Tobias Augustus Matthay (19 February 185815 December 1945) was an English

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

, teacher, and composer.

Biography

Matthay was born in

Clapham Clapham () is a suburb in south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (most notably Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. History Early history ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and eventually became naturalised British subjects.''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', 5th ed. (1954) Vol. 5, p. 632, Macmillan, London He entered London's Royal Academy of Music in 1871 and eight months later he received the first scholarship given to honour the knighthood of its principal,

Sir William Sterndale Bennett Sir William Sterndale Bennett (13 April 18161 February 1875) was an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. At the age of ten Bennett was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he remained for ten years. ...

. At the Academy, Matthay studied composition under Sir William Sterndale Bennett and Arthur Sullivan, and piano with William Dorrell and Walter Macfarren. He served as a sub-professor there from 1876–1880, and became an assistant professor of pianoforte in 1880, before being promoted to professor in 1884. With Frederick Corder and

John Blackwood McEwen Sir John Blackwood McEwen (13 April 1868 – 14 June 1948) was a Scottish classical composer and educator. He was professor of harmony and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London, from 1898 to 1924, and principal from 1924 to 193 ...

, he co-founded the Society of British Composers in 1905. Matthay remained at the RAM until 1925, when he was forced to resign because McEwen—his former student who was then the Academy's Principal—publicly attacked his teaching. In 1903, after over a decade of observation, analysis, and experimentation, he published ''The Act of Touch'', an encyclopedic volume that influenced piano pedagogy throughout the English-speaking world. So many students were soon in quest of his insights that two years later he opened the Tobias Matthay Pianoforte School, first in Oxford Street, then in 1909 relocating to Wimpole Street, where it remained for the next 30 years. The teachers there included his sister Dora. He soon became known for his teaching principles that stressed proper piano touch and analysis of arm movements. He wrote several additional books on piano technique that brought him international recognition, and in 1912 he published ''Musical Interpretation'', a widely read book that analyzed the principles of effective musicianship. However, whilst acknowledging its importance, a later interpreter of Matthay's writing criticized its lack of clarity:

The interminable repetitions, recapitulations, summaries, footnotes, all with a change of emphasis and as often as not with new names for the same thing, led enquirers into a maze from which only the clearest brain equipped with a dogged perseverance, could extricate itself.

Many of his pupils went on to define a school of 20th century English pianism, including

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, Denise Lasimonne,

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Harold Craxton Thomas Harold Hunt Craxton (30 April 188530 March 1971) was an English pianist, teacher and composer. Born in London, and growing up in Devizes, Craxton began studying piano with Tobias Matthay and Cuthbert Whitemore in 1907, and made a name for ...

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, Gertrude Peppercorn,

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, Lilias Mackinnon, Guy Jonson, Vivian Langrish,

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, jazz "syncopated" pianist Raie Da Costa,

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, Dorothy Howell, and the duo Bartlett and Robertson. He taught many Americans, including

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, and Lytle Powell, and he was also the teacher of Canadian pianist Harry Dean, English composer

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and English conductor

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. In 1920, Hilda Hester Collens, who had studied under Matthay from 1910 to 1914, founded a music college in

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named the Matthay School of Music in his honour. It was later renamed the

Northern School of Music The Northern School of Music was a music college located in Manchester which operated between 1920 and 1972 before merging with the Royal Manchester College of Music to form the Royal Northern College of Music. History The Northern School of M ...

, a predecessor institution of the Royal Northern College of Music. His wife Jessie née Kennedy, whom he married in 1893, wrote a biography of her husband, published posthumously in 1945. She was a sister of

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. She was born in 1869 and died in 1937. Tobias Matthay died at his country home, High Marley, near Haslemere in 1945, aged 87.

Compositions

Matthay's larger scale compositions and virtuoso piano works were all written between the 1870s and 1890s before he focused instead on piano technique and teaching. They include two symphonies, some concert overtures and several piano concertante works. They were all forgotten for many years, resurfacing at a

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manuscript auction on 30 November 2006, won by the Royal Academy of Music. Only the symphonic overture ''In May'' (1883) and the one movement Concert Piece in A minor for piano and orchestra (begun about 1883 and revised till about 1908) gained much contemporary attention. The Concert Piece became his most popular large scale work, although its London premiere at the

Proms The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named 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 Hal ...

had to wait 25 years before its first performance, on 28 August 1909. The soloist was York Bowen. It was then performed at the Proms by Vivian Langrish in 1914, in 1919, and 1920 and again in 1925 by Matthay's student Betty Humby (who later became

Betty Humby Beecham Betty Humby Beecham, Lady Beecham (8 April 1908 – 2 September 1958) was a British pianist. She married English conductor and impresario Sir Thomas Beecham in February 1943. Biography Betty Humby was the daughter of Daniel Morgan Humby, a denti ...

after she married

Thomas Beecham Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Roya ...

). Myra Hess also performed it under Matthay's baton at

Queen's Hall The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect Thomas Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. Fro ...

on 18 July 1922 in the presence of the King and Queen for the Royal Academy of Music Centennial Celebration. Matthay also wrote chamber music (most notably the Piano Quartet, op.20 of 1882), a small number of songs, and a great deal of piano music. His ''31 Variations and Derivations on an Original Theme'' for piano, written in 1891 and revised till 1918, was one of his last important early period works. Showing the influence of both

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and

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, it was considered harmonically daring when first composed. The work is in two parts, the second growing increasingly complex. During and after the First World War Matthay returned to piano composition, but abandoned his previously complex style in favour of short character pieces closer in spirit to

Schumann Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...

's pieces for children. In 1933 he recorded some of these, including ''Twilight Hills'' and ''Wind Sprites'' from the 1919 suite ''On Surrey Hills'', op.30, as well as the older Prelude and the highly demanding "Bravura" from ''Studies in the Form of a Suite (1887).'' A nearly complete collection of the published piano works is held at the International Piano Archives at the

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. It was donated by the late James Matthew Holloway from papers originally in the possession of the pianist and favourite Mathay student Denise Lassimonne (1903–1994), whom Matthay took in after the death of her father, later naming her his ward and heir Many of the scores contain corrections, editorial markings and comments by Matthay himself.

List of works

Orchestral * Concert Overture (1874) * Symphony in A minor (1874) * Piano Concerto in D minor (1874) * ''Scherzo for Orchestra'' in D minor (1875) * Concert Overture in C (1877) * Symphony (1878) * ''Reminiscences of Country Life'', concert overture (1879) * ''Hero and Leander'', scena for contralto and orchestra (1879) * ''In Summer'', symphonic overture (aka Introduction and Allegro) (1880) * ''Andante for Orchestra'' (1881) * Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra in D minor (1881) * ''In May'', symphonic overture (1883) * Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra in A minor (1895) Chamber * Piano Quartet in F (1876) * Piano Quartet, op. 20 (1882, revised 1905, published 1906) * Piano Trio in F * ''Ballade'' for cello and piano, op.40 (1936) Piano Works (selected)Compositions by: Matthay, Tobias. IMSLP
/ref> * ''Moods of a Moment'', op.11 (1886, revised and published 1920) (ten pieces) * ''Love Phases'', op.12 (1880, published 1912) (includes 'Doubts', 'Avowal', 'Response') * ''Studies in the form of a Suite'' op.16 (1887) (eight studies) * ''Elves,'' op.17 (1898, published 1911) * ''Con Imitazione'', op. 18 * ''Sketch-Book No 1'' op.24 (includes 'May Morning', 'Terpsichore') (1914) * ''Sketch Book No 2'', op.26 (1916) * ''31 Variations and Derivations on an Original Theme'' op.28 (1891, published 1918) * ''Five Cameos'', op. 29 (1919) * ''On Surrey Hills'' op.30 (1919), includes 'Twilight Hills', 'On Holiday', 'Night Shadows', 'Wind Sprites' * ''Three Lyric Studies'', op.33 (1921) * ''Ballade in A minor'', op. 39 (1926) * ''Five Miniatures'', op.45

References

Bibliography

''The Act Of Touch In All Its Diversity: An Analysis And Synthesis Of Pianoforte Tone Production''
(1903) Bosworth & Co. Ltd., London
''The First Principles of Pianoforte Playing''
(1905) Bosworth & Co. Ltd., London
''Relaxation Studies''
(1908) Bosworth & Co. Ltd., London
''The Child's First Steps in Piano Playing''
(1912) Boston music Co., Boston *''The Principles of Fingering and Laws of Pedalling'' (Extracted from ''Relaxation Studies'') (1908) Bosworth, London
''The Fore-Arm Rotation Principle in Pianoforte Playing''
(1912) The Boston Music Co., Boston
''Musical Interpretation, Its Laws and Principles, and their application in teaching and performing''
(1912) Joseph Williams, London
''The Slur or Couplet of Notes in all its Variety, its Interpretation and Execution''
(1928) Oxford University Press, London
''The Visible And Invisible In Pianoforte Technique''
(1947)

External links