C. W. Orr

[1] Born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire,[2] shortly after the death from tuberculosis of his father (who was a captain in the Indian Army), he learnt the piano and studied music theory as a child.

After reading Ernest Newman's book on the composer Hugo Wolf he determined to become a songwriter, which occupation he pursued through study at the Guildhall School of Music with Orlando Morgan.

He married in 1929 and moved to Painswick, Gloucestershire, to get away from the busy atmosphere of London, which was detrimental to his health; a vaccination as a child had left him with eczema, and he contracted tuberculosis as an adult.

He undertook research visits to Shropshire, taking photographs, and attended one of Housman's lectures as Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge University.

His piano accompaniments and postludes are an integral part of each song, providing more than bare harmony; examples of its use for programme music include fluttering semiquavers depicting aspen leaves in Along the Field and heavy chords in a march to the scaffold in The Carpenter's Son.