English family of music educationists and music publishers.
(3) Annie (Jessie) Curwen [née Gregg]
H.C. COLLES/PETER WARD JONES, BERNARR RAINBOW
(b Heckmondwike, Yorks., 14 Nov 1816; d Manchester, 26 May 1880). Congregational minister. He was a proponent of Tonic Sol-fa. Educated at Wymondley College and University College, London, he was appointed assistant minister at Basingstoke in 1838; it was during his ministry there that he first attempted to teach music to the children of his Sunday school. The venture was unsuccessful, for though he was a teacher of great natural gifts who had made a serious study of educational principles, Curwen knew nothing of music. His later activity as a music educationist was brought about by circumstances rather than natural inclination. In 1841 he was commissioned to investigate and recommend the best way of teaching music to children in Nonconformist Sunday schools. His acquaintance with Pestalozzi’s principles led him to reject as misguided the continental ‘fixed-doh’ method then being widely taught in London by John Hullah, and to adopt instead the general plan of a system employing indigenous sol-fa advocated by Sarah Glover, a Norwich schoolmistress, in her Scheme for Rendering Psalmody Congregational (Norwich, 1835, 2/1839). After teaching himself to read music from her book Curwen devoted his life to perfecting a system based on her plan which should bring music within the reach not only of children but also of the poorer classes in general. An understanding of his work depends on the recognition that his aims were not purely musical but social and religious.
Curwen cannot be called the inventor of Tonic Sol-fa. Just as the basic idea of the system sprang from Glover, many features were adopted, with due acknowledgment, from other teachers in England and abroad. Curwen’s achievement, to select devices to ease the learner’s task, was due not only to his insight as a teacher but also to the personal musical limitations which forced him to approach the subject as a learner himself. His first articles outlining a course of lessons following the new system appeared in the Independent Magazine in 1842 and were followed a year later by Singing for Schools and Congregations. Both publications displayed the system in its most primitive form, but the refinements and improvements which Curwen had made to Glover’s Scheme were already apparent. Other publications followed, each representing further improvements in detail.
After 1844 Curwen printed his own publications, sustaining losses which involved considerable domestic hardship. In 1851, he began to edit and publish a periodical called the Tonic Sol-fa Reporter; the venture was unsuccessful and only two numbers were issued. But the publication of a series of his articles in Cassell’s Popular Educator in 1852 attracted thousands of pupils to Tonic Sol-fa, and Curwen’s work began to be recognized nationally. The following year he again undertook the publication of a journal, which he edited himself, under the title the Tonic Sol-fa Reporter and Magazine of Vocal Music for the People. A breakdown in health, due to overwork, obliged him to resign his ministry temporarily in 1856; a further breakdown in 1864 led to his final resignation after which he devoted his time exclusively to the Tonic Sol-fa movement and to his publishing firm J. Curwen & Sons, which he had established in 1863. In 1869 he founded the Tonic Sol-fa College (which in 1973 set up the Curwen Institute).
The distributing side of the new firm was first known as the Tonic Sol-fa Agency; their early publications were mainly works for popular singing classes, but soon music for schools, chiefly in Tonic Sol-fa notation, was added. In 1874 the firm assumed the name of John Curwen & Sons, Tonic Sol-fa Agency. The creation in 1885 of a grant for sight-singing in schools and the recognition by the education department of the Tonic Sol-fa method led to an expansion of Curwen’s catalogue, and the firm rapidly became prominent publishers of educational music. At the same time it issued much music for congregational and Sunday school use and catered to the great demand for music for the American organ and harmonium.
For illustration of Curwen’s manual signs see Tonic Sol-fa.
‘Lessons in Singing’, Independent Magazine, i (1842), 23–30, 58–63, 91–5, 129–39, 164–6, 390–92, 420–22
Singing for Schools and Congregations: a Course of Instruction in Vocal Music (London, 1843, enlarged 3/1852/R)
‘Lessons in Music’, The Popular Educator, ed. R. Wallace, i (1852)
An Account of the Tonic Sol-fa Method of Teaching to Sing (London, 1854)
The Standard Course of Lessons on the Tonic Sol-fa Method of Teaching to Sing (London, 1858, 13/1905)
How to Observe Harmony (London, 1861, 11/c1890)
The Present Crisis of Music in Schools: a Reply to Mr. Hullah (London, 1873)
The Art of Teaching, and the Teaching of Music: being the Teacher’s Manual of the Tonic Sol-fa Method (London, 1875/R1986 as The Teacher’s Manual of the Tonic Sol-fa Method, 10/c1905)
Tonic Sol-fa (London, 1878)
How to Read Music and Understand It (London, 1881, 7/c1890) [completed by J.S. Curwen]
(b London, 30 Sept 1847; d London, 6 Aug 1916). Musician and publisher, son of (1) John Curwen. His childhood at Plaistow, East London, coincided with the years of his father’s early struggle to develop the Tonic Sol-fa system; as the movement gathered followers, and his father set up a printing press to publish music in sol-fa notation, the boy became increasingly involved with the publication of scores. To fit himself for the work he abandoned an earlier intention to train for the ministry, and enrolled as a student at the RAM. As a trained musician he was able to influence the standard of publications and to acquaint himself with the state of musical education on a wider basis. He became principal of the Tonic Sol-fa College in 1880 and from 1881 was editor of the Tonic Sol-fa Reporter (from 1889 entitled The Musical Herald and Tonic Sol-fa Reporter, then from 1891 simply The Musical Herald). In 1882 he started the competition festival movement, on the basis of Eisteddfodau at which he had acted as a judge, with the foundation of the Stratford (East London) Festival. An account of his visits to schools in many parts of Europe and the USA was published in School Music Abroad (London, 1901); and a survey of varying standards of church music was presented in two volumes of Studies in Worship Music (London, 1880–85). On his father’s death he became leader of the movement and head of the publishing firm. During his directorship he expanded the firm’s catalogue to include choral music and established the firm’s tradition of supplying modest amateur needs. School operettas, amateur light opera and collections for the use of organizations such as the Women’s Institute, British Legion and scouts became features of the Curwen output.
(b Dublin, 1 Sept 1845; d Matlock, 22 April 1932). Music educationist, wife of (2) John Spencer Curwen, whom she married in 1877. She was trained at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and taught the piano in Dublin before going to Scotland where she first encountered the Tonic Sol-fa system. Applying its principles to piano teaching, she produced The Child Pianist (London, 1886), subsequently known as Mrs Curwen’s Pianoforte Method, a course of lessons contained in a teachers’ guide and a series of pupils’ books. The piano method was a valuable addition to the Curwen music catalogue. She was a student of Herbartian psychology and published Psychology Applied to Music Teaching (London, 1920).
(b London, 12 April 1881; d Gerrards Cross, Bucks., 25 Feb 1935). Publisher, nephew of (2) John Spencer Curwen. He became head of the firm J. Curwen & Sons on the death in 1919 of his father Joseph Spedding Curwen, who had managed the printing works and had briefly served as director from 1916. Although the tradition of publishing music for schools and amateur organizations continued into the 20th century, J.K. Curwen was responsible for adding orchestral music to the catalogue. Among their publications were Holst’s The Planets and Vaughan Williams’s Hugh the Drover, Mass in G minor and Third Symphony, as well as works by Varèse, Bantock, Boughton and Ethel Smyth. Editors such as Cecil Sharp, Percy Dearmer and Martin Shaw were associated with the firm. The periodical The Musical Herald, in 1920 incorporated into The Musical News and Herald, continued until January 1929; The Sackbut (1920–34) also bore the Curwen imprint.
(b Gerrards Cross, 21 Aug 1911; d Gerrards Cross, 9 Dec 1993). Publisher, son of (4) John Kenneth Curwen. He succeeded to the directorship of the firm in 1935. Crowell, Collier & Macmillan purchased J. Curwen & Sons in 1969 but J.C. Curwen continued as a director of the firm under its old name. In January 1971, Crowell, Collier & Macmillan, while retaining ownership of J. Curwen & Sons, closed the London office.
J.S. Curwen: Memorials of John Curwen (London, 1882)
C.G. Mortimer: ‘Leading Music Publishers: J. Curwen & Sons, Ltd.’, MO, lxiii (1939–40), 139–44
‘The Music Publisher of Tradition: the Curwens: John, John Spencer and John Kenneth’, MO, lxv (1941–2), 28
H.W. Shaw: ‘The Musical Teaching of John Curwen’, PRMA, lxxvii (1950–51), 17–26
B. Rainbow: The Land without Music: Musical Education in England, 1800–1860 (London, 1967)
H. Simon: Songs and Words: a History of the Curwen Press (London, 1973)
W. Shaw: ‘John Curwen’, Some Great Music Educators, ed. K. Simpson (Borough Green, Kent, 1976), 30–42
B. Rainbow: Introduction to J. Curwen and J. Hullah: School Music Abroad (1879–1901) (Kilkenny, 1985)