Sir George Thalben-Ball

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Sir George Thomas Thalben-Ball CBE (18 June 1896–18 January 1987) was an organist and composer who spent most of his life in Britain. Born in Sydney, of Cornish parents who brought him back to the UK when he was four years old, he was known as George Thomas Ball until early adulthood ("Thalben" was his mother's maiden name). He studied organ and piano at the Royal College of Music in London at the unusually young age of fourteen. The level of his talent can be gleaned from the fact that he played the solo part in the first English performance of Rachmaninov's famously difficult Piano Concerto No. 3. After leaving the RCM, he was asked to deputise as organist at London's Temple Church by its then organist, Sir Walford Davies. In 1923, he succeeded Walford Davies as organist and director of the Temple Church choir, a post he held for nearly sixty years. Under his direction, the choir achieved in 1927 international fame with its recording of Mendelssohn's Hear My Prayer, featuring Ernest Lough as the soprano soloist. This recording was followed by a number of others on the HMV label. He composed several anthems and organ works, of which the best known is his meditative Elegy for organ, which was played, for example, at the funeral of Diana Princess of Wales. It was said to have had its origin in an improvisation which Thalben-Ball played at the end of a live BBC daily religious service, when the service finished a couple of minutes earlier than expected. He compiled, in addit

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