The composer

William Walton was 27 when he enjoyed his big breakthrough with the premiere of his Viola Concerto in 1929. Not that he had been entirely unknown before then. In 1923, the first public performance of his Façade for narrator and ensemble, written with the poet Edith Sitwell, received a lot of attention from the press, though largely not of the complimentary kind. Sitwell was not just Walton’s collaborator but also his co-landlady, as from 1920 the young composer had been living in a garret in the Chelsea house owned by her and her two brothers, Osbert and Sacheverell.