Millicent Silver
Encyclopedia
Millicent Irene Silver was an English harpsichordist
, who began her career as a pianist
and violin
ist.
, her father, James Brand Silver, was a violin
ist and oboist
, and had been a boy chorister at St. George's Chapel, Windsor where his singing attracted the attention of Queen Victoria. Her mother Amelia Argyle Silver was a piano teacher. Millicent was the second of four children. Her musical talent was discovered at the age of three, when she imitated her elder brother's practising.
She won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music
where she studied piano and violin equally. She was awarded the Chappell Silver Medal for piano playing and, in 1928, the college's Tagore Gold Medal for the best student of her year. As a violinist she was guided by W. H. "Billy" Reed
, leader of the London Symphony Orchestra
and friend of Edward Elgar
. She earned her first professional fees playing as a violinist in the Hallé Orchestra
. As a pianist she played concertos by Liszt
, Brahms
's D minor concerto
and notably, Beethoven
's "Emperor" concerto
, which she performed in the first half of a concert conducted by Adrian Boult
, and for the second half led the orchestra from the principal violin desk. After graduating, she studied with Tobias Matthay
.
She married flautist
John Francis in 1932. She taught piano in a girls' school, while her husband got orchestral work in London, and began an early collaboration with Benjamin Britten
. His interest in chamber music
led him into an exploration of baroque music
; he and Millicent became regular broadcasters on BBC radio
, together and in larger ensembles. World War II disrupted her career; she returned to teaching and toured widely, playing for the troops.
she was persuaded by the conductor Hans Oppenheim to play the continuo
in a performance of Purcell
's Dido and Aeneas
on a harpsichord
. Soon after this her future as a harpsichordist was determined, and the London Harpsichord Ensemble, which she formed with her husband and others, gave its first performance in 1945 at one of Dame Myra Hess
's lunch-hour concerts at the National Gallery. She acquired a Kirckman harpsichord, which had been rebuilt by the instrument maker Henry Tull, and, with the group, toured widely and became a prolific broadcaster for the BBC. They gave a programme of ten concerts given at the 1950 Edinburgh Festival
to mark the bicentenary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach
. With the ensemble, she played a regular series concerts at the Royal Festival Hall
, during which she always performed a substantial solo item.
There had been a few harpsichord players in Britain before the war, such as Violet Gordon-Woodhouse
and members of the Dolmetsch
family, but the instrument was established in Britain in the two decades following 1945 by three main players: George Malcolm
, Thurston Dart
and Millicent herself. She had a 35-year career on the harpsichord during which she played a very wide solo repertory, though never abandoning the revival-type instruments with pedals, 16' stops and piano-type construction popular in the 50s and 60s, though later supplanted by the authentic performance movement.
She played most of the keyboard works of Bach, including his concertos, Partitas and English Suites; the Goldberg Variations
featured repeatedly in her recital programmes. She also played the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
and Johann Christian Bach
, many of Domenico Scarlatti
's and Antonio Soler
's sonatas, many of the works of François Couperin
and Jean-Philippe Rameau
, the music of the English virginalist
s (William Byrd
, Orlando Gibbons
, John Bull
and others), and much 20th century harpsichord music by composers such as Manuel de Falla
, Hans Werner Henze
and György Ligeti
. She gave the first broadcast of Benjamin Britten
's Holiday Diary, and Paul Hindemith
's Flute Sonata, with John Francis. Walter Leigh
, Gordon Jacob
and Herbert Howells
wrote pieces for her. Henze said that she played the harpsichord part in his Apollo et Hyazinthus better than anyone else.
Her recordings include Scarlatti sonatas; some Baroque chamber music with the London Harpsichord Ensemble; oboe sonatas with her daughter Sarah Francis and the cellist Bernard Richards; and her own arrangement for seven instruments of Bach's The Musical Offering
, which was used by the Argentine novelist Julio Cortázar
as the framework for his short story Clon. She recorded the Goldberg Variations
in the 1950s. That she made few recordings reflects the era in which she lived as well as her dislike of the process itself. She and John Francis made their last appearance together in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.5 in January 1981. She played in public for the last time in 1982, when she accompanied her daughter, soprano Hannah Francis, on the piano in a recital of Russian songs.
For over 20 years she was a professor of both piano and harpsichord at the Royal College of Music
, where she taught harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock
(who said of her, "She could make the harpsichord sing, and there's not many can do that [...] Millicent Silver didn't always agree with what I did, but she made sure that I did it well."), organist Christopher Herrick
("[Millicent Silver was] a total Landowska
devotee if ever there was one [...] she was such a fine, instinctive musician"), fortepianist Melvyn Tan
and Christopher Kite, amongst many others.
Harpsichordist
A harpsichordist is a person who plays the harpsichord.Many baroque composers played the harpsichord, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau...
, who began her career as a 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:...
and violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist.
Early life
Born in South LondonSouth London
South London is the southern part of London, England, United Kingdom.According to the 2011 official Boundary Commission for England definition, South London includes the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Greenwich, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Southwark, Sutton and...
, her father, James Brand Silver, was a violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist and oboist
Oboist
An oboist is a musician who plays the oboe or any oboe family instrument, including the cor anglais, oboe d'amore, shawm and oboe musette....
, and had been a boy chorister at St. George's Chapel, Windsor where his singing attracted the attention of Queen Victoria. Her mother Amelia Argyle Silver was a piano teacher. Millicent was the second of four children. Her musical talent was discovered at the age of three, when she imitated her elder brother's practising.
She won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
where she studied piano and violin equally. She was awarded the Chappell Silver Medal for piano playing and, in 1928, the college's Tagore Gold Medal for the best student of her year. As a violinist she was guided by W. H. "Billy" Reed
William Henry Reed
William Henry "Billy" Reed was an English violinist, teacher, minor composer, conductor and biographer of Sir Edward Elgar...
, leader of the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
and friend of 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...
. She earned her first professional fees playing as a violinist in the Hallé Orchestra
The Hallé
The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra , supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released recordings on Angel Records and EMI...
. As a pianist she played concertos by 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...
, 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...
's D minor concerto
Piano Concerto No. 1 (Brahms)
The Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, is a work for piano and orchestra composed by Johannes Brahms in 1858. The composer gave the work's public debut in Hanover, Germany, the following year.-Form:...
and notably, 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...
's "Emperor" concerto
Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven)
The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, was his last piano concerto. It was written between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven's patron and pupil...
, which she performed in the first half of a concert conducted by Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...
, and for the second half led the orchestra from the principal violin desk. After graduating, she studied with Tobias Matthay
Tobias Matthay
Tobias Augustus Matthay was an English pianist, teacher, and composer.-Biography:Matthaw as born in London in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and were naturalised British subjects...
.
She married flautist
Flautist
A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...
John Francis in 1932. She taught piano in a girls' school, while her husband got orchestral work in London, and began an early collaboration with Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
. His interest in chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
led him into an exploration of baroque music
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
; he and Millicent became regular broadcasters on BBC radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
, together and in larger ensembles. World War II disrupted her career; she returned to teaching and toured widely, playing for the troops.
Career as a harpsichordist
An important point in Millicent Silver's career came at the end of the war, when at Dartington HallDartington Hall
The Dartington Hall Trust, near Totnes, Devon, United Kingdom is a charity specialising in the arts, social justice and sustainability.The Trust currently runs 16 charitable programmes, including The Dartington International Summer School and Schumacher Environmental College...
she was persuaded by the conductor Hans Oppenheim to play the continuo
Figured bass
Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...
in a performance of Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
's Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...
on a harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
. Soon after this her future as a harpsichordist was determined, and the London Harpsichord Ensemble, which she formed with her husband and others, gave its first performance in 1945 at one of Dame Myra Hess
Myra Hess
Dame Myra Hess DBE was a British pianist.She was born in London as Julia Myra Hess, but was best known by her middle name. At the age of five she began to study the piano and two years later entered the Guildhall School of Music, where she graduated as winner of the Gold Medal...
's lunch-hour concerts at the National Gallery. She acquired a Kirckman harpsichord, which had been rebuilt by the instrument maker Henry Tull, and, with the group, toured widely and became a prolific broadcaster for the BBC. They gave a programme of ten concerts given at the 1950 Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
to mark the bicentenary of the death of Johann Sebastian 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...
. With the ensemble, she played a regular series concerts at the Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
, during which she always performed a substantial solo item.
There had been a few harpsichord players in Britain before the war, such as Violet Gordon-Woodhouse
Violet Gordon-Woodhouse
Violet Gordon-Woodhouse was an acclaimed British harpsichordist and clavichordist, highly influential in bringing both instruments back into fashion.-Family:...
and members of the Dolmetsch
Arnold Dolmetsch
Arnold Dolmetsch , was a French-born musician and instrument maker who spent much of his working life in England and established an instrument-making workshop in Haslemere, Surrey...
family, but the instrument was established in Britain in the two decades following 1945 by three main players: George Malcolm
George Malcolm
George John Huntley Malcolm was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as a Liberal from 1909 to 1922, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Tobias C. Norris....
, Thurston Dart
Thurston Dart
Robert Thurston Dart , was a British musicologist, conductor and keyboard player. From 1964 he was Professor of Music at King's College London....
and Millicent herself. She had a 35-year career on the harpsichord during which she played a very wide solo repertory, though never abandoning the revival-type instruments with pedals, 16' stops and piano-type construction popular in the 50s and 60s, though later supplanted by the authentic performance movement.
She played most of the keyboard works of Bach, including his concertos, Partitas and English Suites; the Goldberg Variations
Goldberg Variations
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...
featured repeatedly in her recital programmes. She also played the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
right|250pxCarl Philipp Emanuel Bach was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach...
and Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...
, many of 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...
's and Antonio Soler
Antonio Soler
Antonio Francisco Javier José Soler Ramos, usually known as Padre Antonio Soler, known in Catalan as Antoni Soler i Ramos was a Spanish Catalan composer whose works span the late Baroque and early Classical music eras...
's sonatas, many of the works of François Couperin
François Couperin
François Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...
and Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
, the music of the English virginalist
Virginalist
Virginalist denotes a composer of the so-called virginalist school, and usually refers to the English keyboard composers of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods. The term does not appear to have been applied earlier than the 19th century...
s (William Byrd
William Byrd
William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard and consort music.-Provenance:Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely...
, Orlando Gibbons
Orlando Gibbons
Orlando Gibbons was an English composer, virginalist and organist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods...
, John Bull
John Bull (composer)
John Bull was an English composer, musician, and organ builder. He was a renowned keyboard performer of the virginalist school and most of his compositions were written for this medium.-Life:...
and others), and much 20th century harpsichord music by composers such as Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
, Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
and György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
. She gave the first broadcast of Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's Holiday Diary, and Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
's Flute Sonata, with John Francis. Walter Leigh
Walter Leigh
Walter Leigh was an English composer. Leigh is most famous for his Concertino for harpsichord and string orchestra, written in 1934. Other famous works include the overture Agincourt and The Frogs of Aristophanes for chorus and orchestra...
, Gordon Jacob
Gordon Jacob
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob was an English composer. He is known for his wind instrument composition and his instructional writings.-Life:...
and Herbert Howells
Herbert Howells
Herbert Norman Howells CH was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.-Life:...
wrote pieces for her. Henze said that she played the harpsichord part in his Apollo et Hyazinthus better than anyone else.
Her recordings include Scarlatti sonatas; some Baroque chamber music with the London Harpsichord Ensemble; oboe sonatas with her daughter Sarah Francis and the cellist Bernard Richards; and her own arrangement for seven instruments of Bach's The Musical Offering
The Musical Offering
The Musical Offering , BWV 1079, is a collection of canons and fugues and other pieces of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, all based on a single musical theme given to him by Frederick II of Prussia , to whom they are dedicated...
, which was used by the Argentine novelist Julio Cortázar
Julio Cortázar
Julio Cortázar, born Jules Florencio Cortázar, was an Argentine writer. Cortázar, known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, influenced an entire generation of Spanish speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe.-Early life:Cortázar's parents, Julio José Cortázar and...
as the framework for his short story Clon. She recorded the Goldberg Variations
Goldberg Variations
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...
in the 1950s. That she made few recordings reflects the era in which she lived as well as her dislike of the process itself. She and John Francis made their last appearance together in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.5 in January 1981. She played in public for the last time in 1982, when she accompanied her daughter, soprano Hannah Francis, on the piano in a recital of Russian songs.
For over 20 years she was a professor of both piano and harpsichord at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
, where she taught harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock
Trevor Pinnock
Trevor David Pinnock CBE is an English conductor, harpsichordist, and occasional organist and pianist.He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert which he helped found and directed from the keyboard for over 30 years in baroque and early classical...
(who said of her, "She could make the harpsichord sing, and there's not many can do that [...] Millicent Silver didn't always agree with what I did, but she made sure that I did it well."), organist Christopher Herrick
Christopher Herrick
-Early life:Born in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, Christopher Herrick was a boy chorister at St Paul's Cathedral and attended its choir school; he sang at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and later that year went with the choir on a three-month tour of America which included a private...
("[Millicent Silver was] a total Landowska
Wanda Landowska
Wanda Landowska was a Polish harpsichordist whose performances, teaching, recordings and writings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 20th century...
devotee if ever there was one [...] she was such a fine, instinctive musician"), fortepianist Melvyn Tan
Melvyn Tan
Melvyn Tan is a Singapore-born British classical pianist, noted for his study of historical performance practice....
and Christopher Kite, amongst many others.
External links
- Biography on Baroque Music Club
- The London Harpsichord Ensemble — Her daughter Sarah Francis plays oboe.