Lloyd, Charles, H - Suite in the old style for clarinet and piano

Charles Harford Lloyd (1849-1919)
Suite in the old style  (Prelude; Allemande; Minuet; Sarabande; Gigue)

The son of a Gloucestershire solicitor, Charles Harford Lloyd succeeded S.S. Wesley as organist of Gloucester Cathedral in 1876 at the age of 27, going on to Christ Church, Oxford six years later. In 1892 he followed Joseph Barnby as Precentor at Eton College, a post which he held for 22 years. After his retirement from the College he was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, where he remained until his death in 1919.

    A composer mainly of choral music, he had already in his Oxford days written clarinet pieces for a gifted undergraduate performer, R. F. Holme.  Suite in the old style, however, was dedicated to Elgar’s favourite clarinettist, Charles Draper. It was published in 1914, and received its first performance by Draper on June 9 of that year at one of the series of chamber concerts founded by the composer Thomas Dunhill, who had as a young man been a member of Lloyd’s staff at Eton. Dunhill himself played the piano part, and Draper was joined later in the same concert by John Ireland and the cellist May Mukle in giving the first performance of Ireland’s Trio for clarinet, ’cello and piano.