William Alwyn: The Art of Film Music Book

William Alwyn's good fortune was to join the British film industry near the close of the 1930s, just before it ripened in the hothouse of the Second World War. He became one of Britain's most prolific composers for the screen: many of his 70 features are acknowledged classics, among them Desert Victory, Odd Man Out, The History of Mr Polly and The Fallen Idol. He was his own man, a Romantic, with little time for atonality or serialism which he considered a barrier to his communication with the public. He devised his own alternative to twelve-tone serialism and used it in his Third Symphony (1955-6) and his score for The Black Tent (1956). Dissonance was a different matter, and he relished it for scenes of threat, peril, nightmare or terror, or simply to produce a tension as it 'pulls' towards a consonant resolution. After the war, Alwyn's reputation was high as both a film and concert composer. Alone with Vaughan Williams he was granted the distinction of a separate title credit; columnists mentioned him alongside Bliss, Bax and Walton. As the reputation of the British film industry declined in the 1950s, so musical snobbery against those who were its leading lights became unpleasantly raw. In recent years, however, with sensitive performances of his film and concert music available on CD, this most appealing of composers has enjoyed something of a renaissance. Ian Johnson's evaluation of Alwyn's film music places his achievement in the context of wider movements within the film industry. Detailed film- and discographies will prove invaluable for enthusiasts of British music of the 20th century and the history of the British film industry.