Francis George Scott was a Scottish composer.

Born in Hawick

Hawick

Hawick is a town in the Scottish Borders of south east Scotland. It is south-west of Jedburgh and south-southeast of Selkirk. It is one of the farthest towns from the sea in Scotland, in the heart of Teviotdale, and the biggest town in the former county of Roxburghshire. Hawick's architecture is...

, Roxburghshire

Roxburghshire

Roxburghshire or the County of Roxburgh is a registration county of Scotland. It borders Dumfries to the west, Selkirk to the north-west, and Berwick to the north. To the south-east it borders Cumbria and Northumberland in England.It was named after the Royal Burgh of Roxburgh...

, he was the son of a supplier of mill-engineering parts. Educated at Hawick, and at the universities of Edinburgh and Durham

Durham University

The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...

, he studied composition under Jean Roger-Ducasse

Jean Roger-Ducasse

Jean Jules Amable Roger-Ducasse was a French composer.-Biography:Jean Roger-Ducasse studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Emile Pessard and André Gedalge, and was the star pupil and close friend of Gabriel Fauré...

. In 1925

1925 in music

-Events:* February 25 - Art Gillham - The Whispering Pianist records the first electrical recordings to be released for Columbia using the Western Electric system ....

, he became Lecturer in Music at Jordanhill

Jordanhill

Jordanhill is an affluent area of the West End of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The area consists largely of terraced housing dating from the early to mid 20th century, with some detached and semi-detached homes and some modern apartments....

 Training College for Teachers, Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, a post he held for more than twenty-five years.

He wrote more than three hundred songs, including many settings of Hugh MacDiarmid

Hugh MacDiarmid

Hugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century...

, William Dunbar

William Dunbar

William Dunbar was a Scottish poet. He was probably a native of East Lothian, as assumed from a satirical reference in the Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie , where, too, it is hinted that he was a member of the noble house of Dunbar....

, William Soutar

William Soutar

William Soutar was a Scottish poet, born 1898. He served in the navy in World War I, and afterwards studied at the University of Edinburgh, where he encountered the work of Hugh MacDiarmid. This led to a radical alteration in his work, and he became a leading poet of the Scottish Literary...

 and Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

's poems. MacDiarmid stated in an essay that his key long poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle is a long poem by Hugh MacDiarmid written in Scots and published in 1926. It is composed as a form of monologue with influences from stream of consciousness genres of writing...

could not have been completed without Scott's help.

The Anglo-Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson

Ronald Stevenson

Ronald Stevenson is a British composer, pianist, and writer about music.-Biography:The son of a Scottish father and English mother, Stevenson studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music , studying composition with Richard Hall and piano with Iso Elinson, graduating with distinction...

 has transcribed several of Scott's works for piano.

Scott is often associated with the Scottish Renaissance

Scottish Renaissance

The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid 20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics...

. His daughter, Lillias, married the Scottish composer Erik Chisholm

Erik Chisholm

Professor Erik William Chisholm was a Scottish composer and conductor often known as "Scotland’s forgotten composer"...

.

External links

• Digitised scores of his musical works can be viewed through the Five Centuries of Scottish Music collection hosted by AHDS Performing Arts