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Sir Landon Ronald (bornLandon Ronald Russell) (7 June 1873 – 14 August 1938) was an English conductor, composer, pianist, teacher and administrator.
In his early career he gained work as an accompanist andrépétiteur, but struggled to make his way as a conductor. In the absence of operatic or symphonic work he made his living as a conductor and composer inWest End shows in the late 19th and early 20th century. With the foundation of theLondon Symphony Orchestra in 1904 his career began to flourish, and by 1908 he was well-enough established to be chosen to succeedThomas Beecham as conductor of theNew Symphony Orchestra in London.
Ronald was an early enthusiast for recording, and was associated with theGramophone Company (later part ofEMI) from 1900 for the rest of his life.
From 1910 until shortly before his death, Ronald was principal of theGuildhall School of Music in London. He modernised the curriculum and raised its standards to compete with the leading musical training establishments theRoyal Academy of Music and theRoyal College of Music.
Ronald was born inKensington, London, the illegitimate son ofHenry Russell, singer, songwriter and merchant, and his partner Hannah de Lara, a painter.[1] He was the younger brother of the impresarioHenry Russell and half-brother of the novelistWilliam Clark Russell.[1] He was educated atSt Marylebone Grammar School and a boarding school inMargate,[2] and took private music lessons from the violinistHenry Holmes and the composerKate Loder.[1] Between 1884 and 1890 he was enrolled at the Royal College of Music, where he studied underHubert Parry andCharles Villiers Stanford.[3]
In 1891 Ronald was appointed "maestro al piano" (accompanist andrépétiteur) at theRoyal Opera House; this was valuable experience, bringing him into contact with leading singers and with the scores of the opera repertoire.[2] In her memoirs,Nellie Melba told how Ronald coached her inManon, playing the accompaniment from memory, having learned the piece from scratch overnight.[4] The following year he became conductor ofAugustus Harris's touring opera company. In 1894, he toured the United States as accompanist for Melba.[3] He composed piano music and songs, some of which were well received.[5] He first conducted at Covent Garden in July 1896, for a production ofFaust, starring Melba, Charles Bonnard andPol Plançon.[6] In August 1897 he married Mimi Ettlinger (1873–1932), daughter of aFrankfurt cloth merchant; they had one son.[1]
Operatic and concert work was in short supply for young English conductors at the time; Ronald was obliged to seek employment inmusical comedy in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Among those for whom he conducted and composed wereHarry Graham,Lionel Brough,Kate Cutler,Evie Greene andJohn Le Hay.[7] Neither this employment nor his engagement from 1898 as conductor of the Winter Gardens concerts inBlackpool helped his professional advancement in the snobbish atmosphere offin de siècle England.[1]
Ronald continued to compose serious music; a song-cycle, "Summertime", was written for the tenorBen Davies, who premiered it in 1901.[8] The music critic ofThe Manchester Guardian called the songs "melodious", but added that they "impressed by their graceful lyrical character rather than by evidence of any inventive fancy."[9]
In 1900 Ronald was approached byFred Gaisberg of the recording firm theGramophone Company, a predecessor of EMI. He accepted the post of musical adviser, and was the pianist on many of the company's early song recordings.[10] Gaisberg calculated that Ronald's varied musical contacts would help the new company recruit the distinguished performers it needed. Ronald helped the company to sign up Melba and other leading singers includingAdelina Patti,Charles Santley andEnrico Caruso.[1][10] He remained closely connected withHis Master's Voice for the rest of his career, becoming a director in 1930 and a founder-director of Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI) formed by the merger of His Master's Voice with its rival, theColumbia Graphophone Company in 1931.[11]
In 1901 Ronald was conductor of London'sQueen's Hall concerts and in the same year he was contracted byBlackpool's Winter Gardens as conductor of summer Sunday concerts until[clarification needed] where Adelina Patti, Nellie Melba and Caruso performed. He held this position until the First World War.[12] Ronald began to make progress as a conductor after the foundation of theLondon Symphony Orchestra (LSO) in 1904. He was a frequent guest conductor of the LSO, and in 1905 he was appointed director of theBirmingham Promenade Concerts.[1] WhenThomas Beecham parted company from theNew Symphony Orchestra in 1908, Ronald succeeded him as its conductor. The orchestra was later known as theRoyal Albert Hall orchestra; Ronald remained with it until 1928, when it disbanded.[10] He and the orchestra began recording for His Master's Voice in 1909. Their recorded repertoire comprised mostly overtures and short orchestral pieces, mainly byTchaikovsky andWagner, but also longer works including thePeer Gynt Suite andSchubert'sUnfinished Symphony.[13] Ronald also worked with theScottish Orchestra, and in continental European countries.[1]
Landon Ronald conducted over four hundred times at the Royal Albert Hall, London between 1898 and 1936, mainly with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra.[14] His last performance at the Hall was on 4 February 1936 for the 'Memorial Concert in Commemoration of His Late Most Gracious Majesty King George V', where he conducted and played the piano.[15]
Ronald was also closely associated with the music ofElgar. In later life he recalled Parry's "smacking me on the back and saying 'I heard yesterdayRichter perform theEnigma Variations by a Mr. Elgar, which is the finest thing I have listened to for years. Look out for this man's music'."[16] He was the pianist in the first performance of Elgar'sViolin Sonata in E minor in 1919, withW H Reed the violinist, and was the dedicatee ofFalstaff, a work regarded by some as Elgar's masterpiece,[17] though Ronald admitted privately, "Never could make head or tail of the piece".[18] He recorded little of Elgar's music, because His Master's Voice signed the composer up to record his own works; Ronald recorded the "Coronation March" in March 1935, a year after Elgar's death.[19]
As a conductor Ronald was especially noted as aconcerto accompanist; the critic Robert Elkin describedArthur Nikisch as "the finest accompanist until Landon Ronald".[20] His repertoire was limited. UnlikeAdrian Boult he did not feel it his duty to present difficult modern works. Elgar andRichard Strauss were the only contemporary composers with whose music he was much associated.[21] He retired from conducting in 1929.[2]
In 1910 Ronald succeededW H Cummings as principal of the Guildhall School of Music, a post he held until 1938.[21] He overhauled the curriculum and the administration of the school. According to his biographer, Raymond Holden, "By modernizing teaching methods, and increasing the morale of those working and studying at the institution, he raised the status of the school."[1] He also formed a professors' club to bring a more collegiate spirit into the school. Under Ronald the standard of teaching was brought into line with that of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music.[22] In his later years he laid great emphasis on the importance of live music, and worried that broadcasting and the gramophone were making music so ubiquitous and casually accessible that it was no longer special.[23]
Among Ronald's output as a composer are more than 200 songs. They include "Serenade espagnole" recorded by Caruso.[24] The criticMichael Kennedy writes, "His compositions include a symphonic poem, an overture, a ballet,Britannia's Realm, composed for the coronation of Edward VII in 1902, and incidental music to Robert Hichens’sThe Garden of Allah (1921, Drury Lane), but it is his songDown in the Forest that has survived."[3]
Ronald was knighted in 1922, and published a volume of memoirs,Variations on a Personal Theme in the same year. He published a second volume,Myself and Others, in 1931. Landon was also the editor of the first edition ofWho's Who in Music in 1935.[25] In 1932 Ronald's wife died by suicide; he married Mary Callison b. 1895, (Aunt of Lady Bridget Faulks, née Bodley b.1921), of Manchester shortly afterwards.[21]
Ronald died in London at the age of 65 after two years of declining health.[2]
