Doreen Mary Carwithen (15 November 19225 January 2003) was an English composer of classical and film music. She was also known as Mary Alwyn following her marriage to William Alwyn.Lewis Foreman. 'Carwithen, Doreen', in Grove Music Online (2001)
Biography Doreen Carwithen was born at 8 High Street, Haddenham, Buckinghamshire on 15 November 1922, in the house attached to her father's bakery and grocery. As a child, she received her first music lessons from her mother Dulcie, an aspiring concert pianist and pupil of Tobias Matthay, who gave up her wider ambitions to become a music teacher after her marriage in 1921. Doreen studied both piano and violin with her from the age of four. Her younger sister Barbara Carwithen (born 1926) received similar tuition and also became a talented musician and composer.Chivers, Mark. "Doreen Carwithen in Haddenham" carwithenmusicfestival.co.uk, accessed 28 February 2023'A Musical Family', in Bucks Herald, 30 July 1943, p. 2
At the age of 16, Doreen Carwithen began composing by setting Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" for voice and piano. In 1938, she began taking cello lessons with Peers Coetmore,'Doreen Carwithen', biography Faber Music and in 1941, she entered the Royal Academy of Music and played the cello in a string quartet and with orchestras. She was a member of the harmony class of William Alwyn, who began to teach her composition. Her first orchestral work, the overture ODTAA (One Damn Thing After Another), was premiered at Covent Garden by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Adrian Boult on 2 March 1947.Palmer, Russell. British Music (1947), p. 55 The previous year she had become the first recipient of a J. Arthur Rank Film Scholarship.Information in William Alwyn Archive, Cambridge University Library
In 1961, she became William Alwyn's devoted secretary and amanuensis, becoming his second wife in 1975, adopting Mary Alwyn as her married name, as she disliked the name Doreen, and Mary was her middle name. She later worked as a Sub Professor of Composition at the RAM. After her husband's death in 1985, she founded the William Alwyn Archive and William Alwyn Foundation to promote his music and facilitate related research projects.
She then also resumed interest in her own music. In 1999, a stroke left her paralysed on one side. She died at Forncett St Peter, near Norwich, on 5 January 2003.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/doreen-carwithen-124778.html
Works Doreen Carwithen wrote scores for over 30 films, including Harvest from the Wilderness (1948), Boys in Brown (1950), Mantrap (released in the U.S. as Man in Hiding) (1952), The Men of Sherwood Forest (1954) and Three Cases of Murder (1955). In two of the films - The Stranger Left No Card (1952) and On the Twelfth Day (1954) - the music took the place of dialogue. Music from the score of the short British Transport Films documentary East Anglian Holiday (1954) was later reused in her Suffolk Suite.Deller, Toby. 'The Carwithen Music Festival', Classical Music, 18 January 2022 She gained a reputation in the film industry for her professionalism and speed under pressure: her score for Elizabeth Is Queen, the official film of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, had to be completed in just three days.
Her orchestral works include an overture ODTAA (One Damn Thing After Another) (1945, after the novel by John Masefield); a Concerto for piano and strings (1948); the overture Bishop Rock (1952) and the Suffolk Suite (1964).London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Hickox, Chandos 9524 Carwithen: Orchestral Works www.chandos.net, accessed 28 February 2023 Scores and parts for Bishop Rock and Suffolk Suite are available from Goodmusic. She also wrote a Violin Sonata (1951) and two award-winning (Clements Prize, 1948 and Cobbett Award, 1952) but little-known string quartets, which received their first recordings in 1998,Sorrel Quartet, Chandos 9596 Carwithen: Violin Sonata/ String Quartets www.chandos.net, accessed 28 February 2023 as well as seven solo songs, composed early in her career.One Hundred Years of British Song - Volume 2, SOMM CD0636 (2001), reviewed at Musicweb International
Carwithen was an accomplished pianist herself, as is evident from the piano writing in her 1948 Piano Concerto.Recorded by Howard Shelley and the London Symphony Orchestra (Chandos CHAN9524, 1997), and Samantha Ege and the Lontano Orchestra, (Lorelt LNT150, 2025) The piece was premiered by soloist Iris Loveridge at the Proms in 1952, the only work by a woman to be featured that season.Leah Broad. Notes to Resonus Classics CD RES10390 (2026)BBC Proms performance archive, 25 August, 1952 But her neo-classical three movement Sonatina (1946) was written for her lifelong friend, the pianist Violet Graham Cole (1923–2000).Broad, Leah. Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World (2023) via books.google.co.uk She also edited for performance the second piano concerto by her husband William Alwyn.London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Hickox, Chandos 9196 Alwyn: Symphony No. 5 · Piano Concerto No. 2 · Sinfonietta www.chandos.net, accessed 28 February 2023
A Doreen Carwithen Music Festival took place in the village of Haddenham between 30 June and 3 July 2022, marking her centenary.The Carwithen Music Festival carwithenmusicfestival.co.uk For the same reason, the BBC Proms included three of her works - Bishop Rock, the Second String Quartet and ODTAA - in the 2022 season,Performances of Doreen Carwithen at BBC Proms; www.bbc.co.uk and her life and work were featured in the BBC Radio Three series Composer of the Week in November 2022.Composer of the Week; www.bbc.co.uk
Selected works Cello Sonatina (1944) String Quartet No. 1 (1945) Piano Sonatina (1945-6) ODTAA, overture (1947) Concerto for Piano and Strings (1948) Four Preludes for piano (1950) String Quartet No. 2 in two movements (1950) Violin Sonata (1951) Bishop Rock, overture (1952) Five Diversions for wind quintet (1953) Suffolk Suite (1964)
Film scores DateTitleDirector1948 Harvest from the Wilderness 1948 To the Public Danger 1949 Boys in Brown 1952 The Stranger Left No Card 1953 Elizabeth is Queen 1953 Mantrap 1954 East Anglian Holiday 1954 The Men of Sherwood Forest 1955 Break in the Circle 1955 On The Twelfth Day... 1955 Three Cases of Murder
References
Further reading Leah Broad, Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World (Faber & Faber, 2023; )
External links
Carwithen biography on Musicweb Obituary of Doreen Carwithen by Martin Anderson East Anglian Holiday, British Transport Films Carwithen Music Festival Sonatina, played by Clare Hammond at the Aldeburgh Festival, June 2022