Scott's Circle

Cyril Scott belonged to the Frankfurt Group, a circle of composers who studied under Iwan Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory in the late 1890s.

This group included Henry Balfour Gardiner, Percy Grainger, Roger Quilter, Norman O'Neill and Cyril Scott.

In 1902 he met the pianist Evelyn Suart, with whom he had a long artistic association. She championed his music, premiering many of his works, and introducing him to his publisher, Elkin, with whom he remained for the rest of his life. Evelyn Suart was also a Christian Scientist, and it was through her that Scott became interested in metaphysics.

Scott married Rose Laure Allatini in May 1921. They had two children: Vivien Mary Scott (born 1923) and Desmond Cyril Scott (born 1926). He separated from Rose following World War II. In 1943, he met Marjorie Hartston, a clairvoyante, who remained his companion until his death.

He was a very close friend of author and clairvoyant Janet Melanie Ailsa Mills who wrote under the names: J.M.A. Mills, H.K. Challoner.

Scott was called the "Father of modern British music" by Eugene Goossens, and was also admired by Debussy, Ravel, his close friend Percy Grainger, Richard Strauss and Stravinsky. His experiments in free rhythm, generated by expanding musical motifs, above all in his truly revolutionary First Piano Sonata of 1909, appear to have exerted an influence on Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring'.