Noel Mewton-Wood
Encyclopedia
Noel Mewton-Wood was an Australia
n-born concert pianist who achieved some fame during his short life.
, he studied with Waldemar Seidel at the Melbourne Conservatorium until the age of fourteen. After further studies at London
's Royal Academy of Music
, Mewton-Wood spent time with Artur Schnabel
in Italy.
In March 1940, he returned to London for his debut performance at Queen's Hall
, performing Beethoven's
third piano concerto
with the London Philharmonic Orchestra
under Sir Thomas Beecham
. He later performed in France, Germany, South Africa, Poland, Turkey and Australia.
Mewton-Wood's The Times
obituary of 7 December 1953 described his debut performance:
Mewton-Wood was a close friend of Benjamin Britten
. In 1952-53, while Britten was occupied in the writing of his opera Gloriana
, Mewton-Wood deputised as the accompanist for Britten's partner Peter Pears
.
At the age of thirty-one, Mewton-Wood committed suicide by drinking prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide), apparently blaming himself for the death of a friend. The notes written by a friend of Mewton-Wood, John Amis
, for the reissue of the Bliss Concerto recording, indicate that Mewton-Wood was gay and was depressed by the recent death of his lover.
Benjamin Britten wrote Canticle III: Still falls the rain
for Mewton-Wood's memorial concert.
He also composed chamber music, a piano concerto, ballet music, and music for the films Tawny Pipit
(1944) and Chance of a Lifetime
(1950).
obsessive admirer and sometime lover of Noel. The novel is informed by the author's own musical background as an accomplished pianist, and her interviews with many of Noel Mewton-Wood's friends and contemporaries.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n-born concert pianist who achieved some fame during his short life.
Life and career
Born in MelbourneMelbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, he studied with Waldemar Seidel at the Melbourne Conservatorium until the age of fourteen. After further studies at London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, Mewton-Wood spent time with Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel was an Austrian classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura...
in Italy.
In March 1940, he returned to London for his debut performance at Queen's Hall
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...
, performing Beethoven's
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...
third piano concerto
Piano Concerto No. 3 (Beethoven)
The Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1800 and was first performed on 5 April 1803, with the composer as soloist. During that same performance, the Second Symphony and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives were also debuted. The composition...
with the London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...
under Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
. He later performed in France, Germany, South Africa, Poland, Turkey and Australia.
Mewton-Wood's The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
obituary of 7 December 1953 described his debut performance:
Mewton-Wood was a close friend 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...
. In 1952-53, while Britten was occupied in the writing of his opera Gloriana
Gloriana
Gloriana is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten to an English libretto by William Plomer, based on Elizabeth and Essex by Lytton Strachey...
, Mewton-Wood deputised as the accompanist for Britten's partner Peter Pears
Peter Pears
Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears CBE was an English tenor who was knighted in 1978. His career was closely associated with the composer Edward Benjamin Britten....
.
At the age of thirty-one, Mewton-Wood committed suicide by drinking prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide), apparently blaming himself for the death of a friend. The notes written by a friend of Mewton-Wood, John Amis
John Amis
John Preston Amis , is a British broadcaster, classical music critic, music administrator, and writer. He has been a frequent contributor for The Guardian and to BBC radio and television music programming....
, for the reissue of the Bliss Concerto recording, indicate that Mewton-Wood was gay and was depressed by the recent death of his lover.
Benjamin Britten wrote Canticle III: Still falls the rain
Canticle III: Still falls the rain
Canticle III: Still falls the rain is a piece by English composer Benjamin Britten. It is part of Britten's series of Five Canticles.-Composition and premiere:...
for Mewton-Wood's memorial concert.
Repertoire
In addition to Beethoven, Mewton-Wood's repertoire included:- Sir Arthur BlissArthur BlissSir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, CH, KCVO was an English composer and conductor.Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army...
's Piano Concerto (as Mewton-Wood was an exponent of this piece, Bliss wrote him a piano sonata) - Busoni'sFerruccio BusoniFerruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...
Fantasia contrappuntisticaFantasia ContrappuntisticaFantasia contrappuntistica is a solo piano piece composed by Ferruccio Busoni in 1910. Busoni created several versions of the work including several for solo piano, and one for two pianos. It has been arranged for organ and for orchestra since the composer's death.The work is in large part a...
and Piano ConcertoPiano Concerto (Busoni)The Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39 , by Ferruccio Busoni, is one of the largest works ever written in this particular genre. The concerto is in five movements, the last of which also utilizes a male chorus singing words from the final scene of the verse drama Aladdin by Adam Oehlenschläger.The...
(a 1948 recording with Sir Thomas BeechamThomas BeechamSir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
in 1948 is the earliest complete recording of the Busoni concerto known to survive) - ChopinFrédéric ChopinFrédéric 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"....
's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minorPiano Concerto No. 1 (Chopin)The Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, is a piano concerto written by Frédéric Chopin in 1830. It was first performed on 11 October of that year, in Warsaw, with the composer as soloist, during one of his "farewell" concerts before leaving Poland.... - Hindemith'sPaul HindemithPaul 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...
Ludus TonalisLudus TonalisLudus Tonalis , subtitled Kontrapunktische, tonal, und Klaviertechnische Übungen , is a piano work by Paul Hindemith that was composed in 1942 during his stay in the United States.The piece starts with a three-part Praeludium in C resembling Bach's toccatas, and ends with a Postludium... - Tchaikovsky'sPyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
three piano concertos, G major sonata, and Concert FantasiaConcert Fantasia (Tchaikovsky)The Concert Fantasia in G, Op. 56, for piano and orchestra, was written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between June and October 1884. It was premiered in Moscow on , with Sergei Taneyev as soloist and Max Erdmannsdörfer conducting. The Concert Fantasia received many performances in the first 20 years... - Tippett'sMichael TippettSir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
song cycle The Heart's Assurance - Works by BartókBéla BartókBéla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
, BrittenBenjamin BrittenEdward 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...
(Mewton-Wood gave the world premiere of the revised version of Britten's Piano ConcertoPiano Concerto (Britten)The Piano Concerto, Op. 13, by Benjamin Britten is a piece of classical music composed for piano and orchestra. It was written in 1938 and revised by Britten in 1945. In the 1945 revision it was given a different 3rd movement. The full version received its premiere at the Cheltenham Festival on...
), LisztFranz LisztFranz 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...
, SchubertFranz SchubertFranz 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...
, MahlerGustav MahlerGustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
and SchumannRobert SchumannRobert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
.
He also composed chamber music, a piano concerto, ballet music, and music for the films Tawny Pipit
Tawny Pipit (film)
Tawny Pipit is a British war film produced by Prestige Productions in 1944. It tells of how a sleepy English village becomes the centre of attention when a rare bird's nest is discovered there.-Plot:...
(1944) and Chance of a Lifetime
Chance of a Lifetime (film)
Chance of a Lifetime is a 1950 British film starring, produced, part-written and directed by Bernard Miles. It was nominated for the 1951 BAFTA for Best British Film, to which it was beaten by The Blue Lamp.-Plot:...
(1950).
Books
Noel Mewton-Wood features in Sonia Orchid's novel, The Virtuoso, narrated by a fictionalobsessive admirer and sometime lover of Noel. The novel is informed by the author's own musical background as an accomplished pianist, and her interviews with many of Noel Mewton-Wood's friends and contemporaries.