Royal Academy of Music

“ Great as is the value of such fine stimulating influences—the visits of distinguished players, singers, composers, and conductors, and performances of master works by musical societies,—they are not enough to leaven the mass of the people without systematic educational endeavour. Reference has been made to the founding of the Royal Academy of Music. ”

“ It is intended, as far as possible, to connect the Grand National Opera-house with the Royal Academy of Music, the National Training School for Music, and other kindred institutions in the United Kingdom, by affording to duly qualified students a field for the exercise of their profession in all its branches. ”

“ A nice time music teachers will have when ten hours' work a day will give them an income of 30s. a week! But what, if not music teachers, are the pupils of our four leading musical academies to become? The Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the Guildhall School of Music, and Dr. Wylde's London Academy of Music must send out annually some thousand or two well-taught musicians who have nothing to turn to but teaching. ”

“ The Royal Academy of Music also possesses a large collection of valuable compositions presented by the various London music publishers, containing especially orchestral works by Beethoven, Bennett, Hummel, Mozart, Schumann and Schubert. ”

“ In order to procure for themselves more easily than had hitherto been possible the enjoyment of a good Italian opera, a stock company was now formed by the most illustrious and wealthiest art amateurs of London, who, in 1720, founded an academy of music. For model they had in mind the Paris Academie de Musique, and as the king took a box at the opera-house, paying for it a very considerable sum, they were permitted to call themselves the "Royal" Academy of Music. Before arrangements were fully completed, Handel was sent to the continent for the purpose of obtaining suitable Italian singers. ”

“ When the Royal Academy of Music opened its doors in March 1823, Potter was appointed principal professor of the pianoforte there. In the following year his first symphony was played at a Philharmonic concert, and in 1827 he became director of the orchestral classes and conductor of the public concerts at the Royal Academy. ”

“ The Royal Academy of Music was formed in England, for the performance of operas composed by Mr. Handel, and conducted by him at the theatre in the Haymarket. This institution attracted extraordinary attention, and continued to flourish for a consider-able time, with great reputation. ”

“ He was a pupil of the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied composition under Bochsa and Potter. Before leaving the Academy he was engaged as a violoncellist at the Opera and the Westminster Abbey Festival of 1834. ”

“ In 1859 he was appointed successor to Potter as Principal of the Royal Academy of Music, which office he held until July 1866, when ill health compelled him to relinquish it. His compositions include 'The Regicide,' opera, 3 symphonies, string quartets, anthems, songs, etc. ”

“ A scholarship in her memory was founded at the Royal Academy of Music. Her voice was of moderate power and of fine quality, but it was her dignified and artistic style that gave her the high place she held for so many years both in oratorio and ballads. ”

“ He was also a member of the Philharmonic Society of London, a director of the Royal Academy of Music, and for years a prominent member of the Musical Association. He was a genial and kind friend to young musicians, and an admirable public speaker, especially when speaking extemporaneously. ”

“ No Royal Academy can draw a large audience to the opera by stating that such and such a piece of music is good, or that such and such a voice is clear; if the public do not feel the voice to be delicious, and if they do not like the music, they will not go to hear it. The fame of the musician, whether singer, instrumentalist, or composer, is founded mainly upon his having produced a strong effect upon the public intellect and imagination. ”

“ The Academy, Royal and National, as it is entitled, is the oldest of the three principal music schools in England. The prefix "Royal" used in common with many and various kinds [Pg 99] of societies, has no very precise significance, while the term "national" is somewhat difficult of application to an institution whose principal teachers and managers are foreigners.
Although flourishing to-day, the school experienced many years of fluctuating fortune, and it was not until the principalship of Sir Sterndale Bennett that it was at last placed on a firm and sure foundation. ”

“ In 1836 he was nominated Concertmeister, and in 1839 elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts. A thorough musician and a solid violinist, he has ever since been held in great esteem as a leader, and more especially as a methodical and conscientious teacher. ”

“ Academy of ancient music. This institution was established in London, in 1710, by the most eminent masters of the time, with a view to the study and practice of vocal and instrumental music, and continued to flourish for many years. The institution had the advantage of an excellent library, consisting of the most celebrated foreign and domestic compositions, and was aided by the amateurs of the Chapel Royal and the choir of St. ”

“ He studied art, and became a student of the Royal Academy in 1865, about the same time commencing his researches into early music. He received various commissions for artistic works, the most important being a reredos for St. ”

“ I hope thus, through the instrumentality of the Royal College, to raise the standard of music throughout the United Kingdom and to create a central influence which may be beneficially exercised over all music-teaching bodies who recognise the advantage of a common system of examination. ”

“ Musical education, which has played so vast a part in this development, shares, nevertheless, the general chaotic condition of American musical life. The absence of a National Academy of Music leaves the country still without any official standard of musical education, although high ideals and thorough courses are maintained in the music departments of the larger universities. ”

“ His real claim to distinction, however, is not his musicianship, but the energy, perseverance and success with which he advocated, and ultimately succeeded in procuring, the establishment of an Academy of Music in London, and the zeal with which, as its President, he strove at all times to advance its interests. ”

“ The following is the address delivered at that meeting:—
"You are, doubtless, aware of the efforts at present being made to establish a Royal College of Music—a work which, I venture to think, is one of national importance.
"It is intended to place the institution on a broad and liberal basis; that its advantages shall not be confined to residents of the United Kingdom, but be open to our fellow-subjects in all parts of the Empire; and the gratuitous education of scholars, selected by competition on the claim of merit only, will be one of its principal features. ”

“ Beyond and above all this I trust, as I stated on a previous occasion, that the College will become the recognised centre and head of the musical world in this country. It has been a reproach to England that, with her vast resources, her large benevolence, her eagerness to instruct all classes of society in other branches of knowledge, one thing has hitherto been wanting—a national institution for music. Yet music is in the best sense the most popular of all arts. ”

“ In this way the public schools have become foreshadowings of the conservatories and the university schools of music. In time the weak spot in our higher musical curricula, the course in 'musical appreciation' which so many idlers follow as a 'royal road' to a musical education (although it is found in none of the Royal Conservatories of Europe) , will have no excuse for being retained, for our high school pupils will already possess it in sufficient measure to pursue with zest the hard technical courses the mastery of which is necessary to the making of a real musician. ”

“ I have invited to meet you the leading musicians and publishers of music, the most eminent musical instrument makers, the most influential amateurs and patrons of music, and I trust that by the co-operation and union of some of the most powerful elements of society, we may succeed in establishing a Royal College of Music on a more extended basis than any existing institution in the United Kingdom ”

“ To this may be added that when there were but two decades of the century left it was made plain that the Academy of Music could by no possibility accommodate the two classes of society, old and new, which had for a number of years been steadily approaching each other. ”

“ You who are musicians must desire to improve your art, and such will be the object of the Royal College. You who are only lovers of music must wish well to a plan which provides for all classes of Her Majesty's subjects a pleasure which you yourselves enjoy so keenly. To those who are deaf to music, as practical men I would say thus much—to raise the people, you must purify their emotions and cultivate their imaginations. ”

“ Juhasz, Agghazi, Swoboda, and of the ladies Frau Knapp, Fraulein Lepessy, [The above-mentioned were favorite pupils of the Master at the Academy.] etc., in Counterpoint, Harmony, Composition, Aesthetics, Hungarian music and the indispensable Piano-playing.
The work best praises the Master: in like manner do the pupils, when preparing themselves for pre-eminence, praise their teacher. The "Zene Akademia" has not to work for the universally usual kind of musical study, but has indeed a weightier, higher task to fulfil. ”

“ A solid basis alone can accomplish this purpose; and as the extension of sound instruction is the best mode of promoting every species of moral improvement, so it is with music also. If we had a good music academy,—embracing all the various branches of this art, and teaching them from one sole point of view, as only the means to a higher end,—then the practical and material tenets, which, alas! can number even among our artists many influential adherents, might, no doubt, yet be effectually checked. ”

“ In England, however, we occupy ourselves exclusively with the teaching of music, never in any manner dealing with the question what the students are to do when their period of study is at an end. In other countries there is together with one musical academy one Opera-house. ”

“ The absolute necessity of a reform in the Royal Academy of Arts seems daily to be more urgent, it therefore becomes a duty to obtain as clear a view as possible of the measures to be pursued, and to settle the preliminary arrangements for the best mode of fulfilling this design. The musical section of the Academy, which cannot be continued under its present regulations, must form one of the most essential points in this reform. ”

“ Song occupied a prominent place in the curriculum of the schools of the middle ages and it probably exercised a greater refining influence upon the nation than is commonly realised. The abolition of the schools of song was not the least disastrous of the effects of the Reformation in this country, and it is of considerable significance that the recent Royal Commission into University Education in Wales recommends [Pg 73] that steps should be taken for the greater encouragement of the study of music, not only within the university itself but also in the schools of the Principality. ”

“ I wish to establish an institution having a wider basis and a more extended influence than any existing school or college of music in this country. It will teach music of the highest class; it will have a foundation for the education, and in some cases for the free maintenance, of scholars who have obtained by merit the right to such privileges. But it will do more than this. It will be to England what the Berlin Conservatoire is to Germany, what the Paris Conservatoire is to France, or the Vienna Conservatoire to Austria—the recognised centre and head of the musical world. ”