|
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
William Walton
|
|
(1902–83, kt 1951) Composer who was virtually a member of the *Sitwell family from 1919 (he lived with them until 1934), and who first came to public attention with *Fac^,ade in 1923. Portsmouth Point followed in 1925, an orchestral overture inspired by a Rowlandson etching. One of his most ambitious works was *Belshazzar's Feast (1931). He was the most successful of British composers in turning his hand to film scores, above all for Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944), with its famous music for the Agincourt sequence. He provided the scores for two other Olivier films of Shakespeare (Hamlet 1948, Richard III 1955) and for The First of the Few (1942), about the development of the *Spitfire.
|
|
|
|