George Dyson (composer)
Sir George Dyson KCVO (28 May 1883 – 28 September 1964) was an English musician and composer. After studying at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London, and army service in the First World War, he was a schoolmaster and college lecturer. In 1938 he became director of the RCM, the first of its alumni to do so. As director he instituted financial and organisational reforms and steered the college through the difficult days of the Second World War.
As a composer Dyson wrote in a traditional idiom, reflecting the influence of his teachers at the RCM, Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford. His works were well known during his lifetime but underwent a period of neglect before being revived in the late 20th century.
Life and career[edit]
Early years[edit]
Dyson was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, the eldest of the three children of John William Dyson, a blacksmith, and his wife, Alice, née Greenwood, a weaver.[1] Dyson senior was also organist and choirmaster at a local church, and both parents were members of amateur choirs. They encouraged their son's musical talent, and at the age of 13 he was appointed as a church organist. Three years later he secured an FRCO (Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists), and in 1900 he won an open scholarship to the Royal College of Music (RCM) where he studied composition with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.[1] He supported himself during his years studying at the RCM by working as assistant organist at St Alfege Church, Greenwich.[2]
He won the Arthur Sullivan prize for composition[3] while still an RCM student, and in 1904 was awarded a Mendelssohn Scholarship,[4] which enabled him to spend three years in Italy, Austria and Germany. He met leading musicians including Richard Strauss, whose style is believed to have influenced Dyson's early compositions.[5] His symphonic poem Siena (1907) was considered by The Times to stand out from many works by other young composers,[6] but the score has not survived.[5][7]
When he returned to Britain in 1907 Dyson was appointed director of music at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, on the recommendation of Sir Hubert Parry, director of the RCM.[5] From there he moved to Marlborough College in 1911.[4]
Music[edit]
Dyson said of himself as a composer, "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".[15] The music critic of The Times remarked that Dyson's works had a certain ambiguity, "due probably to the fact that great musical skill was allied, exceptionally, with an extrovert temperament." The same writer observed that although everything Dyson wrote was well made, he never developed a personal idiom, "nor engendered much emotional sap in his larger works".[15]
Dyson's biographer Paul Spicer writes that of the composer's works only The Canterbury Pilgrims and two sets of evening canticles in D and F are performed with any frequency.[24] Dyson himself chose to include the following works in his Who's Who entry: In Honour of the City, 1928; The Canterbury Pilgrims, 1931; St Paul's Voyage, 1933; The Blacksmiths, 1934; Nebuchadnezzar, 1935; Symphony, 1937; Quo Vadis, 1939; Violin Concerto, 1942; Concerto da Camera and Concerto da Chiesa for Strings, 1949; Concerto Leggiero for Piano and Strings, 1951; Sweet Thames Run Softly, 1954; Agincourt, 1955; Hierusalem, 1956; Let's go a-Maying, 1958; and A Christmas Garland, 1959.[4]
In addition to those mentioned by the composer, the Dyson Trust lists the following compositions as available as at 2017: A Spring Garland, Children's Suite for orchestra, Evening Service in C Minor, Evening Service in D, Morning Service in D, Prelude, Fantasy and Chaconne for cello and orchestra, Te Deum Laudamus, and Three Rhapsodies for string quartet.[25] The Trust has published a full list of works, totalling nine orchestral works, seven chamber works, thirteen pieces or sets of pieces for piano, four solo organ pieces, twenty works for chorus and orchestra, seventy-nine works for chorus with piano, or organ or unaccompanied, five hymns, six songs, and thirteen lost or destroyed works from the composer's early career.[26] In 2014, to mark the 50th anniversary of Dyson's death, Ben Costello produced an arrangement of In Honour of the City for two pianos and percussion.
Legacy[edit]
Foreman writes that a revival of Dyson's music was started by Christopher Palmer, who published George Dyson: a Centenary Appreciation (1984) and Dyson's Delight (1989), a selection of Dyson's uncollected articles and talks on music, and also promoted the first modern recordings of Dyson's music.[1] The Sir George Dyson Trust was established in 1998, with the declared aim of advancing public education in the understanding and appreciation of Dyson's music, and making available his manuscripts, writings, scores, drafts and memoranda for the encouragement of the study of his work.[27] Late Freeman Dyson was also a champion of his father's music.[28]
Media related to George Dyson (composer) at Wikimedia Commons