Rockstro was born
William Smyth Rackstraw in
North Cheam,
Surrey. (He adopted an older form of his family name from 1846). He studied composition and piano with
William Sterndale Bennett, organ with
John Purkis, and from 1845 to 1846 he studied at the
Leipzig Conservatory under
Felix Mendelssohn (composition and piano). His contemporaries there included
Joseph Joachim and
Otto Goldschmidt. After his studies in Leipzig, Rockstro established himself as a teacher of piano and singing in London, and he secured a regular appointment as an accompanist at a recital series. In the early 1860s he moved to the
West Country, where he lived for nearly 30 years. Together with his former pupil
J A Fuller Maitland, Rockstro collaborated on a collection,
English Carols of the 15th Century (1891). As an editor of music of earlier centuries he was far from scholarly in his changes:
The Times commented that his edition of the
St Matthew Passion "introduced marks of expression in a wholesale fashion not likely to meet with the approval of purists". In 1891 he moved from the West Country back to London, where he taught both privately and at the
Royal Academy of Music and the
Royal College of Music. Rockstro's later years were marred by ill health, but his death at the age of 72 was nonetheless sudden and unexpected. His brother was
Richard Shepherd Rockstro (1826-1906), professor of flute at the
Guildhall School of Music and author of
A Treatise on the Flute (1890). ==Publications==