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W. Walton violin concerto

November 25, 2009 at 2:00 PM

Heifetz played once the violin concerto of Sir William T. Walton.

No guarantee that it will be stay well known, because it is now forgotten, not perhaps it is 2th rank, but a lot of (professional) violinists do not know the piece. But OK, there have too much violin concerto's been written to know them all. For cello of contrabas there have been written much less concerto's.  Here another version than the Heifetz version:

Greetings,

when I was RCM I played in an orchestra that accompanied the excellent British violinst Robert Gibbs in this concerto.    It was alsoplayed well by the Italian violinst Ferraresi who should be better known.   The best performanc eI heard of it when I was a kid was by Ida Haendel at the London Proms. There was this jammy slide in double stops which she played so hauntingly I have never been able to get them out of my mind.  As a reuslt when I heard the Heifetz performance I was actually slightly diappointed. Although he played it superbly this little chunk wa ssomewhat pedetrian in comparison with Haendel for saome reason.   It was a bit like finding half a caterpillar in a piec eof lettuce you had been chewing.

Cheers,

buri

JH had a IMO better recording of Walton's, with Eugene Goossens. There's also a great recording by Francescatti with Ormandy.