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Sir Malcolm Arnold (b.1921) Apart from his early professional life as a
trumpet player - for some years, he was principal trumpet in the London Philharmonic - Sir
Malcolm Arnold has made his living entirely from composing. Very few composers of his
generation (he was born in 1921 in Northampton) have been able to do this, which alone
indicates that his music has had wide and lasting appeal. Arnold's art is instantly
recognisable - just a few bars are needed before his creative personality becomes apparent
- and his musical language appears virtually fully formed from the beginning.
A composer's language is one thing; more importantly is what it conveys. Arnold is unafraid to embrace elements that more ostensibly 'serious' composers would avoid - elements including more genuinely popular gestures - alongside an orchestral mastery (his playing experience enlightening the practicalities of instrumentation) and an immediacy of thought which might not always embrace traditional symphonic development, but is so conceptually original to make us apply different analytical approaches to Arnold's music: considering the music as sequential events rather than as fitting a pre-existing structure. Malcolm Arnold on Guild Music
Page created 07.03.2001 |
