Last updated Richard III, 1955, for which Walton composed his twelfth film score
The English composer William Walton wrote the music for fourteen films between 1934 and 1969. He often had the musical assistance of Hyam Greenbaum and later Roy Douglas who orchestrated short sections of the music under Walton's supervision.[1]
In general, Walton disapproved of the performance of his film music in the concert hall or on record: "Film music is not good film music if it can be used for any other purpose".[2] But he was willing to make limited exceptions, and he allowed concert and recorded performances of some of his film music, notably that for Henry V, Hamlet and Richard III. For EMI he conducted the suites Muir Mathieson arranged from the first and third of these scores. After Walton's death the musicologist Christopher Palmer constructed suites from several others of his film scores.
Studio orchestra conducted by Hyam Greenbaum. Film first shown: London Pavilion, 14 October 1935.[3][4]
Walton arranged the music for the ballet scene of the film for solo piano in 1935.[5] In 1990 Palmer arranged a three-movement suite from the score:[6]
A voice and piano arrangement of the song "Under the Greenwood Tree" (composed for, but not used in, the film) was published in 1936 and an arrangement for unison voices was published the following year.[8] In 1986 Carl Davis extracted a seven-movement orchestra suite from the film score:[9]
Title Music
Fountain scene – Wrestling scene
Sunrise
Procession
Snake Scene
Waterfall Scene
Hymn, "Now there is joy in Heaven" (chorus and orchestra)
In 1989 Palmer, adding the original setting of "Under the Greenwood Tree" for soprano and orchestra, arranged music from the film into "A Poem for Orchestra, after Shakespeare":[10]
In his chapter on Walton's film music in the 1999 William Walton: Music and Literature, Stephen Lloyd writes that the soundtrack contains little of Walton's own music: "The title music is built largely out of a theme from the Beethoven Concerto, and the only music of interest is found in a brief passage when the husband is ill and in a dream sequence that follows".[11]
Lloyd comments, "In A Stolen Life Walton was able to offer a rather more substantial score, the most dramatic moment being the extensive storm sequence in which Sylvia drowns. Here Walton provides music to match the force and ferocity of Sibelius'sTempest Prelude".[13]
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson. Film first shown: Nassau, Bahamas, 21 March 1941: Odeon, Leicester Square London, 4 August 1941.[3][14]
Palmer writes that as well as a distinguished cast, the film had "a distinguished Walton score, from which nothing was ever extracted for independent use". Palmer arranged some of the music into what he called a "Shavian Sequence", in four sections played continuously:[15]
Studio orchestra conducted by Ernest Irving. Film first shown: Curzon Theatre. London, January 1942 (invited audience). Public showing: London Pavilion, 15 May 1942.[3][16]
No independent music was extracted from this score in the composer's lifetime. Palmer writes:
Walton's music for ... Went the Day Well?, Next of Kin, and The Foreman Went to France has remained almost completely unknown, one reason being that there is so little of it. The film-makers evidently feared that too much music on the soundtrack would detract from the "realism" at which they were aiming.[6]
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson. Film first shown: Leicester Square Theatre, London, 20 August 1942.[3][18]
Walton was content to have the "Spitfire Prelude and Fugue" from the score published and performed in concert. He conducted the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in the first concert performance in January 1943. Malcolm Sargent conducted the first London performance the following month.[19] Walton conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra in an EMI recording made in the No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road in October 1963.[20]
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson. Film first shown: London. Carlton, Haymarket 22 November 1944.[21][23]
Walton allowed two self-contained sections of the score to be played in concert: the passacaglia "Death of Falstaff" and "Touch Her Soft Lips and Part", both for strings only. He conducted the Philharmonia in a recording of the two, issued by HMV in 1946.[24] Sargent included those two movements in a four-movement suite for orchestra with chorus in 1946. Mathieson arranged a five-movement purely orchestral suite in 1963, which Walton conducted in the recording studio in the same year.[20] In 1988 Palmer constructed what he called "Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario" for orchestra and actor, from Walton's score and Shakespeare's words. It expands considerably on the Sargent and Matheson arrangements, and has a playing time of around an hour. The sections are:[25]
Philharmonia conducted by Muir Mathieson. Film first shown: Odeon, Leicester Square, London, 6 May 1948.[21][26]
The opening titles were adapted as the Funeral March by Mathieson in 1963. Four years later he arranged a "poem for orchestra", Hamlet and Ophelia, from the film score (Walton thought it "frightfully dull"). Some fanfares from the film were grouped into one piece, Fanfare for a Great Occasion, by Sargent in 1962.[27] In 1990 Palmer extracted another "Shakespeare Scenario" for speaker and orchestra:[10]
Prelude
Fanfare and Soliloquy
The Ghost
Hamlet and Ophelia
The Question – "To be or not to be"
The Mousetrap – The Players – Entry of the Court – The Play
Walton extracted and adapted his Three Pieces for Organ – March, Elegy and Scherzetto – from the film score in 1955.[29]
In 1963 Mathieson arranged some of the score into a seven-movement suite:[30]
Prelude
Fanfare
Music Plays
The Princes in the Tower
With Drums and Colours
I Would I Knew Thy Heart
Trumpets Sound.
In 1989 Palmer expanded the published suite into what he called "A Shakespeare Scenario", with an important spoken part delivering some of Shakespeare's lines.[31]
Studio orchestra conducted by Malcolm Arnold. Film first shown: London. Dominion Cinema. 15 September 1969.[21][32]
Of Walton's original score only his "Battle in the Air" sequence was used in the film.[33] The rest of the score remained unknown until 1988 when the musicologist and composer Colin Matthews arranged a two-movement concert suite, which Carl Davis conducted for EMI:[6]
Studio orchestra conducted by Marc Wilkinson. Film first shown: Sala Volpi, Venice, 26 August 1970; London: Cameo-Poly, 2 November 1970.[21][34]
Palmer extracted a three-movement suite from the score in 1989:[6]
Opening titles
Dream sequence
End titles
A Wartime Sketchbook
In addition to suites drawn from single Walton film scores, Palmer drew on several scores for his A Wartime Sketchbook (1990), which has these eight movements:[35]
Prologue, from music for Went the Day Well? and The Next of Kin
Bicycle-chase, from The Next of Kin and The Foreman went to France
Refugees, from The Foreman went to France
Scherzo – "Gay Berlin", from Battle of Britain
Foxtrots, from The Next of Kin
Lovers, from The Next of Kin
Striptease, from The Next of Kin
Epilogue, from The Foreman Went to France
Recordings
Walton made several studio recordings of his film music between 1943 and 1963, issued on EMI's HMV or Columbia labels:
Work
Orchestra/speaker
Recorded
Ref
The First of the Few: "Spitfire Prelude and Fugue"
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