THE LATE SIR WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 217, 18 February 1875, Page 3

THE LATE SIR WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT.

A telegram from England announced the death of this composer and pianist. The following sketch of his life is from “ Men of the Time.” He was born at Sheffield in 1816, where his father, Robert Bennett, an excellent musician, was organist of the principal church. Having lost both his parents in infancy, he was brought up by his grandfather, John Bennett, one of the lay clerks of the Cambridge University choir, by whom he was entered, when eight years old, as a chorister in King’s College, and having remained there two years, was placed in the Royal Academy of Music. He began his regular studies on the violin, which he abandoned for the pianoforte, and received instructions from Mr Holmes and;Mr Cipriani Potter. Soon after he turned his mind to composition, and as a pupil of Dr Crotch, produced his first symphony iu E flat, at the Royal Academy. It was followed at short intervals by his pianoforte concertos in D minor, E flat, C minor, F minor (two), and A minor, which with the exception of the first, were performed by invitation at the concerts of the Philharmonic Society. The intimate friendship which he had formed with Mendelssohn had so great an influence on the career of the young composer, that he went in 1836, by Mendelssohn’s invitation to Leipsic, where several of his works (particulary his overtures to the “Naiades” and the “ Wood Nymph,” and his concertos in C minor and F minor, together with caprice for pianoforte and orchestra, op. 22) were performed at the celebrated Gewandhaus concerts, under Mendelssohn’s direction. After a sojourn of some length in Germany, where several of his principal works were published, and received with great favor by the critics and the public, he fixed his residence in London, and obtained a high position as a composer, a performer, and a teacher of music. His published works are numerous, including his overtures, the “Naiades,” the “Wood Nymph,” “ Parisiana,” and “ The Merry Wives of Windsor,” concertos, sonatas, and studies for the pianoforte, {and songs, duets, and other vocal pieces. Sir William Bennett is one of the few English composers who have gained a European reputation, and one of the performers who have most successfully maintained the honor of the English school. In 1856 he was appointed to succeed Mr Walmsley as Professor of Music at Cambridge, and received the degree of Doctor of Music in the same year, and that of M.A. in 1869. He »ucceeded Professor Wagner as conductor of the Philharmonic concerts in 1856, and con-

tinued to conduct them till 1808. He acted as conductor of the first Leeds Musical Festival in 1858, where his cantata, “ The May Queen,” was produced. At the opening of the International Exhibition in 1802, Mr Bennett was invited, in conjunction with Auber, Meyerbeer, and Verdi (each representing his own country), to compose a piece, when he set music to the ode of Tennyson, “ Uplift a Thousand Voices,” written expressly for the occasion. In the next month he composed the music to the ode by Professor Charles Kingsley, on the election of the Duke of Devonshire as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge; and this was immediately followed by the production of his fantasia-overture, “ Paradise and the Peri,” composed for the jubilee concert of the Philharmonic Society. Mr Bennett was appointed Principal of the Royal Academy of Music in 1868, and was knighted by the Queen at Windsor on March 24th. 1871,