Charles Groves

He was naturally gifted with great fluency and the ability to sight read almost any music, but confessed, years later, to having been lazy about his piano studies, and he abandoned his ambitions to become a concert pianist.

[3] He played in the percussion section for Vaughan Williams's Hugh the Drover and Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet when Sir Thomas Beecham performed as guest conductor at the College.

[2] Groves was conductor for the BBC Northern Orchestra in Manchester from 1944 to 1951, conducting several studio concerts every week, and thereby acquiring an exceptionally large repertoire.

[7] Feeling the need to move from studio-based work, Groves accepted the conductorship of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from 1951 to 1961, which he conducted about 150 times each year.

Groves did much to establish that company's choral and orchestral traditions and conducted many performances of works then seldom staged, such as Verdi's I Lombardi and The Sicilian Vespers, which won critical acclaim and were brought to London.

[2][3] Groves is probably best known for his long tenure from 1963 to 1977 as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducting, as he said, "everything from the St John Passion to Messiaen and Stockhausen".

During his time in Liverpool, Groves instituted a series of seminars for young conductors, and those who made early appearances there included Andrew Davis, Mark Elder, John Eliot Gardiner, James Judd and Barry Wordsworth.

Groves was Music Director of the English National Opera in 1978–1979, but in spite of a well-received and rare revival of Weber's Euryanthe the appointment did not prove a success, and he relinquished the post the following year.

[7] Groves was particularly noted for his assured conducting of large-scale works and was the first conductor to direct a complete cycle of Gustav Mahler's symphonies in Britain.

Arnold Cooke,[12] Gordon Crosse, Jonathan Harvey, Robin Holloway, Daniel Jones, John McCabe, Priaulx Rainier, Edwin Roxburgh, Edmund Rubbra, Giles Swayne and Hugh Wood.

[1] He received doctorates from four universities, was made a freeman of the City of London in 1976 and elected an honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1990.

British music recorded by Groves includes Arnold (Symphony No 2); Bliss (A Colour Symphony, Morning Heroes); Brian (Symphonies 8 & 9); Bridge (Enter Spring, The Sea, Summer); Britten (Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge); Butterworth (The Banks of Green Willow ); Delius (Koanga, A Mass of Life, On hearing the first cuckoo in Spring); Elgar (Caractacus, Cello Concerto (Paul Tortelier, cello), Chanson de matin, Chanson de nuit, Crown of India Suite, Enigma Variations, The Light of Life, Nursery Suite, Serenade for Strings, Severn Suite, Violin Concerto (Hugh Bean, violin)); Holst (Choral Symphony, The Planets, St. Paul's Suite); Sullivan (Overture Di Ballo, Overtures to Savoy Operas, Symphony in E (Irish)); Tippett (Fantasia concertante on a Theme of Corelli); Vaughan Williams (Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Hugh the Drover); Walton (Capriccio burlesco, Crown Imperial, Hamlet Funeral March, Johannesburg Festival Overture, Orb and Sceptre, Richard III Prelude and Suite, Scapino, Spitfire Prelude & Fugue); and Warlock (Capriol Suite).