Cyril Scott

Cyril Scott (27 September 1879 – 31 December 1970) was a romanticist with some impressionist qualities. His harmonic treatments and piano works depict the exotic. He was sometimes referred to as “the English Debussy.”

Scott was born in Oxton, Cheshire to 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. He studied with Iwan Knorr and belonged to the Frankfurt Group, a circle of composers who studied at the Hoch Conservatory in the late 1890s. His first symphony was performed (through the good offices of his friend Stefan George, the great German poet) when he was only twenty years old.

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 Eugene Goossens, and was admired by Claude Debussy, Goossens, Percy Grainger, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky.

http://www.cyrilscott.net/