St. George's Day - William Walton

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St. George's Day
Spitfire Prelude and Fugue - William Walton

St George's Day in England remembers St George, England's patron saint. The anniversary of his death, which is on April 23, is seen as England's national day. According to legend, he was a soldier who killed a dragon and saved a princess. 

Patriotism

Feeling proud of one's country can seem like a deeply suspect emotion - perilously close to jingoism and racism. However, the desire to feel proud of one's community is a natural and noble impulse. Collective pride is so important, because there's never enough to be proud of in a single life - nationalism takes the pressure off all of us and allows us to rejoice in the achievements of our nation as a whole. We are members of a wide entity which we might be (and should be) prepared to love. 

Paraphrased from 'The School of Life'. For more, see this.

The Spartans directed their pride towards military strength and the Athenians directed their pride to the quality of their playwrights and the wisdom of their philosophers. In more recent times, however, patriotism seems to manifest itself in wartime or coronation-related occasions. Listen to the music of 'The First of the Few' (also known as 'Spitfire') with music by William Walton:



Sir William Turner Walton, OM (29 March 1902 – 8 March 1983) was an English composer. During a 60-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include the cantata Belshazzar's Feast, the Violin Concerto (commissioned by Jascha Heifetz) and Viola Concerto, the First Symphony, and the British coronation anthems Crown Imperial and Orb and Sceptre.
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. On leaving the university, he was taken up by the literary Sitwell siblings, who provided him with a home and a cultural education. 
After writing the music for 'Spitfire', Walton left Britain and set up home with his wife Susana on the Italian island of Ischia. He continued to live their permanently - perhaps as a result of feeling that his own country did not take as good care of him as it did his compositional contemporary Benjamin Britten, upon whom the spotlight was shone. 
Walton was a slow worker, painstakingly perfectionist, and his complete body of work across his long career is not large. His most popular compositions continue to be frequently performed in the 21st century, and by 2010 almost all his works had been released on CD.

The First of the Few

The First of the Few (US title Spitfire) is a 1942 British black-and-white biographical film produced and directed by Leslie Howard, who stars as R. J. Mitchell, the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft. The film's title alludes to Winston Churchill's speech describing Battle of Britain aircrew, subsequently known as the Few: "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".
Leslie Howard's portrayal of Mitchell has a special significance since Howard was killed when the Lisbon-to-London civilian airliner in which he was travelling was shot down by the Luftwaffe on 1 June 1943. His death occurred only days before The First of the Few was released in the United States on 12 June 1943, under the alternate title of Spitfire.

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