| Biography | Sir George Dyson KCVO (28 May 1883 28 September 1964) was a well-known English musician and composer. His son is the physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson and among his grandchildren are the science historian George Dyson and Esther Dyson. He was born in Halifax, Yorkshire on 28 May 1883 and died in Winchester 28 September 1964.
He attended the Royal College of Music and was a winner of the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1905, which enabled him to spend some years in Italy and Germany. In 1914 he joined the Royal Fusiliers, and during this time wrote a widely-used training pamphlet on the use of grenades. After being invalided home with shell-shock in 1916 and recovering, he joined the Royal Air Force and became involved in their military bands. In 1921 he took up posts as music master at Wellington College and as professor of composition at the Royal College of Music. He then worked for thirty years as a school music teacher (at Rugby, Wellington and Winchester), before being appointed as Director of the Royal College of Music in 1937.
He received a knighthood in 1941 and was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1953.
His compositions include a symphony in G major (1937), a violin concerto, and a number of other works, many of them for choir. Ernest John Moeran's Symphony in G minor, of the same decade (and completed the same year), has some similarities of style and ambition with Dyson's. Both are among the longest works of each at about 45 minutes, and both show some influence, harmonically and in instrumental use, from Jean Sibelius. Another pair of major works by Dyson, each lasting about ninety minutes, are two choral works: the poem cycle Quo vadis for solo quartet, semi-chorus, chorus and orchestra; and The Canterbury Pilgrims, for soprano, tenor, baritone, chorus, and orchestra.
Dyson composed some fifty works for the liturgy of the Church of England, including two complete morning and evening canticles in D major and F major, as well as a setting of the evening service in C minor for trebles. The evening services remain popular in English churches and cathedrals, and are certainly part of the core repertoire. The F major service is particularly noted for its solos: about half of the Magnificat is written for a solo treble, and half of the Nunc dimittis for a solo bass.
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