Prologue (A Wartime Sketchbook)

Sir William Turner Walton, OM (29 March 1902 – 8 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include Façade, the cantata Belshazzar's Feast, the Viola Concerto and the First Symphony.

Born in Oldham, Lancashire, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford.

Walton was a slow worker, painstakingly perfectionist, and his complete body of work across his long career is not large.

During the Second World War Walton was exempted from military service on the understanding that he would compose music for wartime propaganda films. In addition to driving ambulances, he was attached to the Army Film Unit as music adviser. He wrote scores for six films during the war – some that he thought "rather boring" and some that have become classics such as The First of the Few (1942) and Laurence Olivier's adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V (1944).

As far as I understand it, "A Wartime Sketchbook" is a selection of some of Walton's film scores combined into a "collection" by the English composer, arranger and conductor, Christopher Palmer (1946-1995).

It is heard in the arrangement by Robert Gower, MA FRCO (CHM) LRAM ARCM FRSA, Organist of Nottingham Cathedral, and well-known for his "collection books" with seasonal works, as well as editions of works by Ireland, Finzi, etc.

The arrangement heard here is from "A Walton Organ Album," published by OUP in 1996.

Walton's musical fingerprints will be immediately heard, from the opening fanfare, to the noble "empire tune," and the grandiose conclusion. Once you hear it, you may have the desire to run and join the RAF, but please try to control yourself!

Seriously, a Walton-fanfare will always stir your emotions!

I dedicate this piece with friendship to kenhager. I hope you like this, Ken!

Photos of Walton, Palmer and Gower are attached below!