Barnby was a com­pos­er, con­duct­or and (like his fa­ther Thom­as Barn­by) an or­gan­ist. He en­tered the choir of York Min­ster at age se­ven, and was an or­gan­ist and choir­mas­ter at twelve. In 1854 he went to Lon­don and en­tered the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Mu­sic, where he stu­died under Cip­ri­ani Pot­ter and Charles Lu­cas. In 1856, he com­pet­ed for the first Men­dels­sohn Schol­ar­ship. When the ex­am­in­a­tions were over, of the nine­teen ap­pli­cants, he was tied for first place with Ar­thur Sul­li­van. After a sec­ond test, Sul­li­van won.

Barnby was or­gan­ist at Mitc­ham, St. Michael’s, Queen­hithe, and St. James’ the Less, West­minster, be­fore he was ap­point­ed to St. An­drew’s, Wells Street, where he re­mained from 1863 to 1871, es­tab­lish­ing the mu­sic­al rep­u­ta­tion of the serv­ices. From 1871 to 1886 he was or­gan­ist of St. Anne’s, Soho, where he in­sti­tut­ed the an­nu­al per­form­ances of Bach’s Pass­ion Mu­sic ac­cord­ing to St. John, with or­ches­tral ac­comp­a­ni­ment. In 1867, Messrs. No­vel­lo, to whom he had been mu­sic­al ad­vis­er since 1861, es­tab­lished Barn­by’s Choir, which gave “or­a­tor­io con­certs” from 1869 to 1872, when it was amal­ga­mat­ed with the choir formed and con­duct­ed by M. Gou­nod at the Albert Hall, under the ti­tle of the Roy­al Al­bert Hall Chor­al So­ci­e­ty (now the Roy­al Chor­al So­ci­ety). The same pub­lish­ing firm al­so gave dai­ly con­certs in the Al­bert Hall, 1874-75, which Barn­by or­ches­trat­ed.

Barnby con­duct­ed the St. Mat­thew Pass­ion in West­min­ster Abbey in 1871. He was ap­point­ed pre­cen­tor of Eton in 1875, a post he kept until 1892, when he suc­ceed­ed Thomas Weist-Hill as prin­ci­pal of the Guild­hall School of Mu­sic.

In 1878, Barn­by mar­ried Edith Ma­ry Sil­ver­thorne. Al­so that year, he helped found the Lon­don Mu­sic­al So­ci­e­ty, be­com­ing its first di­rect­or and con­duct­or. Un­der his ba­ton, the So­ci­e­ty pro­duced Dvorak’s Sta­bat Ma­ter for the first time in Eng­land.

In 1884, Barn­by con­duct­ed the first per­for­mance in En­gland of Wag­ner’s “Par­si­fal” as a con­cert in the Al­bert Hall. From 1886-88 he con­duct­ed re­hears­als and con­certs of the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Mu­sic, of which he was a fel­low.

Barnby was knight­ed in 1892, and in the same year con­duct­ed the Car­diff Fes­ti­val. He con­duct­ed the fes­ti­val again in 1895.

Barnby’s com­po­si­tions in­clude an ora­tor­io (Re­be­kah, 1870), a psalm (“The Lord Is King,” Leeds Fes­ti­val, 1893), an enor­mous num­ber of ser­vices and an­thems, part songs and vo­cal so­lo, tri­os, etc. He al­so wrote a ser­ies of Eton Songs, 246 hymn tunes (pub­lished in one vol­ume in 1897), and ed­it­ed five hymn­als, the most im­port­ant of which was The Hym­nary (1872).

Biography courtesy of Thomas and Mary Barnby Hedges.

Sources

Music

1. Abba
2. Adoro Te
3. Alverstoke
4. Barnby
5. Carlton
6. Cheshunt College
7. Children’s Praise
8. Chiselhurst
9. Cloisters
10. Crossing the Bar
11. Diadema
12. Dunstan
13. Emmaus
14. Eton
15. Eton College
16. Flensburg
17. Galilean
18. Golden Chain
19. Good Shepherd
20. Holy Trinity
21. Horeb
22. Jordan
23. Joseph
24. Joy and Light
25. Last Sleep, The
26. Laudes Domini
27. Longwood
28. Mansfield
29. Merrial
30. Monsell
31. Nightfall
32. Nomen Tersanctum
33. O Voice
34. Perfect Love
35. Power
36. Sarum
37. Sheltering Wing
38. Soho
39. St. Anselm
40. St. Andrew
41. St. Boniface
42. St. Fabian
43. St. Hilda
44. St. Ignatius
45. Stand Up
46. Stanley
47. Sunset
48. Via Pacis
49. Victim Divine
50. Waring
51. We March to Victory
52. Winter Cold
53. Winterton