Frederick Corder
Encyclopedia
Frederick Corder was an English
composer
and music teacher.
, the son of Micah Corder and his wife Charlotte Hill. He was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School and started music lessons, particularly piano
, early. Later he studied with Henry Gadsby. After that he studied harmony
with Claude Couldery.
Frederick Corder continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Music
, where he studied with George Macfarren
(harmony and composition), William Cusins (piano) and William Watson (violin). In 1875 he earned a Mendelssohn
Scholarship
, which enabled him to study for four years abroad. He spent the first three in the Cologne Conservatory in Cologne
, Germany
, where he studied composition with Ferdinand Hiller
and piano with Isidor Seiss. He spent his last year in Milan
, Italy
without formal instruction. He did however meet Arrigo Boito
and Giuseppe Verdi
. Upon his return to England, in 1879, he became conductor at the Brighton Aquarium.
In August 1884, for a single month, he filled in for William Robinson
as musical director with D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
, touring Patience
and Iolanthe
.
Corder became professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music
in London
, becoming the Academy's curator in 1889. His students included notable British composers like Granville Bantock
, Arnold Bax
, York Bowen
, Alan Bush
, Eric Coates
, Benjamin Dale
and Joseph Holbrooke
, as well as his own son, Paul Corder
.
He developed an early fascination with Richard Wagner
and produced with his wife the first accepted English translations of The Ring
and other works by Wagner. His own compositions included songs, operas and cantatas. Corder's Prospero overture can be heard on CD and is available in full score.
Corder married Henrietta Walford, the daughter of Henry Walford on 25 September 1876. They had a son Paul and a daughter. Corder's sister, Rosa Corder
, was a friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
and painted his portrait.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and music teacher.
Biography
Corder was born in HackneyLondon Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
, the son of Micah Corder and his wife Charlotte Hill. He was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School and started music lessons, particularly piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, early. Later he studied with Henry Gadsby. After that he studied harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
with Claude Couldery.
Frederick Corder continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, where he studied with George Macfarren
George Macfarren
George Macfarren was a playwright and the father of composer George Alexander Macfarren. Macfarren's first play, Ah! What a Pity, or, The Dark Knight and the Fair Lady, was produced on 28 September 1818 at the English Opera House; for the next several decades, a Macfarren play was produced...
(harmony and composition), William Cusins (piano) and William Watson (violin). In 1875 he earned a Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
Scholarship
Mendelssohn Scholarship
The Mendelssohn Scholarship refers to two scholarships awarded in Germany and in the United Kingdom. Both commemorate the composer, Felix Mendelssohn, and are awarded to promising young musicians to enable them to continue their development.-History:...
, which enabled him to study for four years abroad. He spent the first three in the Cologne Conservatory in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, where he studied composition with Ferdinand Hiller
Ferdinand Hiller
Ferdinand Hiller was a German composer, conductor, writer and music-director.-Biography:Ferdinand Hiller was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, where his father Justus was a merchant in English textiles – a business eventually continued by Ferdinand’s brother Joseph...
and piano with Isidor Seiss. He spent his last year in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
without formal instruction. He did however meet Arrigo Boito
Arrigo Boito
Arrigo Boito , aka Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito, pseudonym Tobia Gorrio, was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi's operas Otello and Falstaff, and his own opera Mefistofele...
and Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
. Upon his return to England, in 1879, he became conductor at the Brighton Aquarium.
In August 1884, for a single month, he filled in for William Robinson
William Robinson
William Robinson, or Will Robinson or Bill Robinson or other nicknames, may refer to:-Historical:* William Robinson , Quaker martyr* William Benjamin Robinson , Canadian fur trader and political figure...
as musical director with D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
, touring Patience
Patience (opera)
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the...
and Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
.
Corder became professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, becoming the Academy's curator in 1889. His students included notable British composers like Granville Bantock
Granville Bantock
Sir Granville Bantock was a British composer of classical music.-Biography:Granville Ransome Bantock was born in London. His father was a Scottish doctor. He was intended by his parents for the Indian Civil Service but was drawn into the musical world. His first teacher was Dr Gordon Saunders at...
, Arnold Bax
Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...
, York Bowen
York Bowen
Edwin York Bowen was an English composer and pianist. Bowen’s musical career spanned more than fifty years during which time he wrote over 160 works. As well as being a pianist and composer, Bowen was a talented conductor, organist, violist and horn player...
, Alan Bush
Alan Bush
Alan Dudley Bush was a British composer and pianist. He was a committed socialist, and politics sometimes provided central themes in his music.-Personal life:...
, Eric Coates
Eric Coates
Eric Coates was an English composer of light music and a viola player.-Life:Eric was born in Hucknall in Nottinghamshire to William Harrison Coates , a surgeon, and his wife, Mary Jane Gwynne, hailing from Usk in Monmouthshire...
, Benjamin Dale
Benjamin Dale
Benjamin James Dale was an English composer and academic who had a long association with the Royal Academy of Music. Dale showed compositional talent from an early age and went on to write a small but notable corpus of works...
and Joseph Holbrooke
Joseph Holbrooke
Joseph Charles Holbrooke was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was sometimes referred to as "the cockney Wagner".-Family:...
, as well as his own son, Paul Corder
Paul Corder
Paul Walford Corder was an English composer and music professor.Corder was born at Pimlico, London, the son of musician Frederick Corder and his wife Henrietta Walford. He was baptised at St. Gabriel's, Warwick Square, London, on 1 March 1880...
.
He developed an early fascination with Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
and produced with his wife the first accepted English translations of The Ring
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
and other works by Wagner. His own compositions included songs, operas and cantatas. Corder's Prospero overture can be heard on CD and is available in full score.
Corder married Henrietta Walford, the daughter of Henry Walford on 25 September 1876. They had a son Paul and a daughter. Corder's sister, Rosa Corder
Rosa Corder
Rosa Frances Corder was a Victorian artist and artist's model. She was the lover of Charles Augustus Howell, who is alleged to have persuaded her to create forgeries of drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.-Career:...
, was a friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...
and painted his portrait.
Compositions
- Nordisa, operaOperaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, 1887 - The Bride of Triermain cantataCantataA cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
, 1886 - The Sword of Argantyr, 1889