Over the Prairie, No. 2

Cyril Scott (1879-1970) was a remarkable
English composer. He came from a cultural family; his father was a classical scholar, his mother a fine amateur musician. Having displayed a natural penchant for music as a child, he was sent to Frankfurt am Main at age 12, remaining there for a year and a half before returning to England. Scott acquired fame mainly as a composer of some exotically flavored piano pieces, of which "Lotus Land" became a perennial favorite.

In many of his pieces, Scott showed himself a master of musical miniature. He wrote in a distinctly modern idiom, very much in the style of French Impressionism; employed sonorous parallel progressions of unresolved dissonant chords; made frequent use of the whole-tone scale. His writing for piano is ingratiating in its idiomatic mastery; his harmonious modalities exude an aura of perfumed euphony.

From his early youth, Cyril Scott was attracted to occult sciences, and was a believer in the reality of the supernatural; he published books and essays on music as a divinely inspired art, and inveighed violently against jazz as the work of Satan.

This interesting work is found in the 2nd series of Scott transcriptions, done by Arthur Eaglefield Hull ((1876–1928), music critic, writer, composer and organist.Initially a music student of the pianist and theorist Tobias Matthay, he graduated with a Doctorate of Music (Mus. Doc.) from Oxford University. He lived in Huddersfield in Yorkshire, and became an editor of several music publications.

In 1927, his book Music: "Classical, Romantic and Modern" was found to have material borrowed from other writers. The and brutal denunciations drove Hull to commit suicide by throwing himself under a train at Huddersfield station. I can't help but moved by pity for him, as there MUST have been other unhappiness in his life. The dedication page of the book which caused his "disgrace" reads: "TO MY WIFE - Whose lack of interest in this book has been my constant despair...