Granville Bantock, born Aug. 7, 1868, in London, is usually classed as one of the ‘middle group’ of modern English composers, to which Sir Edward Elgar belongs, in distinction to the so-called ‘post-Elgarians.’ Bantock is a composer endowed with vivid imagination and a strong and distinct musical personality, exemplified in a number of important works. He has written much for orchestra, notably the symphonic poems: ‘Thalaba the Destroyer’ (after Southey), given in London, 1902; ‘Dante and Beatrice’ (Birmingham, 1903); the comedy-overture ‘The Pierrot of the Minute,’ and the symphonic drama ‘Fifine at the Fair’ (Birmingham, 1912), and, aside from a number of other works, the two orchestral scenes ‘Processional’ and ‘Yaga-Naut,’ fragments of a monster cycle, ‘The Curse of Kehama,’ never completed. Bantock’s leaning toward Orientalism in his music is shown in his great choral works as well as in his symphonic compositions. To say nothing of his one-act opera ‘The Pearl of Iran,’ his six books of Oriental songs (Arabian, Japanese, Egyptian, Persian, Indian, Chinese), his ‘Ferishtah’s Fancies’ (Browning), for soprano and orchestra, and the ‘Five Ghazals of Hafiz,’ for baritone and orchestra, we have his choral works, ‘The Fire Worshippers’ and ‘Omar Khayyam,’ both constructed on large lines. ‘The Fire Worshippers’ is a dramatic cantata in six scenes for chorus, solos and orchestra, a work of considerable extent and making many demands on the singers, whose story is laid in the ancient Persia of the Magi. Its overture was performed, singly, in 1892, at a Royal College of Music concert, but the work was not given in its entirety until 1910. Though ‘rich in feeling and sumptuous in tissue, with a curious blend of sensuousness and spirituality,’ it has never secured the meed of favor accorded the composer’s ‘Omar Khayyam.’