Philharmonia Orchestra
Alexander Briger - conductor
“If you only buy one recording in 2009, it should be this one.”
Alice McVeigh - Mvdaily.com
“Walton is a superb and unflashy exponent - theres no ego here, just consummate musicianship, excellently backed by the Philharmonia under Alex Briger, sensitive and biting in the Shostakovich, formidable and powerful in the Britten.”
Sarah Urwin Jones - The Times
“A grandmaster of his instrument is coming to maturity here, and this CD, with its technically faultless recording quality, should have a place in any collection. It deserves it. ”
Pizzicato Magazine
*****
MusicalCriticism.com, 25th November 2008
*****
There is no disputing that Jamie Walton is a tremendous artist. He is endowed with the type of musicianship that pierces through recordings and demands complete attention. His performance of Shostakovich's Second Cello Concerto and Britten's Cello Symphony testifies clearly not only to his uncommon talent, but to a maturity beyond his years.
The choice of programme is striking. These two compositions come from the nineteen-sixties, and while neither Shostakovich nor Britten have ever belonged to the school of angry modernism, writing a concerto—that most romantic of genres —posed serious problems to any composer from the period. The solutions offered by Shostakovich and Britten are the products of two musical minds in the golden years of their maturity, and require not only mastery, but great thoughtfulness, versatility and control.
Shostakovich's Second Cello Concerto opens with a slow, brooding movement in which cello and lower strings engage in a dialogue of meandering melodic lines. The sonority clearly quotes the opening of Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta—a quotation intensified by the pervasive use of the xylophone. This is significant in that the cello here is an orchestral voice as much as a solo—and is requested to adjust to different roles at incredible speed.
The concerto is dominated by the recurring motif of a repeated falling semitone from the opening of the Largo, and a martial rhythmic figuration from the beginning of the Allegretto. Typically both elements are combined in the brilliantly obsessive last movement. The greatest merit of Walton's playing here is his ability to channel his phenomenal technique into conveying the music’s Janus-faced nature, always turning from lyrical sigh of the cello to the hobbling, grotesque dance that is one of the staples of Shostakovich's poetics.
Britten's Cello Symphony, composed around the same time, and for the very same cellist as the Shostakovich (Mstislav Rostropovich), makes for a wellbalanced second half. An advantage on this work is that it treats the orchestra with a grandeur that is mostly eschewed by Shostakovich, thus allowing Alexander Briger to show off the richness of the Philarmonia's orchestral hues.
The work is thoroughly fragmented structurally—much more so than the Shostakovich; the cello's hiccupping entries in the first movement give way to the frantic switch between motum perpetuum and lyricism in the second movement, while the third movement contrasts the low, majestic bass with the charmed suspension of flourishes in the mid-to-high register.
Yet it is the slight tendency towards stylistic inconsistency—most obvious in the closing Passacaglia—which presents both orchestra and soloist with remarkable hurdles. Unsurprisingly, the Philarmonia and Jamie Walton stand up to the challenge magnificently, celebrating the kaleidoscopic variety with such vigour as to often turn the music's shortcomings into assets.
All in all, the CD is nothing sort of a triumph for both the Philarmonia and Jamie Walton: superb musicianship is here a great match for the arduous nature of both compositions. When the music runs out, we are left wishing for more of the same —and soon.
Delia Casadel
MusicWeb.co.uk, December 2008
Jamie Walton brings expressive musing to his solo at the start of the Shostakovich second concerto yet also some warmth. The orchestral cellos and basses create a murkier, more solemn atmosphere, imbibed by the soloist but when he soars beautifully into upper register (tr. 1 1:03) this is like an infusion of light and positive statement. The next excursions into the upper register begin a growingly passionate phase, in turn followed by pleading, humane, even sunny passages from 4:14 of double stopping, given sufficiently rapt space without loss of overall flow. This is all finely phrased with the orchestra and Alexander Briger’s direction integral in conveying unanimity of approach throughout these mixes and changes of mood.
I compared the work’s dedicatee, Mstislav Rostropovich in concert in 1966 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis (BBC Legends BBCL 4073-2). Here are the comparative timings: the published bracketed timing includes applause.
Rostropovich’s opening is more meditative, yearning and growingly heartfelt once upper register is reached. The movement is more starkly dramatic, the double stopping more graphic. You feel here’s a character unfazed by greatly varied experience. But Walton and Briger more clearly reveal the movement’s architecture.
Their second movement scherzo is alert and wry. This time when Walton reaches upper register (tr. 2 0:50) he lets his hair down more as appropriate to glissandi at the ends of the phrases. There’s a sardonic relish about all this and it reaches its zenith with a manically affirmative theme of narrow range and many repeated notes (2:37). Walton and Briger make the structure and rhythmic impetus crystal clear. Rostropovich and Davis, on the other hand, have more fun. Rostropovich is lighter in tone and manner, while the orchestra is more showy in its sheer zest.
The virtuoso display of the finale’s horns’ opening is followed by equal bravura from Walton’s cello solo, yet with a suddenly sunnier lyrical tail (tr. 3 1:58). Jamie then pleasingly provides a delicate backing to a musing flute solo, backing which has more ardent shape later to clarinet solo. In the mean time he’s started off a jaunty march (3:10) whose second appearance is more abandoned, but the lyrical tail refrain is a calming influence. The mood becomes more expansive with a more folksy melody (6:35) to which Walton brings a kind of carefree wistfulness, but with a more expressive second appearance and a rugged third time march before becoming more frenetic altogether. After this pandemonium Jamie richly and affectionately recalls from 12:47 the first movement before we’re left with a celebration of just rhythm.
Rostropovich’s opening solo in the finale is a headier gritty display and celebration. By contrast he makes the lyrical tail more melting. His folksy melody is more emotive, with less beauty than Walton but more of an underlying sadness and sense of heritage and finely shaded quieter moments, while in the climax Davis unleashes the orchestra with more ferocity. Jamie’s account, then, is meticulously fashioned, attractive and engaging, often with appreciable beauty of tone and admirably explicit structure. Slava, on the other hand, conveys more character and sense of experience.
While the Shostakovich cello concerto conveys a personality in different moods, the Britten cello symphony seems more about a character evolving in response to a dramatic situation. Walton’s opening is a gritty statement in baleful surroundings as if born of heroic endeavour, giving way to a more effusive, febrile manner (tr. 4 1:07), the second element of the opening material, here graphically realized. The second theme (2:34) has the solo cello sighing over a backcloth of pizzicato violins and double basses and cushioned sustained ground bass by the violas and cellos. Alexander Briger well conveys the richness and claustrophobic quality of this texture. The recapitulation (7:44) sees the orchestra with the theme and soloist with the lugubrious bass, lightening the mood somewhat until the woodwind screech the second element. The second theme has more potency when given to violins and violas but the solo cello eloquently takes it back in pleading upper register (10:11). In the stately elegiac coda (10:48) the upper woodwind sing over the soloist’s pizzicato.
I compared the 1964 recording by Rostropovich, also this work’s dedicatee, and the English Chamber Orchestra/ Benjamin Britten (Decca 4251002).
Rostropovich’s opening is more gnarled, Britten’s handling of the orchestra more sepulchral yet also with more sense of progression. The second element is more tense but also appealing from Rostropovich, the second theme more cowed yet with a greater sense of architecture and continuity than Walton. On the other hand Jamie gives it more emotion and fullness, the suffering and sensitivity more overt. His long solo from 4:41 with wind comments at the end of the development is a clear-eyed yet compelling exploration where Rostropovich is more introspective. The latter’s return to the second theme is tender but Walton is sweeter. Britten’s coda has more mystery and sense Michael Greenhalgh December 2008 Shostakovich/Britten Cello Concertos MusicWeb.co.uk of awe than Briger’s.
To the exotic scherzo (tr. 5) Walton brings lively, nervous energy, matched by woodwind playfellows; but the trumpets and trombone’s punctuating chords seem like a sinister presence biding its time. Walton enjoys a slower, more cajoling version of the opening theme (1:00) but the restless orchestral undercurrent is never far away. The brilliance of the movement is revealed more than its scary aspects. The crescendi are neatly controlled, though the sul ponticello strings from 3:21 are chilly enough. Rostropovich’s articulation is more feathery, the overall impression with Britten’s direction more shadowy and evanescent, the punctuating chords more distant. There are occasional flashes of scintillance which later have a nightmarish quality. Slava’s slower version of the theme is quieter yet more deeply expressive than Jamie’s.
The Adagio slow movement is presented by Walton and Briger as an impassioned, dark elegy. At its centre (tr. 6 2:18) is a plaintive, soulful melody from the soloist with muted horn as sympathetic companion and high muted strings’ backing. The opening material returns in more abrasive form, trombones and later trumpets presenting the basic melody in stark outline to a mighty climax followed by the soloist’s cadenza. Walton clearly reveals its mix of passion and reflection, pizzicato and arco and all shades of dynamic. The feeling is of a character evolving before your ears.
The Rostropovich/Britten slow movement opens and is in all sterner passages at higher voltage than Walton/Briger while the central melody is presented feeling its way at first. So Slava is more dramatic, Jamie more elegiac and I like the flow and cohesion of this new account. Jamie’s central melody, even when presented in relatively gentle and comely manner, has assurance from the start, anticipating its later bolder appearances while the horn’s contribution is much clearer. Slava’s slower cadenza, 3:49 against Jamie’s 3:24, is more incisive in argument at first and finally more expressive in cantilena, though Jamie is certainly glowing in the latter section.
The finale (tr. 7) is firmly anchored by its passacaglia form but the trumpet starts it with a jaunty, Copland like version of the central melody of the slow movement. This is subjected to variations. The violins have the first, exuberant variation (0:41), the firsts chasing and almost falling over the seconds. The soloist has his own gleeful variation (1:22). The woodwind have an excited chattering one (2:15), the soloist a deft, perpetual motion one (2:57). Now the magical stillness at the centre of the Adagio is revisited (3:59) and expanded in arioso fashion before a majestic version of the theme is in the glowing coda capped by a grand statement of the opening Adagio theme. Walton and Briger bring a sense of exultant transformation.
The Rostropovich/Britten finale is more stimulatingly abrasive in variations 1 and 2, more racy in the third variation while Rostropovich is more hectic, less fun than Walton in the fourth. He gets thereby a greater contrast in his pearly arioso but Walton’s matching of lyricism and emotion here is at least equally satisfying. Britten achieves a more expansive, open air coda but Briger’s sense of summation is cogent.
Like the Shostakovich, the Britten work is cleanly and vividly presented by Walton and Briger. The Rostropovich accounts contain more drama and expressive range but Walton is his own man, offering here fresh performances of both appreciable concentration and engaging lyricism in recordings of illuminating clarity and density.
Michael Greenhalgh
MUSO Magazine, November 2008
The Cello Symphony is Britten at pretty much his darkest, and Jamie Walton takes no prisoners in this unflinchingly articulated performance. You get an immediate reality check as Walton digs deep, glowering swathes of tone from his 1712 Guarneri in the threatening cutlass strokes launching the Allegro maestoso’s opening paragraph. The instrument again sings gloriously, higher in its register, in the recitative-like introduction to the Adagio. That movement is given a stunningly concentrated performance, with superbly characterful playing from the Philharmonia Orchestra under Alexander Briger, and a broodingly rapt cadenza from the soloist. Earlier Walton demonstrates a master’s chops in the skeetering, scatter-gun writing of the Presto inquieto, where prodigious bow control and lightning shifts in dynamic are necessary. Walton has both in spades, unquestionably.
His account of the Britten is so good it arguably tips on its head the glib assumption that Shostakovich’s Second is musically the finer concerto. What’s not in doubt is the quality of Walton’s performance of the Shostakovich, again uncompromisingly confronting the grimness of the musical argument, and catching the cuttingly laconic mood of the central Allegretto with particular sharpness and acuity. Both these pieces were written for Mstislav Rostropovich: it’s saying something for the quality of Walton’s work here that comparisons with that great player would be not so much odious as sheer impertinent.
Terenece Blain
Mvdaily.com, January 2009
Jamie (one still hesitates to use the name, instead of James, in one so gifted, like calling Joshua Bell Josh) Walton is astonishing, yet those in search of New Year cheer should perhaps look elsewhere. This is a bleak portrayal of a bleak piece (though Walton's fabulous upper-end technique gives his high sections a clarity that is almost violinistic) Yet even the more playful sections are constantly undercut by a near-neurotic sense of foreboding.
This is Shostakovich at his most restless and unresolved. The moments of wouldbe humour in the second (allegretto) movement feel deliberately heavy-handed from both soloist and orchestra. The piccolos tease remorselessly, the horn taunts. And Walton rises to the bait: yet in stringent rather than flighty mode. His near-infallible technique is the servant of his belief in the music at this point as being near-malicious.
The horns are beyond praise at the start of the third movement, and, while a purist may object to the cadenza-like quality of the first cello entry in the third movement, I defy anyone to play the octaves any better.
The elegiac quality of the section coming into bar 74 is extraordinary, yet there is no giving in to the temptation of softening the harshness of the orchestral malevolence that follows. His equal skill at accompaniment is amptly demonstrated by the extended section (ripe with tension) in the last movement leading into bar 303.
The section with solo orchestra cello principal is richly moving, as if, for a moment, the soloist has escaped into comraderie out of his loneliness. Yet the desolation of bar 429, combined with the pure sweetness of sound, mourns splendidly. Walton attempts to throw off his mood, with the percussion, at the very end, to no avail. The xylophone and wood block jeer in vain: the lion, with a final snarl, departs.
Of course, I am biased. It's a concerto -- unlike Shostakovich's First cello concerto -- that I've never technically succeeded in mastering myself. And Walton was, famously, the 'last' pupil of my ex-teacher, Bill Pleeth -- while his Elgar with the Bromley Symphony, where I have led the cellos for twenty-five years, was ALICE McVEIGH January 2009 Shostakovich/Britten Cello Concertos Mvdaily.com amazing. But there is something almost frightening about this recording: not just the stunning chamber music quality of his interactions with solo strings and winds, but in its uncompromising commitment.
Still more impressively, Jamie Walton is incapable of playing two bars without cajoling his cello into a different mood. A different colour, a different texture, and Bill Pleeth is dancing around playing his cello standing up again, and is (as he deserves to be) immortal.
If you only buy one recording in 2009, it should be this one.
Alice McVeigh
Scena.org, December 2008
****
The second Shostakovich cello concerto never matched the appeal of the first. Even Slava Rostropovich struggled to make it wince, let alone smile. Walton, a young British cellist, takes a less stressed approach to the work, listening out for melodic fragments and making the most of them. His approach to the Britten Cello Symphony, equally intractable, is almost the opposite. He goes for the sweeping gesture, reminiscent of Elgar, redeeming the piece of its intermittent stutters. His is more than just performance, it is an act of interpretation. The Philharmonia Orchestra under Alexander Briger give responsive support.
Norman Lebrecht
The Evening Standard, 26th November 2008
****
The second Shostakovich cello concerto never matched the appeal of the first. Even Slava Rostropovich struggled to make it wince, let alone smile. Walton, a young British cellist, takes a less stressed approach, making the most of the melodic fragments. His approach to the Britten Cello Symphony is almost the opposite. He goes for the sweeping gesture, redeeming the piece of its intermittent stutters. More than just performance, it is an act of interpretation.
Norman Lebrecht
The Observer, 1st December 2008
Shostakovich and Britten were firm friends and admirers of each other's music, despite working in utterly different political atmospheres, so this pairing makes perfect sense. Both works are dedicated to the great Rostropovich, whose musular technique and the big tone is evoked here by the impressive Jamie Walton, who explores the brooding darkness of both pieces with the Philharmonia Orchestra under the commanding Alexander Briger. It's all splendidly done, but no one can pretend it's comfortable listening; the cello is, after all, the perfect instrument to lay bare the soul.
Stephen Pritchard
The Daily Telegraph, 2nd November 2008
*****
These are well-matched works by two friends, and Jamie Walton follows his memorable Elgar with superb performances of them both, reaching deep into their often sombre and tragic musings . . Alexander Briger's conducting of the Philharmonia supplies the perfect backcloth for the emotional drama, as it does also in Britten's Cello Symphony, not the easiest of his orchestral works to take to one's heart, but one that repays close study, especially in such an eloquent interpretation.
Michael Kennedy
The Daily Telegraph, 6th December 2008
It is proving a good year for Shostakovich’s cello concertos, with this brooding account of No. 2 from Jamie Walton joininh recent releases by Daniel Muller- Schott (orfeo) and Pieter Wispelwey (Channel Classics). No 1 may be better known, but the Second presents the greater interpretative challenge, and Walton’s sinewy playing, full of perceptive solutions to the concerto’s many enigmas, traces a well-argued route through the music. He couples it with an equally compeling performance of Britten’s Cello Symphony.
Matthew Rye
The Times, 6th December 2008
Shostakovich and Britten, who formed something of a mutual appreciation society in later years, make an insightful pairing on this follow-up CD to Walton’s impressive Elgar/Myaskovsky release. Both pieces were written for Rostropovich , Shostakovich’s affecting Cello Concerto - he called it his “14th symphony with cello part” - is tinged with the surreal; Britten’s Cello Symphony is more meaty, its jaggedly swelling chords unsettling and brilliant, the cello integrated into the orchestral fabric. Walton is a superb and unflashy exponent - theres no ego here, just consummate musicianship, excellently backed by the Philharmonia under Alex Briger, sensitive and biting in the Shostakovich, formidable and powerful in the Britten.
Sarah Urwin Jones
Pizzicato Magazine *****
Jamie Walton’s ability to cope effortlessly with any technical difficulty may appear self-evident, but it should not. Here an outstandingly virtuosic talent is developing, but above all a sensitive interpreter, who has perceived exactly what each composer requires from the soloist and from the orchestra. Jamie Walton manages to fulfil these expectations and in addition bestows an emotional depth upon both works which shows them to their best. He is perfectly supported by the brilliant Philharmonia Orchestra under conductor Alexander Briger, who is both an attentive accompanist and able to take the lead when necessary.
A grandmaster of his instrument is coming to maturity here, and this CD, with its technically faultless recording quality, should have a place in any collection. It deserves it.
