Millicent Silver

Millicent Silver (17 November 1905, London — 1 May 1986) was an English harpsichordist, pianist, violinist, and music educator, wife of flutist John Francis (1908—1992), with whom they established the London Harpsichord Ensemble in 1945 and mother of oboist Sarah Francis (b. 1938) and operatic soprano Hannah Francis. Silver taught as a professor of piano and harpsichord at the Royal College of Music in London for over twenty years. Some of her prominent students included harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock, organist Christopher Herrick, and pianists Melvyn Tan and Christopher Kite. Silver was born in South London and grew up in a musical family. She attended the Royal College of Music on a scholarship to study piano and violin; her primary tutor was W. H. "Billy" Reed, leader of The London Symphony Orchestra and Edward Elgar's friend. Millicent began working as a violinist in the Hallé Orchestra while studying at RCM; she gave numerous piano recitals, performing Liszt and Brahms concertos and, most notably, Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto No. 5 with LSO under Sir Adrian Boult's baton, playing on piano in the first half and sitting with the orchestra as a principal violin at the end. After graduating, Millicent Silver continued piano studies with Tobias Matthay. Towards the end of the Second World War, her career took a drastic turn after Dartington Hall's conductor Hans Oppenheim convinced Millicent to play the harpsichord continuo in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas opera; since then, Silver favored the instrument exclusively. In 1945, she co-founded the London Harpsichord Ensemble with her husband and several fellow musicians, debuting with a performance of Myra Hess concert at The National Gallery, London. Over the next 35 years, she championed a vast solo harpsichord repertoire, equally prolific on Baroque originals, period replicas, and "revival" instruments popular in the 1950-60s from makers like Robert Goble & Son, with 16' stops, pedals, and other modernizations. Millicent Silver performed most of Bach's keyboard works, including Goldberg Variations, all concertos, partitas, and English suites, music by his sons, C.P.E. Bach and Johann Christian Bach, numerous sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, Padre Antonio Soler, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, and English virginalists, such as William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, and John Bull. She extensively covered the XX-century harpsichord music by Manuel de Falla, Hans Werner Henze, György Ligeti, and many others. Millicent gave radio broadcast premieres of Benjamin Britten's Holiday Diary and Paul Hindemith's Flute Sonata together with her husband, John Francis. A few composers commissioned original works for Silver, including Walter Leigh, Gordon Jacob, and Herbert Howells. Millicent Silver and John Francis retired from public performance in early 1981.