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Bernard Rose

1916 - 1996

British

Summary

Dr. Bernard Rose was a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral, where he began playing the organ, studied at the Royal College of Music, attracting there the attention of Sir Adrian Boult, and was Organ Scholar at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1939 he was appointed Organist and Tutor in Music, later Fellow, at The Queen's College, Oxford, a post that included being conductor of the Eglesfield Music Society, where he engaged some of the finest soloists of the time and commissioned works by composers such as Vaughan Williams and Edmund Rubbra. During the War years, he fought with the "Desert Rats" at El Alamein and Italy, before being captured in Northern France and spending the remainder of the war as a POW in Germany. From 1957-81 he was Fellow, Organist and Informator Choristarum at Magdalen College, developing the choir into one of the finest in the country. Whilst at Magdalen he composed some forty works, mostly sacred, including his well-known 'Preces and Responses'. He edited the complete sacred works of Thomas Tomkins (Early English Church Music, 6 vols.) and Handel's Susanna for the complete Handelgesellschaft edition. His pupils have become composers, conductors, performers, professors, lecturers and teachers. He was President of the Royal College of Organists 1974-76, and was made OBE in 1980. He died aged 80 in November 1996.

Biography

Dr. Bernard Rose was a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral, where he began playing the organ, studied at the Royal College of Music, attracting there the attention of Sir Adrian Boult, and was Organ Scholar at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1939 he was appointed Organist and Tutor in Music, later Fellow, at The Queen's College, Oxford, a post that included being conductor of the Eglesfield Music Society, where he engaged some of the finest soloists of the time and commissioned works by composers such as Vaughan Williams and Edmund Rubbra. During the War years, he fought with the "Desert Rats" at El Alamein and Italy, before being captured in Northern France and spending the remainder of the war as a POW in Germany. From 1957-81 he was Fellow, Organist and Informator Choristarum at Magdalen College, developing the choir into one of the finest in the country. Whilst at Magdalen he composed some forty works, mostly sacred, including his well-known 'Preces and Responses'. He edited the complete sacred works of Thomas Tomkins (Early English Church Music, 6 vols.) and Handel's Susanna for the complete Handelgesellschaft edition. His pupils have become composers, conductors, performers, professors, lecturers and teachers. He was President of the Royal College of Organists 1974-76, and was made OBE in 1980. He died aged 80 in November 1996.

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