Leighton’s love of music
Exploring Frederic Leighton's love of music and how his experiences inspired his life and art
Draughtsman, painter, sculptor, linguist – Frederic Leighton was a man of many talents, and music also featured prominently amongst his chief exploits and passions.
An accomplished musician
Famously, the writer William Makepeace Thackery met Leighton in Rome as a young man in his early twenties and wrote a letter to his almost exact contemporary, the painter John Everett Millais in London:
Millais, my boy, you must look to your laurels. There’s a young fellow in Rome called Leighton who is making prodigious strides in his art. He speaks every European language, and is an accomplished musician as well. If I am not mistaken that young man will one day be the President of the Royal Academy.
Prophetic words as Leighton defeated Millais in the ballot of 1878.
While in Rome, Leighton became a devoted friend of Adelaide Sartoris, who had enjoyed a short but celebrated career as an opera singer. Fifteen years his senior, she took him under her wing and he became part of her circle, spending a lot of time with her and her family and he would remain close to her for the rest of her life - both in Paris and England where she ultimately settled. He participated in her musical evenings, singing in a fine tenor voice and became part of a group of admirers who seemed to follow her around Europe.
Leighton would write to his mother from Rome:
Music! How I yearn for music…Music that humanises the soul, that calls forth all that is refined and elevated and glowing and impassioned in one’s breast and without which the very lake of one’s heart stagnates and is congealed. I express myself extravagantly, but my words flow from my heart.
The spark of an idea
During his time in Paris, Leighton had seen the grand studio-homes of established artists, including Eugene Delacroix and Ary Scheffer. Ary Scheffer became a particular friend, and Leighton regularly attended musical evenings at his studio-home.
The lifestyle which Parisian artists such as Scheffer cultivated around their studios, would become a template for how Leighton entertained within his own studio-home.
Music concerts in Leighton’s studio
Every spring, Leighton hosted an annual concert in his studio for a select group of friends. Prominent international musicians of the day would perform, including violinist Joseph Joachim, singer Pauline Viardot, pianist Clara Schumann and cellist Alfredo Piatti. Leighton himself was also known to sing and kept a piano in his studio.
Sir Frederick Leighton gave his annual musical party on Wednesday afternoon, and it was more delightful than it is possible to describe. The studio makes a perfect music room, and was hung with drawings and pictures of great beauty. A bank of rhododendrons, under tall waving palms, in the recesses of the window, through which the setting sun cast golden lights, added to the beauty of the scene. Piatti, Strauss, and Joachim played, Santley sang, Mlle. Janetta played a kind of Polish symphony, which described an Alpine walk, and which she explained in a most fascinating way in broken English. The finale of the concert was the most popular, for Joachim, accompanied by Miss Zimmermann, played Brahms’s Hungarian dances, as only he can play them, and ended by giving Schubert’s “Abendlied,” in a way that brought tears to many eyes. The company were very interesting, all musical and artistic world were present – Millais, Poynter, Burne-Jones, Tadema, Richmond, Browning, and many others.
Though principally designed for artistic purposes, the studio was also devised with entertaining and music in mind. Today, Leighton's studio is still enjoyed as a unique setting for intimate music concerts, both through the museums public programme of events, as well as private venue hire.
A modern day concert held in Leighton's studio