“DEATH OF MME. SAINTON-DOLBY. The death in London is announced of Mme. Sainton-Dolby. Nearly fifteen years ago Mme. Sainton retired from public life, and except on one occasion, when at her husband’s farewell 11 June, 1883, she sang at the Royal Albert Hall, she had not since appeared upon the platform as a vocalist. But although the once glorious voice of the great English contralto was no longer heard, she still wielded an influence for good. Her compositions were from time to time performed, and many of the lady-pupils whom she endeavoured to train in the soundest and best of vocal schools have been fairly launched on their professional career. For some time past Mme. Sainton had been troubled with a chest complaint, which compelled her to pass a portion of the winter on her estate in Normandy. Only a fortnight ago, on Wednesday, the 4th instant, she was to have celebrated her “silver wedding,” after a quarter of a century of the happiest married life with the eminent violinist, M. Sainton. Born May 17, 1821, Charlotte Dolby entered the Royal Academy of Music in January, 1834, and her name disappears from the books in June, 1837. In that year, however, she won the King’s Scholarship. Miss Dolby’s advance in her profession was rapid. She soon gained a foremost place as a singer of English ballads, and music lovers of middle age will readily recollect the favour she won for Chorley ‘s “When I was Young”, Claribel’s “Strangers Yet”, and Smart’s “Lady of the Lea.” In the winter of 1840 Mendelssohn invited her to Leipsic, where she appeared at the Gewandhaus concerts, and carried the fame of English art through Germany, and subsequently through France and other European countries. It was, however, within the United Kingdom that her chief artistic glories were achieved. To give details of her career would practically be to write the history of oratorio music in England for the thirty years which ended in 1870. In 1860 Miss Dolby was married to M. Sainton, and their son, a young gentleman of two or three and twenty, is now a painter of high promise.”
This obituary of Charlotte Helen Sainton Dolby gives some introduction to a successful and well-known musician of the nineteenth century; what it does not reveal is the breadth of her musicality and influence, which must be inferred from the many reviews, articles, mentions and more than span her lifetime. It’s also slightly wrong in places, although it’s certainly more fulsome than many of her female contemporaries at the Academy achieved upon their demise.
We know little of Dolby’s early life, save that her father, Samuel Dolby, died in 1831, when she was ten, leaving her mother Charlotte Niven to bring up five daughters and a son, of which our Charlotte was the eldest. The parents had several businesses, including a chophouse and a tobacconist, and Charlotte Niven continued to run these for many years. I am reminded acutely of Clara Macirone’s story, particularly when, in the 1841 and 1851 censuses, one finds the women of the family still living together, despite all of the daughters being past marriageable age. It is another example of female economic sense, solidarity, and independence. It certainly gave the younger Charlotte an excellent female role model, and one can see the echoes of this in her own enterprise and willingness to speak for herself. A small case in point is the Elijah scandal of 1848, when she was publicly accused of unprofessional behaviour by refusing to sing in a Mendelssohn concert; Dolby wrote a brisk letter to several papers, setting the record straight; she was not one to bear calumny in silence.
Dolby entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1832 as a contralto, to study singing with Domenico Crivelli. She remained there until 1837, the year she won the King’s Scholarship. It was not long before she was in demand on concert platforms across the country, particularly for ballads and song (it is notable, in fact, that in these early concerts she often substituted song for the expected opera arias – Dolby clearly knew her own strengths. It is also worth noting that throughout her life, Dolby often accompanied herself on the piano.). By 1841 she was sharing platforms with such illustrious names as Julie Dorus Gras and Pauline Viardot Garcia, and was a regular contributor to Royal Philharmonic Society concerts. A range of song, oratorio and opera arias filled her repertoire. A typical review from 1842 demonstrates the recurring theme of her “refined taste, and beautiful expression”:
“The prima donna was Miss Dolby, whose fine contralto voice, refined taste, and beautiful expression, left nothing to desire in the execution of the pieces allotted to her. An aria, “Quando il core,” by Persiani, embodied all the wonders and difficulties of the Italian school, and was given by Mis Dolby with consummate ease. Miss Pyne, a pupil of Sir George Smart, does honor to her instructor; her voice a soprano of fine quality has been highly cultivated. Her song, “Up to the forest hie,” [by John Barnett] was exceedingly beautiful; and the duets between her and Miss Dolby were rich treats.”
Dolby was the contralto of choice for many composers, including Mendelssohn, who approved particularly of her performance in St Paul, and RAM principal William Sterndale Bennett, with whose music she had a long and close association. Of course, Dolby was herself a composer, first mainly of song, but later branching into longer, dramatic works. Wikipedia dismisses her condescendingly with the phrase “She made various successful attempts as a composer”, despite her commissions, positive reviews and runs of works – her cantatas Florimel and The Legend of St Dorothea were particularly successful, receiving repeat performances over several years. It is noteworthy that Dolby collaborated with performers and poets who were also well-known, such as singers Edith Wynne and Mary Davies, who sang Dolby’s songs well after the composer’s death, and Claribel aka Charlotte Alington Barnard, one of the most successful nineteenth-century ballad poet-composers before her early death at 39.
Charlotte Dolby married violinist and RAM professor Prosper Sainton in 1860 at the age of 39, thereafter becoming known professionally as Madame Sainton-Dolby. She bore a son, Charles, at the grand old age of 40, a son who would go on to be a successful artist.
Fairy On A Lily, by Charles Prosper Sainton
After marriage, Dolby performed less, although the common refrain that she retired from the concert platform is a misconception – she would continue to appear in salon and other more “private” performance events, events which of course underpin an enormous proportion of music making around Europe at this time. Having said that, Dolby’s penchant for farewell concerts, of which there appear to have a fair number, doesn’t help set the record straight.
Dolby also opened a vocal academy which became quickly famed for delivering well-trained voices into the profession. Indeed, within a few short years, large number of teaching advertisements started to appear, proudly advertising the advertiser as a “pupil of Madame Sainton-Dolby’, and continued well after the singer’s death. Dolby cemented her reputation as a teacher with her Tutor for English Voices.
Dolby is known mainly for song, as her cantatas have faded from view. Here, however, is the Triumphal March fromThe Legend of St Dorothea, “a new cantata, which stamps [Dolby] as a composer of no ordinary skill.”