Lewis Henry Lavenu (1818–1859) was an English composer, conductor, musician and impresario.
Life and career
Lavenu was born in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in 1818, the only son, by his second wife Eliza, of
Lewis Lavenu, music publisher to the
Prince Regent
A prince regent or princess regent is a prince or princess who, due to their position in the line of succession, rules a monarchy as regent in the stead of a monarch regnant, e.g., as a result of the sovereign's incapacity (minority or illness ...
. Shortly after his birth, his father died and his mother went into business with the violinist
Nicolas Mori
Nicolas Mori (24 January 1796 – 14 June 1839) was an Anglo-Italian violinist, music publisher and conductor. Once regarded as the finest violinist in Europe, Mori was somewhat overshadowed by the rise of Paganini.
Life
Born in London, the son ...
, a pupil of
Viotti
Giovanni Battista Viotti (12 May 1755 – 3 March 1824) was an Italian violinist whose virtuosity was famed and whose work as a composer featured a prominent violin and an appealing lyrical tunefulness. He was also a director of French and Italia ...
by whom she had 5 children, although they weren't married until 1826 (in
St. Paul's, Covent Garden
St Paul's Church is a Church of England parish church located in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, central London. It was designed by Inigo Jones as part of a commission for the Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford, 4th Earl of Bedford in 1631 to ...
).
Lavenu studied 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 ...
, firstly with the French harpist
Nicolas-Charles Bochsa
Robert Nicolas-Charles Bochsa (9 August 1789 – 6 January 1856) was a harpist and composer. His relationship with Anna Bishop was popularly thought to have inspired that of Svengali and Trilby in George du Maurier's 1894 novel ''Trilby''.
L ...
, and subsequently with
Charles Lucas
Sir Charles Lucas, 1613 to 28 August 1648, was a professional soldier from Essex, who served as a Cavalier, Royalist cavalry leader during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Taken prisoner at the end of the First English Civil War in March 1646, ...
,
George Alexander Macfarren
Sir George Alexander Macfarren (2 March 181331 October 1887) was an English composer and musicologist.
Life
George Alexander Macfarren was born in London on 2 March 1813 to George Macfarren, a dancing-master, dramatic author and journalist, wh ...
, and
Cipriani Potter
Philip Cipriani Hambly Potter (3 October 1792 – 26 September 1871) was an English musician. He was a composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. After an early career as a performer and composer, he was a teacher in the Royal Academy of Musi ...
in composition,
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
and
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
. In 1840 Lavenu arranged two tours of the British Isles for the composer and pianist
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
, accompanied by his half brother
Frank Mori, two female singers and
John Orlando Parry
John Orlando Parry (3 January 1810 – 20 February 1879) was an English actor, pianist, artist, comedian, songwriter and singer.
Biography Early career
Parry, the only son of Welsh musician John Parry (known as ''Bardd Alaw''), was born in L ...
, an all round musician, singer and entertainer (who vividly recorded the tour in his diary). Between 17 August and 26 September, they gave 50 concerts around England which were generally unsuccessful, having an average attendance of 140. The second tour which encompassed Liverpool, Ireland and Scotland from November 1840 to January 1841 was mildly more successful, with audiences of more than 1200 in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
. The tour was however a financial failure, and Liszt waived his promised 500 guineas a month fee.
In May, 1844, Lavenu, who had been in partnership with Robert Hodson in the Music publishing business which he had inherited from his mother and stepfather, Mori, Lavenu, & Co. sold the business to Hodson who then went into partnership with Robert Addison forming ''Addison & Hodson''. Addison had formerly been in partnership with
Johann Baptist Cramer
Johann (sometimes John) Baptist Cramer (24 February 1771 – 16 April 1858) was an English pianist, composer and music publisher of German origin. He was the son of Wilhelm Cramer, a famous London violinist and conductor, one of a numerous family ...
and
Thomas Frederick Beale in the business of ''
J. B. Cramer, Addison & Beale''.
In November, 1846 Lavenu's first major work ''Loretta; A Tale of Seville'', a grand
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
in three parts with libretto by
Alfred Bunn
Alfred Bunn (April 8, 1796 in LondonDecember 20, 1860 in Boulogne-sur-Mer) was an English theatrical manager. He was married to Margaret Agnes (née Somerville) Bunn, a minor actress, in 1819.
Biography
Bunn was appointed stage manager of Drur ...
premiered at
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster.
Notable landmarks ...
Theatre before a crowded audience.
Anna Bishop
Anna Bishop (9 January 181018 March 1884) was an English operatic soprano. She sang in many countries on every continent, and was the most widely travelled singer of the 19th century.[W. H. Weiss
Willoughby Hunter Weiss (2 April 1820, Liverpool - 24 October 1867, London) was an English oratorio and opera singer and composer. He became one of the most celebrated bass singers of the 19th century, and sang in the premieres of many English work ...]
. ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', which made an extensive review of the opera described it as showing "''but few indications of inexperience''", and was rather the "''work of a practiced hand''", finally describing the opera as "''one of the most promising in our recollection''".
After falling into insolvency in 1848, Lavenu became the conductor of the Irish singer
Catherine Hayes, making appearances in
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
, the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
(1851–52) and
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
(1855). Lavenu stayed in Sydney becoming the musical director of the Sydney Theatre and the teacher and conductor of the singer
Marie Carandini
Marie Carandini, Marchioness of Sarzano (born Maria Burgess; 1 February 1826 – 13 April 1894) was an English-Australian opera singer.
Early life
Carandini was born in Brixton, Surrey, the daughter of coachman James Burgess (died 1834) and M ...
. In July 1859 Lavenu (on cello) took part in a grand festival to inaugurate the new Great Hall of the
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...
with Carandini,
Sara Flower,
Emma Howson
Emma Howson (28 March 1844 – 28 May 1928) was an Australian opera singer and actress primarily known as the creator of the principal soprano role of Josephine in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera ''H.M.S. Pinafore''.
She began her op ...
,
Frank Howson
Frank Michael Howson (born 1952) has had a career in entertainment. He directed ''Flynn'' (1996) on the early life of Errol Flynn and ''Hunting'' (1991). Howson, with Peter Boyle, helped establish Boulevard Films which produced thirteen films ...
and
Walter Sherwin but died at the height of the festivities. in
Macquarie Street in 1859, being buried in
Camperdown cemetery alongside his tutor
Bochsa, and his fellow English composer
Isaac Nathan
Isaac Nathan (15 January 1864) was an English composer, musicologist, journalist and self-publicist, who has been called the "father of Australian music".
Early success
Isaac Nathan was born around 1791 in the English city of Canterbury to a '' ...
.
Lavenu had eight children with Julia, daughter of Colonel
John Blossett
Colonel John Blossett was an Irish soldier who led the second British Legion
to aid Simon Bolivar in the wars of independence against Spain.
Born in Ireland, the great-grandson of Huguenot Brigadier-General Salomon Blosset de Loche who had ass ...
, the head of the British expedition which aided
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios (24 July 1783 – 17 December 1830) was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and B ...
in the wars of independence. His daughters Ada, Eliza, Alice and Bessie were actresses in London during the 1860s,
Eliza
ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program created from 1964 to 1966 at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to demonstrate the superficiality of communication between humans and machines, E ...
becoming more successful, appearing at the
Theatre Royal, Lyceum. She was the mother of the actor
Tyrone Power, Sr.
Frederick Tyrone Edmond Power Sr. (2 May 1869 – 23 December 1931) was an English-born American stage and screen actor, known professionally as Tyrone Power. He is now usually referred to as Tyrone Power Sr. to differentiate him from his son ...
, and grandmother of the
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
star
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power III (May 5, 1914 – November 15, 1958) was an American actor. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Power appeared in dozens of films, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads. His better-known films include '' Jesse James'', ...
. His daughter Alice changed her name to Suzanne Madeleine-Julie-Alice Lavenu and married a nobleman, Pedro Alonso Jimenez, the son of Alonso Jimenez, the
Marques de la Granja de San Saturnino in 1875.
[''Dignidades Nobiliarias en Cuba'', Rafael Nieto y Cortadellas, 1954, p. 258]
References
External links
Franz Liszt concert programme for September 16, 1840 at The Centre for Performance History*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lavenu, Lewis
1818 births
1859 deaths
19th-century Australian people
Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music
English classical cellists
English composers
English conductors (music)
British male conductors (music)
19th-century British composers
19th-century conductors (music)
19th-century English musicians