Percy Fletcher

[1] Born in Derby, Fletcher was largely self-taught, though his parents were both musical and he learned to play violin, piano and organ before embarking on a career of theatrical conducting.

Here, from 1916, he conducted (and mostly orchestrated) the music for the record-breaking five year run of Frederic Norton's Chu Chin Chow.

[8] Fletcher also composed ballads, works for chorus, a string quartet, and suites for light orchestra, as well as the Passion of Christ (1922) and organ voluntaries for church use.

[3] Intended to be performed by smaller, less experienced choirs, the Passion is sometimes used as an alternative to Stainer's The Crucifixion, though its influences derive more from Elgar than from Mendelssohn.

[6] The orchestral suites (most of them also transcribed for piano), such as Rustic Revels (1918) and Sylvan Scenes (1921), suggest Fletcher's responses to Grieg and Coleridge-Taylor.