Belshazzar’s Feast

Belshazzar’s Feast is the most exciting piece of choral music. Conceived on a grand scale, it is scored for double choir, semi-chorus and full orchestra including piano, organ and two harps. However on seeing an early draft Sir Thomas Beecham commented ‘As you’ll never hear the thing again, my boy, why not throw in a couple of brass bands?’ Walton happily obliged and the result is a ‘cacophonous mash-up of the Lancastrian brass-band tradition, the fast pace of the parlour song, the theatrical ritual of Christ Church Cathedral Oxford, and the sheer vulgarity of English martial music of the time.’