page_title: John Goss (composer)
section_title: Organist and teacher
hierarchical_section_title: John Goss (composer) / Life and career / Organist and teacher
caption_attribution_description: English: St Luke, Sidney Street, Chelsea, London SW3 - West end, near to Chelsea, Kensington And Chelsea, Great Britain.
context_page_description: Sir John Goss was an English organist, composer and teacher.
  Born to a musical family, Goss was a boy chorister of the Chapel Royal, London, and later a pupil of Thomas Attwood, organist of St Paul's Cathedral. After a brief period as a chorus member in an opera company he was appointed organist of a chapel in south London, later moving to more prestigious organ posts at St Luke's Church, Chelsea and finally St Paul's Cathedral, where he struggled to improve musical standards.
  As a composer, Goss wrote little for the orchestra, but was known for his vocal music, both religious and secular. Among his best-known compositions are his hymn tunes "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven" and "See, Amid the Winter's Snow". The music critic of The Times described him as the last of the line of English composers who confined themselves almost entirely to ecclesiastical music.
  From 1827 to 1874, Goss was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, teaching harmony. He also taught at St Paul's. Among his pupils at the academy were Arthur Sullivan, Frederic Cowen and Frederick Bridge. His best-known pupil at St Paul's was John Stainer, who succeeded him as organist there.
context_section_description: In 1821 Goss married his fiancée, and secured an appointment as an organist, at Stockwell Chapel (later known as St. Andrew's Church), in south London. He held this post for four years, before winning an open competition for the much more prestigious post of organist at of St. Luke's, Chelsea, then called Chelsea New Church, in December 1824. The salary was £100 a year, equivalent to more than £80,000 in terms of 2009 incomes.
  Goss composed a small amount of orchestral music in this period. Two overtures, in F minor and E flat major, written circa 1824, were performed and published in 1827, with considerable success. He composed incidental music for John Banim's melodrama The Serjeant's Wife, performed at the English Opera House on 24 July 1827. The Observer's sole comment on the composer's contribution was, "The music, which is by Mr. Goss, neither delights nor offends." Thereafter, Goss avoided orchestral composition, declining a request from the Philharmonic Society of London for another orchestral piece in 1833. As a composer, Goss became known for his vocal music. His solo songs and glees were much performed and were well reviewed in the musical press.
  In 1827, while retaining his organ post at Chelsea, Goss became professor of harmony at the Royal Academy of Music, a position he held until 1874. Among his pupils during his 47-year tenure were Arthur Sullivan, Frederic Cowen and Frederick Bridge. His biographer Judith Blezzard describes Goss as "a distinguished and painstaking teacher, and a tasteful and virtuoso performer on the organ, creating marvellous effects on the then comparatively rudimentary instrument."
  In 1833 Goss entered his anthem, "Have mercy upon me, O God," in the Gresham Prize Medal competition for the best original composition in sacred vocal music. His work won the prize, beating S. S. Wesley's, setting of  "The Wilderness". Goss dedicated his anthem to his old teacher Thomas Attwood; it was performed at the Mansion House in June 1834. Goss's other main work of 1833 was his instructional book An Introduction to Harmony and Thorough-Bass, which became a standard work and went through 14 editions.
caption: Interior of St Luke's, Chelsea
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 450D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:05:24 19:25:31", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1062", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6346", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/4", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:05:19 13:59:04", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:05:19 13:59:04", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "2", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "16", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "596", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "4272", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2848", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "912", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "2136000/439", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "356000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}