Biography
Granville Ransome Bantock was born in London. His father was a Scottish doctor. He was intended by his parents for the Indian Civil Service but was drawn into the musical world. His first teacher was Dr Gordon Saunders at Trinity College of Music. Later he studied harmony and composition with Frederick Corder at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won the Macfarren Prize in the first year it was awarded.
Early conducting engagements took him around the world with a musical comedy troupe. He founded a music magazine, The New Quarterly Music Review, but this lasted only a few years. In 1897, he became conductor at the New Brighton Tower concerts, where he pioneered the works of Joseph Holbrooke, Frederic Hymen Cowen, Charles Steggall, Edward German, Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford, Corder and others, frequently devoting whole concerts to a single composer. He was also conductor of the Liverpool Orchestral Society with which he premiered Delius's Brigg Fair on 18 January 1908. He became Principal of the Birmingham and Midland Institute school of music in 1900. He was a close friend of fellow composer Havergal Brian. He was Peyton Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham from 1908 to 1934 (in which post he succeeded Sir Edward Elgar). In 1934, he was elected Chairman of the Corporation of Trinity College of Music in London. He was knighted in 1930. His students included the conductor and composer Anthony Bernard and the composer Eric Fogg.
He was influential in the founding of the City of Birmingham orchestra (later the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra), whose first performance in September 1920 was of his overture Saul. Bantock's Hebridean Symphony was recorded by the CBO on 28 January 1925 at Riley Hall, Constitution Hill, Birmingham. This acoustic version, conducted by Adrian Boult, was never released.
His music was influenced by folk song of the Hebrides (as in his 1915 Hebridean Symphony) and the works of Richard Wagner. Many of his works have an "exotic" element, including the choral epic Omar Khayyám (1906–09). Among his other better-known works are the overture The Pierrot of the Minute (1908) and the Pagan Symphony (1928). Many of his works have been commercially recorded since the early 1990s.
A Bantock Society was established shortly after the composer's death in London. Its first president was Jean Sibelius, whose music Bantock championed during the early years of the century. Sibelius dedicated his Third Symphony to Bantock.
Edward Elgar dedicated the second of his Pomp and Circumstance Marches to Bantock.
Three books have been published on Granville Bantock. The first was authored by his long-time friend 'Colonel' H. O. Anderton for the 'Living Masters of Music' series in 1915. The second is a 'personal portrait' by Bantock's daughter issued by Dent in 1972. The third, 'An Introduction to the Life and Work of Sir Granville Bantock' by Vincent Budd was published in 2000 by Gnosis Press and a larger volume is apparently in progress. Trevor Bray also wrote a doctoral thesis in 1972.
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