Beginning in 1920 he studied violin with Achille Rivarde and composition with Gustav Holst at the Royal College of Music.
He moved to the United States in 1939 to conduct orchestras in Los Angeles and New York City as well as composing film music for RKO Pictures.
He was nominated for three Academy Awards for best music and original score in three consecutive years (1940, 1941 and 1942) for Nurse Edith Cavell, Irene and Sunny.
Having established himself in Hollywood during the war, he returned to the UK and scored a series of high profile British films, many of them starring Anna Neagle, such as Piccadilly Incident (1946), The Courtneys of Curzon Street (1947) and Odette (1950).
[8] Four one-act operas - Perseus and Andromeda, Catherine Parr, The Blue Harlequin and Kanawa - were composed in the early 1930s for the Royal College of Music.
His Decca Kingsway Hall recordings made between 1952 and 1955 of the seven Sibelius symphonies (the second complete cycle with a single orchestra and conductor) and some of the tone poems were very highly regarded.