Albert Fransella (17 March 1865 – 7 March 1935) was a virtuoso flutist and principal flutist of Dutch and British orchestras between 1880 and 1925.
Biography Fransella was born in Amsterdam of Dutch parentage but Swiss extraction.Saxe Wyndham, p.84 His mother died when Fransella was just one year old. Fransella only had one lung.Weston, p.24 Despite this, he learnt to play the flute, and piano, from his father Jacob, a professor of music, and Jacques de Jong, flautist to the King of Holland. At fifteen he appeared at a concert given for Frederick Francis II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and was, at that time, second flute in one of the Amsterdam Orchestras. A year later he was appointed as first flute with the Utrecht Orchestra.Bigio, p.19 In 1881 he played for Johannes Brahms, who was enthusiastic about Fransella's playing, saying that a brilliant career lay before the youth.De Lorenzo, p.169 He came to England from The Netherlands in 1884 at the age of nineteen when he was appointed as principal flautist with the Scottish Orchestra, Glasgow. He first appeared in London under Jules Riviere's Promenade Concerts at Covent Garden.De Lorenzo, p.169Saxe Wyndham, p.84
In 1888 he returned to Holland to join the newly formed Concertgebouw in Amsterdam as their first solo flautist. He performed no less than eleven times as solo flautist with the orchestra under Willem Kes, playing such repertoire as Doppler's L'oiseau des bois, op. 21, for flute and four horns, Saint-Saëns's Tarantella, Joachim Andersen's Wien Neerlands bloed, op. 35 (Fantasy on a Dutch folk hymn), and Edward de Jong's Faust Fantasy.Tibia: Magazine for Woodwind, Issue 2, 1999, Published by Moeck, Celle, GermanyPowell, p.204 He returned to England in late 1891.
He then became the leading player in England, replacing Oluf Svendsen when he retired as first flute in the Crystal Palace Orchestra in 1892He had appeared as a soloist with the Palace orchestra as early as 1888. Morning Post, 28 July 1888. p.1The Musical Times, 1 April 1892, p. 234(at the time the only full-time symphony orchestra in London), before he was invited to become first flute in Henry Wood's newly founded Queen's Hall Orchestra in 1895. He later became the principal flute of the Philharmonic Society Orchestra, playing with them until 1925 when he was succeeded by Robert Murchie.Elkin, p.105 In 1893 he began teaching at the Guildhall School of Music in London. He was a professor there until 1915. He also taught at Trinity College of Music in London.Tibia: Magazine for Woodwind, Issue 2, 1999, Published by Moeck, Celle, Germany Amongst his students was Gerald Jackson,Jacobs, p.39 who was first flute in the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham. He also taught Ary van Leeuwen,The Flutist, 1924, Volume 5, p.113 Emil Medicus, Marguerite de Forest-Anderson,The Flutist, March 1925, Volume 6, No.3. p.54Musical America. 17 August 1907. Vol 6. Iss 14. p.9 Edgar Hunt, Joseph Emile Slater and Holger Gilbert-Jespersen.
Fransella had the distinction of being a soloist at the first Henry Wood Promenade concert on 10 August 1895, playing two movements from the Suite de Trois Morceaux by Benjamin Godard. In the same year, he commissioned the instrument makers Rudall Carte & Co., to make him a gold flute.Bigio, p.22 He first used the new flute at a recital at the Queen's Hall in 1896. He played at the Promenade concerts no less than 356 times from 1895 until 1918, becoming one of the players that the audience liked to spot and personally welcome to the stage.Jacobs, p.132The Musical Times. 1 September 1911. Vol 52. Iss 823. p.601
In 1898 Fransella organised a concert at the Queen's (small) Hall to show off four flutes which he had commissioned from Rudall Carte.Mr Fransella’s Concert – A Flute Quartet, The Musical Times, 1 July 1898, p.475 At the concert, the Fransella Flute Quartet premiered two works by Thomas Harrison Frewin, a composer and the first violin in Henry Wood's Queens' Hall Orchestra. The concert also included new works by Ernesto Köhler and Albert Ketèlbey. In 1900 and 1901 as conductor, musical director and manager of the summer theatre at Ranelagh Gardens, Felixstowe, he directed his own series of promenade concerts with his own orchestra.
He played with the Queen's Hall Wind Quintet, founded in 1902Jacobs, p.86 alongside Désiré Lalande (oboe), Manuel Gomez (clarinet), Frederick James (bassoon) and Adolf Borsdorf (horn).
Fransella was to give and present many first performances of works by the twentieth century's great composers. On 13 March 1899, at an Albert Fransella Chamber Concert, there was the first performance of Delius’s Seven Songs from the Norwegian, at the Queen's (Small) Hall with Minna Fischer.Thompson, p.117
Fransella gave the first English performance of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune at a Promenade concert with the Queen's Hall Orchestra on 20 August 1904.Thompson, p.83
Such was his fame, that in 1906 a caricature appeared of Fransella entitled The Paganini of the Flute in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. This title was repeated in subsequent reviews. Fransella was to have many such laudations to describe his playing during his career: …no player can equal Mr. Fransella, virtuoso of the flute. Henry Wood referred to him as, 'That great flautist'.Bigio, p.20 He also received high praise for his conducting and pianistic skills.
In May 1906, Fransella played at a Bach Memorial concert in the Aeolian Hall, to raise funds for the purchase of Bach's house in Eisenach and for the endowment of a Bach Museum. The following month, in June 1906, at the Broadwood Concert Room, he gave the British premiere of the York Bowen Suite for Flute and Piano, which Bowen dedicated to Fransella, with the composer at the piano. He played the work again later in the year at the Promenade Concerts at the Queen's Hall. Promenade Concerts: Four Novelties at The Queen's Hall, Daily News (London), 8 October 1906, p.8 At the June concert, Fransella also performed with his new quartet, consisting of Ferdinand Weist-Hill on violin, Jacques Renard on cello and Jacques Presburg on piano. In 1907 he co-founded the music publishers Stainer & Bell with Richard Henry Walthew a colleague at the Guildhall School of Music, Sydney Bransgrove and others. He edited several publications and published several of his own compositions via this publishing house. He premiered the 1907 Idyll by Walthew, published by Stainer and Bell, with the pianist Frederick B. Kiddle at a Queen's Hall Prom in September 1907.
In May 1908, Fransella appeared alongside the greatest performers of the age at the Albert Hall in London. The concert in aid of the League of Mercy, with invitations issued by the Prince and Princess of Wales, included such artists as Enrico Caruso, John McCormack, Efrem Zimbalist, Nellie Melba and Antonio Scotti.Strong, pp.96,97
On 9 September 1909 he gave the premiere of Carl Reinecke's flute concerto in London.
Fransella was the first flute player to be a named recording artistBigio p.23 and accompanied the great sopranos Luisa Tetrazzini,Zicari, pp.29, 43 Nellie Melba,De Lorenzo, p.169 Ellen Beach Yaw, Evangeline Florence, Alice Esty, Ruth Vincent, Dorothy Silk,Great Musical Treat. Banbury Advertiser. 25 January 1923. p.8Adelina Patti, Christina NilssonOrchestral Music in Ipswich, East Anglian Daily Times, 29 March 1913, p.5 Emma Albani,Macaulay Fitzgibbon, p.152 Mademoiselle DoloresMusical Doings, The Queen. 30 July 1904. p.43 and Mignon Nevada.Foster, p.513 Fransella named the fourth of his seven children Ella Melba Fransella,Ella was born in July of 1894England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837–1915 after the great soprano. Fransella had performed with Melba to great acclaim in a June concert in 1894.
Fransella married Ella Marie Brennen in 1889 and they had seven children. Their first son, Henri,b. 3/5/1890, Amsterdam. Amsterdam Population Register 1874–1893, Vol. 2412 was a fine flautist who played in the Queen's Hall Orchestra and Covent Garden and as a soloist,Holloway Press, 9 November 1906, p.4 as well as playing alongside his father at several concerts.London Concerts, The Musical Times, 1 Aug. 1909, Vol. 50, No. 798, p. 534London Concerts, The Musical Times, 1 February 1910London Concerts, The Musical Times, 1 June 1911, Vol. 52, No. 820, p. 396
In 1912 Albert and Henri accompanied the first performance of Régine Wieniawski's A Poor Young Shepherd, sung by her husband Sir Aubrey Dean Paul (under his stage name of Edward Ramsey) with Wieniawski on piano. Henri died young aged only 27.England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916–2007
In 1912 Albert founded the first Fransella Trio with Marjorie Hayford on violin and Winifred Christie on piano.Matters Musical, The Referee, 15 December 1912, p.5 He also played with the Hamilton Harty Trio (with Hamilton Harty, piano and J.L Fonteyne, oboe) and the Hamilton Harty Sextet. The sextet made their debut on 2 November 1911, performing the English premiere of Rimsky Korsakov's Piano and Wind Quintet, amongst other works.London Concerts: Chamber Concerts, Musical Times, 1 December 1911, p.806 He was director of the London Wind sextet, the Fransella quartet and of the two Fransella Trios.Obituary, The Stage, 14 March 1935, p.12
As well as his many Proms appearances, Fransella played in numerous recitals. In 1913 he presented a series of four recitals and included the best, and most popular, pieces of the flute repertoire. The performances included works by Joachim Anderson, J.S. Bach, Alfredo Casella, Cécile Chaminade, Katherine Eggar, Philippe Gaubert, Mozart, Susan Spain-Dunk, Carl Reinecke and Theodor Verhey.Bigio, p.23
Fransella, performing alongside Harry Waldo Warner on viola and Miriam Timothy on harp, gave the first public performance of Debussy's Trio for Flute, Viola and Harp at the Aeolian Hall on 2 February 1917.
On 26 March 1917, the Oriana Madrigal SocietyCharles Kennedy Scott founded the Oriana Madrigal Society in 1905 and continued to conduct the choir until he retired in 1961 presented a concert at the Aeolian Hall which included the first performance of Arnold Bax's Elegiac Trio for Flute, Viola and Harp. Fransella, Harry Waldo Warner and Miriam Timothy were the performers. Fransella, at the same concert, gave a performance of the Four Dances for flute and piano, with Harriet Cohen, that Bax had rescued from his ballet Tamara.Foreman, p.148 Later that year, Fransella gave the first performance of Dora Bright's Suite Bretonne with the Queen's Hall Orchestra and Henry Wood at the Proms.
In 1918, Fransella and a number of renowned musicians including Albert Sammons, Emile Sauret, William Murdoch, York Bowen, John Ireland, Eugène Goossens, Arnold Bax, Lionel Tertis, Felix Salmond and Walter Hyde sought to establish a new music conservatoire in London. It was to be known as the International Conservatoire of Music. The Belgian musician Emile de Vlieger was to be a co-director with Alfonso Marconi and Mrs Godfrey Isaacs as financial backers. The proposed conservatoire did not come to fruition.Musical America. 23 November 1918. Vol. 29. Iss 4. p.27
Fransella was still considered the best player in England in 1919 when Gerald Jackson, the future first flute of Beecham's London Philharmonic Orchestra, became his pupil.Jacobs, p.39 On 6 October 1920, Fransella gave the first performance of Arthur Bliss's Rhapsody, for wordless soprano, tenor and chamber ensemble, at a Gerald Cooper Concert at the Mortimer Hall, London. The performers were: Dorothy Helmrich (soprano), Gerald Cooper (tenor), Albert Fransella (flute), Mr. Hinchcliffe (clarinet), the Wadsworth Quartet and double bass.Foreman, p.99