The Symphony No. 1 in B minor is one of two symphonies by the English composer William Walton. The composer had difficulty in completing the work, and its first public performance was given without the finale, in 1934. The complete four-movement work was premiered the following year.
The work shows the influence of Sibelius, particularly in its musical structure. It is among the best-known symphonies by British composers, and has received numerous recordings from within a month of the 1935 premiere to the 21st century.
In 1923 Walton had established a reputation as an avant garde composer with his "Entertainment", Façade (to verses by Edith Sitwell). His other major works of the 1920s and early 1930s, including the overture Portsmouth Point (1926), the Viola Concerto and the cantata, Belshazzar's Feast had established him as a prominent figure in British music.
In 1932 Walton began work on a symphony. Always a slow and painstaking composer, he made gradual progress. The first two movements were finished by early 1933, and he composed the slow movement in the middle of that year.[1] After that, he suffered a persistent writer's block and could not complete the finale. Critics including Edward Greenfield have suggested that the problem was a reaction to the break-up of Walton's six-year love affair with a young German widow, the Baroness Imma von Doernberg, to whom the symphony is dedicated.[2] Walton was not writing to commission, and there was no contractual deadline for the completion of the symphony, but he had promised the premiere to the conductor Sir Hamilton Harty and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). The composer had allowed the work to be announced for two consecutive years in the orchestra's seasonal prospectus, and the expectation thus aroused put pressure on him. In 1934 he was persuaded by Harty and others to allow a performance of the three completed movements.[3] This took place at the Queen's Hall on 3 December 1934.[4] Two more performances of the incomplete work were given the following April by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent.[5]
Walton took a break from work on the symphony during 1934 to compose his first film music (for Paul Czinner's Escape Me Never).[6] After a gap of eight months he resumed work on the symphony and completed it in August 1935.[7] Harty and the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave the premiere of the completed piece on 6 November of that year.[8] The performance roused great enthusiasm. The News Chronicle reported, "The applause at the close was overwhelming, and when Mr Walton, a slim, shy, young man, came on to the platform he was cheered continuously for five minutes".[9]
The symphony aroused international interest. The leading continental conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler and Willem Mengelberg sent for copies of the score; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered the work in the US under Harty; Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the New York premiere; and the young George Szell conducted the symphony in Australia.[10]
The work is in four movements. It is scored for a symphony orchestra comprising two flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets in B (doubling clarinets in A), two bassoons, four horns in F, three trumpets in C, three trombones, tuba, timpani (two players), snare drum, cymbals, tam-tam and strings.[11] The percussion section (other than timpani) is brought into use only towards the end of the last movement.
From the outset, critics remarked on Walton's debt to Sibelius in the symphony. Neville Cardus was among them, but he added that nobody except Sibelius had written a greater orchestral work than Walton's symphony since the heyday of Elgar.[16] Byron Adams says of the work that its "orgiastic power, coruscating malice, sensuous desolation and extroverted swagger" make the symphony a tribute to Walton's tenacity and inventive facility.[17] The critic Edwin Evans wrote of the Andante con malinconia:Critics have always differed on whether the grandly optimistic finale matches the rest of the work.[18] As to the work as a whole, in a 1998 study of the international symphonic repertoire, Michael Steinberg acknowledged the Sibelian influence, but added:
Walton's First Symphony has been well represented on record. The first recording was made by the fledgling Decca company at its Thames Street recording studio in London, with Harty and the LSO supervised by the composer on 9–10 December 1935, a month after the premiere of the complete work.[19] Later recordings include:
Orchestra | Conductor | Label | Date | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Philharmonia | data-sort-value="Walton" | Sir William Walton | EMI | 1951 | |
Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma dellaRAI | data-sort-value="Karajan" | Herbert von Karajan | EMI | 1953 | |
London Philharmonic | data-sort-value="Boult" | Sir Adrian Boult | Pye | 1956 | |
New Zealand Symphony | data-sort-value="Walton" | Sir William Walton | Bridge | 1964 | |
data-sort-value="Walton" | Sir William Walton | BBC | 1965 | ||
London Symphony | data-sort-value="Previn" | André Previn | RCA | 1967 | |
New Philharmonia | data-sort-value="Sargent" | Sir Malcolm Sargent | EMI | 1967 | |
Royal Philharmonic | data-sort-value="Horenstein" | Jascha Horenstein | Suisa | 1971 | |
data-sort-value="Boult" | Sir Adrian Boult | BBC | 1975 | ||
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic | data-sort-value="Handley" | Vernon Handley | WEAEnigma | 1978 | |
Philharmonia | data-sort-value="Haitink" | Bernard Haitink | EMI | 1982 | |
Scottish National | data-sort-value="Gibson" | Sir Alexander Gibson | Chandos | 1984 | |
Royal Philharmonic | data-sort-value="Previn" | André Previn | Telarc | 1987 | |
London Philharmonic | data-sort-value="Slatkin" | Leonard Slatkin | Virgin | 1988 | |
Bournemouth Symphony | data-sort-value="Handley" | Vernon Handley | EMI | 1989 | |
London Philharmonic | data-sort-value="Mackerras" | Sir Charles Mackerras | EMI | 1989 | |
Philharmonia | data-sort-value="Fremaux" | Louis Frémaux | Collins | 1989 | |
London Philharmonic | data-sort-value="Thomson" | Bryden Thomson | Chandos | 1991 | |
City of Birmingham Symphony | data-sort-value="Rattle" | Simon Rattle | EMI | 1992 | |
BBC National Orchestra of Wales | data-sort-value="Otaka" | Tadaaki Otaka | BBC | 1993 | |
Royal Philharmonic | data-sort-value="Askhenazy" | Vladimir Ashkenazy | Decca | 1993 | |
data-sort-value="Brabbins" | Martyn Brabbins | Hyperion | 1995 | ||
Bournemouth Symphony | data-sort-value="Lytton" | Andrew Litton | Decca | 1995 | |
Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra | data-sort-value="Leaper" | Adrian Leaper | Sony Classical | 1996 | |
English Northern Philharmonia | data-sort-value="Daniel" | Paul Daniel | Naxos | 2004 | |
London Symphony | data-sort-value="Davis" | Sir Colin Davis | LSO Live | 2005 | |
New Haven Symphony Orchestra | data-sort-value="Boughton" | William Boughton | Nimbus | 2010 | |
Lille National Orchestra | data-sort-value="Hughes" | Owain Arwel Hughes | BIS | 2010 | |
BBC Symphony | data-sort-value="Gardner" | Edward Gardner | Chandos | 2014 | |
Bournemouth Symphony | data-sort-value="Karabits" | Kirill Karabits | Onyx | 2017 |
Source: Walton Trust and WorldCat.[20]