Since first hearing William
Walton’s flamboyant and unconventional Toccata for violin and piano I have been
surprised that it was not more popular. I can understand that the ‘Spitfire’
Prelude and Fugue, the ‘Crown Imperial’ and ‘Orb and Sceptre Marches’ and Façade are always going to gain more
traction with concert promoters and record producers, yet there is something
about this Toccata that demands our attention.
The early 1920s was a period when Walton was attempting to
find his musical voice. Various avenues were explored. There was the free
atonality of the present Toccata and the String Quartet. He was inspired by
jazz and was an early enthusiast of Duke Ellington. This was evident in certain
numbers in Façade. Walton apparently made
many arrangements of music for dance bands. This interest never really took
hold, and after the failure to complete his Fantasia
Concertante for 2 pianos, jazz band and orchestra he put aside his attempt
to write symphonic jazz. It was around this time that William Walton met George
Gershwin, who was in London to give a performance of his Rhapsody in Blue. Other
attempts at establishing a style have been noted: the hazy impressionism of Siesta, the rhythmic drive of the
Overture: Portsmouth Point and the Francophone Sinfonia Concertante (1927)
with echoes of musical Paris in the 1920s. On the other hand, all these
stylistic mannerisms would continue re-appear in his music until the end of his
career.
As Gary D. Cannon has written (From Oldham to Oxford: The Formative Years of Sir William Walton,
2014) ‘Not until the Viola Concerto of 1929 did he arrive at a truly mature
style, a blend of Classical structure, Romantic phrases, and Modernist
harmonies, rhythms, and orchestration.’ It is a useful summary of Walton’s
music.
William Walton’s Toccata for
violin and piano was composed between 1922-23 when the composed was 20 years of
age. It is a considerable work lasting for just under fifteen minutes. Christopher
Palmer, in the liner notes for the Chandos recording of the Toccata explains
that at this time, Walton had come under the spell of ‘the mysterious Kaikhosru
Sorabji, the Parsee composer who wrote almost exclusively for keyboard (and
keyboard with orchestra).’ Sorabji gathered around himself a circle of
musicians including Bernard van Dieren, Peter Warlock and Cecil Gray. Walton
was an adherent. Clearly, these ‘modernists’ would have had some impact on the
composer. Palmer also notes the influence of Szymanowski, especially in the
middle section of the Toccata.
Initial impressions are that the
Toccata is an ad-hoc mixture of ‘cadenzas and rhapsodization,’ with not a lot
of thematic development. The basic form is fast-slow-fast after an introduction
that owes something to the start of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. (Not included on the Chandos recording, as this
page in the manuscript was missing!)
This is a complex densely written
piece that exploits the exuberant piano playing that is sometimes lush, typically
employing the sustaining pedal and creating a wash of sound. Then again there
is a great deal of virtuosity. This does
appear to have been inspired by Sorabji. The violin is often lyrical, creating
a dreamlike song and but sometimes it rises to the peak of passion only to
descend into strange and ‘haunting depressions.’
The Toccata was withdrawn by the
composer once he had decided that this was a style which he was not going to
pursue. The Quartet for strings dating from between 1919-21 and subsequently
revised after the premiere was also supressed. Walton himself had said that the
Quartet was ‘full of undigested Bartok and Schoenberg.’ By implication the
Toccata falls into the same category.
On Saturday 27 November 1926, the
Boston Evening Transcript published a
long review of William Walton, written by the composer Constant Lambert.
Lambert writes: the principal compositions of this period are a string quartet
and a toccata for violin and pianoforte, both making considerable demands upon
the virtuosity of the performers…The Toccata…a rhapsodical work showing traces
of the influence of Bartok and even Sorabji, has to my mind a greater and more
genuine vitality than the string quartet and contains at least one excellent
passage – an emotional middle section in which the lyrical quality we noticed
in the Piano Quartet in D minor (1919) makes a welcome reappearance though cast
this time in a severer mould.’
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