Ralph Letts

Life

Born: June 1889, New Brunswick, Woodstock, Ontario, Canada

Died: 17 October 1951, Paddington, London, UK

Biography

Born in Canada, Letts was a chorister of Lincoln Cathedral in the UK until the age of 14. Aged 15, he was awarded the Dr Yorke Trotter Scholarship at the London Organ School before going on to study at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was the Mary Maud Gooch Scholar in 1908 and runner up for the Mendelssohn Scholarship for composition. He had a wide-ranging career as an organist and orchestral player and director, and in September 1937 he founded the Aeolian Orchestra with the sole purpose of broadcast performances. He died, aged 62, at his local bowls club.

In the 1st August 1913 issue of The Musical Times, the editor wrote of Letts:

Mr. Ralph Letts... needs to radically revise his ideas of the manner in which music should be employed to intensify or clarify the emotions of a vocalised text. His setting [of Love, Time, and Death] added nothing to the poem, as his vocal and instrumental parts were musical hindrances rather than mutual aids to expression.

List of choral works

• Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in A
• Te Deum in B flat

 
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