From Ariel....

A snippet from a film score sketch by William Alwyn. When I tell relatives, friends or colleagues that I have been reconstructing old film scores, a polite if somewhat blank expression usually passes over their faces. I am sure they are conjuring up images of scissors and sellotape, and although I do use such things occasionally, they are not pivotal to my endeavours. What I do requires much more than pencil and rubber and a cassette machine, since what I am involved in is a series of extended aural tests. Since the first question tends to be "Why?", I'll start there. When music was recorded for film no-one, not even the composer thought it would be required again, so the material was usually collected up and binned. There were obviously exceptions. Composers from the concert tradition, as opposed to those primarily involved in commercial music, sometimes saw their film music as just another composition and saved evidence of their work in terms of sketches, shor...

Over the weekend I spent some time at the English Music Festival. It's a delightful festival that has been running for the last thirteen years in the Oxfordshire Countryside. William Alwyn's works are often a feature of the Festival, and this year there were two opportunities to hear his music with a selection from his Fantasy Waltzes on Sunday, and a love scene from his film score for The Fallen Idol during the final concert. The Fantasy Waltzes featured in a programme that concentrated primarily on piano duets, with some other great names involved including Sir Arthur Bliss' own arrangement for one piano, four hands, of his orchestral work, Rout , Francis Routh's stirring Roumanian Dance, and Tovey's decadent Balliol Waltzes . It was an excellent programme from pianists, Lynn Arnold and Charles Matthews , who gave some fascinating insights into their own thoughts about the works. When introducing the Alwyn, Lynn mentioned that as far as she knew there wer...

It's that time of year again - exam season. Schools and universities across the country are busy as young people get ready for those all important exams. In the world of music it's a busy time too, as instrumental examinations take place. In the United Kingdom these usually take place three times a year, with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) and Trinity College being the "big two". There are now plenty of other instrumental options available including the London College of Music, which has been particularly good at opening up the field of popular music, Victoria College of Music and Drama, with an inclusive approach that covers a wide range of instruments, and the more recent Rockschool, with its emphasis on contemporary music, to name just a few. Many children (including myself) first came across William Alwyn when one of his works popped up in the syllabus for their grade exam. In my case it was the short piano work The sea is angry for...

A celebration of the work of Doreen Carwithen, aka Mary Alwyn, whose archive is also held here at Cambridge University Library. Previously published on the University Library's Music Department blog at MusiCB3 ... Browsing through the  Doreen Carwithen  Archive  the other day, I came across a selection of popular magazines from the mid-’40s-’50s, all of which featured Doreen. As a young woman composing in what was then very largely a man’s world, she got a lot of attention from the press; though most journalists seemed to be less impressed by her work, than the fact that a woman was able to do it at all. The  Dundee Evening Telegraph  was fairly typical of the time in seeming more impressed that Doreen was pretty and curly haired, than that she had recently finished composing her first piano concerto aged just 24. Nevertheless, presumably deciding that any publicity was better than none, Doreen continued to occasionally feature in the popular press, part ...

Welcome to a new blog celebrating the life and work of the British composer, William Alwyn.  Alwyn (1905-1985) was born in Northampton, the son of a shopkeeper. His father owned the Shakspere [sic] grocery stores - a store where each flour bag was engraved with a quote from Shakespeare. This stayed firmly in the young composer's mind, and when many years later his diary, which charted the progress of his 3rd symphony was published, the book was entitled  From Ariel to Miranda.  Hence the name of this blog. The "Miranda" of the title of the published diary was Doreen Carwithen (1922-2003), Alwyn's former pupil, who later became his wife. Doreen was also a talented composer, and this blog will celebrate the life and work of both of them.  The William Alwyn Archive is now held at Cambridge University Library (for more information email  music@lib.cam.ac.uk ), and contains a vast amount of Alwynabilia. This ranges from film scores to art music, photographs, dra...