In 1928, Lambert contributed a substantial survey of William Walton’s music to The Dominant, the short‑lived yet spirited British music magazine that ran from November 1927 to November 1929. Notable for its lively criticism and commitment to contemporary debate, The Dominant championed new British composers, challenged entrenched institutions, and offered sharp, often provocative commentary - an ideal forum for Lambert’s incisive advocacy of Walton. The present essay appeared in Volume 1. No.4 February 1928 p.16-19:
"Although the overture Portsmouth
Point [1] is the first composition by which William Walton became known
to the general public, it is by no means his first work on an ambitious scale.
Amongst the many interesting
works that preceded it we may mention the early piano quartet, the atonal
string quartet, the rhapsodical toccata for violin and pianoforte and the Fantasia
Concertante for two pianos, jazz band, and orchestra. [2]
Though none of these works is lacking either in invention or technical proficiency, the composer has rightly chosen not to produce or revive them, for, interesting though they may be to a student of his work, they are too obviously the product of one particular influence, be it Schoenberg or Gershwin, not to come as a disappointment after the striking originality and freshness of Portsmouth Point.
This work (which takes its title
from an amusing drawing by Rowlandson) was not only the most original and
successful composition that Walton had yet produced but the first in which he
struck a definitely English note.
I do not mean by this that he has
in any way succumbed to the fabricated and pseudo-archaic nationalism that has
proved such a blind alley to nine out of ten British composers, but that one
finds in this work that spirit of clarity and decision combined with a robust
good humour that has characterized so much of our art, whether in literature or
painting. Eclecticism is the bugbear of those spirits who are too weak to stand
without the help of some narrowly exclusive national or political formula, but
there is no doubt that it is to the eclectic quality of his earlier work that
Walton owes his capacity for producing works that are at the same time English
and international in their appeal - the
first works, perhaps, since Boyce and Dibdin [3] to which this description may
rightly be applied.
Although Portsmouth Point
is only a few minutes long, it is one of the most sustained efforts I know of
in modern music, for the form is concision itself and is a complete absence of
the meaningless melodic and rhythmic repetitions that mar so much contemporary
Work. It is possible, no doubt, to divide the work into exposition,
development, etc., but the impression we receive is of one headlong section, an
effect in no way weakened by the profusion of thematic material.
Melodically speaking, the work
derives to a certain extent from traditional nautical tunes and from the more
breezy English eighteenth century composers. It is interesting to note a
similarity in certain passages to the symphonies of Boyce, although at the time
the composer was completely ignorant of these works. Another melodic influence
has been the 'sardanas' of Catalonia. These folk dances have nothing in common
with the rest of Spanish music and are distinguished by their clear-cut form
and vigorous melodic line; the tunes are often curiously English in atmosphere
and therefore their Influence has in no way caused an inconsistency of style in
Walton's music. (With the possible exception of Deodat de Sévérac [4] I know of
no other composer who has been swayed by this delightful popular tradition.)
From the harmonic point of view the work raises no problems. The style is
broadly diatonic with a free use of diatonic discords but with nothing
approaching either atonality or polytonality; we are presented with neither
cliches nor innovations.
From the rhythmic point of view
the work is fascinating; unlike so many modern works, it is no rhythmic tour de
force that is incapable of development, but an experiment that points the way
to a really intelligent use of jazz rhythms.
It has been unfortunate that those composers who have sought inspiration in jazz have not only made use of its exhilarating. rhythmic qualities but have incorporated also the more obvious harmonic cliches, the circumscribed form and the flat and uninspired melodic line that not even the utmost use of arabesque can save from deadness. Walton was guilty of this himself in the Fantasia Concertante, but in Portsmouth Point, though he has introduced the most violent syncopations of rhythm, he has applied them to his own melodic and harmonic basis and has steered clear of the monotonous foursquare rhythm that is the depressing though essential feature of modern dance music.
Like many of his works, Portsmouth
Point has undergone several revisions - the revision, as usual, being on
the side of simplicity and brevity. The final scoring (played at the Promenade
Concerts this year) is a great improvement on the first version (played as an
interlude at the Russian Ballet) [5] which was altogether too detailed and
elaborate for so complex a work. It should be an axiom, surely, that the more
complicated the essential texture of a work, the simpler should be its method
of presentation. The ear cannot humanly be expected to follow the combined complexity
and eccentricity of harmony, melody, counterpoint, and orchestration that is to
be found in the stage works of Schoenberg, for example.
[2] Lambert refers to Walton’s Fantasia
Concertante for two pianos, jazz band, and orchestra. This work, composed
between 1923 and 1924 has been lost. It is assumed that Walton imagined it
would be played at one of Debroy Somer’s Savoy Orpheans concerts at the Queen’s
Hall. At the time, Walton was experimenting with jazz‑inflected orchestral
writing, and Somers’s band was one of the few London ensembles capable of
performing such a hybrid score.
[3] William Boyce
(1711–1779) was an English composer and organist whose church music,
symphonies and theatrical scores made him a central figure in Georgian musical
life. As Master of the King’s Musick, he helped codify the English choral
tradition and preserved earlier repertoire through his influential Cathedral
Music. Charles Dibdin (1745–1814) was a singer, actor, dramatist and
prolific songwriter, recalled for his nautical ballads that shaped Britain’s
maritime imagination. His one‑man entertainments, operas and theatre ventures
made him a defining voice of late‑eighteenth‑century popular culture,
influencing public morale during the Napoleonic era.
[4] Déodat de Sévérac (1872–1921)
was a French composer whose music is inseparable from the landscapes and
languages of southern France. He drew deeply on Occitan (Romance language of
Southern France) and Catalan folk song, absorbing their melodic contours, dance
rhythms, and vocal inflections into a very personal Impressionist‑tinged style.
[5] During the 1926 Diaghilev
season at His Majesty’s Theatre, orchestral interludes were first used to
bridge ballet scenes and provide audiences with glimpses of contemporary
concert music. Conducted by Eugene Goossens, the resident orchestra performed a
sequence of short works that reflected Diaghilev’s eclectic taste. These
interludes offered a momentary shift from the stage to the pit, highlighting
modern British and European composers while maintaining the evening’s
theatrical momentum. Heard in this context, the music functioned both as
atmospheric punctuation and as a showcase for the orchestra’s virtuosity during
one of the Ballets Russes’ final London seasons. The list of composers is
considerable, and included music by Lord Berners, Claude Debussy, Arthur Bliss,
and Georges Bizet.
To be continued
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