William Henry Reed

The book also provides a large number of Elgar's sketches for his unfinished Third Symphony, which proved invaluable sixty years later when Anthony Payne elaborated and essentially completed the work, although Reed wrote that in his view the symphony could not be completed.

He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Émile Sauret,[1] Frederick Corder and others,[2] graduating with honours.

On 17 January, Elgar has just completed a rehearsal of his incidental music to Grania and Diarmid with the orchestra, when Reed approached him, introduced himself, and asked whether he gave lessons in harmony and counterpoint.

He was also the first to play the concerto before an audience, in a semi-public performance at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester on 4 September 1910.

[10] Reed also gave the second performance, but the work's main players then became Albert Sammons and William Murdoch.

[1][11] These three works were written concurrently, when Elgar was living at Brinkwells, near Fittleworth in Sussex, and Reed often stayed at his house and went walking with him during this time.

[13] In 1932 Elgar started writing his Third Symphony in earnest, after a BBC commission in which Reed and George Bernard Shaw played a part.

He had been musing over such a work for some years, and had jotted down various themes and ideas on different pieces of manuscript paper.

[14] Reed had also published the complete sketches in his article, "Elgar's Third Symphony" in The Listener (23 August 1935).

Reed agreed, but asked that he should be allowed to continue to lead certain concerts (such as at Three Choirs Festivals) where he had a personal connection.

[20] In 1939 he was awarded a Doctorate of Music by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in recognition of the role he had played at the Three Choirs Festival for over thirty-five years.

[22] After retirement from active performing, he devoted much of his time to examining students and adjudicating competitions.

[2] It was on a trip to Scotland to examine and adjudicate for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music[9] that he died suddenly, in Dumfries, on 2 July 1942, aged 65.

[13][18] In the film Elgar's Tenth Muse: The Life of an English Composer, Reed was played by Rupert Frazer.