William Henry Bell

William Henry Bell, known largely by his initials, W H Bell (20 August 1873 – 13 April 1946), was an English composer, conductor and lecturer.

Bell was born in St Albans and was a chorister at St Albans Cathedral. He studied organ, violin and piano in London at the Royal Academy of Music along with composition under Frederick Corder, and privately with Charles Villiers Stanford. He mainly made his living as an organist and lecturer; he was Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music where he taught from 1909 to 1912. In 1911 Bell was Director of Music for the Pageant of London at Crystal Palace.

In 1912, Bell went to South Africa to direct the South African College of Music in Cape Town. He was Principal until 1935 and is credited with a significant expansion of the school. In 1920, Bell became Professor of Music at the University of Cape Town, where he held classes for degree courses. The South African College of Music was incorporated into the University in 1923 and Professor Bell became Dean of the Faculty of Music. Bell founded the Little Theater, a training center for opera, and occasionally directed the Cape Town Music Society. He died in Gordon's Bay near Somerset West, Cape Province, Union of South Africa.

The W H Bell Music Library at the University of Cape Town is named in honour of William Henry Bell.

Compositions by Bell were heavily featured in the series of concerts directed by August Manns at Crystal Palace between 1899 and 1912. Premieres there included the Walt Whitman Symphony and the symphonic poems The Pardonor's Tale and The Canterbury Tales. The symphonic prelude A Song in The Morning received its London premiere at the BBC Proms in 1901, and Agamemnon its world premiere at the Proms in 1908. Dan Godfrey was also a champion of Bell's music in Bournemouth. Thomas Beecham put on performance of the Arcadian Suite, Love Among the Ruins and The Shepherd. However, when Bell moved to South Africa performances back in the UK all but ceased. He continued to compose while in South Africa with all of his four mature symphonies (numbers 2 to 5) premiered there. His Symphonic Variations received its first performance in Cape Town in August 1917, but wasn't heard in London until 24 February 1921 when Bell conducted it during a trip back to England. The three movement Concerto for Viola and Orchestra Rosa Mystica was also premiered in Cape Town in 1917, one year after it had been completed.

The South African Symphony (No 4) was first performed in Cape Town on 1 March 1928, and while it's essentially a work in the European tradition it does incorporate some African folk music elements. These, according to John Joubert, who took private composition lessons from Bell from 1942–46, were probably provided by Percival Kirby, Professor of Music at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg.[11] Bell's 70th birthday was celebrated in the UK with a BBC broadcast of the 1941 Symphonic Fantasy Aeterna munera as well as the Arcadian Suite on 20 August 1943. But since then his music has rarely been revived, with the exception of recordings of the South African Symphony and the Viola Concerto.