Bernard Rose

Bernard William George Rose, OBE, Doctor in Music, Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, (9 May 1916 – 21 November 1996) was a British organist, soldier, composer, and academic. A graduate of Cambridge University, he is best known for his compositions of Anglican church music; his Preces and Responses, for use in the Anglican service of evensong, is widely performed. He served as a soldier in the Second World War, and went on to become a noted choir master and music tutor, counting among his pupils the composer Kenneth Leighton, musicians Professor Roger Bray, Professor David Wulstan and Harry Christophers, and actor Dudley Moore. Education Bernard Rose was at Salisbury Cathedral School and sang as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral from 1925 to 1931. There, he also studied the organ under Walter Galpin Alcock and was appointed as an assistant organist at the cathedral aged just 15. From 1933 to 1935, Rose studied at the Royal College of Music where he continued his organ studies under Alcock. In 1935, he won the organ scholarship to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, beating Edward Heath to the position. At Cambridge, Rose studied under Hubert Middleton and Edward Joseph Dent from 1935 to 1939.