Richard Carte
Richard Carte (né Cart; 23 February 1808 – 1891) was an English flute-maker, flautist and composer. One of his sons was the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte, producer of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.
Life and career
Carte was born Richard Cart[1] on 23 February 1808 in Silchester, Hampshire. He studied with George Rudall[2] on an eight key "Nicholson" flute. By 1824 he was giving concerts in London both as a soloist and an orchestra player.
Carte married Eliza Carte (née Jones)[1]; the couple eloped, to the disappointment of her father, Thomas Jones, a clergyman. Two of their six children, Henry W. Carte (1856–1926) and Richard D'Oyly Carte, became important in their own fields: the first as flute-maker and the second for staging the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas.[3] The other children were Blanche (1846–1935), Viola (1848–1925), Rose (1854–1940[4]) and Eliza (1860–1941).
Carte was a popular lecturer on the development of the flute and was secretary of the newly founded "London Society of Amateur Flautists" in 1866. He was a friend of Louis Spohr, and in 1843 was a member of Jullien's famous band. At the height of his career (1844), he adopted Theobald Boehm's flute with the open G-sharp, and two years later brought out a manual for it, the copyright for which he sold for £100. His best-known flute pupil was Richard Shepherd Rockstro.[5]
In 1850, he became a partner at the prominent flute-making firm of Rudall, Rose & Co., instigating many improvements and additions to the Boehm system, which culminated in his popular 1867 model.[6] After he became a partner in the business, it changed its name to Rudall, Rose, Carte and Co. and later to Rudall, Carte & Co.[7]
Compositions
- Complete Instruction for the Boehm flute (1845)
- Concertants Duets for two flutes
- Fantasias
- Grands Solos for flute and piano
Notes
- 1 2 Jacobs, Arthur (2004). "Carte, Richard D'Oyly (1844–1901)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. accessed 12 September 2008. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32311
- ↑ Stebbings, p. 1867
- ↑ Young, pp. 98–99
- ↑ BMD entry of death for Rose Coulson, Death register, 1st quarter 1940, age 85, Camberwell, Vol. 1d, p. 1295
- ↑ Fairley, p. 108
- ↑ Burgess, Michael (1975). "Richard D'Oyly Carte", The Savoyard, January 1975, pp. 7–11
- ↑ "New Music". The Era. 21 March 1869. Rudall, Carte and Co was still trading in the West End in 1954: see The Times, 16 December 1954, p. 1
References
- Fairley, Andrew (1982). Flutes, Flautists and Makers (Active or Born Before 1900). Pan Educational Music.
- Stebbings, James W. (28 April 2025). The Lost Heirs: The Rise and Fall of the D'Oyly Carte Dynasty. Troubador Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1-83628-861-9.
- Young, Percy M. (1971). Sir Arthur Sullivan. London: Dent. ISBN 0-460-03934-2.