SearchsearchUseruser

Walton: Symphony No. 2, Cello Concerto - Watkins, Gardner

Walton: Symphony No. 2, Cello Concerto - Watkins, Gardner

Chandos  CHSA 5153

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical - Orchestral


Walton: Symphony No. 2; Cello Concerto; Improvisations on an Impromptu of Benjamin Britten

Paul Watkins, cello
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Edward Gardner


Edward Gardner conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in late music by Walton. It follows the success of his recording of Walton’s Symphony No. 1 and Violin Concerto – one of Chandos’ best-selling recordings for 2014. With an air of relaxation that differs from the tension of his previously recorded early works, the music on this album is likely to cause as much excitement.

Walton’s Second (and last) Symphony was commissioned for the 750th anniversary, in 1957 – 58, of the founding of the city of Liverpool, but, delayed by the composition of the Cello Concerto, it was only premiered in 1960. Scored for a large and colourful orchestra, it is based on the same model as the Third Symphony of Albert Roussel, with a similarly compact duration and the use of the key of G minor, and a concentration on angular melodies, sharply dissonant harmonies, and motoric rhythms.

The Cello Concerto was premiered in London in 1957 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra itself. The cello soloist is Paul Watkins, exclusive on Chandos, highly praised as a member of the Emerson String Quartet, but also the Artistic Director, since last year, of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival of Detroit. In this piece, the traditional structure of Walton’s earlier concertos – a moderately paced opening movement followed by a central scherzo – ends in a rich finale consisting of a theme and four ‘improvisations’. The concept of ‘improvisation’ occurs again in the last work on the disc, based on the ‘Impromptu’ of Benjamin Britten’s Piano Concerto.

Support this site by purchasing from these vendors using the paid links below.
As an Amazon Associate HRAudio.net earns from qualifying purchases.

bol.com
 
jpc
Presto

 

Add to your wish list | library

 

7 of 7 recommend this, would you recommend it?  yes | no

All
show
Recording
show
hide
PCM recording

24/96
Reviews (1)
show
hide

Review by Graham Williams - March 3, 2015

This is an ideal companion to Edward Gardner's first Walton disc for Chandos that coupled the composer's 1st Symphony with his Violin Concerto Walton: Symphony No. 1, Violin Concerto - Little, Gardner, and it indubitably confirms Gardner as a most sympathetic and authoritative interpreter of Walton's music.
The three works on this immaculately recorded SACD make for a most satisfying programme on disc as indeed they would in the concert hall.

The 'Improvisations on an Impromptu of Benjamin Britten' was Walton's response to a commission in 1969 for a piece of music for Josef Krips and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from the scientist Dr Ralph Dorfman (a benefactor of this orchestra) in memory of his late wife. Walton asked Benjamin Britten if he could borrow a theme from his Piano Concerto to which the younger composer readily agreed. In Walton's hands the elegiac nine-bar Britten theme undergoes a series of contrasting transformations (improvisations) – some meltingly lyrical others spiky and aggressive. This superbly crafted and often haunting piece receives a luminous performance from Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in what is the work's first appearance on SACD.

There have been many fine recordings on disc of Walton's Cello Concerto, a work imbued with Mediterranean warmth and sunlight reflecting the idyllic surroundings of Walton's home on the island of Ischia overlooking the Bay of Naples. The Concerto was written for, and dedicated to, the great Ukranian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky who recorded it with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch a few days after the work's premier in 1957 for RCA. Miraculously that recording is available on SACD Dvořák, Walton: Cello Concertos - Piatigorsky and even after nearly half a century still sounds amazingly vivid. On this Chandos disc Paul Watkins gives a polished and carefully nuanced reading of the work with notably expressive support from the BBC SO. He dispatches the central scherzo with mercurial brilliance and brings rhapsodic warmth to the outer movements.

Walton's much underrated 2nd Symphony was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the city of Liverpool in 1957. It was not, however, completed in time and did not receive its first performance until 1960. The Symphony is a very different beast from its predecessor written 25 years earlier, and only in recent years has it come to be widely appreciated – though the blistering recording of the work made by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra in 1961 had already made many aware of its fine qualities. The only other recording of this piece on SACD is that by Owain Arwel Hughes on the BIS label Walton: The Symphonies - Hughes coupled with a lack-lustre account of the 1st Symphony. In purely sonic terms there is little to chose between them – both are excellent, though perhaps the BIS disc has marginally greater clarity and detail than the Chandos recording. Gardner's performance, however, is more probing and idiomatic than that of Hughes and he makes much more of Walton's sumptuous cantilena writing in the lovely central 'Lento assai' movement.

As on the previous issue, Watford Colosseum was the venue for these Chandos recordings (5.0 channel 24-bit/96kHz) and the sound is spacious, natural and well-balanced.

Definitely recommended

Copyright © 2015 Graham Williams and HRAudio.net

Performance:

Sonics (Multichannel):

stars stars