Holy mackerel! The New Haven Symphony is basically my home-town orchestra, and this is its first major recording since Mahler’s First (with “Blumine” restored) decades ago under Frank Brieff. Like that production, this newcomer (the first in a series) comes to us courtesy of Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book Library, which has an exceptional music collection. However, although the Beinecke apparently has the world’s largest archive of original Walton manuscripts (courtesy of a bequest by Frederick R. Koch), it’s a bit of a mystery as to why this matters. After all, Walton’s complete works are available in an excellent critical edition from Oxford University Press, surely the source of the scores and performance materials used here. Nor is the New Haven Symphony truly world-class, despite being at least as good as plenty of other European provincial or radio ensembles. This matters because Walton was lucky in his lifetime in having the best British orchestras at his disposal, never mind Szell and Cleveland for some of his best late pieces. So competition is fierce.
The concerto comes off best. No one after Heifetz in his two recordings has played the work successfully at the same breakneck speeds, but among modern versions Kurt Nikkanen’s marries a lovely tone in all registers (he’s terrific in high passage work) with a technical fearlessness, particularly in the central Presto, that’s really impressive. Boughton and the NHSO provide secure, idiomatic accompaniments, and the recording is excellently balanced. So far, so good.
The symphony, however, simply isn’t in the same league as benchmark versions by conductors as different as Previn, Slatkin, Litton, and Mackerras. Perhaps sensing that the orchestra hasn’t the power to match the best of the British competition, Boughton goes for lightness and clarity, which works well enough in quieter passages and in the fleet second movement. The latter shows that the orchestra is in fact capable of considerable collective virtuosity. But the first movement and finale hang fire. Listen to how the music fails to “swing” at the big brass climax between figures 13 and 14 in the first movement, or to the finale’s underplayed coda (far too reticent timpani, brass, and percussion). Respectable? Certainly, but distinctive–unfortunately not.
There’s enough that’s good here to make me optimistic about future releases in this series, and Walton’s later works demand less in the Sturm und Drang department than does the First Symphony. For this reason, I can recommend the concerto for those interested in that work particularly (or Nikkanen’s excellent solo playing), but “home town team” or not, Boughton and the NHSO are going to have to step up their game if they want to earn a firm recommendation across the board.
