SIR JOSEPH BARN.
BY'S was at one time a name to conjure with in the English world of music. The son of an Organist, he was a chorister in York Minster at the age of seven, and was only twelve when he became an organist and choirmaster himself. Two years afterwards, in 1854, J he was a close second to Arthur Sullivan in the examination for the Mendelssohn Scholarship of the Royal Academy of Music which was then being awarded for the first time. He held several appointments as organist and choral conductor, and it was he who instituted the yearly performances of Bach's Passion Music at St. Anne's Church, Soho. For a time he conducted daily concerts in the Albert Hall , and was the first conductor of the London Musical Society. But among the most interesting of his achievements, when one remembers the somewhat naive charm of his own music, was his conducting of the first performance in England of Wagner's Parsifal—a concert performance in the Albert Hall.
His own work includes oratorios and a very large number of church services, etc., as well as secular part songs. He edited a number of hymn books, and himself composed some 250 Hymn tunes, many of which are still in regular use.