Herbert Francis Sharpe, (1 March 1861 – 14 October 1925) was a British pianist, composer and music professor of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
[1][2] He went on to succeed Eugen d'Albert as the Queen's Scholar there studying under Arthur Sullivan, Ebenezer Prout, J. F. Barnett and Frederick Bridge.
[3] He married Bertha Turrell in April 1884[1] and his son the cellist Cedric Sharpe was born in 1891.
Sharpe was one of the founding members of the Royal College of Music being appointed professor of piano there in 1884 one year after it opened.
His teaching was not of the narrow kind that sees but a segment of musical truth and proclaims it as the whole, thereby warping instead of widening the powers of judgment in the pupil.
It was a rare pleasure to bear him play passages from Debussy and Ravel, with a quality of tone almost uncanny in its beauty.
But memory of all [sic], perhaps, was his Mozart playing which had unassuming serenity that approached perfection.His influence for good in the life and work of the College has been a very potent one, and perhaps all the more so owing to the complete freedom from anything spectacular in his artistic nature.
Always modest and self-effacing, inclining to no extremity of view, but always keeping a splendid balance and poise in his musical outlook, he has been instrumental in giving to the innumerable students who passed through his hands a broad and sane view of their work which is a very precious thing in these days of change and instability.
While deeply mourning his loss, they will resolve to carry on in the light of his example.Anna of the Five Towns, by Arnold Bennett is dedicated to him.