The Walter Willson Cobbett Medal is awarded annually by the Worshipful Company of Musicians "in recognition of services to Chamber Music". It was established in 1924 and endowed with £50 by Walter Willson Cobbett (1847–1937), an amateur violinist and expert on chamber music who went on to serve as the company's master in 1928–29."Cobbett, Walter Willson" in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan Company, 1927) Cobbett had previously instigated the Cobbett Competition for chamber music (from 1905), and later was the primary author of the two volume Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, first published in 1929.
The first recipient of the medal in 1924 was Thomas Dunhill, a committed composer of chamber music who had also set up an annual series of concerts in London to perform British works: his concerts ran from 1907 until 1919 and included the music of several subsequent winners of the Cobbett medal, including Ralph Vaughan Williams and Charles Wood. The following year the award went to the American patron of music Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, founder of the Berkshire Music Festival in Massachusetts. Coolidge showed an affinity for British music from the first event in 1918, but the 1923 Festival in particular was programmed to be a showcase for modern British composers. Included were chamber works by Arnold Bax, Frank Bridge, Rebecca Clarke, Benjamin Dale and Eugene Goossens.Banfield, Stephen. 'Too Much of Albion?: Mrs Coolidge and her British Connections', in American Music, Vol 4 No 1 (Spring 1986)
The Cobbett Medal was registered as a charity in 1964.Charity Commission: The Cobbett Medal The medal itself, designed by Gilbert Bayes, is silver-gilt and features a portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven."The Walter Willson Cobbett Medal", The Musician's Company. Retrieved 2 October 2018.'The Cobbett Medal by Gilbert Bayes (1872-1953)', Victorian Web
Recipients
1924: Thomas Dunhill'Thomas Dunhill', AIM25 database of archives in London 1925: Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (United States) 1926: Alfred J. Clements 1927: Harry Waldo Warner 1928: Edward Elgar 1929: Frank Bridge 1930: Ralph Vaughan Williams 1931: Arnold Bax 1932: John Ireland 1933: Charles Wood (awarded posthumously) 1934: Cecil Armstrong Gibbs 1935: Richard Watkins 1936: Donald Tovey 1937: Pablo Casals 1938: Ivor James 1939: Herbert Withers 1940: Isolde Menges 1942: Ernest Walker 1943: Sidney Griller 1944: Myra Hess 1945: Herbert Walenn 1946: Lionel Tertis 1947: William Walton 1948: Michael Tippett 1949: Gordon Jacob 1950: Dennis Brain 1951: Gerald Moore 1952: Frederick Thurston 1953: Arthur Bliss 1954: Leon Goossens 1955: Edmund Rubbra 1956: Arthur Benjamin 1957: Thurston Dart 1958: Kathleen Long 1959: Yehudi Menuhin 1960: George Malcolm 1961: Lennox BerkeleyLennox Berkeley biography by Peter Dickinson 1962: Anne Macnaghten 1963: Norbert Brainin 1964: Emmanuel Hurwitz 1965: Joan Dickson 1966: Howard Ferguson 1967: Kenneth Leighton 1968: Elizabeth Maconchy 1969: Hugh Bean 1970: Cecil Aronowitz 1971: Watson Forbes 1972: Denis Matthews 1975: Janet Craxton 1976: Gordon Crosse 1977: Ivor Newton 1978: Wilfrid Parry 1979: Edwin Roxburgh 1981: Hugh Maguire 1985: Christopher Hogwood 1986: Philip Jones 1987: Peter Maxwell Davies 1988: Evelyn Barbirolli 1989: Jack Brymer 1990: Sidonie Goossens 1991: Eileen Croxford 1992: Elgar Howarth 1993: Nona Liddell 1994: Irvine Arditti 1995: Levon Chilingirian 1996: Amelia Freedman'The Nash Ensemble', Onyx Classics 1997: Yfrah Neaman 1998: David TakenoDavid Takeno biography, Guildhall School of Music 1999: Richard SotnickRichard Sotnick biography, Publishing Push 2000: Christopher Rowland 2001: William Lyne 2002: Julian Bream 2003: John WoolfJohn Woolf obituary, Royal College of Music 2004: Sigmund Nissel 2005: Peter Cropper 2006: John Underwood 2007: Martin Lovett 2008: Joseph Horovitz'Joseph Horovitz', Wise Music Classical 2009: Graham Johnson 2010: Stephen Dodgson 2011: Stephen Kovacevich 2012: Malcolm SingerMalcolm Singer biography 2013: Susan TomesSusan Tomes biography, susantomes.com 2014: Richard Ireland'Richard Ireland', Royal Academy of Music 2015: Trevor Pinnock 2016: Steven Isserlis, CBE'Cellist Steven Isserlis receives Cobbett Medal for services to chamber music', in The Strad, 11 July 2017 2017: Kenneth SillitoKenneth Sillito biography, Austin Macauley Publishers 2018: William Bennett, OBE 2019: John Gilhooly, OBE 2020: Emma Johnson, MBEEmma Johnson, short biography 2021: Corina Belcea 2022: Nicholas Daniel, OBEThe Cobbett Medal 2022: Nicholas Daniel, OBE 2023: Lawrence Power 2024: Leon Bosch
References