DAVIES, WILLIAM HUBERT (1893 - 1965), musician

Born 24 May 1893 at Abersychan, Monmouthshire, and educated at West Monmouth Grammar School, Pontypool. At the age of fifteen he won a Sainton open scholarship to study the violin at the Royal Academy of Music; he was a pupil of Hans Wessely and later at Dresden of Leopold Auer. From 1919 to 1923 he was a member of the string trio which was formed by Henry Walford Davies at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and in 1923 he was the leader of the Welsh Symphony Orchestra. Henry Wood heard him and persuaded him to join the Queen's Hall Orchestra in London. Between 1924 and 1934 he played there, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and with the London Symphony Orchestra. From 1927 he was also a violin and viola tutor, and a member of the string trio at the University College in Cardiff. He returned to the college at Aberystwyth in 1934 as tutor and leader of the college instrumental quartet. In 1950 he was appointed violin, composition and orchestral tutor at Cardiff College of Music and Drama. He composed many songs and choral and instrumental works, including work commissioned for the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra in 1945. He married Hannah May Reynolds, and they had two sons. He died at Cardiff 27 October 1965.

Author

• Rhidian Griffiths

Sources

• Western Mail, 29 October 1965
• Robert Smith (compiler), Seventh catalogue of contemporary Welsh music (1981)

Additional Links

• NLW Archives: Hubert Davies Music Manuscripts
• Wikidata: Q20734637

Published date: 2001

Article Copyright: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/