William Thomas Best

William Thomas Best (13 August 1826 – 10 May 1897) was an English organist and composer.

He was born at Carlisle, Cumberland on 13 August 1826, and was the son of William Best, a solicitor of that city. In childhood, he displayed talent for music, and had some lessons from Young, organist of Carlisle Cathedral. As his father intended he should become a civil engineer, he was sent to Liverpool in 1840 for study. At the age of fourteen, he became organist of the baptist chapel in Pembroke Road, which contained an organ with C C pedal-keyboard, then very rare in England. He practised four hours daily on this organ, and also worked regularly at pianoforte technique.

In the main, Best was self-taught; the organists of that period were nearly all accustomed only to the incomplete F or G organs, upon which the works of Bach and Mendelssohn could not be played. He had some lessons in counterpoint from John Richardson, organist of St. Nicholas's Roman Catholic church; and also, it appears, from a blind organist.

At about the age of twenty, he decided to become a professional musician. In 1847 he was appointed organist at the Church for the Blind in Liverpool, and in 1849 also to the Liverpool Philharmonic Society under whose auspices he made his first appearance as a concert organist. He paid a visit to Spain in the winter of 1852-3, and then spent some time in London, acting as organist at the Royal Panopticon, which possessed a four-manual organ, the largest in London. He was dismissed for refusing to play Mendelssohn's Wedding March while the audience was exiting the auditorium. He was also for a few months organist at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and at Lincoln's Inn Chapel.

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