Spitfire Prelude and Fugue is an orchestral composition by William Walton, arranged and extracted in 1942 from music he had written for the motion picture The First of the Few earlier that year.
The prelude, called by Stephen Lloyd "one of Walton’s finest marches", is the music heard over the opening credit titles in the movie.
In 1947, John Huntley wrote of the composition, "The Prelude is a patriotic, resounding piece of good orchestration; simple in construction, it makes ideal film music".
Two flutes (second doubling piccolo), one or two oboes, two clarinets, one or two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (side drum, cymbals, bell), harp, and strings.
The autograph full score, 32 pages long, can be found at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
The earliest extant non-British recording of the Spitfire Prelude and Fugue comes from the Carnegie Hall concert of 6 February 1949 in which Leopold Stokowski conducted the New York Philharmonic.