Prolific from childhood, Foulds himself joined the Hallé as a cellist in 1900, having already served an apprenticeship in theatre and promenade orchestras in England and abroad.

Hans Richter gave him conducting experience; Henry Wood took up some of his works, starting with Epithalamium at the 1906 Queen's Hall Proms.

In some respects ahead of his time (he started using quarter-tones as early as the 1890s, while some of his later works anticipate Messiaen and Minimalism), Foulds was in others an intensely practical musician.

He also wrote the score for Casson's highly successful West End production of Shakespeare's Henry VIII, which ran from December 1925 to March 1926.

[1] When interest in the World Requiem lapsed, Foulds suffered a grave setback and in 1927 left for Paris, working there as an accompanist for silent films.

[4] Foulds' most substantial compositions include string quartets, symphonic poems, concertos, piano pieces and a huge "concert opera" on Dante's The Divine Comedy (1905–1908), as well as a series of "Music-Pictures" exploring the affinities between music and styles of painting.

MacDonald tracked down Foulds' daughter, who took him to a garage and showed him two coffin-sized boxes full of sketches and manuscripts she had been left by her mother.

[6] An acclaimed recording of Foulds' string quartet music, including the previously unperformed Quartetto Intimo, by the Endellion Quartet in the early 1980s, began to reawaken interest in him, and this was sustained in the early 1990s by Lyrita Recorded Edition's decision to issue some of Foulds' works including Three Mantras and Dynamic Triptych on CD.

A Proms performance of Three Mantras in 1998 was well received, and soon after the Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo began to champion Foulds' work in concerts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), to huge critical acclaim.

[7][8] In November 2005, the CBSO, with Peter Donohoe, gave the first live performance for more than 70 years of Foulds' piano concerto, the Dynamic Triptych (1927–1929).

On Armistice Night, 11 November 2007, the Royal Albert Hall staged the first performance for 81 years of the World Requiem under the auspices of the BBC, with the Trinity Boys Choir and Leon Botstein as conductor.

Foulds' Keltic Lament has once again become popular due to its regular playing on Classic FM, and BBC Radio 3 plans to revive a tradition of performing A World Requiem on Armistice Day.