A pupil of Charles Wood at Cambridge, the English composer Christian Darnton later studied the bassoon in London, with further composition lessons in Berlin. He taught music at Stowe and in the years between the wars enjoyed some success as a composer. His attempts at populism, after joining the Communist Party in the Second World War, led to a break in activity as a composer for some 20 years from the 1950s. He returned to composition again only in the final years of his life.

Orchestral Music

Darnton won success with compositions such as his 1938 Suite concertante for violin and orchestra, and his Concerto for Orchestra and Fourth Symphony from the 1970s. His largely neoclassical Piano Concertino was first performed in 1949.