Sir John Goss (27 December 1800 – 10 May 1880) 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.
Life and career
Early years
thumb|right|Goss's former home in [[Fareham]]
Goss came from a musical background. His father, Joseph Goss, was organist of Fareham Parish Church in Hampshire, and earlier members of the family had been celebrated singers. The master of the choir at that time was John Stafford Smith, a musician known for composing the song To Anacreon in Heaven, later used as the tune of the American national anthem. As an educator, Smith combined a harsh discipline with a narrow musical curriculum. He confiscated Goss's score of Handel's organ concertos on the grounds that choristers of the Chapel Royal were there to learn to sing and not to play.
Organist and teacher
thumb|upright|left|Interior of St Luke's, Chelsea
In 1821 Goss married his fiancée Lucy Emma New, 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 St. Luke's, Chelsea, then called Chelsea New Church, in December 1824.
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. Thereafter, Goss avoided orchestral composition, declining a request from the Philharmonic Society of London for another orchestral piece in 1833. 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." The cathedral authorities were not interested in raising musical standards. Sydney Smith's view was typical: "It is enough if our music is decent … we are there to pray, and the singing is a very subordinate consideration." Some of Smith's colleagues were indifferent to both considerations, there being frequent absenteeism by the junior clergy, neglecting their duties and failing to conduct services.
Goss was noted for his piety and gentleness of character. His pupil, John Stainer, wrote, "That Goss was a man of religious life was patent to all who came into contact with him, but an appeal to the general effect of his sacred compositions offers public proof of the fact." His mildness was a disadvantage when attempting to deal with his recalcitrant singers. He was unable to do anything about the laziness of the tenors and basses, who had lifetime security of tenure and were uninterested in learning new music. The biographer Jeremy Dibble writes, "Hostility to [Goss's] fine anthem 'Blessed is the man', composed in 1842, undermined his confidence so markedly that he did not compose any further anthems until 1852, when he was commissioned to write two anthems for the state funeral of the Duke of Wellington. Those new anthems were "If we believe that Jesus died" and "And the King said"; the latter being written so that it moved seamlessly into Handel's Dead March in Saul, a combination which Prince Albert reported "had made everyone weep". Goss also composed for the service an Anglican chant for the Nunc dimittis, based on Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.
Stainer who was a boy chorister at the time of Wellington's funeral later recalled the effect of Goss's music at rehearsal: "When the last few bars pianissimo had died away, there was a profound silence for some time, so deeply had the hearts of all been touched by its truly devotional spirit. Then there gradually arose on all sides the warmest congratulation to the composer, it could hardly be termed applause, for it was something much more genuine and respectful." Stainer was not always so reverential about his teacher. He later recalled the occasion on which he and the young Arthur Sullivan succumbed to laughter when Goss absent-mindedly walked across the pedals of the organ during a service "before he realised that he was the cause of the alarming thunderings which were frightening the congregation and putting a temporary pause in the sermon."
In the early 1870s Goss's health began to fail. By 1872 he had decided to retire, and his swan-song at St Paul's was in February of that year at the national service of thanksgiving for the recovery of the Prince of Wales from a grave illness. For this service he composed a setting of the Te Deum and an anthem, "The Lord is my strength".
Works
thumb|right|upright|Memorial to Goss in St Paul's Cathedral
In the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, W. H. Husk and Bruce Carr write of Goss, "His glees enjoyed long popularity for their grateful vocal writing. As a church composer his reputation came later, through the grace and the careful word-setting of his anthems, composed mostly after 1850." They quote a contemporary as saying that Goss's music "is always melodious and beautifully written for the voices, and is remarkable for a union of solidity and grace, with a certain unaffected native charm." Judith Blezzard, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, writes: