I first discovered William Alwyn whilst listening to Record Review on Radio 3. This would have been around 1972. One of the works assessed that day was the Symphonic Prelude: The Magic Island (1952). It bowled me over. I hurried out of the house that very morning and managed to find a copy of the record at Cuthbertson’s Music Shop in Glasgow (sadly long gone). This wonderful evocation of Prospero’s Island weaved its magic spell on me. It was coupled with Alwyn’s Symphony No.3 (1956) which took me some time to get to grips with. Yet, it soon became my favourite of his “Five.” It was the first Symphony by a British composer that I had heard at that time (apart from those by Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar).
Over the succeeding half century, I have listened to much of William Alywn’s music – on the radio and recordings. Sad to say, I have rarely come across it in the concert hall or recital room (apart from the Alwyn Festivals). Despite many delightfully approachable pieces, he seems to have been ignored by Classic fM.
This present essay supplies an introductory survey of William Alwyn’s music. After some brief biographical notes, I propose to make a chronological journey through nine of his compositions. The essay will conclude with some bibliographical hints for further study, and a brief look at the recording history of Alwyn’s work.
Biographical Notes
William Alwyn (William Alwyn Smith) was born on 7 November 1905, at 54 Kettering Road, in Northampton. This town, once best-known for boot-making, was the birthplace of two other esteemed composers: Edmund Rubbra and Malcolm Arnold. At the early age of fifteen, He entered the Royal Academy of Music (RAM). There, he studied the flute with Daniel Wood, and composition with the Scottish composer, John Blackwood McEwen. Due to economic reasons, upon the death of his father, Alwyn had to leave the R.A.M. He returned to Northampton for a brief time, before working as a teacher at Fernden School in Surrey and playing the flute in several theatre orchestras.
Alwyn was to return to the R.A.M. in 1926 as Composition Professor. He kept this position for nearly 30 years. The following year, he was engaged as flautist with the London Symphony Orchestra. The first major triumph was the performance on 22 September of his Five Preludes during the 1927 Promenade Concert Season. Major successes during the 1930s included his Piano Concerto No.1, and the oratorio, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, based on a text by William Blake. In 1936, he completed his first film score for the documentary The Future’s in the Air.
Just before the start of the Second World War, Alwyn decided that he needed to reinvent himself as a composer. He disowned his early efforts and declared that his “opus 1” was the Divertimento for solo flute (1939). Fortunately, much of his juvenilia was not destroyed, and have been unearthed in recent decades. During the 1940s, some of Alwyn’s music was vitiated by neo-classicism. He abandoned what he called “the ear-tickling harmony” of his earlier works. However, he soon allowed himself the luxury of “romantic elements” in the Symphony No.1 (1949) and The Magic Island (1952). Further developments of his style included a personal adaptation of serialism, which he used alongside tonality and conventional formal structures. In conjunction with the many film scores, Alwyn’s reputation rests on his cycle of five symphonies. These were produced between 1949 and 1973.
Alwyn took a great interest in the business of music. He was elected chairman of the Composer’s Guild in 1949, 1950 and 1959, was an active member of the Society for the Promotion of New Music and, onetime director of the Performing Rights Society. Other interests were literature and painting. He had an enviable collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and practised as an artist. Alwyn retired to Blythburgh, Suffolk in 1961, and devoted himself to composition, painting and poetry. He was married twice: to Olive Pull in 1929 (divorced in 1972), and Doreen Carwithen (1922-2003) in 1975. In 1978, he was awarded the CBE. William Alwyn died at Southwold and District Hospital, Suffolk on 11 September 1985.
Bibliographical Details
Basic information on the life and achievement of William Alwyn can be found in the various editions of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, as well as other reference books, Wikipedia, and CD liner notes.
Entry level for Alwyn studies is John C. Dressler’s William Alwyn: A Research and Information Guide. Published by Routledge in 2011, this book offers biographical information, a catalogue of works including film scores, writings by and about the composer, and a comprehensive discography, including non-commercial recordings.
Earlier contributions included a long chapter in Francis Routh’s (a former pupil of Alwyn) Contemporary British Music: The Twenty-Five Years from 1945 to 1970, published in 1972. In 1985, Stewart R. Craggs & Alan J. Poulton’s William Alwyn: A Catalogue of his Music (Bravura Publications) was the first attempt at providing a comprehensive list of his work but with limited bibliographical information.
There are two major biographical studies. The first is William Alwyn: The Art of Film Music by Ian Johnson, published by Boydell Press (2005). This concentrates on his film scores and ignores the “art” music. Three years later, the ‘official’ biography, The Innumerable Dance: The Life and Work of William Alwyn by Adrian Wright was published, again by Boydell Press. This covered comprehensively his life and work in objective detail.
In 2010, Composing in Words: William Alwyn on his Art was issued by Toccata Press. Edited by Andrew Palmer, this wide-ranging collection of texts penned by the composer, includes the elusive Ariel to Miranda diary, charting the writing of the Symphony No.3, and the complete text of his autobiographical Winged Chariot.
There are few dissertations and theses from scholars. The easiest available are The Symphonies of William Alwyn: A Critical and Analytical Study by Trevor William Barrowcliffe (2013), and Neoclassicism in the Music of William Alwyn by Elizabeth Sweet (2016).
To be continued…
This essay was first printed in the 2021 edition of Spirited, the Journal of the English Music Festival.
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