Surpassing My Expectations

The current edition of BBC Music magazine is their dedicated Proms issue but curiously, the cover disk bears no relation to any of the themes or performers at this years Proms, nor is it taken from a Proms broadcast though it is a live BBC orchestra performance. It is the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir adrian Boult playing Walton's Symphony No 1 from a 1975 concert, so almost considered vintage these days. Some have suggested that this isn't a particularly recommendable performance of the work but since it is a piece that I didn't previously know, I found the playing to be perfectly acceptable. Walton is not a composer for whom I have had much time, perhaps his biography shows a not particularly attractive character. But I was surprised to be very impressed with the first movement of this symphony in particular. Expressive, emotional, atmospheric with what seemed to me slightly Spanish flavours, it was a most compelling start. The work continues with an edgy presto and a fine slow movement. It was only in the finale that I felt things being written more for effect than from the heart. Walton famously took a long time over the gestation of this work, wanting to make an impact with his first foray into the symphonic world, and he struggled for a suitably triumphant resolution, seeming to me to fall back into ceremonial pomp in parts. All in all though, a fine symphony and memorable first movement that I wil look out for again.