Maurice Blower

Maurice Sibley Blower (27 September 1894 – 4 July 1982) was an English musician, pianist and composer.

Life Blower was born in Croydon, and was a choirboy in London. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music. Before World War One he worked for a time at the National Bank of India. During the war he served with the East Surrey Regiment, and in 1917 was taken prisoner at St Quentin.

After the war he received further musical training at the RAF School of Music (attached to the Guildhall School of Music and directed by Henry Walford Davies), the Guildford School of Music, and with Harold Darke at Queen's College, Oxford, where he received his music doctorate in 1929. For his D.Mus. he submitted two choral works: The Lady of Shallott and Message of the March Wind. But there were also orchestral works, such as the Symphony in C, composed in 1939, the three movement Eclogue for Horn and Strings (1950) and the Horn Concerto (1951). These three pieces were recorded on the Cameo label in 2014 and have since been re-issued on Lyrita. Both horn works were premiered by Dennis Brain, the first in Petersfield, May 1951, repeated in London two years later, and the second in 1953, also in Petersfield.

His other works include a Concertino for bassoon and orchestra (1956), the Two Pieces for small orchestra, the Romantic Suite for strings, and the orchestral impression On the Wicklow Hills. His arrangement of Purcell's Come Ye Sons of Art (for SSA and piano or string accompaniment) remains in print.