William Crotch

William Crotch (1775–1847) was an English composer, organist, teacher, lecturer, and music scholar whose career linked late Georgian church music, Oxford, and the emerging professional conservatory tradition. Born in Norwich on July 5, 1775, he became famous as an extraordinary child prodigy, performing on the organ before leading figures while still very young. By his teens he had studied at Cambridge and was appointed organist of Christ Church, Oxford.

Crotch earned Oxford music degrees and became professor of music at the university in 1797. His adult career combined composition with teaching and public lecturing. Among his larger works were the oratorio Palestine and settings of sacred texts, while his published lectures and Elements of Musical Composition contributed to nineteenth-century English music education. He was also an accomplished amateur draughtsman and maintained interests in visual art alongside music.

In 1822 Crotch became the first principal of the newly founded Royal Academy of Music, serving until 1832 and helping establish standards for professional musical training in Britain. His hymnological importance includes adaptations and arrangements of older psalm melodies as well as original chants and sacred music. ST. MICHAEL, derived from a Genevan psalm melody, is associated with his 1836 adaptation in Psalm Tunes. That contribution is an adaptation of an older sixteenth-century melody rather than an original tune composition. Crotch died at Taunton, Somerset, on December 29, 1847.