ABSTRACT
William Sterndale Bennett, England's most successful nineteenth-century pianist–composer, was born on 13 April 1816 and first made his mark while a student at the Royal Academy of Music. Although it ranked as one of the principal centres of European musical life, London offered greater encouragement and rewards to foreign than to native musicians. Given the few opportunities that existed in early nineteenth-century Europe for performing solo piano music in public, Bennett's initial concentration on works that would have brought him before the public as a soloist – concertos – becomes readily understandable. When, in October 1836, Bennett left for an eight-month visit to Leipzig, he embarked on the greatest adventure of his life. The cantabile second subject, in Bennett's favourite tenor register and accompanied by another series of cascading arpeggios, leads naturally into the short development, which is in turn followed by an abbreviated recapitulation and short coda.
