William Smith Rockstro (5 January 1823 – 1 July 1895) was an English musicologist, teacher, pianist and composer. He is best remembered for his books, including music textbooks, music history and biographies of famous musicians.

Life and career

Rockstro was born William Smyth Rackstraw in

North Cheam Cheam () is a suburb of London, England, south-west of Charing Cross. It is divided into North Cheam, Cheam Village and South Cheam. Cheam Village contains the listed buildings Lumley Chapel and the 16th-century Whitehall. It is adjacent to tw ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

. (He adopted an older form of his family name from 1846).Williamson, Rosemary
"Rockstro, W.S."
Grove Music Online., Oxford Music Online, accessed 12 May 2012 He studied composition and piano with

William Sterndale Bennett Sir William Sterndale Bennett (13 April 18161 February 1875) was an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. At the age of ten Bennett was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he remained for ten years. B ...

, and from 1845 to 1846 he studied at the

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

Conservatory under

Felix Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sy ...

(composition and piano). His contemporaries there included

Joseph Joachim Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of ...

and

Otto Goldschmidt Otto Moritz David Goldschmidt (21 August 1829 – 24 February 1907) was a German composer, conductor and pianist, known for his piano concertos and other piano pieces. He married the "Swedish Nightingale", soprano Jenny Lind. Life Goldschmidt w ...

."Obituary: William Smyth Rockstro"
''The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular'' , Vol. 36, No. 630 (August 1895), p. 549 After his studies in Leipzig, Rockstro established himself as a teacher of piano and singing in London, and he secured a regular appointment as an accompanist at a recital series. In the early 1860s he moved to the

West Country The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Gloucesters ...

, where he lived for nearly 30 years. Rockstro was an enthusiast for early music. In 1885 he conducted a concert of sacred music of the 16th and 17th centuries at the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no govern ...

. His own compositions, conservative in style, include operatic fantasias, short piano pieces, and songs. In 1886, he conducted his oratorio ''The Good Shepherd'' at the

Three Choirs Festival 200px, Worcester cathedral 200px, Gloucester cathedral The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held annually at the end of July, rotating among the cathedrals of the Three Counties (Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester) and originally featu ...

, though it was not considered a success. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' praised its obvious sincerity but complained of its conspicuous debt to

Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositi ...

and its lack of good tunes. Together with his former pupil J A Fuller Maitland, Rockstro collaborated on a collection, ''English Carols of the 15th Century'' (1891). As an editor of music of earlier centuries he was far from scholarly in his changes: ''The Times'' commented that his edition of the ''

St Matthew Passion The ''St Matthew Passion'' (german: Matthäus-Passion, links=-no), BWV 244, is a '' Passion'', a sacred oratorio written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander. It sets ...

'' "introduced marks of expression in a wholesale fashion not likely to meet with the approval of purists"."The Bach Choir", ''The Times'', 27 March 1884, p. 6 In 1891 he moved from the West Country back to London, where he taught both privately and at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

and the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

. Rockstro's later years were marred by ill health, but his death at the age of 72 was nonetheless sudden and unexpected.

Publications

Rockstro is best known for his books. Books about musical practice were ''A Key to Practical Harmony'' (1881), ''Practical Harmony: a Manual for the Use of Young Students'' (1881), and ''The Rules of Counterpoint Systematically Arranged for the Use of Young Students'' (1882). His books on musical history were ''A History of Music for the Use of Young Students'' (1879) and ''A General History of Music from the Infancy of the Greek Drama to the Present Period'' (1886). He published biographical studies of Handel (1883) and Mendelssohn (1884) and two books about

Jenny Lind Johanna Maria "Jenny" Lind (6 October 18202 November 1887) was a Swedish opera singer, often called the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and a ...

, ''Memoir of Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt: her Early Art-Life and Dramatic Career, 1820–1851'' (with H.S. Holland, 1891) and ''Jenny Lind, her Vocal Art and Culture (1894)''. In the original ''

Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'' Rockstro contributed 240 articles, including those on "Mass", "Monteverdi", "Motet", "Opera", "Oratorio", "Orchestra" and "Plainsong". Two articles by Rockstro remained, with revisions, in the online edition of Grove at May 2012: those on "

Cadence In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (1999) ...

" and " Aevia" (a technical word used in mediaeval service books).

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rockstro, W. S. 1823 births 1895 deaths Academics of the Royal Academy of Music Academics of the Royal College of Music English composers English music critics English writers about music English musicologists Musicians from Surrey People from Cheam Pupils of Felix Mendelssohn University of Music and Theatre Leipzig alumni 19th-century British composers 19th-century English musicians 19th-century musicologists