About John Francis Barnett

John Francis Barnett was born in London in 1837 and died in 1916. His father Joseph Alfred Barnett was a professor of singing and his uncle, John Barnett, an eminent composer known as "The Father of English Opera". His Prussian grandfather, Bernhard Beer, changed his name to Barnett on settling in England, and was said to be a cousin of Meyerbeer.
John Francis Barnett was a child prodigy with an exceptional gift for extemporisation on the piano. He won the first of two Queen's Scholarships to the Royal Academy of Music, London when he was twelve, and played the Mendelssohn D minor Piano Concerto under Louis Spohr at the New Philharmonic Society when he was fifteen. Later he studied in Leipzig with Hauptmann, Rietz and Moscheles, where fellow students included Arthur Sullivan and Grieg. While he was there, his result of performing it at a students's concert, and in 1860, he performed at the Gewandhaus. It was in Leipzig, too, during the course of his successful career as a concert pianist, that Barnett played at a concert when Liszt was present. He described the occasion in his book Musical Reminiscences,..."I regard his demonstrative appreciation of my performance as the greatest compliment I have ever received, for I saw him applauding me vigorously when I was recalled to the platform".
During his middle and later years, Barnett devoted his time to composing and conducting. His piano music was in great demand for performances in the 19th century drawing room, and was often premièred by his sister Emma Barnett, who was also a talented concert pianist. After the resounding success of his first choral, the Ancient Mariner, at the 1867 Birmingham Festival, he became a very popular composer of cantatas and oratorios.