- This article is about the composer. For the cryptographer, see Malcolm J. Williamson.
Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson CBE,
AO (November 21, 1931 – March 2, 2003) was an Australian composer. From 1975 until his death he was Master of the Queen's Music.
Biography
Williamson was born in Sydney and studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Eugene
Goossens. In 1950 he moved to London where he worked as an organist, a proofreader, and a nightclub pianist. From 1953 he studied with
Elisabeth Lutyens.
Williamson was a very prolific composer at this time, receiving many commissions. He often performed his own works, both on
organ and piano.
In 1975, the death of Sir Arthur Bliss left the title of Master of the Queen's Music vacant. As the pre-eminent British composer of the time,
Benjamin Britten was the obvious choice to replace him, but he was very ill, and so, to
the surprise of many who expected a better known composer such as Sir Michael Tippett to
take the post, the title went to Williamson. (Sir William Walton even went so far as to
say that "the wrong Malcolm" had been chosen, referring to his preference for Sir Malcolm
Arnold). Williamson was the first non-Briton to hold the post since the early days of the office.
Williamson wrote a number of pieces connected to his royal post early in his tenure, including Mass of Christ the King
(1978) (see below) and Lament in Memory for Lord
Mountbatten of Burma (1980). But this writing dropped off for the last twenty years or so of his life. Indeed, his
compositional output as a whole slowed considerably due to a series of illnesses. He died in 2003 in a hospital in
Cambridge.
Malcolm Williamson was appointed CBE in 1976, and Honorary[citation needed] AO in 1987. He married Dolores Daniel in 1960 and had one son and two daughters. They were divorced
in 1978. He later had a long-term partnership with his publisher Simon Campion.[1][2]
Williamson's music
Some of Williamson's early works use the twelve tone technique of
Arnold Schoenberg, but his greatest influence is often said to be Olivier Messiaen. He discovered Messiaen's music shortly before converting to Roman Catholicism in 1952. He was also influenced by Britten, as well as by jazz and popular music (this latter influence may have come in part from him
working as a night club pianist in the 1950s).
Williamson wrote seven symphonies, four piano
concertos, operas including Our Man in Havana and The Violins of Saint
Jacques, the ballets Sun Into Darkness and The Display, choral works, chamber music, music for solo piano, music for film and
television including "Prologue" and "Main Title" of Watership Down, and others.
Williamson also wrote music for children, including the opera The Happy Prince (based on the story by Oscar Wilde) and cassations, short operas incorporating audience participation. One of these, The
Valley and the Hill, written for the silver jubilee of Elizabeth
II, was performed by 18,000 children.
His largest choral work, the Mass of Christ the King, was commissioned by the Three Choirs Festival for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in
1977, and attracted popular attention largely because it was late in being delivered. A monumental 70-minute piece written for
two sopranos, tenor and baritone soli, SATB chorus, SATB echo choir and a large orchestra, there were a number of performances
over the next few years including a live BBC broadcast in 1981, but the work is now largely, and some would say undeservedly,
forgotten.
Williamson became much less prolific in later life, although continuing to write occasionally. The orchestral song cycle on texts by Iris Murdoch A Year of Birds premiered at
The Proms in 1995.
Williamson was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE) in 1976, and an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1987. Unusually for
Masters of the Queen's Music, he was never knighted.
External links
References
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