Walter Willson Cobbett
Walter Willson Cobbett CBE (11 July 1847 – 22 January 1937) was an English businessman and amateur violinist, and the editor/author of Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music. He instigated the influential Cobbett Competition for chamber music composition, and endowed the Cobbett Medal for services to chamber music.
For the British radical and journalist, see William Cobbett.
Walter Willson Cobbett
11 July 1847
22 January 1937 (aged 89)
- Businessman
- amateur violinist
In 1905, Cobbett endowed a competition, initially under the auspices of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, for chamber music composers. The panel of judges included the composer Alexander Mackenzie, Royal Academy of Music professor Alfred Gibson (1849-1924), and the Belgian violinist Hermann Sternberg. Specifically, he asked composers to submit what he termed a Phantasy for string ensemble, meeting the following conditions:
This idea was inspired by examples of British viol consort music from the 16th and 17th centuries that Cobbett had been studying, by William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and others.[6] Many new one movement Phantasies were composed as a result over the next few decades. Of them all, the Phantasy String Quintet of 1912 by Vaughan Williams was the closest to Cobbett's ideal: "so exactly the phantasy as I conceived it that it may well serve as prototype to those who care to write in this form in the future", he said.[7]
The Cobbett Competition (1905-1919) was instrumental in advancing the careers of leading composers of the time. However, the very first winner, William Hurlstone with his Phantasy String Quartet in A Minor, unfortunately died following an asthma attack just a year after the prize was awarded.[8]
The full list of winners in the 1905 inaugural award were:
There were six competitions between 1905 and 1919, each asking for a specific type of composition. In addition to granting prizes, Cobbett also commissioned eleven Phantasy works.[9][10]
Prize winning works, 1905-1919
Commissions, 1910-1912
From 1920 until 1927 Cobbett began sponsoring a series of annual prizes for various forms of chamber music activity at the Royal College of Music.[4] He awarded fifty guinea prizes for the study of chamber music. In 1928 these prizes were permanently established through endowments.[10]
The New Cobbett Prize was instigated in 2014 by the Berkeley Ensemble to build on the legacy. Sequenza for string quartet by Samuel Lewis was the first winner.[11]
Cobbett Medal and Cyclopedia[edit]
Cobbett established other prizes as well. The Cobbett Medal for services to chamber music was established in 1924 - the first recipient was Thomas Dunhill - and continues to be awarded annually by the Worshipful Company of Musicians. He also encouraged British luthiers by granting prizes for outstanding instruments.[12]
Cobbett started a periodical on chamber music, called the Chamber Music Supplement. He established a free library of chamber music and started chamber music concert series in working-class neighborhoods of British cities.
Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music (1929) was the result of four years of labour. In addition to his own extensive contributions, the two-volume survey includes articles by leading musicians and musicologists of the time, including Vincent d'Indy, Donald Tovey, Ralph Vaughan Williams and others.[13]