Rutland Boughton

He was an English composer who became well known in the early 20th century as a composer of opera and choral music.

From an early age, he showed signs of exceptional talent for music. In 1892, he studied at the Royal College of Music in London. In1905 he became recognised as an excellent teacher and an outstanding choral conductor which won him much recognition. He was drawn into socialist ideas through the writings of Ruskin and George Bernard Shaw and became attached to a young art student, Christina Walsh, who later to became his partner in his Glastonbury projects.

In 1907 Boughton's discovered the theories of Richard Wagner, and turned to a new subject – King Arthur. Based upon the Ring Cycle at Bayreuth, and the ideas of Reginald Buckley in his book "Arthur of Britain", Boughton set out to create a new form of opera which he later called "choral drama".

In 1911 Boughton moved to Glastonbury where he began to focus on establishing the country's first national annual summer school of music. The first production was Boughton's new choral-drama, ‘The Immortal Hour’. It was written in 1912 and a lavish production planned - but before it could be staged, war broke out in 1914. Despite this Boughton was determined to stage his master work, and produced it in the modest Assembly Rooms of Glastonbury - a grand piano instead of a full orchestra. This remained the centre of is activities until the end of the Festivals in 1926, by which time Boughton had mounted over 350 staged works, 100 chamber concerts, a number of exhibitions and a series of lectures and recitals – something never previously witnessed in England.

From 1927 until his death in 1960, Boughton lived at Kilcot, near Newent in Gloucestershire where he completed the last two operas of his Arthurian cycle.

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