Writing in the first edition of his Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1879), George Grove described Arabella Goddard, who died 100 years ago this month, as “the most distinguished of English pianoforte-players”.  Revered by audiences throughout the third quarter of the 19^th century she also triumphed on the foreign stage, touring not just Europe but also America, Australia, India, China and Java.

Born to a well-to-do expatriate English family in Brittany, Goddard studied first with Frédéric Kalkbrenner in Paris and then with Lucy Anderson in London, where aged nine she was invited to play to a fellow Anderson pupil, Queen Victoria, at Buckingham Palace (23 July 1846).  Following further lessons with Sigismond Thalberg she made her debut, in works by this new teacher, under Balfe at Her Majesty’s Theatre on 23 October 1850.

Last night was the triumph of native talent. Miss Goddard made the most successful debût as a pianiste that has ever been known of late years, and we are happy to say the success was as deserved as it was triumphant. She has on this, her first appearance in public, at once taken her station in the very first rank of pianists. She is a pupil of Thalberg, and never has he had a pupil who did greater justice to his in[s]tructions. Miss Goddard performed Thalberg’s fantasia on themes from the Elisir d’Amore, and when encored substituted for it Prudent’s arrangement of “A te o cara;” in the second part she performed Thalberg’s Tarentalla [sic], and when encored substituted Blumenthal’s “Croat March.” Nothing could exceed the delicacy and firmness of her touch, or the brilliancy and accuracy of her execution; she was repeatedly applauded during the course of her performance, and was called on at the conclusion. She excited a perfect furore.
The Sun, 24 October 1850.

Thalberg recommended she continue her musical development by studying interpretation with J W Davison (music critic of The Times and later to become her husband), while she studied composition with George Macfarren.  A ‘second debut’ on 14 April 1853 for the Quartet Association saw her deliver – from memory – what is thought to be the English premiere of Beethoven’s ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata.  A New Philharmonic debut on 11 May 1853, playing Sterndale Bennett’s C minor Piano Concerto under Lindpainter, marked the beginning of a long musical association with the composer, including the dedication of his “singularly beautiful” Maid of Orleans Sonata to her.

Further debuts, including with the Leipzig Gewandhaus (11 January 1855, Mendelssohn D minor concerto), the Philharmonic Society (9 June 1856, Sterndale Bennett C minor concerto, this time under the composer’s baton) and Crystal Palace (7 August 1857, Mendelssohn G minor concerto) established her as facile princeps among English pianists.  Regular concerto performances for the Crystal Palace and Philharmonic seasons, in addition to the important provincial festivals, were to continue for the next two decades, her choice of repertoire revealing an interest in contemporary British composers (Benedict, Cusins, Sterndale Bennett etc) in addition to more standard fare (Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Mozart, Dussek, Hummel, Weber, etc).  Whether influenced or not by the famously conservative tastes of her husband she avoided the concertos of Brahms, Schumann and Rubinstein.

Her 1859 wedding, initially secret, to Davison – he aged 46, she 23 – occasioned the following verse in Punch magazine, written by Shirley Brooks:

A fact long known to him, kind Punch must be
Allowed to congratulate his rara avis on.
Hail to the Lady of the Keys! From G
The music of her life’s transposed to D,
And Arabella Goddard’s Mrs. Davison!

1859 also saw the launch of Arthur Chappell’s “Monday Popular Concerts” at St James’s Hall, an enterprise soon to be recognised as England’s leading chamber music series. Fundamental to its success, Goddard was not only the first pianist to appear on its stage but also the one most frequently engaged during its first fifteen years, notably in piano trios with Joseph Joachim and Alfredo Piatti.

Her marriage to Davison is thought to have had a decided effect on her repertoire choices, especially her championship of late Beethoven sonatas, her interpretations of which, according to a retrospective in The Saturday Review (8 March 1890), fairly astonished the Germans, who “wondered, moreover, that such a pianist could have come from England.”  The marriage produced two sons – Henry, a poet immortalised in ‘Portrait de Henry Davison’ by Louise Breslau, now in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and Charles – but they separated before Davison’s death in 1885.

She started to withdraw from public performance following a highly acclaimed three-year world tour from 1873-76 that took her to Australia, India, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Java and back to Australia, then to New Zealand, California, New York and Canada.  Her final concert was with Sims Reeves on 21 March 1882; the following year she became a piano professor at the newly opened Royal College of Music.

Goddard declined to perform at her Benefit Concert at St James’s Hall on 9 March 1890 and her latter years were spent in Tunbridge Wells before a return to France where she died in Boulogne aged 86.

Adrian Bradbury 2022