English family of musicians.
(2) William (Manning) Blagrove
(3) Richard (Manning) Blagrove
CHRISTINA BASHFORD
(b Nottingham, 20 Oct 1811; d London, 15 Dec 1872). Violinist. He was the son of Richard Manning Blagrove, a Nottingham violinist and teacher who wrote A New and Improved System of the Art of Playing the Violin (London, 1828) and several lightweight piano pieces. Taught by his father, he was taken in 1817 to London, where he was displayed as a child prodigy and even played in the Drury Lane orchestra. In 1821 he began to have lessons from Spagnoletti, and in 1823 became one of the first pupils of the RAM, studying composition with William Crotch and the violin with François Cramer. He joined Queen Adelaide's private band as soloist and principal second violin in 1832, and two years later went to Cassel to study with Spohr. While abroad he visited several European cities, among them Paris and Vienna, where he probably witnessed string quartet concerts. He returned to London in 1834 and shortly afterwards (November 1835) set up the Concerti da Camera, the first West End chamber music concerts, at the Hanover Square Rooms. Later that season (March 1836) he began the Quartett Concerts, a regular chamber series which ran under his leadership until 1842. Through these concerts Blagrove introduced much of the Viennese chamber repertory, including Beethoven's middle- and late-period quartets, to London audiences.
Blagrove was also a prominent orchestral leader and soloist, and for many years played at the Italian Opera, the Philharmonic Society, the Handel Festivals at Crystal Palace and other London concerts. From 1831 he was a professor at the RAM. His published compositions include a number of didactic works, violin solos and duets. Although one of the most talented English violinists of the period, with a large tone and good technical facility, Blagrove paled in comparison with such foreign violinists as Sivori, Sainton and Vieuxtemps; Walter Macfarren's assessment that ‘though a talented and estimable individual, his temperament, like his violin-playing, was decidedly cold’, is borne out by other commentators.
(b Nottingham, 1 April 1813; d London, 1 Nov 1858). Violinist and music publisher, brother of (1) Henry Blagrove. He played the violin and viola in several London orchestras, appeared in the Quartett Concerts and other chamber music series, and wrote a few lightweight violin pieces. He was also active as a music publisher from 1843 (in partnership with William Attwater, 1844–6), trading from 1847 at 71 Mortimer Street; the premises, known as Blagrove's Rooms, were also used by the Blagrove family and others for small-scale concerts.
(b ?London, 1826/7; d Clapham, London, 21 Oct 1895). Viola and concertina player, brother of (1) Henry Blagrove. From 1837 to 1841 he was a student at the RAM, where he had viola lessons from Henry Hill. During the 1840s he regularly played the viola in London orchestras and at chamber music concerts; in 1856 he succeeded Hill as principal viola at the Philharmonic concerts and the Three Choirs Festival, positions he held until 1894. He was professor of viola at the RAM from 1856 to 1890.
While a student at the RAM Blagrove learned to play the concertina (invented by Wheatstone in the late 1820’s). One of the first in England to take the instrument seriously, he made his début as a concertina soloist at the Hanover Square Rooms in March 1842, and with Giulio Regondi, George Case and Alfred B. Sedgwick formed a concertina quartet which played in public from 1844, often performing arrangements of classical string quartets. Blagrove composed several short pieces for solo concertina and arranged operatic airs; he also wrote a concertina tutor (London, 1864). G.A. Macfarren wrote two romances and a quintet for concertina and strings for him. In 1876 and 1877 he ran a series of ten Concertina Concerts in London, with the aim of raising money to support concertina composition. Another brother, Charles Frederick Blagrove (bap. London, 16 March 1823; d before Nov 1858), was a pianist and composer of piano waltzes and polkas.
DNB (‘Blagrove, Henry Gamble’; W.B. Squire)
W.W. Cazalet: The History of the Royal Academy of Music, compiled from Authentic Sources (London, 1854)
J.D. Brown and S.S. Stratton: British Musical Biography (Birmingham, 1897/R)
W. Macfarren: Memories: an Autobiography (London, 1905), 108
F. Boase: Modern English Biography (London, 1892–1921), esp. suppl.
P.A. Scholes: The Mirror of Music, 1844–1944: a Century of Musical Life in Britain as Reflected in the Pages of the ‘Musical Times’ (London, 1947), 341, 813
A.W. Atlas: The Wheatstone English Concertina in Victorian England (Oxford, 1996)
C. Bashford: Public Chamber-Music Concerts in London, 1835–50: Aspects of History, Repertory and Reception (diss., U. of London, 1996)