Henry Chorley

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Drawing of Chorley, 1841

Henry Fothergill Chorley (15 December 1808 – 16 February 1872) was an English literary, art and music critic, writer and editor. He was also an author of novels, drama, poetry and lyrics.

Chorley was a prolific and important music and literary critic and music gossip columnist of the mid-nineteenth century and wrote extensively about music in London and in Europe. His opera libretti and works of fiction were far less successful. He is perhaps best remembered today for his lyrics to "The Long Day Closes", a part song set by Arthur Sullivan in 1868.

Life and career

Chorley was born in Blackley Hurst, near

Quaker parents, John Chorley (1771–1816), an iron worker and lock maker, and Jane Chorley, née Wilkinson (1779–1851). Chorley's father died, leaving his mother alone with young children. Jane Chorley moved her family to Liverpool to help take care of her half-brother, Dr Rutter, when he became ill. Chorley was educated by private tutors in Liverpool and then the school of the Royal Institution. His youth was shaped partly by spending time in the household of the wealthy and intellectual Mrs Benson Rathbone of Green Bank, and he became a close friend of her son Benson, who died in an accident in 1834.[1]

Journalism and non-fiction works

He began working in merchants' offices, hoping to become a musician, but his uncle discouraged that as an impractical ambition. However, Chorley soon took to musical and literary criticism. He began to write for the

Wagner for what he called "decadence".[1]

In addition to criticism for journals, Chorley wrote voluminously on literature and art. His non-fiction books were widely read and included Music and Manners in France and Germany (1841), which includes a detailed description of contemporary opera in Paris and

Royal Italian Opera at Covent Garden in 1847.[1] He also wrote the well-received Memorials of Mrs. Hemans (1836), Handel Studies (1859), an annotated edition Mary Russell Mitford
's letters (2 vols., 1872) and The National Music of the World (1882).

Fiction and playwriting

Chorley also wrote, with far less success, novels, stories, drama and verse, and various

Gounod's "Nazareth",[6] Edward Loder's "The Brave Old Oak" and "The Three Ages", the English form of the Bach-Gounod "Ave Maria", Sullivan's "The Long Day Closes", and the hymn "God, the Omnipotent!
".

Funerary monument, Brompton Cemetery, London
Detail of monument

Chorley wrote the English libretto for Gounod's

Her Majesty's Theatre). During rehearsals, it was found that the lines were unsingable. Both Sims Reeves and Charles Santley made strenuous and persistent complaints to Messrs. Chappell's, and new translations were made secretly, since no-one dared to tell Chorley. The first he knew of it was at the first performance. Chorley, as reviewer, waited to make his comment until the final announced performance, of which he wrote that it was "seriously imperilled by a singular translation". Unfortunately for him, the final performance in question had not taken place, so the Musical World was able to compliment him on his poetic imagination.[7] Nevertheless, Chorley's translations of several songs from Faust were published and widely performed, such as "The Flower Song", "When All Was Young" and "Glory and Love".[8] A similar Chorley effort, albeit of an obscure work, fared better: his translation of Mendelssohn's Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde, which Chorley rendered as "Son and Stranger," for the work's London premiere in 1851[9] is still heard today in that work's rare revivals.[10]

Personality and last years

Chorley was considered eccentric and abrasive, but he was respected for his integrity and kindness. Chorley enthusiastically gave and attended dinner parties and was known as a big drinker. He cultivated friendships with Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Mendelssohn, and later Charles Dickens, Arthur Sullivan and Charles Santley, among others. After the death of his brother, John Rutter Chorley (1806–1867), he inherited enough money to retire from the Athenaeum, although he continued to contribute articles for that paper and also for The Orchestra.

In spite of his efforts to promote the music of Charles Gounod in England, the composer disliked Chorley intensely. When Gounod lived in England during the early 1870s, he wrote a satirical character piece for piano that was intended to be a parody of Chorley's personality. It greatly amused Gounod's English patron, Georgina Weldon, who described Chorley as having a "thin, sour, high-pitched sopranish voice" and moving like a "stuffed red-haired monkey."[11] Gounod intended to publish the piece with a dedication to Chorley, but the latter died before this was possible. Weldon then invented a new programme for the piece, which was re-titled Funeral March of a Marionette. It became popular as a concert piece,[12] and in the 1950s, its opening phrases became well known as the theme music for the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents.[13]

Chorley died at his home in London in 1872, at the age of 63, and is buried there in Brompton Cemetery.[14] He left a very considerable estate of £45,000.[1] Fellow critic Charles Lewis Gruneisen wrote in the Athenaeum that Chorley's personality had impeded appreciation of his qualities.[1]

Notes

  1. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5350
  2. ^ See Preface by Robin Gordon-Powell, Archivist & Music Librarian of the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society, to the score of The Masque at Kenilworth, published by The Amber Ring in 2002
  3. ^ "Modern German Music – Recollections and Criticisms", The Times review, 25 April 1854, p. 8, col. B
  4. ^ "Henry Fothergill Chorley", The Brownings' Correspondence, accessed 30 October 2022
  5. ^ "Birmingham Musical Festival", The Times review, 12 September 1864, p. 10, col. A
  6. ^ Songs with English lyrics by Chorley
  7. ^ C. Pearce, Sims Reeves – Fifty Years of Music in England (Stanley Paul, London 1924), pp. 241–42.
  8. ^ Translations of Gounod songs by Chorley
  9. ^ Aldrich, Richard. "Of Music and Musicians: Hugo Wolff, His Songs and His Admirers—Mendelssohn's 'Return of the Roamer' and Its Origin," The New York Times, 22 November 1903, accessed 23 November 2009
  10. ^ Programme notes for Concert Opera Boston performance of 15 March 2009, accessed 23 November 2009
  11. ^ Harding, pp. 179–80
  12. ^ Hale, Philip. Programme, Boston Symphony Orchestra
  13. ^ Frankel, Chris. "Jacopo Pontormo Tournament of Manners", #9 Archived 15 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, 1 July 2005
  14. ^ The Times, 21 February 1872, p. 5, col. E

References

  • Harding, James. Gounod, New York: Stein and Day (1973)

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

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