Malcolm Arnold

Malcolm Arnold was born in Northampton, England, in 1921. Inspired by hearing Louis Armstrong, he took up the trumpet, studied at the Royal College of Music and became principal trumpet of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. By the late 1940s he had given up playing to compose full time, and he proved astonishingly prolific.

Arnold wrote nine symphonies, many concertos, ballets and sets of dances, much of it bright, tuneful and full of humor. At the same time he became one of Britain's busiest film composers, writing more than a hundred scores in the 1950s and 1960s, including Hobson's Choice, Whistle Down the Wind and the St. Trinian's comedies.

His greatest screen success came with David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Lean wanted the British prisoners to whistle the old march "Colonel Bogey," and Arnold wove it into a score that also features his own countermarch. The whistling soldiers became one of the most famous images in cinema, and Arnold won the Academy Award for a score written in a matter of days. He also earned praise for The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958).

Arnold's later life was troubled by mental illness and alcoholism, and his output slowed. Yet his music was increasingly celebrated, and he was knighted in 1993. Sir Malcolm Arnold died in Norwich in 2006, remembered as one of the most natural melodists in British music.