Novello, Vincent

views updated

Novello, Vincent

Novello, Vincent, English organist, conductor, editor, music publisher, and composer, father of Clara (Anastasia) Novello and (Joseph) Alfred Novello; b.London, Sept. 6, 1781; d. Nice, Aug. 9, 1861. He was a chorister at the Sardinian Embassy Chapel in London, where he studied organ with Samuel Webe. He later was deputy organist to Webbe and Danby, and from 1797 to 1822, organist at the chapel of the Portuguese Embassy. He was pianist to the Italian Opera in 1812; was a founder of the Phil. Society in 1813, sometimes conducting its concerts. From 1840 to 1843 he was organist at the Roman Catholic Chapel in Moorfields. In 1811 he founded the great London music publishing firm of Novello & Co. Himself a composer of sacred music (masses, motets, anthems, Kyries, etc.), he gathered together and publ, excellent collections: A Collection of Sacred Music (1811; 2 vols.); Purcell’s Sacred Music (1829; 5 vols.); Croft’s Anthems; Greene’s Anthems; Boyce’s Anthems; masses by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven; etc. He retired to Nice in 1848.

Bibliography

M. Cowden-Clarke, Life and Labours of V. N.(London, 1864); N. Medici and R. Hughes, A Mozart Pilgrimage (London, 1955; travel diaries of V. N. and his wife); M. Hurd, V. N.—and Company (Borough Green, 1981).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire