Lewis Henry Lavenu

Lewis Henry Lavenu (1818–59) was an English composer, conductor, musician and impresario.

Lavenu was born in London in 1818, the only son, by his second wife Eliza, of Lewis Lavenu, music publisher to the Prince Regent. Shortly after his birth, his father died and his mother went into business with the violinist Nicolas Mori, a pupil of Viotti by whom she had 5 children, although they weren't married until 1826 (in St. Paul's, Covent Garden).

Lavenu studied at the Royal Academy of Music, firstly with the French harpist Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, and subsequently with Charles Lucas, George Alexander Macfarren, and Cipriani Potter in composition, cello and piano. In 1840 Lavenu arranged two tours of the British Isles for the composer and pianist Franz Liszt, accompanied by his half brother Frank Mori, two female singers and John Orlando Parry, an all round musician, singer and entertainer (who vividly recorded the tour in his diary). Between 17 August and 26 September, they gave 50 concerts around England which were generally unsuccessful, having an average attendance of 140. The second tour which encompassed Liverpool, Ireland and Scotland from November 1840 to January 1841 was mildly more successful, with audiences of more than 1200 in Dublin. The tour was however a financial failure, and Liszt waived his promised 500 guineas a month fee.

In May, 1844, Lavenu, who had been in partnership with Robert Hodson in the Music publishing business which he had inherited from his mother and stepfather, Mori, Lavenu, & Co. sold the business to Hodson who then went into partnership with Robert Addison forming Addison & Hodson. Addison had formerly been in partnership with Johann Baptist Cramer and Thomas Frederick Beale in the business of J. B. Cramer, Addison & Beale.

...
Wikipedia