| Malcolm Arnold 1921 - 2006 | September 23, 2006  |
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The trumpeter-turned-composer Sir Malcolm Arnold died on September 23rd 2006 aged 84, in Norwich, England. Malcolm Arnold was born in Northampton on 21st October 1921. He had violin lessons as a young child but later, as a teenager, became interested in the trumpet. According to various stories he saw Louis Armstrong play in Brighton or perhaps Bournemouth, and in one account he met Duke Ellington in a Bournemouth tea room. Certainly jazz and the trumpet were key influences. Aged sixteen he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied trumpet with Ernest Hall (the legendary principal trumpet of the BBC Symphony Orchestra), and composition with Gordon Jacob. Before he was even finished at the RCM he was in demand for jobs in London orchestras (and some big band work besides) and in 1941 he became third trumpet in the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), moving to the principal job in 1944. Despite his avowed pacifism Arnold enlisted in the army in 1944 but ended up playing cornet in a military band, a role he hated, and literally shot himself in the foot as a way out. Back in the professional trumpet world he was with the BBC Symphony Orchestra briefly before returning to the LPO. By the mid 1940s Arnold’s second career as a composer was beginning to emerge, based originally at the LPO. His overture Beckus the Dandipratt with its “uproariously vulgar cornet solo” (Arthur Butterworth, SNO, Halle Orchestra) was an repeated success in live performance for Arnold and the orchestra, and an early LP issue with Van Beinum conducting boasts Arnold the composer still contributing in his playing role too. By the late 1940s Arnold was moving more and more into being a full-time composer, premièring his Symphony No 1 with the LPO in 1951. He had won the Mendelssohn Prize for composition in 1948. His hard-working, highly productive approach and populist style led to more commissions and to film work, the latter being perhaps best-known for the Oscar he received in 1957 for Bridge on the River Kwai, although between 1947 and 1969 he composed well over 100 film scores. He was well-liked – perhaps especially by wind players and even more so by trumpet players! – for his orchestral music, and his six sets of English (twice), Scottish, Cornish, Irish and Welsh Dances, written at various times between 1950 and 1988, are favourites in recordings and with concert audiences. He also wrote a number of concertos, reflecting his friendships with many of the prominent players who were his contemporaries. For a comprehensive list of works the reader is encouraged to visit the excellent official website, linked below. Although he was at least as successful financially as star composers like Britten, Arnold had difficulty being taken seriously by some of the music establishment, being seen as too populist and too “easy”. Arnold had struggled for much of his life with alcoholism and depression and was in grave difficulty for considerable parts of his later life, emerging nonetheless into a sort of late flowering of renewed respect and respectability continuing into his 80s. He was very committed to youth and music, having helped to establish the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and continued to be seen supporting youth music organizations very late towards the end of his life. He received many honours, including honorary degrees and being made a Bard of the Cornish Gorseth, and was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1970, receiving a knighthood in the 1993 New Year Honours list.
Links: Update: 11th April 2007 with additional content, photo and LP sleeve Note:
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