Malcolm Williamson

Malcolm Williamson was born in Sydney in 1931, the son of an Anglican priest. The church remained important throughout his career, especially after his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1952. Williamson’s first works were influenced by Schoenbergian serialism, but, after moving to London in 1950, he discovered the music of Messiaen and Britten, which led him increasingly toward a language that was fundamentally tonal and unashamedly lyrical. He scored his first major hit at the 1958 Cheltenham Festival with his jazz-influenced, catchily tuneful First Piano Concerto. A flood of commissions followed, but in the 1970s Williamson’s refusal to play along with modernist fashions began to tell against him. His appointment in 1975 as Master of the Queen’s Music was controversial, and before long he began to have problems composing. His Mass of Christ the King (1978) was delivered very late, and his Jubilee Symphony (1977), intended to mark the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, was never finished. By his death in 2003, Williamson's reputation had fallen sharply, but interest in his music increased in the 2010s. He left seven symphonies, four piano concertos, plus ballets, operas, and film scores, including the title music to the popular animated feature film Watership Down.