Vincent Novello

Vincent Novello (6 September 17819 August 1861), was an English musician and music publisher born in London. He was an organist, chorister, conductor and composer, but he is best known for bringing to England many works now considered standards, and with his son he created a major music publishing house. Life Vincent, born at 240 Oxford Street, was the son of Giuseppe Novello, an Italian confectioner who moved to London in 1771. As a boy Vincent was a chorister at the Sardinian Embassy Chapel in Duke Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where he learnt the organ from Samuel Webbe; and from 1796 to 1822 he became in succession organist of the Sardinian, Spanish (in Manchester Square) and Portuguese (at the Portuguese Embassy chapel off Grosvenor Square), and from 1840 to 1843 of St Mary Moorfields. He taught music privately throughout his career. One of his most notable pupils was musicologist and music critic Edward Holmes. He was an original member of the Philharmonic Society, of the Classical Harmonists and of the Choral Harmonists, officiating frequently as conductor, and was a conductor/accompanist at the King’s Theatre. Musical activities Many of Novello’s original compositions were