Walton: Henry V - Scenes from the film, and other film music

Sir William Walton

Released on 03/03/2003 by Warner Classics
Main artists: William Walton
Genre: Classical

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William Walton enjoyed a long and fruitful career as a composer, but was rather less well known to the general public as a conductor -- unlike his contemporary Benjamin Britten, who was allowed (and savored the opportunity) to record works by other composers, Walton's recording career was confined to interpretations of his own work, which he generally did superbly. The results, from the mono, pre-magnetic tape era of the 1930s through the mid-'60s, were generally well-received by the public and critics, and his recording activity after 1945 was exclusively for EMI. Strangely, this CD was a long time coming in the digital era, given the fact that the LP edition of these same recordings was among EMI's hundred best-selling catalog items in the United States. But it was worth the wait, assembling as it does the composer's most well-known and well-received film-related work, in versions for the concert hall and the home-playback medium of their time. The first two-thirds of this CD is made up of Walton's music for Laurence Olivier's Shakespearean films Richard III (1956) and Henry V (1944), and the Leslie Howard-directed wartime drama First of the Few (1941) (known in America as Spitfire). The CD opens with his Prelude from Richard III, followed by the suite from the main body of the score (both arranged by Muir Mathieson, who had conducted the music for both movies). The 1963-vintage recordings sound crisp and rich, far more so than they did even on the British EMI LP edition of the 1960s, which was mighty impressive in its time -- these are finely nuanced performances by the Philharmonia Orchestra under the composer's baton, richly evocative not only of the movie for which the score was written but the historical and musical period whence it derived. The Henry V material is no less impressive, though it has always suffered somewhat from the fact that Walton and producer Walter Legge confined their forces exclusively to an orchestra -- a choir for the "Agincourt Song" movement that concludes the suite would have made it perfect. But it's damn close as it is. The "Spitfire Prelude and Fugue" displays exactly the opposite characteristics from the Shakespearean material out of the same sessions -- where Walton approaches the latter somewhat more broadly than he did in the original film versions, for the prelude and fugue he elicits lean playing, presenting the piece with the kind of precision one would more expect from the likes of Toscanini. The last third of the CD is filled out with Walton's 1946-vintage recording of the Henry V score in conjunction with Olivier for a commercial record release, and here he does employ a choir -- the results were satisfying in their time (and far more vivid today, with a good digital transfer), but the compression of the pre-magnetic tape source material does limit the enjoyment that one can derive from hearing this material. The annotation is extremely thorough, and the entire release extremely generous, even if it did take almost 15 years into the digital era for the CD to appear.

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Walton: Henry V - Scenes from the film, and other film music

William Walton

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Richard III - Prelude (1994 Remastered Version)