Herbert Henry John Murrill was born in London, England, the eldest of three children. He lived with his family in South London, where his father Walter was a cork merchant. As a young man, he had a group of musical friends encouraged and supported him, he was a chorister and participated in The London Music Festival, and was a scholarship student at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hatcham. He was awarded a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music, but in 1925 went instead to the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with York Bowen, Stanley Marchant and Alan Bush, where he stayed until 1928. While there he won medals for piano, organ, harmony and aural training. His first works date from this era, and Rhapsody for 'cello and piano and the ballet Picnic from 1927. Ralph Vaughan Williams heard the ballet's performance at the Crouch Festival and liked the work; he subsequently became a friend of Murrill's. He then became an organ scholar at Worcester College, Oxford, from 1928 to 1931. In 1933 he married the concert pianist. Murrill's second wife was the cellist Vera Canning. He was for a time in the 1930s organist of Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, London and St Thomas's Church, Regent Street, London. From 1933 until his death, he was Professor of Composition in the Royal Academy of Music. He was for a time in the late 1930s Musical Director of The Group Theatre. He also worked for the BBC from 1936 onwards, reaching the post of Head of Music in 1950. He died in London.
Musical works
His works include a jazzopera, Man in Cage, which was performed in 1930 while he was still at university. He wrote film scores for And So To Work and The Daily Round, both early films from the director Richard Massingham, as well as incidental music for two plays by W. H. Auden, The Dance of Death and The Dog Beneath the Skin. He wrote two cello concertos, of which the second The Song of the Birds, written for and dedicated to Pablo Casals and quoting :ca:El cant dels ocells|the popular Catalan song of the same name, has been called his "masterpiece". The score of a Violin Concerto, dating from 1952, appears to be misiing. He also wrote some chamber and vocal works, as well as several piano pieces. However, his most frequently performed works now are his choral and organ works: his setting of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in E major, an organ piece called Carillon, and his arrangement for organ of the orchestral march Crown Imperial by William Walton. His piano duet arrangement of Walton's First Symphony was published by OUP. He was also responsible for the official, martial orchestral version of the Indian national anthem, approved by Jawaharlal Nehru before independence in 1947. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians states that Murrill's affinities were Francophile and mildly middle-Stravinskian, both influences tempered by an English take on neo-classicism.
