Sir Malcolm Arnold - Composer of Vision
1921 - 2006
With the death of Sir Malcolm Arnold the musical world, and not least the English musical world, lost a composer of huge vision and inclusiveness who was also the last link with those composers who came to prominence in the first half of the 20th century, most notably (in respect to their influence on the young Arnold) Vaughan Williams, Arnold Bax, William Walton, and perhaps to a lesser extent Edward Elgar - although in Arnold’s lush orchestrations and his ability to move from boisterousness to slow melancholy - which matched his own unstable schizophrenic nature - we do hear the influence of the Worcester born composer.
But there was another and perhaps more important musical influence on the Northampton born Arnold, namely that of Louis Armstrong who he managed to see and hear in Bournemouth in the 1930s when that most famous of jazz musicians was on a European tour fronting a band made up of British and European players. Such was the influence on the youngster that he persuaded his father (a wealthy Methodist shoe manufacturer) to buy him a trumpet.
Such was his ability with the instrument that when Arnold won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in 1938 he decided that, apart from studying composition, he would also make the trumpet his main academic pre-occupation, and a means of earning a few bob when he sat in with a few jazz bands in the evening.
After graduating from the RCM he joined the London Philharmonic and soon became their principle trumpet.
Although a fine player Arnold’s main ambition, and passion, was to become a composer, an ambition that had been encouraged by Duke Ellington who’d met Arnold in a Bournemouth tea shop (the seaside resort was a major pre-war venue for visiting American jazz musicians) in the 1930s. And we can hear in Arnold’s work that wonderful freedom of expression that inhabits the best of jazz, plus the ability and ingenuity to do what might appear at first listening to be musically incorrect (as the case with Ellington) plus humour - which is a hallmark of both Arnold’s and Ellington’s work. What we also hear in Arnold’s work - a skill he would use to good effect in his film music - is that of tight section work (another jazz element) and an ability to swing like the devil when he needs too (with the trumpet often leading) which is something most classical composers fail so miserably at.
At the outbreak of World War II Arnold registered as a conscientious objector, but in 1944 changed his mind and joined the army where, after months of hard training, he was found to be unfit for active duty and attached to a home regiment as a cornet player in the band.
Such was Arnold’s indignation at not being allowed to fight (and having to play in such a lowly outfit as an army band after the dizzy heights of the London Philharmonic) that he shot himself in the foot (a serious offence that could have put him in a tough army prison for a couple of years), which brought about his discharge. It was also one of the first signs of what became increasing bouts of clinical depression and attempts at suicide.
