Henry Walford Davies

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Sir Henry Walford Davies, KCVO, OBE, (September 6, 1869 - March 11, 1941) was a British composer, who held the title Master of the King's Music from 1934 until 1941.

Walford Davies was born in Oswestry on the Welsh border. He studied under, and was assistant to, the organist Walter Parratt for five years before entering the Royal College of Music where he studied under Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford. He held a number of organist posts and in 1918 was appointed director of music to the Royal Air Force which led to him writing the March RAF March Past, still played by many marching bands today.

In 1919, Walford Davies was made professor of music at Aberystwyth. He subsequently did much to promote Welsh music, becoming chairman of the Welsh National Council of Music. From 1927 he was organist at St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

In 1924, Walford Davies became professor of music at Gresham College, London: a part-time position giving public lectures. From the 1920s, he also made a series of records of lectures, which led to him being employed by the BBC to give radio broadcasts on classical music under the title Music and the Ordinary Listener. These lasted from 1926 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and Davies became a well known and popular radio personality. His book The Pursuit of Music (1935) has a similar non-specialist tone.

Walford Davies was knighted in 1922 and, following the death of Edward Elgar in 1934, was appointed Master of the King's Music. He died in 1941 in Bristol and is buried in the grounds of Bristol Cathedral.

Most of Walford Davies' compositions were religious in flavour, and include the oratorio Everyman, other works for orchestra, choir and soloists, and a large number of services and anthems. He also wrote a setting of the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and the Solemn Melody for organ and orchestra.