Guy Warrack

Warrack was born in Edinburgh. He was educated at Cargilfield Preparatory School and Winchester College, where he played organ in chapel services, arranged House choirs and played timpani in the school orchestra. At Magdalen College, Oxford he studied music under Sir Hugh Allen and Dr Ernest Walker. During his time as a student, he performed as organist at St Columba's Presbyterian Church in Oxford, as well as in Edinburgh at churches such as St George's United Free. He continued his studies at the Royal College of Music (RCM) where his professors included Holst and Vaughan Williams (composing) and Adrian Boult (conducting). He won the Foli Prize and the Tagore Gold Medal. Warrack also conducted at the Lyric Hammersmith and assisted Adrian Boult in an opera season at the Royal Court Theatre. He orchestrated the piano music of Fauré for choreographer Andrée Howard's best known ballet, La Fête étrange, premiered on 23 May 1940. York Bowen wrote his Miniature Suite, Op.113 for Warrack and the winds of the BBC Scottish Orchestra in 1944. Warrack also conducted many orchestras in London and the rest of the UK. Warrack's other interests were wide. and the author of Sherlock Holmes and Music (Faber & Faber 1947) and Royal College of Music, the first eighty-five years, 1883-1968 and beyond (RCM, 1977). ==Composer==

Warrack is best remembered for the music he composed for documentary films after the war, many of them for the Crown Film Unit. His first was The Last Shot (1945), which was followed by A Defeated People (1946), Theirs is the Glory (1946), Here is the Gold Coast (1947), XIVTH Olympiad - The Glory of Sport (1948), Down to the Sea (1948), The Story of Time (a film produced by Signal Films for Rolex Watches, 1951), A Queen is Crowned (1953) and The Sky is Ours (1956). Of his music for A Defeated People, portraying the shattered state of Germany in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Muir Mathieson wrote: As a composer of concert music, Warrack has been entirely forgotten. His Variations for Orchestra was included by Donald Tovey in the Edinburgh Reid Concerts of 1931. The now lost "Edinburgh" Symphony was performed on Friday 1 April 1932 at the Royal College of Music (where he was teaching), conducted by Malcolm Sargent. It was broadcast by the BBC on 27 December 1936. The brief Hornpipe (for a Sailor Prince) for cello, trumpet and piano, based on the notes CHAS, was composed for H. R. H. Prince Charles in 1970 and has been recorded. Compositions • Variations for Orchestra (1924) • Lullaby for horn and orchestra (1929) • Wellington Square (1931, hymn tune) • Symphony in C minor (1932) • Divertimento Pasticciato for orchestra (1939) (in three movements: 'Prelude', 'Fugue' and 'Furiant') (pub. Boosey & Hawkes) • 'Men of Arnhem' (1946 - march from Theirs is the Glory) • 'Miniature Rhapsody' (1946 - extracted from his film score The Last Shot) • Marathon Fugue for orchestra (1948 - extracted from his film score The Glory of Sport) • Andante, Theme and Variations for cello and orchestra (pub. Boosey & Hawkes) • Don Quixote, ballet • Fugal Blues • Jota for piano duet (arranged from Don Quixote) • Songs of Burns • Te Deum • Waltzes - Das Strassmädchen and Der Mandelbaum, for piano duet ==Personal life==

His first marriage was to Jacynth Ellerton in 1926. Their two children were John Warrack the music writer and critic, and Julia Mary. His second marriage was to Valentine Jeffery, who had trained as a dancer under Ninette de Valois. Their two children were Nigel (a film director, died 2016) and Giles. In the 1940s their address was Cranbourne, Fairmile Lane, Cobham in Surrey. During the 1950s and 1960s they were living at 2 Campden House Terrace in Kensington. Warrack remained active until his early eighties, at the Performing Right Society and Composers' Guild, and as a travelling examiner for the Associated Board. He died, aged 86, at Englefield Green. ==References==