A close friend of fellow composer Harvegal Brian, he was professor of music at Birmingham University from 1908 to 1934. He was knighted in 1930.
His music was influenced by folk song of the Hebrides (as in the 1915 Hebridean Symphony) and the works of Richard Wagner. Some of his works have an "exotic" element (including the oratorio Omar Khayyám (1906-09)). Among his other better known works are the overture The Pierrot of the Minute (1908) and the Pagan Symphony (1928).