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Sir William Turner Walton, OM ( March 29 , 1902 – March 8 , 1983 ) was a British Composer and Conductor . His style was influenced by the works of Stravinsky , Sibelius and Jazz , and is characterized by rhythmic vitality, bittersweet Harmony , sweeping Romantic Melody and brilliant Orchestration . His output includes orchestral and choral works, Chamber Music and ceremonial music, as well as notable Film Scores . His earliest works, especially Edith Sitwell 's '' Façade '' brought him notoriety as a modernist, but it was with orchestral symphonic works and the Oratorio '' Belshazzar's Feast '' that he gained international recognition. He was Knighted in 1951, and was admitted to the Order Of Merit in 1967. He died in Ischia , Italy , where he had settled in 1949. BIOGRAPHY Early life and rise to fame Walton was born into a musical family.Kennedy, Michael ''Portrait of Walton'' Oxford University Press, 1989 ISBN 0-19-816705-9 p5 At the age of ten, Walton was accepted as a chorister at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford , and he subsequently entered Christ Church, Oxford as an undergraduate at the unusually early age of sixteenKennedy, p.6/7. He was largely self-taught as a composer (poring over new scores in the Ellis Library , notably those by Stravinsky, Debussy , Sibelius and Roussel ), but received some tutelage from Hugh Allen , the cathedral organist.Kennedy, p.9/10 At Oxford Walton befriended two poets — Sacheverell Sitwell and Siegfried Sassoon — who would prove influential in publicizing his music.Kennedy, p.14 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. Perhaps the most daring harmonic features of the work are the pungent augmented-chord inflections, notably in the striking final cadence. Walton left Oxford without a degree in gained only slight international recognition, including a performance at the 1923 festival of the International Society For Contemporary Music in Salzburg , with a much appreciative Alban Berg in attendance. During the 1920s, Walton made a little income playing piano at jazz clubs, but spent most of his time composing in the Sitwells' attic. The orchestral '' Belshazzar's Feast '' ( 1931 ), the Symphony No. 1 (1935), the coronation march '' Crown Imperial '' ( 1937 ), and the Violin Concerto ( 1939 ). Each of these works remains firmly entrenched in the repertoire today. Though ''Belshazzar's Feast'' is a cornerstone of the repertoire of any up-and-coming choral society, the First Symphony remains a challenge even to professional orchestras without generous rehearsal time to devote to it. The (almost 'beating the themes to death'). But around this skeletal frame, the movement is shot through with smaller Sibelius -like motifs (such as the opening horn call) which run throughout the movement and bind it together. The thematic rigour and shattering emotional power of the movement — and the Symphony as a whole — may be attributed to this unique method of musical construction. Benjamin Chewter, undergraduate dissertation, University of Cambridge 2006 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 ), which Winston Churchill encouraged Olivier to adapt as if it were a piece of morale-boosting propaganda. 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 ). The opera was not widely acclaimed, and it was from this point that Walton's reputation as an old-fashioned composer became confirmed. Walton also composed the music for two more Shakespeare-Olivier films - the Academy Award -winning '' Hamlet '', and '' Richard III ''. Walton, however, did not win Oscars for any of his Shakespeare-based scores. After ''Troilus and Cressida'', Walton returned to orchestral music, composing in rapid succession the Cello Concerto ( 1956 ), the Symphony No. 2 (1960), and his masterpiece of the post-war period, the Variations On A Theme By Hindemith (1963). 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. Indeed, he was far from forgotten, having been Knighted in 1951 and received the Order Of Merit in 1968 . His one-act comic opera, '' The Bear '', was well received at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1967 , and commissions came from as far afield as the New York Philharmonic ('' Capriccio Burlesco '', 1968), and the San Francisco Symphony ('' Improvisations On An Impromptu Of Benjamin Britten '', 1969). His song-cycles from this period were premiered by artists as illustrious as Peter Pears ('' Anon. In Love '', 1960) and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf ('' A Song For The Lord Mayor's Table '', 1962 ). In his final decade, Walton found composition increasingly difficult. He repeatedly tried to compose a third symphony for André Previn , but later abandoned the work. His final works are mostly re-orchestrations or revisions of earlier music, and liturgical choral music. He had settled on the island of Ischia in Italy in 1949 with his Argentinian wife Susana Gil, and it was at his home there where he died in 1983 . 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. Walton was Knighted in 1951 and appointed to the Order Of Merit in 1967. WORKS Opera
Ballet
Orchestral works
Concertante works
Choral music
Chamber music
Solo vocal music
Film scores
Incidental music
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