William Boyce

William Boyce, an Englishman who wrote both instrumental pieces and sacred choral music, counted among the first composers to cultivate the symphony as a distinct genre. The London cabinetmaker’s son suffered progressive hearing loss in his youth yet still built a broad following with buoyant, songful scores shaped by classical proportions. Among those works, a set of overtures and his eight symphonies remained largely forgotten until Constant Lambert revived them in the 1930s.