William Walton: Muse of Fire

When in June 1923 a bewildered audience in London’s Aeolian Hall heard Edith Sitwell declaim her Façade poems through a megaphone, the 21-year-old William Walton – conducting behind a painted backcloth – stood on the threshold of fame. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s he was regarded as the white hope of British music, and a succession of works including the Viola Concerto, Belshazzar’s Feast and the First Symphony more than fulfilled that early promise; he was also one of the first serious composers to be involved in films. Using first-hand accounts, this book explodes the myth of Façade’s riotous reception, examines Walton’s work in both films and radio and, through contemporary correspondence, articles and interviews – wherever possible in his own words – explores Walton’s life and troubled times. It brings to the fore his complex personality – “”remote, removed, distant”” in Laurence Olivier’s words, in dynamic contrast with music of such vitality and drama. Composition for him was an arduous, often painful, process riddled with difficulties, uncertainties and self-doubts, and further complicated by several love affairs (one being with Italy) that inspired his finest works. —- ISBN: 9780851158037 | ISBN10: 085115803X | ISBN-13: 978-0851158037