Results for Malcolm Arnold

On this page:

Malcolm Arnold

Born:
Oct 21, 1921 in Northampton, England

Died:
Sep 23, 2006 in Norwich, England

Genre: Soundtrack
Active: '30s - '70s
Instrument: Conductor

Biography

Sir Malcolm Arnold towers among the premier British composers of the 20th century. The author of nine symphonies, 17 concertos, and 132 film scores, chief among them the Academy Award-winning The Bridge on the River Kwai, his adherence to tonality and melody positioned him in stark opposition to prevailing musical tastes, and he remains a critical lightning rod, championed by admirers for his populist sensibilities and decried by critics for the same reason. Born in Northampton on October 21, 1921, Arnold studied violin as a child. After witnessing a Louis Armstrong concert, the 12-year-old became obsessed with jazz, and its energy and spirit would profoundly shape his own music throughout his professional career. Armstrong also inspired Arnold to adopt the trumpet, and at 16 his virtuosity resulted in a scholarship to London's Royal College of Music. While in school he regularly moonlighted with London-area orchestras, and in addition to trumpet, he also studied composition under Gordon Jacob. At age 20 Arnold volunteered for World War II. Assigned to play cornet in a military band, he found the experience so distasteful that he literally shot himself in the foot to earn a medical discharge. The event was also emblematic of the mental illness that plagued him throughout his life. He was soon after diagnosed as a schizophrenic, and in the decades to follow endured a series of nervous breakdowns. Upon returning to civilian life, Arnold was appointed first trumpet chair with the London Philharmonic. In 1943, he completed his first major orchestral composition, the overture "Beckus the Dandipratt," followed months later by his creative breakthrough, "Three Shanties Op. 4," which crystallized his elegant, lyrical, and often cheeky approach. After winning the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1948, Arnold channeled the sum of his creative energies into composing, completing his first symphony the following year. Around the same time, he also began scoring films, beginning with the feature Avalanche Patrol. Arnold's Second Symphony, completed in 1953, would prove the most critically acclaimed of his major works, but his remarkable melodic gifts were to earn more academic scorn than approval in the years to come. Moreover, each of his nine symphonies is strikingly different from the others, making it even more difficult to pigeonhole his body of work within the narrow confines of the establishment canon. Arnold nevertheless emerged as a popular favorite, winning his first Oscar for his work on David Lean's 1957 epic The Bridge on the River Kwai. His other notable cinematic efforts include 1958's Ivor Novello Award-winning The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, 1959's Suddenly Last Summer, and 1960's Tunes of Glory, and he was a collaborator of such pantheon filmmakers as Carol Reed, John Huston, and Ronald Neame. By 1966 the pressures of living and working in London finally grew too much for Arnold, however, and he retreated to Cornwall, where his music adopted a pastoral beauty evoking his new home. He nevertheless remained a mercurial talent, and in 1969 conducted the Concerto for Group and Orchestra, written by pianist Jon Lord for his hard rock band Deep Purple. The decade to follow proved one of the most difficult periods of Arnold's life, marked by suicide attempts, prolonged hospital stays, and a series of alternative treatments and therapies. His creative output dwindled in response, although 1978's darkly ironic "Symphony for Brass" remains one of his acknowledged masterpieces. In 1984 a British court deemed Arnold unfit to live alone, and he spent the remainder of his life under the watch of devoted caregiver Anthony Day, to whom the composer dedicated 1986's Ninth Symphony. A poignantly powerful work incorporating conscious evocations of Tchaikovsky's and Mahler's musical farewells, the Ninth Symphony effectively ended Arnold's career, but in the years to follow a new generation of critics began reviewing his work in a more favorable light than their predecessors. Knighted in 1993, in 2001 Arnold received a Fellowship of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, an honor bestowed during an 80th birthday celebration at London's Wigmore Hall. A host of celebrations were planned in commemoration of Arnold's 85th birthday, but the composer did not live to see them. He died September 23, 2006. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

Representative Albums:

Hurrah for Malcolm Arnold, Overtures, The Bridge on the River Kwai

Similar Artists:

Sir William Walton

Influences:

Edward Elgar, Sir Arnold Bax

#SearchBtn{margin-top:14px !important;}

Library

Discography: Malcolm Arnold

David Copperfield/The Roots of Heaven

Buy this CD

Actor:

Malcolm Arnold

Born: Oct 21, 1921 in Northampton, England
Died: Sep 23, 2006
Active: '50s-'60s
Major Genres: Drama, Comedy
Career Highlights: The Bridge on the River Kwai, Hobson's Choice, The Belles of St. Trinian's
First Major Screen Credit: Eye Witness (1949)

Biography

Few world-class composers can rival the dazzling Sir Malcolm Arnold in terms of voluminous output. His resumé alone -- 132 film scores (an average of six per year), seven ballets, 20 concertos, nine symphonies, and a host of compositions for brass bands, chorales, and chamber musicians -- suggest a creative mind that never ceased, and would doubtless have kept on producing music, indefinitely, for as long as Arnold lived.

Arnold also demonstrates (as do so many of his contemporaries) that the most enviable creative gifts and the most troubling behavioral dysfunction often walk hand in hand. The victim of schizophrenia at an early age, a well-publicized alcoholic, a survivor of numerous mental breakdowns and suicide attempts, and the recipient of severe treatments for mental illness including institutionalization and a possible lobotomy, Arnold suffered from tremendous psychiatric strain. His life was also fraught with external difficulty, including the death of an infant daughter, the birth of an autistic son, and two failed marriages (to Sheila Nicholson and Isobel Gray, respectively), the second of which saw his wife filing a restraining order against the increasingly violent Arnold. He nonetheless survived these traumas, grew stronger, and -- despite a lengthy period in the middle of his life, sans output -- continued to author music right up through the end.

A Northampton native, born on October 21, 1921, Arnold studied music theory and composition as a youngster, then picked up a trumpet after hearing a Louis Armstrong performance at age 12. In time, the young man became so proficient that he secured a job performing with local orchestras, while enrolled at the Royal College of Music. He enlisted in the RAF voluntarily in 1944, but so hated the armed forces that he shot his own foot to get discharged. He then occupied a seat as a trumpeter in the London Philharmonic, but withdrew upon receiving the prestigious Mendelssohn Scholarship, which enabled him to devote all of his time to compositions. As the decades passed, he became a key crossover artist, who incorporated eccentric (and, by formally accepted standards, inappropriate) instrumentation into symphonies, and even at one point conducted a symphonic work written by the psychedelic rock band Deep Purple.

Even more incredible, given the size of Arnold's output, is the fact that he composed the preponderance of his significant musical works during the 1940s, '50s, '60s. Over the next two decades, Arnold's emotional and psychological difficulties made it virtually impossible for him to compose anything of significance, but he reportedly picked up his rapid-fire pace again in the '90s. Arnold's most infamous film score was unquestionably the one he wrote for Sir David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Oscar, penning the infamous "Colonel Bogey March." Though obviously too numerous to list in full here, his additional film credits as composer include Breaking the Sound Barrier (1952), Hobson's Choice (1954), The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954), The Holly and the Ivy (1954), 1984 (1956), Trapeze (1956), The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), Solomon and Sheba (1959), Whistle Down the Wind (1962), The Thin Red Line (1964), and Gypsy Girl (1966). He composed his final film score for 1980's The Wildcats of St. Trinian's, directed by Frank Launder, who had directed the original Belles of St. Trinian's.

Queen Elizabeth knighted Arnold in 1993. He died of a chest infection on September 23, 2006, just under a month prior to his 85th birthday and a Northampton-based musical celebration scheduled in his honor. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Filmography: Malcolm Arnold

Show More Movies

		Artist. Copyright © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ® , a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved. Read more
		Actor. Copyright © 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Malcolm Arnold". Read more

	What are Brazil's main imports?
	How do you prepare a good homemade Italian 'Salsa Rosa' sauce?
	What are the classifications of semiconductor memory?
	How do you add photos to your Zwinky account?
	How do you install a bluetooth driver in a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop that has Windows XP installed?

Malcolm Arnold

Biography

Representative Albums:

Similar Artists:

Influences:

Malcolm Arnold

Biography

Biography

Career highlights

Honours and Awards

Works

Ballets

Orchestral

Concertante

Vocal and Choral

Chamber

Instrumental

Piano

Band

Film Scores

Selected recordings

Selected Bibliography

Documentaries

Obituraries and Tributes

External links

Tackle These

Keep Reading

Do you have the answers?