Cyril Scott

Cyril Meir Scott (September 27, 1879 – December 31, 1970) was an English composer, writer, and poet.

Biography
Scott was born in Oxton (Merseyside) in northern England, United Kingdom, to Henry Scott, a shipper and scholar of Greek and Hebrew, and Mary Scott (née Griffiths), an amateur pianist. He showed a talent for music from an early age and was sent to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany to study piano in 1892 at age 12. His first symphony was performed nine years later. In 1909 he recorded 6 of his own works for Welte-Mignon.

Scott married Rose Allatini in 1921. They had two children: Vivien Mary Scott (born 1923) and Desmond Cyril Scott (born 1926). He separated from Rose following World War II. He met Marjorie Hartston, in 1943, who remained his companion until his death.

He composed up until the last three weeks of his life, dying at the age of 91. By the time of his death Scott was little regarded. Now his work is coming strongly back into favour.

Music
Scott was romanticist with some impressionist qualities. His harmonic treatments and piano works depict the exotic.

As a composer, Scott wrote around four hundred works, including four symphonies, three operas, two piano concertos, four oratorios, four concertos (for violin, cello, oboe and harpsichord) and several overtures, as well as tone poems, chamber music and songs. Between 1903 and 1914 Scott wrote more works for the piano than any other composer with the exception of Scriabin. He was called the “Father of modern British music” by Goossens, and was admired by Debussy, Goossens, Grainger, Sorabji, Strauss and Stravinsky. He was sometimes referred to as “the English Debussy.”

His works include four symphonies, four operas, two piano concertos, concertos for violin, cello, harpsichord and oboe, and the oratorios Nativity Hymn (1913), Mystic Ode (1932), Ode to Great Men (1936), and Hymn of Unity (1947). He also wrote numerous chamber works, and hundreds of songs and piano miniatures.

Symphonies
1st performed in Darmstadt in 1900.
2nd Symphony performed in London in 1903.
3rd Symphony, The Muses, performed in Manchester in 2003.
4th Symphony performed in Manchester in 2005.

Recordings
The record label Chandos is planning to record all Scott's major orchestral compositions. So far, they have released three CD's:

The first volume containing the tone poem Neptune (1935), Symphony No. 3 The Muses (1939) and the second piano concerto (1958). The second volume containing the tone poem "Early One Morning" (1931) , Symphony No. 4 (1952) and the first piano concerto (1914). The third volume containing the violin concerto, "Festival Overture", "Aubade" and "Three Symphonic Dances".

Other works
In 2001, a piece thought for many decades to be lost, the Sonatina for guitar (1927), was discovered by Angelo Gilardino in the archives of Andrés Segovia, for whom the piece was originally written. It has since been recorded by the German guitarist Tilman Hoppstock, among others. His Pastoral and Reel for cello and piano was recorded by Julian Lloyd Webber and John Lenehan for Philips Classics in 1994.