Percy Fletcher

Percy Eastman Fletcher was an English composer, orchestrator and musical director, born in Derby in 1879 and died in Windsor in 1932. His importance lies in the role he played in London musical theatre in the early twentieth century, where he held positions of musical responsibility at several of the capital's best-known theatres, and in his output for band, choir and solo instruments, which enjoyed wide circulation in his day.

Trained as a violinist, pianist and organist, Fletcher served as musical director in succession at the Prince of Wales, Savoy, Daly's and Drury Lane theatres. For the last seventeen years of his life he was in charge of the music at His Majesty's Theatre. There he conducted the long and successful run of Norton's Chu Chin Chow, which he also orchestrated to a large extent. To replace it in 1921 he composed Cairo, whose intermezzo is still performed. He also orchestrated Coleridge-Taylor suites published after the composer's death, such as Hiawatha and Minnehaha, as well as several pieces by Woodforde-Finden, and prepared choral selections from Wagner that were very popular with choirs.

His own output was extensive. Among his choral works, Ring Out, Wild Bells stands out, showing a command of the late Edwardian vocal style, with some personal modulations. The Passion of Christ (1922) reveals the influence of Elgar. The symphonic poems and band works Labour and Love (1913) and the Epic Symphony (1926) were commissioned for the brass band festivals at the Crystal Palace. In the instrumental field, his suites Rustic Revels and Sylvan Scenes suggest echoes of Grieg and Coleridge-Taylor, while the Festival Toccata (1915) for organ shows a solid craftsmanship that, it seems, owes something to the French school.

Today Fletcher is remembered above all for the waltz Bal masqué (1914), although his catalogue also includes stage works such as Mecca, premiered in New York in 1920 and staged in London under the title Cairo, and The Good Old Days (1925).