Frederick B. Kiddle was a prominent English pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

, organist

Organist

An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...

 and accompanist.

Kiddle was born at Frome

Frome

Frome is a town and civil parish in northeast Somerset, England. Located at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, the town is built on uneven high ground, and centres around the River Frome. The town is approximately south of Bath, east of the county town, Taunton and west of London. In the 2001...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, and studied at the Royal College of Music

Royal College of Music

The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...

 under Sir Walter Parratt

Walter Parratt

Sir Walter Parratt KCVO was an English organist and composer.-Biography:Born in Huddersfield, son of a parish organist, Parratt began to play the pipe organ from an early age, and held posts as an organist while still a child...

, Rockstro and Higgs. In 1902 he became principal accompanist for the Promenade Concerts at Queen's Hall

Queen's Hall

The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...

, in succession to Percy Pitt

Percy Pitt

Percy Pitt was an English organist and conductor.A native of London, Pitt studied music at the conservatory in Leipzig, also working in Munich with Josef Rheinberger...

, and he remained there as permanent organist and accompanist for the next 25 years, retiring at about the time when the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 took over the proms.

Organist and accompanist at Queen's Hall

As examples of his work as organist, Kiddle introduced Alexandre Guilmant

Alexandre Guilmant

Félix-Alexandre Guilmant was a French organist and composer.- Short biography :Guilmant was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer...

's Symphony in D minor for organ and orchestra (a work with a very long pedal passage) in 1902, and gave the first performance of Max Bruch

Max Bruch

Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...

's suite for organ and orchestra at a Symphony Concert in May 1909. In November 1909, under Henry J. Wood, he played Marco Enrico Bossi

Marco Enrico Bossi

Marco Enrico Bossi was an Italian organist, composer, improviser and pedagogue.-Life:Bossi was born in Salò, a town in the province of Brescia, Lombardy, into a family of musicians. His father, Pietro, was organist at Salò Cathedral, which has a one-manual organ built by Fratelli Serassi from 1865...

's new organ concerto. In 1912 he played the Benjamin Dale

Benjamin Dale

Benjamin James Dale was an English composer and academic who had a long association with the Royal Academy of Music. Dale showed compositional talent from an early age and went on to write a small but notable corpus of works...

 Concert Piece for organ and orchestra at Queen's Hall, and at a prom late in 1913 he played the Fantaisie Triomphale (for organ and orchestra) of Théodore Dubois

Théodore Dubois

François-Clément Théodore Dubois was a French composer, organist and music teacher.-Biography:Théodore Dubois was born in Rosnay in Marne. He studied first under Louis Fanart and later at the Paris Conservatoire under Ambroise Thomas. He won the Prix de Rome in 1861...

.

He was the soloist in Saint-Saëns's Symphony for orchestra, organ and piano in November 1916. In a prom in 1927 he played Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...

's Cortège et Litanei. As a piano soloist, he joined Henry Wood and York Bowen

York Bowen

Edwin York Bowen was an English composer and pianist. Bowen’s musical career spanned more than fifty years during which time he wrote over 160 works. As well as being a pianist and composer, Bowen was a talented conductor, organist, violist and horn player...

 in the first British performance of Mozart's F minor concerto for three pianos in 1907, under the baton of Henri Verbrugghen

Henri Verbrugghen

Henri Verbrugghen was a Belgian musician, who directed orchestras in England, Scotland, Australia and the United States....

. When Henry Wood took control of the Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

 Festival in 1908 he took Kiddle with him as organist for the entire event.

Accompanist to Gervase Elwes

As the permanent accompanist for the Queen's Hall proms, naturally Kiddle accompanied almost everybody, but his great work in this role (demanding the highest standards of musicianship) is particularly remembered through his permanent connection with the tenor Gervase Elwes. In the early 1900s, when he was also organist of the parish church of St Marylebone in London, he was invited by Elwes (then just beginning his professional career) to act as his accompanist. Elwes regarded him as a most conscientious musician, and the two worked together throughout Elwes's career, until his death in 1921, often working several hours a day. Elwes instructed Kiddle in the meaning of the words of songs in French and German, so that there should be a unity of purpose in their performance, and he invariably brought Kiddle forward to share the applause at his concerts.

Kiddle's association with Elwes naturally brought him closely into the world of Roger Quilter

Roger Quilter

Roger Quilter was an English composer, known particularly for his songs.-Biography:Born in Hove, Sussex, Quilter was a younger son of Sir William Quilter, 1st Baronet, who was a noted art collector...

's music, which he played with great verve and rhythmical insight. Quilter dedicated one of his Nora Hopper songs, 'Blossom-time', to Kiddle in 1914. Kiddle's playing as accompanist is heard on most of the recordings of Gervase Elwes, including the 1917 Vaughan Williams On Wenlock Edge set with the London String Quartet. He can also be heard in recordings with Lionel Tertis

Lionel Tertis

Lionel Tertis, CBE was an English violist and one of the first viola players to find international fame.Tertis was born in West Hartlepool, the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, and initially studied the violin in Leipzig and at the Royal Academy of Music in London...

, Albert Sammons

Albert Sammons

Albert Edward Sammons CBE was an English violinist, composer and later violin teacher. Almost self-taught on the violin, he had a wide repertoire as both chamber musician and soloist, although his reputation rests mainly on his association with British composers, especially Elgar...

 or the tenor Hubert Eisdell.

Kiddle and Liddle

An exact contemporary of Frederick B. Kiddle was the fine accompanist Samuel H. Liddle, closely associated with Elwes's friend and supporter Harry Plunket Greene

Harry Plunket Greene

Harry Plunket Greene was an Irish baritone singer who was most famous in the formal concert and oratorio repertoire. He made a great contribution to British musical life also by writing and lecturing upon his art, and in the field of competitions and examinations...

, and composer of various songs popularised by Dame Clara Butt

Clara Butt

Dame Clara Ellen Butt DBE , sometimes called Clara Butt-Rumford after her marriage, was an English contralto with a remarkably imposing voice and a surprisingly agile singing technique. Her main career was as a recitalist and concert singer.-Early life and career:Clara Butt was born in Southwick,...

, including her much-recorded version of 'Abide with me'. The rhyme of their names and roles was often commented upon, not least in a short humorous verse by Harry Graham

Harry Graham (poet)

Jocelyn Henry Clive 'Harry' Graham was an English writer. He was a successful journalist and later, after distinguished military service, a leading lyricist for operettas and musical comedies, but he is now best remembered as a writer of humorous verse in the tradition of grotesquerie and black...

:

'With the cunningest collusion

And a deep desire to diddle,

Mr Kiddle courts confusion

With his colleague, Mr Liddle.'

Gerald Moore

Gerald Moore

Gerald Moore CBE was an English pianist best known for his career as one of the most in-demand accompanists of his day, accompanying many of the world's most famous musicians...

 added 'These gentlemen were the best of friends and indeed it would be hard to find two artists more courteous and affable. If one were mistaken for the other, however, they were immediately transformed into snarling homicides.'

Sources

• Arthur Eaglefield Hull
  Arthur Eaglefield Hull
  Arthur Eaglefield Hull was an English music critic, writer, composer and organist.Hull was initially a music student of Tobias Matthay and graduated with a Doctorate of Music from Oxford University...
  
  , A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (Dent, London 1924).
• R. Elkin, Queen's Hall 1893-1941 (Rider, London 1944).
• W. Elwes and R. Elwes, Gervase Elwes - The Story of His Life (Grayson and Grayson, London 1935).
• H. Graham, The World We Laugh In (Methuen, London 1936).
• V. Langfield, Roger Quilter - His Life and Music (Boydell, Woodbridge 2002).
• G. Moore, Am I Too Loud? (Penguin, Harmondsworth 1966).
• H. J. Wood, My Life of Music (Cheap Edition, Gollancz, London 1946).