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Track(s) taken from CDA67986

Partita for orchestra

composer
Sir William Walton (1902-1983)
1957; commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra for their fortieth anniversary in 1958

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins (conductor)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
Recording details: April 2016
City Halls, Candleriggs, Glasgow, Scotland
Produced by Andrew Keener
Engineered by Simon Eadon & Dave Rowell
Release date: July 2017
Total duration: 17 minutes 46 seconds

Cover artwork: Ill Omen, or Girl in the East Wind with Ravens Passing the Moon (1893) by Frances Macdonald (1874-1921)
 

Reviews

‘Proceedings are launched in fine style with a supremely affectionate and agreeably lithe account of the immensely personable concerto that Walton conceived for the great Jascha Heifetz. Anthony Marwood proves an enviably secure and articulate soloist’ (Gramophone)

‘Anthony Marwood's un-flashy individualism seems to be operating at an opposite pole to the Heifetz way, and generates memorable results of its own. While Marwood has all the virtuosity that the music demands, nothing is rushed’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More
PERFORMANCE
RECORDING

‘Anthony Marwood is the incisive, poetic soloist in Walton’s Violin Concerto …, a work bursting with shrill, spiky exuberance and gleams of lyricism’ (The Guardian)» More

‘Marwood is a thrilling, virtuosic soloist in the ever-seductive concerto, and the orchestra matches his power’ (The Sunday Times)» More

‘A red-carpet recording from Hyperion provides all the necessary depth and plushness of sound’ (The Strad)» More

‘A fine recording and an animated performance from the BBC Scottish Symphony. The strings sound very rich, and the recording is realistic without over accenting instruments. It represents my ideal of how an orchestra should be recorded, and it is particularly nice when the musical program is nicely put together, the musicians are playing at their peak, and the recording is done to the best practices of the day’ (Audiophile Audition, USA)» More

For their fortieth anniversary, in 1958, the Cleveland Orchestra commissioned a new work from Walton. The resultant Partita for orchestra, intended to ‘be enjoyed straight off’ as Walton explained, is in three movements, the titles of which reinforce the composer’s love of the Mediterranean (where, on the island of Ischia, he eventually made his home after his whirlwind marriage in 1949).

Walton’s Partita is a virtuosic and wide-ranging score, from the dazzling tuttis in the first movement and finale to the languorous central siciliana—opening with a duet for oboe and viola before expanding into one of the composer’s finest soundscapes with virtually pointilliste instrumentation. The brilliance of the outer movements crowns the Partita’s finale with a memorable tune on first trumpet, releasing the tension and heralding the closing section in a mood of triumphant good humour, the E major ending of the Spitfire Prelude and Fugue infusing the Partita throughout.

from notes by Robert Matthew-Walker © 2017

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