Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Early Closing
- 2 The Music of Northampton
- 3 A Number of Scotsmen
- 4 Olive
- 5 Union and Exile
- 6 A Purpose for Cinema
- 7 A War of his Own
- 8 Is Your Journey Really Necessary?
- 9 A Coming British Woman Composer
- 10 Towards a Festival
- 11 Questions of Inspiration
- 13 The Late Romantic
- 14 E-Day
- 15 Symphonic Reflections
- 16 Soundless Music
- 17 The Other Suffolk Composer
- 18 The Blythburgh Operas
- 19 The Stillness
- 20 Living and Learning
- 21 Precious Toy
- Epilogue
- Notes
- List of Alwyn’s Works
- Discography
- Bibliography
- General Index
- Index of Alwyn’s Works
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Early Closing
- 2 The Music of Northampton
- 3 A Number of Scotsmen
- 4 Olive
- 5 Union and Exile
- 6 A Purpose for Cinema
- 7 A War of his Own
- 8 Is Your Journey Really Necessary?
- 9 A Coming British Woman Composer
- 10 Towards a Festival
- 11 Questions of Inspiration
- 13 The Late Romantic
- 14 E-Day
- 15 Symphonic Reflections
- 16 Soundless Music
- 17 The Other Suffolk Composer
- 18 The Blythburgh Operas
- 19 The Stillness
- 20 Living and Learning
- 21 Precious Toy
- Epilogue
- Notes
- List of Alwyn’s Works
- Discography
- Bibliography
- General Index
- Index of Alwyn’s Works
Summary
It was only after Alwyn’s death that Andrew Palmer discovered that Mary Alwyn had once been Doreen Carwithen; ‘Mary never mentioned her music to me when William was alive and it seems only after his death she had permission to talk about it herself.’ To Palmer it was a revelation.
The thing that amazed me when I heard it was its energy and brilliance and excitement and vitality, because it was so unlike Mary, who was always so staid and placid, and if you knew her you would almost have expected her to write dreamy piano pieces. It made me wonder, too, what William was like as a young man, just as hearing Mary’s music made me wonder what she had been like as a young woman. Had they always been so quiet and placid and subdued? Maybe it’s all in the music. I think her music is very much of its time, but it seems expertly crafted and quite bold in the same way that William’s is, and there is the intriguing possibility that he absorbed some of her influence on his music as much as the other way round, because when he met her he had just put away all his early works and started afresh. Mary’s work doesn’t sound as if it is by someone so young, it is sure of itself. I wonder how much she had written before the work we now know about. If I had asked her she would probably have said ‘Oh, a few pieces, Andrew.’
In fact the emphasis never shifted from her husband’s music to her own, and through the establishment of the William Alwyn Foundation she diverted funds and energy to a new proclamation of his work. Those who were brought into the Foundation to assist in the effort held their meetings at Lark Rise until she decided she couldn’t be bothered with them traipsing through the house, after which they were relegated to the less commodious setting of the draughty village hall. Mary ruled over the Foundation in an uneasy relationship with its committee, while Palmer was, in Brian Murphy’s apt phrase, ‘the keeper of the flame’.
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- Information
- The Innumerable DanceThe Life and Work of William Alwyn, pp. 267 - 278Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008