BENNETT, SIR WILLIAM STERNDALE

born April 13, 1816, Sheffield, Yorkshire, Eng. died Feb. 1, 1875, London British pianist, conductor, and composer, a notable figure in the musical life of his time. He became a chorister at King's College, Cambridge, and in 1826 entered the Royal Academy of Music. In 1833 his first piano concerto greatly impressed Felix Mendelssohn, who became a close friend. In 1842 he was appointed one of the directors of the Philharmonic Society in London, and in 1849 he founded the London Bach Society, at which, in 1854, he conducted the first performance in England of Bach's St. Matthew Passion. Bennett was appointed conductor of the Philharmonic Society in 1856 and in the same year became professor of music at Cambridge. In 1866 he became principal of the Royal Academy of Music. He was knighted in 1871. Bennett's work, consisting chiefly of concerti and solo pieces for the piano, enjoyed a wide popularity in England and Germany. His cantata The May Queen, written, as were so many of his works, for a festival, and the quartet "God Is a Spirit," from the oratorio The Woman of Samaria (1867), are still sung by village and church choirs.