Hubert Bath
Hubert Bath was born in Barnstaple, England, on November 6, 1883. He attended the Royal Academy of Music in London, after which he wrote his first opera. For a year he was conductor of an opera company that toured the world. After 1915 he devoted himself mainly to composition. Besides his operas, tone poems, cantatas and various instrumental works he wrote a considerable amount of incidental music for stage plays and scores for the motion pictures. He died in Harefield, England, on April 24, 1945.
The Cornish Rhapsody, for piano and orchestra, is one of his last compositions and the most famous. He wrote it for the British motion picture Love Story, released in 1946, starring Margaret Lockwood and Stewart Granger. Lockwood plays the part of a concert pianist, and the Cornish Rhapsody is basic to the story which involves the pianist with a man in love with another woman. The rhapsody begins with arpeggio figures which lead to a strong rhapsodic passage in full chords. A bold section is then contrasted by a gentle melody of expressive beauty, the heart of the composition. A cadenza brings on a return of the earlier strong subject, and a recall of the expressive melody in the orchestra to piano embellishments. The composition ends with massive passages and strongly accented harmonies.