Humphrey Searle
(1915-1982), Composer and writer on musicSitter in 2 portraits
Composer and writer on music, Searle studied at the Royal College of Music and the Vienna Conservatorium. A prolific writer and composer, his work was influenced by Liszt and Schoenberg and includes the operas Diary of a Madman (1958) and Hamlet (1968), and the orchestral work Labyrinth (1971). In 1950 he was a founder of the Liszt Society, with Constant Lambert, William Walton and the Sitwells. Searle wrote the seminal work on the composer Liszt, and other works include Twentieth Century Composers: Britain, Scandinavia and the Netherlands (1972). He was musical adviser to Sadler's Wells Ballet from 1951 to 1957 and Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music from 1965.
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