Learmont Drysdale
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Learmont Drysdale (full name George John Learmont Drysdale; 3 October 1866 – 18 June 1909) was a Scottish composer. During a short career he wrote music inspired by Scotland, particularly the Scottish Borders; this included orchestral music, choral music and songs.
Drysdale was born in Edinburgh on 3 October 1866, the youngest of three children of Andrew Drysdale, a builder, and his wife Jane Elspeth Learmont, who was descended from the Border poet Thomas the Rhymer. Educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, he afterwards studied architecture, but abandoned it in 1887; he moved to London, and became sub-organist at All Saints' Church in Kensington. He entered the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied composition with Frederick Corder and piano with Wilhelm Kuhe.[1][2]
He had a brilliant career as a student, winning in 1891 the academy's highest honour in composition, the Charles Lucas medal, with Overture to a Comedy. During this period he appeared frequently as a solo pianist at the students' concerts, and wrote several works which brought high praise.[1]
One of these, performed at a students' concert in 1889, was reviewed: "A ballade for orchestra, The Spirit of the Glen, from the pen of a young Scotsman, Mr. Learmont Drysdale, was also included, and proved to be a work which augurs extremely well for its composer's future. Its themes are fresh and melodious, its orchestration rich and vivid, and it is, as a whole, plentifully imaginative. It was well played, and received with great and justifiable warmth."[3]
Other works from this period were an orchestral prelude Thomas the Rhymer (1890), and a dramatic scena for soprano and orchestra The Lay of Thora (1891). In 1891 a picturesque overture, Tam o' Shanter, written within a week, gained the prize of thirty guineas offered by the Glasgow Society of Musicians for the best concert overture.[1] In 1921 the work was posthumously awarded a Carnegie Award and published.[4]
After a disagreement with the principal, Alexander Mackenzie, he left the Royal Academy of Music in 1892 without graduating.[2]
