John Barnett

John Francis Barnett was the nephew of British opera composer John Barnett (1802-1890). Barnett had taken a King’s Scholarship or grant on the Royal University of Music at age group 13 and debuted as pianist in Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in D minimal, Op. 40, in 1853. Ignaz Moscheles was among Barnett’s instructors. After producing some performances in Germany, Barnett resolved in as an trainer of piano on the Royal University of Music beginning in 1860. He constructed a Symphony in A in 1864, and in 1883, “finished” the unfinished Symphony No. 7 in E main (sketch) (D. 729) of Franz Schubert on the demand of Sir George Grove. Barnett produced his popularity with some cantatas and oratorios, you start with The Old Mariner (1867) and carrying on with The Bringing up of Lazarus (1873), The Building from the Dispatch (1880; after Longfellow), and many others. Barnett also constructed symphonic poems like the Lay from the Last Minstrel (1874), concertos for piano and flute, chamber music, music for piano and body organ, part songs, single songs, and several little miniatures for piano. Within this last genre, Barnett was probably most effective; as the Bringing up of Lazarus was very popular among cathedral choirs in the later nineteenth hundred years, Barnett’s overall design was considered conventional even in its time. In his past due works, like the cantata The Eve of St. Agnes (1913), Barnett used some stylistic features produced from the exemplory case of Richard Wagner. Barnett published a fascinating and important autobiography, Musical Reminiscences and Impressions, which made an appearance in London in 1906.