William Walton (1902–1983) 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 – An Entertainment, the cantata Belshazzar's Feast and his 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. Other early works that made his name were a Viola Concerto and Belshazzar's Feast. By middle age, he had ceased to be regarded as a modernist, and some of his compositions of the 1950s were criticised as old-fashioned. 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. (more...)
Recently featured: Court of Chancery – Hurricane Eloise – Admiralty Islands campaign Archive – By email – More featured articles... Read the rest of this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walton> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1461: Yorkist troops defeated Lancastrian forces at the Battle of Towton in Yorkshire, England, the largest battle in the Wars of the Roses up until that time with approximately 20,000 casualties. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Towton> 1807: German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers discovered 4 Vesta, the brightest asteroid and the second-most massive body in the asteroid belt. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Vesta> 1911: The M1911 single-action, semi-automatic pistol developed by American firearms designer John Browning became the standard-issue side arm in the United States Army. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1911_pistol> 1941: Second World War: British Royal Navy and Australian Navy ships intercepted and sank or severely damaged the ships of the Italian Regia Marina near Crete. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Matapan> 1999: The strongest earthquake to hit the foothills of the Himalayas in more than ninety years killed 103 people. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Chamoli_earthquake> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: otorhinolaryngology (n): (medicine) The study of diseases of the ear, nose and throat <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/otorhinolaryngology> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: 144px I am like a tree, From my top boughs I can see The footprints that led up to me. --R. S. Thomas <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/R._S._Thomas> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
