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I had wondered aloud
during the course of a Berl
Senofsky review whether any trace
remained of his performances of the
Walton Violin Concerto. A letter to
this site from Noel Lester alerted us
to the fact that not only had a performance
been taped but also that Bridge would
be issuing it. And so here it is, the
product of an Australasian tour in which
Senofsky joined the composer, and as
if this weren’t enough we have the First
Symphony and the Partita for Orchestra,
as well as the Two Pieces for String
Orchestra derived from Henry V. They
were all taped during the New Zealand
leg of the tour.
Walton visited the
country between February and May 1964,
giving seven concerts before flying
to Australia to give fourteen more.
He brought with him a comprehensive
selection of works, from Portsmouth
Point and Scapino to the Second Symphony
and the Hindemith Variations, with Belshazzar’s
Feast as one of the high points (in
the end he substituted Façade
No 2 for the Hindemith Variations because
of faulty orchestral parts). Walton
and the orchestra gave concerts in Auckland,
Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch,
sometimes with repeats, and were joined
by Senofsky for the Concerto, a work
he’d performed with the composer in
New York and Chicago.
Though these performances
aren’t dated specifically, and neither
are the locations noted - and therefore
we can’t tell whether they come from
early in the tour - we can still note
that the orchestra, led by one of the
scions of New Zealand violin playing,
Vincent Aspey, was in fine and sympathetic
form. The Violin Concerto makes a fascinating
foil for Walton’s commercial recordings
with Heifetz in 1950 and Menuhin – comparatively
disappointing - in 1969. Whether one
prefers the Goossens led earlier recording
or Heifetz’s later remake with the composer
there’s no mistaking his hooded, coiled
and intense tone in this work. Senofsky,
for the details of whose prestigious
(though under appreciated) career I
would suggest interested readers look
at my previous reviews, proves an exponent
of comprehensive virtues. His lower
strings are not as vibrant as Heifetz’s
and his playing doesn’t have quite the
sense of breathtaking intimacy but they
do take the same tempo for the first
movement. One of the divergent parts
of the two performances comes in the
second movement where Heifetz, somewhat
quicker, is also slightly the steadier
rhythmically. The immediacy of his sound
is a result of close miking and his
famously incisive and carrying tone.
The broadcast acoustic has Senofsky
at a slight disadvantage here. In the
Tarantella section with its mock-sentimentalised
waltz Senofsky is less overt than Heifetz,
less outsize; instead he contrasts the
section with the surrounding scurry
of passagework – a fine solution, architecturally
and structurally. In the Vivace finale
– a bare 20 seconds separates the soloists
– Senofsky can’t quite match Heifetz’s
centred tone or daredevil panache but
he does bring to the movement an elegantly
expressive wit, which I happen to find
very appealing.
Walton’s 1951 recording,
yet again with Walter Legge’s Philharmonia,
remains the only commercially released
example of his way with the First Symphony.
Even so it’s interesting to note that
his tempi in this New Zealand performance
correlate almost exactly with those
of Adrian Boult in his 1957 recording
– though certainly not the Adrian Boult
of his Indian summer when he was distinctly
faster (in 1975 Boult was to slice two
and a half minutes off his tempo for
the Andante con Malinconia alone. Walton
directs with assurance and command though
the orchestra was not a big one – strings
were 11-9-7-8 according to the membership
list printed in the booklet. He certainly
screws up the pedal point tension in
the opening movement. The brass playing
is fine, the trumpets triple-tonguing
adroitly (Gordon Webb was the principal
trumpet). The orchestra sounds well
drilled, whatever its size, and the
horn and brass sections prove estimable
in the middle movements as well. There
are moments in the finale where the
recorded sound is recessed and fractionally
distant – there’s a spread in the sound
that affects the lower strings and percussion
sections in particular and this does
blunt the impact of Walton’s conducting
slightly. There is also a delightful
pendant in the shape of the Two Pieces
for String Orchestra - Touch Her Soft
Lips and Part and Passacaglia; The Death
of Falstaff from Henry V. He recorded
these twice over with the Philharmonia
in 1945 and again in 1963.
Though the source material
may seem surprising, Walton toured a
lot in the 1960s and it’s to Bridge’s
credit that they have collated and released
these performances. Essential, I would
have thought, for Waltonians and full
of interest for sympathetic admirers.
Jonathan Woolf
Berl Senofsky (violin) 