Continue the journey…
We suggest five works to explore after Walton’s Viola Concerto
Though Walton was no great fan of Hindemith’s playing, it seems appropriate to turn to the German composer’s Trauermusik, composed in 1936: not only did Hindemith again premiere the work himself, but also he wrote it while in London in direct response to the news of the death of King George V. Like the Walton, the work makes use of exquisite major-minor harmonic clashes, has its rhythmically vigorous moments, and the viola soloist is given plangently expressive music to play. (Tabea Zimmermann (viola); Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin/hans Graf Myrios MYR010).
The viola’s qualities of lyricism and brooding pensiveness were effectively taken up by Holst in his Lyric Movement (1933), composed near the end of his life. Understated, rarely raising itself to a forte, it is yet quietly passionate and one of Holst’s most poetically atmospheric works. (Andriy Viytovych (viola); English Sinfonia/howard Griffiths Naxos 8.570339).
Britten, himself a viola player, originally composed his Lachrymae for viola and piano in 1950; in 1976, very shortly before his death, he orchestrated the piano part for string orchestra – though the result, being Britten, is not ‘black and white’ but a rich tapestry of colours. Often furtive and mysterious, the work’s basis in a song by Dowland, ‘If my complaints could passions move’, only becomes clear at its very end. (Máte Szücs (viola); Aldeburgh Strings/ Markus Däunert Linn CKD 478).
Closer to the Walton in spirit is Rubbra’s Viola Concerto (1952) – perhaps because it, too, was written in
the shadow of the is composer’s troubled love life (his second marriage was near breakdown), though the work is noble and bitter-sweet rather than anguished. (Lawrence Power; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/ilan Volkov Hyperion CDA 67587).
Jörg Widmann’s more radical take on the Viola Concerto (2015) was written for the French player Antoine Tamestit. As Tamestit has observed, Widmann is ‘haunted by Schumann, Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart’, as is evident in the anguished yet beautiful lyricism of the fifth and final movement, closer in spirit to the Walton than the preceding movements which are generally edgy and angry. (Antoine Tamestit (viola); Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/daniel Harding Harmonia Mundi HMM 902268).
Holst’s Lyric Movement one of his most poetically atmospheric works