John Radcliff (1842-1917)
Born:
Born
into a family of amateur flautists, John Radcliff started learning as a
youngster. It is said that he provided himself with a penny whistle which he
converted into a flute by stopping up the end and fashioning a mouth hole.
After a year or so of practice his father arranged tuition and a proper
instrument. His teacher was Samuel Percival (1824-c.1890), flautist composer
and organist in
By
the age of 12, Radcliff made his first concert appearance in
His
professional career came to
a temporary halt after appearing at the Leeds Festival of 1883 when he set off
for
In
1870 Radcliff designed a flute model of his own which successfully used Boehm’s
arrangement of tone holes whilst retaining the old system of fingering.
Radcliff
composed a number of pieces for flute most of which were published by Rudall
Carte and Chappell.
John Radcliff
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