August Manns
Encyclopedia
Sir August Friedrich Manns (12 March 1825 – 1 March 1907) was a German-born conductor who made his career in England. After serving as a military bandmaster in Germany, he moved to England and soon became director of music at London's Crystal Palace
. He increased the resident band to full symphonic strength and for more than forty years conducted concerts at popular prices. He introduced a wide range of music to London, including many works by young British composers, as well as works by German masters hitherto neglected in England. Among his British protégés were Arthur Sullivan
, Charles Villiers Stanford
, Hubert Parry
, Hamish MacCunn
, Edward Elgar
and Edward German
.
Manns performed the works of more than 300 composers, and was reckoned to have given more than 12,000 concerts during his tenure at the Crystal Palace, between 1855 and 1901. He became a British citizen in 1894 and was knighted
in 1903.
(now Biskupia Górka
, part of the city of Gdańsk
in Poland). His father was a glass-blower, with, as Manns recalled, "a pound a week and ten children," of whom August was the fifth. The family was musical, and the young August learnt to play the flute in the family's informal ensemble. At the age of ten, August temporarily took the place of one of his brothers at the factory, but he had no liking for the work of glass-blowing. His father briefly considered that August might be trained for a career as a schoolmaster, but the youth's predisposition for music prevailed. At the age of twelve he was sent to a school, kept by his uncle, at a neighbouring village. Here he was trained to play the flute, clarinet and violin. At fifteen he was apprenticed for three years to Urban, the town musician of Elbing
, with whom Manns learnt to make the best of limited orchestral forces, transposing and switching instrumental parts as necessary. In his third year Manns played first violin in the string-band and first clarinet in the wind-band of Urban's Town-band; and he was selected by Urban to receive special lessons in harmony and composition.
When Manns was approaching the age for military conscription, he avoided active service by volunteering as a member of an infantry band stationed at Danzig
, for which he played the clarinet. At the same time he played the violin in the theatre, in concerts, and for the ballet. In 1848 his talent was spotted and he was invited to join Josef Gungl's orchestra in Berlin, where he played first violin. He was then appointed conductor and solo violinist at Kroll's Gardens in Berlin, a post that he held from 1849 to 1851, when the venue was destroyed by fire. Within weeks he was recruited by Colonel Albrecht von Roon to be the bandmaster of Roon's regiment. Manns replaced a dozen bad players, made new arrangements of classical works, including Beethoven overtures and symphonies for the wind band, and formed a string band. He resigned the position in 1854 when a junior officer reprimanded him for allowing his musicians to appear on parade with inadequately polished buttons.
In the same year Henry Schallehn, who had recently established a military band at the Crystal Palace
in the suburbs of London, engaged Manns as clarinettist and sub-conductor. Within months there was a rift between the two men when Schallehn passed off a composition of Manns's as his own; when Manns protested, Schallehn dismissed him. Manns then earned a living teaching the violin in the English provinces, and playing in the opera orchestra in Edinburgh.
(later famous as the editor of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
), dismissed Schallehn for his unsatisfactory work. The Musical World wrote,
The rest of Manns's career was almost exclusively associated with the Crystal Palace. When he took over, the permanent band was a wind ensemble, from which, with four specially engaged string players, Manns improvised an orchestra of about thirty-four performers. With the backing of Grove and the directors of the Crystal Palace he gradually expanded the band into a full orchestra, for which a new concert room was added to the Crystal Palace. Together, Grove and Manns made the Crystal Palace concerts the principal source of classical music at popular prices. The concert season ran from October to April , with concerts given on Saturday afternoons from 1855 to 1901.
Within months of his appointment, Manns gave the first London performance of Schumann's Symphony No 4 in D minor
and the British premiere of Schubert's Great C Major Symphony
. His concerts featured the music of more than 300 composers. There were more Austro-German composers (104) than those of any other nationality, but British composers (82) came a strong second. Manns was the first conductor to introduce Arthur Sullivan
to the English public, when he conducted the young Sullivan's Tempest
music in April 1862. Manns later introduced early works by Charles Villiers Stanford
, Hubert Parry
, Hamish MacCunn
, Edward Elgar
and Edward German
. Thirty years after Manns introduced the Tempest music, Sullivan wrote to him, "How much do I not owe to you, my dear old friend, for the helping hand you gave me to mount the first step on the ladder! I shall always think of you with gratitude and affection." Among contemporary continental composers, Brahms
(in 1863), Raff
(in 1870), and Dvořák
(in 1879) also first became known in England through Manns's Crystal Palace concerts.
Festivals, from 1883. He took on the 1883 festival at a few hours' notice, when the established conductor, Sir Michael Costa
was unwell. He was at first regarded as less successful as a choral conductor than in the orchestral repertory; his beat was eccentric and puzzling to the uninitiated. He was, nevertheless, invited to conduct all the subsequent festivals up to and including 1900. He directed the orchestral concerts of the Glasgow
Choral Union for thirteen seasons in succession. He conducted the promenade concerts at Drury Lane
in 1859, and was conductor of the festivals of Sheffield
in 1896 and 1899, and Cardiff
in 1896.
After 1890 the Crystal Palace concerts declined in importance. Orchestral music could be heard elsewhere in London, and the old popularity of the palace had died out. Manns conducted till the season of 1900–01, concluding on 24 April. The Musical Times
estimated that he had conducted 12,000 orchestral concerts during his 42 years at the Crystal Palace.
Manns became a naturalised British citizen in May 1894. He was knighted
in 1903 and died in Norwood
, London, just short of his 82nd birthday. He was buried at West Norwood Cemetery
.
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...
. He increased the resident band to full symphonic strength and for more than forty years conducted concerts at popular prices. He introduced a wide range of music to London, including many works by young British composers, as well as works by German masters hitherto neglected in England. Among his British protégés were Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
, Charles Villiers Stanford
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer who was particularly notable for his choral music. He was professor at the Royal College of Music and University of Cambridge.- Life :...
, Hubert Parry
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...
, Hamish MacCunn
Hamish MacCunn
thumb|right|Portrait of MacCunn, 1889, by [[John Pettie]]Hamish MacCunn , Scottish romantic composer, was born in Greenock, the son of a shipowner, and was educated at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.MacCunn's first success...
, Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
and Edward German
Edward German
Sir Edward German was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of English comic opera.As a youth, German played the violin and led the town orchestra, also...
.
Manns performed the works of more than 300 composers, and was reckoned to have given more than 12,000 concerts during his tenure at the Crystal Palace, between 1855 and 1901. He became a British citizen in 1894 and was knighted
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in 1903.
Early years
Manns was born at Stolzenberg, PrussiaPrussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
(now Biskupia Górka
Biskupia Górka
Biskupia Górka is a part of the city of Gdańsk in Poland. Historically, Biskupia Górka had important strategic meaning, since it is a hill close to the main city....
, part of the city of Gdańsk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
in Poland). His father was a glass-blower, with, as Manns recalled, "a pound a week and ten children," of whom August was the fifth. The family was musical, and the young August learnt to play the flute in the family's informal ensemble. At the age of ten, August temporarily took the place of one of his brothers at the factory, but he had no liking for the work of glass-blowing. His father briefly considered that August might be trained for a career as a schoolmaster, but the youth's predisposition for music prevailed. At the age of twelve he was sent to a school, kept by his uncle, at a neighbouring village. Here he was trained to play the flute, clarinet and violin. At fifteen he was apprenticed for three years to Urban, the town musician of Elbing
Elblag
Elbląg is a city in northern Poland with 127,892 inhabitants . It is the capital of Elbląg County and has been assigned to the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship since 1999. Before then it was the capital of Elbląg Voivodeship and a county seat in Gdańsk Voivodeship...
, with whom Manns learnt to make the best of limited orchestral forces, transposing and switching instrumental parts as necessary. In his third year Manns played first violin in the string-band and first clarinet in the wind-band of Urban's Town-band; and he was selected by Urban to receive special lessons in harmony and composition.
When Manns was approaching the age for military conscription, he avoided active service by volunteering as a member of an infantry band stationed at Danzig
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
, for which he played the clarinet. At the same time he played the violin in the theatre, in concerts, and for the ballet. In 1848 his talent was spotted and he was invited to join Josef Gungl's orchestra in Berlin, where he played first violin. He was then appointed conductor and solo violinist at Kroll's Gardens in Berlin, a post that he held from 1849 to 1851, when the venue was destroyed by fire. Within weeks he was recruited by Colonel Albrecht von Roon to be the bandmaster of Roon's regiment. Manns replaced a dozen bad players, made new arrangements of classical works, including Beethoven overtures and symphonies for the wind band, and formed a string band. He resigned the position in 1854 when a junior officer reprimanded him for allowing his musicians to appear on parade with inadequately polished buttons.
In the same year Henry Schallehn, who had recently established a military band at the Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...
in the suburbs of London, engaged Manns as clarinettist and sub-conductor. Within months there was a rift between the two men when Schallehn passed off a composition of Manns's as his own; when Manns protested, Schallehn dismissed him. Manns then earned a living teaching the violin in the English provinces, and playing in the opera orchestra in Edinburgh.
Crystal Palace
In 1855 Manns was invited to conduct a summer season of concerts in Amsterdam, after which he returned to England to take over at the Crystal Palace when the management, led by George GroveGeorge Grove
Sir George Grove, CB was an English writer on music, known as the founding editor of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians....
(later famous as the editor of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
), dismissed Schallehn for his unsatisfactory work. The Musical World wrote,
The rest of Manns's career was almost exclusively associated with the Crystal Palace. When he took over, the permanent band was a wind ensemble, from which, with four specially engaged string players, Manns improvised an orchestra of about thirty-four performers. With the backing of Grove and the directors of the Crystal Palace he gradually expanded the band into a full orchestra, for which a new concert room was added to the Crystal Palace. Together, Grove and Manns made the Crystal Palace concerts the principal source of classical music at popular prices. The concert season ran from October to April , with concerts given on Saturday afternoons from 1855 to 1901.
Within months of his appointment, Manns gave the first London performance of Schumann's Symphony No 4 in D minor
Symphony No. 4 (Schumann)
The Symphony No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 120, composed by Robert Schumann, was completed in 1841 . Schumann heavily revised the symphony in 1851, and it was this version that reached publication....
and the British premiere of Schubert's Great C Major Symphony
Symphony No. 9 (Schubert)
The Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, known as the Great , is the final symphony completed by Franz Schubert. Nicknamed The Great C major originally to distinguish it from his Symphony No...
. His concerts featured the music of more than 300 composers. There were more Austro-German composers (104) than those of any other nationality, but British composers (82) came a strong second. Manns was the first conductor to introduce Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
to the English public, when he conducted the young Sullivan's Tempest
The Tempest (Sullivan)
The Tempest incidental music, Op. 1, is a set of movements for Shakespeare's play composed by Arthur Sullivan in 1861 and expanded in 1862. This was Sullivan's first major piece of composition, and its success quickly brought him to the attention of the musical establishment in...
music in April 1862. Manns later introduced early works by Charles Villiers Stanford
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer who was particularly notable for his choral music. He was professor at the Royal College of Music and University of Cambridge.- Life :...
, Hubert Parry
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...
, Hamish MacCunn
Hamish MacCunn
thumb|right|Portrait of MacCunn, 1889, by [[John Pettie]]Hamish MacCunn , Scottish romantic composer, was born in Greenock, the son of a shipowner, and was educated at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.MacCunn's first success...
, Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
and Edward German
Edward German
Sir Edward German was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of English comic opera.As a youth, German played the violin and led the town orchestra, also...
. Thirty years after Manns introduced the Tempest music, Sullivan wrote to him, "How much do I not owe to you, my dear old friend, for the helping hand you gave me to mount the first step on the ladder! I shall always think of you with gratitude and affection." Among contemporary continental composers, Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
(in 1863), Raff
Joachim Raff
Joseph Joachim Raff was a German-Swiss composer, teacher and pianist.-Biography:Raff was born in Lachen in Switzerland. His father, a teacher, had fled there from Württemberg in 1810 to escape forced recruitment into the military of that southwestern German state that had to fight for Napoleon in...
(in 1870), and Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
(in 1879) also first became known in England through Manns's Crystal Palace concerts.
Other conductorships
Manns retained the position of director of music until his retirement in 1901, undertaking few outside engagements. At the Crystal Palace he also conducted the triennial HandelGeorge Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
Festivals, from 1883. He took on the 1883 festival at a few hours' notice, when the established conductor, Sir Michael Costa
Michael Costa (conductor)
Sir Michael Andrew Angus Costa was an Italian-born conductor and composer who achieved success in England.-Biography:He was born in Naples as Michaele Andrea Agniello Costa, to a family, according to some, of Sephardic stock...
was unwell. He was at first regarded as less successful as a choral conductor than in the orchestral repertory; his beat was eccentric and puzzling to the uninitiated. He was, nevertheless, invited to conduct all the subsequent festivals up to and including 1900. He directed the orchestral concerts of the Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
Choral Union for thirteen seasons in succession. He conducted the promenade concerts at Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
in 1859, and was conductor of the festivals of Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
in 1896 and 1899, and Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
in 1896.
After 1890 the Crystal Palace concerts declined in importance. Orchestral music could be heard elsewhere in London, and the old popularity of the palace had died out. Manns conducted till the season of 1900–01, concluding on 24 April. The Musical Times
The Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
estimated that he had conducted 12,000 orchestral concerts during his 42 years at the Crystal Palace.
Personal life
Manns was married three times: his first wife died in 1850 or 1851; his second, Sarah Ann née Williams, with whom he had a daughter, died in 1893; his third wife, (Katharine Emily) Wilhelmina née Thellusson (b. 1865/6), whom he married on 7 January 1897, survived him.Manns became a naturalised British citizen in May 1894. He was knighted
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in 1903 and died in Norwood
Norwood
- Australia :* Norwood Secondary College, Secondary School in Ringwood, Victoria.* Norwood, South Australia, suburb of Adelaide**Electoral district of Norwood, a state electoral district in South Australia...
, London, just short of his 82nd birthday. He was buried at West Norwood Cemetery
West Norwood Cemetery
West Norwood Cemetery is a cemetery in West Norwood in London, England. It was also known as the South Metropolitan Cemetery.One of the first private landscaped cemeteries in London, it is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries of London, and is a site of major historical, architectural and...
.