Cecil Forsyth
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Cecil Forsyth (30 November 1870, in
Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...
– 7 December 1941,
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) was an English composer and
musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...
.Colles, H.C. 'Cecil Forsyth' in ''Grove Music Online'' (2001) He studied at the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
and at the
Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including performanc ...
(with
Charles Villiers Stanford Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the ...
and
Hubert Parry Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet (27 February 18487 October 1918) was an English composer, teacher and historian of music. Born in Richmond Hill in Bournemouth, Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is be ...
), and played
viola ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...
in various London orchestras. In 1914 he moved to the US and took up a position at the music publishers H.W. Gray, who also became his publisher. He continued to compose and secure performances in the US, though mostly with choral societies and
glee club A glee club in the United States is a musical group or choir group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs by trios or quartets. In the late 19th century it w ...
s. He died in New York in 1941. Without the composer present to promote it, his music lost traction in the UK and was largely forgotten. As a composer he was best known for his G minor Viola Concerto, premiered at the
Proms The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hal ...
in 1903 with Émile Férir as soloist, and repeated in 1904 and 1906. According to Lewis Foreman, it is "possibly the first full blown concerto for viola by a British composer". (
York Bowen Edwin York Bowen (22 February 1884 – 23 November 1961) was an English composer and pianist. Bowen's musical career spanned more than fifty years during which time he wrote over 160 works. As well as being a pianist and composer, Bowen was a ...
's Viola Concerto followed in 1907). There is a modern recording by
Lawrence Power Lawrence Power is a British violist, born 1977, noted both for solo performances and for chamber music with the Nash Ensemble and Leopold String Trio. Career Power started out as a violist (rather than beginning studies on the violin and switc ...
and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.Foreman, Lewis. Notes to Hyperion CDA67546 (2005)
/ref> The orchestral suite ''Four Studies from Victor Hugo'' also had its debut at the Proms in 1905. There were two comic operas, ''Westward Ho!'' and ''Cinderella'', both produced in London at the
Savoy Theatre The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps for Richard D'Oyly Carte and opened on 10 October 1881 on a site previously occupied by the Savoy P ...
, and a setting of
Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...
' ''Ode to a Nightingale'', published in 1894.The unaccompanied choral variations on ''Old King Cole'' from 1912 gained some popularity because of its humour. There were also two sacred Masses, and various songs and instrumental pieces, including ''Chanson Celtique'' (1906) for viola and piano. Once in the US, Forsyth composed ''The Last Supper: a Lenten Meditation'' in 1916 for chorus and orchestra, and two choral ballads for soloists with orchestra, ''Tinker, Tailor'' (1919) and ''The Luck of Eden Hall'' (1922).Bynog, David M. 'Cecil Forsyth: The Forgotten Composer?' in ''Journal of the American Viola Society'' 24, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 13-19 Other works composed in America were ''The Dark Road'' for viola and strings (1922) and the six movement ''Alice in Wonderland'' orchestral suite (1927). His most successful book was ''Orchestration'', originally published in 1914 and revised in 1935. Dover published a reprint of this revision in 1983 with a new foreword by composer
William Bolcom William Elden Bolcom (born May 26, 1938) is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, a Grammy Award, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. He ...
, who lauds especially Forsyth's insight into instrumental culture and his wit. Conductor Adrian Boult recalled how Forsyth advised Ralph Vaughan Williams about the orchestration of the latter's '' A London Symphony''.''Boult on Music: Words from a Lifetime's Communication''
(1983),
Forsyth's other books include ''Music and Nationalism: A Study of English Opera'' (1911), ''Choral Orchestration'' (1920), ''A History of Music'' (1916—with Stanford), ''Modern Violin Playing'' (1920, with Samuel Dean Grimson), ''A Digest of Music History'' (1923) and a collection of essays, ''Clashpans'' (1933).


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''Chanson Celtique''
for viola and piano, Rudolf Barshai & Semyon Stuchevsky {{DEFAULTSORT:Forsyth, Cecil 1870 births 1941 deaths 19th-century classical composers 20th-century classical composers Alumni of the University of Edinburgh English classical composers English classical violists English male classical composers 20th-century English composers 19th-century British composers 20th-century British male musicians 19th-century British male musicians 20th-century violists