Belshazzar's Feast 
1 	Thus Spake Isaiah 	6:03
2 	If I Forget Thee 	5:45
3 	Babylon Was A Great City 	1:17
4 	In Babylon Belshazzar The King 	3:11
5 	Praise Ye The God Of Gold 	4:45
6 	Thus In Babylon, The Mighty City 	3:03
7 	And in That Same hour 	2:08
8 	Then Sing Aloud To God Our Strength 	4:25
9 	The Trumpeters And Pipers 	1:39
10 	Then Sing Aloud To God Our Strength 	4:15

Concerto for Violin in B minor 
11  I Andante tranquillo	11:19
12	II Presto capricciosa alla napolitana	6:39
13	III Vivace		12:49

14	Coronation Te Deum 	10:54

Benjamin Luxon - Baritone
Ralph Downes - Organ
London Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus
Sir Georg Solti - Conductor  (1-10)

Kyung-Wha Chung - Violin
London Symphony Orchestra
André Previn - Conductor (11-13)

Winchester Cathedral Choir
Salisbury Cathedral Choir
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Ralph Downes - Organ
Sir Georg Solti - Conductor (14)

Solti gives a distinctive performance, sharply focused to give one a uniquely refreshing view of Belshazzar's Feast, Chung gets to the heart of the Violin Concerto, demonstrating its toughness as well as its soul-searching lyrical warmth.

Latterly Sir William Walton has suggested that Belshazzar's Feast, usually described as an oratorio if a very compressed one, is in reality a choral symphony. Whether or not Sir Georg Solti was aware of that obiter dictum, he directs a performance which clearly brings out that symphonic basis, concentrating on musical incisiveness. Though the demands of atmosphere and story-telling are not neglected, they are relatively of less importance. Fresh, scintillating and spiky, it is a performance which gives off electric sparks in every direction, not quite idiomatic in some ways but immensely invigorating.

In that it reflects the live performance at the Royal Festival Hall which Solti directed last March just before Sir William's 75th birthday, using substantially the same forces as here. But where at the live performance I was concerned that the final "Alleluias", exhilarating as they were, came over a little hectically, that is a reservation which has completely disappeared from my book. The tempi for the final section of thanksgiving remain unusually fast, but there is no hint of breathlessness, and one benefit of Solti's tempi is that the hushed section "While the kings of the earth" (during which fast movement continues on the upper strings) requires hardly any edging of the speed forward but remains almost exactly a tempo. After that the hush of "The trumpeters and pipers are silent" is the more effective for its straightness and hint of detachment.

...[T]he Coronation Te Deum...makes an excellent coupling..., with Solti emphasizing crispness and clarity, [Alexander] Gibson bringing out the urgency at faster tempi. Though the sopranos of the Scottish National Chorus [Gibson] sing with fresh tone, they cannot in the atmospheric semi-chorus passages match the boys from cathedral choirs in the Solti version...

...Walton's own reading [of Belshazzar] still remains unrivalled in the rightness of its tempi and in the choral singing, and the recording sounds amazingly good, better balanced than the new RCA. Previn, a degree more expansive and wonderfully dramatic in the story-telling, is equally idiomatic and the recording is the richest of all, while Gibson's faster tempi make for a performance, joyful above all, which never flags for a moment. Solti gives the most distinctive performance, sharply focused to give one a uniquely refreshing view, helped by recording of superb clarity and brilliance.

Let me confess at once that for me Walton's Violin Concerto is desert-island music, a work I would make sure of keeping by me even if (horrible thought) I had to sacrifice the other great violin concertos of this century, even the two Prokofievs and the Elgar. It was written for Heifetz in 1939 and to my mind the first wartime recording made by Heifetz in Cincinatti has never since been snatched on grounds of performance. Here at last is a modern recording that delves similarly deep into Walton's haunted romanticism. Kyung-Wha Chung may not everywhere quite match Heifetz's incomparable bravura, but far more affectingly than her rivals today and maybe more than Heifetz himself, she gets to the heart of this music, demonstrates its toughness as well as its soul-searching lyrical warmth.

The opening theme still seems to me (as it did when I first heard it as an openmouthed 12-year-old) one of the most ravishingly beautiful melodies written this century, and Kyung-Wha Chung brings to it an agonised intensity that relies not on broad expressive gestures (as Francescatti's fine, red-blooded performance does) but on an inner, brooding manner. So plainly in this playing depths of feeling are implied well below the surface. Menuhin was also inspired by the melody to playing of highly individual insight, but Kyung-Wha Chung's smokey half-tone is both subtler and firmer than Menuhin's.

I could similarly describe the many wonderful lyrical moments which draw from Chung her special brand of romantic warmth—the second subject of the finale brings a melody at least as ravishing—but her affinity with the music lies not simply with its expressiveness but with its fierceness too. Her incisive double-stopping throughout the performance is a joy to the ear (something one cannot regularly count on), and the toughness of her playing is matched by Previn and the LSO, particularly in the brief tuttis that flash out from time to time in each movement. The same orchestra with the composer conducting provided the accompaniment for the Menuhin performance, but the results were not quite so incisive, and the recording this time, in range of response, inner clarity, and balance with the soloist, outshines the EMI version. Even in authenticity the new version can match the old, when Walton himself was present throughout the Kingsway Hall sessions, usually in the control room, as a sympathetic adviser.

Chung's incisiveness compasses the fearsome virtuoso writing of the Scherzo not just with assurance but with wit and obvious enjoyment in display. My one tiny criticism is that the grace notes before the two longheld high Cs just before fig. 40 are masked. The finale too inspires Chung on both fronts, with swaggering bravura and dreamily beautiful lyricism, and the staccato writing of the difficult coda makes its point here thanks to the seemingly spontaneous rhythmic ebb and flow and the degree of reverberation which adds to the sense of propulsion as well as to the weight. Here in sum is a great, deeply involving performance of a work still not fully recognised in the world repertory. I am glad that Chung over the last eighteen months has been giving performances all over Europe and America. Her understanding of the music as revealed on record has obviously been deepened by the experience. ...[T]he Walton which stamps this as an exceptionally satisfying new issue. ---Edward Greenfield, Gramophone, arkivmusic.com

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1. Violin Concerto: 1. Andante comodo
2. Violin Concerto: 2: Vivo, con molto preciso
3. Violin Concerto: 3: Allegro moderato
4. Viola Concerto: 1: Andante tranquillo
5. Viola Concerto: 2: Presto capriccioso napolitana-Trio (Canzonetta)-Tempo I
6. Viola Concerto: 3: Vivace

Nigel Kennedy – violin, viola
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Andre Previn – conductor

Walton wrote three concertos for string instruments: the Viola Concerto (1929), the Violin Concerto (1939) and the Cello Concerto (1957). Of them Christopher Palmer has written, "Walton knew little or nothing of strings as a performer. Yet his three string concertos are amongst the finest written this century."

The Viola Concerto

It was Sir Thomas Beecham who suggested, in 1928, that Walton should write a Viola Concerto for Lionel Tertis. According to Susana Walton, writing in her book, William Walton, Behind the Façade, Walton was somewhat perplexed and wondered why Sir Thomas thought he should be able to write such a work. At the time Walton confessed that he knew little about the viola except that it made a rather awful sound! "The only piece of viola music he admired and knew was Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, which he thought quite beautiful, although it was not highly thought of in those days." Nevertheless, Walton rose to the challenge and proceeded with the task, finishing his Viola Concerto at Amalfi. Alas, when he sent it to Tertis, the viola virtuoso sent it back by the next post declaring it too modern. Understandably, Walton was deeply hurt. He thought of transposing it so that it would become a violin concerto but Edward Clark at the BBC sent it to Hindemith in Germany. To Walton’s delight, Hindemith accepted to play the Concerto.

Musical politics then raised its ugly head. Hindemith’s publisher, Willy Strecker, the London manager of Schott, wanted to launch Hindemith as a viola soloist (he was a marvellous player) at a Courtauld-Sargent concert. These concerts were extremely fashionable and very successful (each performance had to be given twice). When Strecker heard that Hindemith had instead agreed to play Walton’s Concerto at a Henry Wood promenade concert at the Queen’s Hall, he was furious. He wrote to Gertrude, Hindemith’s wife: "Your husband should make himself harder to get. An appearance with Wood to play a concerto by a moderately gifted English composer - and that is what Walton is - is not a fitting debut. Wood’s Promenade Concerts are like their conductor, himself, a worthy institution at which the playing is so-so and never a sensation of the sort I am hoping for."

Thankfully, Hindemith did play the Walton Viola Concerto, which he liked and again quoting Lady Walton, "Playing William’s Concerto endeared Hindemith to the British public more than any number of Courtauld-Sargent concerts could have done." Walton later admitted that he had been much influenced by Hindemith’s own Viola Concerto even ‘borrowing’ several bars.

The first performance at that Promenade Concert was not without its difficulties. Walton "offered to conduct himself, although he soon realised that this was a mistake. The orchestral parts were all wrong ... and there was practically no rehearsal time allowed for the Promenade Concerts in those days. The first rehearsal was a shambles ... he had to stay up all night to redo the parts, so he was not feeling his best next day (3rd October 1929). Anyhow, it delighted him to see how well the work went down.

"William used to say that Paul’s technique was marvellous, but that his playing was brusque; he was a rough, no-nonsense player. He just stood up and played." Tertis was at this performance and later he sent a letter to Walton apologising for having turned the work down and that he would play it later. Tertis did so in Liège and then at Worcester where Walton met Elgar (in a lavatory as Lady Walton recalls). "Tertis didn’t care much for William’s work [nor did Elgar], and was heard to mutter that William had murdered the poor unfortunate instrument!"

Of the Viola Concerto, Christopher Palmer commented: "It was a work of such obvious mastery that it probably did even more than Façade, Portsmouth Point and the Sinfonia Concertante - all already behind him - to establish his place in the vanguard of contemporary English music. The concerto exceeded all these in emotional depth, richness and profusion of ideas and technical assurance. The viola is not an easy instrument for which to write an effective concerto. The violin is a multi-faceted personality and it can always ride on top of the orchestra. The luscious cantabile and expressive power of the cello can command attention at all times. But the viola is more introvert, a poet-philosopher, conspicuously lacking in brilliance of tone and ever liable to be blotted out by an unheeding orchestra. Yet in Walton’s Concerto we are never aware of any of these limitations ...

"... (For) the original version of the Viola Concerto [which can be heard in the recording made under the composer by William Primrose in 1946] ... the orchestra is literally that of Brahms: no harp, no percussion except timpani, no exotica of any kind. In 1962 Walton gave the orchestration a major overhaul, using double (rather than triple) woodwind, eliminating one trumpet and the tuba, and adding a harp."

Michael Kennedy has written that "The unobtrusive dramatic presence which Tovey discerned may well be attributed to the existence of an undisclosed emotional programme. The concerto is dedicated ‘to Christabel’ and probably records feelings engendered by Walton’s unrequited passion for Christabel, Lady Aberconway (who remained a lifelong friend). But there is no need to know this to appreciate the lyrical melancholy and poetic longing at the heart of the music."

Kennedy goes on to describe the work thus: "Although Elgar himself disliked the work when he heard it at a Three Choirs Festival, it is nonetheless Elgar’s Cello Concerto which is constantly recalled by the ways in which the solo instrument is allowed to achieve prominence. Walton, like Elgar, begins with a ruminative slow movement. The hallmarks of the composer’s style can be identified: wide intervals, looping arabesques, and added-note minor-major diatonic harmony together with irregular and syncopated rhythmic patterns. The progress of the first movement is twice interrupted by faster dramatic outbursts. The scherzo flashes by, witty and epigrammatic, leaving the finale as the most substantial movement. Developing from the bassoons’ hesitant initial theme, it builds to a fugal climax for the orchestra after which the soloist recapitulates the first movement’s amorous principal subject with the finale’s main theme as accompaniment. It is one of the most beautiful passages in all Walton’s music."

The Violin Concerto

In 1936 Jasha Heifetz took Walton out to lunch in London and commissioned him to write a Violin Concerto for £300, a great honour from the greatest virtuoso of the day. Walton had actually been thinking of writing a piece for clarinet and violin that Benny Goodman and Joseph Szigeti had asked him to do when Spike Hughes, an old friend, introduced him to Heifetz. Lady Walton recalls: "William was delighted and accepted [Heifetz’s commission]. It had been William Primrose, the viola player whom William had met at one of Alice’s (Alice Wimborne) parties, who had suggested to Heifetz to contact William. The viola concerto was by now thought successful, and Heifetz was keen on having a work written especially for him."

"... As usual writing it gave him a lot of trouble [he had refused a lucrative offer to write music for a film of Shaw’s Pygmalion to concentrate on the concerto - Honegger picked the commission up]. He said he did not know how to make the violin part elaborate enough, and therefore unworthy of Heifetz. In a panic, he thought he had better give it instead to Fritz Kreisler to play. Eventually he was satisfied that he had exhausted the possibilities of what one could do on a violin. Yet he always thought of it as a rather intimate piece, a bit like the Elgar concerto; as a matter of fact it is in the same key."

The concerto was originally intended for premiere at a British Council sponsored concert at the 1939 New York World Fair (along with other works requested from Bax, Bliss and Vaughan Williams) but when it was found that Heifetz could not play there, it was decided to postpone the first performance since Heifetz wanted exclusive playing rights of the work for two years. When Walton arrived in America he took the concerto to Heifetz who seemed more interested in planting in his garden. "He didn’t even play the piece through," Walton told Lady Walton later, "although he did later jazz up the last movement a bit." "William tried to play it to him, but he couldn’t get his fingers in the right places."

Walton and Heifetz worked further on the concerto, especially the third movement. When the task was completed Walton said, "I seriously advise all sensitive composers to die at the age of 37. I know I have gone through the first halcyon period, and I am just about ripe for my critical damnation." He need not have worried. The work’s premiere was variously hailed as a "stirring performance of a work of character and quality ... personal, intense, direct, straightforward ... The use of the violin is felicitous, from soaring cantilena to brilliance."

Susana Walton goes on to relate - "William wasn’t at the first performance, which took place in Cleveland, Ohio [on 7th December 1939 under Rodzinsky with, of course, Heifetz]. War had been declared by then and the house in South Eaton Place was bombed flat. There had earlier been a bomb scare, in the middle of which the score of the Violin Concerto had actually got lost. ‘A pity it was ever found, really,’ was William’s wry comment. Heifetz’s own copy of the score, complete with his bowing marks, was later lost in the Atlantic, sunk during a convoy crossing."

Walton conducted the first British performance in London on November 1st 1941 when Henry Holst was the soloist.

Substantial revisions to the orchestration were made in 1943. The concerto has a more substantial element of technical virtuosity than the earlier Viola Concerto.

Michael Kennedy comments: "Like the Viola Concerto, the Violin Concerto is a declaration of love, but this time without frustration. The ‘dreaming’ (sognando) opening theme sets the mood of a great work in which the pyrotechnical demands on the soloist are reconciled with music of ultimate poetical expressiveness. As in the earlier concerto, the first movement theme returns in the finale and the whole work has an Italianate warmth and languor, with the rowdier side of Italy surfacing in the tarantella scherzo."

The lady with whom Walton was in love was, of course, Alice Wimborne. Walton said, "Women have always been important to me ... and I’ve been very lucky. Alice Wimborne - very beautiful, intelligent, kind, very rich, a grand hostess, very musical ... she had all the virtues. A marvellous woman." Christopher Palmer writes, "Walton was blissfully in love as he worked on the concerto through the late 1930s and it is tempting to relate the solo violin’s expression of radiant happiness to its unrivalled capacity for free-ranging lyricism for what someone once called instrumental bel canto. We like singing when we are happy."

Christopher Palmer picks up Michael Kennedy’s point of Italianate writing. "It was the marvellous light he found overwhelming, the brilliant sunshine and vivid colours of the Mediterranean scene. This quality of light suffuses all Walton’s later music - for example, the opera Troilus and Cressida and the Cello Concerto - written when he made his home in Ischia off the coast of Naples. Odd intimations of this ‘Mediterraneanism’ do occur in earlier Walton: in the Spanish stylisations of Façade, in the small-orchestra idyll called Siesta. But the first full-scale manifestation is surely to be found in the Violin Concerto, specifically in the orchestral textures of the finale’s second subject, which shimmer like the blue of the summer sea; nor would the marvellously dreamy (sognando is a favourite Walton term) accompanied cadenza towards the end of the movement, with its succulently seductive consecutive 3rds in the solo instrument, be out of place in one of the sea- or sky-scapes in Troilus and Cressida. We might remark too in this connection the second movement’s marking of ‘Presto capriccioso alla napolitana’, and its ‘Canzonetta’ trio. Both napolitana and ‘canzonetta’ bear connotations of light Italian song, there are hints of tarantella, and Frank Howes, in his book on Walton, informs us that this movement was actually composed in Italy."

Heifetz recorded the concerto shortly after its premiere and then re-recorded it in 1950, when he was touring in England. For this recording, the composer was invited to conduct. Before the sessions commenced, he made substantial changes in the orchestration but did not alter either the violin part or the thematic material. --- musicweb-international.com

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Walton - Cello Concerto
01 - 1. Moderato [06:42]
02 - 2. Allegro appassionato [06:04]
03 - 3. Lento; con moto; Risoluto tempo giusto (Brioso; Allegro molto); Rapsodicamente [11:25]

04 - Walton - The Twelve, anthem for chorus & organ [12:21]

05 - Walton - Coronation Te Deum, for soloists, chorus, organ & orchestra [10:32]

Walton - Variations on A Theme by Hindemith, for orchestra
06 - Tema. Andante con moto [02:07]
07 - Variation 1. Vivace [01:57]
08 - Variation 2. Allegramente [01:51]
09 - Variation 3. Larghetto [02:02]
10 - Variation 4. Moto perpetuo (Con slancio) [00:49]
11 - Variation 5. Andante con moto [02:32]
12 - Variation 6. Scherzando [01:15]
13 - Variation 7. Lento molto [03:20]
14 - Variation 8. Vivacissimo [00:45]
15 - Variation 9. Maestoso [00:45]
16 - Finale (Allegro molto); Coda (A tempo primo (il tema) ma meno mosso) [05:46]

Walton - Facade, Suite No.1, for orchestra
17 - Tango; Pasodoble (Lento) [01:48]
18 - Popular Song (Grazioso) [02:16]
19 - Old Sir Faulk (Tempo di Fox-trot) [02:03]
20 - Tarantella; Sevillana [02:34]

Pierre Fournier: Violoncello
Robert Tear: Tenor 
Shirley Minty: Contralto 
Ann Dowdall: Soprano 
Michael Wakeham: Baritone 

London Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
London Philharmonic Chorus:
William Walton: Conductor

This is one of a pair of CDs issued by BBC Legends to mark the Walton centenary and it is invaluable on several counts.

Walton made many recordings of his music, including most of his major works. However, with the exception of the four numbers from Façade, none of the works on this disc were otherwise recorded by him. Furthermore, we have here a recording of the world premiere of the Hindemith Variations, a performance of the Cello Concerto by Pierre Fournier who, so far as I am aware, never made a commercial recording of the work and, finally, a rarity in the form of the orchestral version of The Twelve which, I believe, is not otherwise available in this form. So, this is a mouth-watering prospect for Walton aficionados.

I don’t know why the Hindemith Variations aren’t heard more often for they are masterly. The variations are concise, resourceful and witty. They contain many of the characteristics of Walton’s style and some traces of Hindemith’s style too (I’m thinking especially of Variation 5 (Track 11)). The piece could be said to repay a thirty four year-old debt for Walton never forgot the fact that Hindemith rescued the première of his Viola Concerto in 1929 by taking on the solo role at short notice and the two men were friends thereafter. Walton based his variations on a theme from the second movement of Hindemith’s Cello Concerto (1940). Furthermore he weaves a direct quotation of four bars from Hindemith’s opera, Mathis der Maler into the seventh variation (Track 13, 2’36"). Readers will have gathered that, sensibly, each variation is tracked separately.

I deliberately decided not to compare this performance with the great recording of the piece made in 1964 by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. It seemed to me that it would be unfair to compare an account by a virtuoso orchestra which had played the piece several times with a recording of the very first performance of the work. In fact, Walton and his players need not fear comparisons for theirs is a fluent, confident and assured performance of the work. The players sound completely inside the piece and Walton’s direction is as authoritative as one might expect. Whilst Szell’s account retains its supremacy, I think, this is a notable addition not just to Walton’s discography but also to that of the work itself.

The same is true of the performance of the Cello Concerto. This work was written in 1956 for Gregor Piatigorsky and he gave the first performance in Boston in January 1957 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch. Just a few weeks later these same artists made the first recording which remains a benchmark account. The present performance was given just two years later, presumably at the Edinburgh Festival.

Fascinatingly, this is a much fleeter account than Piatigorsky’s. Indeed, Fournier and Walton take over five minutes less (interestingly, the score quotes a duration of approximately 27 minutes.). The differences come in the outer, predominantly slower, movements where Piatigorsky is passionately romantic while Fournier tends to be more patrician and restrained, though he certainly does not play down the mood of gentle nostalgia which prevails in much of the work. Where the music is more reflective Fournier’s cello sings out eloquently and throughout he is poised and refined. I think Piatigorsky perhaps has a slight edge in the quicker moments and to my ears he displays a degree of greater urgency in the two cadenza passages of the finale, particularly the first of these.

It is worth pointing out that Fournier is balanced quite closely and this does mean that some details of the accompaniment are lost, especially where the orchestra is playing quietly. The Boston players can be heard to much better advantage (under studio conditions, of course) and they do play the score magnificently. However, the RPO are also diligent accompanists. There are no blemishes of the sort that occurred in the performance of Walton’s First Symphony from the same concert, which has been issued on a companion CD (BBC Legends BBCL 4097-2). Perhaps more rehearsal time had been devoted to the concerto?

This Fournier/Walton performance is an excellent one. As I’ve indicated, there are many points of contrast between this and the Piatigorsky/Munch account. Both strike me as very convincing traversals of the score and we’re lucky that we now have both to savour.

The two choral works on the disc both come from the same concert which was given to mark the 900th anniversary of the foundation of Westminster Abbey. For this occasion Walton orchestrated his anthem, The Twelve, which had been written the year before for his old Oxford college, Christ Church, and first performed there with the original organ accompaniment only a few months before this Westminster concert. I must confess I had no idea an orchestral version existed. It is mighty effective and should be better known. Here the piece receives a good, committed performance. The only snag is that (as usual) BBC Legends stubbornly refuse to provide the text. This is a definite drawback since Auden’s words are far from straightforward and though the singers’ diction is pretty good one really needs to be able to follow the text to appreciate the work fully.

The other work from the Abbey concert is the Coronation Te Deum. This is a really splendid piece, I think, one of Walton’s best choral pieces. It is performed magnificently here with a full-throated contribution from the excellent choir who are balanced very well with the orchestra. With the full panoply of the brass conferring a ceremonial grandeur appropriate to the setting and the occasion, this is a thrilling performance. How splendid it is to have such a fine recording of Walton directing the work in the very building where it was first heard thirteen years earlier.

To complete the disc there are four excerpts from Façade, obviously taken from a Promenade concert. Three of them (‘Popular Song’; ‘Old Sir Faulk’; and ‘Tarantella-Sevillana’) come from Suite No 2 while ‘Tango-Pasodoble’ is from the first suite. They receive sprightly and enthusiastic performances from the BBC Symphony Orchestra who sound to be enjoying themselves. From the reaction at the end, it’s obvious that the Promenaders did.

This is an invaluable disc. It is just the sort of issue that make the BBC Legends series so important. All the performances are very good and the sound quality is perfectly satisfactory (though that of the Cello Concerto does show its age a bit). The notes are by Lyndon Jenkins. They are good but it is slightly cheeseparing, I think, to have used the same essay for both of these Walton issues with just a very brief paragraph about each work However, that small quibble doesn’t detract in the least from the significance of this issue. It is of the utmost importance as an addition to the Walton discography and I recommend it urgently to all admirers of this fine composer. --- John Quinn, musicweb-international.com

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Disc: 1
  1. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Troilus- (Adagio) - Virgin Of Troas
  2. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Calkas, Antenor- Ten Long Years Have Dragged
  3. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Troilus, Antenor- Back To Your Hovels
  4. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Is Cressida A Slave?
  5. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Troilus- Child of the Wine-Dark Wave
  6. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Troilus, Cressida- Morning And Evening
  7. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Pandarus, Troilus- Forgive me... Pandarus!... Passing Through The City
  8. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Priest, Calkas, Cressida, Evadne, Pandarus- O Pallas, Virgin Daughter
  9. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Cressida, Evadne- Slowly It All Comes Back
  10. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Pandarus, Cressida, Evadne- Nothing But Troilus' Patronage
  11. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Soldier, PandarusTroilus, Priest- Prince Troilus
  12. Troilus And Cressida: Act I: Pandarus, Cressida, Troilus- Dear Child, You Need A Little Comfort
  13. Troilus And Cressida: Act II Scene One: Pnadarus, Cressida, Horaste, Evadne- (Allegretto) - Does Talking Put You Off?
  14. Troilus And Cressida: Act II Scene One: How Can I Sleep?
  15. Troilus And Cressida: Act II Scene One: Cressida- At The Haunted End of The Day
  16. Troilus And Cressida: Act II Scene One: Pandarus, Cressida, Troilus- Hush! Don't Be Alarmed!
  17. Troilus And Cressida: Act II Scene One: Troilus, Cressida- If One Last Doubt
  18. Troilus And Cressida: Act II Scene Two: Orchestral Interlude (A tempo tempestuoso)

Disc: 2
  1. Troilus And Cressida: Act II Scene One: From Isle To Isle Chill Waters (Cressida, Troilus)
  2. Troilus And Cressida: Act II Scene One: Who Would Go Drumming About The Town? (Pandarus, Cressida)
  3. Troilus And Cressida: Act II Scene One: My Name Is Diomede (Diomede, Pandarus)
  4. Troilus And Cressida: Act II Scene One: Oh, I'm No Use, No Use (Pandarus, Diomede, Troilus, Cressida, Evadne)
  5. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: (Lugbre) - Is There No Word? (Watchmen, Cressida, Evadne)
  6. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: No Answering Sign On The Walls (Cressida, Watchmen)
  7. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: Cressid, Daughter (Calkas)
  8. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: O Gods, O Deathless Gods (Cressida)
  9. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: Proud Wondrous Cressida (Diomede, Cressida)
  10. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: So Here's An End Of It All (Evande, Watchmen)
  11. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: Evadne...Evadne...Troilus (Troilus, Pandarus, Evadne, Cressida)
  12. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: Will I Please Himm Thus? (Cressida, Evadne, Troilus, Pandarus)
  13. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: What Is This Sudden Alarm? (Troilus, Chorus, Cressida, Pandarus, Diomede)
  14. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: Troy, False of Heart, Yet Fair! (Diomede, Troilus, Cressida, Pandarus, Calkas, Evadne, Chorus)
  15. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: Troilus, You Must Not Die For Me (Cressida, Troilus, Diomede, Calkas, Pandarus)
  16. Troilus And Cressida: Act III: Diomede!...Father!... (Cressida)

Evadne – Elizabeth Bainbridge (Mezzo Soprano) 
Troilus – Richard Cassilly (Tenor) 
Diomede – Benjamin Luxon (Baritone)
Cressida – Dame Janet Baker (Mezzo Soprano) 
Pandarus – Gerald English (Tenor)
Calkas – Richard Van Allan (Bass)
Antenor – Malcolm Rivers  (Baritone)

Royal Opera House Covent Garden Orchestra
Royal Opera House Covent Garden Chorus
Lawrence Foster - conductor

William Walton's only full length opera was not well-recieved by critics upon its 1954 premiere, but heard in a revised form in 1976, it comes off rather well. Walton is clearly borrowing a bit from his contemporary and rival Benjamin Britten, and yes, he is more at home when his characters turn introspective than in romantic duets, but the opera has an appealing urgency and vigor even in its more prosaic moments. Richard Cassilly and Janet Baker, as the doomed Trojan lovers, help immensely: Cassilly is at his most impassioned and Baker swings from a haunting rendition of Cressida's mournful act three aria to a frenzied mad scene at the end of the opera. Gerald English is a charming, wheedling presence as Cressida's Uncle Pandarus (a role written for Peter Pears) and Benjamin Luxon gives alluring power to the Greek rival for Cressida's love. Best of all is the undervalued british basso Richard Van Allen, in a stern portrayal of Cressida's treacherous father. --- operadepot.com

...The failure of Troilus and Cressida was a source of great distress to Walton. He felt that it had not been given a fair 'crack of the whip' by Covent Garden. In 1971 he decided on yet further revisions. Gillian Widdecombe suggested Janet Baker for the role and next time he was in London Walton saw Janet Baker on stage and was captivated. She agreed to perform in the opera which meant that the part of Cressida would have to be transposed down. Act II was the first to be ready and was performed on its own at a Promenade Concert in 1972 conducted by André Previn. At last Walton had found the conductor he wanted and Previn had always admired Walton's music and was his pre-eminent interpreter at the time. However, Janet Baker did not sing at the Prom, Cressida being performed by Jill Gomez...When the score was finally ready for the 1976 revival at Covent Garden the jinx on the opera displayed itself yet again. Walton himself was ill from stress and then André Previn developed bursitis (a swelling in the joints) and had to withdraw. He was replaced by Lawrence Foster who had to learn the score at short notice. The Troilus, Alberto Remedios, also backed out to be replaced by Richard Cassilly. Finally, Covent Garden only made £15,000 available, all of which went on costumes so the scenery had to be borrowed from other productions together with what could be salvaged from the original productions. (In that same year Covent Garden spent 10 times that much on La Fanciulla del West!). Nevertheless, in spite of luke warm reviews, the tickets sold well and Walton was finally happy. EMI did issue a recording with the 1976 cast which has finally made it onto CD. Its glory is the singing of Janet Baker... --- MusicWeb International

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