CHAPTER 2. CONTEXTUALIZATION
2.1 William Walton as a composer
William Walton (1902-1982), is a British composer. Noted above all for his orchestral music, he is one of the major figures to emerge in England between Vaughan Williams and Britten1. His work is an important contribution to modern neo-romantic music.
Walton was born into a musical family. When he was a child, he learned to play the violin, organ, and piano in a self-taught way but never played any of them well2. At the early age of 16, Walton was admitted as a student at Oxford University. In its library, he got steeped in the scores of Stravinsky, Debussy, Prokofiev, or Ravel; and he came into contact with Jazz music and the world of composition, learning to orchestrate on his own3. At that time, the young William met Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell Stiwell, the writer brothers. They gave him a place to live, took him on trips, and exposed him to influential people in the music world4. Walton’s first major composition, Façade (1922), dates from this period. This piece is an orchestral suite composed as an accompaniment to Edith Stiwell’s poems, which later became a ballet. At the same time, it is a product of the influence of Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet, a trend in the English musical aesthetics at that moment5. Then, the Portsmouth Point orchestral overture (1925) offered him great international recognition, but he established himself as an important British composer with a famous reputation with his famous Viola Concerto.
Most of Walton's music was written between the 1920s and 1930s, including the Viola Concerto (1929); the awesome First Symphony (1935); the successful cantata Beishazzar's Feast (1931); or the Violin Concerto (1939). He also wrote music for films as the soundtrack of Henry V, directed by Laurence Olivier6.
His works from the post-war period include the grand opera Troilus and Cressida (1949-1954); the Cello Concerto (1956), composed for Gregor Piatigorsky; or his Second Symphony (1957-60). His masterpiece in this decade is Variations on a Theme by Hindemith (1963), dedicated to his close friend Paul Hindemith. From the 1960s onwards, his music became less avant-garde, and he composed with a more post-romantic tendency. His opera The Bear (1967) and his Improvisations on an Impromptu of Benjamin Britten (1970) are an example of this.
During the last 10 years of his life, Walton re-orchestrated and revised his music, as he found it increasingly difficult to compose.
“Walton's reputation was somewhat weakened after the Second World War, due in part to the fact that his music began to sound less characteristic and his refusal to change his style to accommodate the trends of the time, which made his works sound increasingly outdated7”.
The figure of William Walton has become a very particular composer who wrote in a personal style, with brilliant orchestration and maximum care in the treatment of his melodies full of lyricism. Undoubtedly, there is a great legacy in relation to his compositions.
2.2 Walton Viola Concerto
Definitely, the Walton Viola Concerto is one of the most important pieces in the viola repertoire, and for many, it is the crown jewel of Walton's production8.
During the composition process, the own Walton wrote that it was “by far my best effort up to now9”. He also added:
“Nevertheless, I finished yesterday the second movement of my Viola Concerto. At the moment, I think it will be my best work, better than the Sinfonia10, if only the third and last movement works out well11”.
Walton was gaining more and more confidence in his composing way, and this Concerto was the result of a full maturation in his style. When the piece was finished, he mentioned: “My style is changing. It is becoming more melodious and mature12”.
As previously mentioned, this Concerto was written for Lionel Tertis, the foremost violist at the time. Nevertheless, Tertis initially rejected the piece for lack of understanding and affinity with Walton's style, due to its modernity.
“…when the composer offered me the first performance, I declined it. I was unwell at the time; but what is also true is that I had not learnt to appreciate Walton’s style. The innovations in his musical language which now seem so logical and so truly in the mainstream of music then struck me as far-fetched. It took me time to realize what a tower of strength in the literature of the viola is this concerto…13”.
Walton was so disappointed that he considered converting it into a violin Concerto. As an anecdote, Walton had a quite peculiar opinion about the viola when he began to compose the piece. He thought that it made “a rather awful sound14”. Apart from this, William only knew a few examples of viola solos, such as Berlioz’s Harold in Italy (1834) or Kammermusik No. 5 for viola and orchestra by Paul Hindemith (1927). Especially in this last one, Walton had been much influenced by that Concerto15. For this reason, Edward Clark, Walton’s friend, and music producer at the BBC, contacted Hindemith in order to perform the Walton Concerto, who agreed to play it. Not only a composer, but also one of the most outstanding violists of the time. In this way, the viola Concerto premiered on 3rd October 1929, with Paul Hindemith and the own William Walton conducting the Henry Wood Symphony Orchestra16. The concert was a success, even though it was carried out with a completely disastrous rehearsal: “the orchestral parts were full of mistakes, with bars missing and wrong notes, and Walton sat up all night correcting them17”. At the same time, the performance of Hindemith was not very well received by the composer and by Lionel Tertis, who attended the premiere. He said:
“I felt great disappointment with his playing. The notes, certainly, were all there, but the tone was cold and unpleasant and the instrument he played did not deserve to be called a viola, it was far too small18”.
On the other hand, Walton confessed:
“Hindemith’s playing was very brusque… His technique was marvellous, but he was rough- no-nonsense about it. He just stood up and played19”.
Unfortunately, this was the first and last time that Hindemith played this Concerto. The following year, realizing what a mistake he made, Tertis performed the viola Concerto for the first time with orchestra at the ISCM festival, in Liège20.
Such is the legacy and importance of this Concerto that it inspired other composers to write pieces for this instrument. A clear example of this is the Bartók Viola Concerto, another of the most famous and important compositions in our repertoire. The great violist William Primrose commissioned Bartók to write a work for viola. Initially, Béla Bartók was reluctant to his request, as he did not know much about the viola. Primrose asked him to wait to hear Walton Viola Concerto before making a final decision. Then, Primrose invited him to a performance of Walton Concerto scheduled months later, but he was finally unable to attend due to illness. Fortunately, the concert was broadcast and he was able to hear it. Bartók was impressed with the Concerto and the treatment of the viola as a soloist instrument and accepted the commission later21.
Since then, the Walton Concerto has been performed by countless well-known viola players, being the most performed composition by the English composer. It is a key piece in the viola repertoire, no contest. This work represents a very important development in the composer's style. With it, Walton consolidated and deepened not only his counterpoint technique but also his expressive range.
“Walton's Viola Concerto made the expansion of viola repertoire possible in ways no viola piece had done before, and for that, it will always remain unique22”.
2.3 First two recordings of the Walton Viola Concerto
The first existing recording of the Walton Viola Concerto was made by the British violist Frederick Riddle23 on December 6th, 1937, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra and with the own Walton as the conductor. The following recording was also conducted by William Walton with the Philarmonia Orchestra and played by the brilliant William Primrose24, in 1946.
Regarding to the first recording, Tertis the violist retired shortly before the recording was made in 1937. He wanted to record the piece, but he chose Riddle to replace him 10 days before the sessions25. Riddle was already an important violist at that time, playing solo performances with the London Symphony Orchestra26. Afterward, a second recording was made by Primrose, arguably one of the most famous violists of the 20th century. However, after Walton had the opportunity to conduct Tertis and Primrose so many times, including the recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1946, he preferred Riddle's interpretation above all other versions.
“Riddle’s reworking of the solo line is true to Walton’s text, but his legato groupings and crisp marcato articulations enhance the character of the composition and are convincingly practical in instrumental terms27”.
“When Frederick Riddle played the work for the first recording he devised different phrasings and bowings— without changing the actual notes—and the composer found these new articulations an improvement28”.
This preference prompted Walton to ask Riddle to submit his version to Oxford University Press, and this became the solo part published from 1938 to 1961.
In 1961, Walton decided to re-score his concerto and he published a new orchestration in which he made some changes to the 1929 version. The first version of the score (1929) was written for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, a bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings. The 1961 version deletes a flute, an oboe, a clarinet, a contrabassoon, a trumpet and adds a harp. In this regard, Walton wrote a letter to Oxford University Press in 1961:
“It is I think an improvement on the old version particularly as regards clarity and definition29”.
The following chapter will compare the first two recordings of the Walton Concerto and will discuss the interpretation of the piece.
