Description

CYRIL MEIR SCOTT (OXTON, CHESHIRE, ENGLAND, 27 SEPTEMBER, 1879 – EASTBOURNE, ENGLAND, 31 DECEMBER, 1970)

Cyril Meir Scott was an English composer, writer, poet, and occultist. He created around four hundred musical compositions including piano, violin, cello concertos, symphonies, and operas. He also wrote around 20 pamphlets and books on occult topics and natural health.

Scott was born in Oxton, Cheshire to Henry Scott (1843-1918), shipper and scholar of Greek and Hebrew, and Mary (née Griffiths), an amateur pianist of Welsh origin. He showed a talent for music from an early age and was sent to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany to study piano in 1892 at age 12. He studied with Iwan Knorr and belonged to the Frankfurt Group, a circle of composers who studied at the Hoch Conservatory in the late 1890s. At 20, the German poet Stefan George helped Scott organize a performance of Scott’s first symphony. He played his Piano Quartet with Fritz Kreisler, Emil Kreuz, and Ludwig Lebell in St. James’ Hall in 1903.

In 1902 he met the pianist Evelyn Suart, with whom he had a long artistic association. She championed his music, premiering many of his works, and introducing him to his publisher, Elkin, with whom he remained for the rest of his life. Evelyn Suart was also a Christian Scientist, and it was through her that Scott became interested in metaphysics. Scott dedicated his Scherzo, Op. 25 to Evelyn Suart.

His experiments in free rhythm, generated by expanding musical motifs, above all in his First Piano Sonata of 1909, appear to have exerted an influence on Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (see The Cyril Scott Companion, pp. 45–47). He used to be known as ‘the English Debussy’, though this reflected little knowledge of Scott and little understanding of Debussy even if there is a report that Shazam once identified one of his pieces as Debussy’s.

Scott had an interest in alternative medicine, health foods, occultism, naturopathy, philosophy and yoga. In a series of books and pamphlets, he urged the sick, even those with cancer, to trust diet and alternative medicine and avoid trained medics and surgery. Scott was an alternative cancer treatment advocate and authored two works on this subject. He also recommended people to consume black molasses and cider vinegar.

TRACKLIST

01 DUO-ART SCOTT – “Vistas”, No. 2: In the Forest  Cyril Meir Scott

05 DUO-ART SCOTT – Ode Héroique Cyril Meir Scott

06 DUO-ART SCOTT – Three Pastorals – No. l: Con Delicatezza Cyril Meir Scott

07 DUO-ART SCOTT – Caprice Chinois Cyril Meir Scott

08 DUO-ART SCOTT – Bagatelle No. l Cyril Meir Scott