Editing Tobias Matthay (section)

==Biography==
Matthay was born in [[Clapham]], [[Surrey]], in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and eventually became naturalised British subjects.<ref name=grove>''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', 5th ed. (1954) Vol. 5, p. 632, Macmillan, London {{oclc|6085892}}</ref> He entered London's [[Royal Academy of Music]] in 1871 and eight months later he received the first scholarship given to honour the knighthood of its principal, [[William Sterndale Bennett|Sir William Sterndale Bennett]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Tobias Matthay|url=http://www.pianosage.net/Matthay.html|access-date=2021-08-28|website=www.pianosage.net}}</ref> At the academy, Matthay studied composition under Sir William Sterndale Bennett and [[Arthur Sullivan]], and piano with William Dorrell and [[Walter Macfarren]]. He served as a sub-professor there from 1876 to 1880, and became an assistant professor of pianoforte in 1880, before being promoted to professor in 1884.<ref>{{cite book |title=England's Piano Sage: The Life and Teachings of Tobias Matthay|author=Siek, Stephen|year=2012 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Lanham, MD |isbn=978-0-81088-161-7 }}</ref>  With [[Frederick Corder]] and [[John Blackwood McEwen]], he co-founded the [[Society of British Composers]] in 1905.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SIK1vk2c6A0C|title=The British Piano Sonata, 1870-1945|author=Hardy, Lisa|year=2001 |publisher=Boydell Press |isbn=978-0-85115-822-8}}</ref> Matthay remained at the RAM until 1925, when he was forced to resign because McEwen—his former student who was then the academy's Principal—publicly attacked his teaching.

In 1903, after over a decade of observation, analysis, and experimentation, he published ''The Act of Touch'', an encyclopedic volume that influenced piano pedagogy throughout the English-speaking world. So many students were soon in quest of his insights that two years later he opened the Tobias Matthay Pianoforte School, first in Oxford Street, then in 1909 relocating to Wimpole Street, where it remained for the next 30 years.  The teachers there included his sister Dora. He soon became known for his teaching principles that stressed proper piano touch and analysis of arm movements.  He wrote several additional books on piano technique that brought him international recognition, and in 1912 he published ''Musical Interpretation'', a widely read book that analyzed the principles of effective musicianship. However, whilst acknowledging its importance, his RAM colleague [[Ambrose Coviello]] later felt the need to interpret his writing, which he criticized for its lack of clarity:<ref name=Coviello>{{cite book |date=1948 |last=Coviello |first=Ambrose |title=What Matthay Meant: His Musical and Technical Teachings Clearly Explained and Self-explained |location=London |publisher=Bosworth |oclc=316255047 |page=1}}</ref><blockquote |style=font-size:inherit>The interminable repetitions, recapitulations, summaries, footnotes, all with a change of emphasis and as often as not with new names for the same thing, led enquirers into a maze from which only the clearest brain equipped with a dogged perseverance, could extricate itself.</blockquote>

Many of his pupils went on to define a school of 20th century English pianism, including [[Arthur Alexander (pianist)|Arthur Alexander]], [[York Bowen]], [[Hilda Dederich]], [[Norman Fraser]], [[Myra Hess]], Denise Lasimonne, [[Clifford Curzon]], [[Harold Craxton]], [[Moura Lympany]], [[Arthur Douglas Peppercorn|Gertrude Peppercorn]], [[Ruth Roberts]], [[Irene Scharrer]], Lilias Mackinnon, [[Guy Jonson]], Vivian Langrish, [[Hope Squire]], [[Eileen Joyce]], jazz "syncopated" pianist Raie Da Costa, [[Harriet Cohen]], [[Dorothy Howell (composer)|Dorothy Howell]], and the duo [[Bartlett and Robertson]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Tobias Matthay Collection|url=https://www.ram.ac.uk/museum/collections/performers/tobias-matthay-collection|access-date=2021-08-04|website=Royal Academy of Music|language=en-GB}}</ref> He taught many Americans, including [[Ray Lev]], [[Eunice Norton]], and Lytle Powell, and he was also the teacher of Canadian pianist [[Harry Dean (musician)|Harry Dean]], English composer [[Arnold Bax]] and English conductor [[Ernest Read]].<ref>Scott-Sutherland, Colin. [http://www.a-test.co.uk/bms/pages/publications_2007.html 'Tobias Matthay (1858-1945) and his Pupils'], in ''British Music'' ([[British Music Society]]), Issue 29 (2007)</ref> In 1920, Hilda Hester Collens, who had studied under Matthay from 1910 to 1914, founded a music college in [[Manchester]] named the Matthay School of Music in his honour. It was later renamed the [[Northern School of Music]], a predecessor institution of the [[Royal Northern College of Music]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kennedy |first1=Michael |title=The History of the Royal Manchester College of Music, 1893-1972 |date=1971 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-0-7190-0435-3 |page=89 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xTe8AAAAIAAJ&dq=Matthay+School+of+Music+Manchester&pg=PA89 |access-date=8 January 2022 |language=en}}</ref>

His wife Jessie née Kennedy, whom he married in 1893, wrote a biography of her husband, published posthumously in 1945.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=UUGTAAAAIAAJ Jessie Henderson Kennedy Matthay. ''The Life and Works of Tobias Matthay''] (1945)</ref> She was a sister of [[Marjory Kennedy-Fraser]].  She was born in 1869 and died in 1937.<ref name=grove/> Tobias Matthay died at his country home, High Marley, near [[Haslemere]] in 1945, aged 87.