Blue Plaque for Celebrated Conductor and Orchestral Reformer Sir Michael Costa
Sir Michael Costa (1808-1884), pioneering Conductor and Orchestral Reformer, will be commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque at 59 Eccleston Square, London, SW1, at 11am on 19 April 2007. Costa was the dominant figure in England's musical advancement during the mid-Nineteenth Century and, as his biographer Sir John Goulden comments, it was during his career that England largely shed the title of "Land Without Music". The Blue Plaque will be unveiled by Maestro Antonio Pappano, Music Director of the Royal Opera.
59 Eccleston Square is a particularly significant address because it was here - between 1857 and 1883 - that Costa spent half of his 55-year career in London. He entertained some illustrious guests at the house, including the Anglo-Italian opera singer Adelina Patti, the leading music critics, for whom he gave an annual dinner, and the Prince of Wales, who called on Costa several times when he was ill in the 1880s.
Born in Naples in 1808, Michael Costa studied music with his father and grandfather before attending the Real Collegio di Musica, where he composed an opera which was put on at the San Carlo Opera House. In 1829, he was sent to England by the composer Zingarelli to supervise the latter's new oratorio "Cantico d'Isaiah Profeta, xii" at the Birmingham Festival. But, as he was only 21 years old, the directors refused to allow Costa to conduct, instead asking him to sing; his efforts were not favourably received.
Costa's real talent was soon recognised, however, and in 1829 he was appointed "maestro al piano" at the King's Theatre in London, where he quickly became Director of Music. It was here that he began to implement the orchestral reforms that would have such an impact on musical standards in England. It was probably at this early stage in his career that he began to use the baton, which quickly became standard practice. Costa’s reform of the orchestra and chorus successfully revived the fortunes of London's only regular opera house, raising it to become one of the finest in Europe with a range of star singers including Grisi, Malibran, Viardot, Lablache, Rubini and Mario - perhaps the finest ensemble of the nineteenth century.
In 1847 Costa took 53 players from his orchestra and most of the singers to establish the Royal Italian Opera at Covent Garden. Here he conducted virtually every performance over the next 22 years and, with Covent Garden's first manager, Frederick Gye, Costa established it as the leading opera house in London. From 1846 to 1854 he also took over the ailing Philharmonic Orchestra and brought it to a level which his successor, Richard Wagner, recognised as one of the best in Europe. Costa also built up the Sacred Harmonic Society into the leading oratario society in Britain and directed the main musical festivals around the country including those held at Birmingham, Leeds and Bradford. These festivals played a significant part in creating a popular audience for classical music in England.
For three decades from the 1840s, Costa was the leading figure on the London musical scene. He opened the Crystal Palace in 1851 and the Royal Albert Hall in 1871 and directed the mammoth Handel Festivals at Crystal Palace, where audiences of 26,000 listened to a choir and orchestra of 3,600 musicians. He continued as conductor at Covent Garden until 1868, when he finally broke with Gye and returned to his old theatre, now known as Her Majesty's, remaining there until 1880.
Costa also organised most of the Royal Family's private concerts at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle and was regularly invited to sing and play with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. His pre-eminence as the first professional conductor in England was recognised in 1869 when he became the first person to be knighted for his services as a conductor.
Sir Michael Costa died in 1884 at Hove in Sussex and was the subject of a lengthy obituary in The Times which granted him a permanent place in the history of music as an outstanding conductor and a reformer of operatic performances. His absolute command over an orchestra was legendary. Costa's major orchestral reforms included the reworking of the layout of the orchestra, the systematic use of the baton, vigorous discipline over the musicians – and in particular the then novel idea that orchestras should be solely under the control of a conductor rather than led by the principal string player. He is credited with raising the standards of English orchestras to a height never before achieved and, according to his biographer, Sir John Goulden, was more responsible than anyone for "the radical change which lifted English music between 1830 and 1880."
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