"How directly this music communicates. How warm its eloquence. How free from esoteric pretentiousness," British music historian Hugh Ottaway wrote of the work of William Alwyn (1905-1985). In addition to his highly regarded symphonies, operas and concertos, Alwyn wrote more than 100 scores for movies, documentaries and television shows during the period 1941-63, including such musical masterpieces as Odd Man Out (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Crimson Pirate (1952) and A Night to Remember (1958).

Born William Alwyn Smith in Northampton, England, he showed musical ability at an early age. At age 15 he entered London's Royal Academy of Music, where he excelled in flute and composition and later became a professor. He also was a virtuoso flautist with the London Symphony Orchestra. His compositions included five symphonies and four operas, and he also distinguished himself as a poet, artist and teacher.

The first film scored by Alwyn was the documentary short The Future's in the Air (1937), written by Graham Greene. During the war years, Alwyn established his reputation as a composer of scores for propaganda films created by the Ministry of Information. His first film for director Carol Reed, who would become his most important collaborator, was the Oscar®-winning documentary The True Glory (1945).

Alwyn described his music for Reed's Odd Man Out, starring James Mason as an IRA man on the run, as "my big score." This compelling film noir is considered by many critics to be among the best of all British-made movies, and Alwyn's music plays a major role in its effectiveness. Alwyn historian Ian Johnson writes that the composer's "contribution to the dramatic-thematic structure of Odd Man Out cannot be over-emphasized: his score knits together and defines the separate elements of the film."

Alwyn next collaborated with Reed on Greene's The Fallen Idol, a psychological thriller in which a boy idolizes the family butler (Ralph Richardson) but innocently implicates him in a murder. Alwyn's music again plays a crucial role in the film, underlining the character relationships and tightening suspense.

Alwyn's score for Burt Lancaster's swashbuckling vehicle The Crimson Pirate is rousing and romantic, while his music for A Night to Remember, a documentary-like drama about the sinking of the Titanic, is suitably somber and haunting. The latter score features selections by Sinfonia of London under the direction of Muir Mathieson.

Alwyn's other important scores include those for the WWII documentary Desert Victory (1943); and Sidney Gilliat's Green for Danger (1946), a murder mystery set in a hospital in rural England. He also scored Anthony Asquith's The Winslow Boy (1948); The Rocking Horse Winner and The History of Mr. Polly, both directed by Anthony Pelissier and released in 1949; and Brian Desmond Hurst's The Black Tent (1956). His final score was for Carol Reed's The Running Man (1963). Some of Alwyn's scores have been lost, but CD reconstructions of many surviving ones have been created from the film soundtracks themselves.

Alwyn was survived by his second wife, the composer Doreen Carwithen.

by Roger Fristoe