His 1st profits was sustaining a overture The Land of the Mountain and the Flood in 1887 at the Crystal Palace, and this was followed by more compositions, by using the characteristic Scottish coloring. From either 1888 to 1894 he was the prof at a Royal College of Music, & this latter month saw two his marriage to a girl of John Pettie, R.A., and the production of his opera Jeanie Deans at Edinburgh. He was for a bit of years conductor to the Carl Rosa Opera company, and after to more corporations. His opera Diarmid was produced at Covent Garden in 1897.

His more music includes cantatas, overtures, part-songs, instrumental pieces, & songs, all markedly Scottish around nature and severity. He experienced the echt love of Scottish folk ballad, & although he sleep in London he was a womb-to-tomb champion of Scottish music & of the country’s musical life.