Sir William Turner Walton was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include Façade, the cantata Belshazzar's Feast, the Viola Concerto, the First Symphony, and the British coronation marches Crown Imperial and Orb and Sceptre.
Christ Church, Oxford, where Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate
Portsmouth Point by Thomas Rowlandson inspired Walton's overture of the same name.
The Manor House, Ashby St Ledgers, Walton's main base during the Second World War
The view from the Waltons' house on Ischia
Façade is a series of poems by Edith Sitwell, best known as part of Façade – An Entertainment in which the poems are recited over an instrumental accompaniment by William Walton. The poems and the music exist in several versions.
Edith Sitwell in 1912, by Roger Fry