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.