Howard Glover’s Life and Career Russell Burdekin, July 2019, updated September 2021 (This note was originally part of the preparation for a paper given at the Music in Nineteenth Century Britain Conference, Canterbury Christ Church University, July 5, 2019. See http://englishromanticopera.org/operas/Ruy_Blas/Howard_Glover_Ruy_Blas- harbinger_of_English_Romantic_Opera_demise.pdf ) This note was revised in September 2021 thanks to an email from David Gurney pointing me to Augustus William Gurney’s Memoir of Archer Thompson Gurney, which provided background on Glover’s early life as well as a summary of his character. A few other details have also been amended or added. William Howard Glover was born on 6 June 1819 in London, the second son of Julia Glover one of the best known actresses of the first half of the 19th century. Who his father was is less certain. By the end of 1817, Julia was living apart from her husband, Samuel.1 However, she was on very close terms with the American actor, playwright and author John Howard Payne, who was then living in London.2 The inclusion of Howard as Glover’s middle name and John rather than Samuel being written on the baptism record3 would strongly suggest that Payne was the father, although no definitive evidence has been found. Glover studied the violin with William Wagstaff, leader of the Lyceum Opera orchestra, and joined that band at the age of fifteen. By the age of sixteen had a dramatic scena performed at a Society of British Musicians concert.4 He continued his studies for some years in Italy, Germany and France (Illustrated Times 2 Sep. 1865: 142) and in 1842 it was reported that he was going to have an opera, Attila, with libretto by Archer Gurney,5 staged in Frankfurt (The Age 16 Oct. 1842: 6), but it did not happen. A correspondent from Frankfurt in the Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review (1843, v.3, p.317) confirmed the local enthusiasm for the opera but ended by saying that “for some reason or other, unknown to any of us, this truly talented composer was suddenly found to have left Frankfort” and so the opera was never performed. This lack of judgement and perseverance was to undermine Glover throughout his career. In 1 Following the separation, Samuel Glover was involved in some rather unseemly actions to try to get his hands on his wife’s earnings, firstly by trying to gain custody of her children (Morning Chronicle 20 Dec 1817: 4) and then by suing Drury Lane to hand them over. Although he won the latter on a point of law, he was awarded only a farthing damages (The Observer 24 May 1818: 2). Later in 1818, they came to an agreement and the separation became permanent (The Times 21 Dec 1818: 3). Samuel died in the debtor’s prison, the Marshalsea, on 28 March 1832 (Mayo Constitution 29 Mar 1832:np). 2 Overmyer (particularly 191-192). 3 Ancestry.co.uk. For some reason it was not entered into the St Martin’s, Ludgate, in the City of London register of baptisms until 1838 with a note that it had occurred in July 1819. Julia Glover was entered as Julianna, the name she used in private. 4 Anonymous, “Mr Howard Glover”, The Musical World (26 Aug 1865): 530. 5 Gurney Memoir (Chap. 23) In fact, from a letter Glover wrote to Gurney on October 31, 1842, itit appears that Gurney provided at least two versions of the opera. The initial version was found to be too emotionally intense for the English stage so a milder version was made. Even so it never made it to the London stage and for some reason Glover switched his attention to getting it performed in Frankfurt. They were interested in the initial version “as the new and terrible are the order of the day now throughout the continent”. 1 1842 also, he was successfully sued by a tailor for non-payment (Morning Advertiser 28 Apr. 1842: 3), an early sign of his financial problems, which seemed to be a common trait in the family. His first public appearance playing the violin was at his mother’s benefit concert in January 1843 (Morning Post 12 Jan. 1843: 1). He continued for a while as both a violin and piano performer and accompanist while also beginning a long, sporadic, but sometimes successful career as a composer and arranger of songs. Augustus Gurney wrote that Glover was “a well-known personality in London, and he was of a fine presence in spite of an early accident whereby one eye was rendered unduly prominent”.6 A scene from his earlier opera, Attila, was performed at a Society of British Musicians concert in October 18457 and a large number of pieces from it introduced in a concert in June 1846, which the Daily News (June 17, 1846) “deemed injudicious, had not the high satisfaction of the audience established its expediency”. A song entitled “The Song of Attila”, presumably from the opera,8 was occasionally given at Glover’s concerts as late as 18549 In 1846 he began to organise concerts, including two in Scotland with Jenny Lind in 1847 where he acted as conductor and accompanist. However he also took a broader interest in the musical scene writing an article, “Letters on Musical Art”, for the Musical World (1 May 1847: 283) in which he argued against the position in some quarters that an English composer should be given a hearing just because he was English but rather that they should be fairly judged. He concluded that “the true enemies to the progress of music in England are chicanery, ballad-mongering, and conventionalism”. In 1848 he joined with his mother in opening a Musical and Dramatic Academy in London, which had some success and which heralded a teaching career. His Academy pupils formed part of the English Operatic Company that he took to the Theatre Royal, Manchester in 1848. He wrote that he aimed to stage opera “with a degree of completeness in all departments not equalled since the German opera” (Manchester Guardian 16 Sep, 1848: 6). Although he was judged to have fallen somewhat short it does show that he was aware of the failings of current practice. This short lived but not unsuccessful company also toured Glasgow and Liverpool (The Illustrated Times 2 Sep 1865: 142). His larger composing ambitions were less successful. A selection from his proposed opera Hero and Leander was performed in concert in 1850 to lukewarm enthusiasm (The Lady’s Newspaper 14 Dec. 1850: 328) and the full opera never appeared. 1850 marked the start of his career as music critic for the Morning Post. Some years later, in 1855, Hector Berlioz was to write to Franz Liszt about reviews of his L’Enfance du Christ, “But the most studied will be that of Glover in the Morning Post, because Glover is a distinguished musician and will have 6 Gurney Memoir (Chap. 23) 7 Morning Post, (Oct. 14, 1845) 8 The song claimed to be from a set of Deutsche Lyra by German poets translated by Archer Gurney, but the Musical World (27 Nov. 1847: 758), edited by James Davison who knew Glover well, suspected that “there is something of an Irish bull here” and that they were English songs dressed up as German for effect. 9 The Times (Apr. 12, 1854) 2 written with the score before his eyes.”10 Augustus Gurney (Gurney Memoir Chap 23) saw this job as a reason for his later problems because Glover had to spend late nights and early mornings writing his copy, which left him in a poor position for other work. Nevertheless, he continued with his concerts, which became more ambitious and by 1853 were being dubbed “monster concerts” because of their size and length.11 Unfortunately, the mix of impresario and critic was to prove toxic. An unnamed opera later identified as La Coquette was announced for performance at the Princess’s Theatre, London, in 1845 (Morning Post 1 Oct. 1845) but never materialised there notwithstanding a further announcement the following year. However, an opera of that name by Glover was performed at his brother (or half-brother) Edmund’s theatre in Glasgow, the Prince’s Theatre, in March 1849 (Glasgow Punch 24 Mar. 1849: 151), where he appeared to have organised the musical events for the theatre’s opening the previous month (The Builder 17 Feb. 1849). It was in Glasgow that he made his debut as Edgar in an English version of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor when the tenor fell ill and which role he repeated in Liverpool and Manchester. In late April, at least part of Glover’s The Coquette was staged at the Liver Theatre, Liverpool (Liverpool Mail 28 Apr. 1849: 5). This was also referred to as Glover’s Aminta (Illustrated London News 5 May 1849: 290). The Glasgow and Liverpool performances were, presumably, earlier versions of what was given at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in January 1852 as Aminta, the Coquette or, A match for a magistrate , despite being advertised in The Era (25 Jan 1852: 1) as “an entirely new comic opera”. The libretto was by Archer Gurney12, but “licked into the shape in which it is presented at the Haymarket” by John Oxenford.13 Interestingly, no manuscript with a name resembling it was sent to the Examiner of Plays for clearance until the Haymarket performance. It seems to have had a modest success, although The Leader (31 Jan. 1852: 112) talked of “a vociferous body of friends and a remarkably unmoved public”.