Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra - Walton / Sinding (2017)

Predicting which musical currents would sweep the young William Walton along in the mid 1920s must have been tricky. The composer had already given birth to the acerbic, neo-classical take on texts by Edith Sitwell that was Façade (1922). Two years later he spent a season knocking out foxtrots for the Savoy Orpheus Band, and even started work on a concerto for two pianos, jazz band and orchestra. Four years after that, Walton hatched plans for his first orchestral concerto proper: a score that would take elements from both those pieces but would stand with at least one foot in the late Romantic tradition of Elgar, Bax and others. After being drawn to the viola as an instrument of depth, Walton decided that a Viola Concerto was viable. In the words of the composer's biographer Michael Kennedy, the 'dark and huskily passionate sound of the viola became the perfect medium for the [concerto's] prevailing mood of plaintive melancholy. Coupled with this work is Christian Sinding's Suite Im Alten Stil.