Charlie Lovell-Jones violin
Sinfonia of London
John Wilson conductor
CHANDOS CHSA 5380
This issue looks like a very attractive offering, so, reluctantly, I have to air some misgivings about several issues. The first one is strange, to say the least. The performers, the production team, and the recording venue are exactly the same throughout, yet while the recording of the Troilus Suite is, technically, precisely what one would expect from this source, that of the Violin Concerto and the Overture is not. Here the sound is often coarse, thin, and at fortissimo (and there is a lot of that) even actively unpleasant and glaring. The only difference is that the suite was recorded seven months earlier than the rest, thus the sole variable is the atmosphere and ambient temperature. It does happen.
The Troilus suite was constructed by Christopher Palmer from the opera score as a result of a commission by Lady Walton and the Publisher OUP. Palmer’s other concoctions – the Henry V, Richard II, and Hamlet ‘Scenarios’ were notable successes partly because of the use of a narrator. Such was perhaps understandably deemed inappropriate for ‘Troilus’, and while the music is more than worthwhile, it does not have sufficient impact because of the lack of speech. However, it is good to have it, as performances and recordings of the opera itself are vanishingly rare.
The violin concerto is of course a superb work reflecting Waltons’ mood of the time when his new relationship with Lady Alice Wimborne was taking flight. I have long suspected that the composer had become familiar with the work of Prokofiev especially say, his first violin concerto and the third piano concerto. (This is an observation, not a complaint!) The heart-rending lyricism is unforgettable, and the corresponding loud and bitter outbreaks may have been Walton’s way of coping with the fact that his new love was somebody else’s.
All in all this performance can be summed up as ‘de trop’. The expertise is formidable, but the swooning melodies do not need such exaggerated voluptuousness, the balance is sometimes uncertain, and the quicker music is despatched peremptorily with seemingly dismissive ease. As a contrast, Chandos own previous recording with Tamsin Little and Edward Gardner, to my mind at least, gets it bang-on right (and with a fine recording to boot.)
Review by Geoffrey Atkinson