Musical Portraits in Bohemian London

Members of this illustrious social set often worked together in surprising ways. Artists like Edward Burne-Jones and John Singer Sargent painted portraits of famous musicians and designed posters for their concerts. Some artists even composed music in an attempt to bring their paintings to life.

Composers, meanwhile, found inspiration in Pre-Raphaelite poetry, and musicians like singer George Henschel performed at concerts given in artists’ studios. Others, like pianist Jan Paderewski, used portraits by leading artists to market themselves as romantic and stylish figures.

Hubert Parry, composer and Director of the Royal College of Music, moved in both musical and artistic spheres. Parry inherited an interest in art from his father, Thomas Gambier Parry, who was a noted artist and collector of early Italian paintings. Parry’s diaries reveal a social circle that included artists like William Morris and George Frederic Watts. They record visits to art exhibitions and concerts performed at Lord Leighton’s famous studio in Holland Park.

The artist Hubert von Herkomer became fascinated with the idea that music could enhance the experience of looking at a picture. This led to his production of ‘pictoral music plays’. One of these, entitled An Idyll, was performed at Herkomer’s studio in Hertfordshire in 1889. The artist wrote the music, painted elaborate sets and even sang in the production. Herkomer’s friend, the eminent conductor Hans Richter, led the orchestra.

Artists were sometimes inspired by live musical performance. Henry Holiday, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, was an avid concert-goer. He was particularly devoted to the music of Richard Wagner, which he said made a ‘deep impression’ on him. Holiday managed to gain access to rehearsals for the Wagner Festival at the Royal Albert Hall in 1877. There he sketched the composer from life as he prepared for the evening’s performances.

The Society had many important connections with the Royal College of Music. Professors including Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford wrote new music for its members to perform, as did students such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. Indeed, some of these composers’ best-known part-songs were written for the Magpie Madrigal Society.

A distinguished amateur musician, Lionel Benson counted many artists amongst his friends. He was especially close to Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais who occasionally asked him to pose as a model. The artists Hubert and Herman Herkomer were cousins. They sometimes attended social events with ‘the Magpies’, like the lively dinner captured in this sketch. Attendees have signed the drawing, which also records the evening’s extensive menu!

Every year the Magpie Madrigal Society commissioned a different artist to design invitations and posters for their annual concert. Lionel Benson used his social connections in the art world to enlist some of the leading artists of the period. Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones, cartoonist and novelist George du Maurier and landscape artist Alfred Parsons are just a few of the major talents who lent their services to the Society.

The Society sometimes awarded RCM students a prize for original compositions, performing winning pieces at their annual concert. In 1908 this honour was received by Harold Darke for his setting of ‘To Blossoms’ by seventeenth-century poet Robert Herrick. Darke is best remembered for his setting of ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ by Christina Rossetti – the sister of Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Henschel, who was also a Professor at the RCM, sat for many leading artists over the course of his career. These included his good friends Lawrence Alma-Tadema and John Singer Sargent. In return, Henschel often performed for his artistic friends. He appeared at the famous concerts organised by Lord Leighton at his Kensington studio and sometimes serenaded his neighbour Edward Burne-Jones as he worked – ‘good for the emotions, but bad for the drawing’, said the artist.

John Singer Sargent enthusiastically attended concerts given by Henschel in London, and in return found many wealthy sitters within the singer’s social circle. Henschel said that Sargent ‘was exceedingly fond of music’ and discussed it with the ‘understanding of one who had made it a serious study’. Sargent painted Henschel’s portrait in 1889, and later gifted the singer these touching drawings of his wife – singer Amy Henschel – and their daughter Georgie.    

Helen Henschel enrolled at the RCM in 1900. She studied violin here for a year, later describing this as ‘the happiest year of my musical studies’. She later sang professionally. In her lively biography of her father, singer George Henschel, she describes her idyllic childhood in Kensington. She recalls playing games in the garden with Jan Paderewski and visiting Edward Burne-Jones at his studio    

A gifted musician, Winifred Holiday was awarded a violin scholarship at the RCM.  She often performed at concerts given by her father, the artist Henry Holiday, at his studio in Hampstead. Later, she formed her own professional ensemble.   The Holiday family were ardent supporters of women’s suffrage and counted Emmeline Pankhurst amongst their friends. In 1914 Winifred Holiday published this pamphlet for the New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage.

Rosamund Brunel Gotch was a talented designer and illustrator. She became Head of the Costume Department at the Royal College of Music, designing clothes for operas performed here between the wars. Gotch’s father was the artist John Calcott Horsley and her Grandfather was musician William Horsley – a close friend of Felix Mendelssohn. In 1944 Gotch published a collection of her aunts’ letters which describe the flirtatious composer’s visits to their family home in the 1830s.

Jan Paderewski was an internationally celebrated pianist who later became Prime Minister of Poland. Such was the scale of his fame that the press referred to ‘Paderewski mania’. A portrait of the pianist by Edward Burne-Jones, very similar to the painting on display here, became an especially popular print. Paderewski kept a supply of these, often autographing them for fans. A bust by sculptor George Edward Wade also proved a success – 500 copies were sent to America alone!

An avid concert-goer and talented pianist, John Singer Sargent was devoted to music. He sometimes showed appreciation for his favourite musicians by capturing their likeness and gifting them his portraits. Gabriel Fauré, Percy Grainger and Ethel Smyth were just a few of his musical subjects. Many of these musicians later signed and distributed prints of Sargent’s portraits. Some, like singer Éva Gauthier, even reproduced his portraits on playbills or posters. 

This harpsichord and English guitar belonged to Edith’s father, and are depicted in her painting titled With Thy Sweet Fingers, held at the Royal Academy of Music – she later donated these instruments to our museum.   

When the Royal College of Music opened, Blumenthal donated two highly decorated instruments to its new museum.

Poems written by members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle became popular source material for songs, and several composers at the Royal College of Music set poems by some of the movement’s leading figures, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris. Other composers like Charles Villiers Stanford sought through their music to represent aurally the images committed to canvas by favourite artists.