Symphony No. 1 in B-Flat Minor

Walton’s Symphony No. 1 is one of his major achievements, and made his name internationally following its first complete performance in 1935. The Symphony’s creation had been difficult; in 1934, after two years’ work, Walton had completed three of its four movements, but could not find a way of approaching the finale. Emotional circumstances were a factor. In 1929 Walton had begun a relationship with the young widow Baroness Imma von Doernberg, and they felt that living together abroad would lessen the possibility of a scandal. They relocated to Ticino in Switzerland, and the Symphony’s first three movements were composed there. The embittered end of the romance in 1934 seems to have brought about the “creative block” that prevented the Symphony’s conclusion. Returning to London, Walton began a new relationship with Alice, Viscountess Wimborne; and in 1935 he completed the Symphony’s finale. The work’s first movement combines the driving rhythms of Walton’s idiom with long-held bass notes (a characteristic feature borrowed from Sibelius) to create a structure of great power and momentum. Then comes a ferocious and brilliant Scherzo movement headed “Presto con malizia” (“Very fast, with malice”), followed by a desolate “Andante con malincolia” (“Walking pace, with melancholy”). The finale presents a transformed musical world: a grandiose full-orchestral flourish introduces an “Allegro” movement of coruscating pace, and the Symphony concludes with an expanded reprise of the movement’s opening.