George Onslow
Summary of the book by Baudime Jam (2003)
The Onslows originally came from Shropshire, where they prospered commercially.
The first to emerge on the national scene was Richard who in 1566 became
Speaker of the House of Commons, thus inaugurating something of a family
tradition. In 1641 a descendant, Sir Richard (nicknamed "The Fox" by
Cromwell), acquired what became the family seat of Clandon Park, near
Guildford.
Arthur became the third and "Great" Speaker in 1728. It was
his son "Black George", grandfather of the composer, who in
1801, in the course of a long political career, was made first Earl of
Onslow. He
had a younger son, Edward (1758-1829), who settled in France in somewhat
mysterious circumstances. He appears to have had a homosexual affair
and in 1781 was exiled to Clemont-Ferrand by his father, with a generous
allowance
to keep him there. (Clermont was presumably chosen for its remoteness
from England.) That seems to have done the trick because he immediately
met and
fell in love with Marie-Rosalie de Bourdeilles de Couzances, the daughter
of a well-born local family. With some difficulty Édouard (as
he now called himself) eventually overcame the Catholic Church's objections
to marriage
with a Protestant and settled happily in Clermont society. He became
a Freemason, was soon the father of four sons - George (born 1784), Maurice,
Arthur and
Auguste - and in 1789 bought the château of Chalendrat, twenty kilometres
to the south-east of the town.
That year the Revolution broke out. Although Édouard swore an
oath to the new Constitution in 1790 and considered himself a naturalized
Frenchman,
under the Terror he spent four months in prison as an alien in 1793 - subsequently
commuted to house arrest. For a few years he lived quietly but in 1798, accused
of involvement in reactionary activities, he was ordered to leave France.
Accompanied by a faithful servant and his fifteen-year-old son George,
he went briefly to
Rotterdam and then to Hamburg. After two years he was allowed to return home,
but was not released from surveillance until the beginning of 1803.
George showed an early talent for music, and especially the piano,
which he was sent to study in London and then Vienna (1804-6).
He also learnt the
cello
in order to play chamber music, but it always remained his second instrument.
Apparently deaf to the music of Mozart, the moment of revelation came when
he heard the overture to Stratonice, a now-forgotten opera by Étienne Méhul.
According to George's own account, this inspired him to become a composer
rather
than a mere piano virtuoso. He began his first composition, a quintet,
in 1806.
Hitherto
self-taught as a composer, he now studied under the Czech, Anton Reicha,
recently arrived in Paris from Vienna (Berlioz later called Onslow the
most famous of
Reicha's pupils). And in 1808 he married Delphine de Fontanges, the daughter
of a Marquis, by whom he had a son, Arthur (born 1809), and two daughters.
(Arthur was to prove childless and the Auvergne branch of the Onslows died
with him.)
For the next thirty years Onslow occupied a central place in French
musical life, principally as a composer of chamber music (he
wrote thirty-six string
quartets and thirty-five quintets). Although he first lacked self-confidence,
his work was regularly played in concerts alongside that of Mozart, Haydn
and
Beethoven
- a degree of recognition matched only by Spohr and Hummel among his
contemporaries. He was seen as the sole French inheritor of the
classical tradition and
mentioned in the same breath as the great masters. Berlioz himself, among
many others,
thought highly of him : "Since the death of Beethoven, it is he who
is the king of instrumental music" (1829) ; and "'Monsieur
Onslow is, as we know, one of France's finest musical
glories ; ... it is to his instrumental music that he owes the great
renown that he enjoys throughout Europe. He combines exceptional talent
as a composer
with
an equally rare productivity. The number of his trios, quartets and quintets
is truly astonishing when one considers that their creator is still in
the prime of life and that each of his works has been considered at length
and
crafted
in the minutest detail" (1837).
All in all, he was a musician's musician, quietly and prolifically writing
for the salon, at a time when the public plaudits went to the
operas of Auber, Hérold and Meyerbeer. Unlike Mozart and Schubert,
however, he had
the good fortune to
hear his works being played - a courteous, popular and sociable man,
he was well-known for the Gallic enthusiasm with which he did so. Less
successfully,
he also wrote
four symphonies - long considered mere orchestral quintets - and three
operas.
Onslow would normally spend winter in his house in Clermont - apart from
six weeks a year in Paris - and summer in his chiteau at Chalendrat.
In 1829 he
suffered a serious shooting accident. While on a boar hunt on a friend's
estate, he was accidentally shot in the cheek, the bullet lodging in
his neck. His life
was saved, but he remained deaf in one ear .
The dramatic
incident also resulted in one of his best-known works - "the bullet
quintet" ("la balle"). That year he inherited Chalendrat
on the death of his father, but the will was contested by two of his
brothers. George
lost and in 1833 the château was sold out of the family. However, when,
five years later, his father-in-law died, he built the Château
de Bellerive nearby
(in ruins in 1990). At Clermont he promoted concerts for good causes
and played his part in civic life ; he never taught, conducted or
appeared as a soloist for
a living, but - the gentleman farmer - supported himself and his family
through the revenue from the estate.
During his lifetime Onslow's chamber music was published and played
throughout Europe (and indeed was known in America), but he had a
particularly high
reputation in Germany, where he was treated almost as a compatriot
(he made tours there
in 1846 and 1847). In 1838 Schumann considered him and Mendelssohn
to be the true successors of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven as far as
the string
quartet was
concerned. His symphonies, however, were less successful.
He seems to have visited England frequently and spoke the language
perfectly. Although he had his admirers there, the reception of Onslow's
work was
much more muted - partly because musical life was far less developed
than in Germany and
elsewhere on the Continent, but also because there was a certain resentment
that Onslow had "chosen" France as his country. His music
was seen as imitative, insipid and bereft of ideas. Unlike in France,
his
death, at Clermont in 1853,
went almost unnoticed in the English musical press.
Why is Onslow unjustly forgotten? For Baudime jam, the answer lies
in the technical difficulty of his scores, the absence of disciples
who could
have kept his inheritance
alive, his provincial isolation, the fact that he was not a professional
musician, the unfashionability of chamber music in the France of his
time, the absence
of any musical continuity in his family, a certain cultural dislocation,
despite his attachment to France, and above all, and in summary, his solitude.
Robert Colquhoun
May 2005