Charles Harford Lloyd

Charles Harford Lloyd (Thornbury, 16 October 1849 – Slough, 16 October 1919) was an English composer who became a well-known organist in his time.

His most successful area was organ and choral works but he wrote three clarinet pieces for his friend Randle Fynes Holme (1864-1957), (a talented amateur musician), a number of chamber works, a Festival Overture for orchestra, an organ concerto with orchestra and a number of songs for voice and piano.

He served as organist and choir-master at Gloucester Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, Eton College Chapel and organist at the Chapel Royal. His most frequently performed works today are his settings of the Anglican Church liturgy.

He had a lifelong friendship with Hubert Parry.

Charles Harford Lloyd was born on the 16th October 1849 to a Gloucestershire solicitor, Edmund Lloyd. Charlie, as his intimates called him, began to play the piano at an early age, receiving his first instruction from a governess. When he was ten years old, he played the organ at the neighbouring church of Rangeworthy, where his brother-in-law was the vicar as well as another nearby village of Falfield. He attended the grammar school of his native town for his general education.

In 1862, aged thirteen, he took lessons in piano and harmony with John Barrett, of Bristol, who introduced him to the works of Beethoven and Bach. "He simply revelled in Bach's Forty-eight Preludes and Fugues", said Barrett. He also started composing at an early age, composing a mazurka he called "The Pearl of Denmark", in honour of the Princess of Wales Alexandra of Denmark, and settings of two poems of Tennyson, when he was fourteen.

From 1865 to 1868, he was a pupil at Rossall School in Lancashire. Here he took organ lessons with Charles Handel Tovey, music-master of the school, who introduced him to the more contemporary works of Édouard Batiste and Lefébure-Wély. At Rossall, he played the organ in the school chapel and composed Carmen Rossalliense which became the school song.

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