| Isaac or Isaak, Heinrich |
(many spellings extant), b Flanders, Brabant, Belgium (or S Netherlands or Germany) c1450, d 1517 or 1527. He is known to have been an accomplished composer by the 1470s, but is first heard of… |
| Bruce, Michael |
b Kinnesswood, Portmoak, Kinross 1746, d Kinnesswood 1767. The son of Alexander Bruce, a Scottish weaver who was an elder of the seceding church whose founder Ebenezer Erskine had ministered at… |
| Jenkins, David |
b Trecastle (Trecastell), nr Llandovery, Powys (Brecons), Wales 1848, d Aberystwyth, Cardigans, Wales 1915. Losing his father when he was very young, he had some basic education before he became… |
| Darwall, John |
b Haughton, nr Stafford, Staffs 1731, d Walsall, Staffs 1789. Born into a clerical family; entered Manchester Grammar Sch as a boarder at 16 and Brasenose Coll Oxford at 20; BA 1756, later BD.… |
| Palmer, Ray |
b Little Compton, Rhode Is, USA 1808, d Newark, NJ, USA 1887. After a short period in business, at work in a Boston dry goods store, he studied at Phillips Academy, Andover and Yale Univ while also… |
| Robinson, Joseph Armitage |
b Keynsham, Som 1858, d Upton Noble, Shepton Mallett, Som 1933. Christ’s Coll Cambridge (BA/MA); Fellow of the College 1881–1899; BD 1891, DD 1896. He was ordained (CofE) in 1881 and was briefly… |
| Bizet, Georges Alexandre César Léopold |
b Paris, France 1838, d Bougival, nr Paris 1875. His early musical talent was encouraged mainly by his mother, and he was enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 9. For the next 9 years this… |
| Beethoven, Ludwig van |
b Bonn, Germany 1770, d Vienna, Austria 1827. For his indomitable ‘solitary greatness’ (G T Ferris) he was ‘the Shakespeare of music’. From a musical family, and in spite of an early distaste… |
| Gardiner, William |
b Leicester 1769 [sic], d Leicester 1853. From his youth he entered and continued the family business as a stocking manufacturer (cf Wm Matthews, and authors Gadsby and H K White), and was also an… |
| Scheffler's Heilige Seelenlust (1657) |
Johann (or Johannes) Scheffler was b 1624 at Breslau in Silesia (Wroclau, Poland), raised in a noble but persecuted Lutheran family and was educated there and at the Univ of Strassbourg where he… |
| Ouseley, Frederick Arthur Gore |
b Westminster, London (Middx) 1825, d Hereford 1889. The musical infant prodigy son (beginning to compose at the age of 3) of an ambassador and baronet. Educated first at home, he then had tuition… |
| Sibelius, Jean (Johan Christian Julius) |
b Hämeenlinna (in Swedish, Tavastehus), a small town 100km N of Helsinki, Finland 1865, d Ja˘ rvenpää, SW Finland 1957. Attracted to the piano at the age of 5, encouraged by his uncle the… |
| Chope, Richard Robert |
(not in Praise! index), b Bideford, Devon 1830; d Wimbledon, Surrey 1928. Exeter Coll Oxford (BA, MA); ordained 1856, serving west country curacies in Stapleton, Sherborne, Upton Scudamore and… |
| Haworth, Bryn |
b Darwen, Lancs 1948. At 11 he was given his first guitar and has loved the instrument ever since. By the age of 16 he had moved from classical to electric guitar and was touring with Cliff Richard… |
| Littledale, Richard Frederick |
b Dublin 1833, d Bloomsbury, C London 1890. Bective House Seminary and Trinity Coll, Dublin (BA 1855, LL.D 1862); Oxford DCL, 1862. Ordained in 1856, he served contrasting curacies at Thorpe Hamlet nr… |
| Jackson, Francis Alan |
b Malton, N Yorks 1917. York Minster Choir Sch and chorister 1929–33; Univ of Durham (studying under Sir Edward Bairstow, who proved a formative and lasting influence). After serving as Organist of… |
| Black, Brian |
b Hornsby, nr Sydney, NSW, Australia 1926. He took the Australian matriculation exam in 1952 and studied at Moore Theological Coll, Sydney, 1953–56; ordained (Anglican) 1953. After a curacy at Seven… |
| Maker, Frederick Charles |
b Clifton, Bristol 1844, d Bristol (1 Jan) 1927. A choirboy at Bristol Cathedral, he went on to play the organ at several Free Churches in the city including Methodist and Congregational chapels, most… |
| Longstaff, William Dunn |
b Sunderland, Tyne and Wear (Co Durham) 1822, d Sunderland 1894. A businessman and ship-owner, he was a former member of the CofE who helped to establish the Bethesda Free Chapel founded in Sunderland… |
| Matson, William Tidd |
b W Hackney, London 1833, d Portsea, Hants 1899. Named after his godfather, the leading QC Wm Tidd, he was educated privately under the Rev J M Gould, then at St John’s Coll Cambridge and the… |
| Clayton, Norman John |
b Brooklyn, NY, USA 1903, d 1992. A Baptist who learned the organ (from the age of a 12, a pump-organ) and played in churches for over 50 years. His first church was S Brooklyn Gospel Ch where he also… |
| Elgar, Edward William |
b Lower Broadheath nr Worcester 1857, d Worcester 1934. Born into a musical family (‘A stream of music flowed through our house’—EWE), he soon learned to play the piano, organ, cello, double… |
| Tate, Nahum |
(formerly TEATE), b Dublin 1652, d Southwark, London 1715. Trinity Coll Dublin. When he reported a revolutionary plot to the authorities, his Dublin home was burned down and 3 of his children were… |
| Hullah, John Pyke |
b Worcester 1812, d Westminster, London (Middx) 1884. Studying music in London under Wm Horsley (qv), he composed the music for the opera Village Coquettes, the text of which came from the pen of… |
| Rogers, Phil |
b 1949. Bristol Univ (BSc 1971), followed by maths teaching. In 1979 he left his school job to work full-time in a SE London church. After 11 years he then moved to Bracknell, Berks, returned to… |
| Wesley, Samuel Sebastian |
b St Marylebone, London 1810, d Gloucester 1876. Grandson of hymnwriter Charles W, son of the musical Samuel W jr; named after his father and his father’s hero J S Bach. Like many later composers,… |
| Weber, Rhiannon Nest |
b Cardiff 1949. As a child she enjoyed Ficer Pritchard’s books of rhymes about Christian faith and life, written for memorising during a time of limited literacy in Welsh. Graduated BSc; as well as… |
| Cowen, David |
b.1945 into a run-down area of Liverpool, where he lived until his family was transferred to a council house in Kirkby in 1953. Here he attended the newly-formed Baptist church, and in 1963 gained… |
| Ruddle, Valerie Anne |
b Gt Maplestead nr Halstead, Essex 1932. Royal Academy of Music and GRSM; music teacher in secondary schools (mainly before marriage) in Scunthorpe, Stourbridge and the Caribbean, and for the past 25… |
| Clifford, Alan Charles |
b Aldershot, Hants 1941. Fernhill County Secondary Sch, Farnborough. He served an Engineering apprenticeship in aircraft manufacturing before studying philosophy and theology at Univ Coll of N Wales,… |
