Barry Cooper (musicologist)

Barry Cooper (born 1949) is an English musicologist, composer, organist and author, one of the most renowned Beethoven scholars, and is editor of the "Beethoven Compendium".

Born in Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex, Cooper studied piano and composition in his childhood, leading to scholarships to the Gordonstoun School and later at University College, Oxford, studying organ with John Webster and earning an MA in 1973 and a DPhil in 1974. His musical compositions include an oratorio, "The Ascension".

But Cooper is best known for his books on Beethoven, as well as two realizations of Beethoven's fragmentary Symphony No. 10. Having extensively studied Beethoven's sketchbooks and written a book about them, "Beethoven and the Creative Process", Cooper felt confident enough to identify the sketches for the individual movements of the Symphony and put together those for the first movement into a musically satisfactory whole. The first realisation was premiered in 1988 by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Walter Weller. In a way, this fulfilled Beethoven's promise of his Symphony No. 10 to the Royal Philharmonic Society. Later on, Cooper polished his realization and added material from other sketchbooks. The second realization was premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Wyn Morris.

From 1974 to 1990, Cooper taught at Aberdeen, where he became interested in early printed music in that town, as well as music theory in 18th century England. He has also discovered rare 17th century French harpsichord music as well as one of the oldest canons now known.

Cooper's new editions of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas have been a huge success, being the best edition of these works in print. They put forward the most recent work into these works, so far.

Since 1990, Cooper is Professor of music at the University of Manchester, including courses on musical bibliography, Beethoven's late works and on editing music.