Gavin Gordon was born in
Ayr,
Scotland in 1901, as
Gavin Muspratt Gordon Brown. He went to
Rugby School then studied music at the
Royal College of Music in
London under
Ralph Vaughan Williams and other teachers. His ballets
A Toothsome Morsel (1930),
Regatta (1931),
The Death of Hector and
The Scorpions of Ysit (1932) did not remain in the repertory. More lasting fame, however, was accorded to ''
The Rake's Progress (1935), based on the sequence of seven pictures by William Hogarth known as A Rake's Progress. His ballet suite Les Noces Imaginaires'' has been issued on a Heritage label CD, played by the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Barry Wordsworth. Gavin Gordon also wrote some orchestral works, including parodies of old-style dances such as
Four Caricatures and
Work in E major. There are also a series of pantomimes with music, written in collaboration with
V.C. Clinton-Baddeley, and incidental music for the play
The Man Behind the Statue, based on
Simón Bolívar, written by
Peter Ustinov and directed by
Robert Donat. Gavin Gordon died in London in 1970, aged 68. ==References==