Herbert Brewer (1865-1928)

Sir Herbert Brewer “Orchestral miniatures from a cathedral organist” Sir Alfred Herbert Brewer’s name belongs at the heart of Gloucester’s musical history. Born in the city in 1865, he was a cathedral chorister before studying at Oxford and the Royal College of Music. He became organist and choirmaster at Gloucester Cathedral in 1896, remaining as such until his death in 1928. Recognised as a leading  church musician of his day, Brewer was knighted in 1926, an honour which came  about partly through his close friendship with Elgar.  This association with Elgar, the leading English composer of the time, is explained by the privileged and strategic position he occupied in the music profession by being  based at Gloucester Cathedral.  This brought with it the co-directorship of the Three  Choirs Festival, one of very few major classical music festivals at that time. Brewer  directed eight of these festivals over the course of over thirty years (there was ...

Francis Cunningham Woods (1862-1929)

Francis Cunningham Woods “From the organ loft to a small village in Norfolk”  Born in London, Cunningham Woods was the son of court dressmaker Alfred Woods. From 1877-1880 he attended the National Training School for Music. This was a music conservatory located in Kensington. In 1882 it was absorbed into the newly created Royal College of Music which began instructing students in 1883. Woods was taught by Arthur Sullivan and Ebenezer Prout.  He was employed as an organist, first at Brasenose College and then at Exeter College Oxford, where he was awarded his MA degree in 1891. H e later served as organist to the Duke of Marlborough. In 1894 he became Head of Music at Highgate School in North London, a position he held for almost the rest of his life.  His theatre work included music for Oxford productions of Shakespeare. The Gressenhall Suite for string orchestra probably dates from the 1920s. Its name hails from the village of Gressenhall, Norfolk. Woods had connections...

William Henry Speer (1863-1937)

William Henry Speer (1863–1937) “A pupil of Stanford and neighbour of Elgar” William Henry Speer was born in London in 1863. He studied with Charles Harford Lloyd at Gloucester and later at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Walter Parratt for organ and Charles Villiers Stanford for composition. He also studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking musical degrees and eventually a doctorate in 1906. His working life included church appointments, notably at Bexhill from 1903, but his output extended into the concert hall. A contemporary biographical account records performances of his Rhapsody, Festival Overture and Symphony at the Bournemouth Symphony Concerts. His choral ballad The Jackdaw of Rheims was also widely performed. Speer’s catalogue embraces orchestral and chamber music as well as songs, organ pieces and church works. Today much of this music awaits renewed attention. His surviving scores offer a firmer starting point than his present obscurity might s...

Percy Sherwood (1866-1939)

Percy Sherwood (1866–1939) “A symphonist caught between two countries” Percy Sherwood was born in Dresden in 1866 to an English father and a German mother. His musical education brought him into contact with Theodor Kirchner, Felix Draeseke and Hermann Scholtz. In 1889 his Requiem won the Mendelssohn Prize, and he established a reputation in Germany as a pianist, composer and teacher. He taught at the Dresden Conservatory, where his pupils included Dora Pejačević. In 1914 he settled in England with his wife, leaving behind the musical world in which he had made his name. Private teaching became an important source of income, but his German reputation did not translate into a comparable place in British concert life. He died in London in 1939. Sherwood’s orchestral ambitions were substantial: symphonies, concertos and serenades stand alongside a large output of chamber and piano music. Many manuscripts survive in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. The Second Symphony provides a particularly in...

William “Billy” Reed (1875-1942)

William “Billy” Reed (1875–1942) “Elgar’s trusted violinist, a composer in his own right” William Henry Reed, known to his friends as Billy, is remembered above all for his close friendship with Edward Elgar. Born in Frome, Somerset, he trained at the Royal Academy of Music and became a founding member of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1904. He led the orchestra from 1912 to 1935 and also taught at the Royal College of Music. Reed’s practical knowledge of the violin was invaluable to Elgar during the composition of the Violin Concerto in 1910. He tried passages, suggested bowings and fingerings, and helped the composer hear how the solo writing would work. His memoir Elgar as I Knew Him (1936) preserves a personal account of their friendship, alongside material relating to the unfinished Third Symphony. William Henry "Billy" Reed (29 July 1876 – 2 July 1942) was an English violinist, teacher, minor composer, conductor and biographer of Sir Edward Elgar. He was leader of th...

Percy Pitt (1869-1932)

Percy Pitt (1869–1932) “A life on the podium, a composer in the shadows” Percy Pitt helped shape British musical life from the concert platform, the opera house and the broadcasting studio. Born in London in 1869, he trained in Leipzig with Reinecke and Jadassohn and continued his studies with Rheinberger in Munich. Returning to London in 1893, he became closely associated with Queen’s Hall, working as pianist, organist and accompanist. Opera increasingly occupied his working life. At Covent Garden he served as musical adviser and assistant conductor before becoming Director of Music in 1907. He later worked with the Beecham Opera Company and the British National Opera Company. His move into broadcasting brought another influential appointment: he became the BBC’s full-time Director of Music in 1924 and remained until 1930. Behind this public career was a substantial body of composition. His output included orchestral suites, concertante works and theatre music. The Concertino for cla...

R. O. Morris (1886-1948)

R. O. Morris “The quiet composer behind the great teacher” Reginald Owen Morris was born in York in 1886 and educated at Harrow, New College Oxford, and the Royal College of Music. Known to colleagues and friends simply as R. O. he became an influential teacher of composition and counterpoint. His pupils included Gerald Finzi, Michael Tippett, Constant Lambert, Edmund Rubbra,  Robin Milford, Ruth Gipps, and many others, most who wrote effusively of his ability as a teacher.    Recalling R.O. Morris in an interview for BBC Radio 3 in 1978, Howard Ferguson recalls him as: ...extremely quiet and withdrawn, a man of few words, and those said with something of an effort. The most exciting thing he ever said to me (he had a rather bored, tired voice) was one day after I showed him something, after I'd been with him for some years 'Yes Howard, I like that' and this was such a terrific moment I felt the heavens had opened! He had an extremely clear mind, one felt he was singular...

Charles Oberthür (1819-1895)

Charles Oberthür “Orchestral scores amidst a sea of music for the harp” Charles Oberthür was born in Munich in 1819 and made London his home in 1844. His career began in continental theatre orchestras, with engagements in Zürich, Wiesbaden and Mannheim, before he moved to England. In London he initially played at the Italian Opera, then concentrated on teaching, composition and appearances as a soloist. He became a professor of harp at the Royal Academy of Music in 1861. His enormous catalogue is dominated by music for or involving his own instrument, ranging from teaching pieces and arrangements to chamber works and concert music. That reputation can obscure the wider ambitions of a composer who also wrote operatic, choral and orchestral works. Oberthür’s place in this blog rests on his long contribution to musical life in Britain and on the orchestral music that lies beyond his familiar harp repertoire. His concert works draw on literary and legendary subjects, including Rübezahl, Lo...