Alfred Dudley Turner

{{Infobox person

| name = Alfred Dudley Turner

| image = Alfred_Dudley_Turner.jpg

| image_size = 300px

| caption = Alfred Dudley Turner

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date|mf=yes|1854|8|24|}}

| birth_place = St. Albans, Maine

| death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1888|5|7|1854|8|24}}

| death_place = Auburn, Maine

| resting_place = Village Cemetery, St. Albans (city), Maine

| resting_place_coordinates =

| nationality = American

| occupation = Composer

| partner =

| relatives =

}}

Alfred Dudley Turner (24 August 1854 – 7 May 1888){{cite web|title=OCLC Authority File|url=http://errol.oclc.org/laf/no%2092001335.html|accessdate=6 December 2010}} was an American educator and composer.

He was born in St. Albans, Maine. {{Cite United States census | url = https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/collections/7667/records/44159192?tid=&pid=&queryId=0089d253-9f57-490a-bac7-7c14f66ffaae&_phsrc=nbI7&_phstart=successSource | title = | year = 1860 | location = St. Albans, Maine | roll = | page = 30 | line = 38 | enumdist = Saint Albans, Somerset County, Maine | filmnum = | nafilm = | accessdate = December 3, 2024 }} After displaying unusual musical ability, as a child he went to Boston to study piano at the New England Conservatory, where his teachers included J. C. D. Parker and Madeline Schiller.Granville L. Howe & William Smythe Babcock Mathews (1837–1912), [https://books.google.com/books?id=KKMNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA568 A Hundred Years of Music in America], 1st publishing by G. L. Howe, Chicago (1889); 2nd publishing Theodore Presser (1900)

Turner was an 1876 graduate of Boston University College of Music.{{Cite book |last=Boston University |url=http://archive.org/details/generalalumnicat00bost |title=General alumni catalogue of Boston University, nineteen hundred and eighteen |last2=Maxwell |first2=W. J. |date=1918 |publisher=[Boston, Mass. |others=Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center}} He became an instructor at the New England Conservatory. Among his students were Charles Dennée and Frank Addison Porter.

He died at his home in Auburn, Maine of an illness.{{Cite news |date=June 1888 |title=A. D. Turner |volume=VI |pages=90 |work=The Etude |editor-last=Presser |editor-first=Theodore |url=https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1316&context=etude |access-date=December 11, 2023}} A large collection of his manuscripts are archived at the Library of Congress.{{Cite journal |last=Hill |first=Richard S. |date=1953 |title=Music |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/29780724 |journal=Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=15–26 |issn=0090-0095}}

Selected works

Turner produced 36 numbered compositions, mostly of piano and chamber music. Among them are:

A Romance
Berceuse
6 Concert Etudes (Octave Valse Brillante, Expansion, Humoresque, "If I Were a Bird" à la Henselt, Maestoso, Wild Rider)
Valse Souvenir
Piano Quintet
6 Studies in Double Thirds, Op. 14
6 Preludes, Op. 15
Etudes de Concert, Op. 16 (No. 1 5/4 rhythm)
2 Syncopation Studies, Op. 24
2 New Etudes, Op. 25 "Designed for the cultivation of ease and grace in the performance of rapid passages requiring a crossing of the hands for the pianoforte"{{Cite book |last=Turner |first=Alfred Dudley |url=https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1283&context=mmb-me |title=2 New Etudes for the Pianoforte. |publisher=Arthur P. Schmidt & Co |year=1884 |location=Boston}}
15 Melodious Studies for Piano, Op. 30
Christmas Suite for piano, Op. 33
Sonata for cello and piano, Op. 34

He also wrote the piano technique book A complete set of scales for the Piano-Forte (including double thirds, double sixths, arpeggios in all forms, Octaves, etc., carefully fingered from Dreyschock, Plaidy, and Köhler). It was first published in 1879 by the New England Conservatory, and reprinted nearly 20 years after his death in a 1907 edition.{{Cite book |last=Turner |first=A. D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=leqAVtsW0PAC |title=Turner's Complete Set of Scales for the Pianoforte: Carefully Fingered from Dreyschock, Plaidy & Köhler |date=1907 |publisher=New England Conservatory of Music |language=en}}

External links

{{IMSLP|id=Turner, Alfred Dudley}}

References

Category:1854 births

Category:1888 deaths

Category:American male composers

Category:19th-century American composers

Category:19th-century American male musicians