- Violin Concerto (Walton)
The
Violin Concerto ofWilliam Walton (1902–1983) was written in 1938–39 and reorchestrated in 1943. It has three movements:#Andante tranquillo
#Presto capriccioso alla napolitana
#Vivace The concerto was written for
Jascha Heifetz , who commissioned it in 1936. The premiere of the original version took place onDecember 7 ,1939 , in Cleveland, with Heifetz on violin and theCleveland Orchestra conducted byArtur Rodziński . Heifetz made the first recording of the piece, with theCincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted byEugène Aynsley Goossens , in 1942. The revised version premiered onJanuary 17 ,1944 , in Wolverhampton, England, with Henry Holst on violin and the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted byMalcolm Sargent . The revised version has been recorded by such violinists as Sir Yehudi Menuhin,Nigel Kennedy , andJoshua Bell .The concerto, about a half-hour in length, is scored for violin solo and standard orchestra (the revision pared down the percussion section from the original). Like the Viola Concerto (1929), with which, along with "Façade" (1921–22), the composer had made his name, the work follows a pattern of lyrical opening—
scherzo —sonata-form finale.Among the works written by Walton around the same time are the march "Crown Imperial" and "In Honour of the City of London" for double chorus and orchestra (both 1937) and the Second Orchestral Suite from "Façade" (1938). The violin concertos of
Samuel Barber ,Ernest Bloch ,Benjamin Britten ,Karl Amadeus Hartmann ,Paul Hindemith , andWalter Piston are contemporary, and Berg's, Schoenberg's, Sessions's, Bartók's second, and Prokofiev's second violin concertos were completed within the three years preceding the start of Walton's composition.External links
* [http://www.williamwalton.net/works/orchestral/violin_concerto.html Walton Concerto for Violin and Orchestra] composition page on Walton website
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