William Walton - Film Music Vol. 4 (Neville Marriner)

Information

Composer: William Walton

• (01-10) Richard III, A Shakespeare Scenario
• (11)       Macbeth: Fanfare and March
• (12-15) Major Barbara - A Shavian Sequence for Orchestra

John Gielgud, speaker
Ian Watson, harpsichord & organ
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Neville Marriner, conductor

Date: 1991
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%208841

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Review

Thanks to Christopher Palmer and his invaluable delving into the Walton archive, turning what are often scraps of material into finished concert works, this fourth volume of Walton film music brings more treasure. The music of Richard III remains fairly well known, thanks to the currency both of the film and of a video, but this Shakespeare scenario in ten movements provides a different perspective. It may not quite rival Henry V in its scope and imagination—even Walton could hardly match his ''Agincourt on Bosworth Field''—but this is a much meatier offering than we had in the earlier suite from the Hamlet music (reviewed 6/90). It was, after all, one of the very few film soundtracks that appeared on LP absolutely complete (a three-record HMV set—nla).

My only disappointment is that Sir John Gielgud seems consciously to underplay Richard III's great ''Now is the winter of our discontent'' speech. One could hardly expect him to do an imitation of the Laurence Olivier inflexions which remain so indelibly in the mind, but I suspect that having to work with the music has restricted his style. The opening lines—set against music which in the film was either eliminated or reduced to a whisper—seem rushed.

That said, the whole record is a delight, and I particularly welcome the brief six-minute Macbeth item. Walton wrote his incidental music at high speed, taking only a week over it, for Gielgud's wartime production. It was recorded, and then played in theatres on amplification systems. Palmer has made an A-B-A piece from some crypto-Elizabethan dance music (the banquet scene), a fanfare and centrally the Funeral March for the Eight Kings. The pre-echoes of Henry V are fascinating, and the Major Barbara music too (dating from a year earlier, 1941) brings vintage Walton material, including a brazen opening sequence (with hints of Onward, Christian Soldiers), a factory sequence with an anvil prominent (shades of Belshazzar), a scene of children in Ravel-like waltz-time based on Boys and girls come out to play, leading to a love scene and a grand finale. With Marriner and the Academy giving performances just as ripely committed as in their previous discs in the series, helped by sonorous Chandos sound, this is another feast for Waltonians.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone

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William Walton (29 March 1902 – 8 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include Façade, the cantata Belshazzar's Feast, the Viola and Violin Concertos, and the First Symphony, which has had more than twenty recordings. Walton was a slow worker, painstakingly perfectionist, and his complete body of work across his long career is not large. His most popular compositions continue to be frequently performed in the twenty-first century, and almost all his works had been released on CD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walton

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Neville Marriner (15 April 1924 – 2 October 2016) is an English conductor. He was one of the most important of the early figures who spearheaded the reawakening of modern interest in Baroque and early Classical music. In the 1950s, he founded Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and his partnership with them is one of the most recorded of any orchestra and conductor. Marriner made over 600 recordings covering 2,000 different works for various labels, including Argo, L'Oiseau Lyre, Philips and EMI Classics. His recorded repertoire ranges from the baroque era to 20th-century music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Marriner

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