Cyril Rootham

Cyril Bradley Rootham was an English composer, educator and organist. 

His work at Cambridge University made him an influential figure in English music life. A Fellow of St John's College, where he was also organist, Rootham ran the Cambridge University Musical Society, whose innovative concert programming helped form English musical tastes of the time. One of his students was the younger composer Arthur Bliss, who valued his tuition in orchestration. Rootham's own compositions include two symphonies and several smaller orchestral pieces, an opera, chamber music, and many choral settings. Among his solo songs are some settings of verses by Siegfried Sassoon which were made in co-operation with the poet.

Rootham was born on October 5, 1875, in Redland, Bristol, to Daniel Wilberforce Rootham and Mary Rootham. His father was a well-known singing teacher whose students included Clara Butt, Eva Turner and Elsie Griffin, and he was also a director of the Bristol Madrigal Society.

After attending Bristol Grammar School, Rootham initially entered St John's College, Cambridge, as a sizar in 1894 to study classics. Graduation in 1897 was followed by a second bachelor's degree, this time in music, which he completed in 1900. Rootham continued his musical education at the Royal College of Music where he studied under Marmaduke Barton, Walter Parratt, Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford, among others.

Rootham's first professional appointment was as organist of Christ Church, Hampstead, where in 1898 he succeeded the composer Walford Davies. This was followed by a brief period as organist at St Asaph Cathedral in north Wales in 1901. In the same year, Rootham was appointed organist at St John's College, Cambridge, a post he held until the end of his life.

In 1909, Rootham married Rosamond Margaret Lucas who supplied him with support and encouragement. Rosamond was put in charge of the costume making at the CUMS concerts, and the Rootham household was always filled with whatever clothes were needed for a new performance. Their son Jasper St John Rootham was born in 1910.

In 1912, Rootham became conductor of the Cambridge University Musical Society (CUMS). Under his enterprising leadership and programming, the CUMS exerted a significant influence on English musical life of the time. Rootham revived Handel oratorios, Mozart operas and other currently neglected works by Purcell and others. E. J. Dent and others are usually credited with the textual preparation, but Rootham was responsible for their musical success. The CUMS concerts also promoted modern music such as Zoltán Kodály's Psalmus Hungaricus, Arthur Honegger's Le roi David and Ildebrando Pizzetti's 'Mass and Piano concerto, all led by Rootham. In 1930 Rootham invited several contemporary composers to the concert; Manuel de Falla, Kodály and Honegger attended, as did Kathleen Long. Rootham's genial manner and enviable physique (as a student he had excelled in athletics) made him highly popular amongst students. This popularity helped the success of the CUMS concerts, all of which were largely extracurricular.

In 1914 Rootham had become a Fellow of St John's after taking over the post of University Lecturer in Form and Analysis of Music. In 1924 he was made Senior Lecturer in Counterpoint and Harmony. Rootham was also a much appreciated teacher of orchestration. His many students included Arthur Bliss, Arnold Cooke, Christian Darnton, Armstrong Gibbs, Patrick Hadley, Walter Leigh, Basil Maine, Robin Orr, Bernard Stevens and Percy Young.

Despite his tireless promotion of other composers, Rootham was surprisingly modest about his own work, doing little to advance it into the standard repertoire. Nevertheless, he conducted the 1922 premiere of his opera The Two Sisters, as well as his 1919 setting of Laurence Binyon’s For the Fallen. The latter inadvertently sparked a controversy when Elgar published a setting of the same poem shortly after, though neither composer was personally to blame for the dispute. Beyond his own music, Rootham’s legacy at CUMS included a notable performance of Handel’s Semele and his revival of the triennial Greek play tradition—a custom of performing plays with newly composed music that continued long after his death.

Illness plagued Rootham’s later years. After a stroke led to progressive muscular atrophy, he handed the reins of the CUMS to Boris Ord in 1936. Despite his declining health, he managed to finish several works, including City in the West and his three-movement Second Symphony; the latter’s orchestration was completed by his close friend, Patrick Hadley.

Rootham died on March 18, 1938, at the age of sixty-two.