The Composition
William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast was composed in 1930-31 and premiered at the Leeds Triennial Music Festival on 8 October 1931, conducted by Malcolm Sargent. The work runs approximately thirty-five minutes and is scored for baritone soloist, large chorus (SATB), and full orchestra including two brass bands (originally positioned off-stage), organ, and an exceptionally large percussion section. The BBC had initially commissioned a work for small forces, but Walton's ambitions expanded the scoring far beyond what the BBC's studios could accommodate; the Leeds Festival provided the large-scale forces the work required.
The libretto was compiled by Osbert Sitwell, Walton's patron and friend, drawing primarily on Daniel 5 (the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast), Psalm 137 (the lament of the exiles by the rivers of Babylon), Isaiah 13-14 (the prophetic oracle against Babylon), and Revelation 18 (the New Testament vision of Babylon's fall). Sitwell's text does not follow a linear narrative but collages these different biblical texts in a sequence that moves from lamentation to description to celebration, creating a dramatic arc of sustained rhetorical power.
Biblical Text
The work opens with the prophet Isaiah's pronouncement: 'Thus spake Isaiah: Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen' - combining Isaiah 21:9 with Revelation 18:2. This prologue frames the entire work as a prophetic oracle, spoken in retrospect (Babylon has already fallen) but experienced in the present tense by the singers. The first major section sets Psalm 137 in its entirety: the Jewish exiles sitting by the rivers of Babylon, weeping and refusing to sing the Lord's songs in a strange land ('How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?' - Psalm 137:4). The 'by the rivers of Babylon' section is marked by a haunting, pentatonic melody in the baritone that evokes the orientalism of the Babylonian setting through the conventions of early twentieth-century Western musical exoticism.
The central section depicts Belshazzar's feast itself (Daniel 5): the Babylonian king drinking wine from the stolen temple vessels and praising his gods of gold, silver, iron, wood, stone, and brass - a list that Walton sets with gleeful savage energy, the chorus shouting the names of the idols with percussive, rhythmic force. The writing on the wall (Daniel 5:25-28: 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin') interrupts the feast, and Belshazzar is slain. The final section celebrates the fall of Babylon, drawing on the repeated refrain of Revelation 18:10,16,19 ('Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city!') and ending with a final exultant proclamation of divine victory.
The Composer
William Walton (1902-1983) was twenty-nine when Belshazzar's Feast was premiered, and the work announced him as one of the most significant English composers of his generation. His musical style combined the influence of Elgar and Brahms with jazz rhythms, bitonality, and a harmonic language influenced by Bartók and Prokofiev - a synthesis that gave his music a distinctly English sound with an international modernist edge. Belshazzar's Feast belongs to the tradition of English oratorio stretching from Handel through Elgar, but its rhythmic vitality and harmonic pungency made it something entirely new in that tradition.
Walton was not particularly religious, but he was steeped in the culture of English choral tradition and understood the oratorio as a vehicle for large-scale public statement. The choice of the Babylonian captivity narrative - with its political dimension of exile, oppression, and liberation - may have resonated with the cultural anxieties of England in 1931, on the eve of the Great Depression's most severe impact and the rise of totalitarianism in Europe.
Musical Analysis
The musical language of Belshazzar's Feast is the most rhythmically electrifying in the English choral tradition. Walton's approach to the feast section draws on jazz polyrhythms, driving ostinato patterns, and layered percussion that create an effect of Dionysian frenzy entirely appropriate to the biblical account of Babylonian excess. The chorus shouts the names of the pagan gods - 'Praise ye the god of gold! Praise ye the god of silver!' - in staccato, punched-out syllables over a hammering orchestral accompaniment.
The contrast with the Psalm 137 opening could not be more extreme: the pentatonic baritone melody, the gentle, modal harmonies, and the hushed choral response of 'By the waters of Babylon' create a mood of profound sadness and longing before the feast's violence shatters it. This structural contrast - grief and celebration, exile and revolution, lamentation and triumph - is the work's organizing principle.
The final chorus, celebrating Babylon's fall, uses the two off-stage brass bands to spatial effect: the sound literally surrounds the audience in a moment that, in a large concert hall or festival arena, is as physically overwhelming as the 'Spem in alium' climax. The final measures drive to a massive fortissimo conclusion with all forces combined - chorus, orchestra, brass bands, and organ - in a celebration that walks a fine line between exultation and brutality.
Theological Content
The theological perspective of Belshazzar's Feast is that of the Hebrew prophets: the arrogance of imperial power, embodied in Belshazzar's defilement of the Temple vessels, is always temporary; the God of Israel, who permitted the exile of his people, also judges the empires that carried them off. Revelation 18's lament over Babylon ('that great city, by whose luxury all the nations were made drunk') is placed in the mouths of the Jewish exiles themselves, who rejoice over the very city whose luxury had seduced and enslaved them. This is the theology of Psalm 137's final verses - which Walton does not set but which hover over the entire work - where the psalmist prays for the destruction of Babylon in terms so savage that they have troubled every subsequent generation of readers.
Performance History
Belshazzar's Feast was immediately recognized as a masterpiece and became a staple of the English choral festival tradition within years of its premiere. Its combination of biblical power, rhythmic vitality, and spectacular orchestral scoring made it ideal for the large-scale choral festivals - Leeds, Three Choirs, Proms - that were the central institutions of English choral culture. It has been performed annually at major British choral events ever since and is widely considered the finest English oratorio of the twentieth century.
Notable Recordings
Sir Malcolm Sargent, who conducted the premiere, recorded the work multiple times, including a landmark account with the Philharmonia and Liverpool Philharmonic. André Previn's recording with the LSO and Benjamin Luxon (EMI, 1972) is widely admired. Colin Davis (LSO Live, 2009) and Andrew Davis (BBC Symphony, 2009) have both recorded the work with great distinction. The work was recorded by Walton himself in 1959 (with the Philharmonia, Donald Bell as baritone; Decca).
Legacy
Belshazzar's Feast established a new standard for the English choral tradition and demonstrated that the oratorio could be a vehicle for music of genuine rhythmic and dramatic modernity without sacrificing the biblical text or the choral tradition's technical demands. Its influence on subsequent English choral composers - Michael Tippett, Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle - is direct and acknowledged. It also is aone of the most powerful musical treatments of the biblical theology of judgment: the demonstration, through the energy and exultation of the chorus, that divine judgment on imperial arrogance is not merely a theological proposition but a lived human hope.