William Walton: Behind the Facade

Susana Walton tells the story of her life with William Walton to the time of his death in her arms in Ischia, Bay of Naples. She includes anecdotes and reminiscences, many in Walton's own words and previously unpublished, of the composer's early life, from his childhood in Oldham, Lancashire, his musical education at Oxford, his discovery by the Sitwells, his personal relationships and his sudden emergence in the 1920s as a leading musician of his generation. The book includes intimate glimpses of many celebrated friends such as Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Hans Werner Henze, Malcolm Sargent, W.H.Auden, Benjamin Britten and Yehudi Menuhin et al.