- Lewis Henry Lavenu
Lewis Henry Lavenu (1818-1859) was an English composer, conductor, musician and impresario.
He was born in
London in 1818, the only son, by his second wife Eliza, ofLewis Lavenu , music publisher to the Prince Regent. Shortly after his birth, his father died and his mother went into business with the violinistNicolas Mori , a pupil of Viotti by whom she had 5 children, although they weren't married until 1826 (inSt. Paul's, Covent Garden ).Lavenu studied at the
Royal Academy of Music , firstly with the French harpistNicolas-Charles Bochsa , and subsequently with Charles Lucas,George Macfarren , andCipriani Potter in composition,cello andpiano . In 1840 Lavenu arranged two tours of the British Isles for the composer and pianistFranz Liszt , accompanied by his half brotherFrank Mori , two female singers andJohn Orlando Parry , an all round musician, singer and entertainer (who vividly recorded the tour in his diary). BetweenAugust 17 andSeptember 26 , they gave 50 concerts around England which were generally unsuccessful, having an average attendance of 140. The second tour which encompassed Liverpool, Ireland and Scotland from November 1840- January 1841 was mildly more successful, with audiences of more than 1200 inDublin . The tour was however a financial failure, and Liszt waived his promised 500 guineas a month fee.In May, 1844, Lavenu, who had been in partnership with Robert Hodson in the Music publishing business which he had inherited from his mother and stepfather, Mori, Lavenu, & Co. sold the business to Hodson who then went into partnership with Robert Addison forming "Addison & Hodson". Addison had formerly been in partnership with
Johann Baptist Cramer andThomas Frederick Beale in the business of "J. B. Cramer, Addison & Beale".In November, 1846 Lavenu's first major work "Loretta; A Tale of Seville", a grand
opera in three parts with libretto byAlfred Bunn premiered atDrury Lane Theatre before a crowded audience.Anna Bishop sung the role of Loretta, and the role of the father Don Juanita was sung byW. H. Weiss . "The Times ", which made an extensive review of the opera described it as showing "but few indications of inexperience", and was rather the "work of a practiced hand", finally describing the opera as "one of the most promising in our recollection" ["The Times ", "Reviews, Drury Lane Theatre",November 10 ,1846 , pg.5] .After falling into insolvency in 1848, Lavenu became the conductor of the Irish singer
Catherine Hayes , making appearances inGreat Britain , theUnited States (1851-1852) andAustralia (1855). Lavenu stayed in Sydney becoming the musical director of the Sydney Theatre and the teacher and conductor of the singerMarie Carandini . In July 1859 Lavenu (on cello) took part in a grand festival to inaugurate the new Great Hall of theUniversity of Sydney with Carandini,Sara Flower ,Emma Howson ,Frank Howson andWalter Sherwin but died at the height of the festivities [ [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030327b.htm Australian Dictionary of Biography] , Volume 3, Ann K. Wentzel,Melbourne University Press , 1969, pp 351-352] inMacquarie Street in 1859, being buried in Camperdown cemetery alongside his tutor Bochsa, and his fellow English composerIsaac Nathan .Lavenu had eight children with Julia, daughter of Colonel
John Blossett , the head of the British expedition which aidedSimón Bolívar in the wars of independence. His daughters Ada, Eliza, Alice and Bessie were actresses in London during the 1860s, Eliza becoming more successful, appearing at the Theatre Royal, Lyceum. She was the mother of the actorTyrone Power, Sr. , and grandmother of theHollywood starTyrone Power . His daughter Alice changed her name to Suzanne Madeleine-Julie-Alice Lavenu and married a nobleman, Pedro Alonso Jimenez, the son of Alonso Jimenez, theMarques de la Granja de San Saturnino in 1875 ["Dignidades Nobiliarias en Cuba", Rafael Nieto y Cortadellas, 1954, pg.258 ] .References
External links
* [http://www.cph.rcm.ac.uk/Programmes1/Pages/BtoR9.htm Franz Liszt concert programme for September 16, 1840 at The Centre for Performance History]
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