William Sterndale Bennett

Sir William Sterndale Bennett ( born April 13, 1816 in Sheffield, † February 1, 1875 in St. John 's Wood, London) was an English composer, conductor and pianist.

Life

Bennett was born in Sheffield, the son of Robert Bennett, who was the organist. After the early death of his father, he grew up in Cambridge on with his grandfather, from whom he received his first musical training. In 1824 he became a member of King's College Chapel Choire and in 1826 the Royal Academy of Music, where he performed during the following ten years of piano studies among teachers WH Holmes and Cipriani Potter and received composition lessons from Charles Lucas and Dr Crotch.

During his studies, he composed several of his best-known works, which have been particularly influenced by the then contemporary music in Germany, a country which he visited repeatedly 1836-1842.

In the Lower Rhine Music Festival in Dusseldorf, he made ​​the acquaintance of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, where he again met a short time later in Leipzig, where Bennett was welcomed as a promising young artists of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Bennett had a critically acclaimed appearance at a Gewandhaus concert with his third piano concerto. Robert Schumann praised him effusively.

The greatest influence on Bennett's musical language was Mendelssohn. After the huge success in Germany, he was in 1834 organist of St. Anne 's Chapel in Wandsworth after his return. In the same year he composed the overture to Parisina and the Concerto in C minor. Based on an unpublished piano concerto in F minor and the overture The Naiads the company Broadwood and Sons donated the composer in 1836 to stay in Leipzig, where the overture came to the performance at the Gewandhaus in a concert on 13 February 1837. At another visit to Leipzig it was in the years 1840 and 1841. Were created his Capriccio in E- flat Major for Piano and Orchestra, which he dedicated to the pianist Louise Dulcken, the sister of the Leipzig concert master Ferdinand David, and the overture The Forest Nymph.

Back in London, he increasingly devoted himself to teaching. In 1844, he married Mary Anne, daughter of Captain James Wood, RN In 1856 he became professor of music at the University of Cambridge. In the same year he was appointed chief conductor of the Philharmonic Society of London. He retained this position until 1866 when he became head of the Royal Academy of Music.

With the exception of opera Bennett turned to all musical forms. Among his outstanding compositions include piano music ( solo works, The Lake, The Millstream and The Fountain and his third piano concerto ); Orchestral Works ( Symphony in G minor, and the overture The Naiads ); and vocal music ( cantata The May Queen). For the fiftieth anniversary of the Philharmonic Society in 1862, he composed the overture Paradise and the Peri. For the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival in 1867 he created the sacred cantata The Woman of Samaria.

1870 Bennett received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford, 1871, he was elevated to the peerage. He died in 1875 in St John 's Wood, London.

Works

Orchestra music

  • Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op.1 (1832 )
  • Piano Concerto No. 2 in E flat major, Op.4 ( 1833)
  • Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op.9 (1834 )
  • Piano Concerto in F minor (1836 )
  • Piano Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op.19 (1838 )
  • Concert Piece in A minor ( 1841-3 )
  • Parisina ( Overture ), Op.3 (1835 )
  • The Naiads ( Overture ), Op. 15 (1836 )
  • The Forest Nymph ( overture ), Op.20 (1838 )
  • Paradise and the Peri ( Fantasy Overture ) Op.42 (1862 )
  • Symphony in G minor, Op.43 (1864, revised 1867) (Commissioned for the Royal Philharmonic Society )

Piano

  • Three Musical Sketches, Op.10 (1836 )
  • Three Impromptus, Op.12 (1836 )
  • Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op.13 (1837 )
  • Three Romances, Op.14 ( 1836-7 )
  • Fantasy, A Major, Op.16 (1837 )
  • Suite de Pieces, Op.24 (1841 )
  • Sonata, ' The Maid of Orleans ', Op.46 ( 1869-73 )

Chamber Music

  • Sextet for Piano and Strings in F sharp minor, Op.8 (1835 )
  • Piano Trio, Op.26 (1839 )
  • Sonata for cello & piano, Op.31 (1852 )

Choral works

  • The May Queen (A Pastoral ), Op.39 (1858 )
  • The Woman of Samaria (Spiritual cantata ), Op.44 ( 1867-8 )

Songs

  • Six Songs: First Set, Op.23 ( 1834-42 )
  • Six Songs: Second Set, Op.35 ( 1837-44 )
Lower Rhenish Music Festival Cloth hall Ferdinand David (musician) Integrated Authority File
748703
de