admitted at the Warsaw Conservatory. She later studied with Carl Flesch and George Enescu in Paris...

, Josef Hassid

Josef Hassid

Josef Hassid was a Polish violinist.Born 28 December 1923 in Suwałki, Poland, as Joseph or Józef Chasyd, second youngest of four children, he lost his mother when he was ten and was brought up by his father Owseij who took charge of his career.After lessons with a local violin teacher he studied...

, Victoria de los Ángeles

Victoria de los Ángeles

Victoria de los Ángeles was a Spanish Catalan operatic soprano and recitalist whose career began in the early 1940s and reached its height in the years from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Her obituary in The Times noted that she must be counted “among the finest singers of the second half...

, John McCormack, Nellie Melba

Nellie Melba

Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...

, Yehudi Menuhin

Yehudi Menuhin

Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...

, Grace Moore

Grace Moore

Grace Moore was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience.-Early life:...

, Maria Müller

Maria Müller

Maria Müller was a Czech-Austrian operatic soprano.Müller was born in Terezín, Bohemia. She studied in Vienna with Erik Schmedes, and debuted in Linz in 1919 as Elsa in Lohengrin...

, Gregor Piatigorsky

Gregor Piatigorsky

Gregor Piatigorsky was a Russian-born American cellist.-Early life:...

, Lily Pons

Lily Pons

Lily Pons was a French-American operatic soprano and actress who had an active career from the late 1920s through the early 1970s. As an opera singer she specialized in the coloratura soprano repertoire and was particularly associated with the title roles in Léo Delibes' Lakmé and Gaetano...

, Vladimir Rosing

Vladimir Rosing

Vladimir Sergeyevich Rosing , aka Val Rosing, was a Russian-born operatic tenor and stage director who spent most of his professional career in England and the United States...

, Tito Schipa

Tito Schipa

Tito Schipa was an Italian tenor. He is considered one of the finest tenori di grazia in operatic history...

, Elisabeth Schumann

Elisabeth Schumann

Elisabeth Schumann was a German lyric soprano who sang in opera, operetta, oratorio, and lieder. She left a substantial legacy of recordings.-Career:...

, Oda Slobodskaya

Oda Slobodskaya

Oda Slobodskaya 1888 - 1970 was a Russian born soprano who later became a British citizen.Her biographer, Maurice Leonard quotes Slobodskaya as having been born on 28 November 1888 in Vilno near the Polish border...

, Conchita Supervía

Conchita Supervia

Conchita Supervía was a highly popular Spanish mezzo-soprano singer who appeared in opera in Europe and America and also gave recitals....

, Maggie Teyte

Maggie Teyte

Dame Maggie Teyte DBE was an English operatic soprano and interpreter of French art song.-Early years:Margaret Tate was born in Wolverhampton, England, one of ten children of Jacob James Tate, a successful wine and spirit merchant and proprietor of public houses and later lodgings. Her parents...

 and Eugène Ysaÿe

Eugène Ysaÿe

Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...

.