It is good to have a major work of Walton available on CD. Gibson directs a warm idiomatic performance such as you would be delighted to hear in the concert hall, but that, I fear, is not enough to take it to the top of a relatively long list. By a happy chance this new issue arrived just as I was preparing a comparison of the work for Record Review on BBC Radio 3. What broadly came out of that was how much more precise in ensemble the two Philharmonia versions (both HMV) are, as well as Previn's with the LSO on RCA. As with the Handley/ Liverpool version on ASV the slight imprecisions of ensemble in the new one give the performance an easy-going manner, not quite taut enough for so tense a work. Though phrasing is warmly flexible in the slow movement, the very steadiness of pulse works against the full emotional strength of the movement being conveyed. In the finale, with its easier idiom, much more closely related than the rest to the later, ceremonial Walton, the ensemble may be no better, but the swagger of the writing comes over most enjoyably.
A firm recommendation presents problems, if you insist on a recording more modern than Previn's of 1967. That is still the best balanced, and the performance is the one which combines fine, incisive ensemble with a totally idiomatic feeling for the work, still supreme as an interpretation. The Haitink, except marginally in the finale, has superb, crisp playing too, and the digital recording has plenty of body. More and more I feel, however, that the consistently slow speeds and very literal approach to rhythm may be refreshing as an alternative, strong and monumental, but not as a first choice. Sadly the new Chandos sound is not of the very finest quality. The rasp of brass is most impressive, particularly on CD, but the distancing of the orchestra in a fairly spacious acoustic works against the strings in particular. High violins sound thin, and the whole ensemble lacks the sort of body so impressive in the Haitink, while often giving less inner detail than the Previn or even the 1953 mono Walton. The Chandos philosophy of natural balance has worked far less well than usual, and maybe that is a comment on the elaboration of Walton's orchestration. The CD with its firm focusing helps on all these points, but by Chandos standards—if not those of many other rivals—this is disappointing.'