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Art --- Alwyn, William
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Ian Johnson's evaluation of Alwyn's film music places his achievement in the context of wider movements within the film industry. William Alwyn was a leading composer of British film music in the 1940s and '50s, a time when the British film industry was at its peak. His scores ranged from documentaries to almost 80 full-length feature films, including classics such as Fires were Started, Desert Victory, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, and The History of Mr Polly; he was adept at any musical genre, from classical to cartoon slapstick, and in the process worked with legendary directors, including Carol Reed, David Lean, Humphrey Jennings, and Anthony Asquith. Alone with Vaughan Williams he was granted the distinction of a separate title credit; columnists mentioned him alongside Bliss, Bax and Walton. However, as the reputation of the British film industry declined in the 1950s, so musical snobbery against those who were its leading lights became unpleasantly raw. In recent years, however, with sensitive performances of hisfilm and concert music available on CD, this most appealing of composers has enjoyed something of a renaissance. In this long overdue reassessment, Alwyn's films are analysed and put into the context of his biography,the film industry, and of society at large: the author shows in particular this remarkably versatile composer developed a hitherto unrecognised grammar of film music which enhanced every film on which he worked. He also examines his work for war propaganda, radio, and the concert hall. The volume is enhanced by the most complete filmography, discography, and bibliography of the composer's works yet published, as well as listings of his concert and radio music.
Motion picture music --- History and criticism. --- Alwyn, William,
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This first extended biography of William Alwyn sets his works in full context and uses hitherto unpublished material to give a vivid account of his marriages, his operas and his relationship with Britten. This book is the first full-scale biography of William Alwyn since his death in 1985. Alwyn's early life as a flautist was altered when he became a leading composer of the Documentary Film Movement in the 1930s, going on to a prolific career in writing for feature films, including commissions for Walt Disney and Carol Reed. By the mid 1950s his reputation was established by the beginning of his four-symphony cycle, his many tone poems, concertos, chamber and piano pieces. An habitué of the London film studios and concert halls, and a prominent professor at the Royal Academy of Music, a major crisis in Alwyn's life precipitated an escape to the Suffolk coast in 1960, where he turnedhis back on film music and immersed himself in the writing of operas [including Miss Julie], poetry, essays, fiction and painting. Adrian Wright's book balances detailed analysis of Alwyn's work with a vivid account of his marriages to the musician Olive Pull and the composer Doreen Carwithen, relationships that profoundly affected the course of his career. Using a mass of hitherto unpublished material [including an unexpurgated version of his noted Ariel to Miranda] and interviews with prominent figures in Alwyn's life, the volume places his achievements in the musical context of his time, along the way dealing with his relationship with Benjamin Britten,and such hitherto almost unknown works as Don Juan, The Fairy Fiddler and the radio opera Farewell, Companions. ADRIAN WRIGHT is the author of the acclaimed Foreign Country: The Life of L.P. Hartley (1996) and John Lehmann: A Pagan Adventure (1998), and is a contributor to The New Dictionary of National Biography.
Composers --- Alwyn, William, --- Alban, Wilfred, --- Biography. --- Documentary Film Movement. --- Essays. --- Fiction. --- Film Music. --- Musicology. --- Painting. --- Poetry. --- Relationships. --- Walt Disney. --- William Alwyn.
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