Cecil Forsyth

Who was Cecil Forsyth?

Cecil Forsyth was an English composer and musicologist. He was born in Greenwich on November 30, 1870, and he died in New York on December 7, 1941. He studied at Edinburgh University and at the Royal College of Music, and played viola in various London Orchestras. His compositions include the Viola Concerto in G minor, the operas Westward Ho! and Cinderella, the "choral ballad" Tinker, Tailor, and a piece for viola and piano called Chanson celtique. His books about music include Music and Nationalism: A Study of English Opera, Choral Orchestration, A History of Music, and A Digest of Music History.

Forsyth is arguably best known for his 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, who lauds especially its insight into instrumental culture and its wit. Conductor Adrian Boult recounts in Adrian Boult on Music how Forsyth advised Ralph Vaughan Williams about the orchestration of the latter's A London Symphony.