JAVS Spring 2001

36

VoL. 17 No.1

]OURNAL OF THE .AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETY

1964 piano arrangement-entrance raised an octave

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Knowing that Lionel Tertis worked on both arrangements, it is surprising to see the differ ence between them. While the first arrangement takes great liberty to alter the Concerto, the 1964 arrangement is quite close to the 1961 score. This is likely because there was a revision of the Concerto by the composer. According to Primrose, performers took great freedom, adding or changing octaves and altering phrasing and bowing, prior to the 1961 revisions. However, the revised Concerto was published without including these alterations. When a young performer askedWalton ifhe should play the Concerto with the customary performance alterations, Walton stated that he wanted no such thing. He simply wanted the piece performed his way, as he had written it. 18 Walton's Viola Concerto was a working composition. Although it was immediately recog nized and established as a masterpiece, it did not remain stagnant. Instead, the Concerto under went change as Walton rethought and reworked the piece. The result was a revision three decades later in which Walton clarified, expanded, and altered his original ideas. The revision was not meant to replace the original version, but to conclude a long process of personal and musical growth and development. With the revision, Walton essentially shares with his audience some thing a listener once told him after hearing the Viola Concerto, "Here's the real thing." 19 18 Char/etta Taylor received her BM in viola performancefrom Northwestern University where she stud ied with Peter Slowik. She studied with Michelle LaCourse at the University ofMassachusetts at Amherstfor herMM in violaperformance. Char/etta was a member ofthe Civic Orchestra ofChicago and violist in the Blue Lake String Quartet. She is currently afree-lance performer in mid-Michigan. David Dalton provided the following note of interest: "Oxford University Press is currently work ing on production ofdefinitive editions ofWalton's oeuvre, presumably in preparation for the 2002 centenary ofthe composer's birth. Included will be the Viola Concerto, where both the 1930 and 1961 editions will be consulted along with other sources. Perhaps violists can look forward to still another version, perhaps even the definitive. " NoTES 1. Lionel Terris, Cinderella No More (London: Peter Nevill, 1953), 38. 2. Susana Walton, William Walton: Behind the Fafade (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988), 68. 3. Ibid., 69. 4. Frank Howes, "Concerto for Viola and Orchestra." The Music ofWilliam Walton, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford UP, 1974), 80. 5. Stewart R. Craggs, William Walton: A Catalogue (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990), 49. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., 51. 8. Michael Kennedy, Critical appreciation, William Walton: A Thematic Catalogue of his Musical Warks, By Stewart R. Craggs (London: Oxford UP, 1977), 4. 9. Michael Kennedy, "Viola Concerto, 1928-9." Portrait ofWalton (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989), 49. 10. Ibid. 11. Kennedy, William Walton: A Thematic Catalogue, 31. 12. David Dalton, Playing the Viola: Conversatiom with William Primrose (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988), 211. 13. Ibid., 197.

14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid.