William Sterndale Bennett
Sir William Sterndale Bennett was an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. At the age of ten Bennett was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he remained for ten years. By the age of twenty, he had begun to make a reputation as a concert pianist, and his compositions received high praise. Among those impressed by Bennett was the German composer Felix Mendelssohn, who invited him to Leipzig. There Bennett became friendly with Robert Schumann, who shared Mendelssohn's admiration for his compositions. Bennett spent three winters composing and performing in Leipzig.
William Sterndale Bennett – engraving after a portrait by John Everett Millais, 1873
Sheffield Parish Church in 1819
Bennett in the uniform of a student of the Royal Academy of Music, by James Warren Childe, c. 1832
Felix Mendelssohn (detail) by James Warren Childe, 1839
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of Wellington.
Students take a lesson in fencing in 1944
The facade of the Royal Academy of Music
A violin lesson in 1944