Sir William Walton (1902-83)
Sinfonia Concertante (1927, rev. 1943)
Benjamin Britten (1913-76)
Diversions, Op. 21 (1940, rev. 1954)
Sir Michael Tippett (1905-98)
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1953-55)
Clare Hammond (piano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/George Vass
rec. 2024, BBC Maida Vale Studios MV1, London
BIS BIS2604 SACD [80]
The Autumn release schedule has been rather good for pianist Clare Hammond. On a Lyrita disc, she shares the laurels in an excellent programme of music by the under-appreciated Grace Williams. Now on BIS she features in three works by three of the acknowledged greats of British 20th Century music in concertante works that – as Hammond explains in her own interesting liner note – defy the convention of virtuoso showpieces. That said, all three works make considerable demands on the soloist which Hammond meets with apparent ease. Indeed, the whole generously filled disc is another tribute to the adaptable skill of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Hammond’s own skill and the reliable excellence of BIS’s SACD engineering. On a slightly nostalgic note, the July 2024 sessions for the Britten work must have been some of the last in the famous MV1 at Maida Vale after the sale of the studios by the BBC. As so often in the past, this space proves near ideal in its neutral handling of large and complex orchestral scores.
The disc presents the three works in chronological order and opens with William Walton’s Sinfonia Concertante. This is an early work that – as Hammond points out – shows the path the young composer was moving along towards the first great masterpieces of the Viola Concerto and Symphony No.1. Conceived originally as a ballet score for Diaghilev (shades of Petrushka perhaps?), when the impresario rejected it, Walton reworked the score and it was first performed as a concert work in 1928. Walton would revisit the score in 1943 in a major revision which in his own words “revivified the Sinf. Con. chiefly by eliminating the pfte.” Both times Walton conducted/recorded the work, he used this later revision. However, all later recordings have chosen to return to the original 1927 score; Eric Parkin on Chandos, Kathryn Stott on Conifer and Peter Donohoe on Naxos. The Donohoe is the most recent (1994!), so after a thirty-year gap, a new recording of this appealing work is going to be warmly welcomed in any edition. Parkin and Donohoe were part of all-Walton collections whereas Stott, like here, offered contrasting British concertante works. All performances are actually very good musically and technically but Hammond is the first since Walton to use the later revised version. Walton’s own Lyrita performance with Peter Katin the soloist dates from 1970 and is yet another example of the superb engineering achieved by the Decca engineers on behalf of Richard Itter.
Hammond and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under George Vass are very close to Walton’s own weighty Maestoso tempo for the rather grand opening but the spirit of this work is predominantly lyrical and playful. This score does not have the elements of edgy aggression or bittersweet nostalgia that would define so many of Walton’s later scores. Perhaps this underlying ‘lightness’ is what Walton sought to reinforce in the later revision and certainly that aspect of the score is very well caught in this performance. The reliably fine BIS engineering catches the clarity and precision of Hammond’s playing with an ideal balance between keyboard and orchestra. Likewise, the BBC SO keeps the music airy and unforced. The central Andante comodo has a beautifully gentle, musing quality that has a serenity that is not often a characteristic of Walton’s music. The solo keyboard takes its turn to present the untroubled melodic material – it really is a quite beautiful passage played here with ideal unforced simplicity. The closing Allegro vivo, sempre scherzando might not have the finger twisting rhythmic complexities of say Portsmouth Point but there is at least one figuration that seems to be a direct lift from the exactly contemporaneous Rio Grande by Constant Lambert – Walton’s close friend who suggested the work’s metamorphosis from ballet to concerto. I have never been completely convinced by the closing pages’ return to the opening material. This seems to be an early of example of Walton struggling with ‘endings’ but the boisterous good nature of the work prevails and this is a performance that captures the essence of the work very well indeed.
Benjamin Britten’s Diversions for piano (left hand) and orchestra is another work that underwent significant revision between its 1940 original version and the definitive version of 1954. What is evident in either version is the precocious genius of the young Britten. Of course, the opera Peter Grimes signalled his arrival on the World stage in 1945 but the list of confidently brilliant scores that pre-date that mark out a special talent. As a body of work for a composer in his twenties; Les Illuminations, Sinfonia da Requiem, Piano and Violin Concerti, Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge to name just a few is quite remarkable. So it is no surprise that he could accept with confidence the challenge of writing a major showpiece work for Paul Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein had of course commissioned an impressive series of works for piano left hand from many of the giants of European Classical music from Ravel to Korngold, Franz Schmidt, Prokofiev and Strauss. The resulting Diversions are a bravura set of a theme and eleven richly diverse variations. Wittgenstein had the financial clout to commission these major works but unfortunately it was allied to an artistic hubris that led him to believe he knew ‘better’ than the composers who wrote works for him. So while posterity might have benefitted from a series of masterpieces, nearly all the composers experienced deeply fraught relationships with the pianist. Britten’s later revision was to create a definitive edition of his work once Wittgenstein’s exclusive performing rights had lapsed shorn of the virtuosic accretions and alterations the player had made to the score.
The brilliance of the score survived those early distortions, however, and it has proved to be one of the most performed of the Wittgenstein works. Hammond in her note makes clear that Britten was enthusiastic about the challenge of writing a one-handed work. She suggests that the variations explore different aspects of piano technique whilst not seeking to create the ‘illusion’ of two-handed writing. Britten’s solution is writing a “piano part [that] is comprised largely of single-line motifs, most often accompanied by the orchestra…. piano and orchestra are entwined in [an] essentially democratic and collaborative approach.” Although this might suggest a similar approach as the Walton the effect is certainly more of a work where a virtuosic solo part is centre of attention albeit accompanied by an active and highly effective orchestral contribution. Only the penultimate variation – Adagio – lasts longer than three minutes but part of Britten’s great skill is the way the strongly contrasting variations flow together as a coherent whole. In these earlier works, Britten revels in the range and richness of sonorities the modern symphony orchestra can offer and again this new BIS recording, as much in the detail and precision the SACD engineering affords, is excellent. The lucidity and sheer tonal beauty of Variation 6 Nocturne is a case in point. Britten packs a lot of incident and interest into the sub-25-minute time frame so no surprise it has proved popular with soloists and record labels. Britten conducting Britten (with Julius Katchen and the LSO) must always be a starting point of reference which still sounds pretty good given its seventy-year-age but clearly must cede technical supremacy to this new recording. Given the range of styles and the number of recordings it will always be nip and tuck for preferred versions. Rattle with the CBSO and Peter Donohoe on EMI/Warner is a little more excitingly athletic in the two-part Toccata Variation 9 but the recording is not the match of the new BIS. I enjoyed the version by Nicolas Stavy on the Hortus label I reviewed a decade ago here. It’s a dynamic well-prepared performance but again the engineering and overall range and subtlety of the work is probably now better represented here.
The choice of comparable versions is much more limited in the third, final and longest work of the disc, Michael Tippett’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Discogs suggests that this is just the sixth commercial recording and the first in about 18 years – Steven Osborne on Hyperion in 2007 the next most recent. This is the only work of the three that follows the traditional three-movement form. Apparently hearing Walter Gieseking playing Beethoven fourth concerto was the specific inspiration for Tippett with that soloist’s “poetic yet classical” approach rather than virtuosic display impressing Tippett. While there are long flowing melodic lines they are peppered with Tippett’s preference for complex cross-rhythms and intricate part writing which make considerable demands on all the players. Again, the performance – and recording – here is notable for the ease and clarity of the playing. This is a definite boon in this music which can often sound dense if not opaque. The only other version I know at all well is Howard Shelley with Richard Hickox in Bournemouth for Chandos. It is hard to believe that is now 30 years old – it still sounds very fine both as a performance and recording. Perhaps Shelley emphasises the ‘bigger-boned’ elements of the work with Hammond more directly referencing a style in tune with the Gieseking approach mentioned above. But both players are supremely skilled and impressive.
Hammond suggests in the liner that Tippett was echoing the format of the Beethoven by writing an extended first movement roughly equal in length to the total of the other two. The central Molto lento e tranquillo benefits from the lucidity of Hammond’s playing given complexity of the thickly layered writing; “piano and winds grapple with labyrinthine twists and turns….” is Hammond’s own description. I must admit this is the kind of writing that often loses me, as my level of familiarity and understanding leaves me rather floundering about the direction and intent of the music. Impassioned string outbursts leave me little the wiser. The closing boisterous Vivace dispels much of the confusion – Shelley is even more exuberant in his choice of basic tempo – 8:17 to Hammond’s 8:58 – but there is a light capriciousness to Hammond’s playing that also is very effective and appropriate. Both orchestras under their respective conductors play this tricky score with real flair.
As will be clear by now, this is a wholly enjoyable, well-planned, very well-performed and recording collection. Each work is individually impressive and as a collection it is unique – especially as it is the first in SA-CD sound. It is well-worth considering even if duplication will occur.
Nick Barnard
Previous review: Dominy Clements (November 2025)
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