Charles Sanford Terry (historian)

Charles Sanford Terry

Charles Sanford Terry (24 October 1864, Newport Pagnell – 5 November 1936, Aberdeen)^[1][2][3][4] was an English historian and musicologist who published extensively on Scottish and European history as well as the life and works of J. S. Bach.

Career

A man who has not got a hobby to jostle with his profession is a man to be pitied, and I take off my hat to St. Paul's for the many years of happiness in a pursuit of which my school-days there laid the foundation.

Charles Sanford Terry^[5]

Terry was the eldest son of Charles Terry, a physician, and Ellen Octavia Prichard. After attending St Paul's Cathedral School, King's College School, and Lancing College, he was an undergraduate at Clare College, Cambridge, where he obtained a B.A. in history (2nd class) in 1886 and an M.A. in 1891.^[6] He held lectureships in history at Durham College of Science (now part of the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne), the University of Aberdeen and the University of Cambridge. In 1901 he married Edith Mary Allfrey of Newport Pagnell, daughter of Francis Allfrey, a brewer; the marriage was childless. He was appointed Burnett-Fletcher Professor of History and Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen from 1903 until his retirement in 1930. He served as president of the Association of Scottish History. Terry was also known as a composer and amateur musician. In 1898 he became conductor of the Aberdeen University Choral and Orchestral Society, with roughly 150 singers and 70 instrumentalists; and in 1909 he founded the North East of Scotland Music Festival.

Terry had a close professional and personal association with Edward Elgar, both being involved in the Three Choirs Festival in the cathedrals of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester. Terry arranged for Elgar to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Aberdeen in 1906 and four years later helped with the proofreading of the original manuscript of the violin concerto, which Elgar later bequeathed to him.^[7]

Works

Terry published extensively on several aspects of Scottish history, and wrote a "Short History of Europe" (1806–1915). He published many books on the life and works of J. S. Bach between 1915 and 1932 and became known as an authority on Bach; his works have become classics in Bach scholarship.

Honours

• Honorary Doctor of Music, University of Oxford, University of Edinburgh
• Doctor of Laws, University of Durham, University of Glasgow and University of Aberdeen
• Honorary Ph.D., University of Leipzig, 1935, to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of J. S. Bach
• Honorary fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, 1929
• Honorary fellow of the Royal College of Music

Selected bibliography

• The Life and Campaigns of Alexander Leslie, First Earl of Leven (1899)
• The rising of 1745: with a bibliography of Jacobite history 1689-1788 (1903)
• John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee (1905)
• Bach's Chorals, Vol.I (1915), Vol.II (1917), Vol.III (1921)
• Bach: the Cantatas and Oratorios, Oxford University Press (1925)
• Bach: the Mass in B Minor, Oxford University Press (1926)
• Bach Cantata Texts, Sacred and Secular (1926)
• Bach: A Biography (1928)
• John Christian Bach (1929)
• The Music of Bach: an introduction (1928 & 1933)
• The pianist's book of Bach chorals: 100 chorals harmonised by J.S. Bach, chosen from the collection of Terry by A.B. Ashby, Oxford University Press (1937)

Notes

1. ^ Terry died at his home, "Westerton of Pitfodels" in Cults, a suburb of Aberdeen.
2. ^ Encyclopedia Americana, 26, Americana Corp., 1966, p. 449 
3. ^ Weber 2004, p. 51
4. ^ Blom 2008, p. 600
5. ^ "Charles Sanford Terry", The Musical Times: 370, 1913 
6. ^ Terry, Charles Sanford in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
7. ^ Adams 2007, pp. 173–178

References

• Blom, Eric (2008), Dictionary of Music, Read Books, p. 600, ISBN 1443734527 
• Hill, E. B. (1940), "Charles Sanford Terry (1864-1936)", Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 74: 159–160, JSTOR 20023386 
• Terry, Charles Sanford (1921), Bach's Chorals, Volume III, http://www.jsbchorales.net/down/pdf/bach-terry-3.pdf 
• Adams, Byron (2007), Edward Elgar and his world, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691134464 
• Weber, Édith (2004), Itinéraires du cantus firmus, 6, Presses Paris Sorbonne, p. 51, ISBN 2840503301 
• Hinrichsen, Max (1944), Musical year book, 1, Hinrichsen Edition, pp. 241–242 
• "Charles Sanford Terry", The Musical Times: 369–371, 1913, JSTOR 907666 
• A. M. Mackenzie (2004), "Charles Sanford Terry", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36461 

External links

• Official record of North East of Scotland Music Festival
• Elgar's Aberdeen connection, Leopard magazine, August 2007

Persondata
Name	Terry, Charles Sanford
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	24 October 1864
Place of birth
Date of death	5 November 1936
Place of death