Sir William Walton
One of Britain’s greatest ever composers, was born on the 29th of March 1902 at 93 Werneth Hall Road, Oldham, Lancashire. William Turner Walton’s birthplace was a typical Pennine mill town, characterised by factory chimneys, terraced houses and extremes of wealth and poverty. His determination to escape the drab, grey streets of Oldham, combined with a highly developed self critical awareness produced a fabulous body of work of the highest standard. This shy and reserved, yet inherently romantic Lancastrian, in whom stubborn independence and musical sensitivity were finely blended, would become the leading British musical figure between Vaughan Williams and Britten.
His father, Charles Alexander Walton, was the son of an Inland Revenue official from Hale in Cheshire.
Charles had a fine Bass-baritone voice and was one of first pupils at new Royal
Manchester College of Music. He became the organist and choirmaster at St
John’s Church, Werneth, for 21 years and supplemented his modest income
teaching music at Hulme Grammar School and private lessons for organ and
singing. William’s mother Louisa Maria Turner, the daughter of a furniture
manufacturer from Stretford, was a professional contralto. She married Charles
Walton after meeting him at a recital she gave in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Charles
had a job in Platt’s iron works so they began their married life in Oldham.
Louisa found it hard to make her living as a singer but every year she gave a
recital with local pianist Willy Lawton. They had four children, Noel in 1899,
William in 1902, Nora in 1908 and finally Alexander in 1910.
The Walton children had a very
strict Anglican upbringing. William and Noel were choirboys in St John’s Church
Choir. Their father was strict disciplinarian with a violent temper, he rapped
William’s knuckles every time he made a mistake in the choir but this
experience and the Anglican anthems and secular vocal music he heard at home,
laid foundations of his musical life.
William Walton had
piano and organ lessons at home. For a short time he studied violin but his
father stopped the lessons because he felt that William was lax about
practicing. Charles was quite bitter about his own lack of musical success and
was determined that his sons should not enter the Music profession, but he saw
an opportunity for William to gain a superior education at Oxford, when voice
trials for scholarships at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford were advertised in
the Manchester City News, in 1912.
On
the train journey to Oxford William was sick and he arrived late for the trials
because he and his mother had missed first train. The local greengrocer had to
lend them the money for the trip, because his father had not returned from the
pub the night before. His mother pleaded for William to be heard and organist
Dr Henry G Ley accepted him after he sang Marcello’s “O Lord our Governor”.
William soon realised he had exchanged the ‘nightmare’ of a board school in
Oldham for the snobbishness of an Oxford boarding school. His Lancashire accent
caused him to be mercilessly teased and his first term was made “odious”.
Although he later learnt to disguise his accent, he would never lose it
completely.
With a scholarship to the Choir
School William was given treble solos with the choir and lessons in piano and
violin. His proficiency with both instruments was limited by his ‘clumsy’
hands. However he was quite good at sports and because he was small, he was
allowed to cox the college boat. On one occasion he ran it aground on a curve
in the river, a shout came from the shore “Cox, you’ve buggered that boat”.
The dreaming spires of Oxford
were a world apart from the dark satanic mills of Oldham. William was terrified
he would have to leave when World War One started and his family’s financial
circumstances were strained as his father’s students left to join up. William
would have had to return to Oldham to work as office boy or cotton mill clerk,
if it were not for the intervention of Dr Thomas Strong, Dean of Christ Church
and later Bishop of Oxford. Dr Strong recognized William’s talent and arranged
to pay the balance of his fees, which were not covered by the scholarship.
William was already composing
anthems and songs, which Dr Strong showed to Sir Hubert Parry. ’There’s a lot
in this chap, you must keep an eye on him’, advised Parry. William wrote to his
mother about his subsequent meeting with the celebrated composer: ‘I went to
see Sir Hubert Parry on last Sunday afternoon and had quite along talk with
him. He is an awfully jolly old person.’ The young Walton was determined to
make himself ‘interesting somehow or when my voice breaks, I’ll be sent home to
Oldham’. He had begun composing to avoid this fate and although he would later
exaggerate his lack of music education, the careful training and supervision of
Hugh Allen, then organist at New College, later Professor of Music at Oxford
University and Director of Royal College of Music, helped his talent to
flourish.
Dr Strong and Hugh Allen
introduced William to music of Stravinski, Schoenberg, Ravel, Debussy and
Prokofiev, the avant-garde of their time. He then spent most of his time in the
Ellis Music Library studying scores by Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev and Stravinski,
which later helped him to develop his orchestral composing skills. In the
holidays, at Oldham, his father took him to Hallé concerts in Manchester and
Sir Thomas Beecham’s famous opera seasons in Manchester 1916 and 1917. Here he
heard Rimsky Korsakov’s “ Coq d’or”, which transformed his attitude to music
and composition.
In 1918, Dr Strong arranged
William’s entry to the University at age 16. He had already composed his first
large-scale composition a ‘Piano Quartet’; this was very influenced by Ravel
and the ‘andante tranquillo’ has many similarities to the French composer’s
song ‘Le Martin Pêcheur’ from ‘Histoires Naturelles’. Two early songs by Walton
had Shakespeare texts ‘Tell me where is fancy bred’ and ‘Where the bee sucks
there suck I’. A copy of the first is held at The British Library; the latter
song seems to be lost.
At Oxford William’s musical talents caught the
attention of Sacheverell Sitwell, who insisted his older brother Osbert came to
Oxford to encounter a ‘genius’. The friendship that formed between Walton and
the Sitwells would launch the young composer’s career. Having failed three
times to pass an obligatory B.A. exam Walton was sent down from Oxford in 1920
without a degree. Sacheverell invited him to stay a few weeks with his family;
he lived with them for over a decade. The Sitwell siblings Sacheverell, Osbert
and Edith, were intellectual aesthetes who made a flamboyant impact on London’s
literary circles. William lived in their attic at Swan Walk in Chelsea and
moved with them to 2 Carlyle Square, where his attic room was furnished with a
piano and the Sitwell’s housekeeper looked after him. They were rarely at home,
yet provided their protégé with a freedom from financial concerns, time to
compose and lively cultural education.
Most significantly they took him
on his first trip abroad to Italy in the spring of 1920. It rained continuously
as they crossed France in the uncomfortable train carriage, but when the train
emerged from the tunnel under the Alps, the glorious sunshine of Italy
overwhelmed him: ‘there it was, ablaze with sunlight. I’ve never forgotten it,
a new world.’
As they travelled on down to Amalfi, Walton
realised he would never get over this experience of Mediterranean sunlight and
the lyrical musical tradition of Southern Italy. The visit changed his whole
attitude about life and music.
The
old Roman town of Amalfi is renowned for its mild climate and warm winter sun,
which has attracted has visitors for centuries. The Sitwells and their friends
came every winter. It was peaceful for working and inexpensive. They stayed in
a former monastery perched on the edge of the cliff. The Albergo Cappuccini was
owned by the aristocratic Don Alfredo Vozzi, who lived in a monks’ cell in
middle of the hotel. Each cell had a spectacular view of the sea and Walton was
given small upright piano in a back laundry room to help him work. He never
really liked using the piano, as he had perfect pitch and could hear the music
in his head.
He loved Amalfi but his
enthusiasm was not shared by all the Sitwell’s friends, who felt it was too
remote and rarely visited in winter. The Sitwell parties would often walk to
Ravello to lunch at the Hotel Caruso, passing the old paper mills on the edge
of the gorge above Amalfi, from where Walton would later order his Manuscript
paper. The landscape of sea and mountains with pretty villages poised on
soaring crags was breathtaking and Walton fell under its spell.
They also stayed at Sir George
Sitwell’s castle, Montegufoni, south of Florence. The domain had a purpose
built hamlet and a chapel. The local priest had a passion for amateur dramatics
and one night the sleeping family and visitors were alarmed by the sound of
ferocious roaring like doomed souls being roasted in hell. The priest had
decided to rehearse the lion scene from ‘Quo Vadis’, and was teaching the
villagers their part! During the day the villagers harvested the grapes and
figs and cicadas would whirr in the heat. At twilight nightingales serenaded in
the cool evening air. William felt happy and fulfilled.
In the 1920’s the Sitwells were
little known outside the small and exclusive circles of London society, yet
they are now synonymous with the era. Lady Colvin considered them ‘quite nice
and amusing young people if only they would not write poetry.’ They opened a
whole world to Walton: Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, jazz at The Savoy, and
contemporary music concerts where he met Stravinski, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.
They actively discouraged him from going to a Music College because they felt
it created mediocre composers. He met Christabel McLaren, who became Lady
Aberconway, who often gave him financial support, and many other composers
forming strong friendships with Constant Lambert and Angus Morrison. Dr Strong
continued to support him, and he was also assisted financially by the composer
Lord Berners and the poet Siegfried Sassoon.
The Sitwell’s entourage of
eccentric and flamboyant characters, perhaps this suited Walton’s shy
reservation, expressing him his inner passion while he maintain a cool
exterior. The flamboyant vivacity of this lifestyle was in complete contrast to
his upbringing, yet nurtured his wicked sense of humour and delight in the
outrageous when unexpected, which remained part of his character all his life.
The Sitwells encouraged rivalry between their protégés Constant Lambert and
Walton, but the two composers became great friends and supported each other
through the eccentric behaviour of their patrons. This rivalry however gave
birth to Walton’s first important score ‘Façade’ in 1922.
The music influenced by the dawn
of the Jazz era, which was sweeping across Europe, yet it is also is redolent
with Walton’s impressions of Italy; the fanfare at the beginning of ‘Long Steel
Grass’ was adapted from a street fortune teller’s trumpet call, which he heard
in Syracuse. Setting 18 of Edith’s poems as an
‘entertainment’, ‘Façade’ was to be recited over a musical background
through a sengerphone thrust through a painted curtain. In its first public
performance, in 1923 caused outrage because of its unusual presentation. The
press called it ‘Drivel they paid to hear’ and Noel Coward mocked it his revue
sketch ‘The Swiss Family Whittlebot’. In spite of the parody it gave Coward a
lasting success with ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen’. Walton took this in good humour
but Osbert Sitwell was furious with Coward and the ensuing feud continued for
years. By 1926 ‘Façade’ was very popular, yet Walton would continue to revise
it until 1951, when it was finally published. The composer Herbert Howells
insulted Walton by saying ‘Hullo, William, still fooling around?’
The
International Society for Contemporary Music selected Walton’s ‘Piano Quartet’
for the 1923 Festival in Salzburg. Unfortunately it was placed at the end of a
long programme and was criticised for being over long and too demanding on the
audience’s attention. Osbert Sitwell said of the all-women McCullagh Quartet,
‘after all the best strings in Europe had been playing, these poor good English
girls dressed in turquoise tulle put up an abominable performance, added to
which the cellist…got the tip of the prong of the cello into the thing that
worked the trapdoor above which she was sitting, and began to go down.’ However
Walton’s music attracted the praise of Alben Berg and he took Walton to meet
Schoenberg, who was staying at Salzkammergut.
Both Walton and Constant Lambert
were jazz enthusiasts and made extra money by arranging foxtrots for Debroy
Somer’s band at the Savoy Hotel. It was here in 1925 that they met Gerschwin.
They also went to Italy together to see the Palio at Sienna. They created much
amusement when the expectant crowd in the square heard the fanfares announcing
the procession and found instead that they were cheering the unsteady figures
of Walton and Lambert, who had popped into a wine shop and blinded by the
blazing sunlight on leaving the shop, they had lost their way to their
seats. Walton quipped he had never had
such an ovation before or since.
His growing reputation was
greatly enhanced by his Overture ‘Portsmouth Point’ (1924-5), which was
selected by the ISCM for their 1926 Festival in Zurich. Partly inspired by his
trip to Spain with Sitwells in the spring of 1925, its inherently English tone
is blended with a strong Spanish percussive style. It has a certain Shakespeare
film quality, with its dancing and twirling rhythms and the sense of people
moving. It was this work that brought him into his lifelong association with
the Oxford University Press Music Department. Siegfried Sassoon, to whom the
piece was subsequently dedicated introduced Walton to Hubert Foss the Head of
OUP and his wife Dora, a professional singer. They were also to become life
long friends. In these early years Hubert Foss treated him like a son and
promoted his work. Walton set three of the ‘Façade’ songs for Dora in 1932. She
had heard the second performance ‘Façade’ and had brought Walton’s music to
Foss’ attention. William was a frequent visitor to their home, where they would
also introduce him to Sir Henry Wood and Arnold Bax.
Walton’s next important work was
Sinfonia Concertante (1926-7) for piano and orchestra, with movement dedicated
to one of the Sitwells. Yet this fine work was eclipsed by his Viola Concerto
(1928-9) written for the virtuoso violist Lionel Tertis, while Walton was
staying in Amalfi, Italy. Tertis initially rejected it but later apologised and
performed it. Its first performance was given by Paul Hindemith.
At the age 27, this masterpiece
put Walton at the forefront of a generation of English composers. His success
was intensified two years later with the performance of his cantata
‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ at the 1931 Leeds Festival. The text selected by Osbert
Sitwell from The Old Testament is scored with uninhibited Italian vivacity. It
was hailed as the most important choral work in England since Elgar’s Dream of
Gerontius. The BBC had originally commissioned it as a chamber work but it
quickly outgrew the specifications as Walton wrote it in Amalfi and Ascona,
Switzerland. It was also inspired by his stormy affair with the Baroness Imma
Doernberg, whom he had met in 1929.
This was also a time of great
financial struggle and he often sought the help of his friend Siegfried
Sassoon. Walton never forgot his kindness. Imma had various financial and
health problems and Walton wrote many desperate letters to friends for help with
money. His troubles were eased in 1931, when Mrs Samuel Courtauld, wife of the
financier and textile manufacturer, died leaving Walton an annual income of
£500 in her will. His turbulent life with Imma caused delay on his first
symphony (1931-5), which the conductor Hamilton Harty had requested following
the 1932 Hallé and Tertis performance of the Viola Concerto in Manchester. It
was 1934 before he began working on the finale, when his relationship with Imma
ended, and she left him for a Hungarian doctor. She later married an Englishman
Captain Neil McEacharn, who owned the Villa Taranto at Pallanza in Italy.
Soon after the split with Imma,
Walton met and became involved with the London society hostess, Lady Alice
Wimbourne, who was 22 years his senior. This was a long, happy intimate
relationship. Alice and her husband the Viscount Wimbourne, a steel magnate and
former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, led separate lives and met only to entertain
at Wimbourne House or the Ritz. Lady Wimbourne organised private concerts in
London or at their country home at Ashby St Ledgers, near Rugby. After her
husband’s death, Walton would stay with her at her small house in London.
The Sitwells and Lady Alice had a
mutual dislike; she felt she had rescued Walton from their influence and they
disapproved of the love affair. Osbert became very disagreeable and spiteful
towards Walton. Perhaps he resented Walton’s independence or as Osbert was now
living in an overtly homosexual relationship with David Horner, perhaps Horner
resented Walton’s presence. William began to detach himself from the Sitwells
and the relationship came to an end. Walton frequented ‘The George’ public
house on the corner of Great Portland St. At the affectionately named ‘Gluepot’
he would often meet with Rawsthorne and Moeran among others.
The London Symphony Orchestra
performed the first three movements of his symphony in December 1934 and the
completed work with the Finale in November 1935. Despite the end of his
relationship with Imma, the Symphony is still dedicated to her. The full extended
Walton’s reputation internationally and the press declared it a ‘Historic night
for British music’. It is unusually set in key of Bb minor and was the first
modern British symphony.
A commission for a film score had
also delayed the completion of his symphony. ‘Escape me never’ was directed by
Paul Czinner with the Austrian Actress Elizabeth Bergner as the star. Walton
was the first serious British composer to write a film score and although he
found the task overwhelming, the huge fee was very appreciated, and he was able
to buy his first house in London at 56A South Eaton Place. The film’s ballet
scene, choreographed by Frederick Ashton and Ninette de Valois, has glimpses of
the young Margot Fonteyn.
In 1936, Walton was working again
on many things at once: a ballet and a play along with the film score for ‘As
You Like It’, adapted by J M Barrie with Czinner directing and Bergner as the
star. The score was played on the soundtrack by London Philharmonic Orchestra
with Efrem Kurtz conducting. Its brilliant fanfares and stirring processional
marches, shows Walton’s the growing confidence and originality in exploring a
comparatively new genre. The most wonderful moments include the blithe rustic
dance quality of the opening title, the resourceful use of tremolo strings and
oboe to suggest the gentleness of Rosalind, and the haunting sweetness of the
sunrise episode. The waterfall scene is most romantic and nostalgic. The song
‘Under the greenwood tree’ is a charming Jacobean pastiche but it was not used
in the film. A new setting of his song “Tell me where is fancy bred” from the
Merchant of Venice was incorporated into the film but realising the particular
merits of “Under the greenwood tree”, Walton persuaded the OUP to publish it
separately in 1937. The film was premiered on the 3rd of September
1936, at The Carlton Theatre, Haymarket in London.
Listen on YouTube
Film music is often dismissed, as
having little serious musical value yet it can be more demanding than the
leisurely composition of a symphony and is often the inspiration for concert
hall pieces. It was on the set of ‘As You Like It’ that Walton met Laurence
Olivier who was playing Orlando to Bergner’s Rosalind. Olivier found Walton a pale individual with a
cold manner but was amazed that this belied the most blazing passion, revealed
in his music. This ‘coldness’ was Walton’s natural reserve and shyness in
meeting new people.
The violin virtuoso Jascha
Heifetz commissioned a violin concerto from Walton in 1936. He had to turn down
film music commissions including ‘Pygmalion’, to concentrate on the concerto.
1937 brought a commission for a March ‘Crown Imperial’ for King George VI’s
coronation, which was well received at its first performance on the 16th
of April and when Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra recorded it for
HMV. It was broadcast on May the 9th
and performed at Westminster Abbey on the 12th of May, conducted by
Boult, to accompany the entrance of Queen Mother, Queen Mary. Walton took the
title from Shakespeare’s Henry V Act IV Scene I.
The strain of too
much work had made Walton quite unwell and he had to go into hospital for
double hernia operation. For convalescence Alice Wimbourne took him to the
Villa Cimbrone at Ravello in Italy. Here he finished composing the Violin
Concerto, inspired by warmth and colour and fabulous sea vistas. The villa was
built by Lord Grimthorpe in the early 1900s. The famous Terrace of Infinities
where the cliff falls over 1000 feet commands a magnificent view of sea and the
magical gardens are filled with the fragrance of myrtle, sage and thyme.
Walton worked in the little room above the
crypt, with dazzling views of the sea. Lord Grimthorpe had let the house to
Leopold Stokowski and Greta Garbo the previous year and journalists were still
on the look out for them. William and Alice had planned to build a house on the
cliff below Cimbrone on a point known as “I Quattro Venti”.
Due to various difficulties with
Heifetz’ requirements, the British Council and the outbreak of war, the English
premiere of his Violin Concerto almost did not happen. The solo part was lost
aboard a torpedoed ship in the Atlantic, but luckily copy had been made in New
York and was flown over for the performance at Royal Albert Hall on the 1st
of November 1941.
During World War Two Walton
composed ballet and piano solos as well as the film music for Shaw’s ‘Major
Barbara’ and the ‘Scapino’ overture. He was called up in armed forces in early
1941. He tried driving an ambulance but kept driving into ditches. Jack
Beddington, Director of Films Division for Ministry of Information and former
Advertising Manager of Shell & British Petroleum, was a discerning patron
of the Arts and arranged Walton’s exemption from military service on condition
that he wrote music for patriotic films of ‘national importance’.
In the summer of 1941 he wrote
the incidental music for John Gielgud’s new production of ‘Macbeth’, which
opened in Manchester on the 16th of January 1942 at the Opera House.
The witch’s scenes were particularly eerie and effective. The BBC commissioned
a score for a radio drama ‘Christopher Columbus’ with Olivier as Columbus, and
he composed a ballet ‘The Quest’ for Sadler’s Wells, who were touring the
country but were based in Burnley, Lancashire during the war.
Laurence Olivier requested
Walton’s score for his powerful film adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Henry V’ in
1943. It was a tremendous challenge and all the cuts and re-shootings meant
rewrites for Walton’s music. The charge at Agincourt was particularly problematic.
The film had to be made in Ireland and because of the difficulties in getting
enough horses for the charge, the film makers had to get farmers to ride their
own horses. The scene required ten minutes of charging horses. Walton wrote to
a friend ‘How does one distinguish between a crossbow and a long bow, musically
speaking?’ The film opened in November 1944 and was an instant success. Olivier
said the music made the film and he had never heard such music for a film. The
score has many beautiful moments from the music for ‘Touch her soft lips and
part’ to the death of Falstaff and an adaptation of Canteloube’s ‘Baïlèro’.
Olivier and Walton would work together again on Olivier’s black and white film
of ‘Hamlet’ in 1948. The theme Walton composed for Ophelia would later
resurface in his opera Troilus & Cressida.
His most outstanding film score
success was ‘The First of the Few’, about the Battle of Britain. Walton was
inspired to write something patriotic and rousing, which British people would
remember. The writing and recording went well but the film company decided that
the score was not long enough to issue as a record and had replaced his music
with that of an unknown composer, Ron Goodwin. This hurt Walton deeply. He had
not been asked to write more music, which he felt he could have done. Olivier
was furious and threatened to withdraw his name from the credits unless some
part of Walton’s music was retained. So they reinstated his music for ‘Battle
in the Air’. Walton later adapted the score into his ‘Spitfire prelude and
fugue’ for the concert hall. Although he would never write film music again,
his film scores are perhaps the best known of his works.
Walton joined the board of the
new Covent Garden Trust in 1946 and was awarded the Gold Medal of Royal
Philharmonic Society in 1947, presented to him by Vaughan Williams. The BBC
commissioned an opera from him and Walton chose Chaucer’s version of Troilus
and Cressida as the subject. From 1947 to 1954 he struggled on the composition
making slow but painful progress to achieve the highest standard of
craftsmanship. He was most dissatisfied with the libretto and the heated
arguments with Christopher Hassall were only cooled by retreating to his new
home on the island of Ischia. Their correspondence was prolific because Walton
felt that Hassall was unable to provide a consistently inspired libretto and
padded it with trite verse. He would never be satisfied with the libretto but
Hassall’s visit to Ischia smoothed the relations between them.
In
1947 he had begun writing the music for Olivier’s ‘Hamlet’ when tragedy struck.
Alice Wimbourne had been ill for a while and her London doctor had assured her
that nothing was wrong. She and Walton went for a holiday to Capri in 1947 but
on way the home at Lucerne she fell ill again. A Swiss doctor diagnosed her as
having cancer. She went into a nursing home in Lausanne but because of foreign
currency restrictions, Walton was struggling to pay her medical bills. His
friend, Diana, wife of Yehudi Menuhin, came to his aid. Diana commissioned a
violin and piano sonata for Yehudi and his brother-in-law Louis Kentner. They
gave its premiere in 1950 and Walton dedicated the music to their wives. The
lento movement has a sense of moving through life with an internal emptiness
that is deep.
By the time they returned to
England to record the score for Hamlet, Alice was very ill. She died in April
1948 after suffering the most appalling agonies, which would haunt Walton for
the rest of his life. In the midst of his grief, Walton finished composing his
Violin Sonata and revised Belshazzar’s Feast. A severe attack of jaundice took
him back to Capri to recuperate, taking the artist Michael Ayrton along as
companion. Ayrton’s portrait of Walton now hangs in the National Portrait
Gallery and it is most revealing of the composer’s personal anguish.
The
Performing Rights Society sent Walton as a
conference delegate to Buenos Aires, Argentina in October 1948. Here he
heard Peron give a speech, which was followed by his entourage shouting ‘Peron.
Peron’ When chairman of the conference Leslie Boosey gave his speech Walton
could not resist and jumped to his feet shouting ‘Boosey. Boosey’. This would
later become the cry of the opposition forces in Argentina. He met Evita Peron
briefly after being summoned to her office and made to wait two hours. Buenos
Aires was permeated with the smell of roasting beef, the staple diet of the
locals. It drove Walton mad, as rationing was still going on in Britain and a
lunch in Buenos Aires was the equivalent of a month’s ration.
At a press conference he caught
sight of an attractive young girl. A journalist asked him what he thought of
Argentine girls and he said that he thought so highly of them that he intended
to meet many of them, but later he wished he’d said he intended to marry the
girl over there. He was looking at Susana Gil Paso, daughter of a lawyer, 24
years his junior. Later that day, he met her and began tenaciously courting
her. Susana was a social secretary of the British Council in Argentina. She had
organised the press conference for Walton.
She had recently heard his music during a screening of ‘Henry V’. At the
dinner after the press conference, he informed Susana that he was going to
marry her. He came to her office every day to take her shopping and for two
weeks persistently asked her to marry him each morning.
Susana took William to meet her
family. Her mother did not expect Walton’s courtship to be serious. She had
always considered Susana to be ugly compared to her own paler skinned beauty,
and had few hopes of Susana being able to secure a good marriage. Impressed by
the Englishman’s determined personality, Susana appreciated the difference from
the macho arrogance of her Argentine suitors. Walton did not bore her and she
found him very handsome and was not concerned about the age difference or going
to live in Europe. Her parents were horrified when, after two weeks, they were
engaged. Her father asked Walton to see him at his office and pointed out the
problems his daughter would have by marrying him and that he would refuse to
give her a dowry. Walton did not want the dowry but felt unwilling to go
against her father’s wishes. Susana went to see her father, who said he would
try to stop the wedding because such haste would imply a scandal. He even tried
to use his contacts to get some scandal on Walton as leverage, but met with no
such opportunity. In London some of Walton’s friends were also against the
marriage, but they were married in civil ceremony on the 13th of
December 1948.
Her mother did not consider this
a proper marriage and insisted on a church wedding. Before anything she took
Susana to have her tonsils out to ‘keep her out of trouble’. Walton refused to
buy wedding rings, so Susana bought them, then he told her he did not wish to
have children, and would divorce her if she wanted children. Luckily she was
indifferent but her mother was not at all happy about it. Walton offered to
give her a child if it was so important. Her mother replied, “What would
Enrique say?” i.e. her husband!
The British Ambassador attended
the Catholic ceremony on the 20th of January 1949. Walton’s ‘Crown
Imperial’ was played as they walked out down the aisle and 2,000 people
attended the reception. Walton’s awkward, moody behaviour did not endear him to
Susana’s father and the hostility continued for years. On being knighted in
1951, he wrote to her father that he had only accepted it to make Susana ‘a
Lady’, the furious father replied by telegram ‘My daughter was a lady years
before you ever met her’.
They sailed for England in
January 1949. Susana would never return to Argentina and from that day was cut
off from friends. She left her whole life behind and only kept in touch with
her immediate family. The trans-Atlantic voyage was a surprise to Susana; the
food was as dismal as the passengers. The prim attitude of the English ladies
brought out the rebel in Walton and he decided to shock their sensibilities by
taking advantage of the thin dividing walls between the cabins. Every night he
and Susana would enact a scene, where he beat the floorboards with his belt and
Susana let out great cries of agony. In true English style everyone gave them
disapproving glances at breakfast but never said anything and therefore did not
realise it was a joke!
Their shared delight of a wicked
dry sense of humour was the lifelong expression of their shared love. Susana’s
strict upbringing gave her a devotion and obedience to her husband that many
would find impossible to maintain in today’s more liberated times. But her good
manners and discipline would always help her triumph in dealing with the
difficult people she would encounter and with the artistic temperament that
comes with the artistic talent of a composer husband. Her inner resources
helped to her to forge a new life.
As they embarked at Tilbury
Walton told her that they would live six months of every year in Italy. Walton
intended to withdraw from the distractions of London life to concentrate on his
composing. He wished to live in the Bay of Naples. Customs impounded all of
Susana’s luggage and it took ages to get it back. On his return to London she
would begin to meet various women with whom Walton had had affairs, which she
handled with good humour. Walton introduced his wife to his friends but left
her feeling somewhat abandoned by the parties that celebrated him, with the
Oliviers, Fred Ashton, Margot Fonteyn, Walter Legge, etc. She had never seen
anyone drunk before and her eyes were opened to a very different lifestyle.
Walton expected her to fend for herself.
Walton’s friends were delighted
with her and, after knowing her better, realised that she was from a good
family and accepted her as a suitable wife. Unfortunately her ignorance of
sexual matters had tragic consequences. Susana became pregnant. Walton refused
to have the child and their doctor would not help. She had to have an illegal
abortion in secret and was lucky that the resulting hemorrhaging and fever did
not kill her. She was distraught and Walton felt like a monster. They never
talked about this again but the emotional scars for both of them went deep.
He took Susana to Oldham to meet
his mother. His brother Noel and his family were living with his mother, and
caring for her. Their mother adored William and was mainly concerned that he
had not converted to Catholicism. Susana was greeted her with reserve. Walton’s
mother gave her approval in a disconnected way and confused Susana with someone
else. The lifestyle of an English composer must have seemed quite alien to the
closeness and controlling supervision of a wealthy South American family. The
visit made Walton realise the freedom he now enjoyed, away from Oldham.
Walton now renewed his friendship
with Osbert Sitwell, taking Susana to meet him and his friend David Horner.
Osbert was pleased at Walton’s marriage, and behaved as if their friendship had
never cooled. Osbert had made life awkward when Walton had lived with him at
Carlyle Square. He had often treated William as a subordinate and disapproved
of all his girlfriends. When his brother Sachie had got married things had
started to become strained.
With the onset of an
English winter and the overwhelming social demands, Walton decided it was time
to escape to Italy. The war had left many placed bombed out and in 1949 no
houses were available at Amalfi. An employee at Thomas Cook’s told them of a lady
who had a house at Forio on the island of Ischia in Bay of Naples. The Convento
San Francesco had belonged to Countess Stead, an English woman and Papal
countess. After her death it was bequeathed to her daughter Mrs Marret. The
Waltons met with her in London. She told them the house had a lovely piano and
a caretaker-housekeeper who would do all their shopping and cooking for them.
They
stuffed enough money to last six months into hot water bottles, to avoid the
currency restrictions and set off in Walton’s Bentley with Susana driving and
their luggage tied into the rear with ropes. At Monte Carlo they won enough
money at a Casino to pay for their trip, but at Genoa they had to fight off
thieves, who were trying to steal their belongings by cutting the ropes. On
their way through Italy they stayed at Osbert Sitwell’s castle, Montegufoni,
where William had stayed on his first trip to Italy. The castle was situated on
a hilltop with fabulous views of the vineyards and surrounding countryside.
Olive and lemon trees flanked the terraces and the Sitwells had their own olive
oil brand from the castle press.
Finally arriving in Naples, the
Walton’s then found they could not get to Ischia with the car. Eventually they
drove to the rough port of Pozzuoli, through the industrial area of Bagnoli on
bomb-blasted roads to the fishing harbour. There they boarded a cargo boat to
Ischia, after the dangerous task of driving the car on planks onto the ship’s
deck and narrowly escaping embargo by the port police. There had only ever been
two cars on Ischia and a large crowd had gathered to watch the embarkation.
They set off with the car partly hanging over the side of the ship.
They were glad they had brought
the car, as the house was located on other side of the Island. The Convento was
very beautiful but very basic and neglected. For two years Walton composed in
peace and quiet, only distracted by occasional visits to Naples for shopping
for food. Eventually the lack of comfort got too much and they had to find new
accommodation on the island. The housekeeper offered them his wine cellar ‘Casa
Cirillo’ higher up the hill. It needed a tremendous amount of restoration work
to make it habitable and with the scarcity of local tradesmen and builders, The
Walton’s had to spend another winter at the Convento. The views from the house and terrace were
fabulous and this kept them cheerful until their new home was ready.
For several years they commuted
between London and Ischia and the housekeeper rented out their house for them
in the summer. Things took a bad turn after he rented it to some movie stars
and got greedy for more lucrative clients. It took three months with lawyers
and local dignitaries helping them, to get an agreement to keep the lease they
had arranged. They eventually left and moved into ‘San Felice’, a cottage on
their new property, which would be called ‘La Mortella’, a Forian dialect word
meaning a wild myrtle bush, which covered the higher terraces of the hillside
property. Susana took on the negotiations and planning for their new home. Her
battles with local officials were legendary and amused Walton immensely.
They led a fairly quiet life
avoiding the café society of ex-patriots but there were many famous visitors to
their home and Ischia: Igor Stravinski, Maria Callas, Lennox Berkeley, Truman
Capote, Hans Werner Henze and Herbert von Karajan, as well as Italian
celebrities and royalty from all over Europe. WH Auden and Chester Kallmann
lived there for a while and their often outrageous antics became stuff of local
legend. The Waltons kept a low profile and worked on their plans and the
garden.
Post war the musical climate had
changed. Tastes had moved towards Tippett and Britten. Walton had become figure
of the past, who could never have surrounded himself with an entourage of
admirers as Britten did. Although they were definitely great rivals, they were
always on friendly terms and the Waltons were invited to Britten’s home on many
occasions. Walton had spoken on Britten’s behalf at a judicial hearing for
conscientious objectors in 1941. Britten’s ‘Peter Grimes’ was an instant
success and it was claimed that ‘Troilus and Cressida’ was Walton’s attempt to
rival it.
In 1952 Walton was commissioned
to write a march to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. He composed
‘Orb and Sceptre’ and a ‘Te Deum’, to make particular use of the Queen’s
trumpeters. The Walton’s were invited to the Coronation and a few days later
attended the premiere of Britten’s ‘Gloriana’ at Covent Garden.
During this period they spent a
great deal of time with Laurence Olivier, who visited them on Ischia and
invited them to London. He and Vivien Leigh were going through their well
publicised break up, or break down in Leigh’s case. Olivier asked Walton to
write music for a new film of Richard III. It is the least remarkable of his
three Shakespeare scores. Walton felt there was a limit to the number of
ceremonial fanfares and battle charges he could produce and wrote on the score
in Italian the instruction ‘with ham, lamb and strawberry jam’. Olivier also
wanted to do a ‘Macbeth’ with Walton but the financial backing was not found.
Troilus and Cressida was
completed summer 1954 and dedicated to Susana. Its Mediterranean warmth and
colour, Italianate lyricism and bright qualities Walton composed with Elizabeth
Schwarzkopf in mind for the role of Cressida. This was refused on the excuse
that her accent and her English were not good enough. The rehearsals were
extremely hard work, with the conductor Malcolm Sargent not having learnt the
score and making a general nuisance of himself. He chose a Hungarian soprano,
Magda Laszlò, for the lead and although her voice was lovely but she did not
speak or really understand English! The Covent Garden premiere on the 3rd
of December 1954 was well received by the audience, who gave Walton a standing
ovation, yet the critics gave it a reserved reception.
The New York and San Francisco
productions were very successful and Walton flew over to attend the premieres.
While he was there, he met Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti. La Scala’s
production with an Italian translation should have been wonderful but it was
overproduced and shambolic. The Walton’s were treated as unwanted guests by the
management and the outright failure of the opera wounded Walton deeply. He
worked for many years on the opera, revising, cutting and altering the work.
The era of the ‘angry young man’,
a term applied to the playwright John Osborne, epitomised the new generation.
Walton was not deemed progressive enough. The trials and tribulations of
completing and producing the opera fill many chapters of his various biographies
but it was only in the 1990’s that Troilus and Cressida was accepted as opera.
Walton’s output slowed as he grew older, partly because of cool critical
reception of Troilus and Cressida and partly because of his increasingly poor
health. In 1951 he received a Knighthood but most of his acclaim came from USA
in 1950’s and 1960’s.
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
commissioned his Second Symphony, which he completed between 1957-60. The
critics blamed it for being too different from his First Symphony. Its second
performance was given at Blackburn with the Liverpool Philharmonic, conducted
by Walton himself. The great Russian Cellist Gregor Piatigorsky commissioned
Walton’s Cello concerto of 1955. Its Mediterranean warmth and languor is still
loved by cellists. On their way to its
premiere the Walton’s were involved in a bad car crash near Rome. They were
hospitalised for three months and only their shared sense of humour kept them
positive about recovery. They heard the premiere over the radio.
It
was during this time they found their true home on Ischia. From the 19th
of May 1956 Walton was registered as a British citizen resident wholly abroad.
In 1958 he sold his London home and invested the money in building a house at
Forio on the land he had bought. ‘La Mortella’ was his home for the last 21
years of his life. Building began in November 1961. In grounds Susana built a
magnificent garden from a stone quarry with landscape designs by Russell Page.
Years of work went into planting and selecting new cuttings for the garden.
Everywhere they went the Walton’s brought back cuttings and plants for their
garden.
Walton
established a regular routine, composing every day, even if he later destroyed
it. While Susana created a paradise, which truly reflected their love for each
other. They also travelled to Sicily to buy antiques for the house with money
left to Susana by her father, who had died in 1958. Her father visited them
many times. Here the boy from Oldham finally found the light he had longed for
since his first trip to Italy. He was now to live and work surrounded by
flowering bushes and lemon trees, in peace, privacy and beauty.
On the 22nd of April
1961 he was made Oldham’s 14th Honorary Freeman. His mother had died
in 1954 but the ceremony was attended by his sister and elder brother. After
the ceremony Walton declared an intention to dedicate a composition to the
town, but unfortunately this intention remained unfulfilled.
The song cycle ‘Anon in Love’ was
commissioned by Peter Pears and guitarist Julian Bream. Guitar music was
growing in popularity as a solo classical instrument. This was later re-scored for small orchestra.
Bream had been one of their earliest guests on Ischia, who also included Elsa
Schiaparelli, Vaughan Williams and Hans Werne Henze. Royalty, actors,
journalists and writers were among the many celebrity guests and visitors.
There are many stories of their escapades in Susana’s book ‘William Walton:
Behind the Façade’.
Walton was also commissioned in
1962 by the City of London Music Festival to compose a cycle of six songs “A
song for the Lord Mayor’s table”. This was premiered by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf
with Gerald Moore accompanying, in July 1962. It was orchestrated for the City
of London Festival in 1970 and made suitable for contralto, Dame Janet Baker to
sing. Walton continued to attend major performances and tour as conductor of
own works. In 1964 He visited Australia and New Zealand, where his sister Nora
now lived.
Despite undergoing an operation
for lung cancer in 1965, he composed a one-act comic opera setting of Chekov’s
‘The Bear’ with libretto by Paul Dehn. This was performed at the Aldeburgh
Festival on the 3rd of June 1966. It was very successful and well
received. Later it was given a TV performance by the BBC, but this was not a
pleasant experience as conducting for TV is very different and the producer got
irate if Walton stopped the music to re-record any corrections. Things were not
improved by the documentary profile the BBC made on Walton, which dismissed all
of his post war work as negligible. The programme was heavily edited after the
Walton’s complained.
The Queen gave him the Order of
Merit in 1967 and in 1971 he was invited to Russia as a guest of the London
Symphony Orchestra and André Previn. He received a tremendous ovation, when
audiences realised he was the composer of the music they had heard. The
insidious bureaucracy and oppressed atmosphere in Russia astounded Walton and
he felt that Ischia really seemed like paradise by comparison.
Because of his absence on Ischia,
Walton was rarely available to promote his work in the way that Britten and
others were doing. During most of the 1970’s Walton spent his time working on
the revival of Troilus and Cressida and revising Cressida’s part to suit the
voice of mezzo-soprano Janet Baker. The Covent Garden opening in 1976 was very
disappointing. The singers were excellent but the cheap production spoilt it.
Audiences were enthusiastic with full houses at every performance, but critics
called it ‘old hat’.
In
1972, 70th birthday celebrations for Walton were held across the UK.
The Prime Minister Edward Heath invited the Walton’s to dine at No 10 and
arranged for Walton to be presented with the original manuscript score of the
‘Battle of Britain’, the Music having been salvaged from the archive of United
Artists. Walton’s’ Battle in the air’ music was not included as they claimed it
had been lost but it was finally restored to OUP in 1972. Colin Matthews
arranged a concert suite after Walton’s death and Carl Davis conducted the
first performance in Bristol with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The
birthday celebrations continued in Italy and the London Symphony Orchestra were
flown over to perform ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ to a delighted Italian audience.
In 1974 Russell Harty came to Ischia to
interview and film ‘Sir William and Our Gracie’. They took the Walton’s to
Capri to film their meeting with Gracie Fields. They got along famously. Walton
expressed regret that Gracie had never become an opera singer. ‘A lot of people
told me that,’ she said, ‘but I’ve had a better time in my way! You’ve had the
training haven’t you? Mine just fell out of me mouth!’
Although Walton had recovered
from his operation for lung cancer 1966, his health now began to deteriorate.
He began a Third symphony, but only wrote a few bars. A few short works,
including 'Prologo and Fantasia’ for Rostropovich had been a great effort for
him. As always his self-criticism and high standards caused him problems but
now there was also physical strain. His determination to finish his work caused
him misery.
He attended his 80th
birthday concerts in London in a wheelchair. These were very illustrious events
for a great man of British Music, but William fell very ill and ended up in
intensive care at St Thomas’ Hospital. He hated being full of tubes and drips
and kept thinking he was back in Italy. He recovered enough to return to Ischia
and attend a local tribute to his music, with a performance of ‘Façade’. This
would be the last time that Walton heard his music live.
A TV profile of Walton was made
in 1980. ‘At the end of a haunted day’ was first shown in April 1981. It was a
very sensitive and revealing portrait with lovely views of La Mortella. His
health problems brought back awful memories of Alice Wimbourne’s suffering but
his good humour kept his spirits up. He continued his routine of composing
every day, as he had done for 67 years. He had an operation to remove cataracts
but remained on Ischia until his death, apart from a Christmas visit to
Ravello.
On
the morning of the 8th of March 1983, he awoke early feeling unwell
and having difficulties with his breathing. The doctor came to see him and,
while filling out a prescription, Walton’s final words to Susana were ‘Don’t
leave me, please don’t leave me’. He died on Ischia 3 weeks before 81st
birthday. His ashes are buried in the top of ‘William’s Rock’ in the beautiful
serene gardens of La Mortella, over looking the sea and the harbour of Forio.
The inscription reads:
‘Sing a song of praise beloved
and revered Master
This rock holds his ashes
The garden he surveys
Russell Page designed
Together we happily brought it to
life
Susana’
‘All Bliss consists in this:
To do as Adam did.’
At the ceremony of dedication,
Colin Graham recited from Cymbeline:
‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun
Nor the furious winter’s rages:
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta’en thy
wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney sweepers, come to
dust.’
‘La Mortella’ is a living
memorial to him and a testament of the love he shared with Susana. It is a
place where musicians come to stay and work in the peace and beauty they
created. His music room has a permanent exhibition of photos, letters, posters
and memorabilia and each year master classes are held in the purpose built
recital hall. ‘La Mortella’ is so much more than an Englishman’s house and
garden on foreign soil. It is a unique subtropical paradise, with fountains,
waterfalls, rare plants and winding paths, cut into the side of a volcanic
mountain. Over 30 years of married life the Walton’s created this special
domain from bare rock. As William composed, Susana gardened. Wherever they
travelled and they returned with specimens and cuttings. Beautiful Neapolitan
terraces give panoramic vistas of the sea, and in the evening, the air is
perfumed by aromatic herbs, enhanced by the sound of cicadas and the harbour
lights of Forio sparkling in the distance.
“To have started in Oldham and
ended here…”
The tranquillity and light of La
Mortella and the love and protection of Susana gave him his greatest happiness
and provided the ideal conditions for composing. His later music was infused
with its fragrance, sounds and peacefulness. He absorbed many contradictory
influences – Anglican anthems, jazz, Stravinski, Ravel, Sibelius and Elgar- yet
remained true to his own style and vision. His music always deals with human
emotions and experience, with an underlying sense of loss. Perhaps has
inability to lose his Lancashire background was his greatest asset in
continuing his work and making sure that it would be enjoyed by audiences long
after his death. His wistfulness, lyricism and rhythmic excitement are so
evocative of Italy, Ischia, Amalfi, Capri, the sunlight and the people.
Walton received many awards.
Seven Honorary Doctorates, including one from Oxford, a Gold Medal of Royal
Philharmonic Society, a Knighthood 1951, the Order of merit 1967, the Benjamin
Franklin Medal, he was elected honorary membership of American Academy of Arts
and Letters in 1978 and the Ivor Novello Award 1982.
HRH The Prince of Wales has said
that Walton ‘had a huge influence on
British music and, indeed, the wide artistic landscape of the last century’ His
Highness visited La Mortella in 1991 and the Gardens were shown at Chelsea
Flower show 2000, when Susana Walton was made MBE.
The
William Walton Trust was formed 1984. With its Italian sister organisation
Walton Fondazione, it arranges master classes on Ischia and education projects.
It is also involved with annual Oldham Walton Festival, which assembles a
weekend of concerts and recitals, supported by the Friends organisation. New
publications about Walton and the garden of La Mortella are due in 2002, to
correspond with an array of centenary events across the UK. This will include
performances of Opera’s North wonderful revival of Troilus & Cressida to
open festival in Leeds and end it in Manchester, and a production of ‘The
Bear’. OUP is publishing the William Walton edition in 23 hardback volumes with
introductory essays and critical notes.
It was a great honour for us to have met Lady Walton at the Oldham
Walton Festival in 2001. We were able to show her some of our pictures of her
garden. She spoke about her plants and flowers with the tenderness and pride of
a devoted mother, and was most touched by our photograph of her memorial in the
arbour, which she graciously autographed to us. Her garden at La Mortella is
open from April to November, 9 am to 7 pm. It has a fabulous website with a
virtual tour of the garden at www.ischia.it/mortella or click here
© H Kean
Bibliography
‘The Concise Oxford History of Music’ G Abraham OUP
1979
‘Byrd to Britten: a survey of English Song’ Sidney Northcote Unwin
‘Shakespeare Music Catalogue’ Volumes 1-5 B
Gooch OUP
‘An Extraordinary Performance’ D Hinnells OUP 1998
‘The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians’ 2nd Edition Grove 2001
‘Walton: a celebration 2002’ Walton Trust OUP
March 2000
‘Portrait of Walton’ M. Kennedy OUP 1989
‘William Walton: Behind the Façade’ Susana Walton OUP
1988
‘William Walton: His Life and Music’ N Tierney Hale 1984
Conversations with Lady Susana Walton in 2000 - 2001
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