His mother and grandmother were both accomplished pianists, and his uncle, Francis William Davenport, was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music.
[2] There followed a period of study abroad, with Franz Wüllner in Cologne, Heinrich von Herzogenberg in Berlin and Charles-Marie Widor in Paris.
[4] It shows the influence of the Grieg and Tchaikovsky suites for string orchestra, and perhaps of Parry in "mock baroque" mode.
His scores included incidental music to F. R. Benson's production of the Orestean Trilogy (1904),[7] Rudolf Besier's The Virgin Goddess (1906),[8] Oscar Asche and Edward Knoblock's Kismet (1911),[9] Josephine Preston Peabody's The Piper (1911),[10] and music for many Shakespeare plays as produced by Asche, Benson, Otho Stuart and Ellen Terry.
[3] His book Shakespeare and Music, compiled from a series of articles he had written for The Stage in the year before his death, was published posthumously in 1922.