Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28654 in Music
• Released on: 2002-03-08
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .24 pounds
• Running time: 144 minutes

Customer Reviews

At last! Previn's Walton 1!
Long overdue for re-release, this excellent collection includes Andre Previn's classic blisteringly powerful performance of Walton's first symphony. The set is worth it for this alone. However, in an all too rare fit of generosity, BMG have coupled this with some classic recordings from the RCA catalogue of Walton's greatest works. Don't prevaricate - buy it!

Very fine, but Sargent was better
This is a must-have collector's set, and amazing value.

I really bought it for Previn's rendering of the 1st Symphony, of which I had heard much good. It is indeed a very fine rendering, but I agree with the previous reviewer that Sargent's was in another class: crisper syncopations, MORE tension to my ears (exquisite menace, excitement, and melancholy), very finely judged transitions, altogether zippier and fresher.

Fortunately I still have the Sargent on LP, but the current unavailability of Sargent recordings on CD is becoming an obsession with me. Why no Sibelius 5th, for instance, or Pohjola's Daughter? Do recording companies not trust their ears? Do they still harbour prejudices born out of sarcastic (envious?) comments made when Sargent was still alive? I saw Sargent conduct many times at the proms. He made a smart performance of the act of conducting itself, and presumably this drew his epithet of 'Flash Harry'. But what he drew from the orchestra was always exciting, often electrifying, and always very disciplined. Maybe there are flaws in the recordings? If that's the reason, I for one would be happy to live with them.

I also like Walton conducting his own works (including the 1st Symphony), and the Heifitz/Walton recording on this set is gorgeous.

AN INNOVATING CONSERVATIVE
There are only four 20th century British composers that I greatly like – Elgar, Delius, Britten and Walton. Two of these were mildly radical, and the other conservative, it seems to me, was Walton. This exciting set of reissues will give the maximum support to Walton-enthusiasts who take the opposite view of him from my own, but I doubt they could enjoy it more than I do. Crammed on to 2 cd’s at a bargain price you will find the violin and cello concertos played by the luminaries who first commissioned them, the sinfonia concertante in its original form, an important recent (1994) account of the great viola concerto, and Previn’s cult-status version of the 1st symphony. In the symphony and violin concerto the focus is on energy and vividness. Heifetz gives the revised version of the concerto with the Philharmonia under Walton himself in 1950. The liner-note makes no attributions to the sound-technicians, so let me pay them a few compliments whoever they were, and the sound is compatible enough for me to compare this unique account with my own favourite modern version by Nigel Kennedy with the RPO under Previn in 1987. The two readings are about as different as could be, but the difference is one of temperament not of technique or tempo. Heifetz is about 3 minutes quicker overall in a half-hour piece, which is surely neither here nor there. Kennedy easily passes the ‘Serkin test’ – a great performance needs ‘personality’, and believe me Kennedy is no assembly-line performer. For him the piece presents no technical challenges, and he emphasises the relaxed side where Heifetz is typically tense. It takes us back to the question – what is our ‘basic’ view of Walton?

With the symphony any performance that is not forceful and spiky would be a non-starter, and it is good to hear Previn’s 1967 LSO account with the sound freshened up. The brass blast away as if this were Bartok or Shostakovich at their fiercest, and if you view Walton as a radical this is the performance for you. For me this symphony, for all its dissonance, is as faithful to the 19th century scheme as Elgar’s are. Simultaneously with Previn there appeared a version from Sargent and the New Philharmonia with Walton himself involved in some way. Speeds are by and large similar but the overall impression is of grandeur rather than ferocity, and to this day I like it better in general. You can hear the difference in approach from the very first bar with the ultra-hushed and absolutely smooth timpani-roll from Sargent. Oddly, where Previn scores most, for me, is in the slow movement where he captures the loneliness and melancholy better, helped by a slower tempo. It’s the Previn approach that has prevailed, and I don’t think Sargent is now available.

Previn is the conductor in both versions of the viola concerto that I own, using the 1962 reorchestration. Bashmet is more introverted and less serene than Kennedy, but both are first-rate. If it were just a matter of this one piece I would still recommend Kennedy who benefits from a fuller and richer recorded sound, but we are dealing here with an entire package also containing two concerto performances of unique authority. The package is completed by an interesting version of the sinfonia concertante in its original form, apparently preferred by Walton to his revised score, and the late and very un-radical cello concerto played by its dedicatee. This is probably not a work that arouses fierce disputes regarding the merits of alternative versions, and anyone owning the Piatigorsky account will likely leave it at that, especially as P is in his familiar partnership with Munch, not one to let a performance sag.

I adore Walton. He did not change the language of music in any but superficial ways, but his genius was truly original and he performed a major act of mercy by jolting English music out of what Constant Lambert called the cowpat school, to which music-lovers of similar prejudices to mine are either deaf or wish we were – I operate to a crude rule of thumb that any composer who has inflicted musical settings on Housman or who has an excessive interest in English folk-music is a composer to avoid. As an early sign of Walton’s fine discernment I note that he took exceptional measures to avoid being sent back to Oldham. Sound judge indeed.