If a committee of influential personages could be formed, and a scheme for the furtherance of English opera be inaugurated, with a work from the pen of Sir Edward Elgar, there is every reason to believe that an interest would be aroused in the country sufficient to guarantee immediate success, and settle, once and for all, the question whether, given fair conditions, the English people were in the disposition to welcome, not only opera in England, but _English_ opera in England. I think the response would be of a character that every one interested in English music would ardently wish for. FOOTNOTES: [28] Not long before this greatest of Conductors retired, he directed a performance of "Der Ring" under these conditions. [29] The date, February the 9th, 1912. [30] This remark does not, of course, apply to such performances as those given by Dr. Richter or Mr. Thomas Beecham, which were purely temporary in their nature. CHAPTER IX DISTINGUISHED MUSICIANS IN ENGLAND DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT Birth--Family connected with English Church music--Enters Royal Academy of Music--Importance of the step--His work there--Proceeds to Leipzig--Schumann's appreciation of his genius--The German impress--His return to England--Life-long association with Royal Academy of Music--Bennett as pianist--Institutes chamber concerts--His conservative views--Rivalry of foreign musicians--His most important compositions--Founds The Bach Society--His place in musical history. William Sterndale Bennett was born at Sheffield in 1816. Like the majority of celebrated English musicians, he came of a family long associated with the music of the Church; several of his relatives, including his grandfather, having been members of cathedral choirs. When he was only eight years of age he entered the choir of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and there became acquainted with, and as later events proved, influenced by, the ancient school of English ecclesiastical music, which, notwithstanding his subsequent foreign education, never entirely lost its effect on his mind. He was not, however, perhaps unfortunately, allowed to remain there long, for after two years he was sent to the Royal Academy of Music in London, which was then a young institution in which the pupils were not only taught music and given an elementary general education, but were, at that period of its history, boarded as well. It is certainly open to question whether it was a wise step on the part of his relatives to take, seeing that it removed him from a centre where all the surroundings were English--English thought, influence, music and all that goes to mark national characteristics--to one which was, however admirable from many points of view, to say the least, cosmopolitan in character.