1852–1932 · United Kingdom · 20th century
Frederick Corder (1852–1932) was a British composer and music teacher, born in London. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Cologne Conservatory, wrote operas, operettas and cantatas, and later taught composition at the Academy. His pupils included Arnold Bax and Eric Coates. The site catalogue has his piece O Sun, That Wakenest for voice and piano.
Frederick Corder was born on 26 January 1852 in London, in the district of Hackney. He attended a school in Blackheath and began music lessons early, piano above all.
Henry Gadsby was another of his teachers, and Claude Couldery taught him harmony.
Corder went on to the Royal Academy of Music. His teachers there were George Macfarren for harmony and composition, William Cusins for piano and William Watson for violin.
A Mendelssohn Scholarship won in 1875 paid for four years of study abroad. Corder passed the first three years at the Cologne Conservatory, with Ferdinand Hiller teaching composition and Isidor Seiss piano.
The fourth year went to Milan, where no one taught him formally. There he nevertheless got to know the composers Arrigo Boito and Giuseppe Verdi.
Corder came back to England in 1879 and took the post of conductor at the Brighton Aquarium. He also directed several opera companies.
In August 1884 Corder spent exactly one month as musical director of the D'Oyly Carte company, replacing William Robinson during its tour with Patience and Iolanthe. In the early 1880s the touring troupe of Alice Barth performed a number of his operatic works.
He wrote music of his own as well: the opera The Death of King Arthur (1879), the operetta A Storm in a Teacup (1882) and the romantic opera Nordisa (1887).
Corder joined the teaching staff of the Royal Academy of Music and rose to professor of composition. His students included Arnold Bax, Eric Coates, York Bowen, Granville Bantock, Alan Bush, Joseph Holbrooke, Benjamin Dale, Harry Farjeon and Montague Phillips, and his own son, Paul Corder, too.
In 1905 he joined other musicians in setting up the Society of British Composers and served as its first chairman. During his years at the Academy he lived in Hampstead, in a house on Albion Road, where colleagues and students, Bax among them, were often his guests.
At the Academy his counterpart was Charles Villiers Stanford, who stood for the conservative camp around Brahms, while Corder followed the newer example of Liszt and Wagner. Gustav Holst, Frank Bridge, John Ireland and Vaughan Williams were among Stanford's pupils.
Wagner fascinated Corder from early on. With his wife, Henrietta Walford, he prepared the first English version of the Ring cycle, and of other Wagner works, to win the composer's approval. Liszt was a major influence too, and Corder wrote one of the first studies of him in English.
He also published two books: The Orchestra and how to write for it (1895) and Modern Composition (1909).
Corder married Henrietta Walford on 25 September 1876. Their daughter Dorothea Charlotte, called Dolly, arrived on 30 June 1878, and their son Paul Walford Corder on 14 December 1879. In 1927 he married for the second time, his bride being Eleanor Rudall, a pianist and composer. His sister Rosa Corder counted Dante Gabriel Rossetti among her friends and painted a portrait of him.
Frederick Corder died on 21 August 1932 in London, the city where he was born.
Corder wrote for the stage, the orchestra and the choir. Among his operas and operettas are The Death of King Arthur (1879, Op. 3), A Storm in a Teacup (1882, Op. 5), Nordisa (1887, Op. 17), The Nabob's Pickle (Op. 12) and The Noble Savage (Op. 13). For the theatre he wrote overtures and incidental music to The Termagant (1898) and The Black Tulip (1899).
Among the orchestral works are the suite In the Black Forest (1876–1879, Op. 2), the concert overtures Ossian (1882, Op. 8) and Prospero (1885, Op. 14), the orchestral scenes The Tempest (1886, Op. 15), the Roumanian Suite (1887, Op. 18), the Tragic Overture (1901), plus the Elegy for Twenty-four Violins and Organ (1908), dedicated to the memory of Victor Harris. The full score of the Prospero overture has been published, and a recording on CD exists.
Among the choral and vocal works are the cantatas The Bridal of Triermain (1886, Op. 16, Wolverhampton Festival) and The Sword of Argantyr (1889, Op. 20, Leeds Festival), as well as the symphonic ode Dreamland (1883, Op. 10). The motet Sing unto God (1912, Op. 29) is scored in fifty parts for women's voices, organ, harps, trumpets and drums. In chamber music there is the nocturne Peace, for four horns and two harps.
Corder's style was shaped by the influence of Liszt and Wagner. Many of his manuscripts have not survived: most of the autographs are lost, and in 1942, after the death of his son Paul, his daughter Dolly destroyed the manuscripts in her possession.
The site catalogue has the piece O Sun, That Wakenest for voice and piano. According to the site's data, its level is Elementary+.