Hubert Bath

Hubert Charles Bath (6 November 1883 – 24 April 1945) was a British film composer, music director, and conductor. His credits include the music to the Oscar-winning documentary Wings over Everest (1934), as well as to the films Tudor Rose (1936), A Yank at Oxford (1938) and Love Story (1944).

Bath was born in Barnstaple, Devon in 1883. He sang in the local church choir and in 1899 attended the Royal Academy of Music, studying piano and organ, as well as composition with Frederick Corder. He went on to compose many film scores (including part of the soundtrack of Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail in 1929), marches for brass bands, orchestral suites, theatre music and choral works.

In 1924, Bath was named as co-respondent in the divorce case between Colonel Alfred Rawlinson and the actress Jean Aylwin.

His composition Out of the Blue has been used as the theme music of Sports Report since the programme started in 1948. Also well-known is his Cornish Rhapsody, written for, and essential to the plot of, the 1944 film Love Story. Humorous cantatas such as The Wedding of Shon Maclean (1909), Look at the Clock (1910) and The Wake of O'Connor (1914) were popular with choral societies in their day. There are also many suites of character pieces for piano, including Shakespeare Pieces (1916), My Lady (1923), the Italian Suite (1924), the Gaelic Suite (five Irish sketches for piano), published in 1927, and the Sonnet Suite (1933).

Bath died in Harefield, Middlesex in 1945, aged 61. His son John Bath (1915–2004) was also a film composer.