It makes an ideal coupling having Walton’s three pre-war concertante works together, two of them in premiere recordings. In many ways Heifetz’s pioneering wartime version of the Violin Concerto, recorded in Cincinnati in 1941, has never been surpassed. At speeds far faster than we are used to now, it is even more fiery, with even more flair and spontaneity than his later remake with Walton and the Philharmonia. This is the only recording of the original version of the work, which Walton revised in 1950 with orchestration clarified. What I have always enjoyed in the Cincinnati version is the warmth of the background acoustic, even though that is less evident in this Avid transfer, which is less full and forward than previous reissues – on CD both from Biddulph and from RCA in the Heifetz Collection.
This account of the Viola Concerto was the first of two which Primrose recorded – the later one with Sargent conducting was from CBS (5/55 – nla), issued here by Philips. It is markedly cooler in approach than the original pre-war Decca recording with the young Frederick Riddle accompanied by Walton and the LSO, with the central Scherzo taken at an astonishingly fast speed, on the verge of sounding breathless.
By contrast, the premiere recording of the Sinfonia concertante with Phyllis Sellick is exceptionally warm and expressive, as an interpretation never quite matched since. Using Walton’s 1943 revision of the score, it was recorded in August 1945 within days of the end of the Second World War in what must have been a mood of exhilaration. Sadly, the sound is rough, and the thin Avid transfer hardly helps. An earlier EMI transfer came at a much higher level, and one worried less about the crumbly textures. That valuable if short-lived disc in the References series also contained the Primrose recording of the Viola Concerto, again helped by a high-level transfer from EMI. Despite the indifferent Avid transfers, such historic performances offered in this coupling on a bargain disc are self-recommending.'