Christopher Cormack is giving a talk about the Victorian musician Edward Dannreuther at the White Rock Hotel this evening, starting at 7pm. This event is free to attend and the following details are cut and pasted from The Wagner Society's
facebook page:
The Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra (HPO), under the auspices of the Hastings and St Leonards Society, is sponsoring a talk at the White Rock Hotel on an eminent but overlooked Victorian musician, Edward Dannreuther, who introduced a wealth of new classical music greats to England in the latter half of the nineteenth century, which, though regarded as avant-garde at the time, now form part of an accepted list of 'classics'. Dannreuther set up a holiday second residence in High Wickham, Hastings after spending his honeymoon here in 1871 and in later life, 'Windycroft' became his main residence, setting standards in 'arts and crafts' external and interior architecture and creating a Hastings 'home' for famous pre-raphaelite artists, including William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and musicians including Hubert Parry. Dannreuther promoted the English language 'song' genre by composing music settings for Rosetti, William Morris and Shakespeare poetry and mentoring composers such as Hubert Parry (famous for composing music for William Blake's 'Jerusalem').
Most of all, Dannreuther is known for his close association with Richard Wagner and as the founder of the London Wagner Society to promote Wagner's music in London and raise money for Wagner's Bayreuth Festival. Dannreuther worked closely with Wagner and Hans Richter in the first Bayreuth Festivals. Hans Richter, who conducted the first Ring Cycles at Bayreuth, went on to be a lifelong friend of Dannreuther and became famous in London for his role in establishing the London Symphony Orchestra. Dannreuther was also a famous concert pianist who played in front of mass audiences at Crystal Palace Saturday concerts and became the first professor of piano at the Royal College of Music in 1895. Dannreuther wrote several key books on music which remain important reference works to this day; he also translated and published key works by Wagner.
Christopher Cormack, who is giving the talk, can reveal much new information on this important Hastings resident as a result of information derived from a hitherto unknown taped interview with Edward Dannreuther's son, Hubert Dannreuther. Hubert Dannreuther, who had both Richard Wagner and Hubert Parry as godfathers, gave the interview in 1969 and went on to live at Windycroft in Hastings until his death in 1977, aged 97. Hubert had had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy. More new information is disclosed from a little-known unpublished memoir of Edward Dannreuther's wife Chariclea, which was held by remaining Dannreuther family members until recently when it was deposited in the Hastings Museum archives. Edward Dannreuther had revolutionary ideas about music, art and architecture: Christopher Cormack will give a flavour of the political revolutionary origins of the Dannreuther family, which, to some extent, is shared with Richard Wagner.
The talk is free of entrance charge, subject to an entirely voluntary retiring collection for the benefit of HPO's work in promoting high-quality classical music in Hastings. It is hoped, it will be the first of several well-researched topical talks on Hastings' classical music past. If you would like to attend please email christopher.cormack@gmail.com by the 24th January.
Thanks also to Stephen Dannreuther who has done much original research of his own on his family, which greatly helped to provide further preparatory assistance for this talk.
PLEASE NOTE: This talk provides a useful introduction to the work being done by Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra (HPO) to bring to light and demonstrate how much Hastings is blessed with a rich classical music heritage. In particular, HPO will perform a 'heritage' concert on the following day, 28 January 2022 at the White Rock Theatre covering popular works by Wagner, Rachmaninov and Hastings composers, Keith Beal and Julius Harrison.
For more about the Pre-Raphaelites in Hastings see my blog.
