Walton, Sir William

(Turner), English composer; b. Oldham, Lancashire, March 29, 1902; d. Ischia, Italy, March 8, 1983. Both his parents were professional singers, and Walton himself had a fine singing voice as a youth. Sir Hugh Allen, organist of New College, advised him to develop his interest in composition and sponsored his admission to Christ Church at an early age. Walton entered the Cathedral Choir School there and began to compose choral pieces for performance. However, he never graduated, and instead began to write modern music in the manner that was fashionable in the 1920s.

Walton's talent manifested itself in a string quartet he wrote at the age of 17, which was accepted for performance for the first festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1923. In London he formed a close association with the Sitwell family, a literary clan including the noted writer Edith Sitwell. They provided Walton with residence at their manor in Chelsea, where he lived off and on for some 15 years. Fascinated by Edith's oxymoronic verse, at the age of 19 Walton set it to music bristling with novel jazzy effects in brisk, irregular rhythms and modern harmonies. Under the title Façade, it was first performed in London in 1923, with Sitwell herself delivering her poetry. As expected, the show provoked an outburst of indignation in the press and undisguised delight among many in the audience.

However, Walton soon turned to writing music in a NEOCLASSICAL manner, including his CONCERT OVERTURE Portsmouth Point, first performed in Zurich in 1926, and the comedy-overture Scapino in 1941. His biblical ORATORIO Belshazzar's Feast of 1931 reveals a deep emotional stream and nobility of design that place Walton directly in line fro m GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL and EDWARD ELGAR amon g English masters. Walton's symphonic works show him as an inheritor of the grand ROMANTIC tradition, and his concertos for violin, for viola, and for cello demonstrate an adroitness in beautiful and effective instrumental writing.

Walton was a modernist in his acceptance of new musical styles, but he never deviated from fundamental TONALITY and formal clarity. Above all, his music was profoundly national, unmistakably British in its inspiration and content. Quite appropriately, he was asked to contribute to two royal occasions: he wrote Crown Imperial March for the coronation of King George VI in 1937 and Orb and Sceptre for that of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

Walton received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 1942, and in 1951 he was knighted. He spent the last years of his life on the island of Ischia off Naples with his Argentine-born wife, Susana Gil Passo.