Violin Concerto

It may be by an Englishman, but this violin concerto shimmers with the light and heat of Italy—which is where most of the score was written and where Walton, in enthusiastic exile from his birthplace of Oldham, would eventually settle. From the start it plunges straight into a sultry Mediterranean lusciousness as the violin line yearns through rising sevenths and the orchestra throbs underneath. You hear cicadas in the undergrowth. The score is marked sognando: dreamily. And geography aside, there’s an emotional landscape to this music in that it dates from 1938-9, when the composer was in love with a rich woman whose wealth supported him, leading a privileged existence on the brink of war—which the Concerto tries hard not to notice, beyond moments of unease. The Latin influence continues in the second movement’s Neapolitan scherzo: a chisel-edged piece of bravura writing with the rhythmic patterns of a tarantella and the contrast of a wistful, knowing waltz. And the finale’s initially Neoclassical spikiness melts into renewed sensuality, with recollections of the first movement that are so deftly integrated into their new context you can only wonder at the technical mastery. That the concerto was commissioned by one of the 20th century’s greatest virtuosi, Jascha Heifetz, indicates the composer’s world standing at the time, when he was still in his 30s. And the warmhearted generosity of the piece has secured it a much-loved place in standard repertoire.