Listening Through The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music

George Butterworth (1885-1916)

Bio

Butterworth was educated at Eton and did further study at Oxford and the Royal Academy. He met Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughn Williams and began composing. When World War I broke out, he and his friends signed on as privates in the infantry but he was eventually commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Durham Light Infantry. He rose to Lieutenant of the 13th Battalion, was awarded the Military Cross for bravery, and was killed in action while defending "Butterworth's Trench" during the Battle of the Somme.