From now on, England was influenced by foreign composers, especially Mendelssohn, Weber and Gounod, and made ballad operas and operettas freely adapted from continental works, besides glees and songs and music for the Church of England services. The interest in music was great and some of the church music and glees at the time were excellent. In this period, the Birmingham Festivals were started, Horsley founded the _Concentores Sodales_ (1748–1847), a group formed along the lines of the earlier Catch and Glee Clubs. The Philharmonic Society also was formed (1813) and among its great leaders were Cherubini in 1815, Spohr 1820 and 1843 and Weber 1826 and Mendelssohn many times after 1829. Through the effort of the Earl of Westmoreland, the Royal Academy of Music was organized in 1822. Among the composers of this period were Samuel Wesley (1776–1837). He was a Bach enthusiast and wrote much church music and other classic forms; William Crotch (1775–1847), George Stark, an intimate of Weber and Mendelssohn, who edited _Gibbon’s Madrigals_; William Horsley, who edited _Callcott’s Glees_ and wrote glees himself, symphonies and songs and handbooks. There were many others in this period but too numerous to mention here. In the next period England’s composers free themselves from the Mendelssohn School and begin to branch out. Do not think that Mendelssohn was not good for them. He gave much that England needed, and also brought English composers in contact with European music. But they liked church music and the ballad opera and the charming part songs, rather than the heavier operas of Europe. Among writers of cathedral music, are Sir George A. MacFarren, John Bacchus Dykes, whose name appears in our hymn books, Joseph Barnby, Samuel Wesley mentioned above, and Henry Smart. In 1816, Sir William Sterndale Bennett was born, he was a choir boy and entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1835. The House of Broadwood (English piano makers) sent him to Leipsic to study and he came under the influence of Mendelssohn and Schumann. He was the director of the Royal Academy of Music, a fine pianist and wrote many compositions, among which his Cantata _A Woman of Samaria_ is not as dry as the usual sacred works of this period. Another great writer of this time was Sir John Stainer (1840–1901). Some of his things are given today in our churches and are very beautiful and impressive. He is the author of valuable text-books. LIGHT OPERA At this time, some writers of a sort of belated ballad opera appeared in the persons of: