William Walton

[Ken]

While listening to his Façade earlier today (a very difficult thing to do while trying to at the same time conduct any other kind of activity), I realized that the 25th anniversary of William Walton's death had passed without much fanfare. Walton died on March 8th, 1983, and left behind him a legacy as the most accomplished British orchestral composer since Elgar. Despite composing through his 70s, he was considered to never have topped his First Symphony, which was completed in 1935. When I thought about this, I realized that his output of famous works is quite deep, and includes the Violin, Viola, and Cello Concertos, Belshazzar's Feast oratorio, the Second Symphony, and countless film scores (the most notable of which being the accompaniment to Laurence Olivier's 1944 version of Henry V), Portsmouth Point overture, and Façade.

Especially in the past year or so, I have collected a fair number of Walton recordings, and now consider him one of my favourite 20th century composers (alongside Prokofiev, Hindemith, and Bartok). His melodies seem to me characteristically British (despite the fact that he wrote most of his famous output from his home in Italy), but at the same time eerily organic and almost primordial. Perhaps it was his ability to craft such seemingly era-less music that enabled him to become a prolific film score composer. Witness, for instance, the 'period-like' tunes that he composed for use in the Henry V and Hamlet film scores, which could have been plucked from the Globe Theatre itself but were nonetheless appropriate for contemporary adaptation. Walton was evidently a keen scholar of music.

Despite his popularity in the last century, I haven't seen much discussion about him on this forum. I'd like to open this thread up to talk about the composer, the prime interpreters of his music, and the best recordings of his works. Here are a few of my favourites:

Viola Concerto:
Nigel Kennedy/Andre Previn/Royal Philharmonic (EMI)

Violin Concerto:
James Ehnes/Bramwell Tovey/Vancouver Symphony (CBC)

Symphonies:
André Previn/London Symphony Orchestra (EMI)

Henry V:
Christopher Plummer/Sir Neville Marriner/ASMF (Chandos)

Thanks!

- Ken

[Ralph]

"Henry V" is my favorite Walton work.

[johnQpublic]

I really enjoy his overtures like Scapino.

And a specific recording I look forward to revisiting is Szell's "Variations on a theme by Hindemith" coupled with the 2nd symphony.

[Chalkperson]

You should watch those two Olivier Films, Dick 3 and Henry 5, they are very, very good...

[anasazi]

Walton wrote some of the most attractive (to me) music of the past 100 years. I am most happy to aggree, although, unfortunately, his output was not great, still we are left with a small few undeniable masterpieces.

Just a short quick comment though Ken, and as one who really loves the HENRY V music a lot, I really have trouble with that Chandos CD. Plummer is just a little to hammy for my taste, and I would rather listen to the EMI CD with Carl Cavis conducting the LPO, sans dialogue. "The Death Of Falstaff" cue is nearly my favorite Walton piece by the way. The other really other great Shakespearean film score, Richard III is represented well on an old London CD called "Cinema Gala" with the National Philharmonic conducted by Bernard Herrmann.

Another little Walton trifle that I've only recently discovered (thanks to the local PBS radio station) is his suite from the ballet "The Wise Virgins", themes based on J.S. Bach. This is available on a Chandos CD with Thomson and the LPO along with "The Quest".

Unfortuantly, Sir Willie didn't compose a lot for my instrument, the piano, so I am left with my envy of string players, as usual. Although, he did produce a viola concerto (like Hindemith and Walton's great admirer: Miklos Rozsa). It is difficult to find much here though, there just don't seem to be many violists able or willing to record these works. A pity, as all three are among the finest of their composers' works. I'm sorry that I don't consider Nigel Kennedy to by more than a just a competant violinist playing a viola in this case.

The Symphonies: well, I do love the Previn recording of the first. I also have the Thomson recording of the second. Not as familiar to most and really different from the first. What do you make of it?

Then there is Belshazzar's Feast.

[DavidRoss]

Walton died on March 8th, 1983, and left behind him a legacy as the most accomplished British orchestral composer since Elgar.

?

It appears that you have much to look forward to in discovering the wealth of good orchestral music written by British composers in the 20th Century. I do like the symphonies and concertos you mentioned. I'm not familiar with Henry V but will keep an ear out for it--thanks for the tip!

[piston]

Fifty years ago today!


A recent article in the Times UK goes so far as to identify RVW as the last widely acclaimed British composer. It's not quite accurate. I would put Britten in that position. But the Waltons, Arnolds, Benjamins, etc., along with more contemporary British composers such as those mentioned in the said article, simply did not achieve such a widespread and recurrent success.

From The TimesAugust 25, 2008

The day English classical music died
Composers have struggled to find a popular audience since the death of Vaughan WilliamsStephen Pollard
Do the names Alexander Goehr or Nicholas Maw mean anything to you? Here are two slightly better known names from the same profession: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

Still no idea? This one's the giveaway: Ralph Vaughan Williams.

They are all, as the last name will have told you, English composers. But while Vaughan Williams was and remains a household name, the other composers are known only to the coterie that now listens to contemporary music. Sir Peter is Master of the Queen's Music (the musical equivalent of Poet Laureate) and Sir Harrison is regarded by those who care about such things as the leading composer of his generation. Yet I doubt if anyone but a few people have listened to their works.

Vaughan Williams died 50 years ago tomorrow. He had a good innings - he died at 85 - but his death was symbolic of another death: that of contemporary classical music as a mainstream cultural activity.

In Vaughan Williams's day, the premiere of a new work of music was a significant event. No one would be considered culturally aware unless they were au fait with the new Vaughan Williams symphony. Today, any averagely informed person has read the latest fiction and seen the buzz films and theatre. But new music - serious rather than pop or rock - is a cult pursuit among a tiny proportion of the already small minority who are interested in culture.

Classical music took a wrong turn in the period after the death of Vaughan Williams. The ruination of music as part of mainstream culture came largely because of subsidy. Composers stopped writing for their public and wrote instead for the small clique that was responsible for commissioning pieces. The cultural commissars were obsessed with theories of music that held that melody was no longer a legitimate tool and only atonal music was appropriate to the age. Their dominance of the subsidy racket meant that not only were composers freed from any obligation to secure an audience for their music, but they were pilloried and starved of funds also if they did attempt to do that.

Vaughan Williams was the last composer to speak directly to a wide audience, with music that could be appreciated by listeners who did not have degrees in musical theory. One reason was basic: he wrote tonal music. But another was that there was something very English in his music. It wasn't just his use of folk music themes or the stories and places on which he based so much of his work - pieces such as A London Symphony, In the Fen Country, Norfolk Rhapsody, Five Tudor Portraits, Sir John in Love, A Pilgrim's Progress, the Fantasia on Greensleeves, and the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. It was the sound itself. His most frequently played piece, The Lark Ascending, captures the lyrical essence of the still, quiet idealised English countryside. And there is a similar, if indefinable, Englishness about almost everything he wrote.

But just as in so many areas of our lives the English often conceal passion under a calm exterior, so Vaughan Williams's music had far more to it than the lyricism of The Lark Ascending. His Symphony No. 6, for instance, which was premiered in 1948, has violent thrusts and agonised harmonies, and many of his other pieces have dark undercurrents.

The only contemporary composer who had anything close to Vaughan Williams's recognition was Benjamin Britten. Despite his avowed attempt to excise from his work what he regarded as the stultifying parochialism of the English musical scene, he too was a recognisably English composer. His breakthrough came with Peter Grimes, an opera set in a village that could easily have been his home town, Aldeburgh. And his lover and musical partner, the tenor Peter Pears, sounded as English as the Queen.

After decades in which contemporary music lived in a ghetto, a new generation of composers started to emerge in the 1990s. As the older generation lost its grip on the purse strings, so younger composers have started to write music that wider audiences can enjoy. James MacMillan, a Scottish composer, is as intellectually rigorous as any of his predecessors but has the priceless gift of connecting with audiences. The norm for performances of contemporary music was a premiere and perhaps one or two further subsidised repeats, then deserved obscurity. MacMillan's music has entered the mainstream repertoire because audiences want to hear it.

The leading young English composer is Thomas Adès, whose opera Powder Her Face won rave reviews in 1995 and has since been repeatedly performed around the world. He has been commissioned by the likes of the Royal Opera House and the Berlin Philharmonic and has produced pieces that have won instant audience acclaim.

Adès may be English but, unlike Vaughan Williams, there is almost nothing in his music to show that. Vaughan Williams may no longer be the last to write serious music for general audiences but, as a recognisably English composer, he was indeed the last of his kind.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 601922.ece

[stenka razin]

The great British composer Sir William Walton has been severely underrated. His scores are easy to listen to and extremely attractive. I think the following pieces are all masterworks and listed in no particular order:

1-Symphony No. 1-A very powerful Symphony with Sibelius as the greatest influence.

2-Portsmouth Point Overture-Will get your feet moving.

3-Crown Imperial-Grand Coronation march.

4-Scapino Overture-Mischievous and fun.

5-Johannesburg Overture-Rhythmic delight.

6-Partita For Orchestra-Hidden treasure chest of goodies.

7-Orb And Sceptre-Coronation march subdued.

8-Facade-Letting it all hang out and very witty.

9-Violin Concerto-Very sensuous and lovely.

10-Cello Concerto-Dreamy and quite sweet.

11-Viola Concerto-A tough nut worth cracking.

12-Belshazzar's Feast-On the grandest scale possible and thrilling.

13-String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor-Slashing strings.

14-Henry V-Fabulous and lovely.

15-Hamlet-Stunning funeral march and much more.

16-Richard III-Wonderful and tuneful.

[Ken]

Walton died on March 8th, 1983, and left behind him a legacy as the most accomplished British orchestral composer since Elgar.

?

It appears that you have much to look forward to in discovering the wealth of good orchestral music written by British composers in the 20th Century.

True; I made the statement hoping it would provoke some discussion on the matter.

[Ken]

Also, does anyone have the Maxim Vengerov recording of the Walton Violin and Viola Concertos? I've mixed feelings of what I've heard of Vengerov's so far -- what do you think about his take on Walton?

[stenka razin]

Also, does anyone have the Maxim Vengerov recording of the Walton Violin and Viola Concertos? I've mixed feelings of what I've heard of Vengerov's so far -- what do you think about his take on Walton?

ken, Rostropovich is a wonderful partner for Vengerov. The Violin Concerto is taken at a very deliberate pace, which brings out the yearning lyricism of the piece. The Viola Concerto by comparison is a very difficult work to bring off, because it not as songful or melodically memorable as the VC. Vengerov digs in and with Rostrpovich's support the work comes alive. I give the CD ****. Buy it.

[Ken]

^ Thanks, Stenka! If there's one criticism that I have of Kennedy's Viola Concerto recording, it's that he tends to 'tread lightly' over certain parts of the score. I thank you for your recommendation and look forward to see how Vengerov approaches the piece.

I've got to stop creating these threads, they always result in an increase in my music spending...

[THEHORN]

Another Walton work I admire, only from a recording,
is his only full length opera Troilus and cressida, based on
the Shakespeare play. I don't know if the superb Chandos
recording conducted by Richard Hickox is still available,
but it's well-worth hearing.
More opera companies ought to do it. A Met production would be most welcome.

[Corlyss_D]

The great British composer Sir William Walton has been severely underrated. His scores are easy to listen to and extremely attractive. I think the following pieces are all masterworks and listed in no particular order:

14-Henry V-Fabulous and lovely.

I haven't seen the movie in over a decade but if memory serves, the French episodes quote liberally from Canatloube's Songs of the Auvergne. Of course since the latter is based on folk tunes, Walton could have been reverting to the source. Either way, when I heard it, I leaped off the chair and shouted "Songs of the Auvergne." I've had a number of experiences like that when I hear paraphrases of medieval tunes in movie scores. Another feature that makes Henry V a delight is the fact that the sets are entirely cribbed from the Limbourg Brothers illuminations in their Tres Riche Heuers du Duc de Berry - indoor scenes, outdoor scenes, banquet scenes, all of it. I was absolutely floored when I saw that. As a movie, it has to take second prize to Brannagh's Henry V, but how lucky we are to have two such great exemplars of motion picture art.

[Heck148]

I really enjoy his overtures like Scapino.

And a specific recording I look forward to revisiting is Szell's "Variations on a theme by Hindemith" coupled with the 2nd symphony.

the 2nd symphony is very fine- the last mvt reminds me of Brahms 4/IV - isn't it a passacaglia??
anyway, the Cleveland recording is excellent - some really great section playing - ie - last mvt - the bassoon soli variation, and the trombone section variation as the work reaches its climax...