Christopher Wilson (composer)

Christopher Wilson

Christopher Wilson (7 October 1874 - 17 February 1919) was a British composer and conductor best known for his theatre music.

Wilson was born in Melbourne, Derbyshire, into a musical family. His mother and grandmother were both accomplished pianists, and his uncle, Francis William Davenport, was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music.^[1] He showed early musical promise as a composer and performer (piano, organ, violin, viola). In 1889 he won the first choral scholarship at Derby School. In 1892 he became a student at the Royal Academy of Music under Alexander Mackenzie, where he was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1895.^[2]

There followed a period of study abroad, with Franz Wüllner in Cologne, Heinrich von Herzogenberg in Berlin and Charles-Marie Widor in Paris.^[3] His Suite for String Orchestra was first performed while he was in Cologne (the first such performance of English music at a principal concert there since Arthur Sullivan)^[3] and published by the German publishers Schott in 1899.^[4] It shows the influence of the Grieg and Tchaikovsky suites for string orchestra, and perhaps of Parry in "mock baroque" mode.^[5] A modern recording of the work was issued in 2021.^[6]

His working life was mostly as a composer and musical director for the theatre. His scores included incidental music to F. R. Benson's production of the Orestean Trilogy (1904),^[7] Rudolf Besier's The Virgin Goddess (1906),^[8] Oscar Asche and Edward Knoblock's Kismet (1911),^[9] Josephine Preston Peabody's The Piper (1911),^[10] and music for many Shakespeare plays as produced by Asche, Benson, Otho Stuart and Ellen Terry. One of the most notable of these was The Taming of the Shrew, co-produced by Asche and Stuart at the Adelphi Theatre in 1904.^[11] During this period Wilson was living at 30, Bedford Street in London, off the Strand.^[12]

Other works outside the theatre include a second suite for strings, two string quartets, a piano quartet, two violin sonatas, a setting of Robert Browning's Prospice, and a choral mass.^[13] He also composed the music for the Winchester National Pageant, held at Wolvesey Castle in 1908.^[14][15]

Wilson died of heart failure at the age of 44 in 1919.^[3] His book Shakespeare and Music, compiled from a series of articles he had written for The Stage in the year before his death, was published posthumously in 1922.^[16]

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