"Henry V: Two Pieces for Strings"
performed Jan 19, 2003

Although he dabbled briefly in atonality in his early String Quartet, William Walton (1902-1983) was an unrepentant neo-Romantic for most of his life.

Born in Oldham, Lancashire, the son of a choirmaster and singing teacher, Walton spent his formative years in Oxford, where he was a chorister at Christ Church Cathedral. It was there that he began to compose, and in 1918 he was taken up by the aristocratic and artistic Sitwell family, who introduced him to the leading cultural figures of the day. Four years later he achieved notoriety with Façade, a self-consciously modernist "entertainment" for six players and a speaker. At the same time, he enhanced his "respectable" reputation with his elegiac Viola Concerto, which Paul Hindemith premiered in 1929. This notoriety gave Walton a springing point to a highly successful career.

In 1947, the BBC commissioned Walton to write an opera. Walton chose Troilus and Cressida, but the progress of the work was greatly troubled by a difficult relationship with his librettist, Christopher Hassall. Troilus finally premiered in 1954, but its dreadful reception proved a terrible disappointment. Having already moved to Italy, Walton went into relative seclusion. He produced less and less music as neo-Romanticism became less and less fashionable, and he passed away quietly in Italy.

After meeting Laurence Olivier, Walton agreed to collaborate on several film projects, including Henry V in 1943. Henry V was Walton's tenth film, and the score made a strong impression, performed by many of the leading orchestras and conductors of the day. Walton himself subsequently brought out the two pieces he considered important from the project: The Death of Falstaff, which is a brief but touching elegy in the form of a passacaglia; and Touch Her Soft Lips and Part, written in the lilting rhythm of a siciliano and scored for muted strings, and serving as a touching song for Henry's courtship of Katherine as he parts for war.