If, like me, you are a theatre loving Londoner you will have walked down Charing Cross Road or St Martin’s Lane a hundred times. But have you ever noticed the small paved walk called Cecil Court that runs between them just opposite the Coliseum? The court, part of the Earl of Salisbury’s estate, dates from the late 17th century although the original buildings had fallen into such disrepair two centuries later that in the 1890s they were pulled down and replaced by the present mansion flats and shops.
Back in the early 1700s Cecil Court had been a bustling neighbourhood with its fair shares of fires, pickpockets, and bawdy houses. And, for a few months in 1761, it was home to the Mozart family. They lodged with barber John Couzin paying twelve shillings a week ‘for three rooms which were smaller than they might have wished – and had not cooking facilities forcing them to send out for all their meals.’ From these rooms they sold tickets, for half a guinea each, to their concerts. And it is thought, in the light of his sister Nannerl’s comments, that Wolfgang composed his first symphony while living there. “In London, when our father lay ill and close to death we were not allowed to touch the clavier. So, to occupy himself, Mozart composed his first symphony, with all the instruments, above all with trumpets and drums. I had to sit by him and copy it out …”
Whatever about the cooking facilites in ‘hair cutter Couzins’ rooms‘, by the late 19th century the the ‘dilapidated, rickety, unsanitary tenements in Cecil-court had reached such a stage of decay that they could hold together no longer’. They had also become somewhat of a political hot potato for their owner Lord Salisbury, now Prime Minister of England and ‘a leading authority on housing the poor’! So the Board or Works moved in and in 1894 new mansion flats with shops below arose on either side of the court.
The first tenants of the new buildings were early film distributors plus a trade journal publisher, a naval and military tailor and an ostrich feather manufacturer. Indeed, thanks to its film tenants, Cecil Court was known for some years as Flicker Alley. Booksellers and publishers soon moved in too. One of the employees at the Unicorn Press in 1902, was 18 year old Arthur Ransome, spy and future children’s author (who remembers Swallows and Amazons?) – while in 1904 William and Gilbert Foyle opened their first West End shop at number 16 (annual rent £60).
Specialist foreign language bookshops also found a home in the court. In 1935 Joan Gili founded the Dolphin Bookshop, selling Spanish and Catalan books; a Welsh language bookshop opened at number 5 in 1946 – Dylan Thomas a regular visitor. And in 1960 Valérie Travis opened a shop selling musical scores.
(If you want to investigate the history of Cecil Court more thoroughly you can find an excellent monograph here.)
Valérie’s father, Sir Edward Travis, had been director of code breaking at Bletchley Park and Valérie, scarily brainy and intense, work at Bletchley Park under him. After the war she trained with the music antiquarian Otto Haas, and then, from 1955 she ran Alec (father of Martin) Clunes’ Cecil Court bookshop which specialised in music and the theatre. In 1960 Valérie, now married to the organist and Bach scholar Walter Emery, took over the bookshop and rechristened it Travis and Emery. For the next nearly 40 years the shop sold antiquarian, second hand and first edition books and sheet music.
When Giles Sandeman-Allen, Valerie’s nephew inherited the shop on her death in 1998 it was still going but in serious financial touble and struggling with mountains of uncatalogued stock. However, believing that it provided a benefit to the music community, Giles decided to persevere. With the help of office manager Helen Hardy who, when she died in 2020, had been with Travis and Emery for 60 years, he tackled the mountains of stock. His enterprise was richly rewarded by the discovery, under one teetering pile, of a single page from one of Beethoven’s sketch books on which the composer had notated the slow movement from the third ‘Razumovsky’ quartet. Its sale solved the shop’s financial problems and they were away. (Another exciting discovery, also marked ‘Beethoven’, when unwrapped revealed a collection of soft porn!)
Nearly 30 years later the shop is still flourishing and Giles is very much still there – now assisted by his daughter Emma, a raft of young musicians and music students who Giles employs between gigs and their studies, and a thriving on line business. And they still sell antiquarian, second hand and first edition books and sheet music along with signed scores, facsimiles, collectible programmes, periodicals, original libretti, photographs and prints.
Meanwhile the shop, and indeed all of the shops in Cecil Court (including two antiquarian books shops, two map shops, a coin specialist and a bank note specialist, the London Medal Company, an auctioneer and several art galleries) still looks like something out of a Dickens novel. In Travis and Emery’s case, floor to ceiling wooden shelving crammed with scores and books, including everything from rare first editions of eighteenth century Italian operas worth thousands to cheap sheet music used by students.
So, where does Mahler fit in?
In the 1970s and ’80s the music world was abuzz with stories about Gill Kaplan, the extremely wealthy Wall Street publisher, and his obsession with Mahler’s second ‘Resurrection’ symphony. Not a musician himself, Kaplan was blown away by the symphony when he first heard in in the 1960s and decided that he wanted to conduct it. Over the next 20 years he studied conducting and in 1982 he conducted his first Mahler in New York with the American Symphony Orchestra. Although the orchestra insisted that no reviews should be published, the news crept out and while not everyone was convinced (see the comments by a trombonist who played in a subsequent performance in Wikipedia), he made a sufficiently acceptable fist of it for other orchestras to agree to perform it under his baton.
Kaplan conducted over 100 performances of Mahler 2, the only piece of music he ever conducted in public although he did record the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. And in 1987 he came to London and conducted it with the London Symphony Orchestra. At the time my record producing partner James Mallinson worked closely with the LSO so it was sort of inevitable that Kaplan would want to make a recording of his (and Mahler’s) masterpiece – and that James would produce it.
Some years before Kaplan had bought, for a mere £4.5 million, the autograph manuscript of Mahler’s score. After recording the symphony and the Adagietto (which James also produced), the Kaplan Foundation published extremely beautiful limited editions of both MSSs copies of which he gave to the lucky few – including James as a thank you for bringing his recording dreams to fruition.
Some months ago when I finally got round to sorting out the 25 boxes of James’ scores which were cluttering up the garage, I found the Mahler books. Since they were limited editions and since all were inscribed to James I thought they should have some value. But what to do with them?
Someone suggested that, among other avenues of enquiry, I should try Bonhams Books and Manuscripts. I emailed them with some images and they kindly came back to me to say that they did not think they could get the best price for me – but why didn’t I try Travis and Emery.
Which is how, a couple of weeks ago, I found myself trudging down Cecil Court with a suitcase of very heavy books!
Emma and her colleagues were totally delightful and were happy to incorporate my Mahlers into their stock. And I absolutely fell in love with their shop.
So, if ever you need music of any kind, take yourself on a little trip down to the bottom of Charing Cross Road, turn left into Cecil Court – and leave yourself plenty of time for browsing and chatting. Of course, you could also just go to their website – or to that of Abe Books who hold their whole catalogue of over 20,000 items – but that would not be nearly as much fun!
Meanwhile…. Don’t forget…
Sunday 9th March – Hampstead Lane
A feast of Debussy – with a pinch of Archbold. For his slightly unusual trio of harp, viola and flute, harpist Hugh Webb has put together a delightful programme of Debussy interspersed by short pieces by his good friend, the composer Paul Archbold.
£30 to include buffet supper and wine – book here.
7th March – 10th April – London Handel Festival
Eighteen different events – full blooded Handel operas, lunchtime chamber concerts, celebrity recitals, another exciting production from the Handel Opera Studio – and of course, the world famous Handel Singing competition.
For all details and to book go here.
Sunday 23rd March – Highgate Society Lunchtime Concert
Pianists Viola Lenzi and Isabella Gori will be combining forces on the Highgate Society piano to play us some four-handed jazz and folk inspired music. Think Gershwin, Greig and Dvořák.
£15 to include a glass of Bucks Fizz – book here.
For future happenings in at Hampstead Lane and elsewhere – see our Upcoming Events page.
Dear Michelle,
Just a word of thanks for the recent marvellous evening of JS Bach’s music played by Nathaniel Mander on the spinet. The congenial atmosphere of your salon and Nathanial’s musicianship and excellent introductions to the various pieces made this an evening to remember.
– Not to mention your generous and scrumptious supper. (Naturally, one felt guilty going home, leaving you with all those dishes to deal with).
Hope to catch another of your events before long.
Yours sincerely,
Don Gillett.
(Holly Lodge).
So glad you enjoyed it Don – and Nathaniel is something rather special, isn’t he!
And please donlt feel guilty about the clearing up – my trusty elderly Mieli dishwasher had swallowed up 80% of it almost before you were out of the door.
Look forward to seeing you again soon – Michelle