Rutland Boughton

Rutland Boughton (Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire January 23, 1878 – January 25, 1960), a pupil of Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music in London, became well known in the early 20th century as a composer of orchestral and choral music. His output included three symphonies and several concertos and pieces of chamber music.

His best known work was the opera The Immortal Hour. His chamber opera, Bethlehem, based on the Coventry Nativity Play and notable for its unique choral arrangements of traditional Christmas carols, was first performed during the Christmas Festival of the Glastonbury Festival School in 1915.

Other operas by Boughton were: The Round Table (1916), The Moon Maiden (1919), Alkestis (1922), The Queen of Cornwall (1924) and The Lily Maid (1934).

In addition to his compositions, Boughton is remembered for his attempt to create an "English Bayreuth" at Glastonbury, establishing the first Glastonbury Festival (see Hurd, M "Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury Festival's" OUP, 1993 ISBN 0091897637). They ran with enormous success and sophistication from 1914 until 1926.