Talk:Malcolm Williamson

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Knighthood and Honours[edit]

1. I had never heard that he was knighted. This[1] specifically denies that he was ever made a knight.

2. Did he ever renounce his Australian citizenship? Not that I am aware of. His AO award would not have been honorary unless he was no longer an Australian citizen. I've made the necessary changes. JackofOz 00:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to recall he was always referred to on Radio 3 as Sir Malcolm Williamson. It would be entirely normal for a MofQ'sM to be knighted. He is down as having an AO. Perhaps Radio 3 was making a mistake. Or my memory is at fault. NIghtjar 16:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC) Looking through a couple of obits suggests one of us is wrong - only CBE and OA. No sign of changed citizenship (can Australian citizens get the OBE?). I will mark that up for a citation. NIghtjar 17:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Odd. I've been listening to Radio 3 and its successors for over 40 years and I can't remember him ever being referred to as Sir. But I'm sure it's happened from time to time. I've heard Benjamin Britten referred to as "Sir Benjamin Britten" more than once, when in fact he was elevated to the peerage without ever being a knight. Yes, Australian citizens can most definitely get OBEs and thousands of us have (not including me). We qualify because Australia is a Commonwealth Realm. However, government policy is not to recommend any Imperial awards any more because we have the Order of Australia. -- JackofOz 14:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just revisiting the honorary AO issue. The entry at It's an Honour has the symbol [H] beside it, which denotes an honorary award. I'm sure this is a mistake, and I've shot off the following enquiry to the Honours Secretariat:
  • Malcolm Williamson's award of Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) shows the symbol [H], which means an Honorary Award. Is this correct? His earlier CBE was substantive. Did he relinquish his Australian citizenship in the meantime? He was always described as an "Australian composer", despite living for a long period in the UK, and I've never read that he abandoned Australia to the extent of relinquishing his citizenship. He would hardly have needed to in any case, except maybe to make some sort of political point. But after becoming Master of the Queen's Music in 1976, he wrote a lot of music with Australian themes and associations, many of which were premiered and performed in Australia. Had he pointedly ceased to be an Australian, I very much doubt this would have happened. So this [H] doesn't ring true with me at all, and I assume it's a mistake.
I'll be very interested to see what they have to say. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, surprise, surprise. They've confirmed it was honorary and emailed me the Gazette notice and the Government House announcement to prove it. I can't provide them here, but the [H] in "It's an Honour" is correct, and is all we need for a citation. Now the question remains, why did he not qualify for a substantive award? Curious. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:11, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Australian nationality law#History of Australian citizenship offers an answer?

1958 : On 8 October 1958, provisions causing some naturalised Australians resident outside Australia and New Guinea for 7 years to lose Australian citizenship (section 20 of the 1948 Act), are repealed.

Williamson moved to the UK in 1950 so it's quite possible he was caught by this 7 year rule and his Australian citizenship lapsed. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:14, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What was his final citizenship, and when did it change?[edit]

This keeps on intriguing me. If he had ceased to be an Australian citizen by the time of his Order of Australia, the question then becomes: what country was he a citizen of? I can't imagine it would have been any country other than the UK, since he lived there and was MQM. It's stated wherever you look that he was first non-British MQM; but it seems that he must have rectified that at some stage. I don't know enough about Australian and UK citizenship laws, but many people have dual citizenship. If he felt it necessary to adopt UK citizenship, I really wonder why dual citizenship could not have been arranged, rather than abandoning Australian citizenship altogether. And why is his abandonment of his Australian citizenship not mentioned anywhere? -- JackofOz (talk) 01:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If as I suspected above it's a case of the 1950s Australian laws applying automatically then Williamson may never have consciously taken any steps to abandon it (in much the same way the articles on Obama, birther movement aside, don't mention his "abandonment" of Kenyan citizenship in 1984, as that was also a passive event) and so it may have been no significant event at the time (or subsequently if no fuss was ever made about it in his lifetime). I'm not at all clear just what the citizenship status of people-living-in-the-UK-who-had-been-born-in-and-migrated-from-Dominions-that-adopted-their-own-citizenship-laws was in the 1950s onwards, but I think Williamson would have still been recognised as a British subject, at least under UK law, and by the time the distinction would have mattered he may well have naturalised. Citizenship laws are a complex mess. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How very interesting. Thanks, TRP. Your theory, that it all happened passively and probably even unconsciously to Williamson, is the most plausible one I've heard so far. So, at some point he formally ceased to be an Australian and was solely a British citizen. Yet the world at large was obviously unaware of this, because his appointment as Master of the Queen's Music was widely trumpeted as "the first non-Briton ever appointed". Williamson always remained an Australian in his heart, and was always considered so by his compatriots, and by the world at large - just not at law. Well, one more proof that the law is an ass. I guess all this is going to have to wait for his biography for confirmation (I assume someone's interested enough in Malcolm Williamson to write a biog). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:03, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality[edit]

Can someone go through and remove all that stuff about him being "extraordinarily gifted" and about his works having "astonishing imagination" and works having "(inexplicably) never been performed"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.219.169.5 (talk) 09:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gosh, someone's really cheerleading for old Malcolm here. I've gone through it and made as many changes as I thought necessary on first glance, however I think the article remains somewhat positively prejudiced for Williamson through its sheer length. The list of works - and especially the descriptions of certain sections - should be removed in my opinion. If not for the florid descriptions, but for the fact that as far as I can tell large scale works are not broken up into individual sections in the 'Lists of Works' sections on WP. Leftblank (talk) 09:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that one can accuse an article of lack of neutrality simply because it provides more information than you might think is warranted. Sure, opinions about the quality of the music will always be opinions, but it's wonderful to have the detailed factual information here. Yes I'm biassed - I've been trying to get hold of more of Williamson's music for the best part of 30 years - but even if I'm in a minority, a resource like this is immensely valuable. Mhkay (talk) 21:49, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed - one can't accuse an article of neutrality problems through its in-depth nature; it was more a roundabout way of saying that I thought this article was a bit too long and extensive for a composer who is not as well known as other more renound composers with much shorter and concise articles, for instance Boulez or John Cage to name but a couple. In any case, my other point remains: Wikipedia is a not a site for promotional material and the such; take a look at Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not, especially regarding the sections on "Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought" and "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". In any case, your contributions are of course very, very welcome. I just believe that they might need to be made a bit more objective, as there are other more appropriate routes for promoting Williamson's work, outside of old WP. Leftblank (talk) 12:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just a point of clarification - I haven't contributed anything much to this article. I was speaking as a reader. Mhkay (talk) 22:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's "sheer length" is less of an issue now. I've transferred the complete list of works to a new article, leaving only the Royal and Australian works here. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:28, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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