Adrian Francis Cruft (10 February 1921 – 20 February 1987) was a British composer.

Cruft, who was the son of the double-bass player Eugene Cruft, was educated at Westminster Abbey Choir School, Westminster School, and finally as a Boult conducting scholar at the Royal College of Music from 1938, completing his studies there briefly in 1946-1947, after service in World War II. He was a composition student of Gordon Jacob and Edmund Rubbra, but also studied double bass with his father. Cruft became chairman of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain 1966.

Cruft, called a "performers' composer" by Roderick Swanston in an article in The Musical Times a couple of years after his death, was, as a young chorister at Westminster Abbey, influenced by the revival of Tudor music, and later by the counterpoint of Bach. Grove's music dictionary calls his music "diatonic, firmly based in tradition and generally straightforward in idiom". He composed church music, but also orchestral works and chamber music.

Notes

1. Roderick Swanston, "The music of Adrian Cruft", The Musical Times, 1991, p. 119-123
2. Roderick Swanston, "The music of Adrian Cruft", The Musical Times, 1991, p. 119
3. Hugh Cole & John Cruft, "Cruft, Adrian (Francis)", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 3 May 2006).

References

• Cole, Hugh & Cruft, John, "Cruft, Adrian (Francis)", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 3 May 2006).
• Rubbra, Edmund, "The music of Adrian Cruft", The Musical Times, 1969, p. 822-825.
• Swanston, Roderick, "The music of Adrian Cruft", The Musical Times, 1991, p. 119-123.

External links

• Adrian Cruft's papers are held in the archives of the Royal College of Music: Adrian Cruft's papers in the AIM25 database (Archives in London and the M25 area).