For more great classical content, please visit our website. www.colstonhall.org/classical
10 things you didn’t know about… Walton
- Although William Walton went up to Oxford to study music, he left without a degree in 1920, having failed his exams three times.
His early choral masterpiece, A Litany, was written when the composer was just 15.
- Walton befriended the war poet Siegfried Sassoon at Oxford, and dedicated his Portsmouth Point overture to him.
- In 1948, Walton met the 22-year-old Susana Gil Passo in Buenos Aires while on a business trip. After dinner one evening, Walton is said to have told her ‘You will be very surprised, Miss Gil, to hear that I am going to marry you.’
- La Mortella, the Waltons’ home in Ischia, is open to the public – tours were conducted by his wife, Susana, up until her death in 2007.
- Walton received the Order of Merit in 1967, the fourth composer to be awarded the honour. There can be only 24 recipients of the award at any one time.
- William Walton wrote the music for the 1969 film Battle of Britain but it only on reading a copy of the Daily Telegraph that Walton discovered his music had been rejected in favour of a score by Ron Goodwin.
- When Elgar died in 1934, the British authorities asked Walton to write a piece for the coronation of George VI. Crown Imperial was unashamedly populist, and many of Walton’s admirers, who believed the composer to be an avant-garde musician, were disappointed.
- Benjamin Britten and Walton were close friends – Walton considered Britten a genius, but the compliment wasn’t reciprocated.
- Walton wrote the music for the opening sequence of the BBC’s television adaptations of Shakespeare plays which were broadcast between 1978 and 1985, by which time the composer had died.
For more great classical content, please visit our website. www.colstonhall.org/classical
10 things you didn’t know about… Walton
- Although William Walton went up to Oxford to study music, he left without a degree in 1920, having failed his exams three times.
His early choral masterpiece, A Litany, was written when the composer was just 15.
- Walton befriended the war poet Siegfried Sassoon at Oxford, and dedicated his Portsmouth Point overture to him.
- In 1948, Walton met the 22-year-old Susana Gil Passo in Buenos Aires while on a business trip. After dinner one evening, Walton is said to have told her ‘You will be very surprised, Miss Gil, to hear that I am going to marry you.’
- La Mortella, the Waltons’ home in Ischia, is open to the public – tours were conducted by his wife, Susana, up until her death in 2007.
- Walton received the Order of Merit in 1967, the fourth composer to be awarded the honour. There can be only 24 recipients of the award at any one time.
- William Walton wrote the music for the 1969 film Battle of Britain but it only on reading a copy of the Daily Telegraph that Walton discovered his music had been rejected in favour of a score by Ron Goodwin.
- When Elgar died in 1934, the British authorities asked Walton to write a piece for the coronation of George VI. Crown Imperial was unashamedly populist, and many of Walton’s admirers, who believed the composer to be an avant-garde musician, were disappointed.
- Benjamin Britten and Walton were close friends – Walton considered Britten a genius, but the compliment wasn’t reciprocated.
- Walton wrote the music for the opening sequence of the BBC’s television adaptations of Shakespeare plays which were broadcast between 1978 and 1985, by which time the composer had died.
The best photography and architecture of 2020: high camp to DungenessRam Chary Everi
The first British retrospective of Sunil Gupta’s work brings together material from across his long and varied career, from the scenes of everyday gay life in New York that he chronicled for his breakthrough series, Christopher Street, in 1976, to 2008’s elaborately constructed and highly symbolic vignettes, The New Pre-Raphaelites. “What does it mean to be a gay Indian man?” he Contribute News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle has said of his photography. “This is the question that follows me around everywhere I go.
The best photography and architecture of 2020: high camp to DungenessRam Chary Everi
The first British retrospective of Sunil Gupta’s work brings together material from across his long and varied career, from the scenes of everyday gay life in New York that he chronicled for his breakthrough series, Christopher Street, in 1976, to 2008’s elaborately constructed and highly symbolic vignettes, The New Pre-Raphaelites. “What does it mean to be a gay Indian man?” he Contribute News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle has said of his photography. “This is the question that follows me around everywhere I go.
1. The Role of the Aristocracy in the 19th Century
Urban Transformation of Budapest:
The Palace District
Zsuzsa Sidó
CEU
GRACEH, May 3-5th, 2012, Vienna