William Walton
Encyclopedia
Sir William Turner Walton OM
(29 March 1902 – 8 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include Façade – An Entertainment, the cantata
Belshazzar's Feast
and his First Symphony
.
Born in Lancashire
, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford
. On leaving the university, he was taken up by the literary Sitwell siblings, who provided him with a home and a cultural education. His earliest work of note was a collaboration with Edith Sitwell
, Façade, which at first brought him notoriety as a modernist
, but later became a popular ballet score. Other early works that made his name were a Viola Concerto
and Belshazzar's Feast.
In middle age, Walton left Britain and set up home with his young wife on the Italian island of Ischia
. By this time, he had ceased to be regarded as a modernist, and some of his compositions of the 1950s were criticised as old-fashioned. His only full-length opera, Troilus and Cressida
, was among the works to be so labelled and has made little impact in opera houses. In his last years, his works came back into critical fashion; his later compositions, dismissed by critics at the time of their premieres, were revalued and regarded alongside his earlier works.
Walton, who was largely self-taught as a composer, was a slow worker, painstakingly perfectionist, and his complete body of work across his long career is not large. His most popular compositions continue to be frequently performed in the 21st century, and by 2010 all his works were recorded for CD.
, Lancashire, the second son in a family of three boys and a girl. His father, Charles Alexander Walton, was a musician who had trained at the Royal Manchester College of Music
under Charles Hallé
, and made a living as a singing teacher and church organist. His wife, Louisa Maria (née Turner), had been a singer before their marriage. Walton's musical talents were spotted when he was still a young boy, and he took piano and violin lessons, though he never mastered either instrument. He was more successful as a singer: he and his elder brother sang in their father's choir, taking part in performances of large-scale works by Handel
, Haydn
, Mendelssohn
and others. Walton was sent to a local school, but in 1912 his father saw a newspaper advertisement for probationer choristers at Christ Church Cathedral School
in Oxford
and applied for William to be admitted. The boy and his mother missed their intended train from Manchester to Oxford because Walton's father had spent the money for the fare in a local public house. Louisa Walton had to borrow the fares from a greengrocer. Although they arrived in Oxford after the entrance trials were over, Mrs Walton successfully pleaded for her son to be heard, and he was accepted. He remained at the choir school for the next six years. The Dean of Christ Church, Dr. Thomas Strong
, noted the young Walton's musical potential and was encouraged in this view by Sir Hubert Parry
, who saw the manuscripts of some of Walton's early compositions and said to Strong, "There's a lot in this chap; you must keep your eye on him."
At the age of sixteen, Walton became an undergraduate of Christ Church
. It is sometimes said that he was Oxford's youngest undergraduate since Henry VIII
, and though this is probably not correct, he was nonetheless among the youngest. He came under the influence of Hugh Allen
, the dominant figure in Oxford's musical life. Allen introduced Walton to modern music
, including Stravinsky's
Petrushka
, and enthused him with "the mysteries of the orchestra". Walton spent much time in the university library, studying scores by Stravinsky, Debussy
, Sibelius
, Roussel
and others. He neglected his non-musical studies, and though he passed the musical examinations with ease, he failed the Greek and algebra examinations required for graduation. Little survives from Walton's juvenilia, but the choral anthem A Litany, written when he was fifteen, anticipates his mature style.
At Oxford Walton befriended several poets including Roy Campbell
, Siegfried Sassoon
and, most importantly for his future, Sacheverell Sitwell
. Walton was sent down from Oxford in 1920 without a degree or any firm plans. Sitwell invited him to lodge in London with him and his literary brother and sister, Osbert
and Edith
. Walton took up residence in the attic of their house, later recalling, "I went for a few weeks and stayed about fifteen years".
, Ferruccio Busoni
and Edward J. Dent
. He attended the Russian ballet, met Stravinsky and Gershwin
, heard the Savoy Orpheans
at the Savoy Hotel
and wrote an experimental string quartet heavily influenced by the Second Viennese School
that was performed at a festival of new music at Salzburg
in 1923. Alban Berg
heard the performance and was impressed enough to take Walton to meet Arnold Schoenberg
, Berg's teacher and the founder of the Second Viennese School.
In 1923, in collaboration with Edith Sitwell, Walton had his first great success, though at first it was a succès de scandale. Façade was first performed in public at the Aeolian Hall, London, on 12 June. The work consisted of Edith's verses, which she recited through a megaphone from behind a screen, while Walton conducted an ensemble of six players in his accompanying music. The press was generally condemnatory. The Daily Express loathed the work, but admitted that it was naggingly memorable. The Manchester Guardian
wrote of "relentless cacophony". The Observer
condemned the verses and dismissed Walton's music as "harmless". In The Illustrated London News, Dent was much more appreciative: "The audience was at first inclined to treat the whole thing as an absurd joke, but there is always a surprisingly serious element in Miss Sitwell's poetry and Mr Walton's music … which soon induced the audience to listen with breathless attention." In The Sunday Times
, Ernest Newman
said of Walton, "as a musical joker he is a jewel of the first water". Among the audience were Evelyn Waugh
, Virginia Woolf
and Noël Coward
. The last was so outraged by the avant-garde nature of Sitwell's verses and the staging, that he marched out ostentatiously during the performance. The players did not like the work: the clarinettist asked the composer, "Mr Walton, has a clarinet player ever done you an injury?" Nevertheless, the work soon became accepted, and within a decade Walton's music was used for the popular Façade ballet, choreographed by Frederick Ashton
.
Walton's works of the 1920s, while he was living in the Sitwells' attic, include the overture
Portsmouth Point
, dedicated to Sassoon, and inspired by the well-known painting of the same name by Thomas Rowlandson
. It was first heard as an entr'acte at a performance in Diaghilev
's 1926 ballet season, where The Times
complained, "It is a little difficult to make much of new music when it is heard through the hum of conversation." Sir Henry Wood programmed the work at The Proms
the following year, where it made more of an impression. The composer conducted this performance; he did not enjoy conducting, but he had firm views on how his works should be interpreted, and orchestral players appreciated his "easy nonchalance" and "complete absence of fuss." Walton's other works of the 1920s included a short orchestral piece, Siesta (1926) and a Sinfonia Concertante
for piano and orchestra (1928), which was well received at its premiere at a Royal Philharmonic Society
concert, but has not entered the regular repertory.
The Viola Concerto
(1929) brought Walton to the forefront of British classical music. It was written at the suggestion of Sir Thomas Beecham
for the viola virtuoso Lionel Tertis
. When Tertis received the manuscript, he rejected it immediately. The composer and violist Paul Hindemith
stepped into the breach and gave the first performance. The work was greeted with enthusiasm. In The Manchester Guardian, Eric Blom
wrote, "This young composer is a born genius" and said that it was tempting to call the concerto the best thing in recent music of any nationality. Tertis soon changed his mind and took the work up. A performance by him at a Three Choirs Festival
concert in Worcester
in 1932 was the only occasion on which Walton met Elgar
, whom he greatly admired. Elgar, however, did not share the general enthusiasm for Walton's concerto.
Walton's next major composition was the massive choral cantata
Belshazzar's Feast
(1931). It began as a work on a modest scale; the BBC
commissioned a piece for small chorus, orchestra of no more than fifteen players, and soloist. Osbert Sitwell constructed a text, selecting verses from several books of the Old Testament
. As Walton worked on it, he found that his music required far larger forces than the BBC proposed to allow, and Beecham rescued him by programming the work for the 1931 Leeds
Festival, to be conducted by Malcolm Sargent
. Walton later recalled Beecham as saying, "As you'll never hear the work again, my boy, why not throw in a couple of brass bands?" During early rehearsals, the Leeds chorus members found Walton's music difficult to master, and it was falsely rumoured in London musical circles that Beecham had been obliged to send Sargent to Leeds to quell a revolt. The first performance was a triumph for the composer, conductor and performers. A contemporary critic wrote, "Those who experienced the tremendous impact of its first performance had full justification for feeling that a great composer had arisen in our land, a composer to whose potentialities it was impossible to set any limits." The work has remained a staple of the choral repertoire.
.
Walton's first major composition after Belshazzar's Feast was his First Symphony
. It was not written to a commission, and Walton worked slowly on the score from late 1931 until he completed it in 1935. He had composed the first three of the four movements by the end of 1933 and promised the premiere to the conductor Hamilton Harty
. Walton then found himself unable to complete the work. The end of his affair with Imma von Doernberg coincided with, and may have contributed to, a sudden and persistent writer's block
. Harty persuaded Walton to let him perform the three existing movements, which he premiered in December 1934 with the London Symphony Orchestra
. During 1934 Walton interrupted work on the symphony to compose his first film music, for Paul Czinner
's Escape Me Never
(1934), for which he was paid £300. After a break of eight months, Walton resumed work on the symphony and completed it in 1935. Harty conducted the premiere of the completed piece in November of that year. The symphony aroused international interest. The leading continental conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler
and Willem Mengelberg
sent for copies of the score, Eugene Ormandy
and the Philadelphia Orchestra
gave the U.S. premiere, and the young George Szell
conducted the symphony in Australia.
Elgar having died in 1934, the authorities turned to Walton to compose a march in the Elgarian tradition for the coronation
of George VI
in 1937. His Crown Imperial
was an immediate success with the public, but disappointed those of Walton's admirers who thought of him as an avant garde composer. Among Walton's other works from this decade are more film scores, including the first of his incidental music
for Shakespeare adaptations, As You Like It
(1936); a short ballet for a West End revue (1936); and a choral piece, In Honour of the City of London (1937). His most important work of the 1930s, alongside the symphony, was the Violin Concerto
(1939), commissioned by Jascha Heifetz
. The concerto, Walton later revealed, expressed his love for Alice Wimborne. Its strong romantic
style caused some critics to label it retrogressive, and Walton said in a newspaper interview, "Today's white hope is tomorrow's black sheep. These days it is very sad for a composer to grow old ... I seriously advise all sensitive composers to die at the age of 37. I know: I've gone through the first halcyon period and am just about ripe for my critical damnation."
In the late 1930s, Walton became aware of a younger English composer whose fame was shortly to overtake his, Benjamin Britten
. After their first meeting, Britten wrote in his diary, "[...] to lunch with William Walton at Sloane Square. He is charming, but I feel always the school relationship with him – he is so obviously the head prefect of English music, whereas I'm the promising new boy." They remained on friendly terms for the rest of Britten's life; Walton admired many of Britten's works, and considered him a genius; Britten did not admire all of Walton's works but was grateful for his support at difficult times in his life.
During World War II, Walton was exempted from military service on the understanding that he would compose music for wartime propaganda films. In addition to driving ambulances (extremely badly, he said), he was attached to the Army Film Unit as music adviser. He wrote scores for six films during the war – some that he thought "rather boring" and some that have become classics such as The First of the Few
(1942) and Laurence Olivier
's adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V
(1944). Walton was at first dismissive of his film scores, regarding them as professional but of no intrinsic worth; he resisted attempts to arrange them into concert suites, saying, "Film music is not good film music if it can be used for any other purpose." He later relented to the extent of allowing concert suites to be arranged from The First of the Few and the Olivier Shakespeare films. For the BBC, Walton composed the music for a large-scale radio drama about Christopher Columbus
, written by Louis MacNeice
and starring Olivier. As with his film music, the composer was inclined to dismiss the musical importance of his work on the programme. Apart from these commissions, Walton's wartime works of any magnitude comprised incidental music for John Gielgud
's 1942 production of Macbeth
; two scores for the Sadler's Wells Ballet, The Wise Virgins, based on the music of J. S. Bach transcribed by Walton, and The Quest, with a plot loosely based on Spenser
's The Faerie Queen; and, for the concert hall, a suite of orchestral miniatures, Music for Children, and a comedy overture, Scapino, composed for the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
.
Walton's house in London was destroyed by German bombing in May 1941, after which he spent much of his time at Alice Wimborne's family house at Ashby St. Ledgers in the countryside of Northamptonshire
in the middle of England. While there, Walton worked on projects that had been in his mind for some time. In 1939 he had been planning a substantial chamber work, a string quartet, but he set it aside while composing his wartime film scores. In early 1945 he turned again to the quartet. Walton was conscious that Britten, with Les Illuminations (1940), the Sinfonia da Requiem
(1942), and Peter Grimes
in 1945, had produced a series of substantial works, while Walton had produced no major composition since the Violin Concerto in 1939. Among English critics and audiences, the Violin Concerto was not at first rated one of Walton's finest works. Because Heifetz had bought the exclusive rights to play the concerto for two years, it was not heard in England until 1941. The London premiere, with a less famous soloist, and in the unflattering acoustics of the Royal Albert Hall
, did not immediately reveal the work as a masterpiece. The String Quartet in A minor, premiered in May 1947, was Walton's most substantial work of the 1940s. His biographer, Michael Kennedy
, calls it one of his finest achievements and "a sure sign that he had thrown off the trammels of his cinema style and rediscovered his true voice."
's Gold Medal. In the same year he accepted an invitation from the BBC
to compose his first opera. He decided to base it on Chaucer
's Troilus and Criseyde
, but his preliminary work came to a halt in April 1948 when Alice Wimborne died. To take Walton's mind off his grief, the music publisher Leslie Boosey persuaded him to be a British delegate to a conference on copyright in Buenos Aires
later that year. While there, Walton met Susana Gil Passo
(1926–2010), daughter of an Argentine lawyer. At 22 she was 24 years younger than Walton (Alice Wimborne had been 22 years his senior), and at first she ridiculed his romantic interest in her. He persisted, and she eventually accepted his proposal of marriage. The wedding was held in Buenos Aires in December 1948. From the start of their marriage, the couple spent half the year on the Italian island of Ischia
, and by the mid-1950s they lived there permanently.
Walton's last work of the 1940s was his music for Olivier's film of Hamlet
(1948). After that, he focused his attentions on his opera Troilus and Cressida
. On the advice of the BBC, he invited Christopher Hassall
to write the libretto. This did not help Walton's relations with the Sitwells, each of whom thought he or she should have been asked to be his librettist. Work continued slowly over the next few years, with many breaks while Walton turned to other things. In 1950 he and Heifetz recorded the Violin Concerto for EMI. In 1951 Walton was knight
ed. In the same year, he prepared an authorised version of Façade, which had undergone many revisions since its premiere. In 1953, following the accession of Elizabeth II
he was again called on to write a coronation march; he was also commissioned to write a Te Deum
for the occasion.
Troilus and Cressida was presented at Covent Garden
on 3 December 1954. Its preparation was dogged by misfortunes. Olivier, originally scheduled to direct it, backed out, as did Henry Moore
who had agreed to design the production; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
, for whom the role of Cressida had been written, refused to perform it; her replacement, Magda László
, had difficulty mastering the English words; and Sir Malcolm Sargent, the conductor, "did not seem well acquainted with the score". The premiere had a friendly reception, but there was a general feeling that Hassall and Walton had written an old-fashioned opera in an outmoded tradition. The piece was subsequently staged in San Francisco, New York and Milan during the next year, but failed to make a positive impression, and did not enter the regular operatic repertory.
In 1956 Walton sold his London house and took up full-time residence on Ischia. He built a hilltop house at Forio
and called it La Mortella
. Susana Walton created a magnificent garden there. Walton's other works of the 1950s include the music for a fourth Shakespeare film, Olivier's Richard III
, and the Cello Concerto
(1956), written for Gregor Piatigorsky
, who gave the premiere in January 1957 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra
and the conductor Charles Munch. Some critics felt that the concerto was old-fashioned; Peter Heyworth
wrote that there was little in the work that would have startled an audience in the year the Titanic met its iceberg (1912). However, it has entered the regular repertoire, performed by Paul Tortelier
, Yo Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell
and Pierre Fournier
, among others.
In 1966 Walton successfully underwent surgery for lung cancer. Until then he had been an inveterate pipe-smoker, but after the operation he never smoked again. While he was convalescing, he worked on a one-act comic opera, The Bear
, which was premiered at Britten's Aldeburgh Festival
, in June 1966, and enthusiastically received. Walton had become so used to being written off by music critics that he felt "there must be something wrong when the worms turned on some praise." Walton received the Order of Merit
in 1967, the fourth composer to be so honoured, after Elgar, Vaughan Williams
and Britten.
Walton's orchestral works of the 1960s include his Second Symphony
(1960), Variations on a Theme by Hindemith (1963), Capriccio burlesco
(1968), and Improvisations on an Impromptu of Benjamin Britten (1969). His song-cycles from this period were composed for Peter Pears
(Anon. in Love, 1960) and Schwarzkopf (A Song for the Lord Mayor's Table, 1962). He was commissioned to compose a score for the 1969 film Battle of Britain
, but the film company rejected most of his score, replacing it with music by Ron Goodwin
. A concert suite of Walton's score was published and recorded after Walton's death. After his experience over Battle of Britain, Walton declared that he would write no more film music, but he was persuaded by Olivier to compose the score for a film of Chekhov
's Three Sisters in 1969.
, but eventually abandoned it. Many of his final works are re-orchestrations or revisions of earlier music. He orchestrated his song cycle Anon. in Love (originally for tenor and guitar), and at the request of Neville Marriner
adapted his A minor String Quartet as a Sonata for Strings. One original work from this period was his Jubilate Deo, premiered as one of several events to celebrate his seventieth birthday. The British prime minister, Edward Heath
, gave a birthday dinner for Walton at 10 Downing Street
, attended by royalty and Walton's most eminent colleagues; Britten presented a Walton evening at Aldeburgh, and Previn conducted an all-Walton concert at the Royal Festival Hall
.
Walton revised the score of Troilus and Cressida, and the opera was staged at Covent Garden in 1976. Once again it was plagued by misfortune while in preparation. Walton was in poor health; Previn, who was to conduct, also fell ill; and the tenor chosen for Troilus pulled out. As in 1954, the critics were generally tepid. Some of Walton's final artistic endeavours were in collaboration with the film-maker Tony Palmer
. Walton took part in Palmer's profile of him, At the Haunted End of the Day, in 1981, and in 1982 Walton and his wife played the cameo roles of King Frederick Augustus
and Queen Maria of Saxony in Palmer's nine-hour film Wagner
.
Walton died at La Mortella on 8 March 1983, at the age of 80. His ashes were buried on Ischia, and a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey
, where a commemorative stone to Walton was unveiled near to those to Elgar and Britten.
and Malcolm Arnold
, but although he admired their work, he did not influence their compositional styles. Throughout his life, Walton held no posts at music conservatoires; he had no pupils, gave no lectures, and wrote no essays. After his death, the Walton Trust, inspired by Susana Walton, has run arts education projects, promoted British music and held annual summer masterclasses on Ischia for gifted young musicians.
writes:
The writer adds that Walton's allegiance to his basic style never wavered and that this loyalty to his own vision, together with his rhythmic vitality, sensuous melancholy, sly charm and orchestral flair, gives Walton's finest music "an imperishable glamour". Another biographer of Walton, Neil Tierney, writes that although contemporary critics felt that the post-war music did not match Walton's pre-war compositions, it has become clear that the later works are "if emotionally less direct, more profound."
Walton's first work for full orchestra, Portsmouth Point (1925), inspired by a Rowlandson print of the same name, depicts a rumbustious dockside scene (in Kennedy's phrase, "the sailors of H.M.S. Pinafore
have had a night on the tiles") in a fast moving score full of syncopation
and cross-rhythm
that for years proved hazardous for conductors and orchestras alike. Throughout his career, Walton wrote works in this pattern, such as the lively Comedy Overture Scapino, a virtuoso piece commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
, "an ingenious blending of fragments in exhilarating profusion." Walton's post-war works in this genre are the Johannesburg Festival Overture (1956), the "diverting but hard-edged Capriccio burlesco" (1968), and the longer Partita (1957), written for the Cleveland Orchestra
, described by Grove as "an impressively concentrated score with a high-spirited finale [with] steely counterpoint and orchestral virtuosity". Walton's shorter pieces also include two tributes to musical colleagues, Variations on a Theme by Hindemith (1963) and the Improvisations on an Impromptu of Benjamin Britten (1969), in both of which the source material is gradually transformed as Walton's own voice becomes more prominent.
. In this work, wrote Edward Sackville-West
and Desmond Shawe-Taylor
in The Record Guide
, "the lyric poet in Walton, who had so far been hidden under a mask of irony, fully emerged." Walton followed this pattern in his two subsequent concertos, for Violin (1937) and for Cello (1956). Each opens reflectively, is in three movements, and contrasts agitated and jagged passages with warmer romantic sections. The Cello Concerto is more introspective than the two earlier concertos, with a ticking rhythm throughout the work suggesting the inexorable passage of time.
The two symphonies are strongly contrasted with one another. The First is on a large scale, reminiscent at times of Sibelius. Grove says of the work that its "orgiastic power, coruscating malice, sensuous desolation and extroverted swagger" make the symphony a tribute to Walton's tenacity and inventive facility. However, critics have always differed on whether the finale lives up to the rest of the work. In comparison with the First, the Second Symphony struck many reviewers as lightweight, and, as with many of Walton's works of the 1950s, it was regarded as old fashioned. It is a very different kind of work from the First Symphony. David Cox describes it as "more a divertimento
than a symphony ... highly personal, unmistakably Walton throughout", and Kennedy calls it "somewhat enigmatic in mood, and a superb example of Walton's more mature, concise, and mellow post-1945 style."
Walton wrote little incidental music for the theatre, his music for Macbeth (1942) being among the exceptions. For the cinema he wrote the music for 13 films between 1934 and 1969. He arranged the Spitfire Prelude and Fugue from his own score for The First of the Few (1942), and he allowed suites to be arranged from his Shakespeare film scores of the 1940s and 1950s. In these films, Walton mixed Elizabethan pastiche with wholly characteristic Waltonian music. Kennedy singles out for praise the Agincourt
battle sequence in Henry V, where Walton's music makes the charge of the French knights "fearsomely real." Despite Walton's view that film music is ineffective when performed out of context, suites from several more of his film scores have been put together since his death.
Walton's only other opera, The Bear
, based on a comic vaudeville by Chekhov
, is judged by critics as much more successful. It is, however, a one-act piece, a genre not regularly staged at most opera houses, and so is rarely seen.
and Schoenberg", Walton's major essays in chamber music are his String Quartet in A Minor (1945–46) and the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1947–49). In the opinion of Adams in Grove's Dictionary, the quartet is one of Walton's supreme achievements. Earlier critics did not always share this view. In 1956 The Record Guide said, "[T]he material is not first class and the composition as a whole seems laboured." The work exists also in its later expanded form as the Sonata for Strings (1971), which, the critic Trevor Harvey wrote, combines Walton in his most energetically rhythmic mood with a "vein of lyrical tenderness which is equally characteristic and is so rewarding to listen to". The Violin Sonata is in two closely related movements, with strong thematic material in common. The first movement is nostalgically lyrical, the second a set of variations, each one a semitone
higher than its predecessor. Walton briefly refers back to Schoenberg with a dodecaphonic
passage in the second movement, but otherwise the sonata is firmly tonal
.
One of the best-known and most frequently performed of Walton's works is the cantata Belshazzar's Feast. Written for large orchestra, chorus and baritone soloist, it intersperses a choral and orchestral depiction of Babylonian excess and depravity, barbaric jazzy outbursts, and the lamentations and finally the rejoicing of the Jewish captives. The "couple of brass bands" added at Beecham's suggestion to an already large orchestra each consist of three trumpets, three trombones and a tuba. Many critics judged it the most important English choral work since Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius
in 1900. None of Walton's later choral works have matched its popularity. They include In Honour of the City of London (1937) and a Gloria (1960–61) composed for the 125th anniversary of the Huddersfield Choral Society
.
in eleven movements from Façade, for the small, new Decca
company. In the 1930s, he also had two of his major orchestral works on disc, both on Decca, the First Symphony recorded by Sir Hamilton Harty and the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Viola Concerto with Frederick Riddle
and the LSO conducted by Walton. In the 1940s Walton moved from Decca to its older, larger rival, EMI
. The EMI producer Walter Legge
arranged a series of recordings of Walton's major works and many minor ones over the next twenty years; a rival composer expressed the view that if Walton had an attack of flatulence (he used an earthier expression), Walter Legge would record it.
Walton himself, although a reluctant conductor, conducted many of the EMI recordings, and some for other labels. He made studio recordings of the First Symphony, the Viola Concerto, the Violin Concerto, the Sinfonia Concertante, the Façade Suites, the Partita, Belshazzar's Feast, and suites from his film scores for Shakespeare plays and The First of the Few. Some live performances conducted by Walton were recorded and have been released on compact disc, including the Cello Concerto and the Coronation Te Deum.
All Walton's works have been recorded for the gramophone. EMI published a "Walton Edition" of his major works on CD in the 1990s, and the recording of the Chandos Records
"Walton Edition" of all his works was completed in 2010. His best-known works have been recorded by performers from many countries. Among the frequently recorded are Belshazzar's Feast, the Viola and Violin Concertos, and the First Symphony, which has had more than twenty recordings since Harty's 1936 set.
Order of Merit
The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
(29 March 1902 – 8 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include Façade – An Entertainment, the cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
Belshazzar's Feast
Belshazzar's Feast (Walton)
Belshazzar's Feast is an oratorio by the English composer William Walton. It was first performed at the Leeds Festival on 8 October 1931. The work has remained one of Walton's most celebrated compositions and one of the most popular works in the English choral repertoire...
and his First Symphony
Symphony No. 1 (Walton)
The Symphony No. 1 in B-flat minor by the English composer William Walton was commissioned by Sir Hamilton Harty, and completed in 1935.-Structure:The work is in four movements.# Allegro assai# Scherzo: Presto con malizia...
.
Born in Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
. On leaving the university, he was taken up by the literary Sitwell siblings, who provided him with a home and a cultural education. His earliest work of note was a collaboration with Edith Sitwell
Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE was a British poet and critic.-Background:Edith Sitwell was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the oldest child and only daughter of Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, of Renishaw Hall; he was an expert on genealogy and landscaping...
, Façade, which at first brought him notoriety as a modernist
Modernism (music)
Modernism in music is characterized by a desire for or belief in progress and science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, political advocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with the past or common practice.- Defining musical modernism :...
, but later became a popular ballet score. Other early works that made his name were a Viola Concerto
Viola Concerto (Walton)
The Viola Concerto by William Walton was written in 1929 for the violist Lionel Tertis at the suggestion of Sir Thomas Beecham. The concerto carries the dedication "To Christabel" ....
and Belshazzar's Feast.
In middle age, Walton left Britain and set up home with his young wife on the Italian island of Ischia
Ischia
Ischia is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about 30 km from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures around 10 km east to west and 7 km north to south and has...
. By this time, he had ceased to be regarded as a modernist, and some of his compositions of the 1950s were criticised as old-fashioned. His only full-length opera, Troilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida (opera)
Troilus and Cressida is the first of the two operas by William Walton. The libretto was by Christopher Hassall, his own first opera libretto, based on Chaucer's poem Troilus and Criseyde...
, was among the works to be so labelled and has made little impact in opera houses. In his last years, his works came back into critical fashion; his later compositions, dismissed by critics at the time of their premieres, were revalued and regarded alongside his earlier works.
Walton, who was largely self-taught as a composer, was a slow worker, painstakingly perfectionist, and his complete body of work across his long career is not large. His most popular compositions continue to be frequently performed in the 21st century, and by 2010 all his works were recorded for CD.
Early years
Walton was born into a musical family in OldhamOldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...
, Lancashire, the second son in a family of three boys and a girl. His father, Charles Alexander Walton, was a musician who had trained at the Royal Manchester College of Music
Royal Northern College of Music
The Royal Northern College of Music is a music school in Manchester, England. It is located on Oxford Road in Chorlton on Medlock, at the western edge of the campus of the University of Manchester and is one of four conservatories associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music...
under Charles Hallé
Charles Hallé
Sir Charles Hallé was an Anglo-German pianist and conductor, and founder of The Hallé orchestra in 1858.-Life:Hallé was born in Hagen, Westphalia, Germany who after settling in England changed his name from Karl Halle...
, and made a living as a singing teacher and church organist. His wife, Louisa Maria (née Turner), had been a singer before their marriage. Walton's musical talents were spotted when he was still a young boy, and he took piano and violin lessons, though he never mastered either instrument. He was more successful as a singer: he and his elder brother sang in their father's choir, taking part in performances of large-scale works by Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
, Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
and others. Walton was sent to a local school, but in 1912 his father saw a newspaper advertisement for probationer choristers at Christ Church Cathedral School
Christ Church Cathedral School
Christ Church Cathedral School is a Prep and Pre-Prep, fee-paying boarding and day school for approximately 140 pupils based in Oxford, England. Steeped in music and history, the School was founded by Henry VIII in 1546 to provide choristers for Christ Church Cathedral and College. Now a Church of...
in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
and applied for William to be admitted. The boy and his mother missed their intended train from Manchester to Oxford because Walton's father had spent the money for the fare in a local public house. Louisa Walton had to borrow the fares from a greengrocer. Although they arrived in Oxford after the entrance trials were over, Mrs Walton successfully pleaded for her son to be heard, and he was accepted. He remained at the choir school for the next six years. The Dean of Christ Church, Dr. Thomas Strong
Thomas Banks Strong
Thomas Banks Strong GBE was an English theologian who was Bishop of Ripon and Oxford. He was also Dean of Christ Church, Oxford and served as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University during the First World War....
, noted the young Walton's musical potential and was encouraged in this view by Sir Hubert Parry
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...
, who saw the manuscripts of some of Walton's early compositions and said to Strong, "There's a lot in this chap; you must keep your eye on him."
At the age of sixteen, Walton became an undergraduate of Christ Church
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
. It is sometimes said that he was Oxford's youngest undergraduate since Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, and though this is probably not correct, he was nonetheless among the youngest. He came under the influence of Hugh Allen
Hugh Allen (conductor)
Sir Hugh Percy Allen was an English musician, academic and administrator. He was a leading influence on British musical life in the first half of the 20th century.-Early years:...
, the dominant figure in Oxford's musical life. Allen introduced Walton to modern music
Modernism (music)
Modernism in music is characterized by a desire for or belief in progress and science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, political advocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with the past or common practice.- Defining musical modernism :...
, including Stravinsky's
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
Petrushka
Petrushka
Petrouchka or Petrushka is a ballet with music by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, composed in 1910–11 and revised in 1947....
, and enthused him with "the mysteries of the orchestra". Walton spent much time in the university library, studying scores by Stravinsky, Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
, Roussel
Albert Roussel
Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel was a French composer. He spent seven years as a midshipman, turned to music as an adult, and became one of the most prominent French composers of the interwar period...
and others. He neglected his non-musical studies, and though he passed the musical examinations with ease, he failed the Greek and algebra examinations required for graduation. Little survives from Walton's juvenilia, but the choral anthem A Litany, written when he was fifteen, anticipates his mature style.
At Oxford Walton befriended several poets including Roy Campbell
Roy Campbell (poet)
Ignatius Royston Dunnachie Campbell, better known as Roy Campbell, was an Anglo-African poet and satirist. He was considered by T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell to have been one of the best poets of the period between the First and Second World Wars...
, Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...
and, most importantly for his future, Sacheverell Sitwell
Sacheverell Sitwell
Sir Sacheverell Sitwell, 6th Baronet CH was an English writer, best known as an art critic and writer on architecture, particularly the baroque. He was the younger brother of Dame Edith Sitwell and Sir Osbert Sitwell....
. Walton was sent down from Oxford in 1920 without a degree or any firm plans. Sitwell invited him to lodge in London with him and his literary brother and sister, Osbert
Osbert Sitwell
Sir Francis Osbert Sacheverell Sitwell, 5th Baronet, was an English writer. His elder sister was Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell and his younger brother was Sir Sacheverell Sitwell; like them he devoted his life to art and literature....
and Edith
Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE was a British poet and critic.-Background:Edith Sitwell was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the oldest child and only daughter of Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, of Renishaw Hall; he was an expert on genealogy and landscaping...
. Walton took up residence in the attic of their house, later recalling, "I went for a few weeks and stayed about fifteen years".
First successes
The Sitwells looked after their protégé both materially and culturally, giving him not only a home but a stimulating cultural education. He took music lessons with Ernest AnsermetErnest Ansermet
Ernest Alexandre Ansermet was a Swiss conductor.- Biography :Ansermet was born in Vevey, Switzerland. Although he was a contemporary of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Otto Klemperer, Ansermet represents in most ways a very different tradition and approach from those two musicians. Originally he was a...
, Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...
and Edward J. Dent
Edward Joseph Dent
Edward Joseph Dent, generally known by his initials as E. J. Dent was a British writer on music....
. He attended the Russian ballet, met Stravinsky and Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, heard the Savoy Orpheans
Savoy Orpheans
The Savoy Orpheans were a British dance band of the 1920s. They were resident at the Savoy Hotel, London, between 1923 and 1927.The band was formed by Debroy Somers, an ex-army bandmaster, in 1923. Both the Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band were under the management of Wilfred de Mornys...
at the Savoy Hotel
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a hotel located on the Strand, in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the hotel opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by...
and wrote an experimental string quartet heavily influenced by the Second Viennese School
Second Viennese School
The Second Viennese School is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925...
that was performed at a festival of new music at Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
in 1923. Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
heard the performance and was impressed enough to take Walton to meet Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, Berg's teacher and the founder of the Second Viennese School.
In 1923, in collaboration with Edith Sitwell, Walton had his first great success, though at first it was a succès de scandale. Façade was first performed in public at the Aeolian Hall, London, on 12 June. The work consisted of Edith's verses, which she recited through a megaphone from behind a screen, while Walton conducted an ensemble of six players in his accompanying music. The press was generally condemnatory. The Daily Express loathed the work, but admitted that it was naggingly memorable. The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
wrote of "relentless cacophony". The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
condemned the verses and dismissed Walton's music as "harmless". In The Illustrated London News, Dent was much more appreciative: "The audience was at first inclined to treat the whole thing as an absurd joke, but there is always a surprisingly serious element in Miss Sitwell's poetry and Mr Walton's music … which soon induced the audience to listen with breathless attention." In The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, Ernest Newman
Ernest Newman
Ernest Newman was an English music critic and musicologist. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes him as "the most celebrated British music critic in the first half of the 20th century." His style of criticism, aiming at intellectual objectivity in contrast to the more subjective...
said of Walton, "as a musical joker he is a jewel of the first water". Among the audience were Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
, Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
and Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
. The last was so outraged by the avant-garde nature of Sitwell's verses and the staging, that he marched out ostentatiously during the performance. The players did not like the work: the clarinettist asked the composer, "Mr Walton, has a clarinet player ever done you an injury?" Nevertheless, the work soon became accepted, and within a decade Walton's music was used for the popular Façade ballet, choreographed by Frederick Ashton
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
.
Walton's works of the 1920s, while he was living in the Sitwells' attic, include the overture
Overture
Overture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
Portsmouth Point
Portsmouth Point (Walton)
Portsmouth Point is an overture for orchestra by the English composer William Walton, composed in 1925. The work was inspired by Rowlandson's print depicting Portsmouth Point. Walton recalled that the main musical had come into his mind whilst riding the #22 bus in London...
, dedicated to Sassoon, and inspired by the well-known painting of the same name by Thomas Rowlandson
Thomas Rowlandson
Thomas Rowlandson was an English artist and caricaturist.- Biography :Rowlandson was born in Old Jewry, in the City of London. He was the son of a tradesman or city merchant. On leaving school he became a student at the Royal Academy...
. It was first heard as an entr'acte at a performance in Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
's 1926 ballet season, where The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
complained, "It is a little difficult to make much of new music when it is heard through the hum of conversation." Sir Henry Wood programmed the work at The Proms
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
the following year, where it made more of an impression. The composer conducted this performance; he did not enjoy conducting, but he had firm views on how his works should be interpreted, and orchestral players appreciated his "easy nonchalance" and "complete absence of fuss." Walton's other works of the 1920s included a short orchestral piece, Siesta (1926) and a Sinfonia Concertante
Sinfonia concertante
Sinfonia concertante is a musical form that emerged during the Classical period of Western music. It is essentially a mixture of the symphony and the concerto genres: a concerto in that one or more soloists are on prominent display, and a symphony in that the soloists are nonetheless discernibly a...
for piano and orchestra (1928), which was well received at its premiere at a Royal Philharmonic Society
Royal Philharmonic Society
The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...
concert, but has not entered the regular repertory.
The Viola Concerto
Viola Concerto (Walton)
The Viola Concerto by William Walton was written in 1929 for the violist Lionel Tertis at the suggestion of Sir Thomas Beecham. The concerto carries the dedication "To Christabel" ....
(1929) brought Walton to the forefront of British classical music. It was written at the suggestion of Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
for the viola virtuoso Lionel Tertis
Lionel Tertis
Lionel Tertis, CBE was an English violist and one of the first viola players to find international fame.Tertis was born in West Hartlepool, the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, and initially studied the violin in Leipzig and at the Royal Academy of Music in London...
. When Tertis received the manuscript, he rejected it immediately. The composer and violist Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
stepped into the breach and gave the first performance. The work was greeted with enthusiasm. In The Manchester Guardian, Eric Blom
Eric Blom
Eric Walter Blom CBE was a Swiss-born British-naturalised music lexicographer, musicologist, music critic, music biographer and translator. He is best known as the editor of the 5th edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians .-Biography:Blom was born in Berne, Switzerland...
wrote, "This young composer is a born genius" and said that it was tempting to call the concerto the best thing in recent music of any nationality. Tertis soon changed his mind and took the work up. A performance by him at a Three Choirs Festival
Three Choirs Festival
The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...
concert in Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
in 1932 was the only occasion on which Walton met Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, whom he greatly admired. Elgar, however, did not share the general enthusiasm for Walton's concerto.
Walton's next major composition was the massive choral cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
Belshazzar's Feast
Belshazzar's Feast (Walton)
Belshazzar's Feast is an oratorio by the English composer William Walton. It was first performed at the Leeds Festival on 8 October 1931. The work has remained one of Walton's most celebrated compositions and one of the most popular works in the English choral repertoire...
(1931). It began as a work on a modest scale; the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
commissioned a piece for small chorus, orchestra of no more than fifteen players, and soloist. Osbert Sitwell constructed a text, selecting verses from several books of the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
. As Walton worked on it, he found that his music required far larger forces than the BBC proposed to allow, and Beecham rescued him by programming the work for the 1931 Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
Festival, to be conducted by Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
. Walton later recalled Beecham as saying, "As you'll never hear the work again, my boy, why not throw in a couple of brass bands?" During early rehearsals, the Leeds chorus members found Walton's music difficult to master, and it was falsely rumoured in London musical circles that Beecham had been obliged to send Sargent to Leeds to quell a revolt. The first performance was a triumph for the composer, conductor and performers. A contemporary critic wrote, "Those who experienced the tremendous impact of its first performance had full justification for feeling that a great composer had arisen in our land, a composer to whose potentialities it was impossible to set any limits." The work has remained a staple of the choral repertoire.
1930s
In the 1930s, Walton's relationship with the Sitwells became less close. He had love affairs and new friendships that drew him out of their orbit. His first long affair was with Imma von Doernberg, the young widow of a German baron. She and Walton met in the late 1920s and they were together until 1934, when she left him. His later affair with Alice, Viscountess Wimborne (born 1880), which lasted from 1934 until her death in April 1948, caused a wider breach between Walton and the Sitwells, as she disliked them as much as they disliked her. By the 1930s, Walton was earning enough from composing to allow him financial independence for the first time. A legacy from a musical benefactress in 1931 further enhanced his finances, and in 1934 he left the Sitwells' house and bought a house in BelgraviaBelgravia
Belgravia is a district of central London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Noted for its immensely expensive residential properties, it is one of the wealthiest districts in the world...
.
Walton's first major composition after Belshazzar's Feast was his First Symphony
Symphony No. 1 (Walton)
The Symphony No. 1 in B-flat minor by the English composer William Walton was commissioned by Sir Hamilton Harty, and completed in 1935.-Structure:The work is in four movements.# Allegro assai# Scherzo: Presto con malizia...
. It was not written to a commission, and Walton worked slowly on the score from late 1931 until he completed it in 1935. He had composed the first three of the four movements by the end of 1933 and promised the premiere to the conductor Hamilton Harty
Hamilton Harty
Sir Hamilton Harty was an Irish and British composer, conductor, pianist and organist. In his capacity as a conductor, he was particularly noted as an interpreter of the music of Berlioz and he was much respected as a piano accompanist of exceptional prowess...
. Walton then found himself unable to complete the work. The end of his affair with Imma von Doernberg coincided with, and may have contributed to, a sudden and persistent writer's block
Writer's block
Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked"...
. Harty persuaded Walton to let him perform the three existing movements, which he premiered in December 1934 with the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
. During 1934 Walton interrupted work on the symphony to compose his first film music, for Paul Czinner
Paul Czinner
Paul Czinner was a writer, film director, and producer.Czinner was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary. After studying literature and philosophy at the University of Vienna, he worked as a journalist. From 1919 onward, he dedicated himself to work for the filming industry as writer, director and...
's Escape Me Never
Escape Me Never (1935 film)
Escape Me Never is a 1935 British drama film directed by Paul Czinner and starring Elisabeth Bergner, Hugh Sinclair and Griffith Jones. It is an adaptation of the play Escape Me Never by Margaret Kennedy...
(1934), for which he was paid £300. After a break of eight months, Walton resumed work on the symphony and completed it in 1935. Harty conducted the premiere of the completed piece in November of that year. The symphony aroused international interest. The leading continental conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
and Willem Mengelberg
Willem Mengelberg
Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.- Biography :...
sent for copies of the score, Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...
and the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
gave the U.S. premiere, and the young George Szell
George Szell
George Szell , originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer...
conducted the symphony in Australia.
Elgar having died in 1934, the authorities turned to Walton to compose a march in the Elgarian tradition for the coronation
Coronation of the British monarch
The coronation of the British monarch is a ceremony in which the monarch of the United Kingdom is formally crowned and invested with regalia...
of George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
in 1937. His Crown Imperial
Crown Imperial (musical composition)
Crown Imperial is an orchestral march by the English composer William Walton. It was first performed at the coronation of King George VI in 1937, and substantially revised in 1953. Walton composed the march originally for performance at the coronation of King Edward VIII, which was scheduled for 12...
was an immediate success with the public, but disappointed those of Walton's admirers who thought of him as an avant garde composer. Among Walton's other works from this decade are more film scores, including the first of his incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for Shakespeare adaptations, As You Like It
As You Like It (1936 film)
As You Like It is a 1936 film, directed by Paul Czinner and starring Laurence Olivier as Orlando and Elisabeth Bergner as Rosalind. It is based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name...
(1936); a short ballet for a West End revue (1936); and a choral piece, In Honour of the City of London (1937). His most important work of the 1930s, alongside the symphony, was the Violin Concerto
Violin Concerto (Walton)
The Violin Concerto of William Walton was written in 1938–39 and reorchestrated in 1943. It has three movements:#Andante tranquillo#Presto capriccioso alla napolitana#VivaceThe concerto was written for Jascha Heifetz, who commissioned it in 1936...
(1939), commissioned by Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...
. The concerto, Walton later revealed, expressed his love for Alice Wimborne. Its strong romantic
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
style caused some critics to label it retrogressive, and Walton said in a newspaper interview, "Today's white hope is tomorrow's black sheep. These days it is very sad for a composer to grow old ... I seriously advise all sensitive composers to die at the age of 37. I know: I've gone through the first halcyon period and am just about ripe for my critical damnation."
In the late 1930s, Walton became aware of a younger English composer whose fame was shortly to overtake his, Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
. After their first meeting, Britten wrote in his diary, "[...] to lunch with William Walton at Sloane Square. He is charming, but I feel always the school relationship with him – he is so obviously the head prefect of English music, whereas I'm the promising new boy." They remained on friendly terms for the rest of Britten's life; Walton admired many of Britten's works, and considered him a genius; Britten did not admire all of Walton's works but was grateful for his support at difficult times in his life.
World War II
The First of the Few
The First of the Few, known as Spitfire in the United States, is a 1942 British film directed by and starring Leslie Howard as R.J. Mitchell, the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire, alongside co-star David Niven. The film's score was written by William Walton...
(1942) and Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
's adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V
Henry V (1944 film)
Henry V is a 1944 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name. The on-screen title is The Cronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France . It stars Laurence Olivier, who also directed. The play was adapted for the screen by Olivier, Dallas...
(1944). Walton was at first dismissive of his film scores, regarding them as professional but of no intrinsic worth; he resisted attempts to arrange them into concert suites, saying, "Film music is not good film music if it can be used for any other purpose." He later relented to the extent of allowing concert suites to be arranged from The First of the Few and the Olivier Shakespeare films. For the BBC, Walton composed the music for a large-scale radio drama about Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
, written by Louis MacNeice
Louis MacNeice
Frederick Louis MacNeice CBE was an Irish poet and playwright. He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco...
and starring Olivier. As with his film music, the composer was inclined to dismiss the musical importance of his work on the programme. Apart from these commissions, Walton's wartime works of any magnitude comprised incidental music for John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
's 1942 production of Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
; two scores for the Sadler's Wells Ballet, The Wise Virgins, based on the music of J. S. Bach transcribed by Walton, and The Quest, with a plot loosely based on Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
's The Faerie Queen; and, for the concert hall, a suite of orchestral miniatures, Music for Children, and a comedy overture, Scapino, composed for the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
.
Walton's house in London was destroyed by German bombing in May 1941, after which he spent much of his time at Alice Wimborne's family house at Ashby St. Ledgers in the countryside of Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
in the middle of England. While there, Walton worked on projects that had been in his mind for some time. In 1939 he had been planning a substantial chamber work, a string quartet, but he set it aside while composing his wartime film scores. In early 1945 he turned again to the quartet. Walton was conscious that Britten, with Les Illuminations (1940), the Sinfonia da Requiem
Sinfonia da Requiem
Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20, for orchestra is a symphony written by Benjamin Britten in 1940 at the age of 26. It was one of several works commissioned from different composers by the Japanese Government to mark the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire...
(1942), and Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough...
in 1945, had produced a series of substantial works, while Walton had produced no major composition since the Violin Concerto in 1939. Among English critics and audiences, the Violin Concerto was not at first rated one of Walton's finest works. Because Heifetz had bought the exclusive rights to play the concerto for two years, it was not heard in England until 1941. The London premiere, with a less famous soloist, and in the unflattering acoustics of the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
, did not immediately reveal the work as a masterpiece. The String Quartet in A minor, premiered in May 1947, was Walton's most substantial work of the 1940s. His biographer, Michael Kennedy
Michael Kennedy (music critic)
Dr. George Michael Sinclair Kennedy CBE is an English biographer, journalist and writer on classical music. He joined the Daily Telegraph at the age of 15 in 1941, and began writing music criticism for it in 1948...
, calls it one of his finest achievements and "a sure sign that he had thrown off the trammels of his cinema style and rediscovered his true voice."
Post-war
In 1947, Walton was presented with the Royal Philharmonic SocietyRoyal Philharmonic Society
The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...
's Gold Medal. In the same year he accepted an invitation from the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
to compose his first opera. He decided to base it on Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
's Troilus and Criseyde
Troilus and Criseyde
Troilus and Criseyde is a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer which re-tells in Middle English the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Criseyde set against a backdrop of war in the Siege of Troy. It was composed using rime royale and probably completed during the mid 1380s. Many Chaucer scholars regard it...
, but his preliminary work came to a halt in April 1948 when Alice Wimborne died. To take Walton's mind off his grief, the music publisher Leslie Boosey persuaded him to be a British delegate to a conference on copyright in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
later that year. While there, Walton met Susana Gil Passo
Susana, Lady Walton
Susana, Lady Walton, MBE was the wife of the composer Sir William Walton . She was a writer, and the creator of the gardens of La Mortella....
(1926–2010), daughter of an Argentine lawyer. At 22 she was 24 years younger than Walton (Alice Wimborne had been 22 years his senior), and at first she ridiculed his romantic interest in her. He persisted, and she eventually accepted his proposal of marriage. The wedding was held in Buenos Aires in December 1948. From the start of their marriage, the couple spent half the year on the Italian island of Ischia
Ischia
Ischia is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about 30 km from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures around 10 km east to west and 7 km north to south and has...
, and by the mid-1950s they lived there permanently.
Walton's last work of the 1940s was his music for Olivier's film of Hamlet
Hamlet (1948 film)
Hamlet is a 1948 British film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, adapted and directed by and starring Sir Laurence Olivier. Hamlet was Olivier's second film as director, and also the second of the three Shakespeare films that he directed...
(1948). After that, he focused his attentions on his opera Troilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida (opera)
Troilus and Cressida is the first of the two operas by William Walton. The libretto was by Christopher Hassall, his own first opera libretto, based on Chaucer's poem Troilus and Criseyde...
. On the advice of the BBC, he invited Christopher Hassall
Christopher Hassall
Christopher Vernon Hassall was an English actor, dramatist, librettist, lyricist and poet, who found his greatest fame in a memorable musical partnership with the actor and composer Ivor Novello after working together in the same touring company...
to write the libretto. This did not help Walton's relations with the Sitwells, each of whom thought he or she should have been asked to be his librettist. Work continued slowly over the next few years, with many breaks while Walton turned to other things. In 1950 he and Heifetz recorded the Violin Concerto for EMI. In 1951 Walton was knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
ed. In the same year, he prepared an authorised version of Façade, which had undergone many revisions since its premiere. In 1953, following the accession of Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
he was again called on to write a coronation march; he was also commissioned to write a Te Deum
Te Deum
The Te Deum is an early Christian hymn of praise. The title is taken from its opening Latin words, Te Deum laudamus, rendered literally as "Thee, O God, we praise"....
for the occasion.
Troilus and Cressida was presented at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
on 3 December 1954. Its preparation was dogged by misfortunes. Olivier, originally scheduled to direct it, backed out, as did Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
who had agreed to design the production; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, DBE was a German-born Austrian/British soprano opera singer and recitalist. She was among the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century, much admired for her performances of Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, and Wolf.-Early life:Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike...
, for whom the role of Cressida had been written, refused to perform it; her replacement, Magda László
Magda László
Magda László was a Hungarian operatic soprano particularly associated with 20th century operas.She studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, and made her debut at the Budapest Opera in 1943, as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, later singing Amelia in Simon Boccanegra.In 1946, she settled in...
, had difficulty mastering the English words; and Sir Malcolm Sargent, the conductor, "did not seem well acquainted with the score". The premiere had a friendly reception, but there was a general feeling that Hassall and Walton had written an old-fashioned opera in an outmoded tradition. The piece was subsequently staged in San Francisco, New York and Milan during the next year, but failed to make a positive impression, and did not enter the regular operatic repertory.
In 1956 Walton sold his London house and took up full-time residence on Ischia. He built a hilltop house at Forio
Forio
Forio is a town and comune of c. 17,000 inhabitants in the province in Naples, Italy, situated on the island of Ischia....
and called it La Mortella
La Mortella
La Mortella is a private garden in the island of Ischia, Italy. It was first opened to the public in 1992. It was created by Susana Walton , wife of the composer William Walton, in 1950 as the main residence for the couple....
. Susana Walton created a magnificent garden there. Walton's other works of the 1950s include the music for a fourth Shakespeare film, Olivier's Richard III
Richard III (1955 film)
Richard III is a 1955 British film adaptation of William Shakespeare's historical play of the same name, also incorporating elements from his Henry VI, Part 3. It was directed and produced by Sir Laurence Olivier, who also played the lead role. The cast includes many noted Shakespearean actors,...
, and the Cello Concerto
Cello Concerto (Walton)
Sir William Walton's Cello Concerto was written between February and October 1956, in Ischia, on a commission from the Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, to whom he dedicated it....
(1956), written for Gregor Piatigorsky
Gregor Piatigorsky
Gregor Piatigorsky was a Russian-born American cellist.-Early life:...
, who gave the premiere in January 1957 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
and the conductor Charles Munch. Some critics felt that the concerto was old-fashioned; Peter Heyworth
Peter Heyworth
Peter Lawrence Frederick Heyworth was an American-born English music critic and biographer. He wrote the definitive biography of Otto Klemperer and was a prominent supporter of avant-garde music....
wrote that there was little in the work that would have startled an audience in the year the Titanic met its iceberg (1912). However, it has entered the regular repertoire, performed by Paul Tortelier
Paul Tortelier
Paul Tortelier was a French cellist and composer.Tortelier was born in Paris, the son of a cabinet maker with Breton roots. He was encouraged to play the cello by his father Joseph and mother Marguerite , and at 12 he entered the Paris Conservatoire. He studied the cello there with Gérard Hekking...
, Yo Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell
Lynn Harrell
Lynn Harrell is an American classical cellist.-Biography:Harrell was born in New York City of musician parents; his father was the baritone Mack Harrell and his mother, Marjorie Fulton, was a violinist. At the age of eight he decided to learn to play the cello. When Lynn was 12, his family moved...
and Pierre Fournier
Pierre Fournier
Pierre Fournier was a French cellist who was called the "aristocrat of cellists," on account of his elegant musicianship and majestic sound....
, among others.
In 1966 Walton successfully underwent surgery for lung cancer. Until then he had been an inveterate pipe-smoker, but after the operation he never smoked again. While he was convalescing, he worked on a one-act comic opera, The Bear
The Bear (opera)
The Bear is the second of the two operas by William Walton, described in publication as an "Extravaganza in One Act". The libretto was by Paul Dehn, based on the play by Anton Chekhov of the same title .Walton composed the opera on commission from the Koussevitzsky Foundation, and dedicated the...
, which was premiered at Britten's Aldeburgh Festival
Aldeburgh Festival
The Aldeburgh Festival is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on the main concert hall at Snape Maltings...
, in June 1966, and enthusiastically received. Walton had become so used to being written off by music critics that he felt "there must be something wrong when the worms turned on some praise." Walton received the Order of Merit
Order of Merit
The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
in 1967, the fourth composer to be so honoured, after Elgar, Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
and Britten.
Walton's orchestral works of the 1960s include his Second Symphony
Symphony No. 2 (Walton)
The Symphony No. 2, composed by English composer William Walton, was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society to celebrate the city's 750th anniversary in 1957...
(1960), Variations on a Theme by Hindemith (1963), Capriccio burlesco
Capriccio burlesco
Capriccio burlesco is an orchestral work by Sir William Walton, written between May and September 1968 at his home in Ischia, Italy.It was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic in celebration of its 125th anniversary, and was dedicated to Andre Kostelanetz, who conducted the first performance...
(1968), and Improvisations on an Impromptu of Benjamin Britten (1969). His song-cycles from this period were composed for Peter Pears
Peter Pears
Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears CBE was an English tenor who was knighted in 1978. His career was closely associated with the composer Edward Benjamin Britten....
(Anon. in Love, 1960) and Schwarzkopf (A Song for the Lord Mayor's Table, 1962). He was commissioned to compose a score for the 1969 film Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...
, but the film company rejected most of his score, replacing it with music by Ron Goodwin
Ron Goodwin
Ronald Alfred Goodwin was a British composer and conductor known for his film music. He scored over 70 films in a career lasting over fifty years....
. A concert suite of Walton's score was published and recorded after Walton's death. After his experience over Battle of Britain, Walton declared that he would write no more film music, but he was persuaded by Olivier to compose the score for a film of Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
's Three Sisters in 1969.
Last years
Walton was never a facile or quick composer, and in his final decade, he found composition increasingly difficult. He repeatedly tried to compose a third symphony for André PrevinAndré Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
, but eventually abandoned it. Many of his final works are re-orchestrations or revisions of earlier music. He orchestrated his song cycle Anon. in Love (originally for tenor and guitar), and at the request of Neville Marriner
Neville Marriner
Sir Neville Marriner is an English conductor and violinist.-Biography:Marriner was born in Lincoln and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. He played the violin in the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Martin String Quartet and London Symphony Orchestra, playing with the...
adapted his A minor String Quartet as a Sonata for Strings. One original work from this period was his Jubilate Deo, premiered as one of several events to celebrate his seventieth birthday. The British prime minister, Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
, gave a birthday dinner for Walton at 10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street, colloquially known in the United Kingdom as "Number 10", is the headquarters of Her Majesty's Government and the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury, who is now always the Prime Minister....
, attended by royalty and Walton's most eminent colleagues; Britten presented a Walton evening at Aldeburgh, and Previn conducted an all-Walton concert at the Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
.
Walton revised the score of Troilus and Cressida, and the opera was staged at Covent Garden in 1976. Once again it was plagued by misfortune while in preparation. Walton was in poor health; Previn, who was to conduct, also fell ill; and the tenor chosen for Troilus pulled out. As in 1954, the critics were generally tepid. Some of Walton's final artistic endeavours were in collaboration with the film-maker Tony Palmer
Tony Palmer
Tony Palmer is an American football guard in the National Football League who is currently a free agent. The former University of Missouri guard who was selected by the St. Louis Rams. He was signed by the Green Bay Packers after being cut in the 2006 preseason by St. Louis...
. Walton took part in Palmer's profile of him, At the Haunted End of the Day, in 1981, and in 1982 Walton and his wife played the cameo roles of King Frederick Augustus
Frederick Augustus II of Saxony
Frederick Augustus II |Tyrol]], 9 August 1854) was King of Saxony and a member of the House of Wettin.He was the eldest son of Maximilian, Prince of Saxony --younger son of the Elector Frederick Christian of Saxony—by his...
and Queen Maria of Saxony in Palmer's nine-hour film Wagner
Wagner (mini-series)
Wagner is a 1983 film on the life of Richard Wagner. The title role was played by Richard Burton, who said it was the role he was born to play...
.
Walton died at La Mortella on 8 March 1983, at the age of 80. His ashes were buried on Ischia, and a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
, where a commemorative stone to Walton was unveiled near to those to Elgar and Britten.
Legacy
In 1944, it was said of Walton that he summed up the recent past of English music and augured its future. Later writers have concluded that Walton had little influence on the next generation of composers. In his later years, Walton formed friendships with younger composers including Hans Werner HenzeHans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
and Malcolm Arnold
Malcolm Arnold
Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
, but although he admired their work, he did not influence their compositional styles. Throughout his life, Walton held no posts at music conservatoires; he had no pupils, gave no lectures, and wrote no essays. After his death, the Walton Trust, inspired by Susana Walton, has run arts education projects, promoted British music and held annual summer masterclasses on Ischia for gifted young musicians.
Music
Walton was a slow worker. Both during composition and afterwards he would continually revise his music; he said, "Without an india-rubber I was absolutely sunk." Consequently, his total body of work from his sixty-year career as a composer is not large. Between the first performance of Façade in 1923, for example, and that of the Sinfonia Concertante in 1928, he averaged only one small piece a year. Of his work as a whole, Byron Adams in the Grove Dictionary of Music and MusiciansGrove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
writes:
The writer adds that Walton's allegiance to his basic style never wavered and that this loyalty to his own vision, together with his rhythmic vitality, sensuous melancholy, sly charm and orchestral flair, gives Walton's finest music "an imperishable glamour". Another biographer of Walton, Neil Tierney, writes that although contemporary critics felt that the post-war music did not match Walton's pre-war compositions, it has become clear that the later works are "if emotionally less direct, more profound."
Overtures and short orchestral pieces
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
have had a night on the tiles") in a fast moving score full of syncopation
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
and cross-rhythm
Cross-beat
In music, a cross-beat or cross-rhythm is a form of polyrhythm.Cross-rhythm. A rhythm in which the regular pattern of accents of the prevailing meter is contradicted by a conflicting pattern and not merely a momentary displacement that leaves the prevailing meter fundamentally unchallenged.—New...
that for years proved hazardous for conductors and orchestras alike. Throughout his career, Walton wrote works in this pattern, such as the lively Comedy Overture Scapino, a virtuoso piece commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
, "an ingenious blending of fragments in exhilarating profusion." Walton's post-war works in this genre are the Johannesburg Festival Overture (1956), the "diverting but hard-edged Capriccio burlesco" (1968), and the longer Partita (1957), written for the Cleveland Orchestra
Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1918, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall...
, described by Grove as "an impressively concentrated score with a high-spirited finale [with] steely counterpoint and orchestral virtuosity". Walton's shorter pieces also include two tributes to musical colleagues, Variations on a Theme by Hindemith (1963) and the Improvisations on an Impromptu of Benjamin Britten (1969), in both of which the source material is gradually transformed as Walton's own voice becomes more prominent.
Concertos and symphonies
Walton's first successful large-scale concert work, the Viola Concerto (1929) is in marked contrast to the raucous Portsmouth Point; despite the common influence of jazz and of the music of Hindemith and Ravel, in its structure and romantic longing it owes much to the Elgar Cello ConcertoCello Concerto (Elgar)
Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire. Elgar composed it in the aftermath of the First World War, by which time his music had gone out of fashion with the concert-going public...
. In this work, wrote Edward Sackville-West
Edward Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville
Edward Charles Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville was a British music critic, novelist and, in his last years, a member of the House of Lords. Musically gifted as a boy, he was attracted as a young man to a literary life and wrote a series of semi-autobiographical novels in the 1920s and '30s...
and Desmond Shawe-Taylor
Desmond Shawe-Taylor (music critic)
Desmond Christopher Shawe Taylor, , was a British writer, co-author of The Record Guide, music critic of The New Statesman, The New Yorker and The Sunday Times and a regular and long-standing contributor to The Gramophone.-Biography:Shawe-Taylor was born in Dublin, the elder of two sons of...
in The Record Guide
The Record Guide
The Record Guide was an English reference work, listing, describing and evaluating gramophone recordings of classical music in the 1950s. It was the precursor of modern guides such as The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music-Publication history:...
, "the lyric poet in Walton, who had so far been hidden under a mask of irony, fully emerged." Walton followed this pattern in his two subsequent concertos, for Violin (1937) and for Cello (1956). Each opens reflectively, is in three movements, and contrasts agitated and jagged passages with warmer romantic sections. The Cello Concerto is more introspective than the two earlier concertos, with a ticking rhythm throughout the work suggesting the inexorable passage of time.
The two symphonies are strongly contrasted with one another. The First is on a large scale, reminiscent at times of Sibelius. Grove says of the work that its "orgiastic power, coruscating malice, sensuous desolation and extroverted swagger" make the symphony a tribute to Walton's tenacity and inventive facility. However, critics have always differed on whether the finale lives up to the rest of the work. In comparison with the First, the Second Symphony struck many reviewers as lightweight, and, as with many of Walton's works of the 1950s, it was regarded as old fashioned. It is a very different kind of work from the First Symphony. David Cox describes it as "more a divertimento
Divertimento
Divertimento is a musical genre, with most of its examples from the 18th century. The mood of the divertimento is most often lighthearted and it is generally composed for a small ensemble....
than a symphony ... highly personal, unmistakably Walton throughout", and Kennedy calls it "somewhat enigmatic in mood, and a superb example of Walton's more mature, concise, and mellow post-1945 style."
Music for ballets, plays and films
Although generally a slow and perfectionist composer, Walton was capable of working quickly when necessary. Some of his stage and screen music was written to tight deadlines. He regarded his ballet and incidental music as of less importance than his concert works and was generally dismissive of what he produced. Of his ballets for Sadler's Wells, The Wise Virgins (1940) is an arrangement of eight extracts from choral and instrumental music by Bach. The Quest (1943), written in great haste, is, according to Grove, oddly reminiscent of Vaughan Williams. Neither of these works established itself in the regular repertoire, unlike the ballet score Walton arranged from the music of Façade, the music for which was expanded for full orchestra, still retaining the jazz influences and the iconoclastic wit of the original. Music from The Quest and the whole of the Viola Concerto were used for another Sadler's Wells ballet, O.W., in 1972.Walton wrote little incidental music for the theatre, his music for Macbeth (1942) being among the exceptions. For the cinema he wrote the music for 13 films between 1934 and 1969. He arranged the Spitfire Prelude and Fugue from his own score for The First of the Few (1942), and he allowed suites to be arranged from his Shakespeare film scores of the 1940s and 1950s. In these films, Walton mixed Elizabethan pastiche with wholly characteristic Waltonian music. Kennedy singles out for praise the Agincourt
Battle of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 , near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France...
battle sequence in Henry V, where Walton's music makes the charge of the French knights "fearsomely real." Despite Walton's view that film music is ineffective when performed out of context, suites from several more of his film scores have been put together since his death.
Opera
Walton worked for many years on his only full-length opera, Troilus and Cressida, both before its premiere and afterwards. It has never been regarded as a success. The libretto is generally considered weak, and Walton's music, despite many passages that have won critical praise, is not dramatic enough to sustain interest. Grove calls the work a partially successful attempt to revivify the traditions of 19th-century Italian opera in a post-war era wary of heroic Romanticism.Walton's only other opera, The Bear
The Bear (opera)
The Bear is the second of the two operas by William Walton, described in publication as an "Extravaganza in One Act". The libretto was by Paul Dehn, based on the play by Anton Chekhov of the same title .Walton composed the opera on commission from the Koussevitzsky Foundation, and dedicated the...
, based on a comic vaudeville by Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
, is judged by critics as much more successful. It is, however, a one-act piece, a genre not regularly staged at most opera houses, and so is rarely seen.
Chamber works
Apart from an early experiment in atonalism in his String Quartet (1919–22), which he later described as "full of undigested BartókBéla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
and Schoenberg", Walton's major essays in chamber music are his String Quartet in A Minor (1945–46) and the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1947–49). In the opinion of Adams in Grove's Dictionary, the quartet is one of Walton's supreme achievements. Earlier critics did not always share this view. In 1956 The Record Guide said, "[T]he material is not first class and the composition as a whole seems laboured." The work exists also in its later expanded form as the Sonata for Strings (1971), which, the critic Trevor Harvey wrote, combines Walton in his most energetically rhythmic mood with a "vein of lyrical tenderness which is equally characteristic and is so rewarding to listen to". The Violin Sonata is in two closely related movements, with strong thematic material in common. The first movement is nostalgically lyrical, the second a set of variations, each one a semitone
Semitone
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically....
higher than its predecessor. Walton briefly refers back to Schoenberg with a dodecaphonic
Twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
passage in the second movement, but otherwise the sonata is firmly tonal
Diatonic scale
In music theory, a diatonic scale is a seven note, octave-repeating musical scale comprising five whole steps and two half steps for each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps...
.
Choral and other vocal music
The Dream of Gerontius
The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory...
in 1900. None of Walton's later choral works have matched its popularity. They include In Honour of the City of London (1937) and a Gloria (1960–61) composed for the 125th anniversary of the Huddersfield Choral Society
Huddersfield Choral Society
Huddersfield Choral Society is an internationally famous choir based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1836, and is recognised as one of Britain's leading choirs...
.
Recordings
From the days of 78 rpm discs, when relatively little modern music was being put on record, Walton was favoured by the record companies. In 1929 he conducted a chamber ensemble to accompany Edith Sitwell and Constant LambertConstant Lambert
Leonard Constant Lambert was a British composer and conductor.-Early life:Lambert, the son of Russian-born Australian painter George Lambert, was educated at Christ's Hospital and the Royal College of Music...
in eleven movements from Façade, for the small, new Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
company. In the 1930s, he also had two of his major orchestral works on disc, both on Decca, the First Symphony recorded by Sir Hamilton Harty and the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Viola Concerto with Frederick Riddle
Frederick Riddle
Frederick Riddle OBE was an important British violist. He was considered to be in the line from Lionel Tertis and William Primrose, through to the violists of today such as Lawrence Power.-Biography:...
and the LSO conducted by Walton. In the 1940s Walton moved from Decca to its older, larger rival, EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
. The EMI producer Walter Legge
Walter Legge
Harry Walter Legge was an influential English classical record producer, most notably for EMI. His recordings include many sets later regarded as classics and reissued by EMI as "Great Recordings of the Century". He worked in the recording industry from 1927, combining this with the post of junior...
arranged a series of recordings of Walton's major works and many minor ones over the next twenty years; a rival composer expressed the view that if Walton had an attack of flatulence (he used an earthier expression), Walter Legge would record it.
Walton himself, although a reluctant conductor, conducted many of the EMI recordings, and some for other labels. He made studio recordings of the First Symphony, the Viola Concerto, the Violin Concerto, the Sinfonia Concertante, the Façade Suites, the Partita, Belshazzar's Feast, and suites from his film scores for Shakespeare plays and The First of the Few. Some live performances conducted by Walton were recorded and have been released on compact disc, including the Cello Concerto and the Coronation Te Deum.
All Walton's works have been recorded for the gramophone. EMI published a "Walton Edition" of his major works on CD in the 1990s, and the recording of the Chandos Records
Chandos Records
Chandos Records is an independent classical music recording company based in Colchester, Essex, in the United Kingdom, founded in 1979 by Brian Couzens.- Background :...
"Walton Edition" of all his works was completed in 2010. His best-known works have been recorded by performers from many countries. Among the frequently recorded are Belshazzar's Feast, the Viola and Violin Concertos, and the First Symphony, which has had more than twenty recordings since Harty's 1936 set.
External links
- William Walton Trust
- William Walton Online Archive. Archive of digitised works from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
- Walton pages at Oxford University Press
- Sir William Turner Walton (1902–1983), Composer, Sitter in 22 portraits (National Portrait Gallery collection)
- "The Jazz Age", lecture and concert by Chamber DomaineChamber DomaineChamber Domaine is a British chamber music ensemble. The ensemble gave its highly praised South Bank and Wigmore Hall debuts in 1999 and since then has performed at leading festivals and concert series in the United Kingdom, Europe and North America....
given on 6 November 2007 at Gresham CollegeGresham CollegeGresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.-History:Sir Thomas Gresham,...
, including Walton's Façade (available for audio and video download). - Walton, Cello Concerto performed by Julian Lloyd WebberJulian Lloyd WebberJulian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist who has been described as the "doyen of British cellists".-Early life:Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and his wife Jean Johnstone . He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber...
and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville MarrinerNeville MarrinerSir Neville Marriner is an English conductor and violinist.-Biography:Marriner was born in Lincoln and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. He played the violin in the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Martin String Quartet and London Symphony Orchestra, playing with the... - Interview: Composer Sir William Walton, as remembered by his wife, Lady Susana Walton (by Paolo Petrocelli)