(b Blackheath, London, 11 July 1847; d London, 22 Jan 1937). English amateur violinist, patron and lexicographer. Cobbett's efforts in the field of chamber music were important to the development of the English musical renaissance and to the cultivation and appreciation of chamber music in Britain; he is noted in particular for editing Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music (2 vols., London, 1929–30; rev. 2/1963 by C. Mason). In an autobiographical article, ‘The Chamber Music Life’, published in this encyclopedia, he related how he studied the violin with Joseph Dando, received a Guadagnini violin from his father and was fired with a lifelong enthusiasm for chamber music after hearing Joachim play at St James's Hall. From that time he played chamber music regularly at home, and also led several amateur orchestras, including the Strolling Players Orchestral Society. He became a connoisseur of violins and delighted in lending instruments from his fine collection to suitable players.
Cobbett was a highly successful businessman, the founder and chairman of the Scandinavia Belting Company. It was once said of him that he devoted to commerce the little time he could spare from music (Grove5). Most of his chamber music patronage took place after his retirement at the age of 60. He used his money to patronize composers, performers, societies and publications; and his musical understanding enabled him to distribute his funds with discretion. In association with the Worshipful Company of Musicians (of which he became Master in 1928) he established a prize for a ‘phantasy’ string quartet in 1905. This was won by William Hurlstone, and Frank Bridge won the succeeding prize for a piano trio in 1907. There followed numerous other awards for such ‘phantasies’, a name Cobbett chose as a modern analogue of the Elizabethan viol fancies, in which a single movement includes a number of sections in different rhythms – or as Stanford defined the genre, a condensation of the three or four movements of a sonata into a single movement of moderate dimensions. Among other winners were Armstrong Gibbs, Herbert Howells, John Ireland and J.B. McEwen. Cobbett set up prizes for composition and performance at the RAM and the RCM in the 1920s; and, also with the Worshipful Company of Musicians, he established in 1924 a medal for services to chamber music. The first award was to T.F. Dunhill for his book on chamber music and the second to the patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.
Cobbett's patronage of chamber music also included the establishment, at his own expense, of a Free Library of Chamber Music, in conjunction with the Society of Women Musicians, and the promotion of occasional competitions (from 1918) for British-made violins. In 1934 he founded the Chamber Music Association (with a gift of £1000) to foster chamber music activity.
Between 1913 and 1916 Cobbett edited Chamber Music, a bimonthly supplement to the Music Student periodical, and in the mid-1920s began work on his wide-ranging Cyclopedic Survey, for which, according to an obituary, he bore some of the cost (£4000). The encyclopedia embraces articles on composers and their chamber music, performers, activities and ensembles in different countries, as well as entries on broad topics such as broadcasting, gramophone recordings, interpretation and temperament. Contributors included Tovey, Arnold Dolmetsch, Henry Prunières, Marc Pincherle, d'Indy, Egon Wellesz, E.S.J. van der Straeten and Wilhelm Altmann. In spite of a highly idiosyncratic editorial style and some inconsistency in the level of coverage between volumes, the Cyclopedic Survey represents an important lexicographical achievement and remains a vital historical document of British attitudes towards chamber music in the inter-war years.
Grove5 (H.C. Colles)
H. Antcliffe: ‘The Recent Rise of Chamber Music in England’, MQ, vi (1920), 12–23
W.W. Cobbett, ed.: Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music (London, 1929–30) [esp. ‘Chamber Music Life, The’; ‘Cobbett, Walter Willson’; ‘Cobbett Competitions and Prizes’]
Obituary, MT, lxxviii (1937), 175–6
F. Howes: The English Musical Renaissance (London, 1966), 335–6
FRANK HOWES, CHRISTINA BASHFORD