William Alwyn

Portrait of William Alwyn

William Alwyn, CBE, born William Alwyn Smith (7 November 1905 – 11 September 1985) was an English composer, conductor, and music teacher.

Life and music

William Alwyn was born in Northampton, where he showed an early interest in music and began to learn to play the piccolo. At age 15 he entered the Royal Academy of Music in London where he studied flute and composition. He was a virtuoso flautist and for a time was a flautist with the London Symphony Orchestra. Alwyn served as professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music from 1926 to 1955.

William Alwyn had a remarkable range of talents. He was a distinguished polyglot, poet, and artist, as well as musician.

His compositional output was varied and large and included five symphonies, four operas, several concertos and string quartets.

Alwyn wrote over 70 film scores from 1941 to 1962. His classic film scores included Odd Man Out, Desert Victory, Fires Were Started, The History of Mr. Polly, The Fallen Idol, The Black Tent and The Crimson Pirate. Some of the scores have been lost, although many scores and sketches are now in the William Alwyn Archive at Cambridge University Library. In recent years CD recordings have been made. Some works, for which only fragmentary sketches remained, were reconstructed by Philip Lane or Christopher Palmer from the film soundtracks themselves.

Alwyn relished dissonance, and devised his own alternative to twelve-tone serialism. In his third symphony, eight notes of the possible twelve are used in the first movement, with the remaining four (D, E, F, and A-flat) constituting the middle movement, and all twelve being combined for the finale. The work was premièred by Sir Thomas Beecham.

Alwyn's concerto for harp and string orchestra, Lyra Angelica, became popularly known when figure skater Michelle Kwan performed to it at the 1998 Winter Olympics.

William Alwyn lived at Lark Rise, Dunwich Road, Blythburgh, Suffolk, and died in Southwold, Suffolk, England, in 1985. He was survived by his second wife, the composer Doreen Carwithen.

Selected works

• The Fairy Fiddler, opera (1922)
• Five Preludes for Orchestra (1927)
• Piano Concerto No. 1 (1930)
• Tragic interlude for 2 horns, timpani and string orchestra (1936)
• Violin Concerto (1938)
• Pastoral fantasia for viola and string orchestra (1939)
• Concerto grosso No. 1 in B flat major (1943)
• Score for Country Town (1943)
• Concerto for oboe, harp and strings (1945)
• Symphony No. 1 (1949)
• The Magic Island, symphonic prelude (1952)
• Symphony No. 2 (1953)
• Autumn legend for cor anglais and string orchestra (1954)
• Lyra angelica, concerto for harp and string orchestra (1954)
• Farewell Companions, radio opera (1955)
• Symphony No. 3 (1956)
• Elizabethan Dances (1957)
• Symphony No. 4 (1959)
• Derby Day, overture (1960)
• Piano Concerto No. 2 (1960)
• Concerto grosso No. 3 (1964)
• Sinfonietta for strings (1970)
• Juan, or The Libertine, opera (1971)
• Symphony No. 5 'Hydriotaphia' (1973)
• Miss Julie, opera (1977)

External links

• William Alwyn at MusicWeb International
• William Alwyn Archive at Cambridge University Library
• Philip Lane on reconstructing Alwyn's film scores
• William Alwyn at the Internet Movie Database
• William Alwyn at Allmusic
• The Innumerable Dance: The Life and Work of William Alwyn by Adrian Wright, the first full biography published by the Boydell Press in 2008.
• Composing in words: William Alwyn on his art edited by Andrew Palmer, includes many of Alwyn's autobiographical writings, and other writings on music published by Toccata Press, 2009.
• [1] William Alwyn on Facebook.