(Southcombe)
Member of Lloyd Webber family
(b London, March 11, 1914; d London, Oct 29, 1982). Composer and organist. By the age of 14 he was well known as an organ recitalist. He won an organ scholarship to Mercer’s School and subsequently to the RCM (FRCO 1933), where his teachers included Vaughan Williams, among others. Although World War II interrupted his compositional development, the conclusion of the war marked the beginning of his most prolific years. His works from 1945 to the mid-1950s include the oratorio St Francis of Assisi (1948), the orchestral tone poem Aurora (1951) and the Sonatina for viola and piano (1951). Writing in a style firmly embedded in the Romanticism of such composers as Rachmaninoff, Sibelius and Franck, he became increasingly convinced that his music was ‘out of step’ with the prevailing climate of the time. Rather than compromise his approach, he virtually stopped composing, turning instead to academic music. He taught at the RCM and in ...
