Joseph Barnby.
Sir J. Barnby, the late Precentor of Eton College, and newly elected Principal of the Guildhall School of Music, writes:—
"As a rule I do not work at the piano except to test what has already been written down. I have found ideas come most readily in the railway carriage or during a drive, and the time I prefer for composition is the morning."
"Sweet and low"
Part-song
Lord Tennyson Barnby
As to writing on commission he says:—
"I see no objection to a composer writing 'to order,' as long as he sends out nothing of which he does not approve. Handel's 'Dettingen Te Deum,' Mozart's 'Requiem,' Mendelssohn's 'Elijah,' and a hundred other works furnish us with successful examples of this class of composition.
"I do not," he continues, "consider the art of composing one which can be acquired (the science may), but such an art is all but useless without serious cultivation."
In his modesty, Sir Joseph will give no opinion as to which he considers his best work, but sends, for publication here, a few bars of one of his part-songs which has had the widest acceptance—"Sweet and Low."