The original and best with Power
Lawrence Power (viola)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/ilan Volkov Hyperion CDA 67587
The 30-odd available recordings of Walton’s Viola Concerto generally fall into one of two main camps: those who tend towards a more rounded, soulful, alto cello sonority, and those more inclined towards a leaner, brighter, violinistic quality. However, one player stands out as combining the best of all worlds: Lawrence Power. Technically, Power appears almost impervious to Walton’s not inconsiderable technical demands, delighting in those tricky sleight-of-hand manoeuvres that others find a shade taxing. Yet he also captures Walton’s cantabile espressivo with complete assuredness, tantalising the senses with a soaring intensity that time and again scores an emotional bullseye without ever becoming sentimental.
Most importantly, Power possesses the ideal soundworld to convey Walton’s iridescent emotional complexities. This is music that tantalises by gently veiling its expressive core behind a smoky veneer of semantic elusiveness, and more than any other player, Power matches this halfspoken quality with a tonal sophistication that in the central scherzo impishly skirts around generic norms. One of the most compelling (and counter-intuitive) aspects of Walton’s music is that the more unmistakably direct in expression it becomes, the less convincing and personal it feels, and Power captures this emotional ambiguity both gesturally and tonally.
Walton’s 1961 revision reduces the woodwind from triple to double, the trumpets from three to two, removes the tuba altogether and adds a harp. It is this version that has invariably been played and recorded ever since. Tellingly, Power elected to return to Walton’s original scoring of 1928/9, and the result is a darker, moodier, more uncompromising soundscape that is brought compellingly to life by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under its then (September
Power captures Walton’s emotional ambiguity both gesturally and tonally
2006) chief conductor, Ilan Volkov. Matching Power’s inspirational playing, the orchestra captures the ebb and flow of Walton’s music with suppleness of line and enticing spontaneity, generating an atmosphere of barely restrained brooding power, captured in immaculately balanced, glowing sound by production team Andrew Keener and Simon Eadon.
The concerto was inscribed ‘To Christabel’ (Christabel Mclaren, Lady Aberconway), with whom Walton was unrequitedly infatuated at the time. No other performance captures the work’s spirit of modified rapture so keenly.