(1902 - 1983)
William Walton 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 Lancashire, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. On leaving the university, he was taken up by the literary Sitwell siblings, who provided him with a home and a cultural education. His earliest work of note was a collaboration with Edith Sitwell, Façade, which at first brought him notoriety as a modernist, but later became a popular ballet score. In middle age, Walton left Britain and set up home with his young wife on the Italian island of Ischia. By this time, he had ceased to be regarded as a modernist and some of his compositions of the 1950s were criticised as old-fashioned. His only full-length opera, Troilus and Cressida was among the works to be so labelled and has made little impact in opera houses. In his last years, his works came back into critical fashion; his later compositions, dismissed by critics at the time of their premieres, were revalued and regarded alongside his earlier works.
William Walton Composition Timpani and Percussion Requirements
Belshazzar’s Feast
Timpani
Int'l 32/29/26/23 Prem 32/30/28/25
5 percussion
Snare drum, tenor drum, triangle, tambourine, castanets, clash cymbals, orchestral bass drum, tam tam, xylophone, glockenspiel, wood block, whip, anvil
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Cello Concerto
Timpani + 3 percussion
2 snare drums, castanets, tam tam, vibraphone, xylophone, orchestral bass drum, clash cymbals
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Crown Imperial March
Timpani
Int'l 32/29/26 Prem 32/30/28
4 percussion
Glockenspiel, triangle, orchestral bass drum, clash cymbals, tam tam, snare drum, tenor drum, F & C tubular bells
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Façade Suite No 1
Timpani + 4 percussion
Glockenspiel, xylophone, ratchet, orchestral bass drum, clash cymbals, snare drum, tambourine, triangle
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Gloria
Timpani + 4 percussion
Glockenspiel, tam tam, xylophone, tubular bells, orchestral bass drum, clash cymbals, triangle, snare drum, tambourine, castanets
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Henry V Suite
Timpani + 3 percussion
Clash cymbals, tabor, snare drum, tambourine, tubular bells
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Memorial Fanfare for Henry Wood
2 Timpani + 4 percussion
Snare drum, orchestral bass drum, clash cymbals, tam tam
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Orb and Sceptre
Timpani + 3 percussion
Snare drum, orchestral bass drum, clash cymbals, tambourine
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Portsmouth Point
Timpani + 4 percussion
Orchestral bass drum, clash cymbals, snare drum, triangle, xylophone, castanets, tam tam, tambourine
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Scapino Overture
Timpani + 4 percussion
Orchestral bass drum, clash cymbals, snare drum, triangle, tambourine, 3 temple blocks, castanets, glockenspiel, xylophone (to look at!)
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Symphony No 1
2 Timpani
Int'l 32/29/26/23 + 32/29/26 Prem 32/30/28/25 + 32/30/28
1 percussion
Snare drum, clash cymbals, tam tam
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Symphony No 2
Timpani + 4 percussion
Snare drum, tenor drum, orchestral bass drum, clash cymbals, glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone, tambourine, D tubular bell
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Te Deum
Timpani + 3 percussion
Snare drum, clash cymbals, orchestral bass drum, tambourine
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