A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Taylor, Franklin

by George Grove

TAYLOR, Franklin, a well-known pianoforte-player and teacher in London, born at Birmingham, Feb. 5, 1843, began music at a very early age; learned the pianoforte under Chas. Flavell, and the organ under T. Bedsmore, organist of Lichfield Cathedral, where at the age of 11 he was able to take the service. In 1859 he went to Leipzig and studied in the Conservatorium with Sullivan, J. F. Barnett, etc., under Plaidy and Moscheles for pianoforte, and Hauptmann, Richter, and Papperitz for theory. He left in 1861 and made some stay in Paris, where he had lessons from Mme. Schumann, and was in close intercourse with Heller, Schulhoff, Mme. Viardot, etc. In 1862 he returned to England, settled permanently in London, and began teaching, and playing at the Crystal Palace (Feb. 18, 1865, etc.), the Monday Popular Concerts (Jan. 15, 66, etc.), as well as at the Liverpool Philharmonic, Birmingham Chamber Concerts, and elsewhere. At the same time he was organist successively of Twickenham Parish Church, and St. Michael's, Chester Square. In 1876 he joined the National Training School as teacher, and in 1882 the Royal College of Music as Professor of the Pianoforte. He is President of the Academy for the higher development of pianoforte-playing.

His Primer of the Pianoforte (Macmillan 1879)—emphatically a 'little book on a great subject,' and a most useful and practical book too—has been published in German. He has also compiled a PF. tutor (Enoch), and has edited Beethoven's Sonatas 1–12 for C. Boosey. He has translated Richter's treatises on Harmony, Counterpoint, and Canon and Fugue (Cramer & Co.); and arranged Sullivan's Tempest music for four hands on its production. With all his gifts as a player it is probably as a teacher that his reputation will live. His attention to his pupils is unremitting, and his power of imparting tone, touch, and execution to them, remarkable. Gifted with a fine musical organisation himself, he evokes the intelligence of his pupils, and succeeds in making them musicians as well as mere fine technical performers.

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