WorldView Episode 37: William Walton
Episode thirty-seven of WorldView features “Partita for Orchestra”, a work written by English composer William Walton in 1957. Though a lesser known British artist, Walton is remembered for his slow compositional process and modernist style.
Sir William Turner Walton was born in Lancashire, England in 1902. After somewhat unsuccessfully taking lessons on both violin and piano, Walton discovered his talent as a singer. At age ten, he enrolled in a cathedral school in Oxford, where he studied from 1912 to 1918. His earliest work on record, a choral piece entitled “A Litany”, represents much of his early style as a mature composer. After graduating from Christ Church at Oxford, Walton spent fifteen years living at the home of the Sitwells—a trio of siblings who crafted a literary and artist clique in the first two decades of the 1900s.
Walton’s first major work was a collaboration with one of the siblings, Edith Sitwell. Entitled “Façade”, each performance included a selection of Sitwell’s poems read over an instrumental arrangement orchestrated by Walton. The piece was horribly received; several critics stormed out of the performance hall and one of the musicians personally confronted the composer over the quality of music. However, “Façade” eventually entered the repertoire of the time, and Walton’s music was later used in a ballet of the same name. In the 1930s, the composer slowly drifted away from the Sitwell’s circle; he worked more with fellow musicians, including conductor Hamilton Harty (WorldView episode 26), who premiered his first symphony in 1935.
After Edward Elgar’s death in 1934, Walton became the face of “English” classical music. He shifted his style to write for the broader public, which frustrated some of his avant-garde supporters. He wrote scores for several WWII propaganda films, including “The First of the Few”, released in 1942. In 1948, he met Susana Gil Passo—who was twenty four years younger than Walton—and they married before settling on the Italian island of Ischia. He passed away in 1983, leaving behind more than 60 years of compositions. This episode of WorldView features Walton’s “Partita for Orchestra”, completed in 1957. It is performed by cellist Raphael Wallfisch, along with Bryden Thomson and the London Philharmonic.
WorldView Episode Thirty-Seven Playlist:
Igor STRAVINSKY, “The Rite of Spring”, {Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan) - Deutsche grammophon
Bettie ROSS, “Milestone”, {Suzanne Mueller (clo)} - Suzanne Mueller (self-published)
William WALTON, “Partita for Orchestra”, {The London Philharmonic, Bryden Thomson, Raphael Wallfisch (clo)} - Naxos
WorldView is a classical music radio show featuring composers from everywhere in the world - except Western Europe. Tune in to hear works by lesser-known artists such as Irving Fine and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and widen your knowledge of classical music. Hinke Younger hosts each week’s episode of WorldView on Mondays at 9AM and 6PM (with a rebroadcast Saturdays at 2PM) on Charlottesvilleclassical.org.