Northampton composer Malcolm Arnold 'should be better known'

The renowned cellist Julian Lloyd Webber says the Northampton composer Malcolm Arnold should be "much better known than he is".

Lloyd Webber will launch the 21st Malcolm Arnold Festival in the Oscar-winning composer's hometown on Saturday.

Sir Malcolm, who died in Norwich in 2006 aged 84 , won an Academy Award for his score of the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai, which tells a story of British prisoners of war captured by the Japanese during World War Two.

Lloyd Webber, who worked with Arnold, said: "He was a character, and an extraordinary man."

The festival first took place in 2006 to celebrate Sir Malcolm's 85th birthday, but he died two weeks before it began.

This year there will be a world premiere performance of the composer's unfinished Violin Concerto, orchestrated from his detailed sketches.

Lloyd Webber's wife, Jiaxin Cheng Lloyd Webber, herself an acclaimed cellist, will perform the work written by Sir Malcolm for her husband, which he will introduce.

Julian Lloyd Webber, the brother of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, retired in 2014 due to a neck injury, which left him unable to play.

He said: "Arnold was a really wonderful composer, he should be much better known than he is.

"He wasn't the easiest person to work with but he wrote wonderful music."

Lloyd Webber said Sir Malcolm "had his problems with the music establishment" because his melodic style was not well received at the time.

But he described him as a "genius" at film music, having written 132 scores including Whistle Down the Wind and Hobson's Choice, and said he was a "prolific" composer.

"Everyone wanted him, there was a time when all the virtuosos of the time wanted him to write something for their instrument," he said.

He said the festival was "keeping Malcolm's name alive and it's introducing people to his beautiful music and they'll be a lot richer for hearing it".

Festival organiser Paul Harris said Malcolm Arnold "wrote music for people to play to other people".

He told Bernie Keith on BBC Radio Northampton that he always believed the festival would be well supported in Sir Malcolm's hometown.

Harris said: "There is something about Malcolm, his life, the fact he was a Northampton man, his family were in shoes, there is something very personal about [the festival].

"The music, it speaks to people, and people like to be communicated with, it's what draws us in and he knew how to do it."

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