John Spencer Curwen

CURWEN, John Spencer. b. 30 September 1847; d. 6 August 1916. He was the son of John Curwen (1816–80), who developed and promoted ‘Tonic Sol-fa’*. After studying at the Royal Academy of Music he assisted his father’s work and finally succeeded him as head of the publisher J. Curwen and Sons and principal of the Tonic Sol-fa College, founded in 1879. He also published a biography of his father, Memorials of John Curwen (1882). He was editor of the Tonic Sol-fa Reporter and later of its successor, the Musical Herald (published from 1889); he also made numerous Tonic Sol-fa editions of major choral works by Handel*, Haydn*, Mozart, Rossini, Mendelssohn*, Spohr and others. In 1877 he married...