Part 43 (1/2)
”The hope so long entertained by your Royal Highness, and your advisers, that the chief existing musical inst.i.tution of the country would join your movement, was unfortunately dissipated. But the absence of the Royal Academy of Music from your Royal Highness's project was counterbalanced by the active adherence of the towns and cities of the country which through their munic.i.p.al officers, with hardly an exception, rallied as if by instinct round a movement so boldly conceived and so happily inaugurated. The key-note thus struck at St.
James's Palace resounded through the country, and met with a ready and harmonious response. Meetings were speedily organised by the lords lieutenant and mayors in the provinces. In the short period of fourteen months forty-four meetings have been held--from Exeter, Plymouth, and Hastings, in the South, to Newcastle-on-Tyne in the North; from Swansea and Shrewsbury, on the one hand, to Lincoln and Norwich on the other; while the great manufacturing and commercial centres of Nottingham, Leicester, Leeds, Bradford, Liverpool, and Blackburn, have all testified their interest in your Royal Highness's new inst.i.tution. In the City of London several meetings were held at the Mansion House, and a remarkable gathering of provincial mayors, under the sympathetic presidency of Sir.
J. Whittaker Ellis, the then Lord Mayor, gave your Royal Highness an opportunity of again enforcing your views upon your audience. By these meetings, and by the personal exertions of your Royal Highness and your ill.u.s.trious brothers, a sum of money, amounting to over 110,000, has been raised, of which nearly 5000 was due to the gracious action of Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales.”
Sir George Grove announced ”the foundation already of many scholars.h.i.+ps for tuition, fifteen of which include maintenance. Four of the scholars.h.i.+ps were founded by private liberality, and two by Australian benefactors.” He then announced ”the names of the professors selected by the Prince of Wales for the teaching of the College, who were such as to give a.s.surance as in the quality and range of the instruction. The piano is in the hands of Mr. Pauer, Madame Arabella G.o.ddard, Mr. Franklin Taylor, and Mr. John Francis Barnett. To forward our interests, Madame Lind-Goldschmidt has emerged from her retirement, and singing will be taught by her, Mr. Deacon, and Signor Visetti. The violin is in the charge of Mr. Henry Holmes and Mr. Gompertz; the organ of Mr. Walter Parratt. Counterpoint and composition are taught by Dr. Bridge, Mr.
Villiers Stanford, and Dr. Hubert Parry; while among the professors of other instruments are the honoured names of Harper, Lazarus, Thomas, and other ornaments of the English school. Declamation will be specially cared for, and for this the names of Mrs. Kendal and Mrs. Arthur Stirling are sufficient guarantee.
”The compet.i.tion,” continued Sir George Grove, ”which has taken place throughout the country for the fifty scholars.h.i.+ps is in itself an ample proof, if proof were needed, of the justness of your Royal Highness's idea. Following the method adopted in launching the inst.i.tution, your Royal Highness appealed to the mayors, corporations, and Local Boards throughout the country, and in the Metropolitan districts to the Vestries, to make known the fact of the compet.i.tion, and to organise the preliminary examinations, selecting the examiners from the must eminent local musicians. The result was as successful as might have been antic.i.p.ated. The munic.i.p.al buildings were put at the disposal of the College, and the best musicians were prompt to give their services as honorary local examiners to a task which in many cases involved great labour and severe sacrifice. Throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland 1588 candidates sent in their names as compet.i.tors. Of these 480 were sent up to the final examination, which was conducted personally in this building by the various professors in sections; and, lastly, before the entire Board of Professors and myself as Director. The result was the unanimous election of seventeen scholars for the pianoforte, thirteen for singing, eight for the violin, six for composition, two for the violoncello, one for the organ, one for the clarionet, one for the flute, and one for the harp. In addition to the fifty scholars, forty-two persons have entered their names as paying students in the College. Time will not allow me more than an allusion to various acts of private generosity by which the College has benefited. Prominent among them is the gift of the library of the late Sacred Harmonic Society, through Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen, and various other gifts of pianos, furniture, &c., by Sir Charles Freake, Messrs. Broadwood, Messrs. Erard, Messrs. Chappell, Messrs. Holland, Feetham, and others. The professors, scholars, and students are awaiting your Royal Highness's notice at the close of these proceedings, and I trust your Royal Highness will believe that we are all alike animated by a sincere and enthusiastic desire to carry out to the full those wise and gracious designs which have brought us to this first step in our career. That your Royal Highness may long live to preside over us and guide us in the right path is, Sir, our humble and earnest hope and prayer.”
The Prince of Wales, in reply, said:--
”I have heard your address with pleasure, and I feel great gratification in opening to-day the Royal College of Music, in the promotion of which I have taken so deep an interest. I avail myself of this, the first public opportunity that has offered itself, of expressing the deep personal gratification I feel at the manner in which the country has replied to my appeal for aid in establis.h.i.+ng the College. There is no cla.s.s of Her Majesty's subjects capable of affording a.s.sistance to which I have addressed myself in vain. The Corporation of London and the London companies have led the way in giving pecuniary a.s.sistance; and I owe a debt of grat.i.tude to the Mayors throughout the kingdom for the valuable aid they have afforded by granting facilities for holding local examinations essential to the proper selection of scholars. I thank these great bodies for their services, and I trust that I may yet expect from them further help in completing the task so auspiciously begun. I thank the donors of scholars.h.i.+ps for their liberality. I thank the general public for the sums they have subscribed at a time when agriculture has been depressed and the prospects of trade have not been encouraging; and, above all, I thank the many kind friends who have responded so cordially and liberally to my appeal for a.s.sistance. I have noticed also with the greatest pleasure the contributions for Colonial scholars.h.i.+ps that have been given by two eminent colonists, the one on behalf of the colony of Victoria, and the other on behalf of the colony of South Australia. The object I have in view is essentially Imperial as well as national, and I trust that ere long there will be no colony of any importance which is not represented by a scholar at the Royal College.
”Much, indeed, has been done, but I am aware that much remains to be done. I am conscious that I may be thought to have taken a bold step in beginning so great an enterprise with only the resources at present at my command. But I am unwilling that any delay should take place in giving effect to the generous intentions of those who have already contributed so liberally. I am sanguine enough to think that the example set during the last year by corporate bodies, representatives of the colonies, private donors, and the general public will be followed in ensuing years. Ours is an inst.i.tution which admits of almost indefinite extension, for, wherever a scholars.h.i.+p is founded, we know now that we shall find a deserving candidate to hold it.
”Let me now pa.s.s to an account of what has been actually accomplished. Fifty scholars.h.i.+ps have been established, of which thirty-five confer a free education in music, and fifteen provide not only a free education, but also maintenance for the scholars. Of these scholars.h.i.+ps half are held by boys and half by girls. I observe with pleasure that the various districts from which the scholars are drawn indicate the widespread distribution of a taste for music, and an adequate cultivation of music throughout the United Kingdom. London, with its vast population, sends only twelve out of the fifty. The remaining thirty-eight come as follows:--twenty-eight from fourteen different counties in England, two from Scotland, six from Ireland, one from Wales, and one from Jersey. The occupations of the scholars are as various as the places from which they come.
I find that a mill-girl, the daughter of a brickmaker, and the son of a blacksmith take high places in singing, and the son of a labourer in violin playing.
”The capacity of these candidates has been tested by an examination of unusual severity. Each of these scholars who returns to his native place furnished with the highest instruction in music will form a centre from which good musical education will spread around; while those who obtain musical engagements elsewhere will stimulate and encourage by their success the cultivation of music in the places whence they have come. Surely, then, it is not too much to expect that many years will not pa.s.s away before our College has so popularised music as to place England on a par with those countries on the Continent which have acquired the distinction of being called musical people.
”I feel, then, that one great object of a College of Music has been secured--namely, the discovery of latent musical ability and the extension to those who, with great natural gifts, have been blessed with little of this world's goods, of the opportunity of obtaining instruction in music, to say the least, not inferior to any which this kingdom can afford. That these words are not the language of exaggeration will be apparent to those who read the names of the eminent staff who have placed their services at the disposal of the College. Side by side with these scholars will be educated a group of paying pupils, who think that music is an art which, if worth studying at all, is worth studying well. They are, then, prepared to enter on a systematic course of instruction, of less severity and continuance than that of the scholars, but still far removed from the musical dilettantism of those who, induced by fas.h.i.+on, not by taste, to study music, make progress enough to torment themselves and distract their friends.
”I lay great store by the meeting of the various cla.s.ses of society in pursuit of a common yet elevating study. Such a union softens asperities, inspires kindly feeling between various cla.s.ses, and proves that all mankind are akin when engaged in an art which gives the highest expression to some of the best and purest feelings of the human heart.