Cello Concerto (Walton)

Walton had been regarded as avant garde in his youth, but by 1957, when he was in his mid-fifties, he was seen as a composer in the romantic tradition, and some thought him old-fashioned by comparison with his younger English contemporary Benjamin Britten.^[1][2][3] After his only full-length opera, Troilus and Cressida (1954), Covent Garden announced that his next major work would be a ballet score for the 1955–1956 season. The ballet, a version of Macbeth, fell through, because Margot Fonteyn, for whom it was intended, did not warm to the idea of playing Lady Macbeth.^[4] By the time an alternative subject was agreed, Walton was committed to writing a cello concerto and his ballet score never materialised.^{[n 1]} The commission for the concerto was $3,000 – a substantial sum at the time.^[4] Walton commented that as a professional composer he would write anything for anybody, but "I write much better if they pay me in dollars".^[5]

The concerto, commissioned by the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, followed the conventional concerto form to the extent of having three contrasting movements. As with his earlier Violin Concerto, written for Jascha Heifetz, Walton worked in close collaboration with the soloist while composing the work, mostly by correspondence between the composer from his home on Ischia and the cellist, touring internationally.^[6] Piatigorsky remarked that the world in the 20th century got its cello concertos from England – those of Elgar and Delius and then Walton.^[7]

The premiere was postponed from December 1956 because Piatigorsky was ill. It took place at Symphony Hall, Boston, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch. It received its first British performance within weeks, on 13 February 1957, again with Piatigorsky, this time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent at the Royal Festival Hall.^[8] The work was first recorded shortly after the premiere, with the original forces.^[9]

The concerto is in three movements, but does not follow the conventional concerto form of a brisk opening movement followed by a slow movement: like Walton's earlier concertos for viola and violin, the Cello Concerto has a moderately paced opening movement followed by a much quicker central scherzo.^{[n 2]}

The concerto is scored for 2 flutes (second doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (second doubling cor anglais), 2 clarinets (second doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons (second doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, 3 percussion (vibraphone, xylophone, suspended cymbal, bass drum, castanets, snare drum), celesta, harp, strings.

The three movements are:

• Moderato
• Allegro appassionato
• Tema ed improvvisazioni (Theme and improvisations)

The movement is in C major. The music critic Frank Howes has written that the concerto "starts with a splash, as of a stone dropped into a pool, a chord on the vibraphone and hard, trills on a viola and an oscillating figure on the wind and upper strings."^[11] The opening continues with an expressive cello melody over a "tick-tock" pizzicato accompaniment, which dominates the movement.^[10] Walton's biographer Michael Kennedy calls the long opening theme "comprehensive and chromatic, with ambiguously unstable tonality … a seductively amorous invention".^[12] A secondary theme, marked allegro tranquillo presents a descending pattern of semiquavers in tandem with the "tick-tock" motif, leading eventually to the return of the first theme over a woodwind accompaniment.^[13] The movement ends in what Howes calls "a prolonged diatonic cadence" in which the last bars drop through five octaves.^[11]

The key of the second movement is ambiguous; there is no key signature in the score, and analysts have described it as basically in C-sharp minor or A minor.^[8][10] The movement is described by Kennedy as "a typically Waltonian firework display".^[12] Howes comments that although it has the appearance of a scherzo, the allegro appassionato marking points to its being the emotional core of the work, as well as the most substantial and highly organised of the three movements.^[11] It differs from conventional scherzos not only by its emotional force but by the absence of a trio section. The energetic main theme twice briefly gives way to cello leads to a lyrical phrase at a slightly slower tempo, but this tempo alternates with and then gives way to the original speed.^[10] Kennedy describes the orchestral scoring as light and transparent, with colourful but discreet percussion, including celeste and vibraphone.^[12] To end the virtuoso display the soloist plays a rising C-sharp minor scale, with a harmonic on high C-sharp, marked col legno.^[14]

The C major finale, the longest of the three movements, consists of a theme and four "improvisations" – individual episodes loosely based on elements of the theme – followed by an extended coda. It reverts to the mood of the first movement, with an elaborate theme for the cello in its high register over a pizzicato in the orchestral strings.^[15] The theme presents rising and falling patterns in its opening bars, followed by a series of descending triads and a pair of rising scales.^[10]

A passage for solo cello links the theme to the first improvisation, in which the outline of the theme is given in the orchestral part, at a constant tempo throughout – "a shimmer of tremolando strings and the exotic interventions of xylophone, vibraphone, celesta, and harp". Against this is a cello counter-melody in triplet rhythms.^[15] The second improvisation is a virtuoso display for the unaccompanied soloist, marked brioso (vivaciously). Both Howes and Burton comment that this bravura section serves instead of the usual concerto cadenza.^[10] The third improvisation is a brilliant orchestral toccata; Howes calls it "a rumbustious affair with a good deal of percussion, glissandi for horns and harps, use of the piccolo and such excitements."^[16] The fourth, for unaccompanied cello, is marked "rhapsodically" (rapsodicamente), and has wide fluctuations of speed; it ends with high trills, which merge into the coda.^[16]

The coda refers back to themes from the first movement, first an upward-striving figure from its central section and then the opening melody, before the theme of the finale returns in compressed from, leading the movement towards a quiet, luminous ending, and a bottom C from the cello.^[16] Kennedy comments, "It is a stony heart that cannot respond to the urgings of this work's coda", but during the composition Piatigorsky hankered after a more bravura ending. Walton composed two alternative ones, but the original quiet conclusion was played at the premiere and has remained the standard version.^[17]

In 1974 the composer reconsidered the ending and wondered if Piatigorsky (and Heifetz, who shared the cellist's view) might have been right. Walton composed a third ending and sent it to Piatigorsky, but by then the cellist was mortally ill and he never performed it.^[18] The original ending has remained the standard one, although recordings of the alternative coda have been released (see "Recordings", below).