He remained at the Academy for several years, during which he wrote, among other things of note, two or three pianoforte concertos, the most popular, although not the best, being the one in F. It is related that one of its movements, which attained great popularity, was composed
one afternoon when the other students were absent on a holiday excursion. Their delight when, on their return they heard The Barcarole, as it was called, was so great that, as the late Dr. Steggall, for many years Organist of Lincoln's Inn Chapel told me, they carried him in triumph round the concert-room on their shoulders. In 1836 he went to Leipzig to continue his studies, and there came under the immediate influence of Schumann and Mendelssohn.
That his abilities met with sincere appreciation is shown by the eulogistic way in which the former wrote of him in a musical journal he edited.
That Bennett's stay in Leipzig was a successful and even delightful experience, there is no room to doubt; it is, though, open to question whether it did not, to some extent, denationalize him as a musician. Men of his temperament and genius, are peculiarly open to exterior impressions, and going at an age of mental expansion and enthusiasm, everything that happened seems only natural. Blind ourselves, as one willingly would, the fact must be admitted that the German impress remained indelibly stamped on him during his whole life-time. It must in justice be remembered that when he was removed from Cambridge, at the age of ten, all essentially English thought, so far as music is concerned, became as a thing of the past.
He returned to England to remain permanently, after a second visit to Leipzig, in 1842.
He was appointed a Professor of Music at the Royal Academy of Music about this time, and was associated with that institution, where his memory is held in just veneration, until he died in 1875.
His work there, in conjunction with composition, became the main occupation of his life. His energies were not, however, wholly confined to it.
He was a pianist of the first order. Indeed, I was told, many years ago by a celebrated pianoforte teacher, that his technique, in exactitude, compared favourably even with that of Mendelssohn himself.
Soon after his final settling in London, he commenced a series of chamber concerts, and continued to present the classical masterpieces of this form of music for about twelve years. It was his enthusiasm alone that accounts for this fact, not public support, for that, he may be said never to have received, to any appreciable extent.
His style was, perhaps, too refined and his tastes too rigidly classical.