Christopher Columbus is a radio play, with text by Louis MacNeice and music by William Walton, commissioned by the BBC in 1942. It was first heard in a live broadcast in October 1942 on the BBC Home Service. Sir Adrian Boult conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the cast was headed by Laurence Olivier in the title role. The production was greatly admired on both sides of the Atlantic, but Walton was reluctant to have his incidental music played in concert or on record and only one number from the score was published in his lifetime. Since his death in 1983 the score of Christopher Columbus has been arranged into a cantata and a suite, published and recorded. The BBC broadcast a new production of the play in 1992.
Contents
Background and broadcast
The producer and director Dallas Bower, then working for the BBC, produced a radio adaptation of Alexander Nevsky in 1941 shortly after the Soviet Union entered the Second World War. The adaptation was made in response to a request from the British government for a broadcast gesture to the country's new ally. The production, broadcast live, used Prokofiev's music from the original film; Sir Adrian Boult conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. In late 1941 the United States also joined the war, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Bower proposed to follow his Alexander Nevsky with a radio play celebrating America, and commissioned Louis MacNeice to write the words and William Walton to compose the music. As the 450th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of America was to be celebrated on 12 October 1942, the BBC chose that date for the broadcast of the new play.