Walton Choral Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: William Walton
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 1/1990
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ABTD1398
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Belshazzar's Feast |
William Walton, Composer
Bach Choir David Willcocks, Conductor Gwynne Howell, Bass Philharmonia Orchestra William Walton, Composer |
| Coronation Te Deum |
William Walton, Composer
Bach Choir David Willcocks, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra William Walton, Composer |
| Gloria |
William Walton, Composer
Ameral Gunson, Mezzo soprano Bach Choir David Willcocks, Conductor Neil Mackie, Tenor Philharmonia Orchestra Stephen Roberts, Baritone William Walton, Composer |
Composer or Director: William Walton
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 1/1990
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ABRD1398
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Belshazzar's Feast |
William Walton, Composer
Bach Choir David Willcocks, Conductor Gwynne Howell, Bass Philharmonia Orchestra William Walton, Composer |
| Coronation Te Deum |
William Walton, Composer
Bach Choir David Willcocks, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra William Walton, Composer |
| Gloria |
William Walton, Composer
Ameral Gunson, Mezzo soprano Bach Choir David Willcocks, Conductor Neil Mackie, Tenor Philharmonia Orchestra Stephen Roberts, Baritone William Walton, Composer |
Composer or Director: William Walton
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 1/1990
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 62
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CHAN8760
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Belshazzar's Feast |
William Walton, Composer
Bach Choir David Willcocks, Conductor Gwynne Howell, Bass Philharmonia Orchestra William Walton, Composer |
| Coronation Te Deum |
William Walton, Composer
Bach Choir David Willcocks, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra William Walton, Composer |
| Gloria |
William Walton, Composer
Ameral Gunson, Mezzo soprano Bach Choir David Willcocks, Conductor Neil Mackie, Tenor Philharmonia Orchestra Stephen Roberts, Baritone William Walton, Composer |
Author: Edward Greenfield
Sir David Willcocks's Chandos record with the Bach Choir is the first issue in a project to record a whole corpus of Walton works, and very promising it is. Only a few months ago Richard Hickox in his EMI version of Belshazzar's Feast came up with the ideal Walton coupling among the secular choral works, In Honour of the City of London and here Willcocks just as aptly chooses the two big religious choral works with orchestra, the Gloria written in 1961 for the 125th anniversary of the Huddersfield Choral Society as well as the Te Deum setting which Walton wrote for the 1953 Coronation service, the finest new work for that occasion. Solti on the Decca reissue of his 1977 version of Belshazzar's Feast, now at mid-price also has the Te Deum but no more.
Characterizing Willcocks's and Hickox's contrasted interpretations of Belshazzar, you might relate them to the approach suggested by their couplings. Is Walton's oratorio a secular or a religious work? The very acoustic given to the Willcocks reading, amply reverberant to suggest some cathedral (in fact our old friendly venue, All Saints' Tooting), establishes the religious flavour, with the choir sounding more distant than in any of the versions listed. That inevitably takes away some of the bite in the performance, and when the sopranos in the Bach Choir tend to lack edge in comparison with those in the other choirs, it is an obvious drawback, even though the performance has plenty of energy.
Where Willcocks scores over almost any rival is in his padng. I suspect he has paid closer attention to the example of Walton himself in his two recordings. Willcocks's speeds, like Walton's tend to be rather faster than those adopted by the others as in ''By the waters of Babylon'', where the river flows smooth and fast but with no sense of undue haste. Throughout, Willcocks reveals his long experience of the work, not just in his choice of basic speeds but in his natural, idiomatic rhythmic controi, not least in his reading of jazzy syncopations. In that he is matched by Hickox where Solti with his knife-edged approach often sounds a little too literal. And even with less bite in the choral sound. Willcocks's fine control of ensemble brings out all the necessary detail.
His baritone soloist too is admirable: Gwynne Howell is darker of tone and firmer than either David Wilson-Johnson (for Hickox) or Benjamin Luxon (for Solti). His big solos are both warmly expressive and admirably direct. Typical is Howell's rendering of what Walton used to call ''the shopping list'', the unaccompanied solo beginning ''Babylon was a great city'', which here becomes a fresh, gripping narrative. It is more effective for being less heavily underlined than Luxon's, though Howell misses the uniquely sinister inflexions that Wilson-Johnson finds in his broad hushed singing of the final words ''And the souls of men''.
Though this would not be my first choice for Belshazzar, it stands as an excellent recommendation for anyone wanting this unique and generous coupling. In both the Gloria and the Te Deum Willcocks again reveals his cunning in pacing these works to bring out the dramatic point. In the Te Deum he is much more idiomatic-sounding than Solti, whose spiky treatment of the syncopations sounds anything but apt for a church service, where Willcocks gives a consistently satisfying weight and thrust. Those are qualities which mark his reading of the Gloria too. The baritones of the Bach Choir have a rather raw very British quality in their exposed entry on ''Glorificamus'' at bar 112 (3'34''), but the energy is what matters there and throughout the performance. Neil Mackie is the excellent tenor soloist, clear and true, taking the main weight of the solo work. Ameral Gunson, the contralto, has an unevenness in her tone that the microphone exaggerates, but Stephen Roberts is the clean, accurate baritone. All told this is a weightier, more committed performance than Louis Fremaux's 1977 Birmingham version, which so far EMI have failed to issue on CD. I now look forward to more in the Chandos Walton series.'
Characterizing Willcocks's and Hickox's contrasted interpretations of Belshazzar, you might relate them to the approach suggested by their couplings. Is Walton's oratorio a secular or a religious work? The very acoustic given to the Willcocks reading, amply reverberant to suggest some cathedral (in fact our old friendly venue, All Saints' Tooting), establishes the religious flavour, with the choir sounding more distant than in any of the versions listed. That inevitably takes away some of the bite in the performance, and when the sopranos in the Bach Choir tend to lack edge in comparison with those in the other choirs, it is an obvious drawback, even though the performance has plenty of energy.
Where Willcocks scores over almost any rival is in his padng. I suspect he has paid closer attention to the example of Walton himself in his two recordings. Willcocks's speeds, like Walton's tend to be rather faster than those adopted by the others as in ''By the waters of Babylon'', where the river flows smooth and fast but with no sense of undue haste. Throughout, Willcocks reveals his long experience of the work, not just in his choice of basic speeds but in his natural, idiomatic rhythmic controi, not least in his reading of jazzy syncopations. In that he is matched by Hickox where Solti with his knife-edged approach often sounds a little too literal. And even with less bite in the choral sound. Willcocks's fine control of ensemble brings out all the necessary detail.
His baritone soloist too is admirable: Gwynne Howell is darker of tone and firmer than either David Wilson-Johnson (for Hickox) or Benjamin Luxon (for Solti). His big solos are both warmly expressive and admirably direct. Typical is Howell's rendering of what Walton used to call ''the shopping list'', the unaccompanied solo beginning ''Babylon was a great city'', which here becomes a fresh, gripping narrative. It is more effective for being less heavily underlined than Luxon's, though Howell misses the uniquely sinister inflexions that Wilson-Johnson finds in his broad hushed singing of the final words ''And the souls of men''.
Though this would not be my first choice for Belshazzar, it stands as an excellent recommendation for anyone wanting this unique and generous coupling. In both the Gloria and the Te Deum Willcocks again reveals his cunning in pacing these works to bring out the dramatic point. In the Te Deum he is much more idiomatic-sounding than Solti, whose spiky treatment of the syncopations sounds anything but apt for a church service, where Willcocks gives a consistently satisfying weight and thrust. Those are qualities which mark his reading of the Gloria too. The baritones of the Bach Choir have a rather raw very British quality in their exposed entry on ''Glorificamus'' at bar 112 (3'34''), but the energy is what matters there and throughout the performance. Neil Mackie is the excellent tenor soloist, clear and true, taking the main weight of the solo work. Ameral Gunson, the contralto, has an unevenness in her tone that the microphone exaggerates, but Stephen Roberts is the clean, accurate baritone. All told this is a weightier, more committed performance than Louis Fremaux's 1977 Birmingham version, which so far EMI have failed to issue on CD. I now look forward to more in the Chandos Walton series.'
Walton Choral Works
Walton Choral Works
Walton Choral Works
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