Paul Walford Corder was an English composer and music professor.

Corder was born at Pimlico, London, the son of musician Frederick Corder

Frederick Corder

Frederick Corder was an English composer and music teacher.-Biography:Corder was born in Hackney, the son of Micah Corder and his wife Charlotte Hill. He was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School and started music lessons, particularly piano, early. Later he studied with Henry Gadsby...

 and his wife Henrietta Walford. He was baptised at St. Gabriel's, Warwick Square, London, on 1 March 1880. He studied under his father at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

 and won the Goring Thomas scholarship for composition in 1901. In 1907 he joined the staff of the Academy as Professor of Composition and Harmony.

His aunt Rosa Corder

Rosa Corder

Rosa Frances Corder was a Victorian artist and artist's model. She was the lover of Charles Augustus Howell, who is alleged to have persuaded her to create forgeries of drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.-Career:...

 painted a portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

 and Corder was strongly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement. He composed operas and ballets cantatas and piano works. Many of his orchestral works remain unpublished and unknown but some of his keyboard pieces were published and achieved some public attention.
He was a close friend of Arnold Bax

Arnold Bax

Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...

 with whom he spent holidays in Cornwall. Bax dedicated the song "Aspiration" (1909) and his Fourth Symphony

Symphony No. 4 (Bax)

The Symphony No. 4 by Arnold Bax was completed in 1930 and dedicated to Paul Corder. It was inspired by Bax's love of the sea and premiered in 1931 by British conductor Basil Cameron and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.-Scoring:...

  (1931) to Corder.

Corser lived for many years at White Cottage, Netley Heath

Netley Heath

Netley Heath is an area of woods and heathland near Gomshall in Surrey, England. It has a significant geological stratum which gives rise to the name of "Netley Heath Beds"....

, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

.

Works

• Rapunzel, Opera
• Grettir the Strong, Opera
• The Dryad, Ballet
• A Song of Battle for choir und orchestra
• A Song of the Ford for male choir and orchestra
• Four Sea Songs for baritone and orchestra
• The Moonslave, a terpsichorean fantasy
• A Song of the Bottle
• Spanish Waters
• Sunset and Sunrise
• Pelleas and Melisande
• Cyrano de Bergerac, overture
• Gaelic Fantasy
• Morar
• Dross, Music drama without words
• Violin concerto
• Five Orchestral Tone Pictures: : Along the Seashore: 1. The Ebbing Tide; 2. The Sea Cavern; 3. Seagull's Rock; 4. The still hour of dusk; 5. The Call of the Sea
• String quartet
• Fountains for viola and piano
• Transmutations of an Original Theme for piano
• Nine Preludes for piano
• Three Studies
• Passacaglia
• Romantic Study
• Heroic Elegy
• Spanish Waters
• An Autumn Memory