Marie Novello
Encyclopedia
Marie Novello was a Welsh pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

. She was one of Theodor Leschetizky's last students and performed in public from childhood. Her early death from throat cancer cut short a promising career just as she began to record for one of the major English labels, having already amassed a considerable discography for one of its second-rank competitors.

Life

Marie Novello was born Marie Williams, in 1884 in Maesteg
Maesteg
Maesteg is a town and community in Bridgend County Borough, Wales. Maesteg lies at the northernmost end of the Llynfi Valley, close to the border with Neath Port Talbot. In 2001, Maesteg had a population of 17,859, but it is now at an estimate of 20,000....

, Glamorgan
Glamorgan
Glamorgan or Glamorganshire is one of the thirteen historic counties and a former administrative county of Wales. It was originally an early medieval kingdom of varying boundaries known as Glywysing until taken over by the Normans as a lordship. Glamorgan is latterly represented by the three...

, the daughter of one William Thomas Williams and Anne Bedlington Kirkhouse . She owed her name to adoption by her piano teacher, Clara Novello Davies
Clara Novello Davies
Clara Novello Davies was a well-known Welsh singer, teacher and conductor.Clara Novello Davies was born in Cardiff to Jacob, a miner, and Margaret Davies and named after Clara Novello, a famous soprano . Her father, leader of the church choir, taught her to play the harmonium...

, mother of Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...

 and also a celebrated singing teacher. Following studies with her mother, Marie was among the last students of Theodor Leschetizky. He denied her first request to study with him in 1912, as she spoke only English; she responded by learning German, whereupon he relented.

Novello's professional career began early. As a child, Novello won the principal piano prize at the Welsh National Eisteddfod, and she shared piano playing honors with Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

 at the September 1907 Cardiff Triennial Music Festival. In 1908, she toured the English provinces with a company assembled by Percy Harrison, a promoter who regularly organized such groups; among her compatriots were John McCormack, fresh from his first season at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

 and participating in a Harrison tour for the first time, and Emma Albani
Emma Albani
Dame Emma Albani DBE was a leading soprano of the 19th century and early 20th century, and the first Canadian singer to become an international star. Her repertoire focused on the operas of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and Wagner...

. Around the same time, a 10-year-old Novello performed at Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

, then known as Bechstein Hall.

A year later, in 1909, she made the first of her seven appearances at the Promenade Concerts
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...

, when on 22 September she played the Piano Concerto no. 1 in E-Flat
Piano Concerto No. 1 (Liszt)
Franz Liszt composed his Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, S.124 over a 26-year period; the main themes date from 1830, while the final version dates 1849. The concerto consists of four movements, which are performed without breaks in between, and lasts approximately 20 minutes...

 by Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

 accompanied by the Queen's Hall Orchestra led by Sir Henry Wood
Henry Wood
Henry Wood was a British conductor.Henry Wood may also refer to:* Henry C. Wood , American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient* Henry Wood , English cricketer...

. She would repeat that appearance every year until 1914, with two appearances in 1912, always in concerted works accompanied by the same forces. Besides the Liszt concerto, which she reprised in 1910, she performed the same composer's Hungarian Fantasia
Hungarian Fantasy (Liszt)
The Hungarian Fantasy for piano and orchestra is an arrangement of the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 14 written by Franz Liszt in 1852...

 (1911 and 1912); Mendelssohn's
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

 Piano Concerto no. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
Piano Concerto No. 1 (Mendelssohn)
Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor was written in 1830–1, around the same time as his fourth symphony , and premiered in Munich in October 1831. He had already written a piano concerto in A minor with string accompaniment and two concertos with two pianos...

 (1912); and the Africa Fantasy, Op. 89, of Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

 (1913 and 1914). Aside from these festival performances, Novello performed regularly in London during her teen years, often as one of multiple soloists sharing a recital. In her early twenties, she began appearing at Ballad Concerts and Sunday League Concerts and in music festivals at Brighton and Cardiff.

Novello traveled to the United States in late 1921, arriving on 28 December aboard the White Star Line
White Star Line
The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company or White Star Line of Boston Packets, more commonly known as the White Star Line, was a prominent British shipping company, today most famous for its ill-fated vessel, the RMS Titanic, and the World War I loss of Titanics sister ship Britannic...

 liner RMS Olympic
RMS Olympic
RMS Olympic was the lead ship of the Olympic-class ocean liners built for the White Star Line, which also included Titanic and Britannic...

. On 21 January 1922 she made her debut in Chicago. A month later, on 23 February 1922, she made her New York debut at The Town Hall
The Town Hall
The Town Hall is a performance space, located at 123 West 43rd Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, in New York City. It seats approximately 1,500 people.-History:...

, where she played a program including works of Chopin, Domenico Scarlatti
Domenico Scarlatti
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...

, Debussy, Selim Palmgren
Selim Palmgren
Selim Gustaf Adolf Palmgren , dubbed "The Finnish Chopin", was a Finnish composer, pianist, and conductor. Palmgren was born in Pori, Finland, February 16, 1878. He studied at the Conservatory in Helsinki from 1895 to 1899, then continued his piano studies in Berlin with Ansorge, Berger and Busoni...

, and Poldini
Ede Poldini
Ede Poldini was a Hungarian composer of the late romantic / early contemporary period. Famous in Hungary for writing many operas, he became internationally famous when Fritz Kreisler transcribed his 'La poupée valsante' for violin.Poldini studied with Tomka in Budapest and with Eusebius...

.

During this period, she made numerous recordings for the English Edison Bell
Edison Records
Edison Records was one of the earliest record labels which pioneered recorded sound and was an important player in the early recording industry.- Early phonographs before commercial mass produced records :...

. Novello also recorded reproducing piano rolls for the Aeolian Company's
Aeolian Company
The Æolian Company was a manufacturer of player organs and pianos.- History :It was founded by New York City piano maker William B. Tremaine as the Æolian Organ & Music Co. to make automatic organs, and, after 1895, as the Æolian Co. automatic pianos as well. The Æolian Company was a...

 Duo-Art
Duo-Art
Duo-Art was one of the leading reproducing piano technologies of the early 20th century, the others being American Piano Company , introduced in 1913 too, and Welte-Mignon in 1905. These technologies flourished at that time because of the poor quality of the early Phonograph...

 system; doubtless as a fruit of this connection, she once partnered with a reproducing piano in a public performance of the Variations on a Theme of Beethoven for two pianos, four hands by Saint-Saëns. A few years later, at the dawn of electrical recording, she formed an association with HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...

, but throat cancer claimed her life when she had recorded only a few sides. Novello died on 21 June 1928 in London.

Repertory and Style

In her choice of repertory, Novello showed preference for music of the romantic era and particular affinity for virtuoso works such as Liszt
Liszt
Liszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz Liszt...

's Piano Sonata in B minor
Piano Sonata (Liszt)
The Piano Sonata in B minor , S.178, is a musical composition for solo piano by Franz Liszt, published in 1854 with a dedication to Robert Schumann. It is often considered Liszt's greatest composition for solo piano. The piece has been often analyzed, particularly regarding issues of form.-...

. She did not entirely neglect contemporary works, however; she achieved notice for performing the premiere of the Rhapsody on Tipperary for piano and orchestra by Frank Tapp, a composer well represented in English concert halls at the time but now forgotten. She then took the work on tour throughout the United Kingdom.

Critical reception to her work appears to have been mixed, with more than one suggestion that she tended toward impulsiveness and a lack of firm control. Her tone also sometimes drew critical disparagement. Nonetheless, critics praised her technical facility and capacity to communicate.

Recordings

Novello evidently had some interest in the mechanical reproduction of sound, as, on June 14, 1924, she participated as a judge in a public competition between gramophones
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...

 sponsored by The Gramophone magazine. Her fellow judges included Alfred Kalisch, Percy Scholes
Percy Scholes
Percy Alfred Scholes was an English musician, journalist and prolific writer, whose best-known achievement was his compilation of the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Music...

, Peter Latham, Alec Robertson, and Francis Brett Young
Francis Brett Young
Francis Brett Young was an English novelist, poet, playwright, and composer.-Life:Brett Young was born in Halesowen, Worcestershire. He schooled first at a private school in Sutton Coldfield...

. Over the course of the evening, the judges and the audience of 400 marked ballots comparing the performance of some 15 different machines divided into two price classes, nearly all bearing names now long forgotten. She joined her compatriots in unanimous preference for a machine called The Three Muses reproducing the Adagio from Beethoven's Spring Sonata
Violin Sonata No. 5 (Beethoven)
The Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, Opus 24, is a violin sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is often known as the "Spring" sonata , and was published in 1801...

 performed by Albert Sammons
Albert Sammons
Albert Edward Sammons CBE was an English violinist, composer and later violin teacher. Almost self-taught on the violin, he had a wide repertoire as both chamber musician and soloist, although his reputation rests mainly on his association with British composers, especially Elgar...

 and William Murdoch; that vote was the sole instance of a unanimous panel, and her other opinions are not recorded. During the interval, the audience was treated to a demonstration of a reproducing piano
Player piano
A player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music perforated paper, or in rare instances, metallic rolls. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in...

, but on the Welte-Mignon
Welte-Mignon
M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte in 1832.-Overview:...

 system, not the Duo Art for which Novello cut a few rolls.

Making her own records almost entirely for Edison Bell, Novello accumulated an extensive discography of acoustic recordings, albeit, as was typical of the time, one weighted heavily to the sort of short works that could fit on one or at most two sides of a 78 RPM record. Her sole multi-disc set was a recording spreading over five sides of Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

's Op. 25 piano concerto. One source suggests that Novello was the first musician to record J.S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (Tausig
Carl Tausig
Carl Tausig was a Polish virtuoso pianist, arranger and composer.-Life:Tausig was born in Warsaw to Jewish parents and received his first piano lessons from his father, pianist and composer Aloys Tausig, a student of Sigismond Thalberg. His father introduced him to Franz Liszt in Weimar at the...

 arrangement), although the associated claim of extreme rarity for the record may be open to question.

Her association with HMV yielded but two issued sides, her sole electrical recordings: a gavotte by Rameau and an Étude de Concert by Arensky.

Acoustic 78 RPM

A partial list of Novello's acoustic records would include the following. All were issued by Edison Bell. "V" denotes Edison Bell's "Velvet Face" label and "W" its "The Winner
The Winner Records
The Winner Records was a United Kingdom based record label from 1912 onwards. Its records were manufactured by the Edison Bell Record Works, London. This company, founded by James Hough, had originated in the early 1890s as an importer of Edison and Columbia cylinder phonographs; from 1898 Hough...

" label.
  • J. S. Bach
    Johann Sebastian Bach
    Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

    : Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (arr. Tausig) (V 676)
  • Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

    : Incidental Music to The Ruins of Athens
    The Ruins of Athens
    The Ruins of Athens , Opus 113, is a set of incidental music written in 1811 by Ludwig van Beethoven. The music was written to accompany the play of the same name by August von Kotzebue, for the dedication of a new theatre at Pest....

    , Op. 113 – Turkish March
    Turkish March (Beethoven)
    The Turkish March is a well-known classical march theme by Ludwig van Beethoven. It was written in the Turkish style popular in music of the time....

     (W 3609)
  • Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 (Moonlight)
    Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven)
    The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor "Quasi una fantasia", Op. 27, No. 2, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Moonlight Sonata , was completed in 1801...

     – 1st, third movement only (V 529)
  • Chaminade
    Cécile Chaminade
    Cécile Louise Stéphanie Chaminade was a French composer and pianist.-Biography:Born in Paris, she studied at first with her mother, then with Félix Le Couppey, Marie Gabriel Augustin Savard, Martin Pierre Marsick and Benjamin Godard, but not officially, since her father disapproved of her musical...

    : 4eme Valse (W 3768)
  • Chaminade: Air de Ballet (W 2340)
  • Chaminade: Pas des Amphores (W 3768)
  • Chopin
    Frédéric Chopin
    Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

    : Etudes, Op. 10, No. 5, in G-flat major (Black Key) (W 3479)
  • Chopin: Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2 (W 3479)
  • Godard
    Benjamin Godard
    Benjamin Louis Paul Godard was a French violinist and Romantic composer.-Biography:Born in Paris, Godard was a student of Henri Vieuxtemps. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1863 where he studied under Vieuxtemps and Napoléon Henri Reber and accompanied Vieuxtemps twice to Germany...

    : Mazurka (W 2340)
  • Grieg
    Edvard Grieg
    Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...

    : Lyric Pieces
    Lyric Pieces
    Lyric Pieces is a collection of 66 short pieces for solo piano written by Edvard Grieg. They were published in 10 volumes, from 1867 to 1901...

     Book VIII, Op. 65, No. 6, Wedding Day at Troldhaugen (W 3424)
  • Leschetizky: Toccata (W 3813)
  • Liszt
    Franz Liszt
    Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

    : Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2
    Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
    Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, S.244/2, is the second in a set of 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies by composer Franz Liszt, and is by far the most famous of the set. Few other piano solos have achieved such widespread popularity, offering the pianist the opportunity to reveal exceptional skill as a virtuoso,...

     (abridged) (W 3599)
  • Liszt: Liebestraum no. 3
    Liebesträume
    Liebesträume , is a set of three solo piano works by Franz Liszt, published in 1850. Liszt called each of the three pieces Liebesträume, but often they are referred to incorrectly in the singular as Liebestraum...

     (W 3443)
  • Mendelssohn
    Felix Mendelssohn
    Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

    : Concerto no. 1 in G minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op 25
    Piano Concerto No. 1 (Mendelssohn)
    Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor was written in 1830–1, around the same time as his fourth symphony , and premiered in Munich in October 1831. He had already written a piano concerto in A minor with string accompaniment and two concertos with two pianos...

     (with Royal Symphony Orchestra under Joseph Batten) (V 640-642)
  • Mendelssohn: Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 14 (V 642)
  • Ede Poldini
    Ede Poldini
    Ede Poldini was a Hungarian composer of the late romantic / early contemporary period. Famous in Hungary for writing many operas, he became internationally famous when Fritz Kreisler transcribed his 'La poupée valsante' for violin.Poldini studied with Tomka in Budapest and with Eusebius...

    : Poupee Valsante (W 3609)
  • Rachmaninoff
    Sergei Rachmaninoff
    Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...

    : Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 3, No. 2
    Prelude in C-sharp minor (Rachmaninoff)
    Prelude in C-sharp minor , Op. 3, No. 2, is one of Sergei Rachmaninoff's most famous compositions. It is a ternary prelude in C-sharp minor, 62 measures long, and part of a set of five pieces entitled Morceaux de Fantaisie....

     (W 3443)
  • Schubert
    Franz Schubert
    Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

    : Marche Militaire
    Three Marches militaires (Schubert)
    The Three Marches Militaires, Op. 51, D. 733, are pieces in march form written for piano 4-hands by Franz Schubert.The first of the three is far more famous than the others...

     (W 3813)
  • Scott
    Cyril Scott
    Cyril Meir Scott was an English composer, writer, and poet.-Biography:Scott was born in Oxton, England to a shipper and scholar of Greek and Hebrew, and Mary Scott , an amateur pianist. He showed a talent for music from an early age and was sent to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany to...

    : Danse Negre, Op. 58, No. 3 (W 3609)
  • Sinding
    Christian Sinding
    Christian August Sinding was a Norwegian composer.-Personal life:He was born in Kongsberg as a son of mine superindendent Matthias Wilhelm Sinding and Cecilie Marie Mejdell . He was a brother of the painter Otto Sinding and the sculptor Stephan Sinding...

    : Frühlingsrauschen
    Frühlingsrauschen
    Frühlingsrauschen, Op. 32, No. 3 is a solo piano piece written by the Norwegian composer Christian Sinding in 1896...

    , Op. 32, No. 3 (W 3424)

Electrical 78 RPM

Both of the following sides were recorded on March 1, 1927; they appeared coupled as two sides of a single HMV 10" record, no. B 2592.
  • Arensky: 24 Characteristic Pieces, Op. 36, No. 13, Étude de Concert in F-sharp major
  • Rameau: Les Boréades
    Les Boréades
    Les Boréades or Abaris is an opera in five acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau. It was the last of Rameau's five tragédies en musique...

    , Act IV – Gavottes pour les Heures

Reproducing piano rolls

  • Duo Art issued two reproducing rolls cut by Marie Novello:
  • 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...

    : Humoresque in G-flat major, Op. 101, No. 7
  • Ivor Novello: Gamin

Reissues

Very few of Novello's recordings, acoustic or electrical, have achieved reissue since the end of the 78 RPM era.
  • The Ivor Novello Duo-Art roll is presently available as a reproduction.
  • The HMV Arensky Etude de Concert appears on Naxos 8.111120, Women at the Piano: An Anthology of Historic Peroformances, Volume 1 (1926–1952).
  • The HMV Rameau Gavotte and the Edison Bell Leschetitzky Toccata appear on Pearl Opal 9839, Pupils of Leschetitzky.
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