Henry Wylde (22 May 1822 – 13 March 1890)
was an English conductor, composer, teacher and music critic.
Background
Henry Wylde was born at
Bushey, Hertfordshire
Bushey is a town in the Hertsmere borough of Hertfordshire in the East of England. It has a population of over 25,000 inhabitants. Bushey Heath is a large neighbourhood south east of Bushey on the boundary with the London Borough of Harrow ...
, elder son of Henry Wylde (1795–1876) and Martha Lucy née Paxton. His father, then the organist at
St. Mary's Church, Watford
St Mary's Watford is a Church of England church in Watford, Hertfordshire, in England. It is an active church situated in the town centre on Watford High Street, approximately outside London. St Mary's is the Church of England parish church, par ...
, was himself a music teacher. Henry, the father, one of the
Children of the Chapel Royal
A child (plural, : children) is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers ...
was for many years
vicar choral
A lay clerk, also known as a lay vicar, song man or a vicar choral, is a professional adult singer in an Anglican cathedral and often Roman Catholic Cathedrals in the UK, or (occasionally) collegiate choir in Britain and Ireland. The vicars chora ...
of the
Chapels Royal
The Chapel Royal is an establishment in the Royal Household serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the British Royal Family. Historically it was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarch. The term is now also appl ...
and
cantor
A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds.
In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...
there and he was a soloist at the marriage of
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...
.
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 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 sig ...
. 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
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
for
Homerton
Homerton ( ) is an area in London, England, in the London Borough of Hackney. It is bordered to the west by Hackney Central, to the north by Lower Clapton, in the east by Hackney Wick, Leyton and by South Hackney to the south. In 2019, it had ...
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 is Christian music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclesiastical liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn.
History
Early Christian music
The onl ...
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 was a country house in Cassiobury Park, Watford, England. It was the ancestral seat of the Earls of Essex. Originally a Tudor building, dating from 1546 for Sir Richard Morrison, it was substantially remodelled in the 17th and ...
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,
Edgware
Edgware () is a suburban town in northern Greater London, mostly in the London Borough of Barnet but with small parts falling in the London Borough of Harrow and in the London Borough of Brent. Edgware is centred north-northwest of Charing Cros ...
on the edge of the small park that 100 years earlier had held the mansion of
Cannons
A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during ...
. Cannons 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
(God Gives the Increase)
, established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560
, type = Public school Independent day and boarding school
, religion = Church of England
, head_label = Hea ...
. He became a pupil of
Ignaz Moscheles
Isaac Ignaz Moscheles (; 23 May 179410 March 1870) was a Bohemian piano virtuoso and composer. He was based initially in London and later at Leipzig, where he joined his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as professor of piano at the ...
at the age of sixteen and studied under
Cipriani Potter at the
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...
, 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 is a church located at Gresham Street in the City of London, near the Barbican. While St Anne's is an Anglican foundation, from 1966 to 2013 it was let to a congregation of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain.
History
The ...
, in Gresham Street. He resigned to take up his teaching post at the Royal Academy of Music.
Wylde had previously been admitted to
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
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
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary The Crystal Palace, structure in which it was held), was an International Exhib ...
.
In 1852 he encouraged and participated in the founding of the
New Philharmonic Society
The New Philharmonic Society was a British music society, established in 1852, giving annual series of subscription concerts of orchestral music in London until 1879. The concerts in the first season were conducted by Hector Berlioz.
History Pros ...
,
New Philharmonic Society at Exeter Hall
/ref> 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
Louis Spohr (, 5 April 178422 October 1859), baptized Ludewig Spohr, later often in the modern German form of the name Ludwig, was a German composer, violinist and conducting, conductor. Highly regarded during his lifetime, Spohr composed ten Sy ...
and after Wylde's retirement, under Wilhelm Ganz. It was at one of these concerts that Wagner's Lohengrin
Lohengrin () is a character in Germany, German Arthurian literature. The son of Percival, Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which fi ...
was heard for the first time.
Academic life
He succeeded Edward Taylor
Edward Taylor (1642 – June 29, 1729) was a colonial American poet, pastor and physician of English origin. His work remained unpublished for some 200 years but since then has established him as one of the foremost writers of his time. His po ...
as the Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
's 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 1597, when it appointed seven professors; this has since increased to nine and in addition the col ...
in July 1863 holding that post until his death. In 1867 he founded and was principal of the London Academy of Music
The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) is a drama school located in Hammersmith, London. It is the oldest specialist drama school in the British Isles and a founding member of the Federation of Drama Schools.
LAMDA's Principal is ...
. 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 eldest sister, Lucy Marianne, married entomologist James Charles Dale
James Charles Dale (13 December 1791 – 6 February 1872) was an English naturalist who devoted almost all of his adult life to entomology.
Family
Dale was the only son of Dorset landowner James Dale of Glanvilles Wootton and his wife, Mary ...
, 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, aged 67, intestate, at 76 Mortimer Street, Regent Street, London W1. He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery
Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederic ...
in London. He may have parted from his wife, she 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. Reprints may be purchased from UK and USA online booksellers.
His compositions include:
*When Gathering Clouds, after an air by Handel, with parts for piano and singing;
*A setting of Paradise Lost and a cantata Prayer and Praise
References
Notes
*F. G. Edwards, ‘Wylde, Henry (1822–1890)’, rev. David J. Golby, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004
*G. Grove, ''A dictionary of music and musicians''
*'Obituary:Henry Wylde', ''Musical Times'', 1 April 1890
*John H Sainsbury ''A Dictionary of Musicians'' 1824 and 1827
*Family records
External links
*Gresham College
*Berlio
in London, friends and acquaintances
Three of his books may be read online at the Internet Archive:
*Music in its Art-mysteries, 186
*Harmony and the Science of Music, 187
*The Evolution of the Beautiful in Sound, 188
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wylde, Henry
1822 births
1890 deaths
People educated at Westminster School, London
Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Academics of the Royal Academy of Music
Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery
English conductors (music)
British male conductors (music)
English classical composers
Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal
Glee composers
Pupils of Ignaz Moscheles
19th-century classical composers
19th-century conductors (music)
English male classical composers
19th-century English musicians
19th-century British composers