William Wallace (Scottish composer)
William Wallace (3 July 186016 December 1940) was notable as a Scottish classical composer and writer. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Music in the University of London. Early life and education Born at Greenock, Wallace studied ophthalmology at the University of Glasgow, and in Vienna and Paris. He became a qualified ophthalmic surgeon, but was also a poet, dramatist, writer on music and a painter. In 1889 he entered the Royal Academy in London to study music with Alexander Mackenzie and Frederick Corder, but after two terms his father withdrew funding. This was the only formal training he had. Career Wallace was greatly influenced by Franz Liszt, and was an early (though not the first) composer of symphonic poems in Britain. He was one of the composers featured in Granville Bantock's concert of new music by himself and his friends, put on at Queen's Hall on 15 December 1896, for which Wallace wrote a "manifesto". (Other composers included in this group were Erskine Allon, Arthur Hinton, Stanley Hawley and Reginald Steggall). His compositions include the symphonic poem, Sir William Wallace (1905; based on his namesake, the freedom fighter William Wallace, one of Scotland's national heroes); a cantata,