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The Selected Letters of William Walton & William Walton The Selected Letters of William Walton. .(Book Review)-

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The Selected Letters of William Walton. Edited by Malcolm Hayes. London: Faber and Faber, 2002. [xviii, 526 p. ISBN 0-571-20105-9. [euro]30.] Music examples, illustrations, list of works, bibliography, index.

William Walton: The Romantic Loner. A Centenary Portrait Album. By Humphrey Burton and Maureen Murray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. [viii, 182 p. ISBN 0-198-16235-9. $35.] Illustrations, bibliography.

William Walton (1902-1983) often enjoyed posing as a reluctant composer. He maintained that he began to compose as a choirboy because he thought, "I must make myself interesting somehow or when my voice breaks I'll be sent back to Oldham. What can I do? Write music." (Michael Kennedy, Portrait of Walton [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989], 7). While the unappealing prospect of returning to the dour Lancastrian town of his birth might well have been a contributing factor in nudging the young Walton towards composition, the music that he wrote throughout his career belies his own self-deprecating testimony. From his early anthem A Litany (1916, rev. 1930), written when...

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