Bantock, Granville

Bantock, Granville – Sapphic Poem (1909) for Violoncello Solo and Orchestra

(b. London, 7 August 1868 – d. London, 16 October 1946)

(1909)
For Violoncello Solo and Orchestra

Preface
Granville Bantock was a composer caught between two musical cultures. The son of a prominent London surgeon, Bantock studied at the Royal Academy of Music while Tchaikovsky was still a rising star and Wagner rarely appeared on British concert programs. England at the time had conservative musical tastes that preferred Mendelssohn and his English epigone William Sterndale Bennett to the New German School of Wagner, Liszt, and later Richard Strauss. Bantock absorbed techniques from all three of these composers, delighting in the notoriety such “modern” chromatic harmony, dramatic leitmotifs, and colorful orchestration gave him. The fact that Edward Elgar, the first English composer in generations to capture both the public and critical imagination, praised Bantock helped solidify Bantock’s position as a rising figure in English music. In 1900 Bantock succeeded Elgar as the Peyton Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham as well as becoming Principal of the Birmingham and Midland Institute’s school of music. He held both posts for over thirty years. After retiring in 1934 he became Chairman of Trinity College of Music in London, which sent him around the world as an adjudicator at music festivals and competitions. Bantock died in 1946 leaving behind his wife Helen, four children, and hundreds of musical compositions. …

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