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”.
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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)
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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”. In the main the next two years were taken up with teaching, concerts and song compositions but, in 1853, he added yet another string to his bow; he offered to correct and orchestrate amateur compositions.
Glover probably had his greatest public success in 1855 with his cantata Tam O’Shanter premiered at a concert conducted by Berlioz15 and performed as late as 1894. Berlioz in a letter to Theodore Ritter wrote “Glover's Cantata very pungent in style, but difficult, which made me
10 (CG no. 1848), The Hector Berlioz Website.
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sweat until the stream of the Strand swelled”.16 The following year, Glover organised a fortnight of English opera performances this time at Sadler’s Wells, but it did not appear to include anything by him. In 1857, alongside the monster concerts, he inaugurated what were termed Educational Concerts “with the object of indoctrinating the public with a better class of music than what has hitherto been given at any of the places where the pockets of the lower orders are especially consulted” (The Era 12 Apr. 1857: 11) but these do not seem to have been continued for long. They also came in for criticism from John Ella, founder of a well-known series of chamber music concerts, who was self-consciously aiming to raise public taste and might have felt that Glover was undermining these efforts.17 Ella accused Glover of using his position as a critic to induce performers to take part in his concerts without a fee. Glover rejected the accusation in no uncertain terms in a letter to the Musical World (30 May 1857: 345-346) and was supported by the singer Madame Rudersdorff amongst others. However, this was a charge which would come back later to haunt him and the intemperate language of the letter suggests not only that he might have had something to hide but also suggests a certain volatility that might have contributed to his inability to hold on to a position.
1858 saw him try his hand at organising small scale chamber concerts but he did not persevere with them. In January he provided a cantata for the marriage of the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia and a further cantata, Comala, was promised for the next New Philharmonic concert but did not actually appear until May of the following year when it did not meet with success. 1859 and 1860 followed his usual routine of promoting concerts18 as well as music critic and probably also doing some teaching. However, he found time to compose his major serious opera, Ruy Blas. The Examiner (23 Feb. 1861: 126) advertised that it was in preparation in February 1861. On 2 March it announced that the opera had been put back to the next season “In order that all possible justice may be done to a work of such magnitude and importance”. It was then scheduled to open the new season on 21 October and was eventually premiered on 24 October, 1861, with some initial success. James Davison of The Times (29 Oct 1861: 9) and the Musical World and a friend of Glover was fulsome in his praise, “helped confirm the good opinion derived from a first hearing”, except for commenting on a “superabundance of dialogue”, a frequent complaint about English opera. The Era (27 Oct 1861: 10) wrote of “the first Act [being] brought successfully, and even brilliantly, to an end” and thought that “every one who has heard [the opera] once would be eager to hear again”. However, Baily’s Monthly Magazine (1 Nov 1861: 373) while noting its apparent first night success, doubted if it was “likely long to hold a place in public favour”. Charles Santley (193) spoke of it having “one or two effective numbers but was not a success”, which is borne out by its performance history.
The 1851 census had shown the Glover household as having a servant so that, at that time, it had a modicum of prosperity. By the 1861 census they were even more comfortable with three servants. However, notwithstanding his welter of activities, in December 1862 he was listed as
16 (CG 1991) The Hector Berlioz Website.
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bankrupt (London Gazette 27 Jan. 1863: 482) only to be discharged three months later. However, his monster concert on 5 January still went ahead and shortly after his opera, Ruy Blas, was revived at Covent Garden, although it was curtailed in order to accommodate the Christmas pantomime (The Standard 7 Jan. 1863: 3). That year also saw an operetta, Once too often, which enjoyed considerable popularity and was still being given occasionally over ten years later.
Further concerts followed and, in March, it was announced that he would be editing a new musical paper (Northern Whig 30 Mar. 1863:3) but nothing appeared. In July he opened an “Operatic Academy” for the “study and practice of operatic music” (Musical World 20 June 1863: 385). By the September it was claimed that he had written the libretto and “a considerable part of the music” for a three act comic opera called Giralda the Unmarried Wife for production in Pyne and Harrison’s next season (Evening Freeman 8 Sep. 1863: 3). This was probably an adaptation of Eugene Scribe’s Giralda ou La nouvelle psyché , which had already been put on the London stage in 1850 as Giralda or the invisible husband. Once again nothing appeared. In December a book of criticisms and reminiscences by Glover entitled Music in England was advertised as shortly to be published but, yet again, nothing was forthcoming. It is interesting that these rumours tended to be more prominent in the provincial rather than the London press. Perhaps the latter realised the lack of credibility.
However, one of his other ideas did bear fruit. On 30 January 1864 he performed Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony at Drury Lane with the middle movement of rustic merry making “being accompanied by scenic illustrations and groupings of appropriately costumed ballet- dancers”(Illustrated Times 6 Feb. 1864: 94). Although not everyone was taken with the idea, he clearly found it profitable as he inaugurated a fortnightly series from the October (Morning Post 24 Sep. 1864: 1). It was at these concerts that he introduced his best known pupil, Emily Soldene. She had paid Glover £200 and half her earnings during her two year pupillage (Soldene 10, 13). Soldene spoke of him as being “a careful and conscientious teacher” who addressed not only the musical aspects but the wider cultural understanding of a piece”. Nevertheless “with all his goodness, he was impatient” and she was “sharply corrected” for any mistakes. Interestingly he was quite happy to recommend her to the Canterbury Music Hall so that she could gain regular singing experience in the absence of opportunity on the operatic stage.
The concerts were not as lucrative as he had hoped and he again had to petition for bankruptcy in May 1865 although the concerts continued nevertheless. Amongst his creditors were Charles Hallé and Clara Schumann. Worse was to follow. In March 1865, a series of letters, some emanating from the journal itself, appeared in The Orchestra. The initial letter on 11 March complained that at one of Glover’s monster concerts 62 items had been advertised by 48 performers but in fact only 25 of the performers appeared. These non-appearances reflected badly on performers who had never agreed to take part in the first place but who felt that they were in no position to complain because of Glover’s position as a critic. There were again the accusations that Ella had made in 1857 of performers being pressured to give their services for free. The Orchestra also made the same allegations against Desmond Ryan, deputy editor of The Musical World. Ryan successfully sued but although Glover threatened to sue he never
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seemed to have done so. Further he lost his position at the Morning Post; some accounts said he was sacked (Belfast Newsletter 19 Feb 1866: np), some that he resigned (Yorkshire Gazette 2 Sep 1865: 8). He was later reported as having been reinstated on condition that he promoted no more monster concerts and wrote no songs for singers (The Orchestra 2 Sep. 1865: 361) but this was denied (Belfast Newsletter 12 Sep 1865: np). In any case, his advertisement in January 1866 for a concert “on the Grand Scale of Former Years” (The Standard 20 Jan. 1866:1) would, no doubt, have put paid to it. The Ryan libel case confirmed that Glover was no longer employed (The Standard 9 Feb. 1866: 7).
Once again his memoirs were said to be about to be published and this time two columns appeared in the Musical World on 26 August but hardly the three volumes that had been promised. Once again classes for aspiring artists were advertised (Musical World 30 Sep. 1865: 614) but quite how he ran these in conjunction with touring English towns playing the piano as part of a variety group is not clear. He then tried the idea of coaching amateur singers for performances of small scale operettas in their own residences being very clear that he was seeking only “the patronage of the highest classes” (Morning Post 25 Nov. 1865:1).
In early 1866 he was said to be about to edit a new clerical magazine and a new musical magazine with the usual results. Instead he seemed mainly preoccupied with teaching and concerts, including one featuring the retired Giulia Grisi, as well as accompanist on a tour towards the latter end of the year. At the end of 1866, he was again declared bankrupt for which he blamed the loss of his job at the Morning Post. The paper’s four guineas a week had been his only stable income to support a wife and twelve children. He was still organising concerts in 1867 including one at which his daughter Eleanor sang. In September, he announced that he was opening an operetta house at King’s Cross on 19 October (The Era 29 Sep. 1867: 11), a claim that was repeated in The Times (11 Nov. 1867: 1) but with a November start. Nothing materialised and, in late March or early April 1868, he set sail for New York where took over as conductor at Niblo’s Garden, being advertised as conducting a concert there on April 13 (New York Herald 9 Apr. 1868: 10). It seems that friends had paid for Glover and his family to go in the hope that he could make a fresh start there but, as Joseph Bennett (20) wrote, “the habits of years could not be shaken off, and the only change was a change of place”.
As before, he was soon engaged on a number of activities. On 11 July 1868, he staged his operetta Once too often at Niblo’s, seemingly the first time that it had been performed in the United States but the audience was recorded as small. The Athenaeum (8 Aug. 68: 187) reported that he was starting up his monster concerts “which brought him into notoriety in Europe” while The Era (20 Sep. 1868: 10) wrote of him travelling to Canada as accompanist to a group of singers. In 1869 he was conducting the orchestra for an English Burlesque troupe at the Waverley Theatre in New York and then later was among the first violins for the huge Boston Peace Jubilee concert. By 1870 was working at Wallack’s Theatre, although his benefit there was poorly attended and suffered when some performers withdrew, all in all suggesting that he was not popular (Freeman’s Journal 4 Jan. 1871: 3) despite reports to the contrary (Supplement to the Manchester Courier 6 Feb. 1869: 3). At this time he was again supposed to be publishing his memoirs but again nothing seemed to have materialised. Rather oddly, he described himself
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as a carpenter on the 1870 U.S. census; he had always called himself a professor of music on the UK ones. October 1871 saw him with yet another position that of chorus master of the Parepa-Rosa Opera Company and later of the New York Singers.
For whatever reason, the jobs must have become less frequent for, by 1874, the New York Times (24 Mar. 1874: 4) was advertising a concert for the relief of the Glover family. He was listed as one of the conductors for a grand popular concert (not one of his) at the Academy of Music on 28 May 1875. An operetta, Palomita or the Veiled Songstress, with words and music by Howard Glover was published in 1875 but it may have been composed many years earlier as it derives from Eugène Scribe and Adolphe Leuven’s La Chanteuse Voilée19 of 1850. Its being published suggests that it was performed in New York.20 Glover died in New York on 28 October 1875. However, that was not the end of the family’s problems. The Morning Post (6 Apr. 1877: 1) described Glover as never earning more than bare subsistence and eventually his destitute family was sent back to Britain by the charity of the British Consul. An appeal was set up and amongst those listed as having contributed to it were Archer Gurney, Balfe’s widow, Lina, Otto Goldschmidt (Jenny Lind’s husband), Madame Puzzi and Wilhelm Ganz, but other names from the musical world were noticeable by their absence.21
Glover’s friend and early librettist, Archer Gurney, “had for him a sincere affection as well as admiration, and grieved not lightly over his premature death and comparative failure in life”. He summed up Glover’s life that “He was witty and agreeable with a dash of bitterness” and that he “possessed several qualities of a great composer, a strong vein of melody, imagination, grace, power, knowledge and dramatic fire - but was wanting in perseverance, being unable or unwilling to face severe and continuous application”.22
Bibliography Bashford, Christina. The Pursuit of High Culture. (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007) Bennett, Joseph. Forty Years of Music. (London: Methuen & Co., 1908). Boase, Frederic. Modern English Biography. Vol 1. (Truro: Netherton and Worth, 1892). Gurney, Augustus William. Memoir of Archer Thompson Gurney. Unpublished manuscript written in 1887 by Augustus Gurney about his brother, Archer Gurney. (London: British Library: Add MS 81597). A transcription of the memoir by David Gurney is available at the British Library: Add MS 81598 A and Add MS 81598 B. The transcription does miss the occasional word or phrase. Overmyer, Grace. America’s First Hamlet. (Washington Square: New York University Press, 1957). Soldene, Emily. My Theatrical and Musical Recollections. (London: Downey & Co., 1897).
Santley, Charles, Student and Singer (London: Edward Arnold, 1893).
19 Victor Massé was the composer. 20 Boase (1161) states that it was produced at Niblo’s in 1875 but no other reference has been found. 21 Morning Post (6 April 1877) 22 Gurney Memoir (Chap 23). The Memoir transcription omitted the phrase” with a dash of bitterness and my brother had for him a sincere. Archer Gurney did not include Glover in his list of neglected English composers in his letter to the Musical Times (1 June 1881).
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Appendix 1 – Advert for a Howard Glover concert on 11 July, 1859
From The Leader 9 July 1859 : 817 https://ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2302/page/13/
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