Frank Tapp

Frank Harold Tapp (1883 – 15 June 1953, often Frank H. Tapp, sometimes Frank W. Tapp) was a British composer, pianist and conductor associated with the City of Bath, where he was the director of the Pump Room concerts between 1910 and 1917. Tapp was an accomplished pianist, and the composer of three symphonies and other orchestral works. Career Frank Tapp was born in Bath, making his first appearance as a pianist when he was only five. He first studied music locally with the organist Sir Percy Buck. He went on to study at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir Frederick Bridge and Charles Wood as well as John Arthur St. Oswald Dykes (piano) and William Sewell (organ). The Pump Room was (and is) famous for its salon and light music, but Tapp also programmed new and challenging repertoire - such as the first West of England performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, his own Symphony No. 1 The Tempest (in 1913), and Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces. Over sixty symphonies, including all nine of Beethoven’s, were programmed during his time there. He left the orchestra in 1917: some sources say he was sacked for programming the Schoenberg