20th Century English Masterworks

The concert opens with Butterworth’s first orchestral rhapsody, based on English folk songs. It continues with the lyrical virtuosity and tender romanticism of Walton’s much loved cello concerto, played by wonderful cellist Bartholomew LaFollette.

After the interval, hold tight, as conductor Philip Hesketh and the West London Sinfonia plunge into a world of angels, demons, and fiery visions. This is Vaughan Williams’s Job, and it is as sensational as it sounds.

The Walton Cello Concerto and a Bedford Park Connection

The Walton Cello Concerto has a close connection with Bedford park, when Walton wrote his ‘cello concerto to a commission by the great Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. He completed most of the writing at his home in Ischia between February and October 1956. In advance of Piatigorsky’ s first performance on 25 January 1957 in Boston with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, soloist and composer met with the renowned cellist and teacher, Douglas Cameron, to work on some technical details. The venue for this meeting was Cameron’s home in Addison Grove, the house now owned by West London Sinfonia Chairman, Andrew Pears, himself a cellist.

Whatever it was that they worked on, we know that Walton was asked to revise the ending of the finale, as Piatigorsky had communicated to him that the violinist Jascha Heifetz had some reservations about it. The finale contains four improvisations, two each for orchestra and for solo cello, and the ending is subdued, adagio and piano. Walton did write an alternative ending, but the original is the one that was played at the premiere.

Join us on 25th March 2017, 7:30pm at St. Michael and All Angels Church, Bedford Park W4 1TT.

Article supplied by Gigi Lam