William Walton - Sinfonia Concertante {Original 1927 Version}

Sir William Turner Walton OM (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 Concerto, the First Symphony, and the British coronation marches Crown Imperial and Orb and Sceptre.

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Sinfonia Concertante (1925-27; revised 1943-44)

1. Maestoso - Allegro spiritoso (0:00)
Dedication: To Osbert [Sitwell] (1892-1969)

2. Andante commodo (7:21)
Dedication: To Edith [Sitwell] (1887–1964)

3. Allegro molto - Molto maestoso - (Subito Allegro) (13:50)
Dedication: To Sachie (Sacheverell) Sitwell (1897-1988)

Eric Parkin, piano and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jan Latham-Koenig

In 1925–26, Walton wrote a ballet score that he hoped would be accepted by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev for his company, the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev rejected the score, and Walton reworked it as a concert piece. He dedicated each movement to one of his friends and patrons the Sitwells, the first to Osbert, the second to Edith and the third to "Sachie" (Sacheverell).

The work was first given on 5 January 1928 at a concert of the Royal Philharmonic Society in the Queen's Hall, London. The soloist was York Bowen and the conductor was Ernest Ansermet. The concert was broadcast nationally by the BBC. Walton substantially revised the work in 1943 removing orchestral counterpoint and simplifying the solo piano part. The premiere of the revised version was at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool on 9 February 1944, with Cyril Smith as soloist and the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent.

The first performance was well received, with certain reservations about style and orchestration, but was rather overshadowed by the main work in the concert, the first complete performance in Britain of Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé. When Walton conducted the second performance of the Sinfonia Concertante in April 1928, The Times said:

The work improves on acquaintance and reveals in places an unexpected depth of feeling. We were still conscious of too great a diversity of styles, and Mr Walton has not the same sureness of touch in his orchestration as Ravel or even Lord Berners. [There are] resemblances to Elgar on the one hand, and to Stravinsky and Les Six on the other … Mr Walton has not yet fully found his individuality. Nevertheless, this Sinfonia is a clever and interesting work of real promise.
In a 1984 study of Walton, Neil Tierney describes the Sinfonia Concertante as "a clever and entertaining piece, free from the grimmer features of Walton's mature style … anti-romantic and flavored by a satirical gaiety"