George Dyson

Born in Halifax in 1883, and died in Winchester in 1964: he had a long life, spent mostly teaching music to others, in particular at Winchester College and the Royal College of Music. In fact, he became director of the RCM in 1938 -and the time available for original composition seems to have diminished accordingly. His period of most compelling output was around the 1920s to 1930s. He was knighted in 1941.

Stylistically, he's of the Parry and Stanford school of English music, not your Walton or Britten! As he himself put it, “My reputation is that of a good technician … not markedly original. I am familiar with modern idioms but they are outside the vocabulary of what I want to say.” Most critics, then and now, tend to regard his works generally as lacking in personality or personal idiom. That said, the Sir George Dyson Trust is happy enough to declare that “His compositions are  hugely attractive and cover a wide range of genres: chamber music, songs, piano music, choral music, orchestral music and perhaps most successful of all, his music for choir and orchestra, often with soloists.”

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