Kenneth Alwyn

Alwyn composed music and text for the BBC's Battle of Britain tour of North America to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the battle in 1990. His compositions for the tour include Fighter Command 1940, which is included on the album A Tribute to the Few (Polyphonic 1990) with the Massed Bands of the Royal Air Force. Said to reflect his own flying experience, it has been described as "a musical panorama of those days in march time". It has become a standard Royal Air Force ceremonial march and is played at the opening Royal Air Force Tours which commemorate anniversaries of the Battle of Britain. Alwyn maintained an interest in flying throughout his life, and was a flight instructor at Brighton City Airport. Alwyn devised and conducted a gala concert in aid of Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now a constituent charity of Cancer Research UK) for the 1993 St George's Day Festival, for which he wrote much of the original music, featuring the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Royal Artillery Band, St George's Singers, St George's Festival Choir and the Wells Cathedral Junior School Choir. Starring Peter Vaughan as St George, it was broadcast from the Royal Albert Hall on BBC Radio 2. Alwyn devised and conducted a BBC concert to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D-Day on 6 June 1994, for which he wrote a musical description of D-Day called Echoes, introduced by Raymond Baxter. The BBC Concert Orchestra concert was broadcast live from Portsmouth and was subsequently released on CD as D-Day: The Fiftieth Anniversary Musical Tribute (Start 2010). Alwyn's other compositions include Concert March: The Young Grenadier which he dedicated to HM The Queen. It was played by the Massed Bands of the Brigade of Guards at the Trooping of the Colour in 1991 and is included on the album The Music of the Grenadier Guards (SRC 2006). The title of the work refers to a famous photograph of a young Princess Elizabeth wearing a Grenadier Cap at the time when she became Colonel of the Regiment in 1942. Alwyn also composed a setting of Queen Elizabeth I's poem Youth and Cupid for a royal gala performance at the Chichester Festival Theatre to commemorate HM The Queen's Silver Jubilee in June 1977. He wrote the music and lyrics of a number of comic songs for singer Ian Wallace's album Wallace's New Zoo, released in 1965, including The Gorilla, (re-released as part of The Best of Ian Wallace, EMI 1994) and he has written stories and poems for children. Alwyn also composed the song Liverpool for Gerry Marsden (later of Gerry and the Pacemakers), released in 1968. Alwyn composed the theme tune for the LWT series Affairs of the Heart (1974-1975), a set of adaptations of the stories of Henry James, and he was also commissioned to write the music for the television adaptation of Sir John Mortimer's play A Choice of Kings, which commemorated the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.

Alwyn's recording of The Ladykillers: Music from Those Glorious Ealing Films with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia won the 1998 Gramophone Award for Best Film Music Recording, and a selection of Richard Addinsell's film music entitled British Light Music with the BBC Concert Orchestra was chosen as a record of the year by Gramophone magazine (1995 Gramophone Critics' Choice). A collection of main themes and excerpts from famous film scores, including The Last of the Mohicans, The English Patient and Sense and Sensibility was also selected as a recording of the year by the magazine in 1998. Alwyn's wide interest in film music of all genres has led him to re-record many popular film scores, including The Bride of Frankenstein for which he received particular acclaim: "Shaped by Kenneth Alwyn with an admirable feel for the music's full-blooded style, and graced with a tight, bright recording which gives the orchestra an authentic film studio sound, this could almost be the original film soundtrack in modern digital dressing." Selected discography: • Addinsell: British Light Music: Goodbye Mr Chips / A Tale of Two Cities / Fire Over England / Tom Brown's Schooldays / The Prince and the Showgirl / Festival with the BBC Concert Orchestra (Marco Polo 1995) • Addinsell: Music of Richard Addinsell including Warsaw Concerto with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia (ASV 1997 and Decca 2010) • Addinsell: Film Music with Peter Lawson and the Royal Ballet Sinfonia (ASV 1997) • Auric and others: The Ladykillers: Music from Those Glorious Ealing Films with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia (Silva 1997) • Bax and Arnold: Music for Films: Oliver Twist / Malta GC / The Sound Barrier: Rhapsody for Orchestra, Op.38 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (CNR 1989, re-released ASV 1993) • Newman: Man of Galilee: The Essential Alfred Newman Film Music Collection (Silva America 2001) • Rozsa: Ben-Hur: The Essential Miklos Rozsa with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (Silva Screen 1996, Silva America 2000) • Morricone: Once Upon a Time: The Essential Ennio Morricone Film Music Collection (Silva America 2004) • Schurmann and others: Horror! with the Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra (Silva Screen, 1996) • Steiner: The Flame and the Arrow: Classic Film Music with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (Silva Screen 1998) • Steiner: Gone with the Wind: The Classic Max Steiner (Silva America 1994 and 2001) • Steiner and others: Cinema Century (Silva Screen 1999) • Vaughan Williams: Coastal Command / Bliss: Conquest of the Air / Schurmann: Attack & Celebration / Easdale: The Red Shoes with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Silva America 1993) • Waxman: The Bride of Frankenstein / The Invisible Ray with the Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra (Silva America 1993) • Young: The Quiet Man with the Dublin Screen Orchestra (Silva Screen Records 1995) • Various: Best of British Light Music with the BBC Concert Orchestra and others (Naxos 2007) • Various: Cinema's Classic Romances with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (Silva Classics 1998)

Alwyn's orchestral recording career dates back to 1958, when he recorded Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture for Decca Records with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Band of the Grenadier Guards, which has been reviewed and critically acclaimed many times over the years in Gramophone magazine. and was chosen as one of its records of the year (1958 Gramophone Critics' Choice). The recording famously featured slowed-down gunshots to mimic cannon fire. It has remained a mainstay of the classical catalogue and was re-issued by Decca in 2012. Other notable recordings include Lord Berners' Wedding Bouquet with the RTÉ Chamber Choir and Sinfonietta (1996 Gramophone Critics' Choice). Selected discography: • Richard Addinsell: Warsaw Concerto / Hubert Bath: Cornish Rhapsody / Miklós Rózsa: Spellbound Concerto / Charles Williams: The Dream of Olwen / George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue with Daniel Adni and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (EMI 1980, 1988, re-issued 2006) • Paul Ben-Haim: Symphony No. 1 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (CBS) • Ben-Haim: Symphony No. 2, Op. 36 / Concerto for Strings, Op. 40 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Nimbus Records for Jerusalem Records/Stradivari Classics, recorded 1962 and 1967, released 1984) • Lord Berners: Wedding Bouquet / Luna Park / March with the RTÉ Chamber Choir and Sinfonietta (Marco Polo 1996) • Jeremiah Clarke: Trumpet Voluntary with the Trumpeters of Kneller Hall, the Royal Military School and London Symphony Orchestra, recorded at the Opening Concert of the Aldeburgh Festival in 1953, at which Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst also conducted works appearing on the same recording (Decca 1962, re-issued by Decca Eloquence) • Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Hiawatha's Wedding Feast with Anthony Rolfe Johnson, the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (EMI 1984 and 2005) • Coleridge-Taylor: The Song of Hiawatha / Symphonic Variations on an African Air with Bryn Terfel, Helen Field and the Welsh National Opera (Decca 1991, 1998 and 2002) • George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue / An American in Paris / Piano Concerto in F with Malcolm Binns and the Sinfonia of London Orchestra (EMI 1966) • Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt - Suite No. 1 / Rossini: Overtures with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and New Symphony Orchestra of London (re-issued by DECCA Eloquence 2012) • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture / Capriccio italien / Marche Slave / Swan Lake with the London Symphony Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra (Decca 1958, Decca Ace of Diamonds 1965, Decca 2008, Decca Eloquence 2012)