CBSO/Litton – review

Andrew Litton has long had an affinity with the music of William Walton: his Grammy-winning disc of Belshazzar's Feast followed the symphonies, and he also recorded a centenary disc, all with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra , whose conductor laureate he still is. But in this performance of the First Symphony with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra he realised such an urgency and defiance in the opening Allegro as to suggest a conviction that this work – written in the early 1930s – could speak with renewed immediacy to the audience of today. It is often said of this work that it was composed in the white heat of inspiration, but the cool intensity of the CBSO players belied the weekend heatwave. Litton ensured a thrusting, rhythmic precision, but he was also able to underline the characteristically quirky moments and its edgy, malicious bite. The finale, written later than the other three movements, can often sound like an afterthought, albeit a grand one. Litton brought to it a gritty determination that made for a much more satisfying whole, with an outburst of double timpani heralding the fierce ending, but also making the melancholy of the trumpet a poignant final reference to what had gone before. Litton preceded the symphony with pieces written two decades earlier. Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto has some of the same ferocity as the Walton, and soloist Lise de la Salle pounded that out with impunity. But she articulated the more expressive moments with a clarity which, in turn, gave the wonderful clamour of the ending extra vigour. Ravel's Mother Goose Suite came first: with its ravishing instrumental colours and elegant simplicity, it was the ideal counterbalance to both concerto and symphony.