Granville Bantock turned to music relatively late in adolescence, entering the Royal Academy in London in 1889. He studied with Frederick Corder and showed early ambition and success as a composer. As a conductor he did his utmost to promote the work of contemporary British composers. In 1900 he became principal of the Birmingham and Midland Institute School of Music, following Elgar as Peyton Professor of Music at Birmingham University in 1908, appointments which led to a knighthood in 1930.

Orchestral Music

Bantock’s orchestral music often draws inspiration from literature, or from the exotic. His Russian Scenes, a companion to his English Scenes, makes use of Russian material, while the Hebridean Symphony of 1915 evokes an imagined Celtic world in all its mystery. This is true of other works for which he sought inspiration in Scotland, as well as those inspired by China and by Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyám. His Old English Suite of 1909 uses material from the age of Queen Elizabeth I.