Constant Lambert(1905-1951)

Leonard Constant Lambert was a British composer, conductor, and author. He was the founder and music director of the Royal Ballet, and was a major figure in the establishment of the English ballet as a significant artistic movement. His ballet commitments, including extensive conducting work throughout his life, restricted his compositional activities. However one work, The Rio Grande, for chorus, orchestra and piano soloist, achieved widespread popularity in the 1920s, and is still regularly performed today.
He had a great interest in African-American music, and once said that he would have ideally liked The Rio Grande to feature a black choir. He held a very positive view of jazz rhythms and their incorporation in classical music. He was an expert on painting, sculpture, and literature as well as music.
Lambert died on 21 August 1951, two days short of his forty-sixth birthday, of pneumonia and undiagnosed diabetes complicated by acute alcoholism, and was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.