Sir William Turner Walton OM (29 March 1902 – 8 March 1983) was a British composer and conductor.
His style was influenced by the works of Stravinsky and Prokofiev as well as jazz music, and is characterized by rhythmic vitality, bittersweet harmony, sweeping Romantic melody and brilliant orchestration. His output includes orchestral and choral works, chamber music and ceremonial music, as well as notable film scores. His earliest works, especial...
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Sir William Turner Walton OM (29 March 1902 – 8 March 1983) was a British composer and conductor.
His style was influenced by the works of Stravinsky and Prokofiev as well as jazz music, and is characterized by rhythmic vitality, bittersweet harmony, sweeping Romantic melody and brilliant orchestration. His output includes orchestral and choral works, chamber music and ceremonial music, as well as notable film scores. His earliest works, especially Edith Sitwell's Façade brought him notoriety as a modernist, but it was with orchestral symphonic works and the oratorio Belshazzar's Feast that he gained international recognition.
Walton was born into a musical family, in Oldham, Lancashire, England. At the age of ten, Walton was accepted as a chorister at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, and he subsequently entered Christ Church of the University of Oxford as an undergraduate at the unusually early age of sixteen. He was largely self-taught as a composer (poring over new scores in the...
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