It may come as a surprise to see the regional and largely unfamiliar New Haven Symphony Orchestra on the fairly mainstream British label Nimbus, especially in a thorny work like William Walton's Symphony No. 1. The occasion is a Walton project undertaken by the Beinecke rare book library at Yale University, which owns a substantial collection of Walton materials and made them available for study. Nobody involved in the booklet (in English only) is claiming this resulted in a wholesale revision of interpretation for either ...
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It may come as a surprise to see the regional and largely unfamiliar New Haven Symphony Orchestra on the fairly mainstream British label Nimbus, especially in a thorny work like William Walton's Symphony No. 1. The occasion is a Walton project undertaken by the Beinecke rare book library at Yale University, which owns a substantial collection of Walton materials and made them available for study. Nobody involved in the booklet (in English only) is claiming this resulted in a wholesale revision of interpretation for either the Symphony No. 1 or the Violin Concerto, written for Jascha Heifetz and premiered one week after the outbreak of World War II. But the musicians involved have risen to the occasion, and reminded listeners worldwide of the high level of talent present in quite a few of America's regional orchestras. Sibelius looms large as an influence in both pieces, with tonality stretched a bit farther than the Finn ever did; observers and Walton himself pointed to that of Stravinsky, as well, but...
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