For much of the 20th century, England was musically thrice blest: she produced a bumper crop of superb composers of well-deserved international renown; London became the postwar capital of the classical music recording industry; and this in turn led to an unprecedented documentation (some would say overexposure) of these composers, both in their own interpretations as well as those of others. And of all of these fine composers, William Walton was one of the luckiest. Not only did he record virtually all of his major works for EMI, just about anyone else who ever traipsed through a London studio also has had a crack at some, if not all of them. The First Symphony alone has been recorded by everyone from Walton himself to Previn (twice), Haitink, Mackerras, Gibson, Rattle, Thomson, Litton, Slatkin, and even Vladimir Ashkenazy, to name only a few.
This raises the interesting question of how valuable a recording of live material such as this really is. Walton’s EMI recordings were made with the Philharmonia Orchestra, England’s best at the time, the First Symphony in mono and Belshazzar’s Feast in stereo (coincidentally exactly as we have here). Walton being a supreme professional in all things relating to his music, those studio interpretations are virtually identical to these, except that they are uniformly better played, sung, and recorded. The BBC Chorus, in particular, doesn’t hold a candle to Wilhelm Pitz’s well-drilled Philharmonia Chorus in Belshazzar’s Feast (taken from a 1965 concert performance), and the ear quickly tires of the imprecise rhythms, early entrances, and poor balances both between chorus and orchestra and within the orchestra itself (the recording accommodates the climaxes well, but anything less than forte has no impact at all and gets swallowed in the acoustic black hole that is the Royal Festival Hall).
This version of the First Symphony raises another interesting issue, which is that not a single one of Walton’s recordings of his own works has received general acclaim as a classic or reference edition. It was André Previn’s RCA recording of the First Symphony, and not the composer’s own, that brought it to worldwide attention, and deservedly so. Walton’s music is terribly difficult to perform, particularly regarding rhythm, and most British orchestras in the 1950s and even early ’60s simply weren’t up to the challenge. Nor is the Royal Philharmonic up to it in this dimly recorded 1959 outing from the Edinburgh Festival. Not that they don’t try: it’s just that there have been so many better recordings over the years. So once again the BBC issues a disc noteworthy for nothing more than its redundancy and utter irrelevance. Wouldn’t that worthy organization better serve the cause of British music, and that of enriching the repertoire generally, by releasing recordings of music by composers not otherwise well served by the major labels?
