Prologue from A Wartime Sketchbook

The great 20th Century English composer, William Walton, composed a collection of music for film during World War II, mainly for Lawrence Olivier’s Henry V in 1943. However, some of his output was not published until 1990, when ‘A Wartime Sketchbook’ was created by Christopher Palmer using six of these pieces.

The Prologue is taken from the music for a screen play by Graham Greene entitled ‘Went the Day Well?’ relating a story about a German airborne invasion of an English village. The arrangement I have used is from the collection compiled by Robert Gower, but I have made a few changes based on the orchestral recording by The Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields under Neville Marriner, attempting in a small way to reflect some of the orchestration used.

The Fleiter organ in Billerbeck clearly loves this music and seems to me to be the closest thing to a fine English Cathedral organ, with fiery reeds and clear, singing choruses, and perhaps draws a link between the two countries as we celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day.