Walton: Symphony No. 1; Cello Concerto
Robert Cohen, cello; Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra; Andrew Litton, conductor (London).
William Walton’s First Symphony is one of the few 20th Century masterpieces of symphonic form, despite a fourth movement written a year after the others and seeming to many listeners too optimistic in relation to what had come before.
The work, which dates from the early ’30s, has enjoyed only three great recordings: from Hamilton Harty (Dutton), Andre Previn (RCA) and Simon Rattle (EMI). Collectors cannot go wrong with any of them, but now comes another performance that has their ferocious involvement plus warmer, more detailed sound.
Litton also provides the same coupling as Rattle, though neither Cohen nor Lynn Harrell, sensitive as both soloists are, conveys the work’s sultry Mediterranean languor so ravishingly as Paul Tortelier on an EMI disc no longer available.
In the symphony, Litton has an edge over Rattle, who indulges rhetoric at key points in the first movement and finale. In the concerto, Tortelier is unsurpassed and worth waiting for in reissue.
