ABSTRACT
I have heard nothing yet by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Cherubini, Hummel, or other of the most elevated Class of Composers.
VN (Antwerp 1829), Pilgrimage, p. 291
Career directions
Part II of this book looks in detail at the different aspects of Novello’s career. The purpose of this initial overview is to evaluate the main phases of his working life, the key events, personal and professional, that shaped it, and to create a sense of the hierarchy of his main (pre)occupations. With the benefit of hindsight, we can detect particular influences on the shape and direction of his activities; influences of which he may well have been completely unaware. Continued career advancement depended on a dynamic combination of ingredients including demonstrably reliable talent, the ability to diversify, effective networking and, of course, luck. Both Deborah Rohr and Simon McVeigh have evaluated the typical factors that contributed to the progress of professional musicians.1 Novello lacked the immediate advantage that would have come his way automatically had his father had been a musician or had Mary Sabilla Hehl come from an established musical family. He was a first generation musician; it was his children who were to inherit the benefits of his self-made success.
