Ibbs and Tillett – Fifield Christopher (2020)

For much of the twentieth century, the Ibbs and Tillett concert agency was to the British music industry what Marks and Spencer is to the world of department stores. The roll call of famous musicians on its books was unmatched and included international stars such as Clara Butt, Fritz Kreisler, Pablo Casals, Sergei Rachmaninov, Andrés Segovia, Kathleen Ferrier, Myra Hess, Jacqueline du Pré, Clifford Curzon and Vladimir Ashkenazy, to name only a handful. From 1906, the company’s success was due to the dedication of its founders, Robert Leigh Ibbs and John Tillett. After their deaths, the agency was run by John Tillett’s wife, Emmie, who, dubbed the “Duchess of Wigmore Street”, became one of the most formidable yet respected women in British music. This history of a unique institution and its owners is told here for the first time, often through fascinating letters exchanged between the artists and the agency. It begins in the latter years of the nineteenth century with the concert and theatrical manager Narciso Vert, for whom both Ibbs and Tillett worked until his death in 1905. The story then becomes a history of musical life in twentieth-century Britain, illuminating the day-to-day management of concerts and festivals, the lives and livelihoods of professional musicians, and those who tried to join their ranks through audition or recommendation. The changing profile of the artists represented by Ibbs and Tillett, particularly the rise and development of personal management and their reception in the press, can be viewed as a barometer of musical taste. The agency’s demise in 1990 reflected how much the world of British music had changed by the end of the century, but despite its loss to the profession, the legacy and influence of Ibbs and Tillett has remained a benchmark in today’s highly competitive world of artist management and concert promotion.