SirWilliam WaltonOM, (bornOldham, 29 March 1902; diedIschia,Italy, 8 March 1983) was aBritishcomposer andconductor. He was one of the most important British composers of the mid-20th century, a period that includedBenjamin Britten andMichael Tippett. His music has very livelyrhythms which are oftenjazzy.
Walton’s family were musical but they had very little money. Both his parents sang, and Walton sang in the local church choir. His father would hit him if he made a mistake. This may be why in later life he was so careful about every note he wrote.
At the age of ten he joined thechoir ofChrist Church Cathedral inOxford. He learned thepiano andviolin. He was only 16 years when he went toOxford University where he was atChrist Church, Oxford. Most of what he knew about composing he taught himself. He studied thescores of works byIgor Stravinsky,Claude Debussy,Jean Sibelius and others. He had some lessons fromHugh Allen, the cathedral organist. At Oxford Walton became friends with two poets:Sacheverell Sitwell andSiegfried Sassoon. Most of the music he wrote when he was very young has been lost, but the choral anthemA Litany, written when he was just fifteen, shows his musical talent with its modernharmonies.
Walton left Oxford in 1920 without a degree, having failed his exams three times. He went to live with the Sitwell family, who introduced him to many important people, including the composerConstant Lambert and song writerNoel Coward. He also travelled with the Sitwells toItaly. In 1923, he set one of Edith Sitwell’s poems to music. The piece was calledFaçade. The music was very jazzy and almostjokey, and it sounded very modern to many people at that time.
During the 1920s, Walton earned some money playing thepiano at jazz clubs, but he spent most of his time composing in the Sitwells'attic. The orchestraloverturePortsmouth Point (which he dedicated to Sassoon) was the first work which shows Walton’s real style. In 1929, the Viola Concerto started to make him really famous. This was followed byBelshazzar's Feast (1931), the Symphony No. 1 (1935), thecoronationmarchCrown Imperial (1937), and the Violin Concerto (1939). All these works are very popular today.
DuringWorld War II, Walton did not have to do military service so he had time to compose music forpropaganda films, such asThe First of the Few (1942), andLaurence Olivier's adaptation ofShakespeare'sHenry V (1944). After composing a secondstring quartet (1946) Walton spent most of the next seven years writing his opera,Troilus and Cressida (1947 – 1954). The opera was not very popular. This was because his music was rather Romantic, very different from a lot of modern music that was in fashion in the 1950s, especially the music ofPierre Boulez and his followers.
Walton also composed the music for two more Shakespeare-Olivier films - theAcademy Award-winningHamlet, andRichard III. Walton, however, did not win Oscars for any of his Shakespeare-based scores.
Walton then started to write more orchestral music: the Cello Concerto (1956), the Symphony No. 2 (1960), and theVariations on a Theme by Hindemith(1963). He started to have many honours: He wasknighted in 1951 and received theOrder of Merit in 1968. People liked his one-act comic operaThe Bear, when it was performed at theAldeburgh Festival in 1967, and he was asked by people from all over the world for new music. Hissong-cycles from this period were given their first performances by famous singers such asPeter Pears andElisabeth Schwarzkopf.
In his last years, Walton found composition more and more difficult. He tried to compose a third symphony forAndré Previn, but later gave up. His last works were mostlychurch music or reworkings of older pieces.. He had settled on the island ofIschia inItaly in 1949 with hisArgentine wife Susana Gil. He died there in 1983.
Since his death, Walton's music has been performed and recorded a lot. People no longer think of him as old-fashioned, but as a composer who had a very strong personality which can be heard clearly in his music.
Walton wasknighted in 1951 and appointed to theOrder of Merit in 1967.
