Orb and Sceptre

On retirement from a teaching career as Director of Music at Radley College, Oxfordshire and Glenalmond College, Perthshire, Robert Gower worked as Organist at St Barnabas Catholic Cathedral, Nottingham, before moving in 2019 to become Director of Music at Berwick-upon-Tweed parish church. His commitment to English twentieth-century repertoire is reflected through his founding and leadership of the Percy Whitlock Trust until its copyright income ceased and in hisongoing Chairmanship of the Gerald Finzi Charitable Trust. He specialises in transcribing music for organ and in liturgical composition.Sir William Walton was born in Oldham, Lancashire in 1902, the son of a choirmaster and a singing-teacher. He became a chorister at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and then an undergraduate at the University. His first composition to attract attention was a piano quartet written at the age of sixteen. At Oxford he made the acquaintance of the Sitwells who gave him friendship, moral and financial support and in 1922 he collaborated with Edith in devising the entertainment Belshazzar'sFeast. From 1922 to 1927 Walton began to spend an increasing amount of time abroad, notably in Switzerland and Italy. The war years were devoted mainly to writing film and ballet scores and he became established as amongst the greatest composers for the screen.