Composer, born in Oldham, Lancashire, NW England, UK. He studied at Oxford, where he wrote his first compositions, and became known through his instrumental setting of poems by Edith Sitwell, Façade (1923). His works include two symphonies, concertos for violin, viola, and cello, the biblical cantata Belshazzar's Feast (1931), and the opera Troilus and Cressida (1954). He is also known for his film music, notably for Olivier's Henry V, Hamlet, and Richard III. He was knighted in 1951.
| William Walton | |
|---|---|
| Sir William Walton on the set of one of his operas | |
| Born |
March 29, 1902 Oldham, Lancashire, England, UK |
| Died |
March 8, 1983 Ischia, Italy |
Sir William Turner Walton, OM (March 29, 1902–March 8, 1983) was a British composer whose style was influenced by the works of Stravinsky, Sibelius and jazz. He is primarily remembered for his orchestral works, choral music, film scores, and ceremonial music. Having proved adept at writing ceremonial music, he was exempted from military service during World War II in order to compose scores for patriotic British films.
Biography
Early Life and Rise to Fame
Walton was born in Oldham, Lancashire, to a musical family. At Oxford Walton befriended two poets — Sacheverell Sitwell and Siegfried Sassoon — who would prove influential in publicizing his music. Little of Walton's juvenilia survives, but the choral anthem A Litany, written when he was just fifteen, exhibits striking harmonies and voice-leading which was more advanced than that of many older contemporary composers in Britain.
Walton left Oxford without a degree in 1920 for failing Responsions, to lodge in London with the literary Sitwell siblings — Sacheverell, Osbert and Edith — as an 'adopted, or elected, brother'. Through the Sitwells, Walton became familiar with many of the most important figures in British music between the World Wars, particularly his fellow composer, Constant Lambert, and also in the arts, notably Noel Coward, Lytton Strachey, Rex Whistler, Peter Quennell, Cecil Beaton and others.
During the 1920s, Walton made a little income playing piano at jazz clubs, but spent most of his time composing in the Sitwells' attic. 1 (written 1931-35) had an unusual genesis: Walton was experiencing a tempestuous relationship with Imma von Doernberg, who finally left him for the Hungarian doctor Tibor Csato. It is evident to the listener that a cloud has lifted, and this is explained by the fact that Walton became stuck after the slow movement, but his new relationship with Alice Wimborne provided the musical impetus and inspiration for the last movement — although he still dedicated the Symphony as a whole to Imma von Doernberg. In musical terms, the work is a landmark of English composition and represents the peak of Walton's symphonic thinking. Walton cleverly draws on both sources: the first movement is written in Beethovenian sonata form, and the developmental procedures clearly derive from Beethoven (almost 'beating the themes to death'!).
After World War II
During World War II, Walton was granted leave from military service in order to compose music for propagandistic films, such as The First of the Few (1942) and Laurence Olivier's adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V (1944). By the mid-1940s, the rise to fame of younger composers such as Benjamin Britten substantially curtailed Walton's reception among music critics, though the public always received his music enthusiastically. After composing a second string quartet (1946), his strongest achievement in the world of chamber music, Walton dedicated the considerable period of seven years to his three-act tragic opera, Troilus and Cressida (1947-1954).
After Troilus and Cressida, Walton returned to orchestral music, composing in rapid succession the Cello Concerto (1956), the Symphony No. His music from the 1960s shows a great reluctance to accept the post-war avant-garde trends espoused by Boulez and others, as Walton preferred to compose in the post-Romantic style which he had found most rewarding. His final works are mostly re-orchestrations or revisions of earlier music, and liturgical choral music. Since his death, Walton's music has gained a resurgence of attention, both in live performance and recordings. Indeed, as the history of post-war classical music continues to be re-evaluated, Walton is seen less as old-fashioned representative of a lost era, and more as a strong individualist who wrote in an attractive, personal idiom.
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