Novello, Alfred
Novello Vincent, *6 IX 1781 London, †9 VIII 1861 Nice, English organist, choirmaster, conductor, composer, music publisher. He was the son of an Italian confectioner settled in London in 1771 and an Englishwoman. As a boy Vincent was a chorister at the Sardinian Embassy Chapel in Duke Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and there he learnt to play the organ from Samuel Webbe. From 1797 to 1822, he became in succession organist of the Sardinian, Spanish, and Portuguese chapels in London. In 1813 he co-founded Philharmonic Society, where he worked as a conductor and accompanist with, i.a., A. Catalani. In 1829 travelled to Salzburg to meet Mozart’s ailing sister, with the purpose of delivering money raised for her in England and collecting materials for a planned biography of Mozart, which were later used by his pupil, the musicologist and music critic E. Holmes in Life of Mozart (1845). Novello was co-designer of the organ built in 1834 for Birmingham Town Hall. From 1840–43 he was organist of the Roman Catholic chapel in Moorfields. He taught piano at Campbell’s School in Brunswick Square for twenty-seven years and at Hibbert’s in Clapton for twenty-five years, and had many private students. Novello’s activity contributed to the spread of Italian and German religious music in England; during the regularly held concerts at the Portuguese Embassy Chapel, he presented masses by Haydn and Mozart. In 1811 he founded his own publishing house initially called The Sacred Music Warehaus, later The London Sacred Warehouse. In the beginning, he published, at his own expense, the works he needed for his work as a choirmaster, such as: Collection of Sacred Music, in two volumes, Twelve easy masses, and then utilitarian pieces, mainly religious, developed in a form accessible to less proficient organists. Novello initiated the publication of vocal and instrumental works in the form of a vocal score with an accompaniment for piano or organ developed by himself and with separate orchestral and vocal parts. This was significant for the vibrant development of choral societies in England. In 1825 Novello published The Fitzwilliam Music, a collection of Italian religious works from the 17th century (5 Volumes), between 1826-29, religious works by H. Purcell (5 Volumes), collection of The Cathedral Choir Books, oratorios by Händel and Haydn, fragments of operas by Mozart and Spohr arranged for 4 hands. He laid the foundations for Novello & Co., a publishing house that his son Josepha Alfreda Novello ran since 1829. In 1808 V. Novello married M. S. Hehl with whom he had eleven children; their home was the centre for a broad community of friends from literary and artistic circles. He moved to Nice in 1849.
Literature: M. Cowden-Clarke The Life and Labours of Vincent Novello by His Daughter, London 1864; (https://archive.org/details/cu3192402236161699); [J. Bennett] A Short History of Cheap Music as Exemplified in the Records of the House of Novello, Ewer & Co., London 1887 (https://archive.org/details/cu3192402236161699; A Century and a Half in Soho. A Short History of the Firm of Novello Publishers and Printers of Music, 1811–1961, London 1961; A Mozart Pilgrimage: having the Travel Diaries of Vincent and Mary Novello in the year 1929, edited by N. Medici di Marignano and R. Huges, Londo [1955] 1975; M. Hurt: Vincent Novello and Company, London, Granada 1981; F. M. Palmer Vincent Novello (1781–1861):Music for the Masses, 28 XII 2006 (https://www.routledge.com/Vincent-Novello-17811861-Music-for-the-Masses/Palmer/p/book/9781138277977); V.L. Cooper Novello Vincent(1871-1860), music publisher published in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 IX 2004 (https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-20377?rskey=jKaAvs&result=2).