"[1] He was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the son of Colonel Charles William Harry Crichton, DSO (1872-1958), by his wife Dorothy Maud (who died in 1959), daughter of the Hon.
[2] He persuaded the club to mount the first British performance of Castor et Pollux by Rameau in November 1934 at Magdalen College.
[3] After Oxford Crichton became secretary of the Anglo-French Art and Travel Society, through which he was able to organise the visits of French theatrical companies to the UK, most notably Comédie-Française's appearance at the Savoy Theatre in 1938.
[4] Although based on an episode in Alain-Fournier's novel Le Grand Meaulnes, Crichton produced a significantly adapted libretto, and also chose the six piano pieces and songs by Fauré used in the score (which were orchestrated by Guy Warrack).
He also wrote for Opera magazine and The Dancing Times, edited books on the works of Manuel de Falla and Ethel Smyth, wrote the BBC Music Guide on de Falla (1992), and was a contributor to The New Grove Dictionary of Music (1979) and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992).